The T.V. preacher had paced up and down for a considerable length of time, making many eye-catching gyrations and yelling with abandon when he stopped and made this astounding statement, "God doesn't deal with your mind, but He deals with your heart."
The first question in my mind was, "How on earth can someone know something in the inner being without it first impressing the mind?" A man cannot believe what he does not know. Knowledge of spiritual things may be distinguished as intellectual and practical—first it has its seat in the mind, and later in the heart. Light in the mind must come before the exercise of the affections.
In Luke 24:45 the Lord Jesus opened the desciples' understanding that they might understand the scriptures. By understanding is not meant the mind only, in opposition to the heart, will, and affections; but these were opened with the mind. The mind is to the heart what the door is to the house; what comes into the heart comes through the understanding.
It is true that we can understand facts without any heart penetration but our hearts cannot be penetrated without understanding some facts, no matter how few they may be.
There are two doors of the soul barred against Christ: the understanding by ignorance and the heart by hardness. Both these are opened by Christ.
There are two extremes in most T.V. preaching: The ultra intellectual who does not deal with the heart, and the ultra ignorant who cannot deal with the intellect. We must somehow teach with intellect and heart so that men can understand in their minds, and perhaps the Lord Jesus will "open their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures!!"
It is a sure fact that no person will ever come to know forgiveness in the blood of Christ unless he knows some things. Perhaps our T.V. evangelist has not done his homework in the Scripture or he would know the Lord goes through the mind of man to his heart.
Well, anyway, he did pause long enough in his discourse to compliment his own preaching. He paused, looking very estatic, and said, "Boy, that's good preaching!