Don’t rejoice when your enemies fall;Schadenfreude is a term which means a pleasure over the misfortunes of others. It is like seeing a man who drives a Lotus sports car and gloats over it with a flat by the side of the road. While we may have it on occasion, it is not good.
don’t be happy when they stumble.
For the Lord will be displeased with you
and will turn his anger away from them. (Proverbs 24:17-20)
There was a man who worked with my father back when I was a child. He bought a brand new Oldsmobile and bragged on it incessantly. Both he and his family and my dad and our family were going on a trip to the same basic place.
The man told my father how easy it was going to be to drive his new Oldsmobile, it would be so comfortable and how much better it would be than my father’s old DeSoto. This was back in the mid 50’s.
As we drove to wherever it was we were going, we came across him on the side of the road broken down. My father stopped and helped him fix whatever was wrong and they went on their way. My father had mercy, not schadenfreude.
There is an attitude that should be in the heart of the Christ-follower. That attitude is mercy.
It is also one of the things we lack in today’s world. Politics, business, everything is infected with a go for the jugular kind of action. As long as it doesn’t hurt me, it is alright.
The problem is that it does hurt you when you act in an unmerciful way.
Gloating never becomes a person, no matter how well-deserved it may be. Being happy when bad things happen is never good, even when they happen to bad people.
For one thing, it lessens you. It diminishes you in both your own eyes and in the eyes of God. It will not please him for you to be that way.
I don’t believe the passage is literal in God turning from what he is doing and whacking you around. Yet, it will make you less that what you should be.
It is hard to imagine Jesus doing this, being happy when a Pharisee tripped on his robe, or someone who was hurting him got hurt himself.
That is hard to imagine because it was not in Jesus’ character to be that way. He was kind. Even when he was angry. Which he was on various occasions, he still did not slander or wish evil on people.
He did warn of the judgment of God, he did tell those to whom he was speaking that God was not pleased with them and would destroy him. But he did it in a way that told them he would rather it be some other way.
His grace accepts anyone, he accepts anyone. Therefore, we accept anyone. And we do not gloat over the misfortune of others, no matter how bad they may be.
That is because that, even though erring, they are children of God, too. God loves them as much as he does you.
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