Isa 43:10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Thorough Cleansing

Eze 36:25  Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.

What an exceeding joy is this! He who has purified us with the blood of Jesus will also cleanse us by the water of the Holy Spirit. 

God hath said it, and so it must be, "Ye shall be clean."

LORD, we feel and mourn our uncleanness, and it is cheering to be assured by Thine own mouth that we shall be clean.

Oh, that Thou wouldst make a speedy work of it! He will deliver us from our worst sins.

The uprisings of unbelief and the deceitful lusts which war against the soul, the vile thoughts of pride, and the suggestions of Satan to blaspheme the sacred name-all these shall be so purged away as never to return.

He will also cleanse us from all our idols, whether of gold or of clay: our impure loves and our excessive love of that which in itself is pure. 

That which we have idolized shall either be broken from us or we shall be broken off from it.

It is God who speaks of what He Himself will do.

Therefore is this word established and sure, and we may boldly look for that which it guarantees to us. 

Cleansing is a covenant blessing, and the covenant is ordered in all things and sure.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Monday, October 27, 2014

If The World Loves Us, Smiles On Us, And Speaks Well Of Us!

The concern of Jesus for the safety and happiness of His people, is both great and astonishing! 

He had watched over His disciples while He was with them, and being about to leave them--He would make them the special care and charge of His Father, and thus He prays, "I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, KEEP through Your own name, those whom You have given Me!" John 17:11
 

Notice the circumstances in which we are placed: "They are still in the world." They are chosen out of it, are raised above it--and yet are left in it, for holy and important purposes.
The world to the believer, is a place of trial. 


Every principle he has, as well as the profession he makes, will be tried here.  

Storms will arise, and often suddenly and unexpectedly. Labors have to be performed, and self-denying labors too. Persecutions must be endured, and at times these are fiery and long-continued.  

This world is . . .a treacherous environment, a field of labor,
 a weary land, an enemy's country!
 

The world to the Christian is a place of DANGER. He has foes both within and without. From some he must escape by fleeing--and from some by resisting.  

The corruption in the world caused by evil desires (2 Peter 1:4) is defiling, debasing, and disturbing! 

It must be overcome; we must cleanse ourselves from it, and escape from its contagion! 

Then we have to do battle with the god of this world--the prince of the power of the air; the powers of the world or ungodly, persecuting men in authority; the men of the world or the masses surrounding us; the things of the world, especially the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life! 

In such a world, surrounded by such evil elements and diabolic agents--we must be in danger, and shall be severely tried!! 

Hence Jesus pleads with His Father; He fixes on the holiness of His nature and character, and cries, "Holy Father!" 

His grace, or His mercy, or His pity--more generally attracts us, because we feel unworthy, or miserable, or weak. 

But His holiness fixes the eye on His obedient Son, and our great High Priest! 

He prays for their preservation: "Holy Father, KEEP through Your own name, those whom You have given Me."

Keep through Your own name, that is--keep them in the knowledge of Yourself and of Your truth; by Your power, mercy, and providence; to show forth Your truth, Your mercy, and Your love. 

The Lord's people, therefore, will be kept by God's power through faith unto salvation.  

Beloved, if Jesus thus prayed for us--then our preservation is certain, and our perseverance is sure. 

We shall be kept, in answer to the prayer of our great High Priest to His gratification, for His honor, and to the Almighty Keeper's glory!
 

Whatever storms may arise,
whatever foes may assail us,
whatever trials may come upon us--
our Heavenly Father will keep us, in honor of His Son.

 

Kept by the all-seeing eye and all-powerful hand of Jehovah--we shall persevere, though the road is rough and treacherous, the journey is long and dangerous, and our strength is but small.
 

Let us in every season of danger when foes and fears beset us, when our hearts misgive us, and the cross lies heavy upon us--
then let us hear Jesus praying for us, "Keep through Your own name those whom You have given Me!"

 
Reader! Are you OF the world or are you one of Christ's redeemed people IN the world?

Saints in the world are like pure lilies among stinging thorns,
precious diamonds among filthy pebbles,  harmless sheep among ravenous wolves!

 
If the world loves us, smiles on us, and speaks well of us--then we are certainly OF it! And if of the world--we shall certainly be damned along with it.
 

But if the world is to us a place of trial, and a place of danger; if we feel that we are not at home in it; if we are longing and preparing to leave it, that we may go home and dwell with Jesus in His Father's house forever--then all is well with us, and will be well forever!

~James Smith~

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Organized? Named? Offended?


Mat 15:12  Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?
 
Mat 15:13  But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. 

Organized Christianity as it is today cannot understand anything that is not organized, that is not advertised, that is not run.

It must have names that carry weight, that mean influence. 

If you can get people with some title, you are going to have the guarantee of success for your Christian enterprise. 

And so the letters and the titles strung on are a necessary requisite for the success of the Lord’s work. 

You must write it up in the press, you must give a report of it, you must be able to make some kind of return that people can read, and say, "This is a successful thing." If you cannot do that, the whole thing is doomed to failure.

They say, "You must advertise, you must have publicity, you must organize, you must bring in all these things to support it, to carry it on."

If you did none of those; if you were never heard of in the press; if you never had a report; if you never had any names; if there was nothing at all that came out in a public way for people to take account of, what is the verdict of organized Christianity? "Nothing is being done. You are doing nothing. It is a-hole-in-a-corner sort of thing."

Is that true? What must we say about that?  

There was a striking absence of all that in the beginning, and a marvelous manifestation of power, of progress, of effectiveness, so that nothing could stand in the way. 

We must only conclude, we are driven to this extremity, that the Lord can do His own work. 

Evidently the risen Lord is able to carry on His own work; the Holy Ghost knows how to manage things. What a surprising discovery! 

Forgive my irony. I say, this is that upon which Hebrews 12:26-28 is fixed. “I will shake the earth and the heavens”; that which can be shaken will be shaken; that which cannot be shaken will remain; and what is that?

It is what God has done. “Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever.” What God does is done in a spiritual way; it is spiritual, it is heavenly, it is eternal.

That may leave you perhaps in a vague, perplexed position, not knowing where you are, but I have no doubt about the truth of the message. 

If you do not feel you can accept it; if you disagree; if you revolt; if you feel it cuts clean across all your training, all your acceptance; if you feel that it runs counter to all that you know, all I ask of you is honesty with God.

I ask you to come and ask Him to open to you the meaning of the letter to the Hebrews, why it was written, what its significance is, why God has preserved it, what its application is now. 

Have honest dealings with the Lord. Please do not go away hot in spirit, antagonistic; do not lay this at the door of any man.

At least give God a chance.... May the Lord give us His own interpretation, give us honesty of heart, and show us His meaning in having brought us to this consideration.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Definiteness

The Bible seems throughout to have, among others, this continuous note of emphasis - Be strong! Be steadfast! Be unmovable! Go on! 

There is a tremendous amount along that line. 

And you ask about this, if from one point of view that is the whole Bible, what does it imply and what does it signify?

Why should the Bible find it necessary to keep that emphasis all the way along, to maintain that note from start to finish?

Well, quite obviously, the whole trend of things is in the opposite direction, to either turn us back, pull us back, hold us back, or in some way to keep us from an end.

The things are countless which would seek to have that effect upon us, and they are always present in some form or another, and we shall never know a time or a position when we are entirely free from that which would, if it cannot turn us right back, keep us or hold us back. 

There will always be something, and, if we listen to it, if we take account of it, if we stop to be occupied with it and allow it to be the thing which affects us most, then we are going to stand still; we are going to stop, we are going to cease to go on.

That is simple, but it is sometimes good to let the whole weight of the Bible come upon you, getting away from its detail and sitting back and getting its effect.

When you view it in this particular connection, you see, wherever you look, in the Old or the New Testament, there is this coming from God: 

Go on! Be purposeful! Be definite! Be positive! 

There is everything in this universe to make you otherwise, and, unless you recognize it, reckon with it, you are not going to go on!

The Bible is then throughout one long mighty emphasis upon God's desire that His people should be definite, and we find Him coming out again and again in the strongest way against indefiniteness.

How long limp ye between the two sides? 


Those words were spoken at a very big hour in a nation's history, showing what God's mind was about things.

Limping between the two sides. The Authorized Version has it - "halting between two opinions", but I am afraid we have rather given the modern English sense to the word 'halt' - standing still between two things. 

It also means hopping from one to another, limping, just crippled by indecision. The Lord is against that. 

If there is any one stronger passage in the Bible on that matter, it is Rev. 3:15: "Because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth" - God's desire to have definiteness in His people.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Friday, October 17, 2014

Faithful Stewardship

1Co 4:2  Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
 

I believe that the greatest virtue in the eyes of God is faithfulness; it embraces everything. 

Faithfulness is after God's own heart. 

Take a passing glance at this steward - Paul the Apostle. "Demas forsook me"; (2 Tim. 4:10); "all that are in Asia turned away from me" (2 Tim. 1:15). 

Look at him when everything which would inspire to faithfulness is breaking down. He is left practically alone. 

He has more enemies than ever. And now the tragedy, the pathos is that so many of his enemies are those to whom he has been most used.

While there were enemies without it was not so difficult, but now the very people for whom he has spent himself have become his enemies.

But there is no thought, no hint, no suggestion of giving up. 

His word is, "faithful unto death" This steward was faithful. 

You cannot say that, when he died, the situation outwardly testified to tremendous success. It did not look like that at all. 

Paul's life was not vindicated up to the hilt. No! He died largely a lonely man, but faithful, "it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful."

But what enrichment of others may follow from the meeting of that requirement, costly as it is. 

Paul is not dead! I only hope that Paul knows of all that has sprung from his ministry, all that his ministry means to us.

The Lord has met us through His servant, and we never, never get to the depths or anywhere near the bottom of the fullness of Christ that has come through Paul.

We shall go on, and, if we live twice or three times the length of our present life, we shall still be making discoveries of what we owe to Paul's faithfulness as a steward. That has been going on century after century.

That is faithful stewardship, and although the steward may be called away from his earthly stewardship, the stewardship goes on. 

Faithfulness is always rewarded beyond our wildest dreams.

May the Lord maintain us in faithfulness, even though that faithfulness may sometimes involve us in an appearance of utter failure.

The Lord make us good stewards.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Thursday, October 16, 2014

The Transforming Love Of GOD

Isa 60:15  Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations.

God loves to take the most lost of men, and make them the most magnificent memorials of His redeeming love and power. 

He loves to take the victims of Satan's hate, and the lives that have been the most fearful examples of his power to destroy, and to use them to illustrate and illuminate the possibilities of Divine mercy and the new creations of the Holy Spirit.

He loves to take the things in our own lives that have been the worst, the hardest and the most hostile to God, and to transform them so that we shall be the opposites of our former selves.

The sweetest spirits are made out of the most stormy and self-willed, the mightiest faith is created out of a wilderness of doubts and fears, and the Divinest love is transformed out of stony hearts of hate and selfishness.

The grace of God is equal to the most uncongenial temperaments, to the most unfavorable circumstances; and its glory is to transform a curse into blessing, and show to men and angels of ages yet to come, that "where sin abounded, there grace did much more abound."

~A. B. Simpson ~

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Cain, Esau, Saul, Ahab and Judas

2Co 7:10  For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

These two kinds of repentance are to be carefully distinguished from each other; though they are often sadly confounded. 

Cain, Esau, Saul, Ahab, Judas, all repented. But their repentance was the remorse of natural conscience, not the godly sorrow of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. 

They trembled before God as an angry Judge, but were not melted into contrition before Him as a forgiving Father.
 
They neither hated their sins nor forsook them.

They neither loved holiness nor sought it.
Cain went out from the presence of the Lord.
Esau plotted Jacob’s death.
Saul consulted the witch of Endor.
Ahab put honest Micaiah into prison.
Judas hanged himself.
 
How different from this forced and false repentance of a reprobate, is the repentance of a child of God; that true repentance for sin, that godly sorrow, that holy mourning which flows from the Spirit’s gracious operations!
 
Godly sorrow does not spring from a sense of the wrath of God in a broken law, but from His mercy in a blessed gospel; from a view by faith of the sufferings of Christ in the garden and on the cross; from a manifestation of pardoning love; and is always attended with self-loathing and self-abhorrence; with deep and unreserved confession of sin and forsaking it; with most hearty, sincere and earnest petitions to be kept from all evil; and a holy longing to live to the praise and glory of God.

~J.C. Philpot~

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Instead Of Lodging The Lion And The Leopard And The Wolf?

Mark 1:27  And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him.

No word of the Gospel sounds more gladsomely in my ears than this. For the unclean spirits have invaded the citadel of my soul, and asserted their hateful domination over me.

I have no strength to drive them out-but, my Lord, You can rescue me from their hideous craft and polluting bondage! 


Every deadly sin may be defeated by the virtue of Your Cross, and the omnipotence of Your Spirit.

There is what Dante calls the hungry lion of Pride. In my pride I claim a false superiority, I exalt myself arrogantly and unreasonably, I am never satisfied, I am never content with the honor I receive. Always I am clamoring for more, and more, and more.

LORD Jesus Christ, subdue this demon of Pride!

Then there is what Dante calls the spotted leopard of Sensuality. It is not simply in my hot youth that I give harborage to corrupting imaginations, which sink me beneath my true dignity. They are horribly persistent. They follow me into my riper age. Again and again they reappear. A story in the newspaper makes them recur, or a too suggestive picture, or an impure word which I overhear as I hurry along the street.

Wrestle, O Christ, with the spotted leopard in me, and kill him outright! Forsake me not, until my hidden thoughts are as sinless as Your own.

And there is what Dante calls the famished wolf of Covetousness. I crave money, crave it with a hunger which refuses to be appeased. If I have managed to secure a little gain, and am of some account in the social sphere — I am full of eagerness to add to my store. If I am poor, I am discontented, and forever scheming and toiling for more money.

LORD Jesus, when You were here, You had nothing of the world's riches and yet Your heart lacked for no good thing. Without wallet or purse, You were crowned with the love of the Father and the fullness of the Spirit. Teach me Your secret, and let the wolf of Covetousness be slain too.

You are all I want. Come to me, and dwell patiently and victoriously within me until I am holy as You are holy.
 

Then, instead of lodging the lion and the leopard and the wolf, and many another unclean and loathly beast — I shall be conformed to the Lamb and the Dove!

~Alexander Smellie~

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Paul's Faith Brought Good Cheer To Others

Not only did the faith of Paul give hope; it also gave the blessing of good cheer. 

It brought the comfort of a happy confidence to every desponding heart on board. 

I have read somewhere of an ocean liner caught in the fury of a terrific storm. 

Men were panic-stricken--women screamed--and then the captain smiled. 

And the faith that lay behind that smile, that the ship he knew so well would weather through, brought good cheer to every soul on board.

So was it with St. Paul. He believed God and he could smile. 

When others were terror-stricken and beside themselves, he could give thanks and quietly take his breakfast.

And men, seeing it, forgot their fears and plucked up heart again and became cheerful and all because one person believed God.

It is a fine thing to do kindly, helpful deeds. It is one of the very finest in the world. 

But there is something finer than the helpful hand; it is the helpful heart. 

To be brave and radiant when things are darkest has an impact upon everybody, and for that one must believe God.

My dear reader, longing to cheer others, begin by having faith in God. 

Fix the one point of your compass there, and let the other sweep as widely as you will.

A strong faith is the secret of all helpfulness. Nothing can ever take the place of that.

This is the victory that overcomes the world-even your faith.

George H. Morrison

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

The Galations And The Witch's Spell

Galatians 3:1 “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched (lit. cast the witch’s spell over) you...?”

The apostle says that these people had come under a spell. Have you ever been under a spell?

I should think (without having had any experience) that to come under a witch’s spell is to wake up at some point and realize that you have been in an unreal realm. 

It may have been pleasant for the time being, like the effect of opium, but afterwards it was revealed to have been an illusion, an unreality, a false world, everything had been suggesting what was not true after all.

During that time of the spell you have been deprived of your normal state of good sense, you were not yourself, and the effects were quite different from those which had been presented to your mind under the spell.

To look closely into this letter to the Galatians is to see that that is exactly what had happened. 

It was a spell indeed, and a spell which meant that they were taken out of the realm of the greatest of all realities, and put into the realm of things which were false and deceiving, and where they were robbed of their true spiritual position, and placed in a false one.

What was the nature of the spell? 

The Holy Spirit is very apt in His way of describing things. 

The phrase: “the witch’s spell” could not be improved upon as a description of what had happened to these believers. 

These believers had come right out into a living place with Christ, and they had, through faith, received the Holy Spirit.

They had been emancipated and set free from all the old thraldoms. 

They had been put in a place of spiritual liberty, spiritual ascendency, spiritual power, spiritual life, and they had had a great enjoyment of the Lord.  

But, being Gentiles, and having turned to Christ, certain things had entered into their experience outwardly. 

Outwardly they had become involved in a great deal of persecution. 

They had found tremendous antagonism leveled against them. 

Inwardly they had become aware of the fact of two natures, an old and a new, that which the apostle speaks of in this letter as the flesh and the Spirit. 

And, while they had come to the place where the old and fleshly nature was triumphed over by a life in the Spirit, they knew only too well that the old and the fleshly nature was not annihilated, and that to maintain their position of ascendency, every day they must maintain a walk in the Spirit.

The walk in the Spirit demanded a continuous appropriation of Christ and obedience to Him. 

These were two of the things which had come into their lives, and represented a certain amount of difficulty.

It was not easy to suffer persecution. 

It was not always easy to be obedient and to walk in the Spirit. 

It represented a continuous yielding to the Lord.

The other thing which governed their life entirely was that it was a life of faith. 

While a life of faith brings into a wonderful realm of ever fresh discoveries and blessing, it is a life of faith, and the old and natural life never takes kindly to a life of faith, but is always seeking the seen and the felt, that which can be provided by the senses; that realm of outward perception, as over against the life which is entirely by faith in God. 

While these Galatians went on with the Lord they had a life of knowing and enjoying the Lord.

We all know that the Christian life is not a picnic every day. The Word of the Lord never promises that it will be. 

We are not in the playground; we are in the school. 

We are not here for pleasure and enjoyment; we are here for real business and grim conflict. 

A day of unmixed pleasure and glory lies ahead for us; in the meantime it is a life of training, discipline, equipping for that day, and it becomes strenuous sometimes.

We would deceive nobody who is not a believer by saying that if you become a believer you are going to float about in the air, play upon imaginary harps all the days of your life and never have any trouble.

You will come up against the grim realities, of which you may be altogether unconscious at present. 

You will find that you are precipitated into the battle, and are taken into a place of deep training and discipline.

It is in that realm that we make our discoveries, and find our wonderful enlargement. That does not mean for one moment that while such things obtain there can be no joy. 

The New Testament is a strange paradox throughout: “Sorrowing, yet always rejoicing”; “Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation...” It is a strange contradiction, and the man of the world understands nothing of that.

However, the Christian life is a grim business for the time being, and the Galatians came to recognize that, and sometimes, in common with all other Christians at all times, the sense of the conflict and the pressure registered itself in a costly way.

Nevertheless, ask anyone who knows the Lord best, and who knows the cost most, whether they would give up the Lord in order to escape the cost, and you will find that they will give no consideration to that — unless they become tricked, which is exactly what happened here. 


There came down to these Galatian believers certain men who were Jews, who pretended to be Christians, and the most that can be said in their favor is that they acknowledged Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. 

That does not mean for a moment that they had seen Him as the Eternal Son of God, and it does not mean that anything was entailed in the setting aside of Judaism. 


These Judaizers, with the Christian name, went in the track of Paul wherever he went with the Gospel, and worked their way through the network of Jewish synagogues until they got into this area known as Galatia, and began their Judaizing activities in direct contradiction to his Gospel.

They found a point of contact, and said to these believers:

Now, you are having a difficult time; this kind of life that Paul has shown to you is a very strenuous life (we are not saying they used these words, but this was clearly the line of argument);

This struggle and this effort to live this life is because of a fundamental mistake!

All you have to do to be accepted with God is to observe the law! 

You come to the synagogue and carry out these various regulations of Moses; that is all that is required of you! 

So many meetings a week, and so many sermons a week, so many outward observances a week, and all is well! 

God’s law is so-and-so: observe God’s law, and all is well (a very plausible argument)! 

Then, you see, you are suffering a great deal of opposition and antagonism from without, also upon this fundamental error! 

You have taken up a position which is bringing this upon you! 

You will find that a great deal of that persecution will drop away if you will simply let go this extreme position that you have taken, this life of faith, this detachment from the recognized and accepted religious system of the Jews; and things will become very much easier for you because you will be associated with that which is accepted and recognized! 

Paul is all wrong, and he has led you into this position, and these are the consequences!

Our counsel is that you should all be circumcised, have the center of your relationship to the historic order of things, carry out these regulations, and you will be left alone and escape this intense spiritual conflict, inwardly and outwardly!

You will cease to have this inward pressure; you will not have all the strain of a life of faith, it will become a life of sight; and the way will become easy!
 

Because these Galatian believers were conscious of the cost of the life in relation to Christ, and were perhaps feeling badly just at that moment (for you may be sure the devil always strikes his blow at the weak moment) this whole proposition was like a witch’s spell. 

A lovely sensation crept over them: Oh, is it not necessary for us, after all, to have all this to meet, all this to suffer? 

Are we, after all, wrong?

Is it really that we have made a mistake, have been misled? 

They let the doubt in, and we know what happened.

When they opened their mind to a question of a fundamental character like that, it rushed in and became like a spell to them, a beautiful suggestion, a wonderful idea!

The suggestion was: We need not give up anything of Christ, but it can be so much easier if we let go what is evidently an extreme position which we have taken! 

The witch’s spell did its work. They came under it, and let go their position.
 

Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians in that condition. 

When you look closely into it, you see that it was a witch’s spell.  

It was a lie!  

Paul says some very strong things about this: “though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be accursed.” That is regarding these Judaizers. 

This gospel which they were preaching brought them into the category of the curse, under an anathema from God; they were preaching an accursed gospel. 

With Paul there was no myth about their position; he saw how deadly it was as a deception, and how, under its spell...as it had been so plausibly presented just in a time when these people were feeling the strain of things.

It had worked to rob them of their true position.

That which Paul keeps continuously in view right through this letter is the cross of the Lord Jesus. 

The central and inclusive statement is this: “before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly set forth crucified”.

Then in the rest of the letter Paul explains what that means.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Friday, October 3, 2014

We Must Be Lovers Of The Truth

Eph 4:15  But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
Any system of religion that just puts on from the outside, and covers over the inner life by mere rite and ritual is false, it is not true

The work of God is to reconstitute human nature.

And that, of course, involves two things:

On the one side, it involves a breaking down. 

And if you know anything about God's dealings with lives who come into His hands, there is undoubtedly a large place for that...a progressive breaking down.

A getting to the root of things, and undeceiving us. 

If we have any illusions about ourselves, they will all be gone when God has done with us.

If we are governed by any kind of falsehood about ourselves, and our position, and our work, when God has done with us, that will all be gone.

He is going to break us down until we see ourselves stark, as an unclean thing, with all our righteousnesses as filthy rags.

So He will break us down, and He does.

But there is the other side, of course, all the time, for God is not only, and always negative.

There is the constructing, bringing up to the place where anything that is false, anything that is not absolutely transparent and true, straight, clear, is hateful to us.

More and more our inner man revolts against our own falsehood.

Any exaggerations come back on us at once with conviction of wrong; any false statement hits us hard, and we know that we have not spoken the truth.

It is a tremendous thing to get into the hands of the Holy Spirit, until, like God, the one thing that we hate is anything that is false.

"I hate", said David, "every false way." We must come there. 

But we must be lovers of the truth. And this is going to pursue us everywhere; it will pursue us into our own life within ourselves, that we are not deceiving ourselves at all. 

Before God we know exactly what God thinks about us, and we know where we stand in the light.

And the nearer we come to the Lord, the more meticulous the Holy Spirit is over this matter of truth; the closer are His dealings with us.

It is very true, you see, "perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord" – perfecting.

The nearer we get to the end, the more stringent will be the Lord's dealings with anything false in our lives.

It is a time matter, but God is very faithful – He is very faithful; He does not let things pass.

Do we want Him to be faithful?

Well, it is not comfortable to say, "Yes," but it is good that He should be faithful with every inconsistency, every contradiction, every falsehood, in the inward parts.

~T. Austin-Sparks~