Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn His Wrath away from him. Proverbs 24:17-18

Have you ever had an enemy? I have not had too many, yet the ones I have had have been an intense obsession. And in my mind's eye, the enemy seemed to be getting away with what they were doing. God seemed hardly concerned with the pain they were causing me. Before I read this verse, I laid in wait for my enemy's fall. I thought it was my reward to rejoice in their downfall....like when I was a child, my low snicker from behind a door when my brother got in trouble (sometimes for things I had done). Very irritating when it was my brother behind the door and not me. But it was not a reward, not a due. God did not want me to rejoice in the discipline of another person. He did not want to hear my whispered snicker from behind a door. It is not only because God will remove His Wrath, but because rejoicing of the misfortune of my enemy makes ME ugly. It makes me lower than anything my enemy could possibly do to me. I am not saying it is easy not to have joy in the downfall of another; in fact, the verse says "do not LET your heart rejoice". It is an act of the will not to let our whooping rise heavenward. When our enemy DOES fall, it is a greater witness of the Life of Jesus within us to be forgiving. To consider their downfall not with a whoop of joy, but with sober consideration. To the Glory of God.