THE genuine power—the power that will enable us to stand against all opposition and triumph at last—is not in this man or that, money or learning, talent or popularity, but in the true position. Learning is profitable, if used wisely, as a help in finding and determining the true position; but the power is not in the learning nor talent. A man of very ordinary learning and talent may find the true position, stand on and defend it. No matter what a man’s learning, talent or popularity may be, if he forsakes the truth, the right ground, if he undertakes to advocate false theories, it will become perfect weakness, and will be swept away like chaff. If men desire to stand, let them not think of their own power, learning, popularity, or personal influence, and talent, but of the true ground, “the right way of the Lord,” and depend on truth and the God of truth; never deviate from the truth, but be faithful to it, maintain their integrity to it, and the God of all truth and righteousness will hold them up. They will realize that the strength of the everlasting hills is underneath, and they cannot be moved. If men who once knew the truth, begin to higgle, tamper and trifle; if they, little by little, begin to show a want of integrity, a lack of moral honesty; a disposition to compromise with sectarianism; to ignore the distinctions between truth and error, the body of Christ and sectarian bodies; the way of the Lord and other ways, and finally begin to abandon leading principles and leading points of teaching, they will find their power gone and will soon amount to nothing. Many men have, in this way, literally thrown themselves away, and others are now going the same road.
If men desire to stand, they should seek the true ground, try to ascertain and determine what the truth is; find, with certainty, the true position, and place themselves squarely in it; maintain and defend it, not depending on their own strength, learning, talent, influence or popularity, but on the truth; the true position; the right way. But some one is ready to inquire: “How can we find truth in the midst of so much error; the right way in the midst of so many ways?” This may be a little difficult to some. There is, however, one thing indispensable to it, and that is that a man receive “the love of the truth.” This lies at the foundation of the whole matter. Men will never be successful in finding, advocating, maintaining or defending the truth, who have never “received the love of the truth;” nor will they succeed in abiding in the truth. This is the very ground-work of the whole matter. All a man’s pretences of seeking the truth, are nothing but an empty sham, if he has not in him the love of the truth. He must have in him “a good and an honest heart,” to constitute him the “good ground” in which the seed of the kingdom, the word of God, will grow. But the man that loves the truth, desires it, longs for it, and has in him a good and honest heart, will make most diligent, careful and critical search for it. He sets out, not to prove this or that; not to maintain this theory or that, but to find the true ground—the truth itself, “as it is in Jesus”—and rarely fails to find the desired object, the highly prized jewel, the most precious gem. The love of the truth has an influence on a man, in different ways, in favor of his finding it, as follows:
First. It leads him to make diligent search for it. A man will certainly strive to find an object that he loves, and if he loves the truth, he will make most diligent search for it.
Second. It leads him to exercise the utmost discrimination, to distinguish between truth and error, that he may not be imposed on and deceived, and induced to think something is the truth that is not, and thus have a spurious article imposed on him.
Third. The love of the truth has wonderful power over a man to cause him to retain it. If he loves it he will not give it up.
If a man receives not the love of the truth, it affects him badly in the following respect:
First. He will exercise no diligence, to find it. He will not search for it.
Second. He will not be honest when it is presented to him, but will evade, cavil, quibble and mystify it if possible; kick up a dust to blind his own eyes, and thus keep him from understanding and receiving the truth. The Lord will abandon such men to “believe a lie, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.” There are many men now who receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved. They will never be enlightened or brought to the knowledge of the truth. The truth condemns them and they do not want it. They hate it and those who love it.
Truth has one grand quality about it; the more you know about it, the more clearly you see that it is the truth. It is like an honest man; the more you know about him, the more clearly you see that he is an honest man. The more you know about error, the more clearly you perceive it to be error. In the same way, the more you know about dishonest and heartless men the more clearly you see that they are dishonest.
Be careful and occupy the right ground, the true position, and no man can ever overthrow it, or prove it to be anything else but the true ground. It is a great thing in favor of an army to take a strong position.
We have taken the strongest position that can be taken, and if we fall back from that, no matter what we fall back to, we shall find it a weaker position. We have gone back to our Lord and looked up to him, and committed ourselves to him. He has given us a position and placed us on it. It is not our position but his position. We know it is right, because it came from him and is his. We have simply received him, with all he said and did—his holy and inspired apostles, with all they said and did. We have nothing of our own, but have received Christ and his gospel, the apostles of Christ, and the gospel of the grace of God, which they preached; the teaching of Christ and his apostles; all things as they came from this divine source, without anything added or taken away, anything more or less. None can find a position above this. It is the highest ground that can be taken. The gospel which the apostles preached is right. The apostles’ teaching for the churches is right. This nobody denies. We have no position of our own, or doctrine of our own, but have taken precisely the position of the first Christians, and the teachings under which they were placed, and no other. We, therefore, have nothing but our Lord, his gospel and teachings, as they emanated from himself and his inspired apostles, and no position only the one on which they have placed us to defend.
We are weak and can do but little. Let us not rely on our own position, but the one the Lord has appointed; our own views or theories, but the clear teachings of our Lord and his apostles. Here is the strength, and those who stand here will find the Lord of hosts with them. We must plead for the Lord, the gospel, the teachings of Christ and the apostles, the ground on which they stood, maintain that and nothing else. Here is the power, and it is nowhere else.