(Ver 2.0)  Here is an interesting statement to ponder.  People generally don’t know what they don’t know.  I don’t remember where I heard that statement for the first time or if I got it from God.  I just realized that it was the truth.  It is certainly related to another subject that people are generally resistant to change.  In one of my last blogs on this subject I talked about the importance of having an open mind as being a key to understanding new things in the Bible.  Change is inevitable, but most of the time people like the status quo and are creatures of habit.  They learn something and then live it out on a daily basis, being repetitive and finding it hard to accept something new.  These days technology is changing so fast, that you either have to live in a cave somewhere to not realize that what you have today will be obsolete tomorrow.

Now back to what people know.  What makes one man a doctor and another man a homeless bum.  The main difference is knowledge.  One has extended an effort to learn and knows how to help other people and the other one lacks this knowledge and motivation to obtain and use the knowledge.  In effect he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.  You know one thing I noted about doctors was that it appeared people who learned a lot to be a doctor are more readily able to accept that there is so much more to learn.  People who know little to nothing sometimes come across as the kind of people who talk the loudest and think they know everything they need to know.  The doctor is usually  smart enough to know when his expertise is exhausted and he needs to call in a specialist that knows more than he does.  These are all examples and lessons that can be easily applied to us and the Bible, knowing the Bible, understanding the Bible and applying the Bible to our lives.  Because people don’t know what the Bible says, when God sends a teacher with something new they resist it automatically, they criticize the speaker, they do stupid things that result in the rejection of Jesus himself.  When Saul persecuted the early church and he threw them into jail, beat them and stoned them, Jesus took that very personally.  Here we have an example of Saul not knowing what he didn’t know.  Being raised a Jew under the law he thought he was doing all the right things.  This is a very strong lesson for all of us to learn from even today.  God is not through with teaching His people new things so you need to be open to hear it and to accept it.  You need to keep your stones in your pockets and quit throwing them at God’s chosen servants. 

Act 5:38  And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought:

Act 5:39  But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.

Be as one of the wisest men in the Bible did, choose to keep your mouth shut and tell the others that if it is of God it will grow and prosper, if it is not of God it will die.  This man knew to fight against God was a very foolish thing to do.  If you read the verses prior to this statement, he gives examples of men who rose up with false messages and how they came to naught.  It is very much like the story of Balaam in the Old Testament, he said “How can I curse what God has blessed”.  This is a lesson for STUPID Christians in the world who are fighting against God’s servants.   Learn the lesson given in Acts 5 and ignore false teachers.  Do not attack false teachers, if they are from God they will prosper, if they are not from God they will come to nothing.   It is not up to you to put it down, God has not appointed anyone as the watch dog of the Theology that men are preaching and teaching.  The main reason for this, is the fact that you just do not know what you do not know.  So if someone comes around teaching something new, it could very well be of God and thus you will not be able to stop it.  If it is not of God, then it will die of its own self destruction.  Learn this lesson and it will cause you to be much wiser. 

Here is a natural example of what I’m talking about today, of not knowing what you don’t know.  Say you are traveling down a dark highway in the middle of the night.  You are going along with little to no traffic on the road.  Up ahead a tragic accident happened and a barge hit the bridge and took the bridge completely out.  If you continue at your current speed in the dark you will soon come upon the missing span and be unable to stop and plunge into the river.  What is the lesson of this story?  The lesson is you don’t know what you don’t know.  You don’t know the bridge is out.   You don’t know you are about to die.  If you only had a flashing warning sign or cop in the road with flashing lights and a flashlight flagging the oncoming traffic down to stop you have a chance at being saved.  Otherwise, you are doomed to go to a tragic outcome in this life.  This is generally symbolic representation a true story of the situation of the world today.  We have a tremendous number of people traveling on the road that Jesus called the road to destruction.  This road is wide and long and many people will go that way not knowing the outcome that the symbolic bridge is out.  But God has sent certain individuals into the world to draw attention to the fact that the bridge is out and to try to warn them.  Jesus said that those who believe it will be saved and those that don’t believe will be damned.  Those are tremendously important words to consider today.  Try to figure out what you don’t know, because it just might save your life someday.