In This Issue:
Shame! Shame!
Knowledge
Knowledge and Wisdom
Close to the Edge
Volume: 969 August 5, 2024
Theme: Learning about Sin
All need to read the Bible every day. Do you have difficulty doing so? Sign up to receive a daily e-mailed devotion, which includes a KJV chapter a day, and
much more spiritual food! There is even an option to HEAR the chapter and devotion.
Read what readers have said about the e-mailed devotion at
https://www.devotionsfromthebible.com/what-readers-say/
Shame! Shame!
Bill Brinkworth
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.” Ephesians 5:11-12
The Bible clearly commands Christians to keep far away from the luring hold of sin. We are not only to do our best not to commit sin and avoid those involved in it, but we are also not to talk about the iniquities others are involved in.
This last principle has been ignored by most, and the opposite is practiced. Many, instead of obeying God’s commandments, “educate” the masses about certain behaviors. They hope that knowledge of the side effects of certain socially unacceptable practices, often what the Bible identifies as sin, will help people stay away from them. Unfortunately, education about something one should not do frequently stimulates an interest in trying that very thing.
Programs to educate youth about not doing drugs quite often put the ideas in their minds about doing it and show them how to do something they would never have known about if they had not been shown how or introduced to it by “education”.
The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D. A. R. E.), a publicly-funded program that uses law enforcement resources to help children resist drugs and gangs, illustrates this fact. Instead of reducing the number of children involved in those things, it has been found that there has been an increase in their involvement in drugs and gangs.
The Family Counsel of Drug Awareness reported, “Since its curriculum (D. A. R. E.’s) went national, two patterns have emerged: more students now do drugs, and they start using drugs at an earlier age.” Education about something that should not be discussed often increases the practice, not decreases it.
Billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money have been spent over the decades to give young people a sex education under the guise that knowledge will help them keep from making “mistakes”. Instead, sex education has increased and encouraged sex at an early age before marriage. Birth rates quickly prove this fact. In 1950, when sex outside marriage was not openly talked about, especially in the school curriculum, birth rates for unmarried women were about 30 per 1,000.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported that the birth rate has decreased from previous years, but it is still over 450 per 1,000 unmarried women. The CDC also notes that abortions in 1970 were 10 per 1,000 and have increased more than 70 per 1,000, not including the effects done by increasing usage of birth control, including the day-after “emergency” birth control drugs. Again, education about not doing something has become a “how-to” and an invitation to “do”.
Other once unwelcomed behaviors are also on the increase. There was a time when few even knew a divorced couple; now, it is difficult to find couples that have not been divorced. Perhaps the exposure in movies and television about divorce and adultery has made a once feared occurrence a ho-hum common one.
Homosexuality, imprisonment, poor parenting, lack of respect for Christianity, crime, and hosts of other once frowned-upon activities are so common in public-school lesson plans and media “entertainment” that they have lost their social stigma and are now acceptable and even encouraged in some areas. Knowledge of once taboo areas again have contaminated society by going against God’s commandment of discussing something that should not be even whispered about.
The world often defends its efforts in “educating” by belittling God’s commandments and labeling them as making the masses willfully ignorant or “censoring the truth”. The truth, however, is that in most situations, speaking of practices that should not be committed only puts the idea in one’s head. It does not take much thought to develop the idea to “I’ll just try it this once.” Once it is experienced, inhibitions are worn away, and more frequent practice is easily accomplished.
The human brain is an amazing organ. It seldom completely forgets what it has been exposed to. Conversation about doing improper things often is where the idea to commit them originates. God’s wisdom warns us not to talk about sin because it won’t be long until you are neck-deep in it. God’s commandments are always the best. If heeded, they will keep you from the hurtful consequences of sin.
“The itch of impertinent and unprofitable knowledge hath been the hereditary disease of the sons of Adam and Eve. Many have perished after learning more about what destroyed them.” — Hall
Knowledge
J. Mason, 1871
A desire for knowledge is natural to man’s mind, and nothing discovers the quality and disposition of the mind more than the particular kind of knowledge it is most fond of. Thus we see that low and little minds are delighted with the knowledge of trifle things, as do children.
An indolent mind is concerned with that which serves only for entertainment. A curious mind is best pleased with facts. A judicious, penetrating mind is interested in demonstrations and mathematics. A worldly mind esteems knowledge like that of the world. However, a wise and pious mind, above all other kinds of knowledge, prefers that from God alone.
Knowledge and Wisdom
Cowper
Knowledge and wisdom, sometimes far from being one,
Have ofttimes no connection.
Knowledge dwells in heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude, unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and squared and fitted into place,
Does but encumber what it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much,
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
“Common sense is often not easily found!” — Author Unknown
Close to the Edge
C. H. Spurgeon
A lady advertised for a coachman and was waited upon by three candidates for the job.
She asked the first one this question, “I want a good coachman to drive my pair of horses. How near can you drive to danger and yet be safe?”
“Well,” he answered, “I could drive very near. I could go within a foot of a precipice without fear of any accident as long as I held the reins.”
She dismissed him with the remark that he would not do. To the next driver, she asked the same question, “How near could you drive to danger?” Being determined to get employment, he said, “I could drive within a hair’s breadth yet skillfully avoid any mishap.”
“You will not do,” she said. When the third one came in, his thinking was different. She asked the third applicant, “How near could you drive to danger?”
He responded, “Madam, I never tried. It has always been my rule to drive as far from danger as possible.”
The lady hired him at once. In like manner, I believe that the person who is careful to run no risks and to refrain from all sinful conduct, having the fear of God in his heart, is most to be relied upon.
If your salvation is built upon the Rock of Ages, you will not want to see how close you can get to sin. You will want to keep as far as possible from it.
“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.” — Tennyson