Forbidden Paths!

Let’s take a quick look at 7 abominations that are considered detestable in the sight of the Lord and should serve as a guide for moral conduct and encourage us to embrace virtues like humility, honesty, peaceful coexistence and the likes of it. It is also a subtle reminder to strive for righteousness and cultivate positive qualities in our lives!

These “seven abominations” mentioned in Proverbs 6:16-19 are as follows:

A proud or haughty look.

The word haughty comes from an old Anglo-French word, haut, which means “high,” and which comes from the Latin word altus, from which we get our word altitude. Putting all that together, we find that haughty eyes are the kind of eyes that look down at other people, as if the one looking down is “higher up” than others.

This is quite common in the world today, a feeling of bitterness, this will ultimately lead to you looking at the rest of the world with a different snobbish attitude.

God says, “Don’t look down, look up. You are so worthwhile to me that I gave my Son so that I could have you for my children.” God doesn’t do this with haughty eyes; he does it with eyes of love. Our desperate need became his loving opportunity. Wisdom means we want to do the same with others because we have seen that look of love from God in Christ.

A lying tongue.

A lying tongue. A false witness that speaks lies. We find ourselves speaking lies a lot and we think all is well, but the Bible clearly tells us that God hate those who tell lies. So, we must learn to speak the truth and avoid Speaking lies to be on the safe side.

People go as far as classifying lies into white lies and serious lies but honestly in the presence of God, lie is lie and for those that also make use of the statement “God will understand my reason for it” this is to let you know that God does not understand the reason behind you delving into one of the acts he described as an abomination to him in the Bible.

Mattew 12:34 says You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

Hands that shed innocent blood.

You don’t have to kill to be a murderer, same way: you don’t have to dip hands inside innocent blood before you qualify as ‘hands that shed innocent blood’.

Innocence does not imply sinlessness. But to shed innocent blood is to take the life of one who has done nothing worthy of death (through words or actions). God loves and wants us to protect the innocent.

A heart that devises wicked plans.

For God alone knows hearts and minds. When God declares that He hates “a heart that devises wicked plans” (Pro. 6:18a) it serves as a reminder that His assessment of the human heart is accurate and serves as a warning that He will deal with sin at its root “the heart” not necessarily waiting until it manifests itself in some visible form.

Feet that are swift to run to evil.

Apostle Paul was once an active member of this particular abomination as he was quick to support anything that will cause for the death of Christians then.

Fast forward to when he got saved. This is a subtle reminder that no matter how deep or far you think you’ve gone in sin, God is waiting patiently to save you, and this can only be fine when you acknowledge and belief in his existence and be ready to forsake those things you also known to be sinful.

To rush into evil is to demonstrate a great delight and enjoyment of evil and an eagerness to participate in it. God hates the enjoyment of evil. A lot of people like to witness evil and yet they would never think of doing it themselves.

A false witness who tells lies.

This is rampant today. According to Sermon central, the lying tongue tells lies, but the false witness does worse: he can tell the truth, but in the absence of another witness (to testify against the third party), that person lies against the truth.

That person is indicative of maliciousness, which spreads strife (like shooting arrows) among the brethren. In this sense, that person is the false witness, who promulgates discord (like shooting arrows) among brethren. When liars lie, they are false witnesses, but not all false witnesses tell lies (notwithstanding that they still “lie” against the truth).

All false witnessing is a lie, but not all lies are false witnesses in the sense that not all lies affect the reputation of other persons and the judgment of that person in the sight of still other people.

One who sows discord among brethren.

To sow discord is to say and do things which cause distrust among one another, which results in arguments and fights.

Usually the ‘Sower’ is acting as if he/she is not trying to cause arguments. Sowing discord is something done in secret, done by deceit authored by the father of deceit (the devil). Hence anyone who sows discord should be aware that he/she is merely toeing in the footsteps of his/her father.