Under Gods Command
Proverbs 19:16 – He who obeys instructions guards his life, but he who is contemptuous of his ways will die.
Do you care about yourself? There is a way to live that brings happiness and success, and there is a way to live that will kill you. The choice is yours. The results are God’s. Do you love or despise God’s ways for living? If you keep God’s commandment, you keep yourself from pain and trouble. If you despise God’s ways, you commit suicide.
What is the commandment to keep your soul? It is all God’s commandments, no matter what part of life each may apply to (PS 119 -128). The man who keeps God’s commandments is doing something very good for his own soul. He is pursuing wisdom and all its benefits for his life.
How does a man despise his ways? He rejects God’s ways for the various aspects of his life. We interpret “his ways” as God’s ways, because God is to be elliptically understood from the first clause, and because men do not truly despise their own ways. The man here believes he has better ideas on how to live, so he rejects the counsel of God for his life.
What are the consequences? When a man chooses his own way for a decision in life, rather than God’s way, he chooses death. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death” (16:25). “There is a way that seem right to a man, but in the end it leads to death” (14:12).
God’s infallible revelation, the Bible, teaches men how to be happy and successful. If they rebel against His wisdom, they bring on themselves dysfunction, pain, trouble, and eventually death. They die early by accidents, capital punishment, disease, revenge, or God’s judgment. If a man truly cared for himself, he would keep God’s commandments.
Here is how Moses taught this wisdom to Israel, “Ye shall walk in all the ways which the LORD your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess” (Deut 5:33).
Consider a simple example. Instead of honoring parents as God commanded, men allow disrespect, jokes, and rebellion, never seeing that such irreverent fools will eventually run into a human authority that will crush them, and they lose God’s promised blessings for parental honor (Ex 20:12: Eph 6 2-3) It is lose-lose to reject this commandment of God.
God will separate all men – those who did the will of their Father in heaven, and those who did things their way. Jesus warned, “Not every one that said to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but only he that does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, … And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you evil doers.” (Matt 7:21-23).
Do you want a rule for life? “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not to your own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (3:5-6). Instead of despising his ways, humble yourself and have respect unto his ways.
Under Gods command 