Prohibition is power. To be able to say “No” to the wrong thing is supreme wisdom.
Prohibition is blessedness. The Christian must place his happiness on God’s altar—whether happenings please or displease, he can be and is blessed. Blessedness is the conscious sense of communion with God, of real union with Christ.
Prohibition relates to people—“the ungodly—the sinner—the scornful.” Not many would be sinners if they had to go it alone. One of the enticements of sin is that it links you up to people of power, popularity, influence, wealth. The real “death” involved in dying to sin is in dying to sinners.
Sinners sort themselves in three groups—and they maintain the division pretty well:
The “ungodly” are the moral, prudent. They simply “forget God,” disregard Him!
The “sinners” are those who take risks, make trespasses into forbidden paths. They do not think so highly of morality, and yet they disdain the “scorner.”
The “scorner” casts off restraint, Divine and human. They fear not to blaspheme the Divine nor to cherish the devilish.
The blessed man is warned against joining the company of these.
Man departs from God by first “walking” with the ungodly, then by “standing” with the sinner, then by “sitting” with the scornful. Spiritual life then comes to a full halt.
Negative virtues of themselves bring blessings, but they do not constitute a righteous man’s entire blessing—“His delight is the law of the Lord… he shall be like a tree planted…”
--George E. Failing
1959
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