“My people is destroyed for lack of knowledge” is the epitaph written of many Christians who sleep amongst the dead. Neglecting the diligent study of the Scriptures, they have no nutriment for their love and it starves. They sigh after their “first love,” strangely forgetting that God’s love is the first love; that “we love Him because He first loved us,” and that our spiritual affection can only be kept ardent and glowing by a daily finding-out from the Bible how immeasurably and persistently God has loved us. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” How He has thus loved us is written everywhere in Scripture, in the types and shadows of the books of Moses, the predictions of psalms and prophets, the story of the Evangelists, the doctrines of the epistles, and in the lofty strains of the Apocalypse — in all these myriad voices the same story is repeated of the true “Lamb of God” giving His life a ransom for many, and “hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us.”
They who do not search into these things know not what hid treasures they miss; and neglect of study leads to decay in the spiritual life. Where gross temptation slays one Christian, ignorance slays scores. It defeats the believer by cutting off his supplies; it puts him into darkness by withholding the light; it nurses him into unbelief by giving him nothing to believe. A rebellious wayward heart is sad enough; but a sterile heart is a great grief to the Holy Spirit and a bitter trial to all who have a care for the Church of God-a heart that yields no fruit or testimony, because it is too indifferent to receive from God the seed of the Word, and so lies perpetually fallow.
“Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” You cannot grow in grace except you grow in knowledge; and you cannot grow in knowledge apart from the Scriptures which testify of Him in whom is eternal life.
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There is no process, even of divine alchemy, by which the base metal of “the flesh” can be transformed into the fine gold of “the spirit.” The new birth is an absolute necessity.
The Christian is not a flesh-improved man. He has not a better old-life than the sinner possesses, but new life, which the unrepentant sinner does not possess at all.