Truth: Discovered or Revealed?
Truth:
Discovered or Revealed?
I well remember the drudgery of Algebra 1 back in junior high.
I’ve never been the mathematical, linear, or logical type. Always motivated to dig into music, art, history, and English, I’ve relished math like a trip to the dentist. Sure, I’d do my homework, study theory, listen in class, and try my hardest to understand what all my classmates apparently had little difficulty grasping. But somehow those funny little formulas never seemed to penetrate my gray matter.
But then came a day, a day still clear in my memory, when I discovered the truth of negative numbers. If you could have been sitting there in class with me, I just know you would have seen that big proverbial light bulb flash on over my head.
Ah-hah! Eureka! I was thrilled to finally be able to grasp all those equations and proofs.
Discovering truth after a long mental wrestling match is an exhilarating experience. But we shouldn’t make the mistake of equating that sort of intellectual discovery with the experience of grasping the truth of God’s Word.
We can participate in Bible studies, do our homework, grapple with all those doctrines, and try really hard to make sense of Scripture.
But if any light bulbs flick on in our thinking, it’s probably not because we’ve “discovered” truth. More likely it has been revealed to us. By God.
Peter thought he made a great discovery when he answered Jesus’ question with the words, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16).
In the next verse, however, Jesus is quick to declare it was no artful detective work on Peter’s part that brought him to that all-important truth. Peter did not discover who Jesus was. Christ said, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man [that is, by human logic and surmising], but by my Father in heaven.”
You can’t unearth spiritual truth by the muscle of intellect or the brawn of our brains alone. God reveals these things to us. In fact, God goes so far as to say He hides these things from the wise and intelligent, revealing them instead to the childlike.
Perhaps our prayers today ought to be seasoned with the kinds of petitions that simply say, “God, reveal Yourself to me. Reveal Your truth in Your Word.”
We may be surprised to find that all of our homework. study, listening, and trying will be effective. Not because we’ve put so much energy into it, but because our Father in heaven has chosen to pull back the curtain.
“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter” (Proverbs 25:2).
Goes against the grain a little, doesn’t it?
We don’t want matters concealed from us. Especially things that touch our lives. We want all the facts, the blueprint of God’s design spread out on the table.
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter.
Consider the life of Amy Carmichael. She went to India in 1895, never realizing that country would become her home, the children of India her family. Nor did she know then that many beautiful, intelligent little girls in India were taken from their homes and trained to become temple women to satisfy the lusts of men in the worship of Hindu gods. She learned of this horrible custom when a seven-year-old who had escaped from a temple was brought to her house.
From that day on the Lord placed the desire in Amy Carmichael’s heart to save these girls from moral ruin and train them to do the will of the heavenly Father.
Yet early on in her ministry, Miss Carmichael slipped into a pit, permanently crippling her leg. For the next twenty years she remained in bed, rarely leaving her room.
On the morning of the accident she had prayed, “Do anything, Lord, that will fit me to serve You better.”
That accident was the answer. But in her confinement she went on to write thirteen books which have blessed generations of sufferers around the world.
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter.
“We speak of God’s secret wisdom,” Paul writes, “a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began” (1 Corinthians 2:7).
It is a glorious thing for a man or woman to be Godsufficient and not seek human explanations for His actions in his or her life. Even when those circumstances are totally mysterious.
As in the case of Amy Carmichael, the glory of the believer is absolute trust and confidence.
It is a glorious thing to know that your Father God makes no mistakes in directing or permitting that which crosses the path of your life.
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter.
It is our glory to trust Him, no matter what.
A FEW GOOD CLUES
Have you ever started reading a mystery novel only to quit in frustration less than halfway through?
Maybe there were too few clues—or the clues were absurd. The plot never thickened, the characters never developed. And the author seemed determined to leave the reader in the dark.
We give up on books like that because the mystery alone does not excite us. We can never get interested if we are left ignorant. To hold our attention, a good mystery novel must be sprinkled with facts, hints, information, clues.
God has mysteries, too. In Deuteronomy 29:29, Moses writes: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”