Why do the fears of the godless come true?
Text: Proverbs 24, 28
Hosts:
Tim DeFor
Vicki Hitzges
Nathan Norman
Narrator: Brian French
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
© 2026 CrossTalk Global
Brian: You don't have to look far to find non-Christians succeeding in life. Somewhere nearby, there's a man with a better car than you, a woman with a more impressive job title and better salary, Parents with better-behaved kids who are more successful in school. Or maybe there's a non-believer with a phenomenal marriage. There are plenty of non-believers right next door living better than you. It looks like they could never fail. But over time, maybe decades or an entire lifetime, we can see the many concerns of the unbeliever manifest in their lives. Why do the fears of the godless come true? They're free to pursue their desires without constraints. So why do they fail? Listen in as we find the answer in the book of Proverbs. Today, while Dr. Kent is away teaching with Crosstalk, join Vicki Hitzges, Nathan Norman, and guest host Tim DeFor as they discover Solomon's insight in Proverbs 10:24-28. Welcome to Crosstalk, a Christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible, but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life into all our lives. I'm Brian French. Today, Vicki Hitzges, Nathan Norman, and Tim DeFor continue our journey through Proverbs. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Proverbs chapter 10, verse 24 and verse 28, as we join their discussion.
Nathan: Hey, Tim and Vicki, how are you guys doing?
Vicki: Very well. How about you?
Tim: Doing well, thank you for asking.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah, hanging in there. Okay, so what kinds of things do people hope for, just in general? Not the super spiritual ones, but what kinds of things do people hope for?
Vicki: Oh, I think everybody wants to be healthy and happy.
Tim: Yeah, for sure. They want their family to be safe. They want good relationships and a sense of security.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Vicki: I remember years ago my mother saying, I bet God doesn't hear more prayers about anything than for people to lose weight.
Nathan: Only in America though, right?
Vicki: Yeah, yeah, yeah, only in America.
Nathan: I heard a comedian once, he was talking about that where he said, you know, can you imagine you go up to heaven as an American and and, uh, you're talking to everybody and they're like, hey, what'd you die of? And they're like, oh man, I froze to death. And another guy's like, oh, I starved to death. Oh yeah, me too, I starved. I said, what'd you die of, American? He's like, oh, I, I was too fat, right? Yeah, that's, um, uh, but yeah, certainly people pray for material things and external finances, right? I need, I need this bill paid. I need some money. I need help with that. What are some of the legitimate fears people have? What are the things that concern people and keep them up at night?
Vicki: Well, since we're on a Christian podcast, I don't know that there are legitimate fears. God says, "Don't worry about anything." Okay, fine.
Nathan: Let me revise my question, Vicki.
Vicki: Okay, you revise it. You revise it.
Nathan: What are some understandable fears that people have?
Vicki: I think the things we've named, people are worried about their health. They're worried about running out of money. People worry about their kids and the decisions that they make.
Tim: Yeah, for sure.
Vicki: I can keep going. People worry about— sorry, Tim— people worry about retirement, not having enough money.
Nathan: Oh, yeah.
Tim: Yeah, political unrest.
Vicki: Yes.
Tim: What decisions leadership is making. I think they worry about loss of job and the economy. I think some of those things.
Vicki: Yes, yes.
Nathan: Yeah. No, that's true. So today we're looking at two of Solomon's Proverbs because they're basically the same and they teach us about fulfilling our hopes and avoiding our fears. Vicki, you want to read Proverbs 10:24?
Vicki: You bet.
Nathan: 24 says, "What the wicked dreads will come upon him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted." Okay, so we start with the wicked, end with the righteous, and then the second one is very similar, but it starts with the righteous and ends with the wicked. Tim, you want to take that one? Sure. Uh, verse 28, "The hope of the righteous brings joy, but the expectation of the wicked will perish." Okay, so just as a reminder to our listeners, generally speaking, especially in Proverbs, the wicked are people who choose to live without God in their lives. It's not that they're, you know, Hitler or Stalin or the absolute worst person you can think of. They are people who choose to live as if God doesn't exist or God doesn't matter. They ignore God as they make their decisions in life. And the righteous are those who choose to follow God imperfectly. Doesn't mean they're perfect, doesn't mean their walk is, is without blemish, but they are people who are choosing to pursue God and his ways. So on the surface level, it sounds like the godless will have all of their worst fears realized while those who follow God will get whatever they want. But there's examples of that not being true, right? When have you guys seen the wicked succeed?
Vicki: Oh, you see that commonly. You see Hollywood people making a lot of money. You see politicians making a lot of money. You see the wicked succeed a lot.
Tim: Yeah, it seems like people who can make decisions that they're not constrained by moral— morality or character, making behind this seen deals, I think business, those who perhaps can get away with crime because of their position or their power.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the other side of it, when have you seen the righteous go unfulfilled?
Tim: Yeah, similarly, you think of— I think of lack of justice when there's, you know, if somebody famous and powerful has something bad happen to their family, it seems like justice is pursued aggressively. But if it's really somebody that people don't know and they don't really have a position of power, it feels like maybe they don't get as much attention given to their concern. And I also think of missionaries that sacrifice, our brothers and sisters who are persecuted around the world.
Nathan: Yeah.
Tim: Yeah.
Nathan: Vicki, you ever see the righteous go unfulfilled?
Vicki: Well, the first thing I thought of, I thought about the missionaries too. Yeah. If they're ever taken in captivity or kidnapped, there's a Years ago, there was a couple that was kidnapped and people knew about it. I remember praying hard. It was in the news, but he ended up getting shot and she, she went around and told about it later. But if that had been the Trumps, that would have gotten solved in a couple of days. You know, it's just different. And they were definitely lovely, righteous people.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah. If they were— if there was someone who had positions of power, yeah, you're right, we would have sent in the Marines, literally. But missionaries, man, you know, who cares? Yeah, no, it's hard. I can remember we had a family friend and she went through a bitter divorce and bitter, bitter custody battle. And man, she fought and advocated to get her daughter out of an abusive situation. Pretty much for the entire life of the daughter. She— until the daughter was 18 and she could make her own decisions, she fought and fought and fought and fought the courts. I think it was like 16 years she ended up fighting to try and get her away out of an abusive situation. And, you know, the only thing that happened was the kid aged enough so that she could get out, right? That doesn't— certainly it doesn't seem right because the father had money and power. Exactly. Yeah.
Vicki: Ah, that's terrible.
Nathan: Yeah. And the family friend didn't, didn't have the connections. And, uh, everyone said, oh, she's crazy. And she wasn't crazy. Uh, yeah, it's, it's hard. So we can see exceptions to a surface-level reading of these proverbs. Uh, so what, what exactly Solomon talking about here? It's easy to read these as short-term promises, but I don't really think that's what's happening. I think these proverbs are about long-term shifts of priorities. This is about a transformation of a person's desires. The wicked are far from God, and the further a person gets from God, the further they are from his plan, which results in getting further away from reality. The outcome is consequences and unfulfilled desires, because if they're trying to pursue something that doesn't exist or doesn't happen in reality and is outside of God's plan, it's not going to be fulfilled, and they're going to be frustrated, and there will be consequences. Uh, the righteous, on the other hand, are moving closer to God. And the closer we get to God, the closer we get to his plan. And that means the closer we get to reality, which results in our desires becoming very close to God's desires. So our hopes will be realized as we experience joy as we join in God's plans. God's desires become our desires. His will becomes our will, and we can more clearly see his plan in everything that we're doing because we're following his plan, at least more closely. So the fears of the godless come true because only those who follow God will have their desires granted. When we pursue God, God's will becomes our will, his desires become our desires. Let's look at this practically. Let's start with the negative. When have you seen people's sinful desires bring disappointment?
Tim: All the time. You know, I think of people that we know that are in our lives and probably in your lives that they pursue a relationship in unhealthy ways, and then they— seems like everything's going well, and then they get pregnant before they're in a healthy marriage, and then It causes even more strife in the relationship. Just the other day, my truck broke down and the closest place to stop was a parking lot at a casino. So I went in and the sadness that I see of people just sitting around hoping for the next big win and they're not happy. Maybe they had a big win at some point, I don't know. But just ongoing deterioration of hope, I think. I think of affairs that lead to loss of marriage, loss of kids, loss of financial stability. There's so many different ways.
Nathan: Yeah. Harder question: when have you seen people's lives transformed? And by that, I mean what's gonna happen is if you come to faith in Christ and you start to pursue him more closely, When have you seen their dreams and desires transformed before your eyes? Right? This is a harder question, but when we are pursuing Christ, he changes the kinds of things that we want. Can you think of any examples of that?
Vicki: Well, I can. You're going to have to help me with the name, but it's happening right now. I don't know if it will stay this way, but Russell Brand— is that the comedian?
Brian: Okay.
Nathan: Yeah.
Vicki: I always liked him because he's funny. I'll give you a pass on almost anything if you're funny. But you know, he didn't love the Lord at all, didn't even know what he was missing. He was just debauched but funny. And now that he loves the Lord, wow, has his life changed. And he will talk about how debauched he was, and he regrets it. And I mean, he's just— he's different. And what he wants and his desires now are— I mean, it's about face. It's fascinating. He's not even funny anymore, really. But he's not. But his dreams and his desires are completely different. And he realizes that what he had before, everything he was chasing— fame, money, everything— he didn't want anymore because he wants Jesus Christ. And given who he used to be, he had fame, he had money, he had all that. He just talks about how it was nothing. It wasn't— it was nothing. Now he has the Lord and he loves that his life is transformed and he has new dreams and new desires. It's fascinating.
Nathan: Yeah.
Brian: Yeah.
Nathan: Listeners, from a few years down the road, you'll have to pipe in and get back to us and let us know where this trajectory has gone, right, with such a new believer. But hopefully The hope, the absolute hope is that this is one of the seeds that fell on good soil and it grows and grows and grows and nothing chokes it out.
Vicki: And I would challenge you, if you're listening, pray for him because, you know, Satan's going to want him back.
Nathan: He's going to want to snatch that seed right off the path.
Vicki: Exactly. Pray for Russell Brand.
Tim: Yeah.
Nathan: Good, good, good word. Good word.
Tim: There's a young man in our church who is from another country. He's a student here. And he started attending, and he felt challenged by something one of our elders said during communion offering time to give, and he started giving, and then he started connecting with some of the blessings that he's experiencing in his life. Shortly after that, he had a big financial need, and shortly after that, it was fulfilled in a way that was unexpected. And then when he graduated, the challenge is to get a job in his field, but he was able to get a job in his field, and he is just so excited. Not that God is necessarily just pouring His blessings into his life, which is true, but what's exciting to him is that it made it real, like God is really there, and He's communicating with him through his life experiences. Wow. So, so little things like that, like he started aligning his life in one way and it spills into other areas of his life as well. And so the excitement that we see in his life is pretty cool.
Nathan: Wonderful. No, that's fantastic. I remember there's a dear sister in the Lord who unfortunately passed away 2 years ago, but she, she would come to church. I am not kidding you, when It was one of the first Sundays that I was at my church. I started as a pastor, I was young, and she was really angry about something that you should not get really angry about. I think it was like whoever was leading worship that day, right? And they hit a flat note or something like that. And she literally cornered me. I mean, she cornered me to the point where I am in a corner and she is yelling at me in the corner, right? Backed into a corner. She surprised me and she's yelling at me, "I can't worship with that man!" and just yelling. And as time went on, it was, you know, she would get angry if somebody parked where she liked to park at the church, and she'd get angry if someone was teaching her Sunday school lesson, or just so frustrated and angry. And I got to see over the course of years, you know, I knew her for 12 years, her begin to submit herself to the Word of God, to submit herself to Jesus. And as she grew closer, you know, you kind of have the office staff and you have those individuals who constantly are complaining or causing trouble and issue. And someone maybe about 2 or 3 years into my time there had said, "Oh, she's going to get really upset over this decision." And I don't want to hear it from her. And I said, well, wait. And I was about to say, yeah, well, we'll pray that things, you know, work out or we'll manage that. And I was like, yeah, but when's the last time we saw that? And everyone just paused and thought, whoa.
Vicki: Hmm.
Nathan: And we realize she's been changing and she's been changing because she has been getting closer to Jesus. The rage that she used to feel over inconsequential things started to melt away. The pettiness just evaporated. Her generosity grew. Her love for other people grew. Her love for people that did things that annoyed her grew. Her, um, her self-awareness grew to the point where I remember at work one time she said, you know, I lost it on a co-worker and I've ruined my Christian witness. And I said, you didn't ruin your Christian witness. You just proved that your Christian witness is true, that you're a sinner in need of grace. So Your Christian witness is only ruined if you don't go back and apologize. And she went back and apologized, and this person eventually became a Christian because was like, "I've never been apologized to as an adult, ever." Wow. So over the course of time, as she got closer to Jesus, God's desires became her desires. God's will became her will. And so the things that God wanted in her life, she also wanted. So we struggle with this though, like becoming one of the righteous, becoming someone who pursues after Jesus. As Christians, how can we bring our desires closer to God's desires?
Vicki: I think one way to do it is sometimes when I've been reading the Bible or I go to church or I, you know, whatever, sometimes after Crosstalk even, I realize that my desires are not God's desires. And I'll just tell God that. I'll say, "You know, I realize I'm falling short," or, "I used to be good at this, and now I'm not," or, "I've never been good at this, and I want to be. Help me to be. Help me to be aware of it. Help bring situations in my life where I can do X, Y, and Z. And when I get there, help me to want to do it. Help me to know how to do it." Give me the boldness, the wisdom. And God will do that. God wants to answer those prayers.
Nathan: Yeah. No, that's good.
Brian: Yeah.
Tim: Yeah, along the same lines, I would affirm that. Even every once in a while stepping back and thinking to myself, what is God's greatest desire for me? And then compare my desires for myself to what his greatest desires. They're not mutually exclusive.
Nathan: Sure.
Tim: But my greatest, God's greatest desire for me may not be to be comfortable right now. It may not be that His greatest desire is that I don't accept correction or somebody outside speaking into my life. It might not be that He wants me to hold a grudge, even though those are some of the things I might be feeling. Or financial success. It's not that He is opposed to that, but He's opposed to that if it's taking place the place of something that's greater. So even stepping back and saying, okay, reminding he wants me to become more like his son, develop his character in my life. He wants me to trust him with everything, my today and my eternity, just big picture stuff. And then using that as a filter on some of the things that I've been putting my heart into.
Nathan: Hmm.
Tim: It corrects me too often. When I stop and do that.
Nathan: Yeah, well, and that's a good image of the righteous, right? The righteous— it's not a one-time event. The righteous— a righteous person is somebody who is regularly pursuing God, right? So course correction after course correction after course correction throughout our lives. We're always, always, always following after him. Not just, I made a decision once and that's it. No, that decision was important, but you have to continue to pursue him.
Vicki: It's like with GPS redirecting.
Nathan: Oh, that's a good image. That's a really good image. So why do the fears of the godless come true? Because only those who follow God will have their desires granted. I was building a shelving system in our basement last month. Shelves need to be precise, and I was measuring the cuts multiple times, and I used a tool called a square, if you're familiar with that. It makes sure everything is at a perfect right angle. So I'm assembling this, all the cuts are correct, I'm, I'm using the square, everything is perfectly at a right angle, at a 90-degree angle. And, uh, and then I back up and I realize there's something wrong. This doesn't look right, it doesn't feel right, I don't think that this is square. And I use my tool and no, it says it's perfect. And I don't know, I, I It didn't seem right. So I got my backup square because of course you have to have more than one tool.
Tim: Of course.
Nathan: And guess what? The first tool was off by a few degrees and messed up the whole project. I had to unassemble it and then reassemble it over again. The calibration on that first square was wrong. Even though it has one job and one job only, it messed it up.
Vicki: The square was wrong?
Nathan: The square was wrong. I had two squares. One square was square, one square wasn't square. And the good square said the other square was wrong.
Vicki: Wow.
Nathan: So if our— in the same way, if our desires are off just a little bit, we are going to pursue ungodly things that will lead us unfulfilled or with terrible consequences. Like Vicki said, that's why we have to have the GPS. Redirect, redirect, redirect. Right. Tim was saying, you know, we have to throw our desires over to God over and over, constantly and constantly. Why? Well, because Solomon said, what the wicked dreads will come upon him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted. The hope of the righteous brings joy, but the expectation of the wicked will perish. Make sure that your soul is calibrated to God.
Brian: Sometimes it seems like the godless succeed because they can freely pursue any dream they have. But only those who follow God will truly have their desires granted. Make sure your soul is aligned with God. I trust that today's discussion of God's word has been helpful and serves as an encouragement to not just be hearers of the word but doers. Together, let's bring God's word to life, to our lives this week. The Crosstalk Podcast is a production of Crosstalk Global, equipping biblical communicators so every culture hears God's voice. To find out more about this educational nonprofit organization, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org. Crosstalk is training leaders in Bucharest, Moldova, Southern California, Kenya, and Kansas this season. Help us train the next generation of biblical communicators. All you have to do is click Donate in the show notes and make a donation of any size. You can also support this show by rating it on whatever platform you're listening to us. Be sure to listen Listen next Friday as we continue to learn from God's wisdom in the book of Proverbs. You won't want to miss it.
Nathan: If you have a Bible handy, turn to Proverbs 10:24 and 28 as we join their discussion. Wow, I almost just said, hey, Kent and Vicki, right off the bat. Oh, already failed.