The Entourage of Wickedness Text: Proverbs 18:3
Introduction: Sin's Shadow
The book of Proverbs is a book of stark contrasts and fixed moral laws. It operates on the principle that God built the world in a particular way, and to live successfully in it, you must understand the grain of the wood. To go against the grain is to invite splinters. To live in defiance of God's created order is not just a theological mistake; it is a practical disaster. It is like trying to build a house out of sand, or to plant a garden in the sea. It simply does not work.
Our modern sensibilities chafe at this. We want a world of infinite options, where our choices have no necessary consequences. We want to be able to mix wickedness with blessing, folly with success, and rebellion with peace. We want to sin and then file an injunction against the consequences. But the universe does not work that way. God's moral laws are as fixed as the law of gravity. If you step off a cliff, you do not break the law of gravity; you demonstrate it. In the same way, when you embrace wickedness, you do not break God's moral law; you are broken by it.
Proverbs 18:3 is a compact statement of this reality. It teaches us that sin is never a solitary traveler. It always brings along its ugly companions. Wickedness does not show up to the party alone. It has an entourage, and its entourage is contempt, disgrace, and reproach. This is a law of the moral universe. You cannot welcome the wicked man into your life, your church, or your nation, and then be surprised when his friends, Contempt and Disgrace, show up and start breaking the furniture.
We live in an age that has made a concerted effort to destigmatize sin. We call it brokenness, or a mistake, or an alternative lifestyle. We have tried to separate the action from the consequence. We want the thrill of the rebellion without the shame of the reproach. But God has hardwired the universe in such a way that this is impossible. This proverb is a divine diagnosis of the social and spiritual physics of sin. It shows us the inevitable progression from internal corruption to external dishonor.
The Text
When a wicked man comes, despising also comes,
And with disgrace comes reproach.
(Proverbs 18:3 LSB)
The Unwelcome Arrival (v. 3a)
The first clause sets the stage. It describes a cause-and-effect relationship that is as certain as sunrise.
"When a wicked man comes, despising also comes..." (Proverbs 18:3a)
The "wicked man" here is the rasha. This is not a man who occasionally stumbles or makes a poor choice. This is a man whose character is defined by his opposition to God. He is guilty before God's law and actively hostile to God's created order. His heart is bent, and so his life is bent. He is the man who suppresses the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). He is the fool who says in his heart, "There is no God" (Psalm 14:1).
Now, notice what accompanies his arrival: "despising also comes." The Hebrew word is buz, which means contempt, scorn, or disdain. But who is despising whom? The grammar allows for two complementary meanings, and both are true. First, the wicked man brings his contempt with him. He is a scorner by nature. He despises authority, whether it is the authority of God, the authority of parents, the authority of the civil magistrate, or the authority of the church. He scoffs at wisdom, mocks righteousness, and holds God's law in contempt. This is the spirit of our age, is it not? A spirit of perpetual, sneering rebellion against every standard, every boundary, every definition that God has given.
But there is a second meaning. When the wicked man comes, he also brings contempt upon himself. His actions and character are so base that they naturally provoke scorn and disdain from the righteous. His behavior is, in a word, despicable. While we are called to love our enemies, we are never called to approve of their wickedness. Righteousness instinctively recoils from evil. When a society loses its ability to despise what is despicable, it has lost its moral immune system. We are commanded to abhor what is evil (Romans 12:9). A culture that celebrates wickedness is a culture that has chosen death.
So, the wicked man is both a purveyor and a recipient of contempt. He breathes out scorn against God's order, and his rebellion makes him an object of scorn in God's ordered world. You cannot separate the man from his atmosphere. He carries this cloud of contempt with him wherever he goes.
The Inevitable Consequence (v. 3b)
The second clause of the verse runs parallel to the first, reinforcing and amplifying the point. It shows the public result of this private corruption.
"And with disgrace comes reproach." (Proverbs 18:3b)
Here we have two more traveling companions: disgrace and reproach. "Disgrace" is the Hebrew qalon, which refers to shame or ignominy. It is the state of being held in low esteem. It is the opposite of honor and glory. This is the internal reality of sin's consequence. The wicked man, deep down, is a man of shame. He may cover it with bravado, arrogance, or a veneer of success, but at the core, his rebellion against the God of glory has rendered him inglorious. He has exchanged the glory of the immortal God for a lie (Romans 1:23), and the result is a deep-seated shame.
But this internal disgrace does not stay private for long. The proverb says that with this disgrace comes "reproach." Reproach (cherpah) is the public expression of that disgrace. It is the verbal scorn, the public shaming, the insult that gives voice to the dishonor. Disgrace is the condition; reproach is the declaration. Disgrace is the bad reputation; reproach is the bad review.
This is a profound sociological observation. A man's character will eventually be revealed. Sin has a way of coming to light. What is done in secret will be shouted from the housetops (Luke 12:3). A society that tolerates wickedness in its midst will find itself covered in reproach. A church that makes peace with sin will find its public witness destroyed. When Israel sinned, God promised they would become a "byword and a taunt" among the nations (Jeremiah 24:9). Their internal disgrace led to international reproach.
Our culture is currently engaged in a massive, frantic effort to escape this divine law. We are trying to have the disgrace without the reproach. We want to be able to engage in any and every form of rebellion against God's design for humanity, for sexuality, for family, for society, and then we want to pass laws to make it illegal for anyone to attach reproach to it. We call reproach "hate speech." But this is like trying to legislate that fire should not be hot. God has woven reproach into the fabric of disgrace. You cannot have one without the other.
The Gospel Reversal
This proverb paints a bleak but realistic picture of the consequences of sin. The wicked man arrives, and with him comes a cascade of contempt, disgrace, and reproach. This is the story of every one of us apart from Christ. We were all, by nature, wicked. We were scorners, rebels against God's authority. We were covered in the disgrace of our sin, and we stood under the just reproach of a holy God.
But then, another man came. The righteous man, Jesus Christ, came into the world. And in the great and glorious reversal of the gospel, He took the wicked man's entourage upon Himself. Think about it. When Jesus came, did despising come? Yes. "He was despised and rejected by men" (Isaiah 53:3). He was held in contempt by the authorities, both religious and secular.
Did disgrace and reproach come with Him? Absolutely. He "endured the cross, despising the shame" (Hebrews 12:2). The cross was the ultimate instrument of public disgrace and reproach. He was stripped, mocked, spat upon, and hung up as a public spectacle of shame. He took the qalon and the cherpah that we deserved. He absorbed all the contempt of our wickedness into Himself.
Why? So that we, the truly wicked, could be welcomed. So that when we come to the Father through Him, we do not bring contempt and disgrace with us. Instead, we are clothed in Christ's honor. We are given His glory. Where there was disgrace, He gives honor. Where there was reproach, He gives praise. "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).
This is the great exchange. He took our entourage of shame so that we could be part of His entourage of glory. Therefore, the Christian life is one of walking away from the path of the wicked man and walking in the path of the righteous one. It means hating the contempt, disgrace, and reproach that sin brings, and loving the honor and glory that are found in Christ alone. We must see sin for what it is: a package deal. It always brings its ugly friends. But in Christ, we are welcomed, cleansed, and honored, not because of what we bring, but because of the shame He bore.