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The Pilgrim Path (1-26-2022)

The Pilgrim Path---Proverbs 6: 16 – 19

These are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

“…DISCORD AMONG BROTHERS”

We really are supposed to “feel” these admonitions----particularly the last. Since the Church is the Body of Christ, we must be reminded that to be the cause of discord---we are the object of the LORD’S disgust (His hatred). Life is far too short. Please do not choose to be an agent of division within the Church of Jesus Christ.

From Thomas Brooks: Divisions are a dishonor to Christ, a reproach to Christians, a blot upon profession, a block in the way of the weak, a sword in the hand of the wicked; they are Satan’s engines, and an inlet to all destruction and confusion. And therefore, the authors of them are to be shunned and avoided (Romans 16: 17).

From Richard Baxter: I am much more sensible of the evil of schism, and of the separating humor, and of gathering parties, and making several sects in the Church, than I was heretofore. For the effects have shown us more of the mischiefs. I am much more sensible, how prone many young professors are to spiritual pride and self-conceitedness, and unruliness, and division, and so prove the grief of their teachers, and firebrands in the Church. I am much more sensible than heretofore of the breadth, and length, and depth of the radical, universal, odious sin of selfishness, and the excellency and necessity of self-denial, and of a public-mind, and of loving our neighbor as ourselves.

From John A. Kitchen: The LORD hates the one who “spreads strife.” Note that it is not simply the strife that is an abhorrence to God, but the one who creates it and spreads it. The word strife has already been introduced in verse 14. God cherishes unity more than we know: “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity (Psalm 133: 1). David continues in that psalm to say that such unity is like the dew of heaven that descends upon the mountains of Zion. If such unity is a gentle, nourishing, refreshing, life-giving dew, then strife is a harsh, life-taking, discouraging blast of sulfurous breath from below. God despises the one who creates such division among brothers!

From Matthew Henry: The God of love and peace hates him that sows discord among brethren, for he delights in concord. Those that by tale-bearing and slandering, by carrying ill-natured stories, aggravating everything that is said and done, and suggesting jealousies and evil surmises, blow coals of contention, are but preparing for themselves a fire of the same nature.

From John Duncan: The unloving heart imagines a hundred evils to be in one’s neighbor which don’t exist.

HYMN

LORD, like the publican, I stand, and lift my heart to thee;

Thy pardoning grace, O God, command, be merciful to me.

My guilt, my shame, I all confess; I have no hope nor plea

But Jesus’ blood and righteousness: be merciful to me.

Thomas Raffles, 1831

Grace and Peace in Jesus, the Only Redeemer of broken and wretched souls, Pastor Jason