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Prov. 10:3, "The LORD will not allow the righteous soul to famish, but He casts away the desire of the wicked."
Justice is not inherent in human nature. In other words, no one has a righteousness of his own. Thus this verse is not a reference to self-righteousness, but to “that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith” (Phil. 3:9). For no one is inherently righteous in God’s sight, (cf. Rom. 3:10, ff.), “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). “But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:5). That is to say, it is the Lord who clothes us with the garments of salvation, it is He who covers us with the robe of righteousness.
No man in his natural state accepts nor does he understand the things of the Spirit; he does not seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. But the righteous soul, being regenerated by the Holy Spirit as a result of God’s grace, hungers and thirsts for the things of the Spirit, he seeks the Kingdom of God and his righteousness; he “[puts] on the Lord Jesus Christ, and [makes] no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Rom. 13:14). On the other hand the wicked, whose god is his natural desires, seeks to satisfy the desires and passions of the flesh; he is prone to carnality and worldliness. But that in which the righteous soul delights is the spiritual food, the Word of God, which is the Light for the soul, the Bread of life, the Living Water, i.e. Christ – He nourishes the soul, sustains it and sanctifies it. Every righteous man hungers and thirsts for the Word of God, he pursues holiness and peace. Thus , the Lord never lets him starve, but supplies him with the spiritual food and resources that satisfy his soul and enable him to grow in godliness.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied”, declares the Lord in Mat. 5:6. That is to say, He who supplies the seed to the sower, and bread for food also attends to our spiritual needs by lavishing his grace upon us, in order that we may be well equipped to live a godly life. The Lord calls us in righteousness, holds us by the hand and watches over us. Anyone who delights in that which the Lord delights in is satisfied, the Lord attends to their spiritual needs. This is clearly affirmed by the Lord in John 15:7 when He declares, “If you abide in Me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” Ps. 37:4 reads, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
One of the characteristics of genuine believers is that they never reach a plateau in their life here on earth as far as the pursuit of godliness is concerned. As we grow in our walk with Christ our Lord our hunger for righteousness never ceases. On the contrary, there arises in us a greater desire to be conformed to the image of Christ, as we see more sins in our lives than before, not because we practice or indulge in grievous sins, but because we have come closer to the holiness of God, we have seen more of his glory and have become more aware of the wretchedness of our hearts. Hence our hatred for sin grows as our desire to be like our Saviour increases. In other words, our hunger for righteousness deepens as our knowledge of the holiness of God and of our sinfulness increases, and the good news is that the Lord never allows us to famish. As our hunger for righteousness increases, greater God’s supply for our spiritual growth becomes. The Lord continues to feed us as we hunger and thirst for righteousness, as we seek to live a humble and godly life. And this is greatly important in our walk with Christ, because the more our hunger increases, the more we are sanctified, the more we become conformed to the image of our Saviour; we pass from one level of holiness to the next. For the Lord in his grace continues to provide us with what our souls now delight in.
To the righteous the Lord says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Mat. 7:7). The Lord’s ear is attuned to the cry of the righteous, because that which the righteous hungers and thirsts for is according to the will and purposes of God; he loves what the Lord loves and hates what the Lord hates. Being baptised into the family of Christ by the Spirit of grace, he is a partaker of divine nature. “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24). They follow Christ in his walk and glorify God with their lives. And since the Lord our God wants us to be holy, because He is holy, so does He delight in those who pursue holiness, those who seek to be conformed to the image of Christ. Therefore He does not allow such to famish.
This is a comforting truth for us who believe in Christ because, as fallen creatures we do not look within ourselves to find the strength and the power to overcome the flesh and its desires that wage war within us; rather we look up to our Saviour whose Spirit sanctifies us and equips us for all good works. He has given us his Word to enlighten our souls, and gifted us with a means of grace (prayer) through which we can cry out to Him for help against the desires of the flesh. The Lord is our victory over the flesh, sin, worldliness, death and Satan. And nothing we seek from our Heavenly Father in order to subdue, to overcome the desires and passions of the flesh does He withhold it from us. “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him”, says 1 John 5:14-15.
The will of our Heavenly Father is our sanctification (cf. 1 Thess. 4:3), and so when we hunger and thirst for righteousness, He satisfies us because that is exactly what He desires for us, that we become holy, for He is holy. It is a comfort to know that our Heavenly Father is there to fulfill the desire that we have as Christians to grow in godliness, because if we were to look in our own strength to satisfy our spiritual needs, we would famish and remain into spiritual deadness forever. For we have over the flesh no power that is inherent in our being; we cannot overcome by our own effort sin in our lives. God alone by the power of the Holy Spirit grants us victory over the flesh; the Spirit of God who resides in us, believers, is the one who sanctifies us, He gradually kills sin in us by opposing the flesh. He who begins a good work in us brings it to completion; He finishes it.
The Lord pulls us out of the pit of darkness, He nourishes our souls and sanctifies us by his truth. And until the day He is going to glorify us He will never stop feeding us, He will never stop providing us with what we need to live a godly life, a life that brings glory to Him, a life that exalts Him. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:11-14).
As for the wicked, the Lord casts his desire away because he lives in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind; his soul delights in evil, in the things that satisfy the flesh. Prov. 21:10 reads, “The soul of the wicked desires evil; his neighbor finds no favor in his eyes.” Prov. 4:16-17 says, “They do not sleep unless they have done evil; and their sleep is taken away unless they make someone fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.”
The desires of the wicked are evil and are meant to satisfy the flesh. The flesh pursues that which is ungodly, it delights in: “adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and things like these” (Gal. 5:19-21). Such abominations do not and can never receive God’s approval, because He is holy; there is no darkness in Him. Although to accomplish his righteous and sovereign purposes, God sometimes allows evil to happen, He never mandates the wicked to do evil; He is never the cause of evil. What the wicked devise for evil, the Lord always means it for good. He does not partake in the evil schemes of the wicked nor does He tolerate them. The Lord hates evil and those who do them. The Lord casts the desire of the wicked away, because it is ungodly, it is sinful; it is an abomination in his sight. Prov. 15:9 reads, “The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but He loves him who pursues righteousness.”
The ear of the Lord is attuned to the cry of the righteous, but He hates all workers of iniquity (cf. Ps. 5:5) so much so that even their sacrifice is an abomination to Him (cf. Prov. 15:8). Therefore, since the wicked is always filled with the desire to do evil (cf. Prov. 4:16-17), they constantly face opposition from God; their evil schemes are overthrown, they are cast away by the holy God who does not take pleasure in wickedness, but brings the abominations of the wicked upon their own heads. Therefore, borrowing the words from Prov. 1:15-18, I urge you today! “Do not walk in the way with [the wicked]; hold back your foot from their paths, for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, but these men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives.”
It is written, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” (Ps. 1:1-6).