Your ShelfYour Projects

SIGHT AND INSIGHT

20%

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 29, 1895

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 34.

Read the full edition

SIGHT AND INSIGHT.

By Sarah B. Cooper

BY SARAH B. COOPER.
It is the truth that forever makes free—not our opinions about truth, but the truth itself. His all-piercing insight into truth made Jesus the great Teacher of teachers. He was the truth; and every one who is of the truth will hear his voice. What is our insight into truth?—All real knowledge is the result of insight. All real education is a process of insight. All the old prophets, inspired of God, persist in saying that they “saw” the word of God, that they “heard” the word of the Lord as it was spoken unto them. Just, for all the world, as if they had eyes behind their eyes, and ears behind their ears. And when they used these spiritual organs, in response to the call of God, it transformed them; it lifted them up into the spiritual realm; it turned herdsmen into prophets; it enabled weak and faltering men to endure as seeing Him who is invisible.
It is a great mistake to suppose that all our knowledge comes through the five senses. Animals have all these. The measure of intelligence depends upon what there is at the other end of the senses. The senses themselves are only reporters. The question is, What is there within to receive the report? As said the grand old prophet, “Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” As Jesus said, “Having eyes, why do ye not see? having ears, why do ye not hear?” There is light enough on the outside, but inside all is darkness. “The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”
The church needs more spiritual insight. Christians are weak and inefficient because they lack spiritual discernment. How are we to get it?—“If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” We grow in this power as we grow in wisdom and in grace. The pure in heart see God. Whoever lives close to God in feeling, thought, obedience, and love will not miss that wonderful revelation which unfolds the mysteries of the unseen universe. We can only grow by close and constant communion with God. There is so little of inspiration, because we live so far from God. We need to believe more utterly the promise that the Holy Spirit’s guidance will be given to those who eagerly desire it. The Holy Spirit has not abdicated his office. He is still ready to give illumination to those who seek it. We may hear the sure Voice saying, “This is the way; walk ye in it.” And the more obedient we are to that voice, the more mandatory will it become to us. We are living in the dispensation of God, the Holy Ghost. “Ask, and it shall be given you.” If we are faint, and feeble, and powerless, it is because we do not take hold on the infinite fullness. We wait at the broken cisterns of our own righteousness, instead of drinking at the eternal Fountain. God dwelling in man, and man dwelling in God, is the very substance of religion. And to live in God is to have spiritual insight, is to walk by faith and not by sight.—Selected.