BARKLESS DOGS

Proverbs 4:14-16 Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. (15) Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away. (16) For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

Who is the sleeper? Who is he that has his eyes closed? Is it not he who has lost the spiritual compass of God’s Instructions? Because of his loss of God’s Word, his heart has grown so relative that he is not able to recognize evil anymore. He is not able to be indignant at wickedness nor does he have the spirit to fight it. He is like clouds without rain; a dog that cannot bark.

Spiritual sleep, spiritual apathy, spiritual lethargy is the result of doing ‘mischief’. The main mischief is the rejection of God’s standards; the ‘relativising’ of Gods Word. Once we mix God’s Word with our own cultural principles, it looses its value and power; it is not able to keep us awake spiritually anymore. One of the problems with that is that when we backslide from God’s pure Word in that way, we seldom do it alone. We often drag someone else down with us, even if just our personal family.

We are given here the cautionary advice to not enter into the path of such people. We are told to avoid it; to turn from it and pass it. Maybe it is after all, safer to run into a blatant sinner than into him who is caught in the deception of look-alike faith.

One night a little girl fell from her bed. When her Mom asked what happen, the teary-eyed girl said, “I guess I must have fallen asleep too near to where I got in.” Could it be what happens to many of us? We enter the kingdom, but through some smooth-tongue unchallenging Word teacher we stop progressing and growing in our spiritual life. Oh yes, there is always a lot of activity which makes it look like we are awake but could it be like the little boy who told his Mom about the purring sleeping cat, “Mom, the cat fell asleep and left its engine running.”

May God help us to read the Word with wisdom and with understanding. May God help us to let it bark at our soul to warn it from the dangerous wolves of spiritual relativism.