Learning Spiritual Lessons
It is impossible for us to conceive the full grandeur of having an infinite and ever blessed God for our constant teacher—to truly apprehend ourselves as the frail creatures we are, going to school to limitless Knowledge, cloudless Light, and boundless Love. As our Creator, Savior, and Preserver, what multiplied lessons has He to teach us, through His providence, His word, and His Spirit; and how often we have to learn the same lessons over and over again, from every angle of vision, in varying degrees of light and shade, in multiplied forms of joy and sorrow, in manifold relations of society and solitude. “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.” (Isaiah 28:10)
The word disciple signifies a learner, and a true disciple is learning throughout the course of their spiritual life, from being a babe in Christ until glorification, when we see Him as He is. There are three realms of knowledge: physical, intellectual, and spiritual. We acquire physical knowledge through our senses, by coming in contact with eternal objects. We obtain intellectual knowledge by the exercise of reason, perception, memory, and judgment. We gain spiritual knowledge through the operation of revealed truth and the agency of the inner spiritual being, the conscience, the affections, and the will.
Spiritual knowledge may be received by the Spirit instantaneously flashing the light of revelation upon our spiritual understanding, or learned by oft-repeated experiences of the action of God’s discipline and truth. The Scriptures speak often of revelation, such as of having “the arm of the Lord revealed” to us (Isaiah 53:1; John 12:38); of having the Father revealed to us by the Son (Matthew 11:27) and the Son revealed to us by the Father (Matthew 16:17); and moreover of having the Son revealed in us (Galatians 1:16). Then there are other things that we find are learned through a process of experience, such as learning the meek and lowly heart of Jesus (Matthew 11:29); learning to be content in any circumstance (Philippians 4:11); and learning obedience through suffering (Hebrews 5:8).
The revelations which the Holy Spirit flashes directly and instantaneously upon our spiritual intuition are independent of any action of our physical senses, and far beyond our slow process of reasoning. Therefore, although such knowledge must be affirmed by the heavenly wisdom of a sound mind, this avenue is preeminently supernatural.
But in learning spiritual lessons by experience, there is the gentle interblending of our spiritual intuitions with the action of our intellectual faculties of memory, judgment, comparison, and analysis. This action of our mental powers concerning divine things accounts for the slowness of our learning, and for the necessity of having the same lessons to go over and over again, until the whole mind has been spiritually renewed, and brought under the sweet and luminous control of the indwelling Holy Spirit. This is what Paul refers to by having our thoughts and imaginations—our curiosity, excursive reasonings, air castles, and such like—brought in perfect subjection to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). The learning of these things is a very different method than the instantaneous works of regeneration and sanctification, and is reached by repeated interior crucifixions, by mindfulness of the divine presence, and by divine habits of mental prayer. The general rule of learning spiritual lessons is by contrasts, the bringing together of opposite extremes. We are told that the accurate movement of the delicate machinery in a watch is produced by putting it first into a freezing and then a burning temperature, and then back and forth, until the machinery sweetly behaves itself in either extreme of temperature. This method of learning by abrupt and sharply defined extremes is the very one Paul mentions, having learned how to be abased, and how to abound, how to suffer hunger, and how to be filled, how to sleep on a bed of down in a palace, and on a hard board in a barbarian’s hut. By these sharp contrasts he learned to die equally to both, and the delicate mechanism of his spiritual life kept unvarying time in all zones and temperatures. This thought of spiritual contrast is the key by which we can unlock many lessons of the spiritual life.
When Christ is going to teach us a lesson of the riches of His nature, or of the enormous wealth of His imparted life to us, He may first lead us around through a desert place, and by a combination of inward and outward circumstances show us our utter poverty and destitution of nature, until in our innermost being we feel poor and pinched, pale and pauperized. But then there will soon open to us such a mine of spiritual wealth, bright, glittering thought, sparkling gems of holy desire, soft and sweet attractions of pure love, a smooth glassy flow of peace, glowing expansions of hope, and exquisite magnetisms in the divine personalities, until it seems we are walking through mines of gold and rubies, and feel so rich in God that we want to give away millions of blessings to the starving souls around us (Psalm 66:12; 1 Peter 5:6).
When it is time to learn some great lesson of faith, our little faith will first be tested to its uttermost. God will allow Satan to throw a strange darkness around the mind, and for a time his black wings will shut out the sun, moon, and stars. Along with this, a great many things in our outward circumstances will miscarry, our most solid expectations will fail to materialize; God’s great, broad, bright promises then seem to have an indistinct and awkward appearance, while regiments of difficulties, like armed cavalry, charge down upon us. Amid this storm in the outward phenomena, and the dull gloom upon the mental faculties, faith will act like a little ship in a heavy sea. It groans in every fiber, and slowly climbs the waves; it careens away over, as if it would surely capsize. A mast may snap, a few ropes be broken.
Then we consent to make death reckonings, and reach the point of “though he slay me” yet I will not doubt God’s love (Job 13:15). In a short time we find the billows smoothing down, the cloud lifts, the wind changes, and it seems that every power within us takes on a believing frame. Faith seems to spread itself out in a bright, victorious extravagance throughout the soul. We can then not only believe all God’s written promises, but also the secretly whispered ones which the Holy Spirit pronounces in the depths of our spirit. We seem so full of faith that we wonder why our spirit should ever have groaned and struggled so in the storm (Mark 4:37-40).
In taking deeper degrees in humility the soul is led through horrible temptations, and disgusting mortifications. In one sense it is dangerous to pray for the very deepest humility, for the soul should then expect extraordinary trials and mortifications of various kinds.
It is said that George Whitefield, on his way to America, was led to pray the Lord to fill him with great humility of spirit. In a few days he was seized with most vile and terrible temptations, which greatly agitated his mental appetites, and convulsed his sensibilities, till he was almost on the verge of despair. Before they passed away he loathed himself, and looked upon himself as the most detestable wretch on earth, and all other people seemed good and heavenly compared with himself. But he learned his lesson, and came through with the consciousness of his utter littleness and frailty, which is the very essence of perfect humility. This is the curriculum through which the very lowliest-minded saints have passed.
What shall I say of learning the lesson of love—bright-faced, large-eyed, mild-featured, sweet-voiced, soft-toned, gentle-spirited, long-suffering, non-combative, summer-breathing, boundless love? That love which constitutes the essence of heaven, the quality of religion, and the focusing of all the graces in one must not only be imparted to us by a supernatural act of the Holy Spirit, but worked out into every part of our life. And this requires learning love’s lesson over and over, deeper and deeper.
When the Holy Spirit opens a new chapter of love in our nature, He permits our affections to be sorely taxed with things that are just the opposite of love. He permits most cruel misunderstandings, unexplainable coldness, harsh treatment, the seeming or real loss of old friendships, heartless and uncalled for betrayals of tender heart confidences; sometimes actual and severe cruelties upon the body, or property, or reputation. All sorts of unlovely and painful things occur to test our love, to help us see whether we indeed have the pure, gentle, unlimited charity of Christ.
Love is a sweet mantle of pure linen, and if there be any cotton or woolen threads mixed up with it they will scorch and burn in the fiery furnace of love’s testings, so when our charity for all mankind is going through the flame, we can tell by the smell of burnt wool whether our love is all pure linen or not. Mere human love is wool; God’s love is asbestos-like linen, utterly indestructible. The more it is burned, the broader and sweeter it gets. Just after passing through some long and terrific strain upon pure love, it comes out into a broad ocean of mildness and tenderness inexpressible; it is then vast enough to mantle the world round and round with its compassionate, sympathizing, forgiving, and pitying folds.
As we progress through our Teacher’s curriculum, we may experience seasons when we find ourselves tested in many areas at the same time. We seem to be in a narrow place—our experience, our view of things, our inward freedom of spirit, our outward circumstances, socially or financially, our avocations and industries, the utility of our gifts—all seem cramped. As the days and weeks go by, we may find ourselves in many ways so constricted that we feel “pressed out of measure,” (2 Corinthians 1:8) as though we are being literally tied hand and foot, straight-laced and gagged. But when this experience reaches its extremity, the cords that bound us are suddenly snapped, or perhaps quietly untied, and we find the whole atmosphere of things changed. Without any effort, we find ourselves in a wide place, all our inner restraint expands into the sweetest liberty, gloomy circumstances put on bright faces, forgotten friends unexpectedly turn up, our industries and financial matters move as if oiled, social things assume their old-fashioned cheerfulness, the sky is blue, and it seems so easy to live and grow and fulfill our mission.
All these various lessons, and a great many more, have to be learned over and over again. The babe in Christ learns them in faint degrees, and the purified and perfect believer goes through them many times, and from many standpoints, until he becomes familiar with the methods of his heavenly Teacher, and learns to count it all joy through each exercise. For the Author and Finisher of our faith has no less a goal than to instill in us the very mind of Christ, transforming us into His glorious image and tuning our hearts to beat at one with His.