Why doesn’t God just say what he means? Lay it all out in one hit? Say it like it is?
On the road to Emmaus: “And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.” (Luke 24:45)
Why is that even necessary?
This is PART 2 of “Story as a vehicle for truth” Why isn’t the Bible User manual? We ignore the user manuals, but something deeper, too.
We actively resist the truth.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18) Do you believe me?!
Another strange thing to say … Don’t believe in God? It’s OK. God believes in you.
“We love Him because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
If it were not for the love of God, we would all be done for – spiritually, and naturally (physically) would quickly follow.
“Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him. But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew from there.” (Matthew 12:14,15a)
“And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all. Yet He warned them not to make Him known, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet” (Matthew 12:15b-17)
“A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench” (Isaiah 42:3; Matthew 12:20)
Another strange thing to say … God protects us from the truth.
“[The Lord] neither shatters man’s illusions nor stifles his desires. Instead He bends them towards truth and good.” (Secrets of Heaven, paragraph 25)
Cherubim represent that protection:
- The cherubim at the garden. (Genesis 3)
- Cherubim on the mercy seat (Cover on the ark of the Covenant – Exodus 25)
- Woven into the tabernacle fabric (Exodus 26)
- In the temple (1 Kings 6)
- Glory departs from the temple (Ezekiel 10, 41)
Divine Providence, paragraph 60
“Every religious person thinks about [heaven] and wants to go there. Heaven, though, is granted only to people who know the path to it and follow that path. We can know the path to heaven to some extent simply by considering what the people who make up heaven are like, realizing that no one can become an angel or get to heaven unless he or she arrives bringing along some angelic quality from the world. … … We all see our own paths, spontaneously, it seems. We see them because the paths there are for the loves of each individual. Love opens the paths and leads us to our kindred spirits. No one sees any paths except those of her or his love.”
Heaven and Hell, paragraph 349
“All the people who have acquired intelligence and wisdom in the world are received in heaven and become angels, according to the quality and amount of their individual intelligence and wisdom. … People who have had little affection and desire accept little, but still as much as they can accept on their own level. People who have had great affection and desire accept much. … This is the meaning of the Lord’s words, “To all who have, it will be given, and they will have more abundantly” (Matthew 13:12; 25:29)”
Divine Providence, paragraph 232
“… the Lord does not grant us inner access to the truths that wisdom discloses and the good that love does except as we can be kept in them to the end of our life.” Recorded on Sunday 21 April 2024