CHAPTER 27
YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN “ HOW TO GET UP WHEN YOU ARE DOWN” “Do not lie in wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous. Do not plunder his resting place. For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked shall fall by calamity.” Proverbs 24:15-16
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et’s also look at how this verse reads in the Message translation; “Don’t interfere with good people’s lives; don’t try to get the best of them. No matter how many times you trip them up, God-loyal people don’t stay down long; soon they’re up on their feet, while the wicked end up flat on their faces.” Did you ever you get the idea that the righteous man just never makes mistakes? Did you ever think that really good Christians never fail? Or that pastors probably never sin anymore? Maybe you thought that your failures proved you were somehow unworthy to be a Christian? Solomon is telling us that the distinguishing feature of a “righteous” man or woman is not that they never fall, but that even 170
