But he shall not be strengthened by it.
The Secret of Strength
There are five principal ways of coming to a clear perception of God.
1. We may know God by vision; that is, by the inner sense of the Spirit. This is the manner in which the Lord made known his mind and nature to the Old Testament saints. They saw the object which the divine being presented to their interior eye. Every sincerely spiritual man lays tacit claims to spiritual intercourse with God; to communications, directions, assurances, and inward voices and revelations from the Lord. It is a part of our spiritual nature, of our divine equipment, to enjoy immaterial contact with the heavenly world, and to hold personal fellowship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. This spiritual insight is the beginning of the knowledge of God. The people happy enough to know God in this sense will become strong, will have their feet upon the rock of ages.
2. God communicates Himself for our knowledge by His Word. The Word must be read, remembered, and searched out daily. The Bible needs digging, and patient, devout, sympathetic and determined digging.
3. God will reveal Himself for our knowledge in our experience. The history of the world is largely the account of the modes in which God has been making Himself known in it. Long, tedious, and interwoven has been the method of the revelation of the Father to us in our trial. But in the glass of our life we look back to see what God is. In that experimental commentary we find our best explanations of His darkest enigmas. Whatever we know of His providence has come from our own deliverances, guidances, and escapes from danger.
4. We may know God in history. The people that have learned to read history do therein know their God. They can see the tendency and destination of all things.
5. We may also know the Lord in nature. Can you know nature unless you know nature’s God? “The world in its sophistry knew not God! (T. R. H. Sturges.)