"Revealed Knowledge

Back to The Awesome Potential of Man

Every sophisticated or technical device or product comes with an instruction manual. Without this, the owner would find the object useless. He would not know how to properly operate it. Nor could he repair or maintain it.

We previously explained that God gave an Instruction Manual—the Bible—that contains vital REVEALED knowledge, otherwise unattainable. Unlike the modern system of education, it teaches how to live, not just how to earn a living. It explains history, prophecy, important knowledge of doctrine, and thousands of other points and principles that govern every aspect of life.

Now understand. The Bible was never intended to contain ALL knowledge, just that which is essential for salvation—knowledge that man could not discover through human reason, experimentation, analysis, and observation. The Bible was not intended to teach mankind how to design marvels of engineering, telescopes that can probe the outer reaches of the universe or computers that can perform trillions of calculations per second.

Men were given the capacity to reason out and design these and many other highly complex, technical inventions. Education in physical knowledge is important.

Here is why. Most of Earth’s population live in abject poverty, disease, filth, squalor, and illiteracy. They lack the most fundamental education that the developed “have” nations enjoy. Therefore, basic education can lead to physical improvements and advancements for civilization.

But surely 6,000 years of misery, unhappiness and every conceivable evil, ill, and woe that humanity has suffered ought to tell the world that it should carefully heed the Instruction Book of revealed spiritual knowledge that it has ignored. Yet, man continues to reject God’s SPIRITUAL REVELATION.

However, cut off from the right channel and path of spiritually understood cause and effect and from God’s revealed law, man still possesses the power of physical, human reasoning, which, sadly, has led to weapons of mass destruction and terror, cruelty, slavery, repression, pollution, crime, religious confusion, and so much more.

Hence, man’s misery and woes compound and mount at every turn.

But remember, God’s process of SPIRITUAL CREATION is still in progress. It is not complete!

Product of God’s Workmanship

Let’s continue examining the bigger picture of God’s PURPOSE. You are not the first to be concerned with God’s overall Plan—or wonder why you exist. Job asked this same question: “If a man die, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14).

God inspired him to answer his own question: “All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. You shall call, and I will answer You: You will have a desire to the work of Your hands” (Job 14:14-15).

Job acknowledged that he was the “WORK of God’s hands.” He knew God “desired” a certain purpose that involved a process at work within him. He understood that one day God would “call” him from the grave, and that he would “answer,” thus fulfilling his purpose. This is important knowledge that could only be revealed by God. Job could not otherwise have known it.

God is at work in those He has called. He is fashioning, moulding, and building within them His very character. Now notice what Isaiah recorded: “But now, O LORD, You are our Father; we are the CLAY, and You our POTTER; and we all are the WORK OF YOUR HAND” (Isa. 64:8).

Tragically, many will not allow God to work with them. They fight His PURPOSE. They think they know better than Almighty God who made them. Many refuse to be told what to do and to be clay in God’s hands. This was Adam’s problem.

Isaiah also wrote, “Woe unto him that strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to Him that fashions it, What make You? Or Your WORK, He [God] has no hands?” (Isa. 45:9).

Most people have absolutely no idea that God actively works within human beings He has called—or what He is doing when He does. Again, this is spiritually revealed knowledge, unattainable to all whom God has not called to understand His truth (John 6:44, 65; 17:17).

God is now actively working in the minds of only those few who have His Holy Spirit within them (Acts 2:38). Humans are not born with God’s character. And, again, God cannot instantly infuse them with it. Character must be developed.

The true Christian increases in understanding and “grow[s] in grace, and knowledge” (2 Pet. 3:18). He endures a lifetime of overcoming, because he is in training for a great purpose. Those called understand that “… he that shall ENDURE unto the end, the same shall be SAVED” (Matt. 24:13).

Bible study and earnest prayer are part of the Christian’s daily schedule. The one who is called has found the “pearl of great price” and is determined to build the SPIRITUAL CHARACTER and NATURE of God. While none of this will earn him salvation, it is the substance of his character that determines his reward.

Paul understood how God works in Christians. He recognized that salvation (Rom. 6:23), and even faith to receive it, are free gifts. They cannot be earned. But this does not mean God is not actively working (requiring good works) in human beings, as He REPRODUCES HIMSELF.

Consider: “For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. FOR WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP, created in Christ Jesus unto GOOD WORKS, which God has before ordained that we should WALK IN THEM” (Eph. 2:8-10).

Did you catch the phrase Paul used—“we are His workmanship”? What could be plainer? God has a Purpose at work within each person!

The verse continued by saying that Christians must “walk” in “good works.” The false notion of “just believing in Jesus” thwarts God’s Supreme Purpose of fashioning people through careful WORKMANSHIP, like a potter with clay.

Salvation, though of “grace … through faith,” involves good works. This means that salvation is a process and not something that happens immediately upon “giving your heart to Jesus.”

Notice what else Paul wrote about this process taking place within those God calls: “And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that you put on the NEW MAN, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:23-24). 2 Corinthians 5:17 puts it this way: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature …”

Those whom God is working with are literally a NEW CREATION!

The one who serves God is being transformed in his mind. He yields his own will and seeks to replace it with God’s will in all matters. He seeks to please God—not self!

Next Part "Born to Build Character

Back to The Awesome Potential of Man

Back to By David C. Pack