“The Wrong That Seems So Right"

    Our less than perfect knowledge, coupled with less than perfect motivation, sometimes convinces us of a course that appears destined for glory, but which ends in futility and frustration.

    "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Proverbs 14:12).

    Among the reasons for the humility to which God calls humanity, our own survival appears near the top of the list.  How easily we can be dangerously wrong when we are completely convinced of our cause or our opinion.  Delusion plagues the human race, both corporately and individually, and the most godly of born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are not exempt from the "seemeth right" that actually leads to "ways of death."

    Our hope lies in the awareness of our inclination to delusion, and in the availing ourselves of God's means of saving us from the wrong that seems so right.

    "Search me, o God, and know my heart.  Try me and know my thoughts.  See if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).

    "All Scripture is given by God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (II Timothy 3:16).

    "Faithful are the wounds of a friend" (Proverbs 27:6).

    We desperately require the Lord, His Word, and His children in order to be saved from our fanciful misconceptions.  The frequent prayer for His searching of our hearts, coupled with an open Bible and a sincere willingness to humble ourselves before the counsel of faithful believers keeps us in the place of redeeming humility.  "Tell me where I am wrong, Father, especially in those matters where I am deluded into the believing a rightness that is actually darkness."  Few spiritual attitudes and sensibilities more provide safe passage through the course of our lives, leading to the way of life known only by those willing to acknowledge that the "seemeth right" often isn't.

"The commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life."

(Proverbs 6:23)

Weekly Memory Verse

     Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

(Ephesians 5:1) 

"The Pit and the Ditch"

      Sometimes it seems that the wicked get away with their wickedness.  They don't.

     "He made a pit and dug it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.  His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate" (Psalm 7:15-16).

     "The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (Romans 1:18).

    Built into creation are inviolable laws of reaping and sowing that ensure the consequences of sin, particularly regarding those who dig pits and ditches to harm others.  Moreover, God executes His wrath against the pit and the ditch diggers.  The judgment begins immediately, but its consequences often do not outwardly manifest themselves in a manner we can see.  The Psalmist cried out, "O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, show Thyself!… How long shall the wicked triumph?" (Psalm 94:1; 3).  We may wonder the same as dealers of violence seem to happily and blithefully execute their cruelty.  

    The truth of the matter first involves the inner sorrow and turmoil that always results from sin.  Even pathological murderers suffer this immediate fate as they "kick against the pricks" of God's laws (Acts 9:5).  The Holy Spirit also moves against sin in the deepest environs of the violent heart, ensuring an unrest and misery beneath the surface of awareness that inevitably finds its way into the conscious experience of the offender.  Open judgment will follow, perhaps after what may seem to us a long season, and as in the case of Haman and Mordecai in the book of Esther, the wicked ends up hanging on the gallows he built for the just (Esther 7:10).

   Sometimes grace interrupts the sad process, as in the case of the Apostle Paul.  A man of violence, as executed upon Christians, became a man of love, as expressed to Christians.  We do well to pray for the same in others who seek our harm.  In those who will not turn from their wickedness, we need not fear that God overlooks their cruelty, nor that they somehow escape the reaping of their sowing.  They don't, either in the immediate or the longterm.  The pit and the ditch await all who dig them to the hurt of others as their "violent dealing" inevitably crashes down upon their own pate.

"The LORD is known by the judgment which He executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands."

(Psalm 9:16)

Weekly Memory Verse

     Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

(Ephesians 5:11)

    

   

"To Know In Part"

    The first man Adam succumbed to the temptation of seeking greater knowledge than he was equipped to possess - "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it.  For in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die… he did eat" (Genesis 2:17; 3:6).

    Conversely, the "second man" (the Lord Jesus Christ), willingly sacrificed omniscience (infinite knowledge) in order to redeem us from our sins - "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father" (Mark 13:32).  

    Without sacrificing His divinity, the Lord Jesus took upon Himself the limitations of our humanity, including our incomplete possession of knowledge and facts.  This involves a sacrifice of incredible degree and proportion.  What would it be like to know all as God, but then to only "know in part" as man? (I Corinthians 13:9).  I find this aspect of our Savior's condescension to be among  the most wondrous revelations of His great love for us.  Indeed, consider how disturbing lack of knowledge and unawareness can be for ourselves, whose frame of reference involves far less than omniscience.  What would such experience be like for One with infinite knowledge as His eternal background and history?  We cannot even imagine such a challenge and the pains that would accompany not knowing.

    The Lord Jesus lived His earthly life in dependence upon His Father.  "The Son can do nothing of Himself… I live by the Father… the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works" (John  5:19; 6:57; 14:10).  He lived such a life as we live, as a human being reliant on God (again, without relinquishing the fact of His deity).  Our Savior thus knows what it means not to know.  He knows what it means to look to the Father for wisdom and knowledge.  He knows the question mark of the heart, as it were, as opposed to the Heavenly exclamation point of His pre-incarnate existence as the "from everlasting" Son of God (Psalm 90:2).  

    We do well to remember such sublime and solemn truth when we do not know facts that would seem to benefit us.  In comparison to the Lord Jesus, our challenge recedes into "light affliction" (II Corinthians 4:17).  Surely His was great affliction, to the degree He cried out in agonized bewilderment on the cross, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?!" (Matthew 27:46).  Our Lord was more than willing to bear such pain of heart and mind for our sakes in order to one day fully redeem us "to know, even as also I am known" (I Corinthians 13:12)

"The Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that Himself doeth: and He will show Him greater works than these, that ye may marvel."

(John 5:20)

Weekly Memory Verse

     Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

(Ephesians 5:11)