{"id":4265,"date":"2009-03-23T23:19:03","date_gmt":"2009-03-24T03:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/april2009\/?p=95"},"modified":"2009-03-23T23:19:03","modified_gmt":"2009-03-24T03:19:03","slug":"acts-830-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/2009\/03\/23\/acts-830-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Acts 8:30"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>&#8220;Understandest thou what thou readest?&#8221;<br \/>\n              &#8212; Acts 8:30<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We should be abler teachers of others, and less liable to be carried<br \/>\nabout by every wind of doctrine, if we sought to have a more<br \/>\nintelligent understanding of the Word of God. As the Holy Ghost, the<br \/>\nAuthor of the Scriptures is he who alone can enlighten us rightly to<br \/>\nunderstand them, we should constantly ask his teaching, and his<br \/>\nguidance into all truth. When the prophet Daniel would interpret<br \/>\nNebuchadnezzar&#8217;s dream, what did he do? He set himself to earnest<br \/>\nprayer that God would open up the vision. The apostle John, in his<br \/>\nvision at Patmos, saw a book sealed with seven seals which none was<br \/>\nfound worthy to open, or so much as to look upon. The book was<br \/>\nafterwards opened by the Lion of the tribe of Judah, who had prevailed<br \/>\nto open it; but it is written first-&#8220;I wept much.&#8221; The tears of John,<br \/>\nwhich were his liquid prayers, were, so far as he was concerned, the<br \/>\nsacred keys by which the folded book was opened. Therefore, if, for<br \/>\nyour own and others&#8217; profiting, you desire to be &#8220;filled with the<br \/>\nknowledge of God&#8217;s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,&#8221;<br \/>\nremember that prayer is your best means of study: like Daniel, you<br \/>\nshall understand the dream, and the interpretation thereof, when you<br \/>\nhave sought unto God; and like John you shall see the seven seals of<br \/>\nprecious truth unloosed, after you have wept much. Stones are not<br \/>\nbroken, except by an earnest use of the hammer; and the stone-breaker<br \/>\nmust go down on his knees. Use the hammer of diligence, and let the<br \/>\nknee of prayer be exercised, and there is not a stony doctrine in<br \/>\nrevelation which is useful for you to understand, which will not fly<br \/>\ninto shivers under the exercise of prayer and faith. You may force your<br \/>\nway through anything with the leverage of prayer. Thoughts and<br \/>\nreasonings are like the steel wedges which give a hold upon truth; but<br \/>\nprayer is the lever, the prise which forces open the iron chest of<br \/>\nsacred mystery, that we may get the treasure hidden within.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Understandest thou what thou readest?&#8221; &#8212; Acts 8:30 We should be abler teachers of others, and less liable to be carried about by every wind of doctrine, if we sought to have a more intelligent understanding of the Word of God. As the Holy Ghost, the Author of the Scriptures is he who alone can&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}