Taking the Higher Road Part 2

The Low Road

Based on Deut 28:15-48 (MSG, NLT, CEV)

What if someone decides the high road is too hard?  What if he decides to take a wide, crowded, easy road that leads to destruction?

"Taking the high road is usually not the easy one to take or the most popular. The low road seems to offer instant satisfaction. It may seem better for the moment, but if you compromise your principles and your integrity, it will always end up costing you far more in the long run."
- Billy Cox

 

The Lord speaks about the damage that would fall on someone if they decide to turn away from God and follow their own selfish interests.  Deuteronomy 28 lists these curses for Israel, but can be personalized for the individual (male or female):

N       Everywhere he goes he is cursed, whether he is in the city or the country.

N       He will have lack of food.

N       The Lord sends confusion and punishment in everything he does.

N       He will be destroyed and suddenly ruined because he left the Lord and chose a life of sin with an unrepentant heart.

N       He will have terrible diseases. Fever, swelling, bad growths, open sores & itches that can’t be cured.

N       He will feel the heat, lack of rain, drought, dehydration, blight and mildew until he dies.  Everything the person does will be hard.

N       Enemies will defeat the person who chooses sin.  He will try to attack his enemy from one direction but he will flee in seven directions.

N       He will be a thing of horror to others.

N       Madness, blindness (natural and spiritual) and a confused mind will possess this person. It will make him crazy and he’ll grope around in the middle of the day like a blind person feeling his way through a lifetime of darkness; he will never get to where he’s going.

N       He will fail in everything he does.  People will hurt and steal from him everyday.  No one will be there to help him.

N       He will build a house and not live in it.  The woman he is engaged to will have sex with someone else.

N       He will lose everything and no one will come to his rescue.

N       Other people will reap the benefits of this cursed person’s hard work that he has produced.

N       He will be tired of looking for things he can’t quite grasp.  What he sees will drive him crazy because he can’t quite reach it.

N       He will be mistreated.

N       This person who hates God will in turn be hated everywhere the Lord sends him.  People will laugh at him and make fun of him.

N       Children will be estranged from him.

N       Others around this person will grow stronger while he gets weaker and weaker.

N       He will go into debt because of the things taken and stolen from him.  He will be the “tail”.

N       He will be hungry, thirsty, naked and poor.

N       All these curses will come upon the person who deliberately turns away from the Lord.  These curses will chase him down and catch him because he did not serve the Lord with joy and a pure heart.  This is someone who is unrepentant and as long as they live that way these evil things will sweep over him.

N       All the curses will be signs and miracles to him to lead him back to the road of repentance (the higher road) and right standing with God again.

 

These things will happen to someone who decides to turn his back on loving and serving the Lord with a pure heart.  It is a deliberate act of disobedience and rebellion against the Lord and His commandments.

But wait…There is Hope!   

What if that person repents and turns back to the Lord?  Read Deuteronomy 30 and part 3 of “Taking the Higher Road”. 

 

Lord, help me to always follow you and keep my eyes open to any areas of

compromise that would cause me to turn toward the wrong path.