Proverbs 28:1 The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion
There was a program when I was a child called Wild Kingdom. I don’t remember much of it, but I do remember that par for the course was images and film of lions stalking through the tall grass and eventually taking down a gazelle. Did the lions always catch the prey? No, but I noticed the lions were always the ones charging and the gazelles were always the ones fleeing. I have never seen a lion flee in my life. They are running to, not running from. Someone says, “Yeah, but I saw a video of a water buffalo charging a lion.” Well, the buffalo didn’t eat the lion when he got him. A water buffalo has eyes on the sides of his head; he is prey. He must be aware of the danger. A lion’s eyes are in the front of his head. He is focused on what he is going to eat.
Proverbs 28:1 says, “The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.” In Leviticus 26:17, speaking of disobedience to Jehovah, God says, “And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.” Again, in verse 36 God says, “And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them: and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.” Here is a picture of those who are far from God. They are disturbed by even a leaf rattling in the distance.
In contrast, the righteous are bold as lions. Boldness is confidence in the truth. When I say confidence, which is what boldness means, it is con-, meaning with, with “fidence” meaning trust. Boldness is “with trust in the truth.” Boldness is confidence in the truth, not confidence in a crowd. Most of us know intrinsically the boldness a mob can have. A mob is different than a person; it has its own personality. Most people have confidence in a crowd, but a lot of times when that crowd evaporates, they have nothing. So, boldness is confidence in the truth.
There is a difference between shame and guilt. Shame is determined by the culture. If someone steps out of line, is not politically correct for example, they are shamed. That is not the same as saying you are wrong; it simply means you are shamed because the majority is telling you that you are not keeping up with the social constructs of the day. That is different than guilt, which is a matter of conscience, meaning “with knowledge.” It is not just someone who has a timid disposition, always looks inside themselves, or worries. We are talking about someone who has a guilt based on what they know, their conscience.
When the Bible says that the righteous are bold as lions, it is not talking about being free from shame, but being free from guilt. Guilt is right or wrong based upon a fixed standard, based upon a person, God. Shame is social pressure that comes to bear when you don’t bow to the dictates of the day. Boldness is the confidence in the truth. Bold equals right or righteousness. Right equals a standard. So, is this right and by whose standard?
There are so many things you can worry about today, but worrying about being in the wrong does not have to be one of them. My dad often prays, “Lord, give me the wisdom to know what is right and the courage to do it.” What this verse is saying is that doing right is courage. It simplifies and clarifies your life. It simplifies what you are actually working for. So many times, instead of simply worrying about what is right, what would be the moral thing to do, we worry about how it will affect other people. We should not be oblivious to other people, but doing right is courageous.
Recently I was reading a book about the effects of our phones on our minds. A lot of mental illness comes because of anxiety that is exacerbated by social pressures brought to bear by our cell phones, particularly by social media. We are living in a virtual world where anxiety abounds. He quotes in his book about a God-shaped void in every human heart. That is a paraphrase of something that a Baptist preacher would say and Pascal, a French philosopher, said many years ago. What is ironic is that the author goes on to explain this God-shaped void with evolution. If we are evolving, then our morals are evolving. If our morals are evolving, there is no right or wrong, no boldness or confidence in a truth. There is simply shame when we fail to measure up to the consensus of the day.
Years ago on the Bill Rice Ranch, we used to have a lion. My grandfather bought a lion at a gas stop which also had a zoo near El Paso, Texas. We actually kept this lion, Noel, here on the Bill Rice Ranch. It will not surprise you that eventually we gave Noel away to the Memphis Zoo. Why? It was because our neighbor’s chickens were coming up missing and all the horses got really nervous because there was a lion on the loose. I’ve never seen a horse or a chicken chase a lion. Even if a water buffalo chased a lion, it wouldn’t eat the lion because that is not the way it works. The way it works is lions are bold. You can be bold today because boldness is confidence, not in the crowd, but in the truth.