Who opens hearts and gives spiritual understanding?
God opens hearts and gives spiritual understanding. He accomplishes this through the working of the Holy Spirit. Though Satan exercises authority to keep lost humanity in darkness, God breaks that power. Understanding is therefore not humanly generated but divinely given, and it rests on God's initiative rather than man's ability.
Les explains that the believer's conflict is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers whose authority is Satan. Satan works to frustrate the believer's life and to keep lost humanity in darkness, and he has that power until God breaks it. Therefore, Les emphasizes, we must come back to the fact that God is the One who opens our hearts and, through the working of the Holy Spirit, gives us understanding. He then connects this to Romans 8, where neither principalities, powers, things present, things to come, height, depth, nor any other creature can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. That word creature refers to all creation, whether demonic or righteous angelic, and nothing created can take us out of God's love in Christ.