Resurrection Evidence: Empiricism, Reason, and Revelation, John 20:26-31

It seems that John and his Gospel says more about what transpired between the resurrection and the ascension than the other Gospels. In this period of time from the garden of Gethsemane until the ascension of Christ, the final commission that Jesus gives to the disciples, we are putting all of the Gospels together to get a full picture of that last period in the life of Christ.

We are in John chapter 20:24 and are looking at again resurrection evidence. And here I'm going to be talking about empiricism, reason and revelation. This is a particularly significant passage because of one thing that Jesus says to Thomas in verse 29. But first we have to understand some things that are going on this particular passage.

We have seen in the previous appearance of our Lord one week earlier on the day of the resurrection appears later that evening to his disciples, and there are only ten present. Thomas is missing. At that point I think Peter had already believed and John had believed, but the others not so much; and it's at that time when Jesus appears to them that they believed in the resurrection. But one disciple was missing. That was Thomas. And what we read in this episode is that afterward when the disciples saw Thomas they told him that they had seen the Lord, and that He was alive and was resurrected. Thomas didn't believe them and said, "Unless I can put my fingers and the nail prints and I can touch the wound in His side and his wounds in his feet, I'm not going to believe".

That raises the question of the role of evidence in faith. In the Scriptures it is clear that the faith that we have is not a faith that is in spite of evidence, or a faith that is contrary to reason or to our everyday experience; it is quite different. But with in the history of Christianity there are those who have somehow, some ways demeaned the role of evidence and the role of reason. This usually shows up those who are mystical, but it shows up in some others as well.

Some of you may have been taught that you weren't really to ask questions, that that wasn't does something that you do; you just believe, that's all you need to do, it just sort of this leap of faith. And you'll hear that language. I've heard people who ought to know better use that language, but that's not good language as we do not as Christians have a leap of faith. That terminology comes out of the Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher the late 19th century, who didn't believe there was evidence of Christianity and so you had to believe it because it ought to be true, but there's no real reason our evidence for it, so therefore you just took this irrational leap of faith. For many in human viewpoint circles—atheist philosophers—their definition of faith is believing that which is irrational: that for which there is no evidence. That is how they approach faith. But that is not what the Scripture teaches. Scripture teaches that biblical faith is not divorced from historical evidence or rational observation.

As skeptics state that faith is to be irrational we must understand that every system of knowledge is ultimate ultimately based on a belief system. Whether it is a religion, such as Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, whatever, they wouldst grant that: that religion is based on faith. But with science is based on faith, and all forms of rationalism and idealism are also based on faith.

Here is a chart that I have used many years, many times and you have looked at that breaks down the four basic ways in which we or philosophers think about how we know what we know. What is the basis for knowledge? If you say I know something is true, on what basis do you claim that that is true? Do you base it on your experience, do you base it on reason, do you base it on just mysticism, some sort of inner intuitive insight, or do you base it on revelation, that which ultimately comes from God?

Rationalism is the first system in the chart. In rationalism the idea is that we have certain innate ideas. Whether you are talking about the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, or about the Enlightenment philosopher of Descartes, rationalism begins in the mind. And the argument is that based on first principles that are known by the mind, we can on the basis of logic, the basis of reason, argue to truth. We can argue to the existence of God. We can argue to the existence of other beings. But the problem with rationalism ultimately is it fails and falls into the trap of what is called solipsism, which is similar to the word alone, sole, that you don't really get outside of your head to the existence of other things. But when you remove all of the complexities and the arguments of rationalism, ultimately there is a faith in the ability of the human mind to reach eternal truths apart from any form of revelation.

In empiricism the idea is that the mind is an empty slate, so we don't start with any innate ideas, but that everything that comes into the mind comes via various forms of input, sensory data, what we see, what we taste, what we smell, what we touch, and as that comes into the soul then through that experience we formulate our understanding of the world around us. That is called empiricism. It is based also on logic and reason, but ultimately it too, like rationalism, is based on faith in human ability. It's based on the idea that I can come to an understanding on the basis of my empiricism, my experience; I can extrapolate and come to understand eternal realities and eternal truths that are totally beyond the observational experience of any human being in time or space.

Mysticism comes into play historically as a result of the failures of both rationalism and empiricism in human history, because they bring the eventually break down and it's recognize they just don't get there. And so, since we as human beings seem to have embedded within our souls a sense of eternity—

that's indicated by the writer of Ecclesiastes, Solomon—that we have eternity in our hearts. Because of that, because of what Paul indicates in Romans 1:18 and following, we know God exists because the evidence is both external and God has made it evident with in us so that every human being knows God exists. And therefore we can't truly live as if there is no God and there is no meaning, and if reason and empiricism can't get us there then we just get there through a leap of faith. That's mysticism. That was part of the foundation of what developed into existentialism.

Mysticism too is based on faith. It is based on faith in human ability. So it's not faith versus reason; it's not faith versus the scientific method; it's not faith versus experience; it is faith in the wrong thing versus faith in the right thing. It's faith in limited finite human reasoning abilities, faith in limited finite human ability to interpret experience, versus the faith in the revelation of the eternal omnipotent creator God of the universe. So faith is always based on the logic and reason that God put into the universe. But the faith precedes the rationalism and empiricism, not the other way around.

The second point in the introduction is that in Christianity faith therefore is based on the right use of reason and the right use of experience. We can go back to the Garden of Eden and we see that God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and He told Adam to name all the creatures. And they go through this process of categorization, classification, and naming all the animals. That is before Eve is created and already Adam is beginning to note that all of the animals that came into his purview were in pairs and there's not a pair for him, there is not in any creature comparable to him. Then as God has brought him to that awareness God is going to create a helper that is comparable to him. God causes a deep sleep to fall on him, and from his side, his rib, He creates the woman.

Then God gives him some information that he couldn't get him the experience of identifying and classifying everything. God says, of all the trees in the garden that are good to eat, you can eat from everything, but you can't eat from that one tree over there because if you do you'll die spiritually. In other words he could learn a lot from empiricism, he could learn a lot from rationalism, but he couldn't learn them how to really and ultimately identify and categorize all the data correctly until he had that one piece of information from revelation. And that is that one tree: if you eat from it you will die spiritually. That was it.

So revelation is necessary. We can come up with great theories great ideas. They may even be ninety-eight per cent correct, but it's that two per cent that is wrong that flaws the formulas. You have to know something that is only available through revelation. To understand revelation, because revelation is verbal, revelation communicates, you have to use reason and experience in order to interpret those verbal statements.

A third thing we observe is that when it comes to Christianity, the Bible reveals to us who God is: the infinite eternal incomprehensible creator God of the heavens and the earth and the seas and all that is in them. It tells us that man's problem is one of disobedience and rebellion against God, which brought spiritual death to man, brought sin and corruption into all of the universe, and left man without hope and without any way to save himself.

It also tells us the great story of God's salvation: that God provided a Savior who could solve the sin problem, who could pay the penalty for sin and provide a way for us to have eternal life. When that happened it was preceded by promises and prophecies that could be understood, that could be clocked and measured so that people like Hannah and Simeon in Luke chapter two are waiting at the temple when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to be presented to God. They were ready because they understood revelation, not because they had some sort of special additional insight, other than they were told God would not take them home until they saw the Messiah. But they knew the Messiah was close because they understood the Old Testament. They understood it logically, rationally exegetically, but that reason was subordinate to faith.

When it comes to the life of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus, the virgin conception and birth of Jesus, the claims of Jesus to be God, and ultimately the claims of the resurrection, these run counter to autonomous or independent reason and experience. We have never seen anybody else that was born without the normal sexual procreative forms of conception. We have never seen anyone raise someone from the dead. We've never seen anyone directly without benefit of the medical complex heal someone with leprosy or give sight to the blind. We've never seen anyone who's been raised from the dead who was actually truly dead for three days and then came forth from the tomb.

When these things happen in Scripture there's always corroborating evidence that is given. God doesn't operate in a mystical vacuum. When you go back into the Old Testament and God speaks to somebody and gives direction, it is not without confirmatory evidence. That's why there's guidelines given in Deuteronomy 13 and Deuteronomy 18 so that if someone comes along and claims that they are a messenger of the Lord and says, this is what God says, you can evaluate that message through the use of reason and comparison with other messages to see if that is a true claim or not. Scripture is very clear; we are to think. The idea of the world out there and the skeptics out there is that the Christians put their brain into neutral on Sunday morning. And the sad thing is there are a lot of examples of that, which is quite an embarrassment to the cross and Christianity, because there are too many Christians who do just put their brain into neutral. But that is not the biblical way, as we are going to see in this particular passage.

As we look at the evidence for the resurrection we see that Jesus prophesied this many times. The fact is that if He had not risen from the dead He would have been demonstrated to be a false prophet. The disciples, we are told, did not really understand what He meant; neither did they believe it. In fact, throughout all four accounts in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, what we discover is that the disciples did not readily accept the resurrection. They didn't hear the tomb is empty and think, Oh, He did it; He rose from the dead. When they heard that the tomb was empty it was, well somebody stole His body. They didn't believe in the resurrection; they weren't looking for a resurrected Savior; they stayed in Jerusalem instead of going to Galilee. If they had believed there was going to be a resurrection when Jesus said, "After I am crucified, go to Galilee and I'll meet you there", they would have gone to Galilee to meet Him.

This is a great example that they lack any faith whatsoever in the resurrection, and when others came with reports that they had seen the risen Lord they didn't believe them either. They found it extremely difficult. All but possibly Peter and John did not believe in a resurrection until Jesus stood in front of them in a physical resurrected body.

Let's look at what happens in terms of what the Bible teaches about the importance of proof and evidence. The first place to go is in Luke. We are going to go look at two things that Luke said in Luke chapter one and Acts chapter one. In Luke chapter one he starts off telling us who he is writing the Gospel account for and why he is writing it. He starts off, "Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of these things accomplished among us". What does that tell you? That there have been others before him, and I would argue that it's certainly Matthew, and probably Mark. "… Just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word have handed them down to us".

What he points out there is that he is basing his Gospel on his eyewitness accounts. He's not basing it on oral tradition, he's not basing it on hearsay, he is not basing it on some other form; he has talked to eyewitnesses. Probably when Paul was in prison for two years at Caesarea by the sea Luke took advantage of that opportunity. He interviewed Mary, he interviewed other family members, he interviewed early church members and the other disciples that were still around, and other eyewitnesses of the 500 that had observed and seen and heard the resurrected Lord, and he wrote down these accounts. He talked to those of for whom miracles had been performed. He talked to those who had been part of the 5000 and the 4000 that Jesus had fed. He talked to those perhaps who had had demons cast out of them. He got those eyewitness records, reports, and he recorded them accurately.

In verse three he says, "It seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus, so that you might know the exact truth about the things you have been taught". So what we learn about Theophilus is, he's probably a believer already. He's been taught the gospel. He's been taught these things about Christ, but Luke is writing to fill in the blanks and give him the details.

When Luke represents this as eyewitness of reports, the language he uses is language that indicates that he followed through. That's actually the literal meaning of the word. He followed through accurately or with precision. That's the idea. He investigated everything carefully. He followed through accurately or with precision and then he reported it sequentially. In the introduction to Matthew I pointed out that Luke is the only account that is chronological based on this particular verse. So he is presenting the life of Christ to Theophilus on a basis of something that is well researched and grounded on eyewitness reports. He doesn't expect Theophilus to believe in a vacuum, to just believe because he's heard stories, but he's going to give him well researched and grounded information based on multiple eyewitness reports.

The second passage we want to go to is Acts chapter one. What we see in Acts one, as well as in Luke one, is that there's no concept in these passages of some form of relativism. He doesn't use words like probably or maybe or it is likely that; he presents it accurately: this is exactly what happened. There's no relativism here at all, it presents an absolute understanding of history. The facts have been sought out, and they have been understood and evaluated, so that the person who reads this is going to understand that this is an accurate report. They are expected to engage their intellect and not just believe in a vacuum because it seems like a good story.

In Acts one we see that Acts is Luke's second account. In Acts 1:1 he says, "The first account I compose, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom he had chosen". So Luke goes from the birth until the ascension.

Then in verse three he says, "To these [His apostles, that would be the 11 that are left after Judas] He also presented Himself alive after His suffering [the cross], by many convincing proofs …" The word here in the Greek is TEKMERION, a legal term, it is to present something with certainty. It has the idea of evidence, proof, infallible evidence, undeniable evidence. He gave them empirical evidence. We have seen this. He shows up and they can see the nail prints in His hands and feet and side. He shows this to Thomas. Thomas looked and His presence was enough, it was self-evidential authority. Luke summarizes this with many convincing proofs. Not just once, it didn't just happen on the day of the resurrection, it happened again and again and again. He says He appeared to them over a period of 40 days, speaking the things concerning the kingdom of God. For the next 40 days between the resurrection and the ascension Jesus is showing up and He's talking to the disciples almost every day, and teaching them all about the church age, and providing for them.

The third passage is in first Corinthians chapter 15. Two parts of first Corinthians 15 are important for us. This is the apostle Paul writing some years later to the church at Corinth, which is questioning the reality of the resurrection. Maybe He just appeared as a ghost; maybe they just thought He appeared, maybe as part of his imagination. That's what the modern skeptic wants to say: that they were so religiously minded that they just had this conjured up vision; this was their imagination. It was it was like a sort of group GNOSIS and they all believed this. But that doesn't explain any of the evidence.

We are told in first Corinthians 15:4-8 of the appearances. Some of these are not mentioned in the Gospels. We are told that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas (the Aramaic name for Peter), then to the twelve—notice he calls them the twelve even though there are only eleven. After that, he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep and then he appeared to James and then to all the apostles. This is his brother James, half-brother of the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. He appeared to him. He was not a believer until this appearance, and then to all of the apostles. Then Paul says, "and last of all, as it were to one untimely born, He appeared to me also".

Let me ask you question about when he uses his word appeared. Verse six, He appeared to more than 500; verse 7, He appeared to James; verse eight, He appeared to me. Let's go back one, He appeared to Cephas. He uses the same word "appear". How was it when He appeared to Peter? Was it a ghost? Was it imagination? Was it in Peter's head? No, physical bodily resurrection. Then how did He appear to the 500? Physical bodily resurrection. He appeared to James: physical bodily resurrection. It's not something they saw in their head. How did He appear to the apostles? We have just seen it. He appears in the room; they see Him. It's a physical manifestation of His resurrection body. He offers to have them touch him. He eats and shows that this is a physical, body.

Then in verse eight Paul says He appeared him also. Now what I don't understand, and it does bother me, and I am concerned about this. Why is it that so many, even evangelicals, like in this recent movie on Paul the apostle, when it comes to Paul appearing to Peter they make it psychological; it's in his head. You don't see that Paul sees the same thing that Peter and the 500 and James and the other apostles saw. He just sees something psychological in his head. The sad thing is, is when you don't have Paul seeing a physical bodily-resurrected Jesus you are in essence providing something that instead of supporting the resurrection denies the resurrection. And this is sad. I have never seen a film representation where they did it biblically, and that bothers me because this is the foundation of Paul's whole argument here in first Corinthians chapter 15—that this is not a subjective psychological, mystical, religious experience. In fact, he bases his apostleship on this, that Jesus appeared to him the same way he did to the other apostles, and commissioned him to be a an apostle in the same way he commissioned the other apostles.

The foundation for Christianity is based on that which is historical and verifiable. It is true that when he appeared to Paul those who were with him, just saw a bright light. But Paul saw the physical bodily-resurrected Jesus. And when Jesus talked to Paul, those who were there couldn't discern the words that Jesus said, but they heard the sound of His voice. They heard He was saying something but they couldn't hear exactly what it was they made. That doesn't mean it's subjective, it means it's object of because they did hear the voice, they just couldn't discern what the voice said.

As we look at those passages, we realize that that Paul is saying that the resurrection is something that was real, something that was verifiable, and something that had historic evidence behind it. You're not putting your brain into neutral to believe in the resurrection.

He goes on to say in the next few verses, "And if Christ had not been raised, then our preaching is vain"—or empty or worthless, meaningless—"your faith is also in vain". That is the key passage there because he saying if Jesus really didn't rise from the dead, physically and bodily then all of Christianity collapses: there is no truth, there is no eternal Jesus, there's no victory over death, Jesus didn't pay for sins. The whole of Christianity stands or falls with a physical bodily resurrection of Jesus.

He goes on to say that if He wasn't raised from the dead, then we are found to be false witnesses of God, because we witnessed against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. Basically what he is saying is would be false witnesses and would be witnessing against God if He didn't really raise Christ.

He says further, "For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised". See if you just believe one hundred per cent there is no such thing, nobody can ever be raised from the dead, then there's no resurrection of individual believers, and there's no resurrection of Christ; and if Christ, was not raised, your faith is worthless.

Historic verifiable evidence of His resurrection is provided in the Gospels, and furthermore, we read in first and second Peter chapter one—although here, Peter is talking about the what they saw on the Mount of Transfiguration his point is the same: that we don't put our brains in neutral. There is historic verifiable empirical evidence of the truth of Christianity—"for we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His Majesty". They saw His glory there on the Mount of Transfiguration, and he is fully aware of the fact that what the critics were saying then, as they say now, is this is just something somebody made up: it's a myth, you're just fooling everybody with your story. But these are men who gave their life for the resurrection. John is the only one of the eleven apostles to die of natural old age, all of the rest died for the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. And that just isn't going to happen; people are not going to give their life for a lie.

Peter goes on to say, "For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory [God]… “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased”—

He has evidence; he heard the Father's voice.

–and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain."

They heard this utterance, it's empirical, "we were witnesses"; there's more than one, not one; there were three of us there so it is confirmed—not just by two witnesses, according to the law, but by three witnesses. The disciples did not expect people to believe apart from critical thinking. After all, they didn't believe it at first, they were unbelieving; they had to be convinced through empirical evidence.

In 1 John 1:1-3 John states it this way. "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life—and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ".

In other words, there is no fellowship with God, no eternal life, unless our report of this empirical evidence is absolutely true.

What we see and have seen so far in our study of the post-resurrection appearances is that there have been five, and we are the 6^th now. There is the appearance to Mary, the appearance to the other women, the appearance to the two on the road to Emmaus, the appearance to Peter in private, the appearance to the ten, and now the appearance to the ten plus Thomas in John 20:24-31. This is a week later, the next Sunday.

John 20:24, 25   But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”

He is not believing them. He has been with these guys for the last three years and he doesn't believe them at all. He is as incredulous as they were. This is not the presentation of gullible disciples who have parked their brains in neutral. Thomas is saying in effect, "I have to have hard evidence".

John 20:26   After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus *came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace {be} with you.”

As in the previous episode when it says the door was shut. The Greek verb there probably means it was locked. They were afraid of the Jews. They don't want anybody coming in and Jesus appears through locked doors and is in their presence.

He says the same thing to them, "Peace be with you", and He goes to Thomas. He says, "Thomas you wanted to put your finger into the wounds on my hands and my feet and my side. Here it is, touch me". Then He says to him, "do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

The problem that we run into here in modern evangelical Christianity is that are there people who say that if you have if your faith is based on miracles, if it's based on signs, that may not be genuine saving faith. John MacArthur has said that, because that is essential to being able to come up with the heretical doctrine of Lordship salvation. What he wants to reject is the fact that in John chapter 2 Jesus did many miracles and many believed in Him [PISTEUO EIS] the language that is used all through John to indicate belief in Jesus.

Then it says, "but Jesus didn't trust himself to them". So MacArthur wants us to say, see, they didn't they believed in Jesus, but it wasn't saving faith because Jesus didn't trust himself to them. He wants to reject the idea that somebody can believe the gospel, trust in Jesus, and then go the rest of their life with no spiritual growth, and they're not saved. That's not the gospel; that's heresy; that's Lordship salvation. He want to base it on that and so the only way he get around it is to minimize what happened by saying, see, the faith of those people in John two isn't real faith because it just based on signs. But what we seen all through John chapter 20 is that the disciples see the resurrected Lord and they believe, and now we have Tom Thomas, who's going to believe as a result, and at the conclusion of this section in John 20:30 John says, "and truly Jesus did many other signs [miracles] in the presence of His disciples, "which are not written in this book, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name".

What John is saying is, I'm telling you, there are these eight signs [in the Gospel of John] and that on that basis of that evidence you can believe and you will have eternal life. That's not what the Lordship crowd says.

We read in John 20:26, 27, is I just read that Jesus says, "Put your hand here". Now there's nothing wrong with believing without this kind of direct empirical evidence, but today we don't have that direct empirical evidence. You can't go put your hands in the nail print and in the wound in Jesus' side; you believe because of revelation. Revelation is the light of God, and Psalm 36:9 says, "In your light we see light". That's the point in that opening chart I gave you. That is, the way we understand truth is to presuppose the truth of revelation in the light of God's word. Then and only then can we properly interpret the data that we see in front of us.

And so, were reminded of these the signs in John. There are eight signs. When I first taught John I said there were seven signs. The big sign is the eighth sign, the resurrection. There are seven other signs: He turned the water into wine, 2:12; He healed the nobleman's son from a distance, 4:46-54; He healed the cripple of Bethesda in chapter 5:1-15; He fed the 5000 in 6:1-14; He walked on water in 6:15-21; He healed the man born blind in 9:17; He raised Lazarus from the dead, chapter 11; and now the resurrection of Christ is the eighth and final sign.

Thomas didn't need to touch the nail prints in His hands or the wound in His side, he immediately recognized that Jesus was indeed alive; He was there in flesh and bone, He was resurrected, and he said: "My Lord and my God".

John 20:29 Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed {are} they who did not see, and {yet} believed.”

He doesn't say it's inadequate belief, He uses the same language all the way through John: just believe in Him. He says, because of this you believe. He doesn't say you aren't blessed, but He does say blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. He doesn't pronounce a negative judgment on Thomas, but He says for those who believe on the basis of revelation—and the evidence is presented in revelation, secondhand evidence; not direct empirical evidence, but in direct empirical evidence, because it's on the basis of what is written, and on the basis of their report—blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Faith for us is that what the Scripture says is more real than our unaided reason and unaided experience will tell us: that the stability of God is more real to us than the instability of our circumstances, the certainty of God's promise is more real than the vagaries of our life, that God's care for us is more real to us than the feelings that we have of our own and in aptitude and inadequacy.

When we come to the end of what the Scripture teaches about God and his relationship to man, God wants to be known by human beings. He gives evidence of that. Romans 1:18-21 that the heavens represent God's invisible attributes, and communicate that so it is evident to them. And then Paul goes on to say, "For God made it evident within them".

But the issue is human volition. They have to decide: do I want to know God or not? The most important decision of course, as you know, is the cross; it is to trust in Christ as Savior. But after that it is a day-by-day decision. Are we going to continue to want to know God?

In closing I want to remind you of 1 Chronicles 28:9, the profound statement by King David on his deathbed, just about. He is giving direct guidance to his son Solomon. It applies to everyone of us: “As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever."

The message for every believer is to continue to know God and to serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind. See, you don't put your mind in neutral. It's based on the use of your intellect with a whole heart and with a willing mind for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands all the intents of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.

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