To Encourage You

2 Samuel 17:14 “And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, ‘The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel.’ For the Lord had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, so that the Lord might bring harm upon Absalom.’”

Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”

So, in your day-to-day life, are you doing those things that SEEM right, or that ARE right?  There can be a vast difference between them, according to God’s Word.  You see, because of the sin that the Bible says dwells deep in the human heart, our judgment is greatly flawed.  One example in our present day and age is the idea that there are many “truths.”  We hear people talking about “their truth,” as if there are as many “truths” as there are people.  In Matthew 7:12 Jesus described such ideas as a “wide gate” and an “easy way” that many are following.  But He warns us that it is also a way that leads to destruction.  It can be thought of as the way of the majority, the popular way, or the way that most people think.  The problem is that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and because of this their hearts are “deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9).  It’s so “sick,” that people can be prone to “call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20).  It’s this same malady that can lead people to say that there are a multitude of “truths” when Jesus, Who is the one and only ultimate Truth, told us that “the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:14). 

Which brings us to the account of Absalom from 2 Samuel 17 above.  Although Absalom is a model case of wickedness as he attempts to usurp the throne of his father David, who was God’s anointed king, he no doubt saw his ways as virtuous and his cause as good.  As he grappled with the best way to oppose his father, he decided to follow the counsel of a man named Hushai.  Notice how his judgment was influenced by the majority, for it wasn’t just Absalom that decided to follow Hushai’s counsel, it was “all the men of Israel” that decided that this was the right way.  Void of any consideration of God’s will for their lives, these men made a judgment call as to what was best for them. But their judgment was flawed. They didn’t have the wisdom to discern what SEEMED right from what WAS right – and so they stepped into a snare that would prove their own end.  

You see, no one can oppose God and win in the end. No matter how we might convince ourselves that some other way is better for us than what God has ordained in His Word, it is always the Word of God and His ways that will prevail. No matter how the majority of the society may counsel us that sexual immorality is right because it seems so right, it is evil in God’s eyes and it is because of such things that “the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:6).  No matter how the majority thinks that there are “many truths,” and many ways to God, the ends of those ways lead to death, while it is only by way of the one and only Way, Truth, and Life that anyone can truly come to the true God Who dwells in heaven (John 14:6). You see, although there may be a way that seems right, even if it seems right to the many, it is the only the Way that IS right that leads to life. 

So, is that the way you are following? Is that the path you are on?  There are many who are following the ways of Absalom, the usurper who in the end was destroyed.  But it is only the few that are following the true King, the righteous Son of David, that will be vindicated by the God of the universe in the end.