August 5
The Boasts of the Wicked
“For the wicked boasts of the desires of his souls, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the LORD”
Psalm 10: 3.
For the wicked, they are not without their desires. “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his,” was the desire of wicked Balaam (Numbers 23: 10) [I]n another place [it is] said, “the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire.” He is for heaven as well as the best of you all, but, even then, “he blesses the covetous, whom the Lord abhors” (Psalm 10: 3). Wicked men have their desires and their hopes too, but the hope and desire of unjust men perishes (Proverbs 11: 7). Yea, and though they look and long, too, all day long, with desires of life and glory. Yet their fears, and them only shall come upon them; for they are the desires of the righteous that shall be granted (Psalm 112: 10).
The desires of the wicked want a good [stable] bottom. They flow not from a sanctified mind, nor of love to the God, or the heaven now desired. But only from such a sense as devils have of torments and so as they cry out, “I beseech thee torment me not” (Luke 8:28 & 16:24).
Their fears, therefore, have a strong foundation; they also have matter to work upon, which is guilt and justice, the which they shall never be able to escape, without a miracle of grace and mercy (Hebrews 2: 3). Therefore, it saith and that with emphasis, “The fear of the wicked it shall come upon him.” Wherefore his desires must die with him: for the promise of a grant of that which is desired is only entailed to righteousness. “The desire of the righteous shall be granted,” but “grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked,” said David (Psalm 140: 8).
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