e Bible was written. We
might as well think of setting a man to teach art because he understood
paints as to set a man to teach the Bible because he has a thorough
understanding of Greek and Hebrew. In our day we need not only to
recognize the utter insufficiency and worthlessness before God of our own
righteousness, which is the lesson of the opening chapters of the Epistle
to the Romans, but also the utter insufficiency and worthlessness in the
things of God of our own wisdom, which is the lesson of the First Epistle
to the Corinthians, especially the first to the third chapters. (See for
example 1 Cor. i. 19-21, 26, 27.)

The Jews of old had a revelation by the Spirit but they failed to depend
upon the Spirit Himself to interpret it to them, so they went astray. So
Christians to-day have a revelation by the Spirit and many are failing to
depend upon the Holy Spirit to interpret it to them and so they go astray.
The whole evangelical church recognizes theoretically at least the utter
insufficiency of man's own righteousness. What it needs to be taught in
the present hour, and what it needs to be made to feel, is the utter
insufficiency of man's wisdom. That is perhaps the lesson which this
twentieth century of towering intellectual conceit needs most of any to
learn. To understand God's Word, we must empty ourselves utterly of our
own wisdom and rest in utter dependence upon the Spirit of God to
interpret it to us. We do well to lay to heart the words of Jesus Himself
in Matt. xi. 25, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes." A number of Bible students were once discussing
the best methods of Bible study and one man, who was in point of fact a
learned and scholarly man, said, "I think the best method of Bible study
is the baby method." When we have entirely put away our own righteousness,
then and only then, we get the righteousness of God (Phil. iii. 4-7, 9;
Rom. x. 3). And when we have entirely put away our own wisdom, then, and
only then, we get the wisdom of God. "Let no man deceive himself," says
the Apostle Paul. "If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world,
_let him become a fool_, that he may be wise" (1 Cor. iii. 18). And the
emptying must precede filling, the self poured out that God may be poured
in.

We must daily be taught by the Spirit to understand the Word. We cannot
depend to-day on th