Because They Hated Knowledge
" For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:
They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.
Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices." Proverbs 1:29-31
They hated knowledge. Knowledge means knowing God through the word of the truth. These days, we find many people who want to know about God. They find a plethora of religious books to know about God, but they do not want to know God personally through His only begotten Son. The so-called "born-again Christians" do not want to know God more and more through the word of the truth. They are just content with their initial experience of salvation and want to be in their stagnant pool of knowledge. When we preach the truth to them, they just do not accept it. They just want to be content with what they learn from their pastors/popular evangelists. They thus hate knowledge.
They do not choose the fear of the Lord. They take the Name of God in vain. They utter the Name of Jesus Christ umpteen times. But they have no fear of the Lord because they live in abominable sins today. I did preach the truth concerning marriage and divorce to many people in the west. Some of them rejected it, saying that their pastors had the right doctrines in this regard. They did not want to search the Scriptures to know the truth. They do not choose the fear of the Lord. Instead, they choose the preachers who allow the sin of adultery.
The Holy Spirit bemoans today, "They would none of my counsel: they despised all My reproof." (vs.30) God has given us His counsels and words of reproof in His word. But we choose only His promises of blessings for us and reject His counsels and reproof. On our walls of churches or homes, we find only the Bible verses of blessings. Why cannot we have His words of warning depicted on our walls?
If we despise His reproof, we will definitely eat of the fruit of our own way, and be filled with our own devices. Whatever a man sows, he reaps (Gal.6:7). If we sow His wrath by rejecting His reproof or by hating knowledge, we will reap His wrath only. Wisdom cries out in the streets today! But we do not listen to Him. If the wisdom cries out from the synagogues, we will definitely listen to Him. But wisdom has chosen only the streets, the chief place of the concourse and the openings of the gates. In these last days of great deception, we cannot hear the Wisdom from our church pulpits or from our evangelical dais.
We are filled with our own devices. Our own devices are our own tools, or our own ways for evangelism or for His work. We do not get His ideas for preaching the gospel. When I was in Malaysia, a nation where you cannot preach the gospel openly to the Muslims, I exhorted some people of God there to collect the email addresses of their Muslim friends and to send the gospel message to them through email/Internet. I even offered my help to them. But they did not take my words very seriously. They despised my counsels. Today we have wonderful and beautiful churches in Malaysia but cannot preach the gospel to the Muslims through these churches. The Holy Spirit would give us His counsels only if we are in a position to listen Him. The Holy Spirit will definitely give us novel ways for evangelism which have not yet been discovered.
Next...... SLAIN OR SAFE?