Steps to Christ A WRONG KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
"You study the Scriptures, because you think that in them you will find eternal life. And these very Scriptures speak about me! Yet you are not willing to come to me in order to have life." John 5:39, 40, T.E.V.
When the devil sees us trying to gain a correct knowledge of God through the study of His word, he gets nervous. As with every step toward Christ, he has sidetracks designed to hinder us from our goal.
Sometimes the devil is able to sidetrack a person by getting him to start at the wrong place in the Bible. Is there a right and a wrong place to start? For a beginner? Is there? Have you ever made a vow to read your Bible through every year, and become an authority on the book of Genesis? Or have you ever gotten as far as Chronicles and been finished off there? One time I saw a Reader's Digest title, "We're Up to Chronicles." That was worth putting in the Reader's Digest! The devil will do anything he can do to keep us from a knowledge of the love of God. It is possible to have a knowledge of everything but the love of God. It is possible to understand about history and prophecy and beasts and symbols and all that, and still to have missed the love of God.
Then there are the pseudointellectuals, who like to talk about religion but spend very little time with the Word, for communication with God. They spend a great deal of time discussing and dissecting and analyzing God and religion. They want a way of forgetting God that will pass as a way of remembering Him. They spend time considering what happens to a flower in heaven when you pick it, whether angel's wings have feathers, or more sophisticated side trips. The name of Jesus is never mentioned, and the devil sits back and laughs.
Some substitute behavioral changes for a personal relationship with God. If they succeed in changing their behavior, they think they have found Him. Some depend on other people, and their spiritual life is high or low according to what kind of people they are around. Some become preoccupied with the psychological approach, without God as the center, analyzing themselves and forgetting Christ. Some people escape by being just too busy to take time for God. But all the time, God is following, staying close, helping when we don't know it, guiding when we don't intend it, ever trying to bring us to a true knowledge of Himself, whom to know is life eternal.
"You study the Scriptures, because you think that in them you will find eternal life. And these very Scriptures speak about me! Yet you are not willing to come to me in order to have life." John 5:39, 40, T.E.V.
When the devil sees us trying to gain a correct knowledge of God through the study of His word, he gets nervous. As with every step toward Christ, he has sidetracks designed to hinder us from our goal.
Sometimes the devil is able to sidetrack a person by getting him to start at the wrong place in the Bible. Is there a right and a wrong place to start? For a beginner? Is there? Have you ever made a vow to read your Bible through every year, and become an authority on the book of Genesis? Or have you ever gotten as far as Chronicles and been finished off there? One time I saw a Reader's Digest title, "We're Up to Chronicles." That was worth putting in the Reader's Digest! The devil will do anything he can do to keep us from a knowledge of the love of God. It is possible to have a knowledge of everything but the love of God. It is possible to understand about history and prophecy and beasts and symbols and all that, and still to have missed the love of God.
Then there are the pseudointellectuals, who like to talk about religion but spend very little time with the Word, for communication with God. They spend a great deal of time discussing and dissecting and analyzing God and religion. They want a way of forgetting God that will pass as a way of remembering Him. They spend time considering what happens to a flower in heaven when you pick it, whether angel's wings have feathers, or more sophisticated side trips. The name of Jesus is never mentioned, and the devil sits back and laughs.
Some substitute behavioral changes for a personal relationship with God. If they succeed in changing their behavior, they think they have found Him. Some depend on other people, and their spiritual life is high or low according to what kind of people they are around. Some become preoccupied with the psychological approach, without God as the center, analyzing themselves and forgetting Christ. Some people escape by being just too busy to take time for God. But all the time, God is following, staying close, helping when we don't know it, guiding when we don't intend it, ever trying to bring us to a true knowledge of Himself, whom to know is life eternal.
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