Danger Signals in the Word

"It is not for you to know"

The Word of God is a light to our path and a lamp to our feet. It is the sure guide directing us in the ways of righteousness, but it often flashes before us as a danger signal when we are inclined to turn off into some way of our own, and great is the disaster to us if we do not heed its warnings. Take, for instance, the Lords words to His Apostles, "It is not for you to know the times and seasons, which the Father has put in His own power" (Acts 1). If in any mind there arises the desire to know more than is revealed as to the future, and to prophecy and prognosticate, then flashes out this red light. But why should we not investigate and calculate and discover by our searching what has not been plainly told? I cannot say, but certainly there is some hidden danger along that road, some lying in wait to destroy our faith, and the danger signal flashes out to warn us against taking the road, and the subject mind will take heed to it and draw back, and so by the words of the lips of the Lord we shall be kept from the paths of the destroyer.

It is easy for us, so foolish are we, to be vainly puffed up by our fleshly mind, and intrude into those things that the Lord, for His own wise reasons has not revealed to us, and we may be sure that the great deceiver is very alert, and ready to seize upon our folly. He rejoices when we ignore the danger signals and start off on a road in which we cannot have the guidance of the Word and the support of the Lord.

Wise are we when we discern the red lights in Scripture, many words that seem like peremptory commands in the New Testament have just this character. They are there to preserve our feet from false ways when we are in danger of being drawn aside, and by them we are kept in the ways of the Lord.