SECOND QUARTER 2026
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #2
APRIL 11, 2026
"TO KNOW GOD".

 

“To know God is the most wonderful knowledge that men can have.”—Ellen G. White, Review and Herald, March 5, 1889, par. 13.

Do we believe this? To know God—is the most wonderful knowledge we could ever have!  Do we believe that?

I read a lot. I like to learn and know. I’ve read many wonderful books on religion, theology, philosophy, politics, economics, social policy, science, intelligent design, evolution, medicine, history, health, lifestyle, cognitive science, etc.

But, sadly, how much of the time spent reading “to know,” has been teaching me “most wonderful knowledge that men can have”? I fear very little!

“This is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

Eternal life itself, Jesus is telling us, consists not merely in biological life continuing forever. Eternal life consists not merely of heavenly mansions, a street of gold in a city with pearl gates and bejeweled foundations. Eternal life’s essence, according to Jesus, is in spending all of eternity future in getting to know God the Father, and Jesus, and the Holy Spirit! That’s essentially what heaven and eternity will be composed of! And that experience God hopes we will begin now!

Unfortunately, renaissance artists and skeptics have portrayed people in heaven as floating on clouds and practicing the harp. Popular culture writ large has imbibed this picture, and thus the only attraction to heaven is that you’re not in hell. So even thought you’ll be bored to death, at least you’re not experiencing eternal torment!

The reality of the eternity that is meant to begin here and now is that we have the unmerited blessing of spending all of our time in getting to know the kindest, most interesting, most engaging, most beautiful, most loving, patient, uplifting being in all of the universe. That’s eternal life – To Know God!

“Thus says the Lord:

‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;

But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.

For in these I delight,' says the Lord” (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

Wisdom is an excellent thing to have—just ask the writer of Proverbs. Strength and might can be a real blessing. Money can be a great blessing and help in life. But Paul says all of that is practically “rubbish” (Philippians 3:8) when compared with the excellency of knowing Christ.

The knowledge the Lord says we need, in Jeremiah 9, is the knowledge of God’s character—His righteousness, His judgment, His lovingkindness. Those are aspects of His character. The same thing that Moses asked to see and that God showed him in Exodus 32.

We’re told that “thoughts and feelings combined make up moral character”—Ellen G. White, Testimonies, Vol. 5, p. 310. So the pursuit of knowing God’s character is the experience of drawing in to such close fellowship and communion with Him that we will understand and appreciate His (God’s) thoughts and feelings! We can think and feel with God!

Satan understood this. Satan understood that knowing God is the most wonderful knowledge that man can ever experience. Satan understood this because he had known God more intimately than any other created being. And Satan knew that if we should get to know God with even a fraction of the depth that he had experienced, we would be sealed for eternity—settled into the truth intellectually and spiritually so we couldn’t be moved. 

Thus it is Satan’s constant effort first to keep us busy with anything and everything to prevent us from knowing who God is and what His character is. Secondly, Satan wants to distort and blacken the character of God when we do take time to get to know Him (e.g., the eternal torment of wicked). Thirdly, he seeks to prevent us from sharing the true picture of God that we see in Jesus Christ when we do break through the lies that Satan with which has clothed God’s character.

The 1888 message as given by A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner, and endorsed by Ellen White, was a message to open to our blind eyes the true character of God. As we’ve noted above, knowing God is the most important endeavor of human existence. But Laodicea’s problem is a lack of knowledge, while thinking that we have knowledge. The 1888 message was to help us to know, to see.

In Psalm 24, David prayed a prayer, to know God, and to dwell with Him. May this be our prayer each day:

“One thing I have desired from the Lord,

And that will I seek:

That I may dwell in the house of the Lord

All the days of my life,

To behold the beauty of the Lord,

And to inquire in His temple.”

“To know God is the most wonderful knowledge that men can have.”—Ellen G. White, Review and Herald, March 5, 1889, par. 13.

 

—Robert Hunsaker