There is an interesting statement made by the Apostle Paul which suggests people can spend their whole life studying and still not know the truth.
“Always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” 2Timothy 3:7
Do you know people who have done course after course, yet who have not found stability in their life and beliefs? People chase philosophies and knowledge, and study ancient civilisations and distant cultures, hoping to find a kernel of insight that gives them the edge in life. Yet those people end up in the same messes, same frustrations and same fruitlessness as everyone else.
They are constantly learning, but never coming to the knowledge of the truth.
Then there are those less academic types, who devour magazines, scour the internet, keep up with the latest ideas, again hoping to find something that will liberate them from the ordinary and make them somehow successful or special.
Once again these people spend their lives constantly learning, but never coming to know the truth that really works for them.
One of the problems with these endeavours is that truth comes from outside this world, not from the people in the world. In this world we can find facts and come up with theories, but truth comes from heaven. Truth is actually a person, Jesus Christ. He told us that Himself.
“Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, except by me.” John 14:6
When people look for truth from man they are looking in the wrong place. So all those great philosophers who put forward their own ideas have actually put forward ideas that are desperately inferior to the truth. Man’s ways are insignificant compared to the height of God’s thoughts and God’s ways.
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8,9
And the thoughts that come from mysticism, through occult practices or new age ideas of finding truth are even worse. Those things come from our enemy whose only intention is to destroy you, even if he looks like giving you something good.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I (Jesus) came so they can have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10
When people look to man’s ideas or to the enemy’s deceptions it is no wonder they never come to the knowledge of the truth. They are feeding on empty things or even toxic things that keep them in darkness and away from the truth they seek.
God’s heart is that everyone comes to know the truth.
God “desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1Timothy 2:4
We also learn from Paul’s writings that if people don’t have knowledge of the truth they are a captive of the devil.
“God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. Then they will come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, who has taken them captive to his will.” 2Timothy 2:25
That’s why Jesus told us that the truth sets people free. It releases them from the devil’s snare.
“You will know the truth and the truth with set you free.” John 8:32
The foundational ‘truth’ we all need to come to is that Jesus is the Son of God, who became human to live sinlessly and then be killed, to pay for our sins, and that he rose from the dead, defeating sin and death for us. When we put our faith in Christ as our saviour, for the forgiveness of all the wrongs we have done, we are forgiven and become God’s child, to live with God forever.
That truth transforms us, because it impacts us at a much deeper level than our mind or emotions. Our spirit comes alive, because we are ‘born again’. That can’t be achieved by philosophy, mysticism, education, knowledge or any form of human or satanic effort. Only God can do that.
When people spend their life looking for truth it’s because they have not become transformed on the inside, and they know that something is missing. Sadly they end up looking in all the wrong places.
Yet there is another problem Christians suffer from that blocks them from the truth. Christians, as well as people in the world, can close their eyes and ears to the truth. They may not do that consciously.
I have often heard Christians discussing some problem or other they need to deal with and tell how they are going to do research on some possible solution or other. There is nothing wrong with getting sound advice and making wise choices, but there is real danger in rejecting what God is saying.
My wife and I have assisted families who have ignored the things we shared with them. They seem to have the notion that there may be a better or easier way to work on their issues than the Biblical wisdom we pointed out to them.
When we reject what the Bible says we are scorning it, or trampling on it, as if it was of no value. So note what wise King Solomon said about that.
“A scorner seeks wisdom, and does not find it: but knowledge is easy unto him that understands.” Proverbs 14:6
When we scorn God’s word we won’t receive the truth and wisdom it offers us. So we start an endless search for the truth, never finding it, since we already rejected it. We end up ‘ever learning, but never coming to the knowledge of the truth’.
When we receive God’s Word and believe what God says, and diligently put in practice what God asks of us, then we know the truth. But if we don’t like God’s way of dealing with things and won’t humble ourselves, we are scorning God and His Word. We end up on a treadmill of trying one thing after another with nothing ever working out for us. Ever learning but never coming to know the truth.
Friends, Jesus is Truth. God’s Word is sure. God has some challenging things for you, like humbling yourself and dying to your selfishness. God has a model for a godly marriage and family and for godly living. God has a very high moral standard. God asks us to trust Him when it looks like everything is going wrong. But if you don’t do what God asks and won’t accept the truth, you will end up in an endless and fruitless search that will get you nowhere.
Humble yourselves before God and come to the Knowledge of the Truth.
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