Factors in Our Relationship With God

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 4 - Truth

"Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom" Psalm 51:6.

"He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart" Psalm 15:2.

There are many other passages to which we may refer as we go on. For a little while we continue along the line of our earlier meditations on some of the great factors in our relationship with God. We have spoken about light, life, obedience, and now for a little while we shall consider the matter of truth.

Again, as in the other connections, I cannot tell you how impressed I am with the amount that there is in the Word of God on these matters, and on this one I think it would be a very profitable thing if we did nothing more than just go through the Bible with all the references to truth. I am quite sure we would finish up with a very strong sense of the importance given to this in the Word of God; but we shall not do that. I commend it to you. It would be the very best kind of foundation for any speaking together and would be tremendously helpful to have it as a foundation, but we are only able to say one or two things in relation to the whole at this time. And that which is basic to this whole matter of truth, it seems to me, is the Lord's jealousy for it. That comes out very clearly in the Word of God.

How jealous the Lord is concerning truth! Of course, that is true in connection with every attribute of the divine nature, and truth is such an attribute; it is a part of the Lord Himself, and a part concerning which He is, if more than any other part, very jealous. And this statement of the Psalmist goes a very long way when we are able to recognize its range and its implicates. "Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts"; and we can hang all the Lord's dealings with us on that statement. Let us simply, then, recognise at the outset the Lord's desire, and then let us recognise that the Lord is tremendously jealous regarding the truth.

The Lord never compromises. The Lord never accepts anything that is not utterly the truth. And the Lord has His heart set upon reproducing His own nature and attitude towards this matter in His own children, and one of the things which governs the Lord's dealings with His children is that they might have truth in the inward parts.

Now, we have said something in connection with other matters in these chapters, which applies to this one: that is, the necessity for truth and the individual concerned to be livingly related in the sense of being one. That is, that the individual concerned shall be the truth, and that the truth shall be a very part of the being of such an individual; that the relationship shall be so close that there is no dividing between what is called truth, and the person in whom the truth is. The truth is never to be something by itself and something objective to the child of God, but truth, in the will of God, is to be as closely related to the child of God as is the very breath that we breathe in these bodies of ours. That is, that we live because of it, and apart from it we die. That is, I think, the meaning of this word: "Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts."

You will understand what I mean when I put it this way. A thing may be perfectly true. A subject, a theme, a doctrine in the Word of God, in the Scriptures, may be perfectly true. That may be taken hold of by an individual and then that individual, having become tremendously occupied, perhaps fascinated and engrossed with that truth, begins to give it out and is always talking about it and publishing it. Now, there is no question whatever about the truth of the thing said, but there may still be something very untrue in that, and the untruth is this: that it does not represent the position of the person who is giving it out. Yes, the truth cannot be questioned, but you have a question as to whether that truth is true in the life of the person who is giving it out; as to whether it is not something that has caught on with them, and for the time being is being run by them. If you were to challenge them, they would not hesitate in telling you it is the absolute truth; there is no question about it, and they believe it with all their might - and yet it is not something which has been wrought into the very fibre of their being and is coming out as truth from the inward parts. It will only be their Life when it has saved them from death, and in order that that should be so, they will have to go into death to prove the power of that truth.

So that truth in the inward parts is not something separate, apart from the life of the person concerned, though it in itself may be absolute truth. Truth in the inward parts is that the individual concerned has come into such a relationship with that, that it is themselves, and that everybody knows that that thing is not something which they have taken on, or which has caught on with them, and is being used by them, however enthusiastic they may be about it. Everybody knows that that thing is a part of their being. That is truth in the inward parts.

"You desire that", said the Psalmist. And to get it like that is the Lord's purpose in dealing with us as He does deal with us. The Lord knows this: that any slight fragment of what is not truth in the make-up of our lives in relation to Him, is sure to bring about a downfall sooner or later, is bound to betray itself in the weakness of your whole superstructure.

You will remember Ruskin, visiting the cathedrals on the continent, and the very famous buildings, and how he speaks of the nausea, the disgust with which he left some places there. He went into one place and found the roof lopsided; he went into another place and found that rain had trickled down over some priceless fresco and marred it. He went into another place and saw that water had got in and trickled down some professedly wonderful marble columns and had washed off the marbling. He went into another place and studied some of the ornamentations which at first looked perfect, wonderful, the finish was amazing and he wanted to get to the secret of this and so he made a closer study and found that they were machine-made, they were not the work of man's hands. He came away, and he said the slanting roof betrayed a lie at the foundation; the washed-off marbling declared that the whole thing was a lie; the ornamentation when looked into, was a loud proclamation of a lie, which professed to be the work of man's hands, claimed to be original, and was yet imitation. The rain getting in and spoiling the fresco after long years, pointed back to a lie which the builder wrought in the building, something which would not stand the test; it was a lie, it was false, not true. And so Ruskin said: "Lies - lies - lies". Years after, perhaps centuries after, coming to light there were lies at the foundation; sooner or later the lie shows itself in a foundational weakness.

God knows all about that. God is not building for a century. God is not building for a lifetime. God is not building for time at all; God is building for eternity. God is building something which has to bear His Name on every part, every fragment, every pillar, every fresco, every arch. Yes, every bit has to be stamped with His Name for all eternity.

Do you think God is going to be betrayed and have His Name associated with a falsehood in His building, which will come to light in the test of time or eternity? No, never. And therefore, God is jealous for His Name, and His Name is Truth; and God desires Truth in the inward parts. Therefore He takes you and me into fires, into trials very early in our Christian experience sometimes, to see to it that there is no falsehood, no lie, no mere profession which cannot stand the test, in order to make the thing real, true, genuine, and to make the thing a part of our very being.

"Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts." No machine-made doctrine. What do you mean by machine-made doctrine? Getting down to books and working it all up into a wonderful system and giving it out as addresses. The machine is your own brain. The truth has got to come from the inward parts. It is not the result of our working upon it, it is the result of God working in us. There is all the difference.

An important thing for us, for you, for me, is to remember that in everything it is the Lord with Whom we have to do. I am not saying to you what I have not very seriously applied to my own heart, and seek constantly to do, and about which the Lord keeps me, I think, fairly thoroughly under exercise. It is this: that when all is said and done, when the congregations have come and gone, when the conferences are over and the meetings are finished, when the public has disappeared, when all that is external to the ministry has vanished, I am left with God alone, and the challenge must be: "Now, is it all true to your own heart?" "Is that true?" "Are you there?" It is between God and yourself; He knows.

There are all the perils and the dangers of a public life, that is, the public side of our Christian life, and others seeing, judging, forming opinions and conclusions; but that may be an artificial life, all very unreal. It may be unintentional - do not think I am seeking to charge anyone with deliberate, considered deception; it may be like very much of our life is. There is the social side. We are very sorry, we say; but we are not. "I am awfully sorry for you"; but it is something of a sham, it is a social lie; there is not a pang of heart behind it. A great deal of our life is made up of these things. We do not mean to be liars. If we said to someone: "I am awfully sorry for you", and they turned and said: "You are a liar", we should be awfully upset. Yes, there is that side of our life which is, well, not all absolutely genuine - but we do not mean it to be otherwise, it is the way of living.

It is when the public has gone, when all that side of things is cut off and the issue is between God and ourselves, then the real question of truth arises. Then the question of truth comes into a place by itself; and ultimately, behind everything, you and I have to deal with God. It does not matter a scrap what other people think of us. You may have altogether a wrong conception of me. You may think I am a very much worse man than I am. You will never be able to think worse of me than I think of myself. You may be so foolish as to think I am a better man than I am; but what you think either way, or what I think of you, is not the question; the thing is, when I am shut up with God alone, what has the Lord got to say to me about that? Is it true in the inward parts? Beloved, you and I have got to seek to live our life before God. The word came to me so strongly this week: "Walk before Me, and be perfect." My, where are we? "Walk before Me, and be perfect." Before God.

Of course, I understand that that: "and be perfect", does not mean to be perfect as God; neither does it mean immediately to be perfect as man, in the sense in which we use the word. The word there means: "Walk before Me, and be absolute, undivided, complete." It is the sense of the single eye: "If your eye be single...". That is, you have but one motive, purpose and concern. You are not what James calls: "double souled". That is a peculiarity of James; the word never occurs anywhere else in the Bible. A double souled man; and James says: "For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double minded (double souled) man is unstable in all his ways." The single eye is the one objective. That is: "...be perfect". It means the heart completely and utterly towards the Lord: "...before ME." The heart utterly towards the Lord, Truth in the inward parts. The Lord, of course, can see immediately through any kind of imitation or any mere adaptation. The Lord can see through all formality, and anything like that does not pass with Him. The question always is as to whether that thing is really genuinely a part of the one who professes it.

This is not a thorough threshing out of the matter of truth. It is an emphasis upon the necessity that you and I before the Lord - before the Lord - should occupy the place where, for us, it is not something that we have accepted or taken on, or caught on with, adopted, or are imitating, but that the thing is in our hearts in very reality, a thing which for us is indispensable, as a part of our very life. The Lord is seeking with you and with me, to bring about a state like that.

Now one final word in this general observation. The Holy Spirit is called by the Lord Jesus, "The Spirit of truth" and the Holy Spirit is to be in the child of God. And the Holy Spirit is in us as the Spirit of Truth. If we are walking in the Spirit, the Spirit as the Spirit of Truth in us will check up on everything that is not according to Himself. The Lord has set up in us by His Holy Spirit, a court of truth, absolute truth, and it is possible for you and me, by walking in the Spirit, to know the truth. This whole question of truth can become a tremendous burden unless we recognize that; unless we see the Holy Spirit has come into us with this purpose, among other purposes, of bearing witness to the truth. That means bearing witness against what is not the truth, and all that you and I have to do is to maintain our life walking in the Spirit. He will do the rest.

Now He has come to accomplish God's purpose. And He will convict us of the various forms of falsehood. He will convict us of unreality, of imitation. When we begin to use things, perhaps which we have read or heard others say, which have not come up within our own hearts, or had our own heart exercise in relation to them so that they have become a part of our life, He will convict us. It is a very blessed thing, a gracious thing, one of our most precious possessions, that we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us to teach us and lead us in the way that we should go. This is just, after all, what makes the Christ-life a real thing, is it not?

What is it that makes for the reality, the foundational reality of the spiritual life? Well, it is not a lot of things mentally accepted, or externally entered into; it is that we do know the Holy Spirit resident within us telling us things. There is a living reality about that. It is an experience. We can go back upon a lot of perhaps merely traditional, formal, external things, but we can never go back upon that. We have heard the Spirit's voice; we do know the Spirit's touch; we know the Spirit is there in order to conform us to the truth and to make us genuine through and through. Truth is one of the elements of permanence.

God's building is a moral building. It is going to stand forever and never suffer. Its character, therefore, must be that which can stand, and truth is an element of permanence. Nothing can prevail against the truth. Nothing can destroy truth. It is an eternal thing and God is seeking to work that in us by His Holy Spirit so that we abide forever. We rejoice in the fact that one day the last lie will be swept out of God's universe, the last deception. Well, if we are not going to be swept out, the Holy Spirit must have done His work in us. And that is what He is trying to do.

Now, this is an appeal of the Lord to our heart, briefly, and I feel strongly that we should definitely seek that our relationship with Him should be one that is real, of the heart, in all things. And that that which we profess to hold, that which we profess to stand for, shall be something which is so genuine, so real, so true in our very being, that come what may, it cannot be parted with, it cannot be let go. It must be like that.

You and I will be subjected to tremendous tests, and at such times the whole question will arise as to whether our position, our profession and our teaching, what we have stood for, is after all, right. Then the issue will not be merely a mental one, it will be a heart one, and if it is a heart one, we shall go through, and we shall come out at the other end, triumphant. If it is a mental one, well in the day of the ordeal we shall simply go to pieces.

So the Lord would have us established against all the possibilities of being carried away, and have truth in the inward parts. May there be nothing about us of the imitation, of the machine-made; may it all be inwrought work of the Holy Spirit: Truth in the inward parts. "He that... speaks truth in his heart."

Now may the Lord just bring His Word to us as He wanted it to come.