“No tyrant ever invented a greater torment than envy,” said the great Roman Horace. How true! Envy corrodes the mind and forces its victim into a miserable state of perpetual fear, slavery, cynicism and discontent. Envy has no quality to commend it.
ENVY is murder in embryo. It may seem harsh to load envy with such a horrid accusation But it’s true . . . and verified by experience. Why did Cain kill his brother? Envy! Why did Joseph’s brothers plot to assassinate him? Envy!
ENVY is mental suicide. Solomon called envy the “rottenness of the bones” (Proverbs 14:30). Imagine the feebleness of the body when bones are rotten. Likewise, the soul becomes a hideous mass of corruption when it’s under the dominion of envy. As our test indicates, anger and wrath are bad, but envy is worse. Anger and wrath don’t last long, but envy burns on until it, like cancer, consumes its victim.
ENVY is the sin of shame. It’s so evil that no person wants to admit to it. People will sooner acknowledge pride or impurity than envy. It is so shameful that men employ a variety of tricks to hide it from themselves. They detect evil conduct in the person they envy. Or, if the conduct itself cannot be condemned, the action was faulty in timing or manner. Or, if no fault can be attached in these respects, the action issued from an improper motive. The envious person is made miserable by the success of others, seldom stopping to realize that hard work and positive attitudes are responsible for that success. Usually, envy is little more than a confession of our unwillingness to work. And the more excellent the conduct, the more obnoxious it is to the envious person. Solomon insists that for “every right work . . . a man is envied of his neighbor” (Ecclesiastes 4:4).
Now, look back at the sentences in bold type, beginning each paragraph in this article. There you see a putrid cluster of decayed fruit which grows on the envy vine. No other principle so completely bears the image of the devil. Satan envied Adam and Eve of their bliss, and never rested until he had robbed them of it. Not wonder James said the envious man’s “wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish” (James 3:15). How much nobler to learn to love, for “love envieth not” (1 Corinthians 13:4).
Rather than wasting time and energy on envy, we should, as Longfellow said, “Be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing . . . learn to labor and to wait.”
Onward Rejoicing,
John B. Daniels, Associate Minister
