For assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it.—Matthew 13:17.
The warnings of the word of God regarding the perils surrounding the Christian church belong to us today. As in the days of the apostles men tried by tradition and philosophy to destroy faith in the Scriptures, so today, by the pleasing sentiments of higher criticism, evolution, spiritualism, theosophy, and pantheism, the enemy of righteousness is seeking to lead souls into forbidden paths. To many the Bible is as a lamp without oil, because they have turned their minds into channels of speculative belief that bring misunderstanding and confusion. The work of higher criticism, in dissecting, conjecturing, reconstructing, is destroying faith in the Bible as a divine revelation. It is robbing God’s word of power to control, uplift, and inspire human lives. By spiritualism, multitudes are taught to believe that desire is the highest law, that license is liberty, and that they are accountable only to themselves.
The followers of Christ will meet with the “enticing words” against which the apostle warned the Colossian believers. They will meet with spiritualistic interpretations of the Scriptures, but they are not to accept them. Their voices are to be heard in clear affirmation of the eternal truths of the Scriptures. Keeping their eyes fixed on Christ, they are to move steadily forward in the path marked out, discarding all ideas that are not in harmony with His teaching. The truth of God is to be the subject for their contemplation and meditation. They are to regard the Bible as the voice of God speaking directly to them. Thus they will find the wisdom which is divine.
The knowledge of God as revealed in Christ is the knowledge that all who are saved must have. This is the knowledge that works transformation of character. Received into the life, it will re-create the soul in the image of Christ. This is the knowledge that God invites His children to receive, beside which all else is vanity and nothingness.
In every generation and in every land the true foundation for character building has been the same—the principles contained in the word of God. The only safe and sure rule is to do what God says. “The statutes of the Lord are right,” and “he that doeth these things shall never be moved.” (Psalm 19:8; 15:5.) It was with the word of God that the apostles met the false theories of their day.—The Acts of the Apostles, 474, 475.
From Homeward Bound - Page 43
Homeward Bound