Ancient Paths Are Ripped Up And Crooked Ways Prevail Series

ANCIENT PATHS ARE RIPPED UP AND CROOKED WAYS PREVAIL

{{Jeremiah 6:16 Thus says the LORD, “Stand by the ways and see, AND ASK FOR THE ANCIENT PATHS WHERE THE GOOD WAY IS, AND WALK IN IT, and you shall find rest for your souls, but they said, ‘We will not walk in it. Jeremiah 6:17 “I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet,’ but they said, ‘We will not listen.’ Jeremiah 6:18 “Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Jeremiah 6:19 Hear, O earth. Behold, I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their plans because they have not listened to My words, and as for My law, they have rejected it also.”}}

(a). VERSE 16

Here we have an important verse in 16 for its universal truth applies to all ages. Through Jeremiah the nation was told to stand in the ways, that is, where the paths meet, and there observe, and then he had to ask for the ancient paths (“old paths” AV), literally “the eternal paths” which were declared to be where the good way is, and then he had to walk in that way.

This is according to the word of God so it is most valuable for us. There were many paths being mapped out by the people all criss-crossing and confused, but among these paths were the good ones, the ancient paths, the ones designed by God. The early Christians were known as “the people of the way” and they followed the way given to them by the Lord Jesus Christ and by Scripture. That is the ancient way, because it was initiated by God, and His way is righteousness. Scripture speaks of a way that seems right unto man but the ways thereof are the ways of death. That is man’s self-religion his own way of attaining God like Nimrod building in arrogance and disobedience.

There are the ways of man and the ways of God, and they are so different because one leads to eternal death and the other to eternal life. The ancient paths were the ones charted by God for the good of human beings and declared through His holy patriarchs of old and through His Law of old. These righteous men of the past walked in those ways as they followed God and we don’t have to guess how to do that because the instructions are clearly given by God Himself. We only need ears and eyes. But Judah chose to forge new paths inspired by human wisdom and sin. Those paths lead to death, and Judah sadly encountered that.

The early Christian writings of The Didache and The Epistle of Barnabas feature The Two Ways, the way of life and the way of death. Psalm 1 is built on the two ways, the way of the righteous and the way of the ungodly. There is God’s way and there is Satan’s way. “This is the way. Walk ye in it.” The way of God is clearly defined in scripture that has laid the ancient landmarks for us, placed there by God, and any man who dares remove them will answer to God one day in the lake of fire. If anyone dismisses God or tampers with God’s righteousness, he and she will be accountable.

Once deviation occurs from the declared path given by God, then man has cut his own path in the wasteland. Today we live in a world with an unbelievable number of paths, ones forged by individuals, but worst of all, those legislated by Governments and by any in authority. As a result God’s ancient paths on marriage, gender roles, homosexuality, punishment, righteousness, creation/evolution in the school curriculum, and so many more, have been either reversed or expunged.

(Americans take note also – this applies to you, or it will soon). It is alarming the way successive Governments in Australia since 1975 have been overthrowing the edicts along the ancient paths as they bulldoze them out, and is it little wonder now that the nation is lost and is in all sorts of economic and moral and terrorist problems. Gentleness and discussion is replaced by belligerency and treacherous arrogance. What is declared to us through the Bible has been mapped through the collective wisdom and experience of the righteous men of the past with God’s instruction, but modern man glibly dismisses all that for his own modernity.

Even the ancient paths of culture and history have been slaughtered. Artistic talent and artistic discipline up to the end of the 19th century, produced works of absolute majesty in line with appeal and skill, so grand, it was as if the hand of God had painted the works. Whether it was a biblical portrayal, or a portrait or landscape, the works appealed to goodness and a sense of harmonious balance, but in modern art, so called, anything goes, even to the most disjoint and confronting rubbish, and it is declared art.