Don't Even Think About It!

Proverbs 4  Speaks To Today

Don't Even Think About It

Proverbs 4:14-15 NLT

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Proverbs 4:14-15(NLT)

14 

Don’t do as the wicked do,

    and don’t follow the path of evildoers.

15 

Don’t even think about it; don’t go that way.

    Turn away and keep moving.

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In a society where morality no longer has an accepted definition and what God calls evil is championed as the source of happiness, self-fulfillment, and the norm, this proverb is not as easy to follow as, on the surface, it sounds like.

Don’t do as the wicked do:

Certainly, for a vast majority of our people, in all our cultures, in our churches, it is hard to identify what around them is wicked. Oh, I know, we can usually list off some basics: murder, stealing... Oh, wait. That's about as far as we can go!

Even then what is murder? 

Easy you say, "The taking of a life." 

But wait, "When is physical being a life?"

Now, it gets tricky. Is an unborn baby - a physical being - a life or not. At what point of development does it qualify as life. Or, if it is killed after being partially born, does that not equal "taking a life"? Or murder. 

Oh, but that's a political controversy or the court has already decided. Does shifting an evil into the realm of politics keep it from being defined as evil? It seems like it in a lot of areas most much less controversial than abortion. 

Well, stealing is easier to agree on: taking what does not belong to you and treating it as your own to do as you wish.

Oh, wait, that too gets tricky.

When a banker takes what belongs to another person, often a person poorer than himself, and keeps it and pursues an unjust financial gain at the expense of that person (financial gain is alway a shift of income from one person or entity to the other) is it no longer greed? Does it no longer qualify as injustice? We all are taught to run hard after wealth and power? Does that make dedicating our life to personal gain and to possessing power a good rather than the pitfall of evil God calls it?

Don't do as the wicked do. As - not what. That throws in what the wicked value. It throws in the system by which the wicked execute their evil. It comes down to acting like the wicked. Looking like the wicked. Having the same motivations as the wicked do.

Who, reading this, has laid any or all of this, their culture and their own minds, and their mindsets and presuppositions before God and asked him to show you what is evil in your mind, your way of living, and your business dealings? What is 'doing as the wicked do"?

Do not let culture and social pressure become your God.

          Don’t follow the path of evildoers

Don’t even think about it

Don’t go that way           

*  *  *  *  *  *

Turn away and keep moving

Now these phrases are pretty straight forward.

Photo Credits:

Up at Ayder by Charles Roffey, some rights reserved @ flickr.com