Sabbathought: As the worm knows, without revelation all is guesswork

Last week we saw in this terse sentence from the LDS Bible Dictionary the absolute need for revelation from God to man: "Without revelation, all would be guesswork, darkness, and confusion" (page 762).

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of man's origin.

Natural man, unaided and unhampered by light from heaven, has come up with the notion that mankind's origins were in primordial swamps, that man has risen and progressed from this beginning to his present enlightened and advanced state, never to return to the swamps. This idea exalts man in the minds of some, and makes him more noble and great. Some variation of it is the official teaching on the subject in schools throughout the land.

The truth of man's origins is the exact opposite of this theory. Revelation "from God, who is our home" (Wordsworth) shows that in fact man has fallen from the presence of the Gods, in contrast to his having risen from the swamps. The two views could not be more opposite.

Ironically, it is this latter view that truly exalts man, that teaches him his glorious potential to become as the Gods from whence he came. Earth life is the lowest point of mankind's existence.

Another illustration of man's vital need for revelation, for insight and guidance from a Higher Source: One of the papyrus documents in the Dead Sea Scrolls was found to have a hole in it when the scholars opened it up to translate. A tiny worm had found the papyrus tasty enough to eat a hole through the scroll at crucial points in the narrative (the folded papyrus had holes at various places from the worm's feast).

The scholars were left with no option but to guess from the context of the surrounding writing the words that would best fit in the damaged portions. Some time later they found another document of the same narrative, this one with no worm holes. They compared the two documents. How many times do you suppose the scholars, the experts, had made an accurate guess at the text when compared with the pristine version of the same narrative?

Exactly zero.

We are not saying that the archeologists and scholars should have sought revelation on the translation. We are simply using the incident as an illustration of the need for the real story from the source. Otherwise, as the scholars found, "all is guesswork, darkness, and confusion."

Natural man's best guess on the things of eternity will be hopelessly inadequate without revelation from the Source.

Who can receive such revelation, and how does it come? It may be well to explore this later.

Thanks to all of you who replied to the request for feedback on the Sabbathoughts.

More later. God bless.

Steve