The Christian religion is a religion of learning. One’s participation in the blessings of God as manifested and made available through Christ and his gospel is proportionate to his knowledge of the things that God wants him to know.
When the law of Moses was in effect, God’s people were often in distress because of a lack of knowledge. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hos. 4:6). This destruction did not come for lack of knowing what they could not know, for the same text says: “Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you.”
We should not be as concerned about the unknowable, or the unimportant things, as we should be about what we can know but do not know because we have not used our opportunities to know.
Being made free from sin is inseparably connected to knowing. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Perhaps “knowing” in this verse embraces more than just grasping facts; it must include knowing the truth in the measure that one knows it by obedient experience by which is proven to him the priceless value of the truth.
Faith that saves is connected with knowledge. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). Faith that does not come like this is the kind to get rid of.
Being baptized right is an impossibility without the knowledge of certain truths. “Go teach all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19).
Basil Overton
Seven Score Short Sermons