Highway Of Holiness Truth 15

THE TRAGEDY OF HIGHMINDED IGNORANCE

"In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that THOU HAST HID THESE THINGS FROM THE WISE AND PRUDENT, AND HAST REVEALED THEM UNTO BABES: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight" (Luke 10:21).

A well-known preacher in his day told of visiting a godly Irishman, Andrew Frazer, who had come to southern California to recover from a serious illness. Though quite weak, he opened his worn Bible and began expounding the deep truths of God in a way that the well-known preacher had never heard before.  He was so moved by Frazer's words that he asked him, "Where did you get these things?  Could you tell me where I could find a book that would open them up to me?  Did you learn them in some seminary or college?"  The sickly man gave an unforgettable answer.

"My dear young man, I learned these things on my knees on the mud floor of a little sod cottage in the north of Ireland.  There with my open Bible before me I used to kneel for hours at a time and ask the Spirit of God to reveal Christ to my soul and to open the Word to my heart.  HE TAUGHT ME MORE ON MY KNEES ON THAT MUD FLOOR THAN I EVER COULD HAVE LEARNED IN ALL THE SEMINARIES OR COLLEGES IN THE WORLD." -- Selected

Tragically across the centuries of the Church Age, various denominations which were born in the fires of Holy Ghost revival have later been duped by Satan into becoming ashamed of the lack of a supposedly "Higher Education".  Early on, their preachers, who were born of the Spirit and baptized with the Holy Ghost, like a blazing forest fire have spread those holy flames throughout vast regions of England and America.  Then, after having great, and widespread, success, leaders in their group began to feel ashamed that many of their Spirit-filled, but uneducated ministers, couldn't even speak English properly, and were totally ignorant of Hebrew and Greek!  Thus, when called upon to debate seminarians from highbrow denominations, on top of their faulty English, they made faux pas after faux pas about the technical Hebrew or Greek meanings of certain words in the KJV.

SUCH MUST NOT BE! thought the leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church who succeeded Asbury, and later by the leaders of the Wesleyan, Free Methodist, Pilgrim Holiness, and Nazarene churches who succeeded the founders.

WE MUST raise up fully accredited colleges, universities, and seminaries!

OUR PREACHERS MUST KNOW HEBREW AND GREEK!

So, they bit the Satanic bait! -- and began churning out highminded, high-browed DDs who knew Hebrew, but DID NOT KNOW HIM (CHRIST), and who knew Greek, BUT DIDN'T KNOW GOD!

Yes, it IS wonderful when a man KNOWS BOTH HEBREW AND HIM, and KNOWS BOTH GREEK AND GOD!

The tragedy is: -- Once a denomination begins sending forth graduates from their institutions of "supposedly higher learning," it isn't long before THE EMPHASIS shifts away from placing in their pulpits men who are both SPIRITUAL AND DOCTORS OF DIVINITY, to men who are DDs -- many of whom begin to declare as unsound THE FUNDAMENTALS OF TRUE SALVATION AND ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION!

In founding His Church, Christ Jesus purposely selected ignorant, uneducated,

Galilean fishermen, instead of highminded, Jewish Doctors of the Law.  "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are" (1 Cor. 1:26-28).

The ONLY "seminarian" among the early apostles was Paul, and God had to knock him down on the Damascus road and re-educate him spiritually in the Arabian desert before he could use him!

Brethren, it is A GRAVE ERROR for any institution of Christian learning to begin to emphasize EDUCATION above SALVATION!  Many a sanctified man of God has been able to testify thus: -- "I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation" (Psalm 119:99).  Far more than God needs men whose heads are full of Greek, He needs men whose hearts are full of grace!

Shame on ANY professed Christian denomination or institution of learning that cares more about whether their ministers are "highly degreed" scholastically than it does about whether their graduates have a high degree of true grace and godliness spiritually in their heart of hearts!