"What you don't know can't hurt you" they tell us. It's not true, you know. "I didn't know that rattlesnake was around the corner." Silly example, but it makes the point. In fact, there are things that, if you don't know them, can worse-than-kill you.
There are lots of things that can cause grievious bodily harm or even death if you don't know about them. Harmful elements like lead paint, asbestos, polluted water, and secondhand smoke are easy examples. If you don't look both ways, that car you didn't know was coming could be devastating. Biblically, there is a worst-case scenario. Jesus said, "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3). Not knowing about arsenic in the water can kill you; not knowing God can kill you eternally. Paul said that not knowing God makes us "slaves to those which by nature are no gods" (Gal 4:8). The solution is "to know God, or rather to be known by God" (Gal 4:9). The key component to being saved from eternal death is knowing God and Him knowing you (Matt 7:23). We are saved, in fact, because we are "foreknown" by God (Rom 8:29).
As a rationalization of hiding things from people, it's a poor excuse that really doesn't work out in the end. Still, too many cling to it in their avoidance of knowing God. He stands ready to receive each and every one, and, believing ourselves to be wise, we become fools and pursue ignorance of the God of the universe. There are things, indisputably, that, if you don't know them, can kill you. Or worse. Not knowing God is worse. And completely unnecessary.
1 comment:
"What they don't know can't hurt them" is always just another self-justification to simply do as we like. Just like "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission".
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