A group of Christian believers in the South Sea Islands go down to the beach every morning to look to the east to see if Jesus is coming yet. They haven’t heard that God doesn’t raise the dead anymore, as He did in Bible times. So they pray, and the dead are raised.

One of these Christians was trying to get the chief of the tribe to allow his daughter to be baptized. The daughter had accepted Christ, but her father had forbidden her to join the church.

“If God sends an earthquake tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock will you let your daughter be baptized?” the Christian asked the chief.

The chief agreed.

The next afternoon at three o’clock there was a tremendous earthquake, and the chief allowed his daughter to join the church.

This Christian worker was interviewed by someone here in the United States, who asked him,

“Why an earthquake? Couldn’t you have asked for something less spectacular?”

And the Christian from the South Sea Islands replied, “Well, can’t God do anything? Why not ask for something big?”

We smile at the simple faith of these “Fuzzy Wuzzies.” We smile at the faith of a little child. But we’re envious as well. With all of our sophisticated information about God, sometimes we trust Him far less.

I’m not saying that information is unimportant. God has provided us with information about Himself. He wants an intelligent faith. But information is never enough. The Desire of Ages, page 455, makes this comment:

“The perception and appreciation of truth . . . depends less upon the mind than upon the heart. Truth must be received into the soul; it claims the homage of the will. If truth could be submitted to the reason alone, pride would be no hindrance in the way of its reception.”

The devil has more information about God than any of us. Yet that information was not enough to keep him from starting this whole mess in the first place. It’s not enough to change his life today. He chose to rebel in the first place. He chose to rebel in the full light of God’s glory, with complete information about God and His character. And all the information he possessed was not sufficient to prevent his downfall.

Information is important to communication. But information is not a substitute for communication.

Sometimes two people from different cultures will meet. It often happens during wartime when soldiers are overseas. It happens with exchange students and student missionaries. A young man and a young woman will be attracted to each other and begin a relationship. But they can’t talk to each other.

They smile a lot and hold hands and kiss, and conclude that because it’s pleasant to spend time together that they are communicating. He thinks she is just what he’s been looking for. She thinks he is the answer to her dreams.

But sometimes after they have been together for a while, maybe even after they have married, they discover that they have nothing whatsoever in common except smiling and holding hands and kissing! Their backgrounds are different, their tastes are different, their ideas about the role of husband and wife are different, their goals for life are different. And the problems begin.

Information and communication must go together. One of the first things that happens when missionaries bring some heathen in the darkness of idolatry to Christ, is that they begin to teach them about Christ. We’ve probably all heard stories of people whom the Holy Spirit brings to an acceptance of God before the human missionary ever reaches them. But the first thing that usually happens is that the person is directed to the church, to the Word of God to gain information about

God that will keep his faith alive.

On the other hand, in the so-called enlightened countries, information about God has saturated our consciousness from babyhood. But we’re short on understanding about communication. We can talk until midnight about some intellectual detail and talk about God every week in Sabbath School, and yet never take the time to talk to God and communicate with Him personally.

The Bible provides information as a springboard for communication. John 17:3 says,

“This is life eternal, that they might know thee.”

Knowing about God has value only as it leads to knowing Him. It is knowing Him that brings life.