Articles
Knowing What We Don't Know
In most everything we do, it is important to know what we are doing, or we risk ridicule or even physical harm. There’s a saying going around in the business world that points to the need for knowing what you’re doing that adds to the importance of proper and sufficient knowledge: “You don’t know what you don’t know.” The point is, in every walk of life, there are certain things that can be known and certain things that cannot be known; we need to know what can be known, but we also need to know what we don’t know or cannot know.
In many fields, proper planning is essential to keep a business afloat and operating efficiently and safely for all employees. Within the sphere of planning stages, it is important that all involved know what can be known and also know what they cannot know [unplanned and unexpected variables]. For example, one cannot know a year ahead of time what the weather will be like on a particular day; understanding this variable, planners can make alternate [backup] plans in case the weather is such that what was initially planned cannot be accomplished.
In spiritual matters, it is no less important to know what we can know and also acknowledge there are some things we do not or cannot know, and that we plan accordingly. When we consider some of the things we do not know, it becomes all the more clear that it is of the utmost importance to prepare for those unknown and unknowable things! Consider:
What Tomorrow Brings. Despite the claim of some to be able to predict the future, there is not a man on earth who knows what tomorrow brings. In fact, long ago, a wise man wrote, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth” (Prov. 27:1). As much as we like to make plans for “tomorrow,” the fact is, not a one of us knows if there will even be a “tomorrow.” James points to the foolishness of such planning when he wrote, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit’; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’ But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil” (Jas. 4:13-16). His admonition is one we would do well to heed! Far too often, we make plans for “tomorrow” — and for some point years in the future — and all without the knowledge that the day will come. We plan for many things, yes, but we also put off doing some very important things, thinking we will always have “tomorrow.”
To that, James concluded, “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (Jas. 4:17). The reality is, none of us knows what tomorrow will bring, so we should prioritize and do the most important thing first: Making sure we are right in the sight of God, our Creator and of Jesus Christ our Judge. We will all one day have to stand before them and answer for what we have done in this life (2 Cor. 5:10), and then it will be too late to say we will obey “tomorrow.” Let us heed the words of the apostle Paul, who quoted an Old Testament prophecy (Isa. 49:8) of the coming Savior, and then made his point: “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). Don’t wait until “tomorrow”; we do not know if that day will come. All we have is today. Are you prepared should “tomorrow” never come?
The Day of Our Death. I have seen, and maybe you have, too, a Twilight Zone episode where a man could see something like a ‘countdown clock’ that hovered over the heads of the people around him that represented the amount of time each one had left to live; there was a music video with that same scenario. While we might think that we would like to know such information, I am afraid it would be not a good thing for many people, for they would not use their time wisely. The sad fact is, we do not know how much time we have left on this earth. Again, the wise writer tells us, “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. For man also does not know his time: like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them” (Eccl. 9:11, 12).
We sometimes hear others say [or we say] about someone dying before we expect it, “They left before their time.” Actually, no; their ‘time’ was exactly when they left and there is no knowing when that ‘time’ will be for us, and no means of delaying it. The psalmist admonishes us, “Those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him — that he should continue to live eternally, and not see the Pit” (Psa. 49:6-9). When death comes, there is no coming back. As David acknowledged of his dead child, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me” (2 Sam. 12:23).
Since none of us knows the day of our death, today is the day to prepare for eternity. Are you prepared? Please don’t think you have all the time in the world; you don’t know that!
When Christ Returns. While many deny the reality of Christ’s coming, there are far too many passages that would refute that wishful thinking. And, again, despite the claims of some to know when that day is, no one knows. Paul reminded the brethren in Thessalonica, “For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman” (1 Thess. 5:2, 3).
Peter likewise speaks of those who doubt such a second coming, telling the brethren “that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation’” (2 Pet. 3:3, 4, but later admonishes us all, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). In other words, God has delayed sending Christ because He wants all to repent, not perish. Peter then adds, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night” (2 Pet. 3:10). Let us not fool ourselves into thinking it is then that we will prepare for eternity, for as Paul describes that time, “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet” (1 Cor. 15:51, 52). There will be no time for preparing then, for it will be too late.
Since we do not know that day, it is now that we must prepare. As noted earlier, we do not know what tomorrow will bring or if there will even be a ‘tomorrow,’ and we do not know the day of our death, so we may not have time to prepare if we do wait until ‘tomorrow.’ Now is the time; today is the day to prepare.
Knowing now what we don’t know, it’s time to prepare and to live accordingly. Eternity awaits. — Steven Harper
