In two days the Season of Lent begins – 40 days plus in which we, by God’s grace, exercise spiritual disciplines for rebirth and renewal in preparation for the Easter celebration.

Last week’s focus was on penitential prayer (Psalm 139:23-24), beseeching God to search our hearts and try our thoughts for “leaven” that we may be purged of it, and be led in the way everlasting.

This week our focus is on knowledge (knowledge of the truth, truth which sets and keeps us free).

Hosea was a prophet in the Northern Kingdom (eighth century B.C.) during the reign of Jeroboam.  It was an age marked by religious apostasy and gross immorality.  Reflecting upon the affairs of Church and State, Hosea, inspired by the Spirit, declared “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…” (Hosea 4:6).  Could not the same be said of us today regarding the Two Kingdoms in which we live?

In our own personal lives, and in the two kingdoms God has ordained for our governance, we’re being destroyed for lack of knowledge – knowledge of the Holy One of Israel; knowledge of His statutes and ordinances, His precepts and principles, His commands and covenants, His divine design for marriage, home and family, Church and State.

This lack of knowledge (or worse: knowledge of the truth but despising it) has led to religious apostasy and gross immorality within the Two Kingdoms of our day and age.  A spirit of confusion has come over us.  No longer is there a true sense of right and wrong, just and unjust, righteous and reprobate, male and female, marriage and family, love and hate.  We’ve lost our minds and lost our way, all because of the lack of knowledge, knowledge of the truth.

The foundation upon which we are to build our house (our lives, Church and State) is the solid rock of God’s Word (Matthew 7:24-27).  As I reflect upon the affairs of Church and State, I see the foundation(s) eroding.  Psalm 11:3 sounds the alarm. “…if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”  I believe our foundation(s) are not yet destroyed.  Eroding, yes; destroyed, not yet.  What can the righteous do?  We can pray (Psalm 139:23-24), repair and rebuild…upon the rock.

God’s Word is truth (John 17:17) and in knowing the truth we are set and kept free (John 8:31-32), free from being swept away by every wind of doctrine (Ephesians 4:14) and current that leads to destruction.

In the church I currently serve, our Sunday confession of sin includes these words: “…and by Thy Spirit increase in us true knowledge of Thee and of Thy will and true obedience to Thy Word, that by Thy grace we may come to eternal life…”

May this, too, be our Lenten prayer – for ourselves as individuals, as well as for Church and State – that by God’s Spirit He would increase in us knowledge (true knowledge) of His Word and Will, so that by His grace we may be better equipped and encouraged to walk in all His ways in both Kingdoms.