October 30, 2022
Pro 14:12 There is a way which seemeth (it looks like the way to go but will really be the way of woe) right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. K&D say of this verse, The rightness is present only as a phantom, for it arises wholly from a terrible self-deception; the man judges falsely and goes astray when, without regard to God and His word, he follows only his own opinions. It is the way of estrangement from God, of fleshly security; the way of vice, in which the blinded thinks to spend his life, to set himself to fulfil his purposes; but the end thereof (אַֽחֲרִיתָהּ with neut. fem.: the end of this intention, that in which it issues) are the ways of death. He who thus deceives himself regarding his course of life, sees himself at last arrived at a point from which every way which now further remains to him leads only down to death. The self-delusion of one ends in death by the sentence of the judge, that of another in self-murder; of one in loathsome disease, of another in a slow decay under the agony of conscience, or in sorrow over a henceforth dishonoured and distracted life.
- So in this verse there is self-determination (which at first appears admirable).
- Then is it becomes self-delusion (a course taken that satisfy flesh more than faith)
- Then it becomes self-destruction (I’m going to do it my way usually ends up being “I wish I would have done it another way”)
Pro 16:9 A man’s heart deviseth (to weave or to fabricate; to plot or devise in a malicious sense) his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.
Moral disconnection. Wandering dreamers. Listless ships at sea, unable to find the horizon of fulfillment. Unable to escape the storms of anxiety. Unable to chart the better waters of spiritual oneness with God. The sea of sin has monsters of condemnation and guilt and shame. Long tentacles of temptation that wrap around the soul of a man and pull him under. More than 20,000 leagues beneath the sea, it becomes an eternity in the depths of misery. Why does a man go on a course of compromise? Why does he so easily forget God when the sea is calm and the sun is shining and the nets are full of fish?
It is because the compass is broken, the needle of truth unhealthily stuck in one direction; unable to point man in the right direction, unable to point man toward his true divine destiny. He is vulnerable now to the pirate ships of hell. He is captivated in the chains of experimentation while true experience with God is dead. Man is trying to find an evil substitute for the aching in the soul, for the thirst that he cannot slake with the salty waters of philosophy in 1 million searches. Listen now…
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