Truth Archive

First: Neglecting to read the Word of God, which endureth forever, I Peter 1:25, “But the word of the Lord endureth forever,” and so they cannot grow and remain, (I Peter 2:2,) as “newborn babes” and are unable to save themselves and others, unable as it says in I Timothy 13-16, to give heed to sound doctrine, to meditate and to continue, so to help themselves and others.
We also remain ignorant, imperfect and unprofitable and cannot perform good works, missing out on what is described in II Timothy 3:15-17, being wise unto salvation, instructed in righteousness and “thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” We are exhorted in Titus 3:8 “… that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works.”
We also become easy prey for the adversary if we do not know the Truth of God, as it says in Ephesians 6:14 of having, “your loins girt about with truth.” His word maketh us rich in wisdom which is from above, (Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom…1 sanctifies us (John 17:17, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”) and makes us clean (John 15:3, “Now are ye clean…” also Hebrews 10:22 with hearts sprinkled and bodies washed etc).
God’s truth is our shield and buckler (Psalm 91-4). It cleanses our way and saves us from sinning, Psalm 119:9, “Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word,” and keeps us from the path of the destroyer. (Psalm 17:4, “By the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.”)
We should not allow one day to pass without reading God’s word. It has meant inestimable sacrifice to produce that word for our benefit. Until the days of Jesus it was spoken by holy men of God as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, (II Peter 1:21.) those who sacrificed every earthly product so that God could use them. And in the fullness of time, God did not spare Heaven’s best so that the truth, which was from the beginning, should be made manifest to us.
Jesus sacrificed so that God’s word might be made flesh and dwell among us; and to neglect the reading of His precious word, which is, as it were, dipped in the blood of sacrifice as it says in Revelation 19:13, “And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God” ; to neglect this is indeed a serious crime in the sight of God and all the Holy angels.
It is base ingratitude and black disloyalty to Him whom we profess to love and serve. And to make matters worse, many make the excuse, “We have no time,” or “I wish I could spare the time” and so on. They forget that God did not spare Heaven’s best so that we might have life and salvation and so they undervalue His sacrifice. They must be careful and troubled about the many things that perish and the one thing needful is neglected and their loss is eternal.
Second: Lack of Meditation. Meditation means that we seek to extract all the sweetness and food from what we read. Reading reveals God’s requirements and His eternal purpose and will for us, and to neglect meditation we are kept poor as well as weak; inclined to blindness and so disobedience is encouraged; and so the Lord is unable to make us prosperous and successful in the things of God. Joshua 1:8, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth: but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”
Without meditation His purpose is frustrated in our lives. He cannot fulfill in us the good pleasures of His will and much failure and defeat, want of purpose, want of stability, want of sweetness and want of fruitfulness is the result, and we remain unprofitable. I Timothy 4:15, “Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear unto all.” On meditations read: Psalm 1:2, 19:14, 77:12, 63:6, 143:5, 104:24, 119:15, 23:28.
Third: Failure to Pray, which leaves us strengthless, wearied and ready to faint in our minds, filled with cowardice and ready to turn back in the day of battle like the children of Ephraim in Psalm 78:9, because our armour is incomplete.
The part we lack is all prayer mentioned in Ephesians 6:18, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.”
Reading and meditation show us God’s purpose and provision for us and what He requires, also our extreme need and destitution; our poverty, want and nakedness, all that we lack where we come short of the Pattern. The realisation of these things produces prayer. As it were, it drives us to pray. We cannot live spiritually without it.
Prayer unites us to God, the source of all power, strength and good. Jesus is the medium by which we can approach unto God and abide in His presence and it is only as we continue in the Son and in the Father (I John 2:24) that we become rooted and grounded in love and grow in grace and are made partakers of every good and perfect gift that, “is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights…” (James 1:17). We also get His own divine nature (II Peter 1:4).
Prayer is one of the secret roots by which we are fed and nourished and by which every virtue and good fruit is produced. The model prayer of Jesus in Matthew 6 is perfect and contains all that we need. We should remember every day before God, in the secret of our hearts, that we are on the earth surrounded by sin and wickedness and that we cannot possibly survive without the help of our Father, our God in Heaven, who is our salvation and that unless we humble ourselves before Him, rendering our reverence and respect, and allow His Kingdom to come in us, that we must be overthrown and come to naught.
He is our daily bread from Heaven and without this we must weaken and die. We should imbibe the spirit of this prayer and make it our daily experience. The seven things that Jesus taught His disciples to pray for, we should pray for too. We are admonished to pray always and with all prayer I Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing.” Pray about everything. Philippians 4:6, “.. in everything by prayer and supplication…”
Jesus spent much time in prayer, whole nights. Daniel (Daniel 6:10) prayed three times a day and in Psalm 55:17 David said, “Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud..” God’s ears are open to the cry of His people (I Peter 3:12).
Fourth: Failure to avail ourselves of the provision God has made for His people in the way of fellowship as it says in Hebrews 10:25, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together … but exhorting one another..” To forsake this is wilful sin and we are despising God when we refuse the means whereby we may be provoked to love and good works and he able to exhort one another, and thus kept alive, healthy and strong to walk in the more excellent way described by Paul in I Corinthians 13.
Hebrews 10 speaks of the sacred and holy relationship we have been brought into through God’s merciful provision for us in Jesus. Verse 19, “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.” To in any way despise or neglect this or wilfully forsake the assembly of ourselves together is a sin that produces death.
Verses 28-29 speak in strong terms of those who despise and do despite to the Spirit of Grace.
How possible it is to despise the pleasant land as the people of Israel did, Psalm 106:24, “Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word,” and in our hearts turn back into Egypt, described by Stephen in Acts 7:39, “To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt.”
Fifth: Partaking of the most sacred emblems unworthily, not discerning the Lord’s body. That is, we fail to see that His body was used for one purpose only and that He lived to one end: to glorify God. He was the bread of God which cometh down from Heaven to give life unto the world. His body was broken so that we might be fed and receive life, and live by Him, to be lived to one end, to manifest His life and to show forth His praises, seeking to glorify Him in our bodies and spirit which are His (I Corinthians 6:19-20).
Failure to discern this with a true Godly desire in our hearts to practise it in our lives makes us mere pretenders and brings God’s condemnation or judgement. We also need to remember that His death speaks to us of the salvation and eternal redemption that He has secured for us, so that we might be delivered out of the hands of our enemies, inwardly and outwardly, and made free as His sons and daughters, to serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.
Not discerning this and failing to stand fast in this liberty (Galatians 5) and walk and live in this clear light (I John 1:7) leaves many spiritually sick and many sleep; that is, they are unconscious of their condition, and what they are doing. They have a name that they live but they are dead. (1 Corinthians 11; Revelation 3:1)
Sixth: Failure to abide in Him who is our life, and the only true course of blessing and fruitfulness, and though we may profess much, nothing is produced and there is no manifestation to the world and to others that we are of a truth His disciples (John 15:6-7).
Deceit is deeply rooted in the human heart and the tendency is to be content with the good and not reach forth beyond this until we are brought into living harmony and contact with the supreme good which is God alone.
Reading, meditation, prayer, fellowship and communion are good and profitable as a means to an end. The end is God and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent, becoming one with Him, who is the spirit of truth, living in Him who is our sole source of life and Godliness as John 15 teaches, also Corinthians 17 and II Peter 1:3 where it says, “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” Apart from this, we are without life and can do nothing. (John 15:4-6)
Seventh: There is not the separation from the world and all its fashions, follies and evil; not the marks which brand us as His own peculiar people. I Peter 2:9, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” (Also I Peter 4:4-5, James 4:4, John 15:9)
The want of separation robs all of us of vitality. We are inclined to blindness, forgetfulness and lack of diligence. We cannot see afar off, beyond the things of time. We are not fully persuaded of the precious promises of God. We feebly embrace the shadow of truth, assenting mentally to the written word, but failing to lay hold on the substance; that is, we do not make it our own by walking in it and allowing it to become spirit and life to our souls. The marks of the stranger and pilgrim are not seen in our eyes. Hebrews 11:13 for example, says, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises … and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” (Also I Peter 2:11, II Peter 1:9-10.
We are earthly minded; our manner of life is not in Heaven. Philippians 3:19-20, “Whose end is destruction … For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.” We do not sit in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus as it says in Ephesians 2:6. The wall of separation is broken down and we are often left to the devourer. Proverbs 25:28, “He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.” (Also Proverbs 24:30-31)
Our separation is our own safety. We should aim at being the solitary in families as it says in Psalm 68:6, those whom God has singled out to be His own peculiar treasure, the quiet in the land mentioned in Psalm 35:20 and the undefiled in the way spoken of in Psalm 119:1, as blessed; those whose lives are hid with Christ in God as in Colossians 3:3, dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world as in Colossians 2:20.
May God in His infinite mercy cause us all to seek unto Him for grace which will enable us to so yield unto Him that He may be enabled to fulfil in us all the good pleasure of His Will, for His name’s sake, Amen.