Being Wise as to What is Good and Innocent of Evil

Roman's 16:19-20

To finish up the letter that he wrote to the Roman's, Paul brings down the final gist of his writings in two verses: "For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." (ESV)

Dang, what a statement. I just want to dig right in! So, in the beginning, he says, "For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you..." Paul is giving them encouragement here. He is telling the Romans that their obedience to God is making him happy and he is proud to rejoice over them. Everyone loves a little encouragement, and that's what Paul is doing here. Then, though, he reminds them of something he wants them to stand by when he says, "But I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil." That's a children's song that I remember singing! "Be excellent, of what is good; be innocent, of evil." That's a great status or statement to stand by. He is telling them to master, to know, to live by everything that is good, and to stray, and avoid, and block out everything that is evil. So that when Christ comes back, we will be blameless and be called innocent of all that is evil; because, "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." Satan obviously has everything to do with evil. He is called "The Prince of the Earth", or otherwise known has the prince of evil. He thrives off of sin. So when it is said that God will crush Satan, that means all of evil will be crushed as well, which is why we must be innocent of evil. If we are innocent of evil, we will not be crushed, but will be saved. But, if we are not innocent of evil, we will be crushed with Satan as well. Then Paul just closes that paragraph with his normal letter closing.

I feel like the call of this verse is pretty clear: "Stray from evil and thrive off of what is good." God is good, Satan is evil. If we live off of what is good and "be wise as to what is good," we will be living with God. But if we live with evil, we will not be innocent of it and we will be crushed by the living God. Guys, we need to start throwing away the addictions or the parts in our lives where Satan has control and where there is no good. We will be crushed if we are living by evil, it is said so here. Here is a good statement someone told me: Do you believe in God? Yes. Do you believe in Satan? Yes. Do you believe God? Yes. Do you believe Satan? NO! There is a HUGE difference between believing something and believing in something! We need to stop falling for Satan's lies, and start falling God's arms.

Since we just finished Romans, I would like to close in another prayer:

God, thank you so much for the wisdom You poured out into us through the apostle Paul. We thank you for his letter to the Romans and all of the knowledge we can gain from it. We are thankful to be reading and writing this blog and understanding key concepts you want us to understand. I pray that somewhere in these 16 chapters in these 16 verses that we will be convicted and understand a change that needs to happen. I pray for renewing through the book of Romans and Paul's writing. We love You so much and couldn't be anymore thankful for all that You have blessed us with. Amen.