“Then opened He their understanding, that they might
understand the Scriptures.” — Luke 24:45
He whom we viewed last evening as opening Scripture, we here perceive
opening the understanding. In the first work He has many
fellow-labourers, but in the second He stands alone; many can bring the
Scriptures to the mind, but the Lord alone can prepare the mind to receive
the Scriptures. Our Lord Jesus differs from all other teachers; they reach
the ear, but He instructs the heart; they deal with the outward letter, but
He imparts an inward taste for the truth, by which we perceive its savour
and spirit. The most unlearned of men become ripe scholars in the school
of grace when the Lord Jesus by His Holy Spirit unfolds the mysteries of
the kingdom to them, and grants the divine anointing by which they are
enabled to behold the invisible. Happy are we if we have had our
understandings cleared and strengthened by the Master! How many men
of profound learning are ignorant of eternal things! They know the killing
letter of revelation, but its killing spirit they cannot discern; they have a
veil upon their hearts which the eyes of carnal reason cannot penetrate.
Such was our case a little time ago; we who now see were once utterly
blind; truth was to us as beauty in the dark, a thing unnoticed and
neglected. Had it not been for the love of Jesus we should have remained to
this moment in utter ignorance, for without His gracious opening of our
understanding, we could no more have attained to spiritual knowledge than
an infant can climb the Pyramids, or an ostrich fly up to the stars. Jesus’
College is the only one in which God’s truth can be really learned; other
schools may teach us what is to be believed, but Christ’s alone can show
us how to believe it. Let us sit at the feet of Jesus, and by earnest prayer
call in His blessed aid that our dull wits may grow brighter, and our feeble
understandings may receive heavenly things.
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