Articles
The Necessity of Discovery
The wise writer looked back on his search for meaning and happiness in the earthly life and discovered, “all is vanity and grasping for the wind” (Eccl. 1:14). But in that discovery came a lesson that, unfortunately, would likely not have been learned as effectively as it was by his search and failure to find meaning and happiness in the way he did. As we likely know [if not, we would do well to learn as early in life as possible], some things will not be believed and some lessons will not be learned simply because someone with more wisdom and experience tells us. Sometimes, we have to discover these truths ourselves, and sometimes ‘the hard way.’
But our great God and Creator made us for discovery; He does not simply place men on earth with all knowledge in their heads and He did not conceive His plan for our salvation and fully execute it and compile the list of the saved [and, concurrently, the lost] without having a part for man in his salvation. That is not to say man can do anything to save himself, but God did conceive a plan by which man must discover a few things and accept the truths that are discovered before one can be saved.
God Must be Discovered. The nature of God is such that we cannot ‘see’ Him with the physical eye. As Jesus said plainly, “God is Spirit” (John 4:24). God is not physical in nature, nor does he have flesh and bones like mankind. But that is not to say that we cannot ‘find’ or ‘discover’ God is — that He does indeed exist. In fact, the apostle Paul told those in Athens that God “has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:26, 27). God wants us to find Him, but we have to search for Him!
He also told those in Lystra, “He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). Similarly, he reminds us that those who willfully reject God and deny His existence so they may continue in ungodliness — “men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” — are “without excuse” because “what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead” (Rom. 1:18-20). While men deny there is evidence for God’s existence, the reality is that they are ignoring or simply rejecting the evidence; many times, it is because such men do not want God to exist. It is often because, as Jesus noted, “men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (John 3:19, 20). If you are genuinely interested in finding God, you will; if you, conversely, do not want to find God, you will not. But He will find you, and you will stand before Him in the final judgment (Rom. 14:12).
And while God may be discovered through nature and the evidence He has left for us, we will not know what we need to know about God, and what He demands of us, unless and until we open up our Bibles and see what He has revealed. As Paul put it: “no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God,” and noted, “we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches” (1 Cor. 2:12, 13). Those things God wants us to know, Paul wrote, “God has revealed them to us through His Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:10). It must be noted and emphasized that the “us” Paul mentioned is not all believers, but “His holy apostles and prophets” (Eph. 3:5) who then revealed it to others through the preaching of God’s word (1 Cor. 2:13) and through their writings (Eph. 3:3, 4).
If I may quote an Old Testament prophet: “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near” (Isa. 55:6).
The World’s Only Savior Must be Discovered. Despite abundant evidence and eyewitness testimony, many today refuse to believe (1) Jesus was a real person and/or (2) Jesus was who He claimed to be: The Christ and Son of God, and the world’s only Savior. But this, too, is something God does not just expect us to believe without discovery; He has not preordained the saved before and without them having seen the evidence and come to the conclusion they believe it and are willing to obey. From the beginning, Jesus told His disciples, “preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15); Paul, in fact, tells us plainly that God “has in due time manifested His word through preaching” (Titus 1:3); He did not put that information and a conviction of belief in our heads [or in certain individuals’ heads] by a supernatural act of the Holy Spirit, but conceived and executed a plan for our salvation that demands “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). In other words, He wants us to take the time and put forth the effort to discover Jesus and what He has done for us and why, and then leaves it up to us as to whether we believe or not — with consequences for disbelief (Mark 16:16; John 8:24).
We would do well to be as the early seekers who once said to Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (John 12:20, 21), and then embark on that journey of discovery by opening up our Bibles and seeking to know all we can about Him.
God’s Plan for Our Salvation Must be Discovered. It would be supremely cruel and unjust if God had conceived a plan for our salvation before time [which He did, 2 Tim. 1:8-10; 1 Pet. 1:18-21] and then not reveal that plan to man. The fact is, no man would have ever known about that plan had God not revealed it to us. That plan is often called the gospel, and is the story of how Christ was crucified, buried, and then raised to life again (1 Cor. 15:3-8), and Jesus commanded the apostles to go out and preach that message, with the ones who believe and are baptized being the ones who can be saved (Mark 16:15, 16; Matt. 28:19, 20). He has never — and will never — reveal that to man through any other method than what is revealed in the written word, the Scriptures. It is by a purposeful and diligent search of those Scriptures man can discover God’s plan for his salvation — again, not by a special operation of the Holy Spirit on the hearts of preordained individuals.
By now, you may be wondering: Why did God establish His plan so man would have to seek and discover it? Why must man seek God? Why must man seek Jesus Christ? Why must man consider all the evidence and testimony and believe it before he can be saved? The simple answer is, God wants people who want to know Him and to find Him and to love Him. He has never wanted mindless followers or those uninterested in Him and His ways. It is why the greatest command is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37).
Seek the Lord! — Steven Harper
