Spurgeon: January PM
* 01/19/PM
"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.