Message for Jan 2020
by Chauncey C Riddle
Isaiah gives us a plain message: “And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.”(Isaiah 38:8)
Could it be that simple? It must be. It seems that there are only two alternatives for any human action: One is to do the will of the Lord. The other is to do our own will. What this boils down to is in every human choice for a person who is accountable, there are two ways to act. One is to do what is right, the will of God, and the other is to do what we ourselves want to do.
What makes this simple choice possible is the Fall of Adam. Because Adam disobeyed and fell from the innocence of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve and all of their descendants were given two voices to counsel them in all things. One is the light of Christ, which comes as the conscience of each person. The other is the darkness of Satan, which always opposes the light of Christ and tells us humans to do what we ourselves would rather do. Sometimes our own desires are the same thing as what Christ would have us do, and we do the work of righteousness. But other times we do not want to do what our conscience tells us to do, and we accept the counsel of Satan to pursue what we ourselves would rather do.
Anything which we want to do which is not the will of God is not good, but is evil. Evil is something which is less than the good we could do. So the choice is plain and simple. We either do what is right, counseled by God, or we do what is selfish, counseled by Satan. There are no other alternatives for human action. And everyone eventually chooses either the way of holiness or the way of selfishness. Meanwhile, most of us waver back and forth between the two ways. Sometimes we choose to do good following conscience, other times we choose to do evil following selfishness.
“I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” (John 5:30)