Proverbs 11:27 He that diligently seeketh good procureth favour: but he that seeketh mischief, it shall come unto him. The book of Proverbs is wisdom literature, so keep this in mind as you read. It's like the man who returned his air mattress to the store complaining it wasn't sea worthy. He wanted the mattress to do something it wasn't made to do. Proverbs are not fortune cookies but wise words designed to teach us how to walk in the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1:1-7). They are short and sweet generalized principles God gave us to help us make the right decisions in our life.
Our text could have a spiritual application, the child of God who serves the Lord with gladness will be rewarded in Heaven, while the wicked will get his payment in Hell. That's a truth, but I don't believe that's the truth here. This proverb is comparing people in the world who get what they got coming to them. Generally speaking, this is how the world works, but not always. Sometimes the good guy doesn't get the girl and the guy in the black hat gets away with the crime. But again, a proverb is instructing us in how to live in the fear of the Lord and giving us principles to live by and generally speaking, doing good will be a blessing and sinning will bring sorrow to your life.
The man who is actively working for good will procure for himself good in return. In the first half of the proverb, the person isn't looking for favor, nor is he working to get blessings, but he's diligently searching to do good. The blessing is a byproduct of what he labors for, it's the unintended consequences of doing good. I'll be honest, sometimes it's hard to do good. As bad as it sounds, a person can get weary in well doing. But I've found that doing good, even when we don’t feel like it, generally comes with its own blessing. On the other hand, the man who is looking for mischief will find it and a whole lot more. He will get all the unintended consequences that come with wickedness. We love the pleasures of sin now but hate the consequences. So when a person pursues evil, he'll find it and then get to deal with all that goes along with it.
So why do we do bad things? Doing the cost benefit analysis, sin costs more pain in the long run than the temporary pleasure you might get out of it – but we do it anyway because that's our nature (Jeremiah 17:9-10). Wisdom tells us to stop, but we don't listen and despite the pain it brings us, we do it anyway. This proverb proves our dire spiritual condition. That's why we need a Saviour. We need someone to make us clean and give us a new heart (Ezekiel 36:25-27). By trusting in Christ, the Wisdom of God, you can be made clean.
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