Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Hello, dear ones.

Almost noon already. Time sure flies. I need to run off soon to do some errands in SE Portland—stopping by a sandblast shop to have a small sign blasted. That trip will be followed by other commitments. It remains to be seen how much stuff I’ll be able to cross off my list before daylight runs out. I don’t think I’ll have time for my old man nap.

Blessings on the remainder of your day.

Love, Dad/Ray.

It has become commonplace for banks, phone companies, and other organizations to protect the accounts and provisions of valuable services for their members by equipping them with secret numbers that the members can use to gain exclusive access. In a sense, God protects the holiness and purity of His Kingdom and the wonderful services that He offers by equipping His people with a measure of special personal enlightenment which Paul here calls GOD’S SECRET WISDOM. This special gift is imparted only to true believers whose spirits are activated and made alive by His Spirit. So “the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (2:14).

Let’s understand that the Kingdom of God is indeed a secret and exclusive organization in the sense that it does not include everyone. Its human members are exclusively those who have been born of the Spirit and continue to walk in the Spirit. God did not design His Word for everyone, but only for those who choose to “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). So those unconverted ones who try to read and understand the scriptures are always plagued with the confusion as if reading someone else’s mail. It is tremendously helpful to my understanding to recognize that God has given His Word, the Bible, as the practical medium of imparting His Spirit, which is the life of Christ. I believe that’s what Jesus meant when He said, “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life” (John 6:63). He also confirmed that “man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Peter declares that “you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God” (I Peter 1:23). Those who promote the sugar-coated doctrine that all men are eternal children of God and will enjoy a heavenly eternity are simply not reading their Bibles properly.

Our modern world opens the door for modern crime—allowing some crooked thieves, for example, to steal secret banking numbers then rob those account. Unfortunately, even though modern man has all kinds of technological ways of minimizing this kind of problem, they are not perfect enough to stop all the crookedness of men’s deceitful hearts. So some of this kind of crime goes undetected. But let’s understand that no such thing can happen within the true Kingdom of God. There are many who try to use the name of “Jesus” or “Our Heavenly Father” as though they were true members of the Kingdom Company of God. But their deceit is always recognized by the flawless knowledge and surveillance system of the Omniscient God. Although they try to access God’s Kingdom services of blessing, protection, healing, prosperity, and salvation, they are only playing a self-deceiving game and their eternal accounts are empty.

Yet GOD’S SECRET WISDOM is wonderfully available to absolutely anyone who has a sincerely hungry and seeking heart after Him—A HEART AFTER GOD. Please know His SECRET WISDOM, use it, obey it, grow in it, and be eternally blessed by it.