God's Method: We Reap What We Have Sown

Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way (Proverbs 1:31). God's method of punishment is not arbitrary cruelty but divine permission—He lets us punish ourselves. When we reject His guidance, Elohim grants our wishes to expose their foolishness. The man "cursed with every granted prayer" discovers through bitter experience that he has become his own worst enemy. Long-indulged desires transform into tyrannical tormentors.

God's promises are conditional: He gives good things to those who obey, but withholds blessing from those who neglect or contradict His commands. He has granted us the dignity of freedom—which carries the terrible possibility of disobeying His commands. Within the man who loves darkness rather than light exists a self-made hell from which he cannot depart any more than from himself.

Consider the South African farmer who sold his land for nothing, hearing rumors of gold nearby. The subsequent owner persisted in searching and discovered gold by the ton and diamonds by the hundreds, becoming wealthy beyond imagination. Years later, the former owner learned what he had lost and gnashed his teeth with rage, his nails drawing blood from clenched palms: "Oh, what have I lost! what have I lost!"

You who have not accepted Christ must take care. There comes a day when salvation is no longer yours to take or refuse. The fruit of rejecting God's way ripens inevitably.