From a sermon delivered on December 6th, 1874, by C.H. Spurgeon, published in the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, No. 1206, Pgs. 836-850.
“I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God…” – Jeremiah 24:7
See Part I here and Part II here.
Introduction
Why is it necessary for man to have a heart-knowledge of God? Spurgeon writes, “The knowledge of God is at once the beginning and the end of wisdom.”[1] In other words, without a right relationship with God, what is perceived as truth becomes distorted. In knowing God, however, all matters of life are placed into their rightful order and perspective. When considering the necessity of knowing God, there are two key points addressed by Spurgeon. First, this knowledge is necessary for all other true knowledge, and second, this knowledge is necessary for man to have a spiritual life. It is in knowing God that we can distinguish truth from error and discover the One through whom any meaningful spiritual life may be found.
Knowing God and All True Knowledge
Having a heart-knowledge of God is necessary because truth in all matters of life is given by his hand. As is commonly paraphrased from Augustine, “All truth is God’s truth.” God is the origin of truth in its fullest and purest form and the absolute standard by which all other truth is to be measured. Scripturally, we see that Jesus is the Truth (John 14:6), God’s word is truth (John 17:17), God does not lie (Num. 23:19), and He does not tempt anyone (James 1:13). Any truth to be found is of God. Knowledge, outside of knowing God, however, can have consequences. Spurgeon writes, “We must know God, or our other knowledge may be dangerous to others, and certainly will be hurtful to ourselves; it will puff us up, or load us with responsibilities which we shall not be able to meet.”[2] Outside of a right knowledge of God, what we perceive to be truth can, in reality, be far from it. “For the highest and most practical purposes, without the knowledge of God, we abide in utter ignorance.”[3] Therefore, the knowledge of God is necessary for a right understanding of truth in all matters of life. Knowing God doesn’t mean that our knowledge becomes infallible. Rather, the Christian worldview is the only one that provides a right standard of truth and a right perspective of the world. This can only be found through having a heart to know God.
“To know God is a needful preparation for every other true knowledge, because the Lord is the center of the universe, the basis, the pillar, the essential force, the all in all, the fullness of all things. Not to know God is as if a student should attempt to construct a system of astronomy and be altogether ignorant of the sun, or a mariner should be a stranger to the sea, or a husbandman should not know the existence of seeds. The place which God occupies must be settled in our minds or we shall have no arrangement in our knowledge, and our science will be nothing but a conglomeration of truth and error.”[4]
Knowing God and the Spiritual Life
Next, Spurgeon leads us to see that a heart-knowledge of God is necessary for man to have a spiritual life. He raises the question, “That this knowledge of God is necessary is clear, for how could it be possible for a man to have spiritual life and yet not to know God?”[5] The idea of being spiritual but not having that spirituality rooted in God seems to be increasingly prevalent in our day. But this idea was not foreign in Spurgeon’s day. It has always been common for people to refer to themselves as being spiritual but grounding that spirituality in their imagination. However, unless one’s spirituality is rooted in the one true God, it will always fall short in every respect and carry with it no eternal significance. John 17:3 says, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” A spiritual life only leads to eternal life if it knows Christ and the only true God. Further, Spurgeon writes, “The knowledge of God is an absolute and necessary concomitant of the spiritual life, without which we cannot see or enter into the kingdom of heaven.”[6] Given a heart-knowledge of God by the Spirit, man has all that is necessary in Christ to live eternally with the Father in Heaven. God must be the one in whom our spirituality is founded.
While this knowledge is necessary for eternal life, it is not without practical application in man’s daily life. A man who lives his life apart from God is prone to wander, but a man whose life is lived under Christ’s Lordship finds straight and well-lit paths for himself. As Solomon writes, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” (Prov. 3:5-6) In knowing God, man grows to know himself better. He can recognize how far off he is from the perfect standard that has been set before him in Christ and how dependent on God he must be to follow it. Spurgeon puts it this way,
“I venture to say that no man rightly knows himself till he knows his God, because it is by the light and purity of God that we see our own darkness and sinfulness. There must be a perfect model before us before we can discern our own departures from perfection. You must have a standard by which to weigh yourself or you cannot tell whether you are wanting or no: God is the standard, and until a man knows the standard he does not know how far he himself has fallen short of it.”[7]
Concluding Remarks
For man to experience any lasting peace, he must know the God by Whom he was created. “There is no peace in the heart while God is unknown. He is the God of peace, and there can be no peace till the soul knows him.”[8] Through knowing God, our understanding of truth is solidly grounded, both in its source and the standard by which it is measured. Given a new heart, man is enabled by the Spirit to distinguish truth from error and follow the straight path in life into eternity. Ultimately, the knowledge of God is necessary for man to have a spiritual life of any significance, and he is the only one in whom eternal life may be found. Has the necessity of the heart-knowledge of God become clear in your life?
[1] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 843.
[2] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 843.
[3] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 843.
[4] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 843.
[5] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 844.
[6] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 844.
[7] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 843.
[8] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 844.
Jaron Button is a Th.M. student at Midwestern Seminary in Kansas City, MO. He serves as a Research Assistant for Dr. Chang and The Spurgeon Center, and as Corporal for Midwestern Seminary’s campus security. He is married to Tiffany and together they are members of Northtown Trinity Church in North Kansas City, MO.