READINESS TO LEARN
And if they are ashamed of all they have done, make known to them the design of the temple....Write these down...so that they may be faithful to its design and follow all its regulations. Eze. 43:10, 11, N.I.V.
Geometry teachers, I believe, have just about the hardest job in the whole teaching profession. Their task is to present a textbook full of excellent answers to young people who simply don't appreciate the questions. And the more complex the answer, the more convinced the ninth-graders are that there just isn't a question around that requires such an answer.
But teachers have come to know that true education is not the forcing of knowledge upon an unready mind. They spend a good deal of time helping a student recognize his need for certain information; then they present it to him.
Our heavenly Father, the Master Teacher, has packed enough answers into His sanctuary to save the whole human race. It portrays the cross of Christ, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the good news of final judgment, and the path to personal salvation and to holiness of life, just to name a few. It is a marvelous teaching device, a life-size object lesson, an acted parable of the redemption plan.
But as with the geometry class, few people care about the answers because they haven't yet discovered the questions. The plan of salvation is exciting to only those who know that they are lost. The way in which the sanctuary reveals how God will end the cosmic conflict is thrilling to only those who know that the sin problem is that big.
God instructed Ezekiel to explain the whole plan of salvation as revealed in the sanctuary to only those who had first come face-to-face with their own desperately sinful condition. Only then would they appreciate the answers. It should not surprise us, then, to find God working to show us our true condition, even though that is a painful thing for us to discover. The embarrassment of our broken promises, the shame of our unholy acts, the alienation of our deceptive ways, can be the very readiness we urgently need in order to appreciate God's totally adequate answers.
Satan is also interested in showing us the corruption of our hearts. But his goal is to crush us, not to enlighten us. He hates the sanctuary, and he has always tried to destroy it (see Dan. 8:11, 12) because of the powerful truths it reveals to ashamed sinners.
And if they are ashamed of all they have done, make known to them the design of the temple....Write these down...so that they may be faithful to its design and follow all its regulations. Eze. 43:10, 11, N.I.V.
Geometry teachers, I believe, have just about the hardest job in the whole teaching profession. Their task is to present a textbook full of excellent answers to young people who simply don't appreciate the questions. And the more complex the answer, the more convinced the ninth-graders are that there just isn't a question around that requires such an answer.
But teachers have come to know that true education is not the forcing of knowledge upon an unready mind. They spend a good deal of time helping a student recognize his need for certain information; then they present it to him.
Our heavenly Father, the Master Teacher, has packed enough answers into His sanctuary to save the whole human race. It portrays the cross of Christ, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the good news of final judgment, and the path to personal salvation and to holiness of life, just to name a few. It is a marvelous teaching device, a life-size object lesson, an acted parable of the redemption plan.
But as with the geometry class, few people care about the answers because they haven't yet discovered the questions. The plan of salvation is exciting to only those who know that they are lost. The way in which the sanctuary reveals how God will end the cosmic conflict is thrilling to only those who know that the sin problem is that big.
God instructed Ezekiel to explain the whole plan of salvation as revealed in the sanctuary to only those who had first come face-to-face with their own desperately sinful condition. Only then would they appreciate the answers. It should not surprise us, then, to find God working to show us our true condition, even though that is a painful thing for us to discover. The embarrassment of our broken promises, the shame of our unholy acts, the alienation of our deceptive ways, can be the very readiness we urgently need in order to appreciate God's totally adequate answers.
Satan is also interested in showing us the corruption of our hearts. But his goal is to crush us, not to enlighten us. He hates the sanctuary, and he has always tried to destroy it (see Dan. 8:11, 12) because of the powerful truths it reveals to ashamed sinners.
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