Solomon declared: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
In other words, to fear the Lord and to know Him is the basis on which all other wisdom and knowledge is built.
The simple fact that we live in God’s world makes this statement logical. He created it in the finest of detail and He sustains it even to the minutest of every aspect thereof. Reject this truth and the world, life and relationships become a quagmire of human interpretation. Everything is open to chance which can strike randomly without reason, whether good or bad. In fact, good and bad lose its meaning without God.
God’s people in the time of Jeremiah were lead by godless prophets and priests. The kings were no better. They deserted the Word of God as rule of life and practice. They rejected God. The result was a total absence of knowledge and wisdom. Verse 7 of Jeremiah 8 speaks volumes:
Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the Lord. (Jeremiah 8:7)
The stork, the dove and the falcon know seasons: they know when to migrate and where to go; and they then know when to return and where to return to.
They were more clever than God’s people!
Every time we buy a new piece of equipment, we first try it out according to what we think how it is supposed work. After much frustration and a lot of time wasted, we reach out for the instruction manual. Life is much easier then.
Reject the Bible as God’s Word and what kind of knowledge do you end up with?
We can be stubbornly wise in our own eyes: we follow our own way, reject God’s Word regarding marriage, and end up with much pain: children are hurt, souls are scarred, and relationships are wrecked. We try to fix it, but it gets worse.
In stead of honouring the sacred relationship between husband and wife by keeping sex within the bounds of marriage, we end up with unwanted children, abortions, AIDS, venereal diseases and hurting emotional baggage. We redefined marriage to include about every relationship, for as long as people love one another. The definition of what love is keeps escaping us.
Rejecting God’s Word we follow our own “scientific” method and teach our children humanistic and atheistic values. We teach them they are merely a higher form of animal life, and when they start acting like it, we are surprised.
Never have we known and experienced more mental illnesses as in our time. Suicide, depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, etc., just compounds by the day.
Reject the Bible as God’s Word and what kind of knowledge do you end up with?
Knowledge implies rights and wrongs; it implies standards, it implies truth and lie. These basic things are now thrown out the window. Post-modernism does not allow absolutes—that they declare, is the absolute truth!
Reject the Bible as God’s Word and what kind of knowledge do you end up with?
This is surely a question our society has to answer very honestly.
Heavenly Father, please rescue us from our blindness and ignorance. Save us from our wisdom and make us wise by Your everlasting standards. Teach us once again the preciousness of your Word and your instruction. Give us a heart of a David who delighted in your Word, day and night. Give us understanding to come to Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Amen.
Ultimate Standards 