Sinclair Ferguson

I don't think he knew then, at the age of eight or nine or whatever he was, that he was embracing a rather well-known and particular point of view of a philosophical school.

Because some philosophers have held the view, on the one hand, that the human mind at birth is a tabula rasa.

It's a totally blank slate, like an empty computer disk that needs programmed and populated with information.

But other philosophers, and some neuroscientists as well, have held the view that the human brain, the human mind, at least to some extent, comes pre-programmed, already hardwired.

Otherwise, how can you explain that human beings everywhere with very different languages seem by and large to think in the same ways?

While no matter whether the empiricists or the innateists, as they're called, are right, one thing is for sure, none of us is born with the Bible already in our memory banks.

We need to put it there.

We need to program our memories with the truth of Scripture.

And, as we know from God's Word, this is how our lives are transformed.

The way in which the transformation takes place is by the renewal of the mind, and the renewal of the mind takes place through the truth of Scripture.

So we need to hide God's Word in our hearts.

I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but it's not only true of us that we don't come pre-programmed with the Bible in our minds.

It was true of the Lord Jesus.

In his humanity, he had to program his mind with the truth of Scripture.

And he must have known from early days that this in fact was prophesied of him in those lovely servant songs that we find in the second half of the prophecy of Isaiah.

Here are some words that Isaiah puts into the mouth of our Lord Jesus.

Isn't that a beautiful description of Jesus, the meek and the lowly, sustaining those who are weary?

Now, how did that come about?

Well, listen to how the passage goes on.

This is Isaiah 50, incidentally, verse 4.