WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW

 

Friday, March 02, 2001

 

Today as I read "The Saints Everlasting Rest" by Richard Baxter. Some very fundable thoughts came to me, which I before had not in this way considered.

                #1). Many times people go through life with a heart or blood disease and not are aware they are sick. Many times people go to the Dr for a routine exam only to find they have cancer. They feel fine and look well but they are sick and don't know it. My son-in-laws father looked well, felt well only had some blurred vision. But when he went to the eye Dr. he discovered he had had a stroke cause by cancer in his liver. How can this be that we can be so sick and sometimes near to death totally unaware? My sister Sue had osteoporosis and was a diabetic. Even tho she had had skin cancer on her face she nor her doctor knew she was dying of cancer of the lung until one Saturday she felt she was having problems walking. She went to the hospital and was found to have lung cancer. She lived 4 and 1/2 weeks. She was sick and dying and didn't know it.

 

                #2). When Adam disobeyed God in the garden of Eden he caused every man born of a man and woman to come into this world with a disease. We are all born into this world with the disease of sin and spiritual death. We are born spiritually dead and sentenced to physical death as a result of Adams disobedience. We come into this world separated from the joy and peace available to us through Christ. Many times man lives his entire life never knowing he has this sickness. He goes through his entire life looking for something. He doesn't know for sure what it is but feels he will know it when he finds it. Sadly to many never find it. It is sought in riches, power, popularity, sex, drugs and possessions but it is never found.

 

I know what it is. It is the rest that God promised the children of Israel. It is the rest that Adam and Eve enjoyed in the garden before their fall. It is the point of perfect fellowship with God through Christ. Is it possible that man can have this peace, joy, comfort and happiness this side of heaven? Yes. God promised it. Christ promised it and many Christians today experience it.

 

I have often thought, why do people go to see a counselor? I know there are explainable reasons but what is the person really seeking?  Are they looking for advice as to how to deal with those around them? Are they trying to get confirmation of their feelings of themselves? Are they looking for answers they feel they don't have? What are they looking for? I don't know the answer for certain and they may not either. I submit they maybe looking for it. Man does not know he is dead spiritually. Man doesn't know he is spiritually discerned. In this case what he doesn't know will hurt him. He will suffer his entire life because he does not know the cure to this sickness. Baxter said it this way:

 

"It is not our comfort only, but our stability. Our liveliness in all duties, our enduring of tribulation, our honoring of God, the vigor of our love, thankfulness, and all our graces; yea, the very being of our religion and Christianity depend on the believing, serious thoughts of our rest. And now, reader, whoever thou art, young or old, rich or poor, I entreat thee, and charge thee, in the name of thy Lord, who will shortly call thee to a reckoning, and judge thee to thy everlasting, unchangeable state, that thou give not these things the reading only, and so dismiss them with a bare approbation; but that thou set upon this work, and take God in Christ for thy only rest, and fix thy heart upon him above all. May the living God, who is the portion and rest of his saints, make these our carnal minds so spiritual, and our earthly hearts so heavenly that loving him, and delighting in him, may be the work of our lives; and that neither I that write, nor you that read this book, may ever be turned from this path of life; "lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest," we should "come short of it," through our own unbelief or negligence."

 

It is hard to conceive that anyone would go looking for the thing he does not know he does not have. Further would he desperately need and wants what he doesn't know he wants and needs. I think not. Again Baxter said:

 

"They that never yet knew they were without God, and in the way to hell, never yet knew the way to heaven. Can a man find he hath lost his God and his soul, and not cry, I am undone? The reason why so few obtain this rest, is, they will not be convinced that they are, in point of title, distant from it and, in point of practice, Contrary to it. Who ever sought for that which he knew not he had lost'? "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick:"

 

The apostle Paul put it another way:

1 Cor 1:18-27 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?   For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;  (KJV)

 

Man is searching for God and the spiritual peace, comfort and joy that a Spiritual life in fellowship with Christ brings but doesn't know it. Further the natural man feels that the bible and spiritual things are foolishness, fables and fables. Go to any uncivilized part of the world and you will find the inhabitants have man made Gods they worship and serve. Man has this need for God from birth but either denies it or is not aware of it. God is seeking to get man to chose to have a personal relation with him and Satan is pulling man the other way, to serve himself and his own desires.

Sin originated with Satan Isa 14:12-14, entered the world through Adam Ro 5:12, was, and is, universal, Christ alone excepted Ro 3:23 1Pe 2:22, incurs the penalties of spiritual and physical death Ge 2:17 3:19 Eze 18:4,20 Ro 6:23 and has no remedy but in the sacrificial death of Christ Heb 9:26 Ac 4:12 availed of by faith Ac 13:38,39.  Sin may be summarized as threefold: An act, the violation of, or want of obedience to the revealed will of God; a state, absence of righteousness; a nature, enmity toward God.