Knowing the scriptures and experiencing the power of God go together (declared Christ). Why God’s book is vital for understanding human life and God’s plans. How it traces all the powerful acts of God to the end of time, and brings us to know Him.

Sermon details

Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine.

The thing we cannot help but notice is that Christ links the knowing of the scriptures with the knowing of the power of God. If you know the scriptures then you may well know the power of God. If you do not know the scriptures there is no likelihood at all that you will know the power of God. By ‘know the scriptures’ I don’t mean ‘have a deep knowledge of them all’ but the essence of the sum total message of the scriptures. If you don’t know that, you have no idea what the scriptures of God teach, then you cannot know or taste or have any experience of the mighty power of God – the two things are linked.

Without some knowledge of the scriptures you cannot know the reason for life, you can only know what the atheists tell you, that there is no purpose in life, so far as we can tell, that you’re here today and you’re gone tomorrow, and one day the entire world will blow up and disintegrate; there’ll be nothing left and every moment you’ve ever lived will be seen in that moment to be pointless and for no purpose at all.

Without a revelation from God and information from him (the scriptures) we cannot know the purpose of life, we cannot know what God intended, we cannot know his plans, we cannot know how he regards us, we cannot even understand the human condition, what makes us the people we are. The mysteries of mankind: these creatures, higher than the animals, who have the knowledge of right and wrong (a moral consciousness), and yet strangely cannot live in accordance with their knowledge of right and wrong – they cannot conform to the standards of conscience. How do you explain that?