WHO IS RIGHTEOUS

Proverbs 2:20 That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.

CONTINUITY NOTE:
The present sentence started at the beginning or Proverbs 2 with:
‘My son if thou wilt receive my words . . .’
‘Then shalt thou understand the . . .’
‘For the Lord giveth wisdom . . . ‘
‘To deliver then from the evil man . . .’
To deliver thee from the strange woman . . .’

The Word of God is our instructor. Not only it helps us walk in the path of good men, but it also helps us preserve the paths of righteousness.

Day after day the world changes; as new laws are voted, they change the landscape of our moral horizon. Every once in awhile it behooves us to stand back and look at our work of ruling this planet. Are we walking the way of good men? Are we preserving the paths of the righteous? Who were good men? Not even Jesus wanted to be called ‘good’, but God has often complimented people and called them ‘just’ or ‘righteous’.

Abel was called ‘just’. Abraham was granted righteousness from God. Noah was said to be a man righteous in his own generation. David pleased God in everything except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. These are beautiful titles given by God to mortal sinner people; to people just like you and I. What made them ‘just’, or ‘righteous’?

By faith Abel offered a sacrifice that extremely pleased God. By faith Noah obeyed God in starting to build a ship (a hundred years long project) to warn a generation of a deluge in place where it had never rained before. By faith Abraham left his comfort zone. He put himself under complete divine dependance. And when he was childless at almost one hundred years old, he believed God who told him he will have children as numerous as the stars of the sky. It seems that what pleased God was not an adherence to a legalistic religious system that promoted ‘goodness. We see in these examples people who were willing to follow God even common sense and opposition from the world.

Do we walk in the path of Noah in our generation? Do we preserve the way of Abraham? If not, why?

The answer is obvious. This proverb teaches us that if we incline ourselves to the wise teachings of God, we will understand and be given the wisdom to do so and avoid the household of the odd couple: the evil man and the strange woman.

Let us today seriously return to the ways of the Word; forsake the erroneous teachings of man’s religions and rather incline our hearts to the teachings of the pure Word of God.