DO NOT FOLLOW THE MULTITUDE TO DO EVIL

Do not follow the multitude to do evil

By David Agbi

Exodus 23: 1-2
…2 Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment.

Someone has been accused of a crime. You know he is innocent, along with the whole story of what really happened. Everyone is saying he did it and lying about what happened. As a child of God, what do you do? Do you sit there and go along with the group or do you stand up for him and say what really happened, no matter the circumstances or consequences such as losing your close friends? This happens much too often and many of us follow the multitude because we do not have
enough courage to stand up, even though God wants us to.

Joshua 1:6 Be strong and of a good courage…

God wants us to have courage such as what Joshua, Caleb and Moses had, but many others in life and in the Bible did not muster enough courage to do what is right and then made excuses. Excuses get us nowhere and God does not listen or accept them. There is no excuse for doing sin. Some people such as Aaron, followed the multitude to do evil in the case of the golden calf saying, “This was their gods who delivered them out of Egypt (Exodus 32). Another example was king Saul. Instead of waiting for Samuel to come sacrifice, he took matters into his own hands and sacrificed by himself instead of waiting. When Samuel came just after the sacrifice and asked him why he had done this, Saul said that the people pressured me to sacrifice (1 Samuel 13). Instead of these people to do the right thing that God commanded, they did the wrong thing, and to make matters worse, they covered up their sin with excuses. God said that by our words we shall be justified and by our words, we shall be condemned (Matthew 12: 37).

We are not perfect. We will make mistakes. But what do we do from there? Nowadays, it is too common to make excuses for your mistakes (I, myself do this too), but what we need to realize is that we have to do the right thing as children of God. God expects us to do the right thing, no matter what the circumstances are. He wants us to step out of the crowd and be different. This is no easy task, but we have many examples to refer to. There are no excuses. If you do not follow the multitude to do evil, there is a reward, but if you do evil along with them, then there is a punishment. What do you want, the reward or the punishment?

God wants us to follow him and be blameless/perfect as Abraham was (Genesis 17:1)

My prayer for you is that we ask God to lead us in the right direction and follow him wholeheartedly so that we can know what the right decision is in Jesus name. Amen.

Do good and not evil!