The one thing that is immediately apparent in this proverb is the hand of God.

It is a hand that brings about God’s will to both the wicked and to the righteous.

For by His hand that which the wicked fear shall certainly happen and that which the righteous desire shall be granted.

Now if you are one of God’s children you stand in awe at what God has planned for you but in the body of sin in which you live you are unable to fully grasp all that your father has planned for you.

Our minds are not capable of knowing the marvels of heaven and eternity from the perspective that we have here on earth.

But God has revealed to us in his word that He is a bountiful God.

That bounty is expressed to us in the simple act of planting one seed and seeing the bounty of fruit, that seed, under the direction of the hand of God, brings forth.

For it not only brings forth fruit but it brings forth seed for further bounty.

God’s children have been blessed to be made in God’s image and given dominion over the fish of the sea, the foul of the air, over the cattle, and over every creeping thing.

God purposed to bless us in the beginning over and above that which any of us could imagine.

He has given us the ability to be fruitful and to multiply, to extend our lives to future generations.

To be one of God’s children is to know that goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and to also know that my future is to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Psalm 31:19, expresses this message so well,  Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!

And Psalms 65:11-13 expresses this message further,  Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness: and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.

And Psalm 107:8 reminds us of God’s overwhelming goodness,  Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

Our God is the one who daily loadeth us with benefits.

Paul in his letter to the Ephesians said He was the God who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.

From our perspective we might say he goes overboard in his care for us.

We cannot grasp the depth of His grace toward us.

He rewards small acts of faith with overwhelming bounty.

Jesus told us that faith the size of a mustard seed may result in the moving of a mountain.

Think about the immensity of eternal life which results from the simple act of trusting God’s son, Jesus Christ, as your savior.

Can you grasp eternal life spent in the presence of such a God?

No one can, for we dwell in a body of sin, but our God who is a God of overwhelming gifts to men, gives us a taste of His goodness even in this life in which we are given the life giving gifts of His spirit.

Who gives you the ability to love, from whence comes your joy and peace and longsuffering and gentleness, from whence comes your goodness, faith, meekness and temperance, except from the hand of our loving Father?

We can see no end to His grace extended toward his children.

A lady named Annie Johnson Flint who lived from 1866-1932 captured this in song when she wrote.

He giveth more grace

His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,

His power no boundary known unto men,

For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,

He giveth and giveth and giveth again.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,

When our strength has failed ere the day is half-done,

When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,

Our Father's full giving is only begun.

But this same spirit of giving, this spirit of His grace is seen in God’s spirit of taking.

For the same energy God displays in giving, is displayed in that which is taken from the wicked.

God in Hosea 8:7 did not say if you sow the wind you will reap the wind.

No, he said, if you sow the wind you will reap the whirlwind.

So God will also, from our perspective, go overboard in how He deals with the wicked for our thoughts and our ways are not like God’s thoughts and ways.

For as we see from our proverb, that which the wicked fears shall come upon him.

The men of Babel said let us build a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad.

They feared the loss of power for they saw power in numbers, in joining together with others of like mind.

They feared being scattered but that which they feared came about for God confounded their speech.

Again, unintended consequences came about which brought about the realization of their fears.

As we read in Genesis 11:8,  So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

Exactly that which they feared came about and it came about by the hand of God.

The king of Israel, joining in battle with Jehoshaphat, feared being noticed in the battle as a king so he disguised himself, I suppose as a common soldier.

He knew the enemy would go to great lengths to kill the leader of their opposition.

But he forgot that God can see through any disguise and that God’s hand can guide any arrow, even an arrow that was shot without the aim of a man.

So that which the king of Israel feared, his death, came about at God’s direction for the Bowman shot an arrow at a venture not knowing that in shooting an arrow he was God’s servant.

Again exactly that which the king of Israel feared came about and it came about by the hand of God.

Remember how King Belshazzar’s fears were realized soon after he trembled to the point of his knees knocking against each other as he contemplated the message being written on the wall by the hand of God.

Faithful Daniel declared to him that God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it, thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting; thy kingdom is divided

It did not take God very long to see to it that this evil king’s fears came about for in that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain as God’s handwriting on the wall foretold.

Isaiah 57:20,21, tells us the condition of the wicked,  But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.

That which is taking place today in the gulf of Mexico is a picture of that which is expressed in this verse.

A troubled sea bringing up mire and dirt.

So as God’s grace extends beyond the grasp of His children so too does God’s anger and wrath against the wicked extend beyond their grasp.

As George Lawson writes in his commentary on Proverbs: "Ten thousand times greater misery than he can apprehend is appointed to him for the portion of his cup, by the irreversible sentence of his Almighty Judge. His guilty conscience does sometimes torment him with fear where no fear is, but if he escapes the hand of man, he shall fall into the hands of the living God; and if he is not struck down by the storm of lightning, his day will come to drop into hell."

So the wicked, who in this life are like the troubled sea, have but one place to go after the judgment.

They are doomed to their final troubled sea, a place called the lake of fire where their worm dies not and the fire is not quenched.

For there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.

It is interesting to think how the wicked and the righteous choose the results of fear.

For the wicked choose a slavish fear which brings upon them that which they fear.

But the righteous choose the fear of God which brings to them more blessings than they could ever count throughout eternity.

God extends his hand to the wicked to be saved.

Proverbs 1 tells us that He cries without, he cries in the streets, in the chief places of concourse, in the gates.

But when that hand of grace is rebuffed God says to the wicked

I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;  But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:  I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;  When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.  Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:  For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:  They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.  Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.  For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.  But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.

So thanks be to God you nor I have to be counted among the wicked for Jesus saves.

Aren’t those two words marvelous to your ears.

Jesus saves. I remember those words painted on the side of the brick wall of Cicero Bible Church, the church my wife attended as a child.

Those words are still there I believe, right in the heart of Cicero, Illinois.

Thousands of people see those words every year and they are words that never get old. Jesus saves.

Jesus says,  Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

There is rest for those in the troubled sea and that rest is only found in Jesus Christ.

And that brings us to the second part of this proverb: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted.

The wicked fear, they shun, that which will indeed come upon them but the desire of the righteous contains no fear for the desire of the righteous is all wrapped up in God’s grace.

The righteous have a desire that God wishes to grant and it will be granted indeed.

For the desire of the righteous is pure, for it is within the confines of God’s will as revealed in His word.

For God delights to grant that which fits His program, that which brings him honor and glory.

Some of us meet for prayer on Saturday mornings to pray for the ministry and on our prayer card we are reminded of God’s desire to meet our desire by these two verses:

John 15:7-8,  If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

And John 14:13-14,  And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

I read these verses at the beginning of our prayer time and it affects my prayer.

My thoughts are captured to the restrictions that God places on prayer.

I am not to pray for any old thing or in any old state of mind or mood.

I am to come to pray meditating on the truths of these verses for these truths will straighten your back in prayer.

God does not wish for us to pray outside of abiding in Christ, outside of his words abiding in us, outside of coming to him in the name of his blessed Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thousands of prayers every day from all religions are trying to reach the ear of God.

But God filters prayer for most prayers are like Spam e-mail that goes into a file which will be deleted without even one being read.

God’s word is specific as to what God hears.

He delights to hear from his children who delight in the Lord for those children will ask according to His will, and therefore he will give them the desires of their heart.

I John 5:14,  And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: (our prayers are no longer in the spam folder)  And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

Lest we think that God answers prayer like a fast food restaurant answers orders, we should remember that God takes into account every need we have as he answers prayer.

Can you imagine McDonalds saying NO to your Big Mac order?

The clerk looks at your frame and looks at your order and changes the Big Mac to a salad.

Well in a way God does this. He takes into account everything.

For He may try our faith and patience as He answers prayer.

God intends for us to grow in grace as he answers prayer.

He may not answer them as you would expect him to answer but he answers according to what pleases him and for your ultimate benefit.

But God’s word is sure for if we delight ourselves in Him you can be sure that he will give you the desires of your heart.