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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
“The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God;” “for
the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.” And the
Saviour’s promise to His followers was: “When He, the Spirit of truth,
is come, He will guide you into all truth.... For He shall receive of
Mine, and shall show it unto you.”
God desires man to exercise his reasoning powers; and the study
of the Bible will strengthen and elevate the mind as no other study can
do. It is the best mental as well as spiritual exercise for the human
mind. Yet we are to beware of deifying reason, which is subject to
the weakness and infirmity of humanity. If we would not have the
Scriptures clouded to our understanding, so that the plainest truths
shall not be comprehended, we must have the simplicity and faith
of a little child, ready to learn, and beseeching the aid of the Holy
Spirit. A sense of the power and wisdom of God, and of our inability
to comprehend His greatness, should inspire us with humility, and we
should open His word, as we would enter His presence, with holy awe.
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When we come to the Bible, reason must acknowledge an authority
superior to itself, and heart and intellect must bow to the great I AM.
We shall advance in true spiritual knowledge only as we realize our
own littleness and our entire dependence upon God; but all who come
to the Bible with a teachable and prayerful spirit, to study its utterances
as the word of God, will receive divine enlightenment. There are many
things apparently difficult or obscure which God will make plain and
simple to those who thus seek an understanding of them.
It is sometimes the case that men of intellectual ability, improved by
education and culture, fail to comprehend certain passages of Scripture,
while others who are uneducated, whose understanding seems weak
and whose minds are undisciplined, will grasp the meaning, finding
strength and comfort in that which the former declare to be mysterious
or pass by as unimportant. Why is this? It has been explained to me
that the latter class do not rely upon their own understanding. They go
to the Source of light, the One who has inspired the Scriptures, and
with humility of heart ask God for wisdom, and they receive it. There
are mines of truth yet to be discovered by the earnest seeker. Christ
represented the truth as treasure hid in a field. It does not lie right upon
the surface; we must dig for it. But our success in finding it does not
depend so much on our intellectual ability as on our humility of heart
and the faith which will lay hold upon divine aid.