Columbus was on his fourth voyage in 1504. His ships were
grounded in St. Ann's Bay in Jamaica, and the natives revolted and
refused to supply the Spaniard with food. There seemed to be no
way of escaping the agonies of starvation. Columbus was looking at
the almanac, and he learned that a total lunar eclipse was coming.
On the evening it was due he called for the natives to assemble and
told them that unless they repented and helped them God would blot
out the moon, the sun, and the stars, in that order. He pointed to the
moon which had already begun to darken. The natives were
terrified and begged Columbus to intercede for them. Delivering
food was resumed at once, and Columbus promised that disaster
would be averted. The darkness passed, and nothing happened, of
course, and the natives never revolted again.
Here is an example of the power of knowledge. Because
Columbus understood the workings of God's creation, he was able
to save his life and the lives of his men. Knowledge enabled him to
dominate and manipulate the natives who were ignorant and
superstitious. The weak are almost always weak because of
ignorance, and the strong are almost always strong because of
superior knowledge. This is supported by Scripture, reason, history,
and experience. Knowledge is power because it leads to the
discovery of the means of power. America is the strongest nation in
the world because of its superior technological knowledge, and
because it has been able to tap the resources of power in God's
creation. Only those nations that are also in possession of this
knowledge are any challenge. In some nations wood is still the
primary fuel. As nations advance they use greater sources of power
right up to nuclear fuel. Growth in knowledge leads to growth in
power. This is beyond dispute.
This being so, it follows that growth in the knowledge of God
should lead to greater power in the spiritual realm. We do not need
to speculate on this, for this is precisely what Peter and the whole of
the Bible teaches. Paul longed to know Christ and the power of his
resurrection. The two go together. In the knowledge of God and of
Christ is the power to be and become all that we should be. Peter
says in verse 2 that "grace and peace be multiplied to you in the
knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord." Grace and peace are two
major values for the Christian life, and Peter says they are
multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Christ. Growing in grace
and peace is a matter of knowing God better.
Then Peter goes on in verse 3 and says, "His divine power has
given us everything we need for life and godliness through our
knowledge of him..." In verse 5 knowledge is one of the things that
we are to diligently add to our faith. In verse 8 the goal of all is from
the negative side that we shall not be unfruitful in the knowledge of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Then in 2:20 Peter says the power that
enables men to escape the evil forces of the world is the knowledge of
the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He closes this letter by writing,
"But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ." If we had nothing but II Peter, we could say that the
knowledge of God is the power of God, and the means to all His
benefits and promises.
This means modern man is so close to the truth and yet so far.
The worldly wise know that knowledge is power. In fact, knowledge
has become their idol. The success of science in demonstration the
power of knowledge has led to knowledge and education being held
forth as the panacea for all our problems, and the cure for all our
diseases. Knowledge is the modern Messiah, which will bear our
burdens and heal our diseases. Salvation through science is the only
hope that millions even consider today.
The tragedy is that they have the right answer, but the wrong
object. Knowledge is the answer, but not knowledge of the creation,
but knowledge of the Creator. Modern man is making the same
foolish mistake the ancient wise men made. Paul in Romans 1 says
they had the revelation of God, and they could have chosen Him,
but in their wisdom they became fools and chose the impersonal
handiwork of God and ignored the personal love and purpose of
God. Man is becoming an expert on the disease, but ignoring the
cure completely. He has the right idea that knowledge is power, but
he is blind to the highest and most necessary kind of power that man
needs, which is spiritual power. He neglects the knowledge of God,
the only source of such power. Modern men, in general, have a
thirst for knowledge of everything, but what they most need they
most neglect. They are like Mark Twain when he received an
invitation to dine with the Emperor of Germany. His little daughter
said to him innocently, "You'll soon know everybody except God,
won't you papa?" This is the judgment on modern man. He is
anxious to know everything and everyone but God.
God is being pushed out of the curriculum in the college of life for
masses. There are too many supposedly more realistic and practical
subjects to study. The feeling is that what cannot be known
according to the scientific method is not really knowledge, but myth
and superstition. Science is like the self-sufficient college head who
said, "I am the master of this college, and what I don't know isn't
knowledge." God is excluded, and the result is man has been able to
develop cures for almost everything but the major things, like sin
and alienation from God. Science alone is like the medicine chest
that one wrote about.
Is my finger bleeding and cut nearly off?
In my medicine chest
there's a cure for a cough.
Is a tooth shooting pins out in every direction?
Here is something
thats good for a hang nail infection.
Have I poison ivy and need for a lotion?
Well, here, all unused, is a seasick potion.
My medicine chest's never known to fail me...It's bursting with cures
for what doesn't ail me.
This is the weakness of science when it comes to the issue of
solving the sin problem, which keeps individuals and the world in
the same miserable mess in spite of all the scientific successes.
Physical power is not enough, for man need spiritual power, and this
can only be found in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ. The
task of the church is not to denounce science and growth in the
knowledge of the natural. This is both futile and foolish, for man's
mistake is not in studying God's creation. It is in neglecting to study
God Himself. This would enable man to use his knowledge of
creation for even more good to fulfill the purpose of its Creator. The
Christian is not for the prevention of the knowledge of creation, but
for the promotion of the knowledge of the Creator.
Over half a century ago Thomas Huxley praising the advances of
science declared that the nation which sticks closest to the facts will
dominate the future. Edward Miall, a member of Parliament agreed,
but he added, "The greatest fact is God." This is what we must
believe and persuade others to believe; and not just non-Christians,
but Christians as well. They are often the cause for the unbeliever
ignoring God. Believers often have such a poor, small and pathetic
conception of God that the unbeliever feels that He is an irrelevant
fact. Goethe wrote, "As a man is, so is his God, therefore was God
so often an object of mockery." Someone said that if a triangle had a
god it would give him three sides. In other words, God created us in
His image, and we tend to return the favor and reduce Him to our
image. Emerson put it, "The god of the cannibal will be a cannibal,
of the crusader a crusader, and of the merchant a merchant."
Walter Bagehot wrote,
The Ethiop gods have Ethiop lips,
Bronze cheeks, and woolly hair,
The Grecian gods are like the Greeks
As keen-eyed, cold, and fair.
All of this is natural, and usually harmless, but it can lead to
great danger, and even evil, as men develop a god to justify all they
do. Willilam James, the great student of religious experience, said,
"The God of many men is little more than the court of appeal
against the damnatory judgment passed on their failures by the
opinions of the world." A very non-subtle example of this is the little
girl who insisted that there was a lion in her front yard. Her mo;ther
ordered her to go up to her bedroom and ask God to forgive her for
lying. In a short time she returned with this happy report. She said,
"God said never you mind Mary, that bid dog pretty near fooled me
too." It is funny as a girl, but tragic if she continues to use God to
justify her stubbornness as an adult.
A false knowledge of God is possibly even worse than lack of
knowledge. We must avoid the practice of being chummy with God.
It only reveals our ignorance and not a depth ;of Knowledge. It is
often our false pretence that drives people away from God. Let us be
honest and admit that we are pilgrims with a long way to go, and let
us stand in awe and silence before that which we already know of
God. Let God be God and tremble, and do not cloud His light with
the darkness of our ignorance. Do not hold the puny candle of your
mind before the infinite depths of the mystery of God and pretend
that you see. Be still and know that e is God, and that we, like Paul,
only see through a glass darkly. Christopher P. Cranch wrote,
Thou so far we grope to grasp Thee,
Thou so near we cannot clasp Thee;
All pervading Spirit flowing
Through the worlds, yet past our knowing;
Artist of the solar spaces
And these humble human faces..
Though all mortal races claim Thee;
Though all language fail to name Thee;
Human lips are dumb before Thee;
Silence only may adore Thee.
Hab. 2:20 says, "But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth
keep silence before him."
We must stress the majesty and mystery of God even as we grow
in more and more intimate knowledge lest we become too familiar,
and by loose language bring offense rather than glory. Let us never
reduce God to our image, and our puny righteousness. We never
will if we obey the words of Peter, and grow in the knowledge of
God. This is the way to the mature, abundant, and powerful
Christian life. The idea was not new with Peter, for the knowledge
of God was also the very essence of Judaism. The knowledge of God
is a key theme in the Old Testament. The whole purpose of the book
of Proverbs was to help men understand the fear of the Lord, and
find the knowledge of God. One knew nothing of importance until
he knew God, for the fear of the Lord was the beginning of knowledge.
When Israel lacked knowledge of God she lost all the values of
life that made her useful to man and pleasing to God. For example,
in Hos. 4:1-3 we read, "Here the Word of the Lord, O people of
Israel, for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the
land. There is no faithfulness or kindness, and no knowledge of God
in the land. There is swearing, lying, killing, and stealing, and
committing adultery; they break all bonds and murder follows
murder. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it
languish." It sounds like today's newspaper report on our own
society. The difference is it states clearly the cause and solution for
the mess. In verse 6 God says, "My people are destroyed for lack of
knowledge, because you have rejected knowledge I reject you.
When a nation departs from the knowledge of God every value of
the good life departs from them, and evil and decay take their place.
Grace and peace, and all the blessings of God come to the individual
and the nation by the same means. They are found in the knowledge
of God, and so the only true solution for personal, national, and
international problems, is to grow in the knowledge of God. In Hos.
6:1,3,6 this is made clear: "Come, let us return to the Lord; for He
has torn, that He may heal us; He has stricken, and He will bind us
up...Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord....(God says,) for I
desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather
than burnt offerings. God wants us to know Him. This is the
essence of biblical religion.
God wants no part of thoughtless and mechanical ritual. To
worship God right we must worship in spirit and in truth. We must
be students we wrestle and struggle with language and ideas as we
seek to know God in truth, and love Him with all of our mind as well
as heart and soul. Christians need to become better students of
God's Word. We should think of the church as a university, and not
merely a place for fellowship. We should be coming to church to
learn what God has revealed about Himself. It is not enough just to
get good feelings, for the goal of all we do in church is to grow in the
knowledge of God.
I am convinced that American Christians are the greatest wasters
of resources for knowing God in history. We have resources beyond
the imagination of the Apostle Peter. We could know far more
about God's Word than he did if we made diligent use of these
resources. Our problem is that we do not invest our time in the
study of His Word. The most important thing we can do in this
world is to grow in the knowledge of God and of Christ our Lord.
Nathanial Michlem of Mansfield College, Oxford has written a
poem of a blind girl who sewed by day and read her Braille Bible
each night. Her fingers became callused and the letters in her Bible
were no longer readable. Frantically she sought a way of restoring
her sensitive touch by paring away the calluses. She discovered the
pain was so great that she could not sew or read. Then came the
evening when she raised her Braille Bible to her lips to kiss it
farewell before she placed it on the shelf. She discovered that her
sensitive lips quivering in sadness were able to distinguish the
letters, and she could kiss the words into life again. She found a
new method of knowing God's Word through her lips, and she went
on growing in the knowledge of God. If your method of Bible study
has become stale, and your mind callused and no longer sensitive to
the Word of God, do not put your Bible on the shelf, but search for a
new method to kiss the Word into life again. Experiment and never
cease, for all the blessings and power for the abundant life can only
be yours as you grow in the knowledge of God.
