Minding Your Thoughts
A Biblical Overview of Obtaining and Maintaining a Biblical Thought Life
Proverbs 21:27 The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination: how much more, when he bringeth it with a wicked mind?
This is the only verse in the Bible that uses the phrase “wicked mind.” In fact, there is only one other time that the words wicked and mind are used in the same verse and that is in Colossians 1:21. However, in a seemingly disproportionate numerical anomaly, the word wicked is used 325 times in Scripture. Certainly, God has much to say to and about wickedness, but only once does He directly tie the two words “wicked mind” together. This is a nuance of the Bible in that the deeds of the wicked are mentioned over 300 times but only once is wickedness tied to the mind. However, this indicates that wickedness is more than just a work of the flesh, it is also the work of the mind. A wicked mind brings forth wicked actions just as a righteous mind brings forth righteous actions, for it is certain that thoughts always, sooner or later, result in actions. Proverbs 23:7 states it like this: For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he… Wickedness in its basic form is departing from God’s divine laws.
A wicked mind must be guarded against at all costs. It is one thing to make a mistake, to be wrong, or to commit an error of judgment or action. It is an entirely different thing to intentionally bring forth wicked actions from a wicked mind. How bad is wickedness? So bad that in Genesis 6 when Almighty God announced that He would destroy the earth this was the indictment: And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (6:5) Evidently the wickedness of a person is directly tied to the evil in their heart and the imagination of their mind. All the way back, in the mid 1500’s an English soldier and poet by the name of Sir Philip Sidney wrote, “Wickedness may well be compared to a bottomless pit, into which it is easier to keep one’s self from falling, than, being fallen, to give one’s self any stay from falling infinitely.” Consider Cain. He violated God’s law of sacrifice, which led to hatred, which led to murder. His was a story of the downward spiral of wickedness which all started in his mind.
The first phrase in our verse today makes it clear that on one level God finds even the sacrifice of the wicked abominable. But, to a greater degree, which we note by the use of the words …how much more… when people purposely, not in error, or through ignorance, or by mistake, but purposely bring sacrifices with a wicked mind this is more than abomination to Almighty God. The meaning of this thought from God is so grand and complex that it would take an entire book to attempt to scratch its surface. This is not the forum for that. But suffice it to say that whatever God means here, it isn’t good! Not by any means. A wicked mind is bad enough without attempting to cover it by feigning sacrifice. What hypocrisy!
In short, let it be repeated, guard your mind from wickedness at all costs.
May the Lord Bless and be pleased with your thought life today.
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