WE MUST KNOW GOD BY REVELATION, NOT BY EXPLANATION
By: Dr. Mike Jones
“Reading refers to public reading of scripture in the church’s worship service, followed by the explanation of the passage that was just read.
“Exhortation” challenges those who hear the Word to apply it in their daily lives. It may involve rebuking someone, warning someone, encouraging someone, or comforting someone.
“Teaching” refers to systematic instruction from the Word of God which encourages
godliness and confronts sin and error from teachers that teach a different doctrine than that of the Apostolic doctrine.
When you read the small book of Joel, it reveals the hand of God that controls destiny and moves history.
Throughout the centuries, men have contributed ‘educated’ guesses about the controlling principles of life. For example, Thomas Jefferson thought it was political, and when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, he incorporated in the document: “Human governments recognize that certain inalienable rights are granted to men, and that to preserve these rights, governments are instituted among men.” It was stated that Jefferson felt that the forces that shape human history and form the nations of earth are political in nature.
Karl Marx, the great German Economist of the 18th century wrote that, “The controlling force of history was economics.” His economic theories are so widely known and used that the minds of millions of men today feel that economics is the controlling force of life.
Some say the controlling force of life is sociology, and evolution is what is shaping the course of human destiny. Life is constantly evolving and that’s what’s making life better and better.
The Bible says that all these controlling forces are wrong, that it’s God behind the course of human history that shapes our lives, and you cannot understand human events if you do not first recognize that God’s Spirit is at work. [Point of interest: If God isn’t exalted in our nation and our lives, He will remove His Spirit- which is the controlling force of life – and everything will collapse.]
Why things will collapse is found in the passage, “Another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord.” What happened? God wanted each succeeding generation to experience Him personally and know His grace and power in their lives. However, those who crossed the Jordan forgot to tell the younger generation, and the younger generation, and they didn’t of ask!
(WE MUST TESTIFY OF GOD’S GREATNESS AND HIS GOODNESS)
If we do not testify of His supernatural power the nations will continue to change from being God-fearing nations to God ignorant nations. We can all testify that we’re seeing a decline in morality, generation after generation. People are involved in religious activities, but no relationship.
We need a fresh revelation of God’s word daily. If we don’t, we will become stagnated, we end up putting God in a box, thinking that God only operates in a certain way, in a given situation, because that’s how He did it in the past.
Remember, the Apostle Paul said in Romans 9:20-21, “who art thou that repliest (counsel) against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, why has thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay?
And in Isaiah 55:8, God speaking through the prophet said, “For My Thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
In another chapter of Paul’s Epistle to Timothy, he said, “They will act as though they’re religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. You must stay away from people like that. They are the kind who work their way into people’s homes and win the confidence of vulnerable women who are burden with the guilt of sin and controlled by many desires. Such women are forever following new teachings.”
In my conclusion, God wants us to receive a fresh revelation of who He is every day. The Israelites received fresh manna on a daily basis. Every time they tried to store manna, it would go stale. God wanted then to look to Him on a daily basis. If we try to live off old revelation of who God is, and not discover the new mercies of God, every day, we will start deteriorating into mediocrity.
This is visible in the life of a believer when their prayer life is reduced to reading a prayer written by someone else on a daily basis, instead of developing a prayer life for themselves; serious Bible study becomes reading a few verses every day, no systematic studying of God’s Word.
If we get to know God by revelation and not explanation, then God becomes “the Lord of the work“, instead of us doing “the work of the Lord“. For Jesus declared, without Me, you can do nothing, but with Me, you can do all things.
The thing to remember is that God’s Word is revealed by the Spirit. God does not explain Himself, He reveals Himself. You can see this all the way back in the book of Genesis when it states, “In the beginning, God …
Ephesian, Chapter 1:17-18, “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance