Hosea
4:6 – “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: …”
Hosea 6:6 – “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings”.
Isaiah
5:13 – “Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge:
and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst”.
“Gone into captivity” - because they have not the knowledge of God to keep them free.
“Their
honorable men are famished” - famished for the truth of God’s word, spiritual meat, knowledge
of the true word of God.
The
subject of spiritual meat is covered in Hebrews 5:12-14
12
“For when for the time you ought to be
teachers, you have need that one teach you again which be the first principle of
the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong
meat.
13
For every one that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for
he is a babe.
14
But strong meat belongs to them that are of full age, even those who by
reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil”.
So
the Bible is relating our level of knowledge to strong meat vs. milk. And who is it that the strong meat (spiritual
truth) belongs to? Those who by reason of use have their senses
exercised. God tells us in Hebrews 5:14 – use your senses to learn my word, so that you are fed
with spiritual meat, not milk.
In Isaiah 5:13, "Their
multitude", the people, are dried up with thirst because they don’t have the
living water, the truth of God, to give them drink.
These
verses apply now, in our time, as much as then. That’s part of the mystery of God’s word, a beautiful mystery
that once unlocked in our minds sends us out to search every day so that we won’t
be famished or thirsty for spiritual truth.
We
can look around us to see – the knowledge of the word of God is missing from
our society. But we don’t have to follow society’s lead in this matter – we can,
by reason of use, have our senses exercised. What good news! The word of God is
for our use now, every day, so that we will not be destroyed by lack of
knowledge.
It is written.
Have
you read it?
