Seeking pleasure, or seeking life

“Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil.”
-Proverbs 4:14

What is it we value in our society? What character traits do we seek to emulate? You know, if you ask people who they admire, you’re going to get the strangest mix of egotistical sports figures, power-hungry politicians, movie stars that can’t seem to stay married to the same person for more than a year, and then like the Pope or Mother Teresa. Or you’ll get some really ambiguous group like “single mothers.”

You’ll begin to realize that we don’t admire people anymore for their character or their bravery. We admire then for their position or wealth. Then we throw in Mother Teresa so we don’t look callous. Or we name a group so we look noble, but again, that group is not admired for the worth of character, but for something else.

We have become so hardened in our thinking about morality, and right and wrong, and character, that it doesn’t even enter our heads when voting for a politician or following an actor or wearing the jersey of a particular athlete. That’s doesn’t come into the equation at all.

I ask all of this because our society has accepted a great deal of what previous generations have scorned. We have allowed and embraced behavior that we never have before. We have applauded those who seek their own pleasure above all else, and we think that’s a good way to live.

The verse we’re looking at today has some simple advice. “Don’t do evil.” Our society might reply in a number of different ways. It may say, “Evil is subjective; it doesn’t really exist.” Or it may say, “As long as you’re not hurting someone, what’s the harm?”

But there is evil. There is wrong. And those people who try to deny it will still get angry if they are cheated out of some money. Why? Because in their hearts they know that some things are just wrong.

Right and wrong are absolutes. They are objective, not subjective. They are like that because they were set down by God and defined. These are things that are right, He said, and these things wrong.

No matter what this society says, this verse really does remain a simple one. Don’t do evil. Don’t go down that trail. Turn to good. This is what God expects of us, and He will judge those who do wrong.

Which is all of us. See, it’s not just the completely immoral person who will be damned forever, but everyone who has sinned. Even pride, lust, and greed taints us far too much for Heaven. God is holy and just, and He demands that we be the same way. Only we haven’t. We have sought ourselves; we have chased our own lusts; we have crawled for more, more, more.

The good news is that we can turn back in the right direction. We can come back to God. We can’t do it alone. No, we cannot earn His love. But in mercy, He sent His Son, Jesus, to die on our behalf for the forgiveness of sins. He took our punishment upon Himself, and He rose after the third day to provide the way for us to rise too. If we repent and believe, it is His righteousness that will provide our path back home.

We all, at times, turn onto the path of evil. Jesus can move us off that path and back to the path of life, because He IS that way, and it is only through Him that we can escape that way of the evil.