“Search the Scriptures.” The Jews to whom Jesus said these words had been searching the Scriptures all their lives. This was before the New Testament was written, and the Scriptures of which Jesus spoke were what is called the Old Testament.

Every Jewish child was taught the Scriptures from his earliest infancy, for God had said: “These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt walkest of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” So of most of them it might be said, as it was of Timothy, “From a child thou hast known, the Holy Scriptures.”

It was of these Old Testament Scriptures that Jesus said: “They are they which testify of Me.” And He said that if the people really believed the writings of Moses, “they would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me.”

Does it then seem strange to you that when Jesus came among the people who had been learning about Him all their lives, they should not know Him, but should persecute and crucify Him as they did?

Paul, who had Himself been one of the persecution of Jesus, tells the reason why “they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers,” had rejected and condemned Jesus. It was because they know not “the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day.” And he tells also why they did not understand these “voices of the prophets,”—the Holy Scriptures which God had given to teach them of Jesus and prepare them for His coming. He says it was because “their minds were blinded;” and then he tells just what blinded them: “For even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their hearts.”

How much could you see of any thing, if you tried to look at it with your eyes covered? Yet this is just how many, in the most, of the Jewish people, looked at the scriptures. Their sin and unbelief covered their minds and hearts with a thick veil, so that they could not see Jesus, whose glory was really shining forth upon them from the sacred writings.

The Word of God is “a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path,” because it all teaches us of Jesus, who is the Light of the world. It is not, then, how much we have read, or even learned of the Holy Scriptures, but how much we see of Jesus in them, that makes them a light and a blessing to us. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

There is only one thing that can take the veil from our hearts, and so open our eyes and teach us to see Jesus. This is His own Holy Spirit, whose special work it is to reveal Him to all who really want to see Him, just as Jesus said: “He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you.”

Read the eighth chapter of Acts, where we have the story of the Eunuch who was sitting in his chariot reading about Jesus in the book of Isaiah, but he was not able to understand “the voices of the prophets.” Then the Holy Spirit told Philip to go and talk to him, and help him to see Jesus in the Word that he was reading. So Philip began at the very Scripture that the Eunuch was reading, and full of the Holy Spirit, “preached unto him Jesus.”

How soon the veil from the eyes of this man, and the light of Jesus shown into his heart, when he was taught by the Holy Spirit. When they came to water, he wanted to be baptised at once to show his faith in the One of whom he had been ignorantly reading for so long.

Now we are going to talk over together for a few weeks some of the old familiar stories of the Old Testament, and shall we not, as we do this, ask Jesus to make us pure in heart, that there may be no veil of sin upon our minds, but that we may see more of Him in them than we ever have before. Pray that His Holy Spirit may glorify Him by taking of His and showing it unto us.

There are many who study the Bible and can repeat whole chapters and even whole books of it, but it does them no good, because their minds are not lighted up by the Holy Spirit. While there are others who know very little, and perhaps can repeat only one verse, and yet the little that they know is able to make them “wise unto salvation” because in it they see Jesus.

The Present Truth – November 2, 1899
E. J. Waggoner

Story in pdf The Light of the World