KNOWING ONLY WHAT GOD CHOOSES TO REVEAL
‘Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16)
“However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (10:20)
“..I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and reveal them to little children. Yes, Father for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (10:21b-22)

The above statements were addressed to the seventy two individuals sent by Christ to every town to preach the ‘kingdom of God’ ahead of Him – among them were probably the twelve Apostles.
It is interesting to note that Jesus explained that those who rejected them were in truth rejecting Him, and those who rejected Him were actually rejecting the Father who sent Him; similarly, those who listened to them were in effect listening to Him. Today, we have the Scripture and in the Old Testament, and particularly in the New, the words of God were recorded for His people by the Prophets as well as the Apostles. Ponder over this: if we do not listen to the words and writings of the Prophets and Apostles, we are in effect not listening to Jesus and the Father – and the words and writings are in the Bible, and it is the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Godhead, who gives illumination and understanding to what were said and written. So we need to realise the seriousness of not listening to the revelation from God and the foolhardiness of rejecting what God intends for us to listen and to act upon.
As we approach the reading and study of the Bible; as we listen to the teaching and preaching of God’s Word, do we come with this consciousness, or do we come with the intention to forward our own limited and distorted understanding and knowledge, ending up hearing without truly listening and being hearers of the Word and not doers?

When Jesus told the seventy two not to rejoice that the spirits submit to them, but to rejoice that their names are written in heaven, He is telling them that having authority and power to cast out demons and to do great things like miracles of healing – they cannot be compared with our names written in “the book of life” as noted in the book of Revelation.
In the last days, what is most fearful is not the degree of persecution and suffering believers will have to endure – what is most fearful is to have our names removed from the book of life. God will judge us by our works, but our works are the outcome and result of our FAITH in Jesus. Our eternal destiny is most important; this cannot be compared with temporary ‘prestige’ and ‘authority’ and ‘standing’ in our temporary life and ministry if we end up being rejected by the Triune God.

Jesus went on to say that the things of God are not revealed to the earthly learned and wise; instead they are revealed to little children – those who are humble, teachable, and open to God and His revelation. Also, only those to whom the Son of God chose to reveal the Father can truly know the Father and the knowledge of God and His revelation.
So those of us who count ourselves as knowledgeable, wise, and learned, from the earthly point of view, should honestly examine the fact that we may not truly know God and His revelation, because Christ has chosen not to reveal this to us basically because we trust in our own knowledge and standing, and are not open to the truths from God, which interestingly are recognised and accepted by the humble, and those who are poor in spirit, like little children.

There is still time before the final Judgment Day. Do not reject God’s offer of salvation through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, simply because we think ourselves wise and beyond correction.

WISDOM – ITS SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS
“And he said to man, “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding” (Job 28:28).

We need to know the context of the above verse – it is in the book of Job, when Job, a righteous man (by God’s comment), underwent much sufferings, losing members in his family, economic ‘disaster’, suffered pain and illness – and on top of this being accused by his close friends that he must have committed grave sins to suffer such severe sufferings. Job was also ‘abandoned’ by his wife and told to curse God and die. Of course, the devil was working behind the scene, and Job had no knowledge of such an evil spiritual being.

And the above statement was what Job expressed: “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding”. It is incredulous that Job, in such dire circumstances, could utter such a wise and appropriate statement.
It teaches us that wisdom begins with the worship of God for his goodness revealed in both the created and covenantal order, coupled with wonder at human foolishness – all the nuttiness of egoism, self-aggrandisement, idolatry, immorality and mishandling of relationships (see Proverbs and Ecclesiastes). Evidently, Job did not forget God and his goodness in his life, even in his current state of suffering and pain; also Job was wise enough not to turn to human wisdom (often folly) to address his problems – he remained true to God in the most tiring and long period of pressure, stress, and suffering.

Wisdom goes on to ask what direction and style of life make sense in light of what is known of God’s presence, preferences, and providental government. Within the frame of what the fear of the Lord has established, what emerges is the humble, thoughtful and God-centred living in one’s life, even though the perplexity and pain still dominate the situations in one’s life.

And here a sense of human limitation also emerges, for wise people know that while God has told us much about what he is doing in his world, much is kept hidden from us (just like the knowledge of Satan in Job’s case), and we must not claim to know more of God’s current actions than in fact we do. Even when in frantic pain, wise persons settle for not knowing, and not even trying to guess, God’s unrevealed purposes in their lives ( the worst scenario is to conclude that God is the cause of our pain and that he is unloving and cruel – all these are contrary to what we know about God in Scripture).

Wisdom works out the application of divine truths to the ups and downs of life with full awareness of the limits of revelation and the greatness of the divine mystery (in other words, we let God be God and we his humble creatures with our limited understanding and finiteness).

ON AUTHORITY – PARTICULARLY AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE
Many of us are “put off” by the word authority. Actually, believing things on authority only means believing them because we have been told them by someone we think trustworthy. Almost 100% of the things we believe in are believed on authority. For instance, I believe that man has landed on the moon although I have not seen it myself at close quarters, except in the news or social media (and note that now that can be fake news and deep-fakes to produce untrue events very convincingly). I cannot prove by abstract reasoning that there is such a place called Nepal, or minute substances called atoms, or even such a thing as the solar system – I believe there is because reliable people have told me so. In fact, every historical statement and event in the world is believed on authority – we were not there when it happened, and hence we did not see it with our own eyes.

A man who sneered at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life. Many more copies of the original of the Bible exist today when compared to a historical account of a Roman conqueror called Caesar; and certain parts of the New Testament were written within a few hundred years after the death of Christ when compared to many historical events that were written down thousands of years after what transpired. Yet many believe in the authority of documents of such secular events and yet deny the authority of the Bible.

To accept the authority of Scripture means in practice being willing first to believe what it teaches, and then to apply its teachings to ourselves for our correction and guidance. The early church saw that this was what God demanded, and the truth is that God demands the same in every age of the church’s life. The words and lives of Christian men and women must be in continual process of reformation by the written word of God.
This means that Church’s traditions and private theological speculations may never be identified with the word which God speaks, but are to be classed among the words of men which the Word of God must reform.