The Spiritual Background of the Word of God

The Lord has to do things in relation to His Word in order to bring us into the good of it. Revelation is not only the study of the Scripture; it is our being wrought into it, sometimes by heartbreak, and having it wrought into us. Facts as facts have never yet constituted a messenger of God. Now, you young preachers, take that, and write it down inwardly, and not only in your notebooks. Facts merely as facts have never yet constituted a messenger of God, neither have they constituted a vessel of testimony. The essential to a messenger of God and a vessel of testimony is spiritual understanding; and spiritual understanding comes by life, by something inwrought; and that usually by experience. The Word is: "That ye may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding." Spiritual understanding! You cannot gain anything spiritual, only by spiritual life and spiritual experience. It is not a matter of manuals and text-books; it is not a question of what certain people stand for and teach; such may know the teaching for a very long time and never enter into it.