Impartial Consequences

“The great God that formed all things both rewardeth the fool, and rewardeth transgressors.” (Pr 26:10 AV)

The word ‘both’ throws us off a bit.  At first glance, it may appear as the fool and the transgressor is compared against one another.  However, they are not.  God rewards both the fool and the transgressor for that which they have done.  This is why the word ‘both’ is used.  The equivalent would be to say both the young person and the adult will be rewarded for their sacrifice.  So, now let us look at what Solomon is saying here.  According to the book of Proverbs, a fool can be defined as, “a person who is somewhat deficient in intellect, but not an idiot; or a person who acts absurdly; one who does not exercise his reason; one who pursues a course contrary to the dictates of wisdom.” – Webster’s 1828.  The fool can be a fool by ignorance not of his own volition.  However, in the book of Proverbs, a fool is a fool of his own choosing.  Either deliberate or by convenient neglect.  The point being, there are consequences for choices whether we are willfully ignorant of those consequences or if we deliberately choose to transgress, knowing what consequences lay ahead. 

There is a trend that is becoming more and more obvious.  People who get caught in circumstances of their own making find an excuse as to why they should not suffer.  One of those arguments is ignorance.  I have had a few traffic tickets in my day.  One of them involved a state park.  I was leaving a resort after visiting family and there was no posted speed limit sign when entering the roadway.  I was on my way out of the park and was stopped by a patrolman.  He gave me a ticket for speeding.  I was a bit upset over this because I had seen no sign announcing a limit.  He then pointed to the sign which happened to be hidden by a tree growing in front of that sign.  If I had been traveling the correct speed, it would have been slow enough to see the sign.  A judge might have dismissed the ticket, but I choose to pay it anyway.  Why?  Because there are consequences for choices.  Imagine someone gets in a car during the winter months.  He approaches a patch of black ice.  He is a new driver and unaware of the dangers of black ice.  As he hits that patch of black ice, the ice thinks to itself that it would be really unfair for this young man to suffer an accident.  So, it immediately melts.  Then, another driver approaches.  An older driver.  He should know better.  So, the ice refreezes and the consequences are serious.  You might think that foolish.  But this is how the fool thinks of life.  He thinks if he stays willfully ignorant of consequences, then consequences don’t apply to him.

Whether we like it or not, God has put in place natural consequences for choices.  Physics tells us that for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  God is not going to relax a natural law because we are ignorant of it.  Otherwise, we remain willfully ignorant and do as we please.  The immature person thinks this way.  He wants to do as he pleases and remains naïve, or as the Bible says, simple and expects to be free of the natural laws of action to pass him over.  When they do not, he cries out that God is not fair.  After all, he didn’t know any better.  Personal accountability is at an all-time low.  We are like the famous ostrich who buries his head in the sand.  We think if we ignore what we don’t like to see or think about, it won’t touch us.  How foolish.  If two jump out of an airplane, one with a chute and the other without, they will both splat on the ground if the one wearing a chute never learned how to use it.  Gravity doesn’t bend for the ignorant.  Neither does the absolute law of God.