Scripture Reference: Proverbs 21:2 – Proverbs 12:15 – Proverbs 3:17
“Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.”
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who heeds counsel is wise”
Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil”
Wow! We could write a book about this subject. Why should we defer to anyone else's opinion when we have our own. Think about someone you know who has an impossible time accepting the instructions and opinions of others. We most likely would attribute that behavior to stubbornness and pride. When humility is tossed out the window, a prideful man rarely wants to listen to the opinions of others. He is in love with his voice and favors it above all others. Cynthia and I were just talking about this and noting the sad truth of people we’ve known who have fallen prey to this kind of dangerous thinking. Can you think of a phrase used in the Bible to describe this kind of person? I can.
Pharaoh certainly had this trait and so did many if not the majority of the nation of Israel.
Israel's hardening as a nation represents a special set of circumstances. It was clear that they only saw right in their own eyes. We see this time and again as Moses led them out of Egypt. All too often they only looked to their own hardened hearts, and forgot about the man God chose to lead them. Much later in the Psalms the wicked are described as having a calloused heart ( 17:10 ; 73:7 ; 119:70 ).
God tells Isaiah that Israel, with its calloused heart, will reject him as God's messenger when he goes to them ( Isa 6:9-10 ). This event was taken as prophetic by Jesus ( Matt 13:14-15 ) and Paul ( Acts 28:25-27 ) as referring to Israel's rejection of Jesus as God's Messiah. For Paul, Israel's hardening paved the way to a ministry to the Gentiles ( Acts 28:28 ) and was not intended by God to be final, but only until the full number of the Gentiles had come in; then all Israel will be saved ( Rom 11:25-27 ).
For the believers of both the Old Testament ( Psalm 95:8 ) and the New Testament ( Hebrews 3:8 Hebrews 3:15 ; 4:7 ) the hardness of Israel's heart served as a warning and a challenge not to react in the same way. Jesus, at one point, alludes to this by rebuking his disciples for the hardness of their hearts ( Mark 8:17-21 ). In a moment we will look at one of the darkest of all times for the people of Israel.
When I think of what they brought on themselves for being right in their own eyes, I think of those days we refer to in history as the “dark ages.” Dark Ages'' usually refers to the 900 years of European history between the 5th and 14th centuries. Have you heard that this was a period of stalled advancements in science or culture.
The book of Judges in the Bible is an eye opening portrayal of the downward spiral of a nation. And if you should ask why, the answer is easy to find. Here it is. Tell me how many times you have heard this, with one succession of kings after another. “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes." The history of the Israelites was one of one bad kind after another, and there were only a few righteous kings.
God’s hand of blessing was taken from them because they hardened their hearts to him and did what was right in their own eyes. Sadly, this led to the overthrow and destruction of both the Northern and Southern kingdoms, as they were swept away into captivity. God will always have his remnant, but to this very day, Israel is a pagan nation with 2022 statistics showing only 1.9% of Jews claim to be Christians. Sad but true.
Ultimately the hardness of the human heart can only be repaired by the grace of God. It is he who can restore us, by taking away our heart of stone and giving us a heart of flesh ( Eze 11:18-21 ). This hardness of heart is the scene for one of the longest, bleakest epochs in Old Testament history. It covers a 450-year time frame extending from Joshua’s conquest of the Promised Land until the time of Samuel—more years than America has been a nation. That entire era is riddled with horrific acts of evil, bloody conflicts and tales of human misery. It was an age of absolute moral chaos because they had to do it their way.
During that time, at intervals, when the people of Israel would grow desperate and cry for help, God would raise up some unlikely leader to conquer whatever enemy was oppressing them. These deliverers, known as “judges,” weren’t necessarily upstanding models of spiritual virtue. But the Lord would empower and use them to deliver His people from servitude or national disaster. And then when peace was restored, the nation would fall right back into another long stretch of sin and apostasy. It happened every time. The cycle is repeated over and over again.
In Judges 17:6 and 21:25 (the book’s final verse), the writer sums up precisely why it was such a miserable time: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
That statement would be a fitting estimation of the moral state of our generation, too. In this increasingly secular culture, most people no longer believe there is any fixed, inviolable moral standard they need to obey. People regularly prompt one another with phrases like, “Find your own truth” and “Follow your heart”— or “if it feels good, do it” – as if that were a purely noble and upright way to live.
But that, according to Scripture, is the distilled essence of sinful foolishness. “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes” (Proverbs 12:15). “Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Proverbs 26:12).
God condemns “evil people, who refuse to hear [His] words, who stubbornly follow their own heart” (Jeremiah 13:10). In short, “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool” (Proverbs 28:26).
When Moses gave the law to the people of Israel, one of the chief principles he underscored for them was, “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes” (Deuteronomy 12:8).
The idea that everyone should get to define for himself what is right and true is a recipe for disorder and disaster. It is the very definition of moral anarchy.
But it is also the defining principle of a fancy word called postmodernism—the value system that rules the current generation. Truth is regarded as a matter of personal perspective and there are no absolutes. People today believe nothing can be known with settled certainty. This is not a new phenomenon. Pontius Pilate cynically asked Jesus, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Today’s society collectively answers that question in the most skeptical yet arrogant way possible—namely, with the disastrous false notion that the only truth that ultimately matters is whatever seems right in your own eyes.
Of course, those who see the universe that way can’t really believe anything outside themselves. If you can’t be certain that objective truth exists, the suggestion that there is something to believe in simply makes no sense. Moral or religious convictions are out of the question. What is anyone to do except “whatever is right in his own eyes”? This is why the brilliant scientists of the day actually believe that in the beginning, the world was not there, and then suddenly it was. Something came from nothing, a conclusion so absurd but widely acclaimed. It’s what they see in their own eyes.
In case you hadn’t realized it, that kind of thinking now dominates our society. The concept of settled, knowable truth is widely considered intellectually inept and politically incorrect. The common phrases “my truth” and “your truth” suggest that everything is ultimately just a matter of perspective. All truth claims are really nothing more than just personal opinions, and they deserve to be treated that way. Every point of view, no matter how bizarre, demands equal respect. Because, after all, no one can say for sure what is ultimately true.
Cynthia and I have been to Yosemite National Park a hundred times. I buy postcard sets every time and for years I sent them to inmates who love to put them up inside their cells.
In the small space to write I always say something like, – Greetings from Yosemite. This place never gets old. How anyone could be an atheist and drive through the park is beyond me. God’s handiwork is on full display around every corner.
Places like Yosemite and the Grand Canyon truly showcase the hand of God that we know points to intelligent design. But the most brilliant minds of the day point to billions and billions of years of the evolutionary process and end up with foolish conclusions of what happened over time. Once again, on the most basics of life, – they see what is right in their own eyes.
How did we get here? Foolish men of today look at any spiritual precept or article of faith with unyielding skepticism; authority is despised; certainty is deemed the very height of arrogance; feelings count more than facts; and common sense, moral values—even knowledge itself—are scorned as relics of a more naïve epoch of human history.
There is zero tolerance for moral absolutes in a climate like this.
Western society was built on beliefs that are rooted in Scripture, starting with the truth that God exists and has made Himself known.The whole weight of the United States’ Declaration of Independence hangs on truths about God and His creation that our nation’s Founding Fathers regarded as “self-evident,” and they were right about that.
All creation is filled with important realities that are self-evident, beginning with the very foundation of all truth. The Bible says some basic knowledge of God is innate in every human heart: “That which is known about God is evident within them” (Romans 1:19, NASB 1995).
Furthermore, God constantly displays His glory through creation in a way that is hard to miss. Whether you study the vastness of the universe or examine a single drop of pond water through a microscope, you will see ample evidence of God’s infinite power, wisdom, creativity—and a host of other attributes. These truths (precisely the kind of ultimate, objective realities the postmodern mind rejects) are purposefully built into all of creation at every conceivable level.
Scripture goes on to say, “God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:19-20, NASB 1995).
Humanity’s problem is that because of our sin, we resist accountability to God. We suppress that innate knowledge and ignore or try to explain away what is literally spread across the universe in all its resplendence before our eyes. Because fallen minds refuse to see what is obvious, they lose the ability to make sense of anything. “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:21-22, NASB 1995).
That, of course, is the main theme in the opening chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Romans. The apostle goes on to chronicle some steps of decline that are reminiscent of those cycles in the Book of Judges. It is a familiar pattern throughout human history. It is a descent into sin and depravity that has brought down every one of history’s most powerful empires and currently threatens our civilization. It is a path that goes from unbelief to complete intellectual futility, and it drags whole societies through idolatry, uncontrolled lusts, degrading passions and every conceivable expression of unrighteousness.
And it happens whenever people decide that everyone should do whatever is right in their own minds.
The end result is “a depraved mind” (Romans 1:28, NASB 1995)—a soul utterly given over to wickedness, irrationality and contempt for everything that is truly righteous. In an act of divine judgment, God withdraws His grace and allows an individual (or an entire culture) to reach that point of moral and spiritual insanity. Here’s how the apostle says it:
“Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:28-32, NASB 1995).
We have literally watched this play out in living color, with Jerry Springer narrating, as our culture has sped down the exact path of spiritual decline Paul outlines in that chapter. Hollywood, hip-hop, shock radio and a host of other pop culture obsessions—helped by mainstream media and the secular academy—have indoctrinated recent generations to accept and even encourage every imaginable kind of depravity and radical “alternative lifestyle.”
We’re not supposed to notice the overtly self-destructive nature of popular moral deviancies or the aberrant subcultures they spawn. Anyone who is still offended or appalled by such things is considered ignorant or ill-bred. Our mainstream media have displayed a stubborn determination to advance and encourage the moral meltdown. They will, for example, portray months of lawlessness and rioting as legitimate expressions of free speech—insisting that it has been “mostly peaceful,” even though the destructive result is clearly evident to anyone with eyes to see.
Meanwhile, nothing is more politically incorrect than religious belief. Genuine faith in God is commonly represented as a dangerous, disqualifying disorder. Our culture has quite simply lost its religion. Everyone does whatever is right in his own eyes.
Although public discourse today is full of cries for justice and structural change, there is simply no way to affirm any coherent standard of justice—much less is there any hope of change for the better—apart from a sweeping return to the God of Scripture, who is the source of all truth.
We desperately need a generation of men and women who will open their eyes to that reality, turn from the unbelief and cold skepticism that define our culture, and flee for mercy to the God they have spurned. The good news is that God does offer full and free forgiveness and abundant blessing for those who will heed the call of Jesus Christ and come to Him in repentant faith.
Final Thought
Oh Lord, we have a disease that needs a cure. End your curse. Humble yourself, and worship your Creator (Pr 9:10). Think and pray like Solomon, who told God he was only a little child and did not know how to rule Israel (I Kgs 3:5-9). The Lord of heaven and earth hides truth and wisdom from those who think they are wise and reveals them instead to babes (Matt 11:25-27).
Hate vain thoughts, even your own (Ps 119:113; 101:2). Ask God to search your heart for them (Ps 139:23-24). Esteem Scripture above all knowledge, and hate every contrary idea to it (Ps 119:128). For major decisions, use a multitude of counselors (Pr 15:22). “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil” (Pr 3:7).
We know O Lord that there is a way that seems right to man, but its end is the way of death. Help us to see the folly of going our own way and being wise in our own eyes. Harden not our hearts Father, and save us from ourselves, for our way is the path of destruction. Humble our hearts toward you and grant us the grace each day to honor you, so you in turn may honor us.
From: Fight the Good Fight of Faith & Life Journal: By Gregg Harris
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