提摩太後書講道集 第 8 章 第 2/2 段

for the thing did not come to pass, yet he endured the grief and pickled himself in it.

If this were profitable, God would not have grudged it to us;

He who told us the things in the heavens would not have begrudged it.

'For all things,' He says, 'that I heard from the Father I have made known to you; and all things whatsoever I heard from the Father I have declared to you';

and, 'I call you not servants, but friends.'

Why then did He not make these things known to us?

Because He wills that we should take no account of them.

Since, to show that He does not begrudge it, to the ancients these things were told, both concerning an ass and certain other matters, because they were babes;

but to us, since He wills that we should have no concern about them, He did not even lay upon Himself this care of making them known to us.

But what do we learn? That which those did not learn;

and the things which we have learned are these: that we shall be raised, that we shall be immortal, that we shall be incorruptible, that life has no end, that all things shall pass away, that we shall be caught up in the clouds, that the wicked shall pay the penalty—and countless other things besides these, and none of it is false.

Is it not far better to know these things than that the lost ass has been found? Behold, you have got the ass, behold, you have found it;

what is the gain? Do you not again lose it in another way? For even if it does not leave you, you will leave it at your death;

but the things which I have spoken of, if we are willing to hold fast to them, we possess perpetually.

Let us therefore pursue those things, let us cleave to those things which abide, which are sure.

Let us not give heed to soothsayers, nor to dealers in oracles, nor to charlatans, but only to God, who knows all things clearly, who possesses the knowledge of all that is.

And thus shall we know all things, whatever we ought to know, and shall attain unto all good things.