Will they not go astray who devise evil?
But kindness and truth
will be to those who devise good.

Proverbs 14:22

Those who hold to and speak The Truth do so because they believe God is that Truth! This is a vastly different approach to life than those who have rejected God and kicked His Truth out of their lives. Those differences were discussed in previous days. Today, we get to examine the final outcomes of these two divergent worldviews for living life using our key verse. And it is pretty basic.

Devise evil and you will go astray. That is the irony of the question. It isn’t a matter of if those who devise (premeditate) evil will go astray. It is a matter of when. 

Conversely, for those who devise (premeditate) good will be blessed, not maybe, but will be given even more kindness and more truth. 

It is the basic of all basics; we reap what we sow.

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
Let us not lose heart in doing good,
for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.

Galatians 6:7-9

What does it mean in the Bible to sow and to reap? This is a farming principle that still holds true today; though ancient farming techniques were obviously much different than our modern technology employs today. Simply stated: if you want 50 tomato plants to yield fruit during tomato picking season, then you must sow or plant more than 50 tomato seeds or shoots before the season begins, often way before in a greenhouse. Everything from rabbits to drought to floods to insects and disease will affect how many plants are mature enough to bear tomatoes and subsequently how many tomatoes can actually be harvested or reaped. 

Notice all the forethought that goes into sowing seeds. Notice all the protection that has to be given to those seeds and shoots and plants. Notice all the work and time involved in nurturing those seeds to a shoot and from a shoot to a mature plant and from a mature plant to reaping tomatoes from that plant and then having yummy tomatoes on your plate! 

Now, connect the dots between sowing and reaping tomatoes to sowing and reaping (devising) evil or sowing and reaping (devising) good! A God-rejecting evil person may do good once-in-awhile, but they don’t sow good. Just so, a God-believing person will do evil now and then; but they should not and will not sow evil. They won’t plan evil or plot it out or premeditate evil. Even our messed up judicial system recognizes the differences between premeditated murder and an accidental killing; such as in a car accident. 

And if you were really wanting strawberries but sowed tomato seeds, it doesn’t matter how much time and effort and perfect conditions you supply, in the end; you will have tomatoes and not strawberries. And so it is with worldviews. 

You cannot sow a God-rejected worldview (seed) and expect anything other than God-rejected results (reap). Your results will go astray. There can only be chaos and mayhem and destruction all around. We see that very thing happening in living color throughout our culture. Many good intentions are doomed to an ultimate failure because they have been sown without God’s Truth. If every living human being can have and believe and live by their own truth (their own God-rejected worldview) then the only possible outcome (reaping) is the self-destruction of every one of those narcissistic self-inflicted ‘my-truth-gods’.

And it is not and will not be pretty.

God Forbid! That any disciple of Christ would be accused in the complicity of devising evil! May each of us be devising God’s True Good for His honor and glory and for the world’s only hope!

For God so loved the world that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life!

John 3:16