by Michele Jackson

Created on: July 14, 2007

God wants His children to be knowledgeable. Hosea 4:6 (Amplified Bible) says, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you [the priestly nation] have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you that you shall be no priest to Me; seeing you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children."

In John 7:52 the Pharisees and other Jewish religious leaders said that Jesus Christ could not be a prophet or the Messiah because no prophet comes from Galilee where Jesus spent much of His life. They were familiar with Micah 5:2 and Psalm 89:3-4 which indicate that the Messiah will come from Bethlehem and will be an offspring of David. If the Pharisees had done more research, they would have discovered that Jesus Christ fulfilled this prophecy. Yes, He grew up in Nazareth of Galilee, but He was born in Bethlehem. Jesus Christ was also the legal child of Joseph, a descendant of David (Matthew 1 and Luke 1:27). Mary, Jesus' earthly mother, may have even been a descendant of David. The Pharisees and many Jewish religious leaders recognized that Jesus was doing a whole lot of miracles, but because they did not like Him - primarily because He told the truth and exposed lies, deception and hypocrisy - perhaps a spirit of laziness came on them, so that they did not investigate Jesus Christ's origins.

God gives us prophecy, but it often is not fulfilled in the way we imagine. God says to us in Isaiah 55:8-9 (Amplified Bible), "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts."

Gaining knowledge is not just reading books; it involves studying, critical analysis and application, research, thorough investigation with the intent of personal and social edification. It involves seeking God's face to understand Him intimately. Gaining an understanding of God is wisdom the produces the best possible life now and forever. The Jewish religious leaders and Pharisees did not study the Bible, which is the Word of God, with the purpose and passion of getting to know God intimately.

This lack of research, this disobedience to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, meant that the religious leaders were not only destroying themselves, they were destroying others by promoting the path to hell and to eternal death. They did not accept that Jesus Christ is God and His claim that Jesus Christ is "the Way and the Truth

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