Psalm 17:12
12 Like [dimyown] as a lion ['ariy] that is greedy [kacaph] of
his prey, [taraph] and as it were a young lion [kaphiyr] lurking [yashab] in secret
places. [mictar] KJV-Interlinear
12 He
is like a lion that is eager to tear, And as a young lion lurking in hiding
places. NASB
Those who are in
opposition to God, are those who reject Gods will, Gods teaching, Gods plan as
God has defined and designed it. Those
who presume that their ideas are of a better quality than Gods ideas, are
included in the category of the wicked.
Any and all rejection of
truth, makes the person wicked.
But there is more to the
wicked person than meets the eye. All
wicked people have ulterior motives and desires and intentions. Whether they are proactive in their pattern
of life or passive, is irrelevant. All
patterns of life that are in opposition to God carry this illustration of the
lion.
Like the lion, ‘ariy,’ is
representative of a mature and wise lion.
The older lion is experienced in his life, knows how to stalk and hunt
and find and capture its prey.
Later in the verse, the
young lion is mentioned. Different from
the older and wise lion, the younger lion is eager, anxious, makes mistakes,
but carries enthusiasm for the hunting process, even to its own destruction.
And so, the wicked people
of the world follow these two patterns in life.
They do not have Gods
blessing, because they are wicked, rather than spiritual. Thus they have nothing to claim in life, as
their own.
All things belong to God,
and will never belong to the wicked.
All things are destined
to be given to believers in general but especially to the mature believers of
history.
Unbelievers are wicked by
default and by definition, and thus will never have anything.
Believers that reject doctrine,
imitate unbelievers and thus pursue the wicked pattern of life, but will still
have eternal life and entry into heaven, but will not have any blessings that
are destined for mature believers. Thus
spiritually negative believers in this life will have nothing, no divine
production in their life that will qualify them for eternal rewards.
So, all wicked people,
regardless of their status, pursue the same agenda, which is the pursuit of
their own defined happiness, the pursuit of things, the pursuit of some meaning
and purpose, the pursuit of the various lusts or self-defined view of their role
in life, and so forth.
They pursue just as a
lion stalks and pursues and hunts its prey.
All things properly
belong to believers, and especially mature believers or those advancing to
spiritual maturity. The only way that the wicked can make things their own, is
to take that to which they are not entitled.
So, they hunt as mature
lions. They live life from the
experience that they have learned or observed or taught themselves. These folks are those who get caught up in
office politics, in bureaucracies, in inordinate competitiveness and so forth. They are good at it, because they have done
it for a long time.
They pursue as a young
lion with vigor and self-righteousness, with lust and lasciviousness, with asceticism,
with impudence. They are concerned only
with their own reward, and care nothing for the circumstances of their victims. The lion is not human, and likewise the
wicked have lost their humanity.
The lion will hunt any
prey that seems helpless. The lion will hunt anything that seems
vulnerable. The lion will hunt anything
with ruthlessness and intimidation and violence.
Wicked people is a
category in which you do not want to find yourself, because the wicked will
reap what they sow, and that, in the long run, will not be good for
themselves. Ripping their victims, they
themselves will end up being ripped apart spiritually, and that simply means
great spiritual loss, and zero gain for life.
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