Posted on 02/13/2022 9:51:18 PM PST by Pilgrim's Progress
“He that walketh in his uprightness feareth the LORD: but he that is perverse in his ways despiseth him” (Proverbs 14:2 KJV).
“He that walketh in his uprightness feareth the LORD,” in the Old Testament when a man did right, he was righteous. And when a man did right, he lived in his righteousness. Now, that didn’t really work out because it was the Old Covenant, it was what God gave them as a type and picture of what He give them in the better covenant. The New Testament saint is spiritually sealed in righteousness—and the righteousness that we have is an “imputed” righteousness—not an earned righteousness.
The Old Testament saint had a measure of earned righteousness where he was given a system, and if he submitted to it, he walked in his righteousness, and he did right, therefore he received the reward of righteousness and he usually got it right here on the earth. The New Testament believer is given an imputed righteousness, and whether we walk in the spirit or walk in the flesh we are still righteous in the eyes of God, and our rewards come in another life, later.
“He that walketh in his uprightness feareth the LORD,” that just goes to shows a guy that knows God and knows what God does with sin in the Old Testament. We have to remember that we are not living in the age of the Law. God is not manifesting Law and justice in this age. The thing that God is manifesting, primarily, in this age is grace. Grace is unmerited favor, and mercifulness—but in the Old Testament, it was a different story.
“For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward” (Hebrews 2:2).
In the Old Testament, judgment came speedily. Take Achan, for example. God didn’t wait for Achan to get to the judgment bar, to throw him into hell. He fell into hell right then and there, the earth opened up and swallowed him whole. Back then, the unrighteous man was walking on eggs and thin ice in dealing with God and with His Law, especially if you knew that Law. Today, God is manifesting His grace so there is much more leniency and longsuffering. But, when the ax does fall it is going to be a whole lot worse than it was for them of the Old Testament, because it is grace that is being sinned against. We are sinning against the light.
“He that walketh in his uprightness feareth the LORD,” the reason that people walk uprightly is because of “the fear of the Lord.” Romans says that “there is no fear of God before their eyes.” And that is essentially the problem with America. They do not fear God, they do not fear judgment, they do not fear justice; they have been deceived into thinking they can beat it. They have a weird humanistic philosophy that says that they are the master of their own fate—and that simply is not true.
They are dealing with God and the Devil, not chance, or just the physical realm—they are dealing with the spiritual laws which they do not understand.
“. . . but he that is perverse in his ways despiseth him,” despises whom? Despises God. A crooked man despises God obviously because he revels in his crookedness, and God rebukes his sin. John tells us that light has come into the world but that men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. They don’t like God, and they don’t like anyone telling them about God. That flat out don’t want to be bothered in their perverseness.
Noah condemned the whole world by building a boat. They were all doing wrong, and his building of the boat stood as a constant reminder to them of it and warned of coming judgment which they were not interested in hearing or heeding. Noah was separating himself from them, he was not doing what the local crowd was doing, and he was preaching judgment to them all day long, and they didn’t like that. “We are not as bad as you seem to think we are!” And that is the way this old world still looks at it.
“There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness” (Proverbs 30:12).
They are not clean, but they are vile and filthy.
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