Companions with Who?

I have not sat with idolatrous mortals, nor will I go in with hypocrites. I have hated the assembly of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked. (Psalm 26:4-5)

This is a difficult statement since it is almost impossible to NOT be around sinners. We are always around wicked people. The point is not one of proximity but companionship. You can be associated with wicked people; but they are not and never to be your intimate companions. That is the opposite of fellowship. Paul says there can be no companionship or fellowship between light and darkness (II Cor 6:14).

As we live and work in this world, we have no choice but to associate with the ungodly, but we do not have to sit with them. To sit with others means to spend time with them, enjoying their company, relaxing, and signaling our approval of them by our presence. Those whom we sit with affect our behavior. Though it was necessary for David to deal with deceitful men, he made sure not to sit with them.

David doesn’t want to learn from them and he has committed his life to not being influence by their wicked ways. He will not sit in their ways or go with them. This also sheds a little light on his humility, because he realizes companionship with them might result in his own compromise.

In his book, Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis makes this comment about this reality: “Many people have a very strong desire to meet celebrated or ‘important’ people, including those whom they disapprove…But I am inclined to think a Christian would be wise to avoid, where he decently can, any meeting with people who are bullies, lascivious, cruel, dishonest, spiteful and so forth. Not because we are ‘too good’ for them. In a sense because we are not good enough. We are not good enough to cope with all the temptations, nor clever enough to cope with all the problems, which an evening spent in such society produces.” David was not good enough to resist them in his own strength; that is why he is doing everything he can to no walk with them.

That is why David says, “I have hated the assembly of evildoers.” The psalmist is speaking against those who cook up their schemes; he runs in the opposite direction of them. He hates what they love. He detests and loathes them. He is personally applying the words of Psalm 1:1 – “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.”

Bad company corrupts a man with good morals. Make your most intimate friends those who are also in the family of God.

Lewis, 71.