PRO-VERBS 14:12 The Right Way....Ooops!

Traveling Mercies O Ye Sojourners...

"There is a way that seems right to a man...but is end is the way of death." (Pro-Verbs 14:12; Pro-verbs 16:25)

Say it once...listen...say it twice...LISTEN! This verse is found twice in the Pro-Verbs...and there are multiple allusions to this thought throughout Pro-Verbs.

"What fruit did you have then in the things which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:21-23)

My Dad and I use to have arguments. Imagine that. He would have a point of view...and he was convinced that he was right and I was wrong...and I was convinced that I was right...and he was wrong. In this perpetual butting of heads...my Dad would reach the point of exasperation and he would say..."Am I right or wrong?" That was suppose to end the argument. Of course being 16 going on 35....I would respond to his question..."Am I right or wrong?"...with..."you're wrong." Oh how that would send his blood pressure up.

In C.S. Lewis' book MERE CHRISTIANITY...in the chapter entitled THE LAW OF HUMAN NATURE...he lays out the scenario of people quarrelling about various topics. Each quarrelling party...thinks their way is the RIGHT way.

"Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man's behaviour does not happen to please him. He is appealing to SOME KIND OF STANDARD OF BEHAVIOUR which he expects the other man to know about." (C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity). Lewis calls this expectation of each party in a belief that there is some kind of rule or law that would be a judgement call of this RIGHT...or this WRONG. "It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties have in mind SOME KIND OF LAW OR RULE of fair play or decent behaviour or morality or whatever you like to call it...about which THEY REALLY AGREED." (C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity)

"Quarrelling means trying to show that the other mans is IN THE WRONG. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what RIGHT and WRONG are..." (C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity)

"Am I right or wrong?" The Swirling Eddies have a CD called OUTDOOR ELVIS. One of the songs is called DRIVING IN ENGLAND. "I was driving in England down the Santa Ana freeway...somebody's screaming out. You're going down THE WRONG WAY." (The Swirling Eddies Driving In England) Of course the thought is...Christians go against the mainstream...in what they (the mainstream) consider to be right and the Christians are wrong. The mainstream non-believers are convinced they are right BUT...it is not the road...it is the final destination...which is either going to be life or death.

Larry Norman's song One Way speaks of the fork in the road...from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost..."One way, one way to heaven, hold up high your hand...follow, free and forgiven, children of the lamb. TWO ROADS diverged in middle of my life, I heard a wise man say...I took the one LESS TRAVELLED by... and that's made the difference every night and every day." (One Way by Larry Norman)

Here's the diverging road...one way seems right to a man...but the end is death.

r.l.b.