Ignorance, reason and salvation are three related concepts well worth the investigation of modern minds. Ignorance is a great evil, reason is a great hope and salvation is a great result.

Ignorance
     Ignorance of God’s word is as harmful to man as it is odious to God. Being an eclipse of knowledge, ignorance is likened to darkness in numerous Bible passages:
     Isaiah 9:2 is a prophecy of “people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.” This was fulfilled in Matthew 4 when Jesus preached the gospel of the Kingdom in the “land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali.”
     In Acts 26:18 Saul of Tarsus was told he would be sent to the Gentiles to shed the light of the gospel “to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.” Later, Paul the apostle admonished the Roman brethren to “cast off the works of darkness” (Romans 13:12).
     Likewise Ephesians 5:11 commands those who know and believe the gospel to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”
     Of all Old Testament times, it was the days of the Judges that stand closest to being a parallel to our own day. In the “Dark Ages” of the Judges “there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). Today, there is no recognized single source of authority in religion and every man is a law unto himself, doing that which is right in his own eyes. However, that which is right in man’s eyes is not necessarily right in God’s eyes. Ignorance has caused the Bible to take a back seat to the whims, desires and personal tastes of would-be worshippers.
     A way some have of describing a religious man is to term him “a man of the cloth” but wouldn’t it be better to be “a man of the Book?” Can any people or nation remain in ignorance of Divine Truth and still expect spiritual blessings to fall like a gentle rain? “Darkest Africa” was a phrase once coined to describe a faraway continent, but it is “Darkest America” that needs to be lamented for its lack of knowledge.

Reason
     Man’s ability to reason is man’s hope. The darkness of ignorance can be banished like the morning dew before the hot sun, if man will “reason” (prove, decide) on God’s terms of pardon (Isaiah 1:18). It is not an emotional experience that scatters the dark but an acknowledgment of man’s inability to save himself and his desire to know “the good way, and walk therein” (Jeremiah 10:23; 6:16). Man is challenged by God to produce any revelations like the Lord’s (Isaiah 41:21-22, 43:9). This challenge remains unmet.
     Thus, in place of the void and emptiness of ignorance man must fill his heart with the saving knowledge of heaven-originated truth, so that he is able to “give an answer to every man that asketh a reason of hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15).

Salvation
     Finally, salvation results as man submits himself to the righteousness of God (the way God has of making man righteous). The “unknown God” becomes known as the God who loves man and sent His son to die for man’s redemption (1 John 4:9). Man’s faith, based on God’s proven Word, enables him to run from the sickness of sin (Acts 17:30-31); to openly acknowledge the deity and sonship of Christ (Acts 8:37), and to submit his body to be immersed in water for the remission of sins. This act of baptism typifies the death, burial and resurrection of Christ (Romans 6:1-4). Man is thus freed from sin to live a new life of obedience until death.
     Man will never be ready for the journey into “the great unknown” until the God who is unknown becomes known. Let men everywhere dispel the darkness of ignorance by reasoning upon and proving God’s will and then be blessed with salvation in eternity.—Taken from the book, Gospel Truths Briefly Told, by Bill Dillon, 704 Arkansas Avenue, Mountain Home, AR 72653