Matthew-083

Today, we continue our worship as we study the Word of God in Mark 11:27-33, for our studying the Word of God is by no means intended to be an intellectual exercise, which I hope you will constantly bear in mind. Nor is it just to increase our knowledge of the Word of God and what it means, for knowledge brings pride and that is the last thing we want. Rather, we want understanding which brings humility.

Last week, we studied the meaning of the cursing of the fig tree and we saw that it symbolized the spiritual bankruptcy of Israel, that all their religion was on the surface and there was nothing inside. The fig tree was all leaves but no fruit. What is the reason for this? We saw that it had to do with lack of faith. Today, we need to pursue the question still further in Mark 11:27-33:

Being carnal: looking externally, being short-sightedly blind, easily deceived

There is an important spiritual lesson here. The religious leaders’ question to Jesus is: “By what authority do you do these things?” He “drove out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.” (Mk. 11:15) He overturned the money lenders tables, drove them and the merchants out. He took upon himself the authority to cleanse the temple of this kind of commercial activity, exploiting godliness for financial gain. The Lord Jesus could not tolerate that. He drove these people out of the tem­ple. This greatly offended the chief priests because they regarded the temple as their area of authority and influence. They are the earthly guardians of the temple, or so they thought themselves to be, and they thought that Jesus had transgressed upon their sphere of authority. The chief priest would say, “The temple is my business.” Jesus comes in the temple and drives out the money changers and merchants, so they wanted to challenge him. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes or the learned men in the Scriptures, and the elders, who are the religious leaders of the people of Israel, asked him, “Who gave you this kind of authority?” In other words, they are saying, “Who do you think you are that you do this kind of thing?”

So Jesus said, “Let me ask you a question and you answer it, then I will answer you because my answer depends on your answer. By what authority did John the Baptist exercise his ministry in the wilderness? Was it by man’s authority or by God’s authority?”

The leaders were looking for some human authority, and they think that if you don’t exercise human authority, you have no authority at all. Such is their earthly, carnal way of thinking. “Which religious organization do you come from? Which earthly badge do you wear that gives you the authority to do these things? We don’t see you even wearing the clothing of a rabbi! We don’t see any sign of authority that you exercise.”

This reminds me that once in Liverpool, England, I went to see a patient in a hospital. When I drove up to the hospital gates, I said to the security guard who checks people’s identity before lifting the bar to let them in, “I’m visiting a patient who is a member of our church.” So he said, “Are you a pastor?” I said, “Yes.” And he said, “I don’t see you wearing a collar.”

For him, the badge of authority is what you wear. It’s all on the outside. You might be a crook or anyone, but as long as you wear a collar, that is good enough for him. It’s exceedingly easy to get a collar. You can buy it at any religious shop and wear it around your neck. That’s good enough authority for him. Little wonder that a bank robber will come into the bank wearing a pastor’s collar, so the bank guard doesn’t keep watch on him. Then he opens his briefcase and pulls out a gun! This is known to have happened many times because this is the sure way to deceive human beings who look at the outside. I can do it one better, I can wear a purple cloth under the white collar too, because in England, that is a sign of being a bishop, whereas a black piece of cloth is only for an ordinary vicar. I might as well wear a purple cloth, and I suppose not only will he open the gate for me, but he might also jump to attention! How easily we are deceived because we look on the outside!

We want to see external evidence, so we are easily deceived. Today, the pastors of the Fellowship of Baptist Churches to which our church belongs, issues pastors with a certificate so that if I want to prove that I am a pastor, I just take out the certificate that shows I am a pastor in this association of churches. The whole thing is pretty comical! I presume someone will be going around waving this card under the noses of all kinds of people and getting by with it. People always want to check your external authority. There is no photo­graph on this card, so whoever uses this card could pass as a pastor. So in providing such a card, I fear that one opens the way even to more deception.

When I landed at Kennedy Airport on the way back from England a year and a half ago, a customs officer asked me about my profession and I said, “Pastor.” He said, “Do you have any identity to prove it?” I said, “Yes,” and then I searched all around but I couldn’t find the card! He looked at me with considerable suspicion because I couldn’t produce my little card. So he decided to search my baggage. Had I been able to produce the little card, he would have let me go. Man looks for the outward sign – a piece of paper, a collar around your neck as evidence of your authority. It’s incredible!

In the world, I suppose they have no other way but to do these things from time to time. They haven’t got the spiritual discernment to see whether or not you are a true servant of God. But it’s essential for us to have the means to know how to establish whether or not a servant of God is a true servant. How do we discern this?

The Lord Jesus asked them, “How can you tell that John the Baptist is a servant of God?” He has no external authority. John the Baptist did not belong to the Pharisees or the Sadducees; he was not a chief priest. What is his sign of authority? Does the rough girdle around his waist prove that he is a prophet from God? Then we should all put a piece of sheepskin on our backs and we will all be suddenly transformed into prophets! In fact, some people are actually offended if you don’t wear your badge of authority, like this hospital security guard. He expected to see me in a collar. I never wear a collar. I have no patience for collars. I don’t see why we have to wear these kinds of external signs. More than that, many preachers feel that you should not preach until you wear a black gown with a white Geneva collar down the front. Suddenly, that gives him a certain authority! When I don’t wear this black gown, my preaching is somehow with less authority. You are already several points higher when you put on this black gown, no matter what you say. Why are we so prone to establishing values by external factors? Because like the Pharisees, we are so short-sighted that we are nearly blind. We can’t see spiritually. That is why many times, the Lord Jesus says to the Pharisees, “You blind Pharisees! You can’t see beyond the outside. You only look for the external. You cannot penetrate and discern what is spiritual.”

Become a new person transformed by God to discern the truth

The question we need to ask is: How do we know the truth? How do we know that Jesus is true? How do we know that John the Baptist is true? How do we know that any servant of God is a true servant of God? If you don’t know, then you are going to be deceived because any false prophet will come along one day, and because he has a big, gold edged Bible, and he is very eloquent, you immediately think, “This is a true man of God! His well-groomed hair, beautiful suit and gold-rimmed glasses immediately heighten his value. We look at the outside. I beg of you to understand that our survival depends on whether we can tell the true from the false. How do we tell this?

Is a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church worth more because he wears a scarlet gown and cap? Everyone starts bowing and scraping when he comes through the door radiant in scarlet. It’s really remarkable what clothing does! If he were wearing this ordinary kind of clothing, no one would worry too much about him. The effect is quite impressive! Maybe I shall turn up in scarlet next week and see if my preaching becomes more effective. Even worse, the beast in Revelation turns up in scarlet, so it must be very impressive. I’d better not dare to wear that color!

The question then hinges all on this. The Lord Jesus says in his final sermon in Matthew 24:24 and Mark 13:22 that in the last days, deceivers shall come who will deceive even the elect if possible.

“If possible” doesn’t mean that they can’t deceive the elect. The elect has been deceived, unfortunately, through the long history of the church. The Jews were the elect. “Elect” simply means the chosen people. But no one was ever so thoroughly deceived as the Jews, so much so that Isaiah said in Isaiah 42:19,

Is there some way we can be sure to know the truth for the sake of our survival? Is there some technique that we can develop by which we can put every servant of God through some “spiritual X-ray”? Can we develop some high-powered technique? We are all intellectuals of some sort or other, and we are trained to learn techniques, methods, skills. And we want to acquire more skills and more techniques because we are still functioning on the superficial level. Technique is something we can acquire without having to change. We can add it to our great catalogue of knowledge.

In the spiritual life, nothing works like that. It’s not a question of what you can acquire, but it is what you are that matters. There is no way you can know the truth until you become the kind of person who can discern it. If you are a certain type of person, no matter even how much theology you know, you cannot discern because you are not the kind of person that can discern. God entrusts his discern­ment, like his power and wisdom, to a particular type of person. That is why in training to serve the Lord, the training must not put its emphasis on how much knowledge you acquire. The training must put its emphasis on what kind of person you become. The whole Word of God has to do with becoming a particular kind of person. Everything depends on this transformation. And the extent you can discern is in proportion to your transformation, no more and no less. That is why Sunday after Sunday, I preach on being transformed, on becoming a new kind of person because unless you become that kind of person, you cannot discern.

Cost to know the truth: Commit to love the truth whatever the cost

Now I want to address some words to the non-Christian today. Your question will fundamentally be: How do I know that Yahweh God is true? How do I know that Jesus is speaking the truth, that he is not a liar like everyone else? Or maybe he isn’t a liar but he is utterly misguided, speaking words that he himself doesn’t know whether they are true or not? How can you believe in Yahweh God and Jesus Christ unless you know they are true? Your salvation is hanging upon it. We cannot simply say to a non-Christian, “Yahweh God is true because he is true. And Jesus is true because he is true.” That is a tautology. Or the non-Christian may think: “It’s your opinion that Jesus is true, but how do I know he is true?” In what way can we solve this particular problem?

Let me say to you who are non-Christians, that in order to become a true Christian (unfortunately there are a lot of false Christians), you have something to do on your part. You have to make a commitment to love the truth. No one who does not make a total commitment to love the whole truth and nothing but the truth, can ever become a genuine Christian. That may sound like a very sweeping statement, but I can prove this from the Word of God with not the slightest trouble at all.

The word “truth” alone in the New Testament occurs hundreds of times. The apostle Paul himself uses the word “truth” 47 times in his letters. The Scripture is concerned fundamentally with the truth, not with doctrine or religion. If you are only concerned with Christianity as a religion, even that is not being a true Christian. You must be concerned with the truth. If God is not true, you must not believe in him! I will dare to say this with absolute firmness. The only way to know the truth is to have an absolute commitment to loving the truth, and being prepared to love the truth whatever the cost might be. That is precisely where the cost of discipleship comes in.

What do we mean by commitment to the truth? I was quite touched by a story concerning an American general and a good soldier, Robert E. Lee. Once, the President of the United States, President Davis called in General Lee to ask his opinion of the professional quality of another high-ranking officer. Was this other officer a good soldier, competent for this task? And General Lee spoke of this officer in the highest terms. He said he’s an excellent soldier, outstanding commander and excellent person for this task!

Another officer standing by was amazed that General Lee spoke so highly of this officer. And he said to Robert E. Lee, “General, you must surely know this officer of whom you speak so highly, is one of your bitterest enemies.”

General Lee said, “Yes, I know that. But the President asked me for my opinion of his professional quality, not about his feelings to­wards me. And my opinion of his professional quality is that he is an excellent officer.”

Now that is a commitment to the truth! I wonder how many people would be willing to speak so highly of an enemy, of one who is so much against you, that you can remain unprejudiced in your assess­ment of that person. We tend to be not so much lovers of the truth as lovers of our feelings, lovers of our selves. Once you do that, you cannot become a true Christian. You must have that kind of commitment to the truth that is prepared to speak the truth whether you happen to like or don’t like that person, whether you like or don’t like the situation. That is a commitment to the truth. I find it very touching that a person is prepared to give a perfectly unbiased evaluation of one’s enemy. Now that is a quality that a Christian needs, and I believe that General Lee is a Christian.

This passage tells us God guarantees that you know the truth if you love it

If you, as a non-Christian, want to know whether Yahweh God is true, whether his Christ, Jesus is true, God makes a commitment to you that he will reveal the truth to you, provided that you have a love for the truth. If you don’t have a love for the truth, God will not reveal his truth to you.

Look at this passage again. The Lord Jesus asked the chief priests, scribes and elders the question, “What is your evaluation of John the Baptist? My answer depends on your answer.” Notice the way they answered. Did they say, “Yes, I will speak the truth”? No! They huddled together and said, “Now, what shall we tell him?” Well, just tell him the truth. No, they were not going to tell him the truth. They were going to decide on the basis of expediency what they were going to say: “What best “political chess move” shall we make in this case? Which step shall we take? If we say that John the Baptist’s authority is of God, then Jesus will say, ‘Why didn’t you believe in him?’ If we say that his authority is purely a human authority, we are scared of the crowds of people who are going to stone us!” There is no question of considering the truth. This is a disaster! It is disgraceful of the leaders of Israel, who are entrusted with the administration of divine things! Neither did they want to say that John the Baptist was of God because they didn’t believe it, nor did they want to say that he was of man because they didn’t want to get stoned by the angry crowd. So the question is not the question of truth but what is the “politic” of this situation. Is that the way you think? Is that the way you function? The Lord Jesus said, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Speak the truth and nothing but the truth.” But not them!

Notice Jesus’ reaction: “Since you don’t speak the truth, you are not committed to loving the truth, I won’t tell you the truth either. I will not reveal my source of authority to you.” This is the very lesson that Christ is saying that each one of us has to learn. If you are not committed to the truth, if you are going to fiddle around with the truth, God will reveal nothing to you. You will have no way of knowing any­thing because how will you know it if he is not going to reveal it? This is the spiritual lesson of this passage. You must be committed to the truth. When you are prepared to be committed unconditionally to the truth, God will guarantee that you will know the truth. That is exactly what the Lord Jesus teaches: “Ask, and you will receive. Knock and it will be open to you. Seek and you will find.” Christ tells us that is God’s promise. But the first step is you must be uncondi­tionally committed to loving the truth.

What happens when you are committed to the truth?

1. Certainly acknowledge that you are a sinner

What happens when you are committed to the truth? The first thing is, you will look at things with the criterion of truth. You will immediately acknowledge that you are a sinner because that is the fact. It’s not a question of humility. It’s simply a fact that we are sinners; we are not what we should be. The other day, we lost our temper, or we were rude to someone, or we were not entirely honest with certain people. You immediately acknowledge that you are a sinner. That is what John says in 1 John 1:8, “If we say we have no sin, the truth is not in us.” If the truth is in you, you would certainly acknowledge that you are a sinner.

2. Come to the light and not hide in darkness

Secondly, the Word of God in John 3:20-21 says,

So those who love the truth come to the light, but those who don’t love the truth want to hide in darkness.

3. Receive the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth

Thirdly, those whose hearts are open to the truth can receive the Spirit of God because God’s Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, which we read in John 14:17, 15:26, 16:13, for example. It is absolutely vital for us to grasp clearly that unless you are committed to totally love the truth, there is no way you can know whether or not God is true. In 2 Peter 2:2, the Christian life is called “the way of truth.” Also in 1 Timothy 3:15, Paul says, “the church of the living God is the pillar and bulwark of truth.” The church upholds the truth and defends it.

 4. Love God and Christ more for they are the truth

There is one more thing which applies particularly to Christians: the more you love the truth, the more you will love Yahweh God and Jesus Christ. As a Christian, perhaps you wonder why your love for Yahweh God and the Lord Jesus is so shallow. The answer is right here. There is no way you can love Yahweh God and the Lord Jesus Christ more until you love the truth more. The more you love Yahweh God and the Lord Jesus, the more you will love the truth; and the more you love the truth, the more you will love Yahweh God and the Lord Jesus. Christ Jesus said he is the truth in John 14:6, and it is in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (Col. 1:19).

Christians, search your own heart as to what extent you love the truth. How much does the truth really mean to you? Don’t be too convinced that you love the truth. You might be amazed how little you do love the truth. I plead with you to understand that this spiritual secret is of the utmost importance because unless you grasp this, your spiritual life will certainly be stagnant. I have many times examined myself and have been pained and surprised to find that my love for the truth is not as great as I have desired or thought it to be.

Take for example, when someone reproves you about something, do you immediately feel offended? I think most Christians do. I think that is an evidence for you that the truth is less important than your own feelings. If you were totally committed to loving the truth, you wouldn’t worry about your own feelings. For you, the important question is what is the truth of this situation? You only become offended because the truth is less important to you than your feelings.

Exposition errors of spiritual men must be shown to defend God’s truth

I have pointed out there is an error in the teaching of Calvin, or sometimes Luther, or sometimes Watchman Nee, or Martin Lloyd Jones, and some people might say, “Hey, are you prepared to knock down people like Calvin or Watchman Nee?” I am not knocking anyone down. I only have one aim: to pursue the truth. The truth is of absolute importance to me. I don’t attack their teaching whatso­ever. Those people are almost certainly far better people than I am. I don’t in the least imply that everything in their teaching is wrong, but what I say is that they are wrong on this point. And I must show the evidence to prove it. We must never make a vague statement about this and that person being wrong. This kind of statement is vague. If you say something is wrong, you must show the evidence. If I say John Calvin is wrong on the Doctrine of Predestination, I must show the evidence to prove it. If anyone examines my analysis and proves me wrong, I would be most grateful. I say it most sincerely that I would be most grateful to anyone to show me that I am wrong if I am wrong, so that I may publicly repent of it, and no one will fall into error or into sin. Even more importantly, that no one will be lost as a result of that.

Why do I point out the error? God forbid that I would want to knock him down! It’s because these people are widely-read, their influence is great, and so the danger is so severe that people can be misled. We must have a commitment to the truth, but people have commitment to the feelings of people rather than to the truth. Shall we let it pass even when he is wrong? If John Calvin is wrong, shall we say, “Oh well, he’s Calvin, and he has the right to be wrong. It doesn’t matter even if other people are misled.” It matters or it doesn’t, according to your commitment to the truth. I didn’t make vague statements about Calvin. Calvin says much that is excellent, much that is most edifying, but some are wrong. I don’t say it in a sweeping statement, but I say it with evidence for everyone to see. I would be deeply grateful to anyone to point it out if there is error in anything that I say. Neither my feelings, nor my position, nor my reputation matters when compared to the truth. I beg of you to understand that the truth of God must be defended!

We must be pointed out if anyone, including myself is seen to be wrong. If you can show me one thing that I have said wrong from the Word of God, tell it to me. I shall go in front of all the people to confess my error. It’s my solemn responsibility to do so lest I mislead anyone as a Christian leader. No one has ever succeeded in accusing me of saying anything wrong! This is the remarkable thing. Then why does the church defend its doctrines, its system when we should be the pillar and the bulwark of the truth? You have no responsibility to defend anything but the truth. And until you do this, you are going to be in error, and will mislead others all the time. It is most impor­tant that we grasp this.

Since I am committed to the truth, I have revised my statements in the past because I have no commitment to anything but their truth. As the evidence of this, some years ago, I publicly stated that I regarded my exegesis on Matthew 13:44-45, the Parable of the Hidden Treasure, as inaccurate. Many people say, “If you do that, many people will have no confidence in you.” In fact, the First Training Team was there at that time. Although that exegesis was inaccurate, there was nothing in it that would have harmed anyone spiritually. You don’t see why I should want to publicly acknowledge that I had re-considered the exposition and corrected it. Now people would say, “If you do that, those who are in training will lose confidence in you.” I didn’t want them to have confidence in me. They must have confidence only in the truth. They must have confidence in God. In fact, one of those in the Training Team left when he heard that I publicly corrected myself. If they have noticed that example that they must be committed to the truth rather than to me, then their training has been worth it. We must love the truth and must not have the attitude of these chief priests and scribes. We must not say, “What’s the best thing to say in this situation?” We must speak the truth, and must pursue the truth relentlessly.

God reveals the truth when we commit to him

However, someone will say, “Can we really know the truth? Perhaps that’s the opinion of the truth.” So many Christians have become so pessimistic that they don’t dare to believe anymore that the truth is knowable. They say, “It’s all a matter of opinion. You may say it this way and someone else may say it that way.” By that they mean the truth cannot be known. That is a very sad situation to be in. We, Christians, are most miserable of all people because the truth cannot be known! Do you believe the truth cannot be known? If your view is simply, when this person has this opinion and that person has another opinion of the same passage, and your opinion is as good as theirs, what is the point of being a Christian? By this, we are saying something more serious than that, we are saying that God has left us in confusion. God has made it impossible for us to know the truth. He has simply not revealed the truth to us. If he is not going to reveal the truth to us, what is the point of being a Christian? One person says we are saved in this way, and another person says we are saved in that way. We are not talking about superficial things but about salvation! We must love the truth about salvation, so that God will reveal his truth to us!

When I mentioned some time ago for example, concerning Watchman Nee and that particular exposition, we are talking about salvation, we are not talking about personalities. These are better men than I am, but if there is anything in his exegesis that is false, so help me God, I will say it. And if people are offended with it, I am sorry. I am committed to defend the truth. If anyone can point out my error, I will thank him, I will embrace him with all my heart, and I would like you to be there to see it. I have waited for years for any­one to point out my error of exegesis in any single point, no matter how small, but no one has ever pointed out anything. Nothing! I am still waiting, and I tell you the truth, I will welcome people who will correct me with gratitude.

Is being a Christian a matter of choosing between one opinion and another? Is it as desperate as that? I am convinced that there is only one truth, and truth cannot be both yes and no at the same time for it was Jesus who said, “Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.” But now we have to say that both opinions are fine. If you don’t like Chang’s opinion, then go for Nee, and if you don’t like Nee, then try Calvin, and if you don’t like Calvin, try Luther. Take your pick. What is the point of being a Christian then? Our situation is hopeless! How might I know that this fellow is not wrong and that one is right? I might be the blind following the blind and we will both fall into the ditch. This is a disaster! You must be able to discern whether I speak the truth or not. If you have even the slightest uncertainty that I am not speaking the truth, it is your duty not to listen to me. It is your duty to say to me, “I don’t want to listen to this anymore because I discern that this is not the truth.” The truth is absolutely the important thing!

I am confident that God has not left us in the dark. He has revealed the truth to us because he wants us all to come to a knowledge of the truth. I am no pessimist because I believe in my God, that he will not leave us in the dark. What is the point of saying God’s Spirit of truth will lead us into all truth, as the Lord Jesus said in John 16:13, but in fact, we are left in utter confusion? What truth are we being led into? Why do we have problems? It is because we lack commitment. I will keep on repeating the word “truth” until you are tired of hearing it, and even if it causes calluses to grow in your ears, I hope you don’t ever become tired of hearing the truth. You can never hear enough of it.

Does love for the truth lead to dogmatism, strife, fanaticism?

Let us deal with one final question: Does this love for the truth that we have been talking about lead to dogmatism? Doesn’t it lead to fanaticism? Doesn’t it lead to a certain inflexibility in one’s attitude? Won’t it lead to strife and conflict because everyone insists that he is speaking the truth? My answer to that is flatly no! It’s not love for the truth that leads to dogmatism and strife. It’s the lack of loving the truth that leads to dogmatism and strife. Anyone who says that love of the truth leads to dogmatism proves thereby that he doesn’t know what is the spirit of loving the truth. There is no way that loving the truth can lead to dogmatism.

Look at it this way. If you and I don’t see things the same way, but you and I are unreservedly, genuinely committed to love the truth, don’t you see that our basic agreement in loving the truth is far stronger than any disagreement on one particular point? The unifying spirit underneath has already united our hearts in the pursuit of the truth, so that whatever area of disagreement can be sorted out in the same spirit of loving the truth. In other words, our fundamental agreement is far greater than the element of disagree­ment. I would never be in conflict with anyone who loves the truth. I have said constantly, because I love the truth, I will love to be corrected because I want to know the truth. Therefore, where will the conflict come from? Where will the antagonism come from? Conflict and antagonism come from the fact that I want to insist not on the truth but on my position. I don’t want to insist on any posi­tion; I have no position to insist on. If anyone can show me the truth from his exposition in the Word of God, I would happily bow to it and receive instruction from such a person with joy.

So we can see a number of things here. First, the whole attitude of a person who is committed to the truth is different. It’s not one of dogmatism. He is always willing to listen to another opinion. I come to certain conclusions only after carefully considering the alter­natives to see and check and examine. When I reject John Calvin’s Doctrine of Predestination, it’s not that I had not read what he had to say about predestination. I have analyzed carefully what his doctrine was, whether it is founded in Scripture or not. And having seen the error of his position by a process of painstaking exegesis, I have written my rejection in our church’s newsletter for everyone to see. If anyone can see any flaw in that exegesis in which I showed that John Calvin’s understanding of predestination is not scriptural, let him show me where my exegesis might be wrong and Calvin’s is right. There are a lot of Calvinists, and I have yet to hear one word from any of them. I would love to hear from them. I would be most grateful to them. It’s so important to see that it has nothing to do with personalities.

To love the truth is to be most careful in analyzing

Secondly, a person who loves the truth is most careful about his analysis. He does not jump to conclusions; he examines and re-examines, evaluates and re-evaluates. There is nothing I say at this pulpit that I have not checked and counter-checked, because these statements are of greatest consequence. If you take someone on to test a particular point of exegesis, you must take responsibility for that statement. You must be able to prove it and back every word that you say. Therefore, you never speak lightly and irresponsibly.

Commit to love the truth: Root out falsehood relentlessly

Ask yourself, “What is my commitment to the truth deep down in my heart?” If you commit to love the truth, God’s blessing will be upon you in a way that is astonishing.

How do we advance in holiness? We become holy by rooting out sin. What is sin? Sin is un-truth, falsehood. Therefore, the only way you can advance in holiness and in spiritual life is to root these things out relentlessly. Deal with yourself in a firm and disciplined way. The person who loves the truth is usually hardest on himself to begin with. He examines his motives.

Do not be touchy and over-sensitive when corrected

Consider another aspect. Many people say they love the truth but you can see from their conduct that they don’t. Why? They are very touchy, very sensitive. Are you touchy and over-sensitive? That is a sure sign that you don’t love the truth. Are you easily corrected? Do you learn readily? Scripture says when you reprove the wise man, he gains knowledge. To reprove a wise man is to make him even wiser, and he is grateful for it. But don’t reprove a fool because he will hate you (Pro. 9:8). Notice a fundamental difference in attitude!

Let us understand that if we want to know that God is true, if we want to advance in the spiritual life, we must have an uncompro­mising commitment to loving the truth.

Let us be quiet before God in prayer.