Dealing With This All-Too-Common sin
By Clarence L. Haynes Jr.
“Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice.” – Proverbs 24:17
We don’t often think of people in terms of enemies and foes, and so when we come to verses like these it may be hard to relate. For this reason, let me bring it down to a level you may understand. Are there people in your life who you just don’t like or really can’t get along with? Does that hit a more realistic nerve for you?
While you may not call someone an enemy, I can be certain you can name some people in your life you don’t have warm, fuzzy feelings for. In all walks of life, you are going to encounter people that are hard to like and hard to root for. I usually get along with everyone yet there was this one person who really got under my skin to the point I just did not want to be around him. I will spare you the details of why this person impacted me in this fashion. Recently I discovered that life did not work out so well for this person, and when I heard what happened, my first reaction was, I’m not surprised. I didn’t realize it at the moment but what I was doing was gloating. One definition of gloating is when you find pleasure in someone else’s misfortune, and I didn’t want to admit it at the time, but that is what I was doing.
The hypocritical nature of gloating is sometimes we wrap our gloating and mix it with praise, even thanking God for the calamity or trouble of the person we don’t like because they deserved it. After all, they messed with me, and I am a child of the king. Yet when we lay our hearts before Scripture and come to verses like these in Proverbs, we realize that is not the way God desires us to respond. When we do behave in this manner our response could have the opposite effect.
“Do not gloat when your enemy falls;
when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice,
for the Lord will see and disapprove
and turn his wrath away from them.” – Proverbs 24:17-18
To say this as plainly as possible, God is not pleased when we gloat over our enemies.
How should you respond to those you don’t like?
Thankfully the Bible lays out a framework for how to address those we don’t like or who are our enemies.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” – Matthew 5:43-44
“But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” – Colossians 3:8
Jesus commands you to love and pray for those who persecute you. Paul instructs us to get rid of all malice, and one of the definitions of malice is to gloat over someone else’s misfortune. When we lay the cards on the table, gloating is sinful. The interesting thing about this type of sin is no one around you would ever know unless you opened your mouth and told them. Gloating and malice are things we keep in our hearts; while we can hide them from others, God sees what lives there.
Intersecting Faith and Life:
Let’s deal with this issue by doing something practical. Think about anyone in your life you either don’t really like or that you would consider an enemy. Write their name down and spend the next week praying for that person or people if there is more than one. I know what you may be thinking, but you don’t know how they are, you don’t know what they have done, or you don’t know what it is like to deal with them. You are probably right about that, but God’s Word puts no qualifier on this. We are to love them, pray for them, and hold no malice in our hearts toward them. Here is why this is important for you. It is your own heart that is at stake. When you harbor malice and gloat over that person’s misfortune, you allow that person to keep control over you, and you give room for bitterness to take root in your heart. However, when you pray for them and love them, they no longer have influence over your life.
Who is that enemy of yours? Do they work at your job? Do they live in your neighborhood? Do they go to your church? Are they in your family? Wherever they are, love them and pray for them. I can’t guarantee this will change them, but one thing it will do is it will change you, and maybe that is what God was after all along.
Gloating often goes unnoticed because, many times, it is a sin that only God sees.
Further Reading:
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