When Willing Replaces Right

There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (Proverbs 16:25)

We have this politician who won an election when he argued about willing seller willing buyer in a debate.

I have been thinking about God’s word relative to that statement. But I have also been looking at history to get into a context. And this because we assume that agreement justifies the result.

But let me ask a question. Is the parent who squanders his children’s future right because he developed a willing seller willing buyer relationship with liquor dens? Is the bar right because they did not take anyone’s money by force?

Is the harlot innocent because her customers bring themselves to her corner? And are the clients right because they enjoyed the ride?

Are drug pushers right because they sell the drugs to willing consumers?

Are abortionists right because the women are willing customers? And are the women right because getting rid of the mess they created is desirable and feels alright?

The real question to ask is; are you the only person affected by that willing buyer willing seller transaction?

And that is the reason I love God’s word. God released it because its precepts look beyond the person to society, from the present to eternity.

The colonialists came and stole our lands by force of arms and/ or bribery (just like they used one community to sell another for slaves). They then made allotment letters and leases for the same land. Does the fact that they give me a title deed justify their theft or my ownership? Is legally right the same as God’s right? Does a willing buyer willing seller transaction with a thief justify their theft? Is there any difference between that and money laundering?

You see, right can only be defined by God as He is the only One with all the facts. And of course He is the One without personal bias as He owns everything. His love reaches to the unborn as it does to the great grandchild whose life you will affect by your choices.

That is the reason He issued the commandments. He issued them because He wanted a world attuned to the purpose for which He created it.

Whether it appears or feels right is of no consequence if God’s word says differently.

It is fornication whether you are planning to get married or not. It is fornication whether you want to discover compatibility or not. It is fornication whether you want to confirm fertility or not. It is fornication because God says so.

Why does He warn against fornication?

He sees beyond the present.

He sees the trust issues fornication introduces into the marriage. He sees the lack of self-control it may create. He knows the boredom it may create in the relationship, boredom that may even break the engagement like it did to Amnon who had been actually physically sick due to his love for Tamar. He knows that the product of that fling to test fertility can die. And he knows one partner can die even before the actualization of the marriage converting a child conceived thus into a bastard. And I am talking about things I have seen.

God knows that marriage is only safe inside the bounds He placed. Otherwise not only does it bring judgment on any breaches, it opens a cocktail of undesirable pain in the process.

Let not the world deceive you to break God’s laws.

It is not only sex whose tampering of the divine order brings in pain, irrespective of whether it was desired or not, desirable or not. Any of God’s commandments and rules have the same or similar effects and consequences.

Take the sin of the heart, the one that you may not even know you are guilty of for example greed.

You may baptize it ambition or desire to succeed or own. You might even look for just the right verses to explain it.

Only the Bible read and understood can diagnose it.

Why is it so easy to shout amen to proclamations promising things that hard work can’t provide? Why are the most popular preachers the ones who preach and proclaim and promise short cuts? Why do such preachers live so high even as their faithful live on those words in the dumps?

But godliness with contentment is great gain. (1Timothy 6:6)

Where does your favorite preacher place that verse in his preaching?

You see, covetousness is a sin, only that it is a sin of the heart with no visible evidence. It is only when we read the Bible that we can be able to see its manifestations.

Lot’s sin was not choosing Sodom as his dwelling place. It was covetousness. He saw the land well watered and forgot that he was a passenger in Abraham’s call. Sodom was a consequence of that covetousness. You even see him trying to evangelize Sodom about morals but he was already sold out through hiss associations. Remember he already had young men to marry his daughters, young men who were too fine with Sodom to consider imminent destruction anything to worry about.

What are the dangers of greed?

The first is the lack of contentment, and in effect peace. Consequently, someone is always looking around to see whether there is something new they can get. That breeds envy, like I have called it in one of my books, the devil’s blank cheque. Of course there is jealousy when someone else behaves like us. And there is an abnormally unhealthy competitiveness, even in unnecessary things.

All these kill the spirit that God made to commune with.

With a heart thus compromised, it becomes easier for other less hidden sins to surface.

The selfish interest starts to surface, like taking advantage for instance. It becomes easier to trade brutally and think it is the way commerce is done. You exaggerate the value of what you are selling as you diminish the value of what you are buying, and then laugh at your shrewd business acumen.

It becomes normal to use your position for advantage. And you justify it because it is not outright theft. Diverting a little food meant for the needy does not feel bad as you are slowly being swallowed by the harvest of the greed you slowly nurtured. You can comfortably dispossess widows and orphans of their land by making their breadwinner drunk to death for that prime property.

Of course your lot improves immensely as you advance in your greed, now being called ambition and business acumen.

And the implications are the same as we saw with fornication, generational frustration and judgment.

The question to ask ourselves constantly is, what does God say about this? What does the word of God say about this? Do I know it?

Do I read the Bible for myself or is it read for me by spiritual superstars?