2 Timothy 1:12 For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed… There are two ways in which we are used to know persons. Sometimes it means to know them through some other person. Sometimes it means to know them ourselves. There is evidently a world-wide difference between the two. Let me illustrate it thus: We all know our Sovereign, her character, her state, her prerogative, her powers. But very few know the Queen. Yet it is very evident that those who have been admitted to her presence, and who have actually spoken and conversed in friendship with her, will have very different feelings towards her, and repose in her, and that their whole hearts will go out to her immensely more than those who know her only at a distance, and through the ordinary public channels. It is so with Christ. Some of you know Christ by the education of your childhood; some by the testimony of others; some by the reading of your Bible. Others have felt His presence. They have communed with Him. They have presented petitions, and they have had their answers from Himself. They have laid burdens at His feet, and He has taken them up. He has accepted their little gifts and smiled at their small services. They have proved Him. Isn't He another Being, isn't He another Christ to that man? They know Him. And what do they know of Thee, O blessed Jesus? They know Thee as the most loving and the loveliest of all — all grace, full of tenderness and sympathy, stooping to the meanest, and kind to the very worst. Our Brother, our Light, our Life, our Joy — who has taken away all our sins and carried all our load. That knowledge can never begin but in one way — by a certain inner life, by a walk of holiness, by the teaching of sorrow, in the school of discipline, from heavy leanings, by acts of self-abandonment, by goings down into the dust, by the grand influence of the Spirit, by Jesus revealing Himself. But once known — and from that moment it will be as hard not to trust as it is now difficult to do; as impossible for the heart to doubt as it is to that poor, prone heart now to question everything. If you really know, you cannot help believing. "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, 'Give Me to drink,' thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water." But there is a truth in St. Paul's words which I am very anxious to press upon you. See where the great apostle, the aged believer, the ripe saint, found all his argument and all his stand, as it were. Not — and if any man might he might — not in anything which had been worked by him; not in anything in him; not in his acts; not in his feelings; not in his faith; not in his conversion, however remarkable; not in his sanctification, however complete; but simply and absolutely and only in God. "I know" — as if he cared to know nothing else, all other knowledge being unsatisfactory or worse — "I know Him whom I have trusted."' It may seem a strange thing to say, but it is really easier to know God than it is to know ourselves. It is remarkable that the Bible tells us a great deal more about God than it does about our own hearts. The great end of reading the Bible is to know God. (J. Vaughan, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. |
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