What You Don’t Know Will Hurt You
Years ago, I played in a church basketball league. For this particular game, I had the keys to the building in which we were going to play. I arrived about two hours early. It had snowed about an inch and a half that day, and the parking lot had not yet been plowed. I parked my car and went into the gymnasium. When the game was over, since I was to lock up, I needed to stay until everyone was gone. Sometime after my arrival, someone had plowed the snow, and a parking ticket was on my windshield. Yes, I was double-parked, but because of the snow, the lines were not visible when I arrived. My ignorance of the location of the parking lines cost me a ticket.
Curiosity may cause a child to stick their finger or another object into a light socket. Their ignorance of the dangers of electricity may cause an unwanted shock, or even worse.
Someone with a food allergy unknowingly eating something containing what they are allergic to can cause some serious problems or even death.
These three examples show how the phrase “What they don’t know won’t hurt them” isn’t always correct.
These are physical examples, but what about the spiritual realm? Are there spiritual things out there that, if we are unaware of them, can cause eternal damage?
Many people are willingly ignorant of the things of God. Job 21:14, “Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.”
Jesus tells the story of a man in Luke 12:16-21 who is very successful according to the world’s standards. The man has attained so much wealth that he needs to build larger barns to hold all his goods. The man has enough to sustain himself for “many years.” The fellow is going to retire and live off of his accumulated wealth. There is nothing wrong with preparing for retirement, but the huge kink in the man’s plan is something he did not consider: his death. The man dies on the night that he decided to kick back and take it easy.
There are dozens of lessons we can learn from this man’s story, but one thing that jumps off the page for me is something not on the page. Jesus never mentions how the man prayed, or studied God’s Word, or attended the synagogue. One might say these things are not mentioned because they lack relevance to the story, but could it be that they are not mentioned because they were not part of the man’s life?
The last verse of the story leads me to believe that the man gave no thought to God or spiritual things. Like most of us, he was a busy man. A person in the B.C. era did not make enough to retire without a strong work ethic and burning the midnight oil. He likely had family responsibilities as well; a wife and children, in-laws, and so forth. Like us, in thinking of his busy schedule, he must have thought from time to time, “I wish I had more than twenty-four hours in a day.” He would lie down at night, exhausted, thinking of all the things he had to do tomorrow.
Perhaps, like many of us, he would from time to time think about reading the Bible or going to a religious service, but there was no time. Life gets so busy that God becomes an afterthought.
The man did well for himself. He made enough to retire. But like all of us, he was ignorant of when death would come knocking at the door. In today’s age, if there is something you need to know, the answers are only an internet search away. But death, no one knows. DuWayne, best man at my wedding, and my sister Brenda both died in their twenties. My great-great-uncle lived past the age of 110. I have preached at the funerals of infants. With death the universal unknowable, wouldn’t it be advantageous to know spiritual things?
When Paul was on Mars Hill in Athens, he saw an altar with the inscription, “TO THE UNKNOWN GOD” (Acts 17:23).
Is God unknown to you?
God created everything (Genesis 1:1). When creation was complete, God stepped back, looked at all that He had made, and said, “It was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Shortly after creation, man disobeyed God, and sin entered the world (Genesis 3). When sin entered the world, death came with it. When Adam and Eve sinned, God killed animals to make them clothing. Nothing had died before. Because of sin, we all die. Romans 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:”.
God is all-knowing. He knew mankind would sin before He created us. God established the law that “without the shedding of blood is no remission.” God laid the foundation for us to receive eternal life, and that life would only come through the blood of a sinless sacrifice: the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
God loves you; in fact, God is love (1 John 4:8). We sinned; we are all sinners, and a blood sacrifice is needed to remove those sins from our account. God provided the sacrifice by offering His Son, Jesus Christ. He turns to us and tells us that it is through faith that salvation, eternal life, is granted.
Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.”
John 1:12, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.”
Romans 5:1, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Are you aware of who God is and what He has done for you? Do you have time to learn about spiritual things in general? What you don’t know will hurt you.
Preacher Tim Johnson is Pastor of Countryside Baptist Church in Parke County, Indiana. His weekly column “Preacher’s Point” may be found at: www.preacherspoint.wordpress.com