An adage from the Igbos in Eastern Nigeria says, “A stubborn fly follows the corpse into the grave.” This mirrors what the Holy Spirit is saying in Proverbs 29:1. Unfortunately, there are many people who behave like the proverbial stubborn fly; one example is Pharaoh in Exodus14:5-13. After experiencing the power of God through the ten plagues, he still stubbornly decided to chase after the Israelite's. Amazingly, he did not learn from the consequences of his stubborn attitude, which had cost him and all other Egyptians their firstborns (Exodus 12:29-30). He also witnessed an event that had never happened before – the parting of the Red Sea. This should have cautioned him against continuing on the path of destruction he was on. However, like the stubborn fly that followed the corpse into the grave, Pharaoh and his hosts went after the children of Israel and they got buried in the belly of the sea. Another sad example of the stubborn fly is Haman, who was after Mordecai’s life (Esther 3-4). Even after his wife and closest friends warned him against ,going after a man who carried the Abrahamic covenant, he did not listen to them, until he died on the same gallows he had prepared for Mordecai (Esther 6:10-13, Esther 7:9-10).

Beloved, you need to examine your relationship with God today to see if you are not like the stubborn fly. Self-examination is a vital tool recommended by the Holy Spirit to prevent us from being buried with the dead corpse of sin and the world. He said in 2nd Corinthians 13:5;
“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?”
Have you left your first love, like Demas, and still adamantly refusing to change in spite of the warnings of the Holy Spirit through His ministers and teachers of His word (2nd Timothy 4:10)? The Lord is saying to you today in Revelations 2:5:
“Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.”
May the Lord give us hearing ears in Jesus’ Name.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.