... Nor a Lifetime.

A young Irish law student was once reading a book by Cicero, the great Roman orator. He later said he had only been doing that for the sake of having the knowledge Cicero had and not because he expected to put it to any real use. This was pretty much like as real estate millionaire buying a property for the sake of owning it and not for the sake of putting it to any real use.

Well anyway, what happened to this young person was that he came across a line of Cicero where the great pagan orator says something to the affect that when one fully understands something as a subject of discourse, then one becomes master over it. This Irish law student thought about this for a moment and then said to himself that this cannot be true because it is not true of God. The student’s name was John Nelson Darby. And this realization - given him gratuitously by the Holy Spirit of God - was the source of his eventual spiritual regeneration.

What was that? What was that insight again? What did he mean by that?

Well, the insight was later also given to C.S. Lewis, who explained it with a simple example. Lewis said that we as human beings can easily capture and study any of the lower animals that we care to. We have mastery over them. But the more intelligent an animal gets, the harder it is to do that because the animal has more resources to defend itself against us. When you start talking about human beings, this becomes harder still. While there are some human beings whom you can learn something about, there are other human beings whom you will never learn anything about because they have the resources to see to it that you never do.

With God, we now come to the ultimate in that. We will never learn anything about God unless He decides to reveal it to us in some way. We are fortunate that He has decided to let us know some things about Himself, but that does not mean that all our direct attempts to find out things about Him are always going to be rewarded. Indeed, they may be thwarted because there might be something in the way we go about this that would subtract from God’s honor and majesty (i.e. His “Lamborghini-hood”). Everything we can come to know about God is always a gift from God, and not just a matter of “skill” on our part.

Why do I make a point of this? I make a point of this because there are people, even Chrstian people, who have spent their lives learning everything there is to know in the Bible without ever coming to understand this. There are people who have learned everything there is to know in religious matters without ever having come to pray concretely and depend on answers from God Himself. “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” There are many highly credentialled individuals who are in this predicament, and mostly because their own ego drives preclude them from perceiving the truth.

Unlike any other book, the Bible is unique in that there are things in it that can be read off its pages thousands of times without their ever being comprehended by a human being until God wants a human being to comprehend them:

1 Cor 2:12-14

12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

(KJV)

John 3:27

27 John [ the Baptizer ] answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.

(KJV)

John 3:1-12

1 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:

2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.

3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?

5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?

10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?

11 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.

12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

(KJV)

When the doctrine of salvation by faith alone was lost to the church, it was not found again until the Reformation. When the truth of the church being a composite spiritual organism was lost in practicality, it was not recovered in practicality again until the 1820’s.

It was only after I was led by God to see examples of concrete prayer in the biographies of various Christians that I finally learned what it was (and was not). And it was only after a season in concrete prayer that I finally grapsed the identification truths of my spiritually based crucifixion and and resurrection in Christ to newness of life. (Gal 2:20, Gal 5:24,25, Gal 6:14). I can’t tell you what a shock it was to have read the scripture since I was a teenager and then suddenly understand this pivotal and important truth only after I entered my fourties and learned how to pray properly.

With the Bible, it is not just a matter being able to grasp a truth by simply reading it. It is a matter of being ready to grasp a truth when God thinks you are ready and when He has something for you to do with that truth once it is given to you. Contary to the millionaire who can buy a property just for the sake of owniing it, God will not reveal a truth to you unless He wants to and has something He wants you to do with that truth.

So this leads me on to the next subject, sanctification.