In discussing God’s Word with folks, I’ve sometimes had them say that they don’t read it much because it’s too hard to understand. I’ve never accepted that as a legitimate excuse because God didn’t give His Word to men as the means by which they can know how to avoid Hell and get to Heaven, and then make it too difficult for them to understand. If that was so, what good would it do for those who say it is too difficult? That’s not God’s will for men because He affirms that He would have “all men come to a knowledge of the truth and be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4). The definition of knowledge is “full discernment.” Discernment means comprehension or understanding. If God’s Word is too difficult to understand, men would not have a chance of full discernment.
The Inspired Word speaks of those who don’t come to a knowledge of God’s Word by saying they are “ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). In the previous verses in front of this Scripture, God said these people are “lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, without self-control, fierce, despisers of good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power of God, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” What a catalog of self-righteousness!
God’s Word condemns all these things saying that “these resist the truth” (verse 8). The truth is that God created mankind who did resist the truth from the beginning when Adam and Eve were tempted in the Garden of Eden and succumbed to Satan’s temptation. If they had heeded God’s commandment to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and of evil, Satan would have had no power over them. However, they did it their way and brought sin into the world
In Proverbs 1:7, we read that “fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” God wants men to understand this concept. He would have men to be “filled with the knowledge of His will” (Colossians 1:9). If, as professed by the unbelievers that God’s Word is too difficult to understand, the believers would have no chance of being filled with that knowledge. Thereby, all is doom and damnation with no hope of anything else.
Fairly often, we hear this verse quoted, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). God created man and his surroundings, and in turn, He expects faithfulness and obedience to what He has said we must do. Moses had a hard time convincing his people how very important it was for them to know God’s rules and live by them. He said, “What does God require of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him and serve Him with all your heart and all your soul?” (Deuteronomy 10:12-13). Again in Deuteronomy 11:1 we read, “You shall love the Lord your God and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments and His commandments always.”
These commandments of old remind us how important it is to always love and obey what God has said. There is no option of doing it our way. Men must study, know and do the will of God. Because that is what God expects of mankind, it absolutely is not possible that God would make it “too difficult to understand.” God would be defeating His own purpose of His creation if man were unable to understand His Word.
