The Rebel's Errand and the King's Response Text: Proverbs 17:11
Introduction: The Grammar of Defiance
We live in an age that glorifies rebellion. Our stories, our songs, our political movements are all saturated with the romantic notion of the rebel. The rebel is the hero, the free-thinker, the one who courageously casts off the shackles of oppressive tradition and authority. But the Bible, as is its custom, crashes this sentimental party with a bucket of cold, hard reality. The Bible has a name for the man who makes rebellion his life's work, and that name is not "hero." It is "evil."
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical. It is divine wisdom for living in God's world on God's terms. It does not deal in abstractions; it deals with cause and effect, with the way things are. And in our text today, we are given a stark, two-part diagnosis and prognosis. It is a spiritual law, as fixed and unalterable as the law of gravity. What you sow, you will reap. And if you sow rebellion, you will reap a harvest of wrath.
Our entire culture is engaged in a massive project of rebellion. It is a rebellion against the created order, a rebellion against the roles and responsibilities God has assigned, a rebellion against the very idea of a transcendent lawgiver. We are told that to be authentic is to defy every external standard and to look within. This is the ancient lie of the serpent, whispered again into the ears of a new generation: "You will be like God." But this quest for autonomous freedom is not a noble errand. It is, as our text says, a seeking of evil. And it has consequences. God is not mocked. A man who shakes his fist at heaven should not be surprised when lightning comes down.
This proverb is a warning, but for the believer, it is also a comfort. It reminds us that the universe is not chaotic. It is governed. There is a King on the throne, and He will not allow rebellion to have the final word. He has a response to the defiant, and His response is always just, always fitting, and always final.
The Text
A rebellious man seeks only evil, So a cruel messenger will be sent against him.
(Proverbs 17:11 LSB)
The Rebel's Singular Pursuit (v. 11a)
We begin with the first clause, which gives us the diagnosis of the rebellious heart.
"A rebellious man seeks only evil..." (Proverbs 17:11a)
The first thing to notice is the tight connection between rebellion and evil. In the modern mind, these two are often separated. We can have "good" rebels fighting against "evil" systems. But Scripture defines evil not as a violation of our personal feelings, but as a transgression of God's law. And rebellion, at its root, is the ultimate rejection of that law and the Lawgiver. Samuel tells Saul that "rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry" (1 Sam. 15:23). To rebel against the authority God has established is to set yourself up as a rival god. It is an act of cosmic treason.
The text says the rebellious man seeks only evil. This is not to say that he never does anything that appears outwardly good. He might give to charity, or be kind to his dog. But the telos, the ultimate aim and driving force of his life, is defiance. His goodness is incidental; his rebellion is central. He is not seeking to replace a bad authority with a good one under God. He is seeking to have no authority over him but himself. His entire project is negative. He knows what he is against, which is any and all restraint, but he has no coherent vision for what he is for, other than the enthronement of his own will.
This is the essence of what we see in our culture's mad dash away from Christian civilization. The sexual revolution is not about finding a better, more biblical pattern for human sexuality; it is about rebelling against the one God gave us. The demand to erase the distinctions between man and woman is not an attempt to honor the image of God in both; it is a rebellion against the created order itself. This is the spirit of antichrist, which seeks to undo creation, to return the world to the formless and void state, tohu wa-bohu, so that man can be his own creator.
The rebellious man thinks he is on a quest for freedom and authenticity. But he is a slave. He is a slave to his own pride. He seeks evil because he has defined "good" as anything that originates with himself, and "evil" as any standard that comes from outside himself, most especially from God. He is on an errand, but it is a fool's errand, and it leads to a dark destination.
The King's Unsentimental Reply (v. 11b)
The second clause gives us the prognosis. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every act of rebellion, there is a divine response.
"So a cruel messenger will be sent against him." (Proverbs 17:11b LSB)
God's response to the man who seeks only evil is not a polite debate, a gentle suggestion, or a tender appeal. It is a "cruel messenger." The Hebrew word here means harsh, severe, fierce. This is not a messenger who comes to negotiate. This is a messenger who comes to execute a sentence. This is God's holy and just retribution.
Now, our therapeutic age recoils at this. We want a God who is endlessly affirming, who would never be so harsh. But a god who is never harsh with evil is not a good god. He is a sentimental accomplice. A god who will not judge rebellion is a god who does not love righteousness. The God of the Bible is a God of infinite love and mercy, but He is also a God of consuming fire. His wrath against sin is not a petty temper tantrum; it is the settled, holy, and righteous opposition of His character to all that would destroy the good world He has made.
Who is this cruel messenger? It can take many forms. In the Old Testament, it could be a foreign army, like the Assyrians or Babylonians, sent to discipline a rebellious Israel. It could be a natural disaster. It could be the civil magistrate, who, as Paul tells us, "does not bear the sword for nothing. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer" (Romans 13:4). The point is that God is sovereign over all of it. He is the one who sends the messenger.
But we must also see that the cruelest messenger is often the sin itself. When men and women rebel against God's design for life, God's judgment is often to give them over to their rebellion. Paul describes this in Romans 1. Because they suppressed the truth in unrighteousness, "God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity... God gave them up to dishonorable passions... God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done" (Romans 1:24, 26, 28). The cruel messenger arrives, and he looks just like the sin they desired. They wanted sexual freedom, and they got sexual chaos, disease, and heartbreak. They wanted to be their own gods, and they got the terrifying emptiness of a universe with no God in it. The gates of Hell are locked from the inside. The cruelest messenger is getting exactly what you asked for.
The Gospel for Rebels
This proverb, like all of Scripture, points us to the gospel. It lays out the fundamental problem of the human condition. We are all, by nature, rebellious men. We are born seeking evil. We are born with our fists clenched against the authority of our Creator. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6). And because we are rebels, we are all under the sentence of condemnation. A cruel messenger has been dispatched for each of us, and his name is Death.
But the glorious good news is that God, in His infinite mercy, sent a different kind of messenger. He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ. He came not as a cruel messenger of wrath, but as a gracious messenger of peace. He came to the rebels, not to condemn them, but to save them.
And how did He do it? He did it by taking our rebellion upon Himself. On the cross, Jesus became the ultimate rebel in our place. He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us. And the cruel messenger that was sent for us was sent against Him. The full, undiluted, terrifying wrath of God against our evil, against our rebellion, was poured out upon His Son. The Father sent the cruel messenger of His own justice, and it met the Son at Calvary.
Because of this, the message to all rebels is no longer "prepare for judgment," but rather, "flee to Christ." The only way to escape the cruel messenger is to run to the one who was crushed by him in your place. When you repent of your rebellion and trust in Christ, you are no longer an enemy of God, but a son. You are forgiven. Your treason is pardoned. The messenger of wrath is called off, and the Spirit of adoption is sent into your heart instead, crying, "Abba, Father."
This does not mean that all consequences for our foolishness disappear. Christians who sin will still be disciplined by a loving Father. But it is the discipline of a Father, not the wrath of a judge. It is the kind messenger of correction, not the cruel messenger of condemnation. Therefore, let us abandon our foolish rebellion, which seeks only evil and ends only in ruin. Let us bow the knee to the rightful King, Jesus Christ, and find in His service the only true and perfect freedom.