And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.
The book is handed to one without learning with the plea to read it, and he answers that he cannot read because he is not learned. He stands beside the learned man who cannot read the sealed book, so that the message is shut up whether a person lacks learning or cannot receive the sealed vision. The setting is spiritual blindness and deep spiritual sleep in which God's people fail to understand the vision. It is a prophecy of spiritual blindness and deception applied to those who reject truth, fail to understand Jesus Christ, and are spiritually confused.
This blindness comes when people turn from truth, refuse the heavenly guidance and warnings sent them, rely on human traditions, and cast truth aside for error and persuasive falsehoods, leaving the heart far from God while honoring Him outwardly. In that condition they fail to grasp the spiritual meaning of the word and its message about Christ, as when the Jews fulfilled Old Testament prophecies about Christ without realizing what God was doing. Their confusion is like being drunk with a deep sleep rather than with wine, and it leaves them unable to walk in the way of truth.
The chapter portrays conditions in the world today and the conditions workers will face in carrying forward the third angel's message, warning those who have cast truth aside and are deceived by persuasive falsehoods and extending a gracious call to return to God to those who once knew the truth but turned from it. Together with Isaiah 29:9-24 it describes the course pursued at Battle Creek by men supposed to be trustworthy, meaning they violated the principles of the Ten Commandments by showing neither supreme love to God nor love to fellow men as to themselves and by heartily disliking and despising anyone who questioned the course they in their own wisdom pursued. It also exposes men who claim to be teachers and take places as counsellors and wise men without light and truth in heart and soul, taking up truth without being converted to practice it, retaining old hereditary and cultivated character, mingling their own spirit with words and actions, perverting principle, and confederating to do what God has expressly forbidden.
Of such teachers the eyes are greatly blinded so they should not see, justice and mercy and love for God and man fall in the streets and equity cannot enter, and they greatly weaken the work of the Lord and dishonor truth of heavenly origin; this word will be fulfilled to all who claim to be teachers yet act on these principles, while God will still have a remnant people purified, made white, and tried. The image of the unlearned man unable to read because the truth is sealed to him describes false shepherds who, when questioned whether the seventh-day Sabbath is the true biblical Sabbath, divert inquirers with fables, evade the conclusions of truth, and change their positions rather than acknowledge the light they have received.
The book is handed to one without learning with the plea to read it, and he answers that he cannot read because he is not learned. He stands beside the learned man who cannot read the sealed book, so that the message is shut up whether a person lacks learning or cannot receive the sealed vision. The setting is spiritual blindness and deep spiritual sleep in which God's people fail to understand the vision. It is a prophecy of spiritual blindness and deception applied to those who reject truth, fail to understand Jesus Christ, and are spiritually confused.
This blindness comes when people turn from truth, refuse the heavenly guidance and warnings sent them, rely on human traditions, and cast truth aside for error and persuasive falsehoods, leaving the heart far from God while honoring Him outwardly. In that condition they fail to grasp the spiritual meaning of the word and its message about Christ, as when the Jews fulfilled Old Testament prophecies about Christ without realizing what God was doing. Their confusion is like being drunk with a deep sleep rather than with wine, and it leaves them unable to walk in the way of truth.
The chapter portrays conditions in the world today and the conditions workers will face in carrying forward the third angel's message, warning those who have cast truth aside and are deceived by persuasive falsehoods and extending a gracious call to return to God to those who once knew the truth but turned from it. Together with Isaiah 29:9-24 it describes the course pursued at Battle Creek by men supposed to be trustworthy, meaning they violated the principles of the Ten Commandments by showing neither supreme love to God nor love to fellow men as to themselves and by heartily disliking and despising anyone who questioned the course they in their own wisdom pursued. It also exposes men who claim to be teachers and take places as counsellors and wise men without light and truth in heart and soul, taking up truth without being converted to practice it, retaining old hereditary and cultivated character, mingling their own spirit with words and actions, perverting principle, and confederating to do what God has expressly forbidden.
Of such teachers the eyes are greatly blinded so they should not see, justice and mercy and love for God and man fall in the streets and equity cannot enter, and they greatly weaken the work of the Lord and dishonor truth of heavenly origin; this word will be fulfilled to all who claim to be teachers yet act on these principles, while God will still have a remnant people purified, made white, and tried. The image of the unlearned man unable to read because the truth is sealed to him describes false shepherds who, when questioned whether the seventh-day Sabbath is the true biblical Sabbath, divert inquirers with fables, evade the conclusions of truth, and change their positions rather than acknowledge the light they have received.