God's Truth
Scripture I believe to be the Word of God. it is a revelation from God of His mind, His thoughts, His purposes and His counsels. We have in the Scriptures the truth written, and in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ we have truth incarnate. The result is that the man who receives the truth of Scripture, in the power of the Holy Spirit, will invariably be brought into contact with Christ who is the Truth.
First then, you may ask me, "What is truth?" Truth is the exact, the perfect and the absolute expression and delineation of that which is. It is the identity of the statement and the fact stated. I could not say that God was the Truth. God is true, but of the Lord Jesus Christ it is said, "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). He Himself has said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). He was the Truth. And He was the truth about everything—the truth about God, the truth about man, the truth about the heart of God, the nature of God, and the claims of God, and the truth, moreover, about man in every possible relation of his being.
He was no mere man, for He was verily God. Nevertheless, He was a real, true, perfect man, As man He was in this scene to declare God and to meet man divinely. "To this end," He says, "was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." None could reveal God and none could unveil the love of God or declare the heart of God other than He who came from God.. There was none who knew the claims of God and could meet those claims, except the One who came from God. He must come from God if He is to bring God to us, and He must be a man, a veritable man, to bring us to God, because we are men and sinners. Sin carries its consequences and merits judgment, and the truth as to this alone is seen fully in Christ.
In the Lord Jesus Christ, the absolute truth about everything is beautifully blended. The perfect and whole truth about everything is seen in every part, and not one side of the truth more than another. We get the truth that "God is love," for instance, and we see the reality of the truth of God's love in Christ's self-sacrifice, for He gave Himself that He might unveil the heart of God to us and bring us to God by His death.
Jesus said that He was the Son of God. Only the Son could make the Father known. Surely, as He Himself says, "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven" (John 3:13). This claim must either be accepted or rejected. I must either own what He says, I must acknowledge the truth that He came from heaven, or I must refuse absolutely to believe it and proclaim Christ to be not an impostor, but One who knowingly spoke what was not true. If He said a single word which was not true, then He cannot be the Truth. I do not mince matters, for I must either own Him to be what He said He was or else deny Him all right to the allegiance of my heart and conscience.
Although I thus speak, I delight to acknowledge and heartily believe that He is what He said He was. I have proved Him to be what He said He was-a Savior. If you have never known Him as your Savior, let me now urge you to put Him to the test. You accept the truth of that which He says concerning Himself, and then you will find out that you need a Savior and that He is that Savior, and He alone. I know well that men would like to set aside His claim on the ground that they do not need saving. You have to go into eternity! You have to meet God, and where are you going to spend eternity? How are you going to meet God? Are you fitted to meet Him? If you have had nothing to do with God, you are not ready. The Lord said, "Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice.”
I come therefore to the question, an important one for you and for me-have I got the truth? If I am not of the truth, I have not heard His voice. The man who has not heard the voice of the Son of God does not possess the truth. You can hear other voices, for there are plenty of voices these days. The voice of the truth is that of Him who could say, "I am the truth," and who could say to the man, who told Him he had power to put Him to death, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered Me unto thee hath the greater sin." He it is who says, "Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice." Have you heard His voice?
W. T. P. Wolston
Questions and Answers
QUESTION: Of what is leaven a type in Matthew 13?
ANSWER: You will find in Scripture that leaven is generally used as typical of evil, whether in doctrine or practice. For instance, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. Then understood they how that He bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees" (Matt. 16:11-12). In Luke 12:1 we read, "Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”
Paul writes to the Corinthians with regard to evil practice, "Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?" (1 Cor. 5:6). And to the Galatians he writes with regard to evil doctrine, subversive of Christianity, "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump" (Gal. 5:9).
In Matthew 13:33 we are taught in one of the six parables, which follow that of the sower, a similitude of the kingdom of heaven in its new mysterious form, which was about to be brought into the world on the rejection of the King. One peculiar and striking characteristic of the kingdom of heaven in mystery is that the King is not here. This was some of the "things new" which a scribe, instructed in the matter, would now bring out of his treasures, added to the "things old" which the prophets had afore-time written about the kingdom of heaven (vs. 52).
It was said that it would he "as the days of heaven upon the earth" (Dent. 11:21). And of the throne of the King it is said, "His throne [should be] as the days of heaven" (Psa. 89:29). And again, the Gentiles should "have known that the heavens do rule" (Dan. 4:26).
Now all this state of things was entirely set aside, for the time, because of the rejection of the King-of Christ. And instead of all the blessings consequent upon His reception, a state of things far different would be introduced. The enemy would come and sow tares among the wheat in the world, or, as it is called, the field (Matt. 13:38). The outward appearance that the kingdom of heaven would then assume would he that of a vast sheltering power, under the figure of a tree, which would shelter the birds of the air, or, as they are interpreted to be, the emissaries of the wicked one (vss. 4,19,32),
And again, as our parable tells us, evil doctrine or profession would spread through the three measures of meal, or the sphere of the nominal profession of Christianity, till the whole should be leavened. You have only to lift up your eyes and see what has come to pass.
