You must be in fellowship prior to your Bible study, so that the spiritual information you receive can become a source, of blessing to your soul and produce spiritual growth.
Job 24:13
13 They are of those that rebel [marad] against the light ['owr];
they know [nakar] not the ways [derek] thereof, nor abide [yashab]
in the paths [nathiyb] thereof. KJV-Interlinear
13 'Others have been with those
who rebel against the light; They do not
want to know its ways, Nor abide in its paths. NASB
Light is a mechanism of illumination, the means of
discernment, a way for a person to distinguish one thing from another.
Without light, or without some method or frame of
reference to aid you in figuring out where you have been, where you are and
where you are going, then you are lost.
Have someone pluck both of your eyes out, disable your
hearing, touch, smell and taste, then drop you from an airplane into a jungle
which is deep and dark and dense. How
long will you survive?
Some won't last a single night. Others will wander along until they fall or
trip over something. Still others will
be caught by predators, and still others will catch some disease or simply
starve to death.
That is life in total darkness, or life without light,
light without any means of knowing anything about your environment and so
forth. That is life without doctrine.
Of course doctrine is spiritual in nature, and life in
this world is temporal in nature.
Centuries ago, people knew nothing about viruses or
antibiotics, they knew nothing about atoms, or electrons, or genetics and
such. Yet these things existed.
The spiritual realm is similar in that it is beyond
our ability to detect or measure, but it still exists and it has a tremendous
influence and impact on our life.
Ignoring it, antibiotics for example as with an infection, will only
bring you death. Learning about it and
using it, the spiritual realm, will bring you more life than you can even begin
to imagine.
As modern medicines evolved, there were groups who
rejected them. There are still groups of
people who reject medicines and medical attention. They suffer because of their stubbornness. They know of them, but ignore them.
And so it is with the spiritual realm. Unfortunately, the numbers of people who
reject, or ignore, or simply don't take the spiritual life seriously, are large
in number, worldwide. And just as they
shake their heads at those who reject medical attention as being na ve, they
too are na ve with respect to the spiritual realm.
We have been studying wicked people, in this chapter,
and how they look at life and act in life.
Job adds another category of people to his
illustration. The first group includes
those who are otherwise law abiding, or those who use the law to their
advantage. Certainly they abuse the
legal system, and use it to crush others and get their way, but they do not
have to hide in the dark alleys and hold people at gun point in order to apply
the law, or societies norms. They use
peer pressure, accepted standards even when prejudice, legislation even when
obviously biased and corrupt.
There is another side of wickedness and that is the
criminal or the socially unacceptable element.
These are folks who perform are deeds which are done
behind closed doors, in dark alleys, in secrecy and so forth.
No matter what ones weakness is in life, all
criminals, all sinners, all self-righteous types have one thing in common. And that is that they rebel against the light
of truth.
They know of it, but their chosen lifestyle or pattern
of life in inconvenienced by truth.
People will expend barge loads of effort in pursuing life and getting
nowhere, and yet pursuing the spiritual life takes virtually no effort, and it
will get you everything and more, forever.
But people are tied to this world and their five
senses and unless they see immediate results, they just do not take God, or
Christ, or doctrine, or their spiritual life seriously.
Spiritually negative people will even invent their own
version of a spiritual life by means of religion or philosophy or some other
system of human belief.
But no matter whether you view yourself as law
abiding, or living on the shadier side of life, then without God, Christ,
doctrine and so forth in your life, this spiritual deficiency makes you wicked.
Now is the time to post a prayer.
End Of Lesson
Study to show thyself approved (mature) unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing (studying/discerning), the Word of truth.
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