Rev. A. J. Ogden

A great majority in our day are blind to spiritual truth, wandering in the wilderness of sinful disobedience, unhappy and looking for fulfillment in all the wrong places. The children of Israel wandered forty years in the wilderness on their way to the land that flowed with milk and honey. If they had gone the short way they could have made the journey in a month or more, instead of the forty years they wandered. Sometimes God makes us take the long way home to teach us and humble us for greater service. The wilderness discipline was learned the hard way, slowly and sometimes painfully. Much of man’s troubles are self inflicted. It would be so wonderful if we would not be so hard headed. Many of those folks died without knowing God.

When man wants to go every way but God’s way he meets with difficulty and heartache, missing all those blessings that could have been his to enjoy. What a shame! God’s way is always the right way. Matthew 4:4, “…Man shall not live by bread a lone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” If you and I could just learn to say, “Not my will but thy will be done,” oh what victory that would be. After all, this Christian life is not all about what we want, but what God wants for our lives. The blessings fall in a greater way when we are dead to our selfish selves and alive to God.

The parable in Luke chapter 15 tells us about a selfish son who left his father to do his selfish thing. He got broke in a hurry among all those selfish women and men who loves no one but themselves. He finally became hungry enough to return home, ragged, weary, discouraged, and defeated by the sin that looked so glamorous in the beginning. Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. The wages of sin is death and you cannot win with sin.

Paul said, “Demas hath forsaken me,” and I’m sure Demas was never happy. Judas Iscariot sold Jesus out for thirty pieces of silver. That didn’t make him happy, in fact, he committed suicide and went to his place called Hell.