The Futility of Bailing Out a Fool: The Law of Diminishing Rescues Text: Proverbs 19:19
Introduction: The Ministry of Consequences
We live in a soft and sentimental age. It is an age that has mistaken enablement for love, and has confused compassion with the refusal to allow a man to reap what he has sown. Our culture is filled to the brim with counselors, therapists, and well-meaning Christians who believe the highest form of love is to cushion every fall, to absorb every consequence, and to bail out every fool from the trouble his own folly has manufactured. They believe they are being merciful, but in reality, they are collaborating with the sin. They are subsidizing foolishness. They are standing between a man and the very consequences God has ordained for his instruction.
The book of Proverbs is a bucket of cold, clear water thrown into the face of this kind of thinking. It is relentlessly realistic. It understands that God has hardwired the universe with a moral grain, and to go against that grain is to get splinters. The proverbs teach us that true love, biblical love, sometimes means stepping back and letting the fool get his splinters. True love does not interfere with the curriculum of consequences that God, in His wisdom, has established. To do so is not kindness; it is cruelty. You are not helping a man; you are guaranteeing his ruin by teaching him that actions do not have consequences.
This is particularly true when it comes to the sin of explosive, uncontrolled anger. The man of great wrath is a walking disaster. He leaves a trail of broken relationships, slammed doors, and bruised people. He is a bull in the china shop of life. And when the bill for the broken china comes due, there is always a line of well-intentioned people ready to pay it for him, believing they are showing grace. But the book of Proverbs tells us this is a fool's errand. It is a ministry of perpetual failure. You are not fixing the problem; you are becoming part of it.
The Text
A man of great wrath will bear the penalty,
For if you deliver him, you will only have to do it again.
(Proverbs 19:19 LSB)
The Inevitable Penalty (v. 19a)
The first clause of this proverb lays down a fundamental law of God's world:
"A man of great wrath will bear the penalty..." (Proverbs 19:19a)
This is not a suggestion. It is a statement of fact, as certain as gravity. The man of "great wrath" is not someone who has a momentary flash of righteous anger. This is the hot-tempered man, the man whose spirit is unruled, the man who is a slave to his passions. His anger is not a tool he uses; it is the master that uses him. It is his default setting. When provoked, when inconvenienced, when his will is crossed in the slightest, he detonates.
And for this man, the proverb says, there is a penalty. The Hebrew word for penalty here often refers to a fine or punishment levied by a magistrate. The point is that his sin has public and painful consequences. His wrath costs him. It costs him his job when he blows up at his boss. It costs him his marriage when he terrifies his wife and children. It costs him friendships when no one wants to walk on eggshells around him. It costs him financially in lawsuits or broken property. God has built this cause-and-effect relationship into the very fabric of reality. Uncontrolled anger is a self-destroying sin. It carries its own punishment with it.
This is a mercy from God. The penalty is not just punitive; it is instructive. Pain is a wonderful teacher for those who are willing to learn. The sting of the consequences is meant to drive the fool to his senses. It is the loving discipline of the Father, designed to show the man the dead-end street he is on and to turn him back toward the path of wisdom. The penalty is the sermon God preaches to the hothead.
The Cycle of Foolish Rescue (v. 19b)
The second clause gives the practical, and frankly, blunt advice that flows from this reality.
"...For if you deliver him, you will only have to do it again." (Proverbs 19:19b LSB)
Here is the warning to all the would-be rescuers, the enablers, the codependents. You see the man of great wrath suffering his penalty. He's been fired. His wife has finally had enough and has left. He's in financial trouble because of his impulsiveness. And your heart goes out to him. You want to "deliver" him. You want to make a call to the boss, to smooth things over with his wife, to write him a check. You want to stand between him and the consequences.
And God says, through Solomon, "Don't do it." Why? Because your intervention is a short-circuit to the learning process. If you deliver him, you are not solving his problem. His problem is not his circumstances; his problem is his character. His problem is the great wrath in his heart. And by removing the painful consequences of that wrath, you are ensuring that he never has to confront the root issue. You are teaching him that he can continue in his sin, because someone will always be there to clean up the mess.
Notice the certainty of it: "you will only have to do it again." It is not "you might have to," but "you will have to." This is because the man has not changed. You bailed him out of this crisis, but the same hot temper and unruled spirit that got him into this one will march him directly into the next one. And because you have established yourself as the official rescuer, he will expect you to be there again. You have created a cycle of sin and rescue, a codependent dance where he rages, suffers, and you swoop in to remove the suffering, thus preparing the way for the next rage. You think you are helping, but you have become an essential part of his sin's life-support system.
Breaking the Cycle with True Love
So what does true, biblical love look like in this situation? It is not a cold, callous indifference. We are never called to be unloving. But we must define love as God defines it, not as our sentimental culture does.
First, true love speaks the truth. You are to go to the man of great wrath, not with a checkbook, but with a Bible. You are to tell him, "Your anger is a sin. It is destroying you. You must repent." You confront the sin, not cushion its consequences. You point him to the root, not the symptoms.
Second, true love allows discipline to do its work. When the penalty comes, you do not interfere. You let him lose the job. You let him feel the weight of his broken relationships. You pray for him that the pain will lead to repentance, that he will "come to himself" like the prodigal son in the pigsty. The pigsty was the best thing that ever happened to that young man, and the well-meaning person who tried to make the pigsty more comfortable would have been his greatest enemy.
Third, true love offers help toward repentance, not just relief from consequences. You can say, "I will not pay your rent, but I will drive you to an elder's meeting to confess your sin. I will not talk to your wife for you, but I will hold you accountable to seeking real, biblical counsel. I will help you attack your sin, but I will not help you escape its consequences." This is the hard, rugged, and ultimately compassionate path. It is the love that desires the person's holiness more than their immediate comfort.
The Gospel for the Hot-Tempered
This proverb, like all of Proverbs, sits under the shadow of the gospel. In ourselves, we are all fools. We are all, in one way or another, men and women of great wrath against God. Our sin is a cosmic temper tantrum against His authority. And the penalty for that sin is not just a lost job or a broken marriage; it is death and hell. "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).
And God, in His justice, must let that penalty fall. But in His infinite mercy, He did not stand aloof. He also did not simply bail us out so we could do it all again. He did something far more profound. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to bear the penalty in our place. On the cross, the full, unmitigated wrath of God against our sin was poured out on Jesus. He bore the ultimate penalty.
But He did not do this so that we could remain men of great wrath. He did this to deliver us not just from the penalty of sin, but from the power of sin. When we come to Christ in faith and repentance, He does not just cancel our debt; He gives us a new heart. The Holy Spirit takes up residence in us and begins the lifelong work of dismantling the old man of wrath and building up the new man of peace, patience, and self-control. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law (Galatians 5:22-23).
Therefore, the solution for the man of great wrath is not a better rescue plan. It is not a more diligent enabler. The solution is the cross and the empty tomb. It is death and resurrection. He must die to his old self, the self that is enslaved to wrath, and be raised to new life in Christ. And our job, as brothers and sisters, is not to repeatedly pull him out of the grave he keeps digging for himself. Our job is to stand at the edge of that grave and point him to the only one who has conquered it, Jesus Christ the Lord.