The Great Divine Antithesis Text: Proverbs 11:20
Introduction: Two Ways to Live
The book of Proverbs is not a collection of quaint, disconnected fortune cookie sayings for a quiet, respectable life. It is a divine field manual for spiritual warfare. It operates on the fundamental principle that there are two ways to live, and only two. There is the way of wisdom and the way of folly. There is the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. There is God's way, and there is every other way, which, when you boil it all down, is simply the way of rebellion.
Modern man detests this kind of sharp, binary distinction. Our age is the age of gray, the age of nuance as a smokescreen for compromise, the age of "who's to say?" But the living God is not a God of gray. He is a God of brilliant, glorious light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. Consequently, He draws sharp lines. He creates by separating. He separated the light from the darkness on the first day, and He has been separating things ever since: the clean from the unclean, the holy from the profane, the sheep from the goats.
Our text today is one of these sharp, bright lines. It presents us with a fundamental antithesis that governs all of reality. It is a statement of divine affection and divine revulsion. It shows us what God loves and what God hates. And if we are wise, we will make it our chief business in life to love what He loves and to hate what He hates. To fail to do so is not just a minor miscalculation; it is to set ourselves against the grain of the entire universe.
The Text
"Those with a crooked heart are an abomination to Yahweh, But those of a blameless way are His delight."
(Proverbs 11:20 LSB)
The Crooked Heart: An Abomination (v. 20a)
The first half of the verse lays out the negative side of the ledger.
"Those with a crooked heart are an abomination to Yahweh..." (Proverbs 11:20a)
Let's start with the diagnosis: "a crooked heart." The Hebrew speaks of that which is twisted, perverse, distorted. It is not just a heart that makes mistakes or has occasional bad thoughts. This is a heart that is fundamentally bent out of shape. It is warped. It does not run true to the grain of God's created order. Think of a piece of wood that is so twisted you cannot build anything straight with it. That is the picture here. The heart is the wellspring of life, as Proverbs tells us (Prov. 4:23). When the source is polluted, everything that flows from it will be polluted. A crooked heart produces a crooked life, crooked speech, crooked dealings.
This crookedness is not, first and foremost, a matter of external actions. The problem is internal. It is a matter of basic orientation. The crooked heart is the heart of the rebel, the heart that refuses to submit to the straight edge of God's law. It is the heart that says, "My will be done." It wants to be its own god, its own source of law, its own definer of reality. This is the native condition of every human heart since the fall in the garden. Adam and Eve's sin was precisely this: they wanted to be like God, knowing good and evil for themselves. They wanted to trade God's straight lines for their own crooked ones.
Now, look at God's reaction to this condition. It is an "abomination to Yahweh." This is strong language. It is not that God is merely disappointed or displeased. The word "abomination" (to'ebah) is one of the strongest biblical terms for revulsion. It describes something that is utterly detestable, loathsome, something that God finds foul and repugnant. In the Old Testament, it is used for idolatry, for sexual perversion, for dishonest business practices. It is a visceral word. God does not simply disagree with the crooked heart; He is nauseated by it.
We must not blunt the force of this. We live in a sentimental age that wants a God who is endlessly tolerant, a celestial grandfather who winks at our "failings." But the God of the Bible is a holy God. His holiness means that He is utterly and eternally set against all that is crooked, all that is sinful, all that is rebellious. He is a consuming fire. And a heart that is set in its crookedness is setting itself up as fuel for that fire.
The Blameless Way: His Delight (v. 20b)
But thank God, the verse does not end there. The antithesis is completed with a glorious positive.
"...But those of a blameless way are His delight." (Proverbs 11:20b)
Notice the shift. The first clause spoke of a "crooked heart." This clause speaks of a "blameless way." The way, the path, the manner of life, is the outflow of the heart. A straight heart produces a straight path. The word for "blameless" here is tamim. It means complete, whole, sound, having integrity. It is the word used to describe the kind of animal that was acceptable for sacrifice, one without blemish. It does not mean sinless perfection. Noah was called blameless in his generation (Gen. 6:9), as was Job (Job 1:1), but we know they were not sinless. It means their lives were oriented in the right direction. Their hearts were aimed at God. They walked in integrity, seeking to please God with their whole being.
The blameless way is the way of faith. It is the path of the one who has heard God's law and said "Amen." It is the way of the one who, when he stumbles, gets up, confesses his sin, and gets back on the straight path, trusting in God's grace. It is a life characterized by a fundamental honesty and sincerity before God and man.
And what is God's reaction to this kind of life? It is His "delight." If "abomination" is a word of visceral revulsion, "delight" is a word of deep, personal, affectionate pleasure. God takes joy in the blameless way. He looks upon the life of integrity, the life lived in faithful obedience, and He is pleased. This is an astonishing thought. The Creator of the heavens and the earth, the sovereign Lord of all, can look upon the frail, stumbling efforts of His people to walk in His ways, and He can be delighted.
This is not because our blamelessness earns His favor. We must be absolutely clear here. Our way can only be blameless because of the one who walked the path perfectly. Jesus Christ is the only truly blameless man. Our hearts are naturally crooked. The only way for a crooked heart to produce a blameless way is for that heart to be made new. This is the miracle of regeneration. God, by His Spirit, gives us a new heart, a heart of flesh for a heart of stone (Ezek. 36:26). He writes His law upon it. He credits the perfect righteousness of Christ to our account. And then, as we walk by faith in Christ, empowered by the Spirit, our lives begin to straighten out. God delights in our blameless way because He sees the righteousness of His own Son reflected in us.
Conclusion: The Great Exchange
So this proverb sets before us the great choice, the great divide. Will your heart be crooked or straight? Will your life be an abomination or a delight to God? Left to ourselves, the choice is already made. We are born with crooked hearts, headed down a path that is repugnant to a holy God.
But the gospel is the good news of the great exchange. On the cross, Jesus Christ, the only one who was truly blameless, took upon Himself the abomination of our crookedness. He was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). He endured the full force of God's revulsion against our rebellion so that we, in turn, could be made the righteousness of God in Him. He took our crookedness that we might receive His straightness. He took our abomination that we might become God's delight.
Therefore, the call of this proverb is a call to repentance and faith. Turn from your own crooked ways. Abandon the foolish project of trying to be your own god. Confess that your heart is bent and that you cannot straighten it yourself. And look to Christ. Trust in His finished work. When you do, God performs heart surgery. He makes you a new creation. And He sets you on a new path, a blameless way. And as you walk that path, stumbling at times, but always looking to Him, you have this incredible promise: you are no longer an abomination. You are, and will forever be, His delight.