DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU READ? ‘…Understandest thou what thou readest…”
Men, above all the creatures of the earth, are the most intelligent. Lower creatures, having a limited intelligence, are able to understand and communicate with each other and to a certain degree with man. Yet of all creatures on earth only man can intelligently communicate with his Maker. Before the great transgression and Adam’s fatal fall from the state of perfection, he enjoyed perfect communication with God. From the time of Adam’s fall man has been void of spiritual understanding. His concept of God is distorted and what he puts together concerning the God of the Bible is no more than a concoction of natural perversions. In the Gospel according to Luke we have two disciples returning from Jerusalem to Emmaus after the crucifixion of Christ. We see clearly in this text the necessity of Christ opening the understanding--“Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures” (Luke 24:45). We might ask, WHO OPENED IT? Christ! He not only has the key to scriptural knowledge; He is the Key. He that has the key of David puts His hand in by the hole of the door of our hearts, illustrated by the Shepherd with the Shulamite maiden in the Song of Solomon, and opens our understanding to give the knowledge of the gospel. These two men in Luke 24 are said to be disciples; I take that to mean regenerated, converted men. If, as we learn from their experience, believers must have the key turned to unlock their understanding that they may receive truth, therefore why are we so shocked when unbelievers understand not our speech? Is it not because they are dead in their senses that they are no more than stones that they do not hear? I tell you men are shut up to the voice of Him who alone can bring them from death to life. In John 5:24-29, two references are made concerning the dead, one is to the physical, the other to the spiritual. Both are equally dependent on Christ for life. Those who have deceived themselves with notions that poor, lost, spiritually dead sinners may be won to Christ by superficial propositions have never been won to Christ themselves. In the Great day of our Lord, when He shall judge the quick and the dead, we will be made ashamed of all our labors that have not stood in the power, teaching and wisdom of Christ alone. “Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord” Jeremiah 9:23-24
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