Fret not thyself because of evil-doers.
Fret not
There are many who suppose that it is well-nigh impossible to pass the time of our sojourning here without some degree of anxiety and depression of spirit. I grant you these feelings will come to us, but we are not obliged to welcome them. Luther quaintly said that, whereas we cannot prevent the birds from hovering over and flying round about our heads, we can prevent them from building their nests in our hair. The Lord will net hold us accountable for the suggestions that the devil makes, or our own evil hearts produce, but He does hold us responsible for yielding to those suggestions, and nourishing them.
I. A description of the complaint. Worrying, murmuring, or fretting, is certainly a malady. It must not be regarded as a mere circumstance that afflicts us from without. It is a deep-seated complaint that reigns within. One of the old Puritans says, of one who was always complaining, that he was “sick of the frets.” He recognized that it was an inward ailment, affecting both soul and body. The root of the mischief was in the rebellious heart.
1. What is the nature of this complaint? It is of the nature of a fever. “Fret not thyself,” or as it might be read, “Do not grow hot, inflame net thyself, because of evil-doers.” Leave to the sea to fret, and fume, and rage, and roar. Leave to the wicked, of whom the troubled sea is so apt an emblem, to toss to and fro, and cast up mire and dirt. Leave to the caged bird, that has no wisdom, to beat itself against the bars and make its incarceration still more unendurable; but for you who are already God’s, who have such a Father and Friend, and such a home, to which you are each moment coming nearer, for you to fret is clean contrary to the spirit of the Gospel; and to the grace which is in Christ Jesus.
2. What are the causes of this complaint?
(1) The prosperity of the wicked. I do not know of anything more likely to contribute to envy--which is nearly always an accompaniment of fretting--than a view of the prosperity of the wicked, that is if that view is a one-sided and short-sided one, as it generally is. The wicked spreads himself like a green bay tree, everything seems to go well with him. But he is a stranger to the one thing needful. He is altogether unacquainted with the joys we know, and what shall his end be? Have you ever found it in your heart to envy the apparent riches of the stage king, who struts his little hour behind the footlights with crown, and robes, and sceptre, and I know not what?
(2) The care that seems inseparable from daily life. So long as we dwell in the land there must be the question of being fed and clothed. I had almost said that religion is a farce and a fraud unless it stoops with me to such matters as these. It does so.
(3) There is another matter that mightily troubles some people, viz. the safeguarding of their reputation. Well, but let not this give rise to fretting and to distrust of God (Psalms 37:5-6). What reputation we have is due to God’s grace. If He has made it, He will keep it. Your reputation is not of half so much account as are God’s cause, etc.
3. What are the symptoms of this disease.
(1) It is generally accompanied by envy--“neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.” Be on the look-out against that green-eyed monster jealousy, for it works havoc in the heart, and havoc everywhere.
(2) It is accompanied also by loss of appetite that is, for the things of God. If we give way to repining, we shall not care for God’s Word, prayer will become almost impossible, the Gospel itself will lose its zest.
(3) Accompanying this fever there is, of course, a very high temperature. It is very easy, when you are in this state of mind, to get angry, and very difficult to cease from wrath.
(4) There is a consuming thirst with this fretting fever, a longing for something one has not got, a parching of the tongue and a drying of the lip, almost unbearable.
(5) The vision is impaired; we do not see things clearly.
(6) There is loss of memory, for we forget the mercies which have gone before, a recollection of which would help us to bear the troubles of the present.
II. The prescription.
1. The first item is trust in the Lord. Faith cures fretting. I believe in the “faith cure”--not as some administer it, but as God administers it. It is the only cure for worrying. If thou trustest all shall be well.
2. Do good. This is the second ingredient in the prescription. Do not give up, do not yield to fear. Do good; get to some practical work for God; continue in the path of daily duty, take spiritual exercise.
8. Diet is a very important matter in fever cases. It reads in the original, “Thou shelf be fed with truth.” Oh, the patient begins to get better at once, if he is fed on faithfulness. If you eat God’s truth and live on His Word, and drink in His promises, recovery is sure.
4. “Delight thyself also in the Lord.” Joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit. “God writes straight on crooked lines;” delight in Him if you cannot delight in anybody else; delight in Him if you find no joy in yourself.
5. “Commit thy way unto the Lord.” Not merely petition the King and then go on worrying, but roll the burden upon the Lord. Then the matter becomes His rather than yours; He accepts the responsibility which is too heavy for you. Too often we shoulder the load again.
6. “Rest in the Lord.” Any doctor will prescribe rest in a case of fever; without it the patient is not likely to pull through. You must have rest; be still and see the salvation of the Lord, sit silent before God. Rubbing the eye is not likely to bring the mote out. Even if it does it will only inflame the optic more, and fretting is something like rubbing the eyes--it only increases the inflammation. Do not strive and struggle.
7. “Wait patiently for Him.” The buds of His purposes must not be torn rudely open. They will unfold of themselves if you will let them. If you try to expedite matters you will spoil the whole business. God’s time is the best time.
8. “Cease from anger and forsake wrath.” Ah, I have heard of some people down with the fever who have been foolish enough to do things and to take things which are only calculated to add fuel to the fire. You cannot give up fretting until you begin to forgive. (T. Spurgeon.)
Fretting
1. Fretting in many cases supposes envy. “Fret not thyself because of evil-doers, neither be thou envious,” etc. Asaph did this, and ha forcibly describes this painful and injurious process in the seventy-third psalm. It became too painful for him. He questioned the rectitude of Providence and the wisdom of God. Just then he was stopped; like Job, he said, “Once have I spoken, but I will proceed no further”; he fell on his face, confessing, “I am foolish,” “I was envious!” and soon the scene changed from darkness to light, from complaining to communion, from fretting to rest in God.
2. While the fretting mood lasts, while we are troubled because God withholds certain things from us which He gives so abundantly to others, expectation from God is excluded. Hope pines when the heart frets, and peace flutters outside that soul which care corrodes, and which complainings fill with discord.
3. Yet many excuses are often made for this line of conduct; and the more it is indulged in, the more it is justified. “Wherefore should a living man complain? If a sinner, he has no right to do so; if a saint, no reason:” for a sinner deserves hell at any moment, and a saint, though most unworthy, is on his way to a glorious heaven; and his very trials and deprivations are a means of preparing and training him for that better world. (John Cox.)
Fretting
I. The sin. Fretfulness is a sin against,--
1. Ourselves. Destroys peace of mind; the mother of bitterness, harshness, fault-finding.
2. Others. Robs homes of their happiness.
3. God. John Wesley once said, “I dare no more fret than curse and swear.” To have persons at my ears murmuring and fretting at everything, is like tearing the flesh from my bones. By the grace of God I am discontented at nothing. I see God sitting on His throne, and ruling all things.”
II. The causes.
1. Envy.
2. Covetousness.
3. Want of faith in God. I have read that one of Cromwell’s friends was a fretting Christian, to whom everything went wrong. On a certain occasion, when unusually fretful, his sensible servant said, “Master, don’t you think that God governed the world very well before you came into it? Yes; but why do you ask? Master, don’t you think God will govern the world very well after you go out of it?” “Of course I do.” “Well, then, can’t you trust Him to govern it for the little time you are in it?”
III. The cure.
1. Look on the bright side of things.
2. Look not merely at the present, but think of the future.
3. Have faith in God. Then you will welcome whatever comes, knowing that He can help, even by adverse circumstances. (J. Scilley.)
The cure for care
1. “Fret not thyself.” Do not get into a perilous heat about things. Keep cool! Even in a good cause fretfulness is not a wise helpmeet. Fretting only heats the bearings, it does not generate the steam. It is no help to a train for the axles to get hot; their heat is only a hindrance; the best contributions which the axles can make to the progress of the train is to keep cool.
2. How, then, is fretfulness to be cured? The psalmist brings in the heavenly to correct the earthly. “The Lord” is the refrain of almost every verse, as though it were only in the power of the heavenly that this dangerous fire could be subdued.
(1) “Trust in the Lord.” “Trust!” It is, perhaps, helpful to remember that the word which is here translated “trust” is elsewhere in the Old Testament translated “careless.” “Be careless in the Lord!” Instead of carrying a load of care let care be absent t It is the carelessness of little children running about the house in the assurance of their father’s providence and love.
(2) “Delight thyself in the Lord.” How beautiful the phrase! The literal significance is this, “Seek for delicacies in the Lord.” Yes, and if we only set about with ardent purpose to discover the delicacies of the Lord’s table, we should have no time and no inclination to fret. But this is just what the majority of us do not do. The delicacies of music are not found in the first half-dozen lessons; it is only in the later stages that we come to the exquisite. And so it is in art, and so it is in literature, and so it is with the “things of the Lord.” “Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” Let us be ambitious for the excellent! God has not yet given to us of His best. He always keeps the best wine until the last. When we sit at the table of the Lord, tasting of His delicacies, fretfulness will be unable to breathe.
(3) “Commit thy way unto the Lord.” “Thy way!” What is that? Any pure purpose, any worthy ambition, any duty, anything we have got to do, any road we have got to tread, all our outgoings. “Commit thy way unto the Lord.” Let us commit our beginnings unto Him, before we have gone wrong., let us have His companionship from the very outset of the journey. If I am going out alone, fretfulness will encounter me before I have gone many steps in the way; if I go out in the company of Jesus I shall have the peace that passeth understanding, and the heat of my life will be the ardour of an intense devotion:
(4) “Rest in the Lord.” Having done all this, and doing it all, trusting in the Lord, delighting in the Lord, committing my way unto the Lord, let me now just “rest.” Don’t worry. Whatever happens, just refer it to the Lord! If it be anything injurious he will suppress it. If it be anything containing helpful ministry He will adapt it to our need. This is the cure for care. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
Discontent
David was peculiarly qualified to admonish the righteous as to their demeanour in relation to the ungodly. Never, perhaps, had man hotter conflicts with “evil-doers” and “workers of iniquity,” and never were more signal triumphs gained over malignant hosts. We need words of soothing such as are breathed in the text. There is enough in society, both profane and professedly religious, to vex the spirit and trouble it with bitterest grief.
I. That there has ever been a generation of evil-doers. All ages have been blackened with the shadow of evil-doers. Not a single century has been permitted to complete its revolution without being marred by their deadly presence! I ask you to mark the terrible energy implied in the designation “workers of iniquity.” Reference is not made to men who make a pastime of iniquity, or who occasionally commit themselves to its service, but to those who toil at it as a business. As the merchantman is industrious in commerce, as the philosopher is assiduous in study, as the artist is indefatigable in elaboration, so those slaves of iniquity toil in their diabolic pursuits with an ardour which the most powerful remonstrance seldom abates! They are always ready to serve their master.
II. That the servants of God are not to be moved from their course by the generation of the unrighteous. “Fret not thyself because of evil-doers,” etc. This language does not sanction carelessness as to the moral condition and destiny of the parties indicated. We need to mourn over it. But we are not to “fret” over evil-doers, though it be natural to do so, when we think of the terrible harm they do. You punish such men more severely by taking no notice of their malignity--they would rejoice in provoking retaliation. And these “evil-doers” are often prosperous in their way, whilst the good are often exposed to social hardships. Imagine not that secular prosperity is a pledge of Divine favour.
III. That a terrible doom awaits the generation of evildoers. “For they shall soon be cut down,” etc. Know ye of any such miserable spectacle as that of a human being “cut down”? As travellers have wandered over the ruins of classic temples, they have mourned their departed glory, but what are such ruins compared to the ruins of manhood? The heart that might have expanded with holiest emotion--wasted! The image of God an irrecoverable wreck! Imagination can paint no horrors so appalling. Though God uses not our chronometers in the measurement of time, yet the wicked themselves will have occasion to exclaim, “We are soon cut down!” You wrong your own souls in reasoning that “to-morrow shall be as this day and more abundant.” The hour of your fullest joy is the hour of highest danger. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.--
Fretful envy
I. A painful passion. There may be fretfulness where there is no envy. One may fret because of the tardy advancement of a cause dear to his heart, or because of the troubles of those in whom he is interested. There is a great deal of fretfulness that is almost constitutional, and therefore innocent and free from all “envy”; but there can be no envy where there is not fretfulness. What is envy? It is not merely a desire to possess that good which another has: that is emulation. To crave after that which gives power, and worth, and happiness is a laudable ambition. We are commanded to “covet earnestly the best gifts.” But “envy” is a malicious desire to possess what others have: it means their deprivation. Jealousy is a dread lest another shall possess what we wish for ourselves; envy is a dislike for another because he actually possesses the good desired; and because it is so impregnated with the malign it is always fretful. It is a grudging, growling passion; it is never at rest.
II. It is a foolish passion. It is directed against the most unenviable of characters. “The workers of iniquity will be cut down like the grass.”
III. Envying the wicked. Shall the imperial eagle, whose undazzled eye drinks in the splendours of a cloudless sun, envy the worm that never rose an inch beyond its native dust? Shall the sun itself envy the flickering rush-light which the feeblest breeze can extinguish? Shall the heaving ocean, bearing on its bosom the richest merchandise, and reflecting from its deep blue eye the glories of the firmament, envy the little summer pool, which a passing cloud has poured into a foot-print? Sooner shall such envy be called into existence than the true child of God envy the “workers of iniquity.” (Homilist.)