I srael had forsaken the Lord, departed from His statues, abandoned His worship. Israel is now “like any other man” [Judges 16:17]. The natural man is filled with his own ways, doing that which is right in his own eyes. He delights not in God’s ways, nor will he submit to His authority and commandments. His carnal mind is enmity against God and His commandments are grievous to him. He wants to be the captain of his own life. His mentality is that he can manage his own life and make his own decisions, and to depend on God is to be weak. Some even boast and label themselves as “freethinkers” – free from beliefs, free from bondage to anything, and freedom to do whatever they like according to the dictates of their hearts. There are those who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness [Proverbs 2:13]. What fallen man does not realize is that “there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” [Proverbs 14:12]. He is shorted-sighted and can neither see afar nor the dangers around. He is proud and conceited, stiff-necked and stubborn, refusing divine instruction to walk in the way of life. His thoughts are not God’s thoughts, nor his ways God’s way. God in His mercy sometimes afflicts a man, that by his crisis, he may see his own helplessness and foolishness, and discern Him whom God has lifted up – the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the God-Man Christ Jesus.
LESSON
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
THOUGHT
Prosperity and riches may lull us into spiritual sleep but affliction and crisis awaken us to our own spiritual poverty and helplessness, and our need for and dependence on God.
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