Always learning, never coming to the knowledge of truth.

When I arose this morning, I had a Bible passage on my mind:  “Always learning, never coming to the knowledge of truth.” This actually comes out of 2 Timothy 3:7, and I will expound on that further in just a moment.  In the meantime, speaking of “learning”, take a look at this scripture:

Ecclesiastes 12:12  In addition, my son, take heed: one can write many books - there's no end to it; and one can study so much that it wearies the flesh. (CJB)

I know many people who exemplify both  verses!  Some are "always learning but never coming to the knowledge of truth," while others read and study until their eyes fall out – and they wear themselves out on a daily basis, and yet STILL don’t know YHWH’s Truth!  As a matter of fact, by all this endless reading and studying all sorts of "sources" I have found they are usually further away from the Truth than they’ve ever been!

I know people who have "read and studied" their way right out of belief in YHWH/Y’shua/Torah to ultimately become atheists.  Others have decided to chuck this “Torah stuff” and return Christianity; or they’ve decided “God gave them certain ‘new’ revelations” (which often do NOT line up with Scripture -  but since “God gave them the revelations” they  MUST be true) and they are now keeping only bits and pieces of Torah because they have been enlightened by this “new knowledge.”  And still others simply "leave  the Messiah and the New Testament" because, hey, "they are myths." 

I also know of at least one former Facebook "friend" who allowed herself to be turned on to Islam and, last I heard, she was talking about moving to Afghanistan to marry some Muslim.  (Boy, is SHE ever in for a rude awakening!  Hope she’s enjoying life inside her Burkha where she’s  no longer allowed to read books, drive, or open her mouth to voice an opinion for fear of being beheaded.)

The bottom line is:  Hardly anyone ever really gets INTO Scripture for themselves. They either read some extra-biblical commentaries or listen to various teachers on YouTube, or follow some self-proclaimed Facebook pastor/rabbi/teacher with ear-tickling messages – or they will follow and support some well-known rabbi or radio host or Messianic/Hebrew Roots “big-wig” who, because he is divorced or has personal problems, or is deeply entrenched in some scandal, really should be shunned because he has no business preaching at all….

2 Timothy 3: 1. But know this: That in the latter days hard times will come:  2. and men will be lovers of themselves and lovers of money, boasters, proud, revilers, unyielding towards their own people, deniers of grace, wicked,  3. unloving, addicted to irreconcilable malicious gossips, ferocious, haters of the good,  4. treacherous, rash, inflated, attached to pleasure more than to the love of Elohim,  5. having a form of respect for Elohim but wide from the power of Elohim. Them who are such, repel from you.  6. For of them are they who creep into this and that house and captivate the women who are plunged in sins and led away by divers lusts,  7. who are always learning, and can never come to the knowledge of the truth. (AENT)

So many people fit into at least one of the categories mentioned in the passage above. They have themselves convinced they are "godly" and "knowledgeable" and many even believe they are qualified to teach others; yet their fruits reveal their thinking is skewed or they have absolutely NO discernment – or, they’re not really into God at all; but rather, it’s just a “cool thing” to do right now, until something better comes along.

Here’s an example of people who live with their heads in the sand:  A woman on a Facebook thread who saw my article outlining reasons why the “Virgin Mary” cannot be our intercessor, wrote the following defiant message:

"I read a bit more of the article, but I can't finish, actually won't! It's mean-spirited and mostly meant to demean Catholics and their cherished beliefs and obviously written by a non-believer. These people are everywhere. Looking hard enough in obscure places, you can probably find a whole lot wrong with what the OTHER guy believes. It's a hobby for some people, but not one of my own. So sorry I even checked it out at all, my friend."

If she had actually taken the time to READ what I wrote, she would have seen past her own myopic ideas about God and the Bible and discovered that my article was NOT meant to "demean Catholics" and that I am most certainly NOT "an unbeliever." This woman, like many, is a total hypocrite! People like her are the reason "the church" remains asleep in their fluffyanity. They don't want Truth; they want what they want, and nothing else matters.  In the meantime, they will take others with them into the pits of hell, in their silly belief that Mary is some kind of a deity who watches over us.  Never mind that this is an impossibility!

Jeremiah 6:13 "For from the least to the greatest of them, all are greedy for gains; prophets and cohanim alike, they all practice fraud 14 they dress the wound of my people, but only superficially, saying, 'There is perfect shalom,' when there is no shalom. 15 "They should be ashamed of their detestable deeds, but they are not ashamed at all; they don't know how to blush. Therefore when others fall, they too will fall; when I punish them, they will stumble," says ADONAI. 16 Here is what ADONAI says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask about the ancient paths, 'Which one is the good way?' Take it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, 'We will not take it.' (CJB)

The last verse is, unfortunately, more true than we realize.  There are way too many people who are always reading, studying and even teaching their respective viewpoints - while at the same time they have never really come to the knowledge of Truth, and "will not take" the "good way."