Truth in the Inward Parts (Treasures Book 8)

He did desire to curb the iniquities of his sons; but he would not take the necessary means. He spoke strongly enough, but he did nothing. Though he might have inflicted death, he did not punish them at all. Once again let me speak of the necessity of truthfulness in our judgment upon ourselves. How little disposed we are to pass a severe sentence upon our own conduct!

Saul had already returned a verdict in his own favour before the prophet Samuel met him. His conscience was uneasy. Oh, self-extenuation is dangerous work. You are in the hands of a loving God who knows whereof we are made. If extenuations can justly be made, He is certain to make them. But who of us is there that has not plenty to confess even where actual sins are not upon the conscience?

Character is not reputation, but that which makes the man what he is. How often is it that things pass unnoticed until some great event fixes attention upon them. Inadequate provision for egress in public buildings remains unnoticed until some terrible fire and vast loss of life turn all eyes to it. So with tendencies of character, our own inward evil--some terrible sin makes us awake to it as we had never been before. Let us note from the text By truth is meant genuineness, reality, sincerity.

Long ago Thomas Carlyle awoke a great deal of interest by his vigorous denunciation of shams. He but echoed the Scriptures. For such sincerity a new birth is essential. Yet this is a voluntary exercise Acts 3: And we must be thorough in this. But He is not the full model, for He never knew what the qualms of conscience were; never experienced the conflict of the law of His members and the law of His Spirit. Hence, servants of Christ such as Paul are given to us to supplement this ideal.

What the teacher is to do. He is to make us know wisdom. What has the scholar to do? Submit to the Word of God. Try to realize what is the true ideal of character. A description of the nature of God in general. God takes a special delight in such a frame of soul as this, from whence men became real and sincere towards Him. Wherein this truth or sincerity consists. An intimation of his carriage to David in particular. Take it in its proposition. We may also look upon it in its scope and reflection, and with that force and emphasis in which it comes from the prophet David, who expresses as much to us about himself, that God had indeed wrought this work in his heart, that He had in the hidden part made him to know wisdom.

This thought summons us to earnestness and godly fear in our sense of sin. This thought gives hope and comfort in the way of conversion. Nothing less will God have from the awakened soul: This thought strengthens faith for glorious expectations Isaiah It is a testimony of truth in the inward affections when one carrieth an universal hatred of all sin, that is, of secret sins as well as of open sins, of lesser sins as well as of greater evils, of such sins as have some special enticement, by some particularity of content or profit, as well as of those which afford neither.

A sincere heart is as tender as the eye, which is troubled, and made to smart and water with the smallest mote, or as a straight shoe, which cannot endure the least stone within it, but makes him shrink and tread respectively, and with a kind of favour to his foot, until it be removed. This is one mark. A second, which is in a manner a limb of the former, is a taking heed to that sin to which a man finds himself most apt; or wherewith he hath at any time been overtaken.

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Is it rash anger, is it pride; is it wantonness, is it worldliness, is it vain pleasure, etc.? If thou be especially wary and watchful touching that, to prevent the occasions, to stop the beginnings of it, to beware of the inducements to it, this is a notable testimony of sincerity. A third is a willingness to lay open every sin as soon as it is known to be a sin, and to that end a gladness to have the conscience ransacked and ripped up, that that which is sin may be found out.

David spake it out of experience when he pronounced the man blessed in whose spirit there is no guile. A fourth mark, when a man makes conscience to be one and the same manner of man at home and in private that he is abroad and in public. As opposed to ignorance. It is the character of men in an unregenerated state, that they have the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them.

The character, in point of understanding, of men in whom God takes pleasure, is no vague or doubtful matter. As opposed to insincerity. The spirit of the people of God, in whom the Lord takes pleasure, is that spirit in which there is no guile. Sanctification of the spirit is associated in them with belief of the truth. Sincerity, arising from, and connected with, a spiritual understanding of the truth of the Gospel, forms the temper of their inward man. The truth with respect to God and the Lord Jesus Christ, that informs their minds, enters into their hearts.

As opposed to false and temporary affections of mind. That practical godliness includes the exercise of the affections of the mind is not to be disputed. There are lively emotions in every truly pious heart. The other was the sterling metal; this is the hammer that sets the wire ringing, the plectrum that sets the metal quivering and humming.

The two answer back to each other; they understand each other--the truth that is structural within us, and the truth that comes to talk to us. They are correlates, like the eye and the light that saturates it; the ear and the melody that sings into it. We are never quite discouraged about a man, so long as there remains still in him one single solid atom that retains the old crystalline lines and angles; a rigid basis upon which presented truth can be laid, and into which it can be mortised; a truth-sense to which we can address and press our appeal.

It is like dealing with an old and withered building; the window-lights may be shattered, and the paint discoloured, and the casings awry; the flooring seamed, and the joints warped; but, though you may have to tear down a good deal, and replace and pretty thoroughly renovate it, yet there is great vantage secured, if decay and disintegration have not eaten into the foundation, and the masonry lies intact in its bottom courses. It is this which justifies the confidence we always have in a boy that is truthful; he may be full of roguery and tease his sister and torment his parents; he may easily get angry, and pound the boy that lives across the way; and show himself precocious In nothing so much as in his genius for resisting knowledge and palsying the efforts of his instructors; but, if he is truthful, if truth is in his inward parts, the pith of the matter is in him, a sound core, the spinal marrow; and there is something to address yourself to with assurance, when the time comes for appeals that are more strenuous and exacting.

Bye-laws have no grip that is not guaranteed them by the vigour of the constitution. Yes; but also impure thoughts issue in impure hearts. Intellect creates thought, but thought turns round and creates intellect. The interior and the exterior are parents and children of each other. Deed expends power, but deed also makes power.

To that degree and in that sense we are all of us daily climbing up and down the ladder-rounds of our own actions, feelings, thoughts. We are confessedly making a good deal of this matter of rectitude, straight-linedness; but it is the plumb-line dropped into us from above, and so must shape and direct all our aspirations towards God; and it is in the plumb-line from which we have to calculate the horizontal that shall determine our dealings with men. Truth is thus the core of piety, and it is the pith of charity.

A promise is a promise, whether made in a matter of groceries or Gospel. I cannot go to a man and promise to help him in an enterprise, and then do as I like about keeping my promise.

Testimonies for the Church, vol. 2

A promise is as holy a thing as Mount Sinai, and as holy as the law that was given on it, and the Lord that came down in thunder and lightning upon it. There are not even so many professed Christians as we might suppose who can be relied on to do as they say they will do, when it is not quite to their taste or convenience to do as they say they will do. Their word is not as good as their bond; and they proceed on principles which, if they were to apply them on the street, would cost them their seat in the Stock Exchange every day.

In every action of religion, let us remember to keep sincerity. Who would desire to be called rich, if he want riches; esteemed valiant, if he have not strength? Better to be rich, than to be called rich; better to be religious, than to be thought or called religious. God loveth truth as He hateth all falsehood; for He is truth. He loveth truth in our profession, truth in our civil life: In the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

The knowledge of heavenly things, appertaining to the right way of pleasing God, and of saving our own souls, is the true wisdom. How shall he be held for wise who wanteth judgment and understanding in the principle? And what is the principle, if not this, to know how to serve God so here as that we may be saved with Him, and by Him, hereafter? What were a man but a fool in case he otherwise knew all secrets, and could speak and discourse in matters of the world, as if one spake from an oracle, or did equal Solomon in discovering the natures of trees and herbs, from the cedar in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall, if yet he were to seek in the matters that concern eternity?

All this is but like that wisdom which we tax in a man when we say, He is penny wise, but pound foolish: This is poor wisdom: The Lord Himself is the proper teacher of that spiritual and heavenly wisdom which is accompanied with salvation. The Holy Scripture is the Book of Wisdom, out of which God will give unto the simple sharpness of wit: In waiting upon the appointed means to get this wisdom, we must be furnished with two especial qualities: How shall we know that we are taught? Where God teacheth, the heart is taught. Look, then, what is in thy heart. There be some that have gotten some smack of this wisdom into their brains; they have a kind of lip-wisdom, and can talk somewhat plausibly of religion, but it is not yet come to their hearts.

Is the natural corruption thereof in some good measure subdued and abated?

Is obedience sweet unto thy heart, and that which thy soul delighteth in? This is a sign thou art taught of God. When God bestows on any man spiritual wisdom and religious knowledge, He gives such a blessing as deserves acknowledgment. Hath the Lord been gracious to thee in scattering the mist of thy natural blindness, and in enabling thee to see the things which are given to us of God? Are thy eyes anointed with eye-salve, so that thou beginnest to savour the things of the Spirit, better than in times past? Oh, thank His Majesty for this mercy--this, a kindness of greater value than at first, perhaps, thou art aware; labour to increase in this knowledge, strive to have yet a larger and a fuller measure of this spiritual understanding.

The true knowledge of the way of grace must be sought from God Himself. He alone can make you know the hidden wisdom. The human knowledge Of the way of grace which we obtain by the use of our understanding is not sufficient. But this knowledge is not enough. And when we have clear insight into the way of the truth of God, we run just as much risk of resting content with it.

Perhaps some one thinks that such a representation is sufficient to make one altogether dispirited. This is our only security, and that is the only answer that we can give to the question: How do we know if we have a right spiritual knowledge of grace? The Lord can and will make you assured of this.

And just at this point is there in the religion of many so much defect. They do not know that in grace the principal element is that we must come into contact with the living God, and must experience the power of the Almighty. Text Courtesy of BibleSupport. Bibliography Exell, Joseph S.

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts , A printed copy of this work can be ordered from: Copyright Statement These files are a derivative of an electronic edition prepared from text scanned by Woodside Bible Fellowship. This expanded edition of the Jameison-Faussett-Brown Commentary is in the public domain and may be freely used and distributed.

Bibliography Jamieson, Robert, D. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: Truth — Uprightness of heart; and this may be added; as an aggravation of the sinfulness of original corruption, because it is contrary to the holy nature and will of God, which requires rectitude of heart: Copyright Statement These files are public domain and are a derivative of an electronic edition that is available on the Christian Classics Ethereal Library Website. Behold, thou hast desired truth, etc. This verse confirms the remark which we already made, that David was far from seeking to invent an apology for his sin, when he traced it back to the period of his conception, and rather intended by this to acknowledge that from his very infancy he was an heir of eternal death.

He thus represents his whole life to have been obnoxious to condemnation. He goes further, and asserts, that in order to meet the approval of God, it is not enough that our lives be conformed to the letter of his law, unless our heart be clean and purified from all guile. He tells us that God desires truth in the inward parts, intimating to us, that secret as well as outward and gross sins excite his displeasure. In the second clause of the verse, he aggravates his offense by confessing that he could not plead the excuse of ignorance.

He had been sufficiently instructed by God in his duty. He seems rather to mean that wisdom had been discovered to his mind in a secret and intimate manner. He acknowledges that it was not a mere superficial acquaintance with divine truth which he had enjoyed, but that it had been closely brought home to his heart. This rendered his offense the more inexcusable. Though privileged so highly with the saving knowledge of the truth, he had plunged into the commission of brutish sin, and by various acts of iniquity had almost ruined his soul. We have thus set before us the exercise of the Psalmist at this time.

First, we have seen that he is brought to a confession of the greatness of his offense: The exercise is such as we should all strive to imitate. Are we conscious of having committed any one sin, let it be the means of recalling others to our recollection, until we are brought to prostrate ourselves before God in deep self-abasement. And if it has been our privilege to enjoy the special teaching of the Spirit of God, we ought to feel that our guilt is additionally heavy, having sinned in this case against light, and having trampled under foot the precious gifts with which we were intrusted.

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts ] Quam tamen mihi defuisse res ipsa demonstrat; but this truth hath not been found in me, when I acted my sin in that sort, and did mine utmost to hide it from the world. I have showed little truth in the inward parts, but have grossly dissembled in my dealings, with Uriah especially, whom I so plied at first with counterfeit kindness, and then basely betrayed him to the sword of the enemy.

Sinisterity is fully opposite to sincerity, treachery to truth. And in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom ] Thus, by faith, saith one, he riseth out of his sin, being taught wisdom of God. And yet have I sinned against the light of mine own knowledge and conscience; although thou hast taught me wisdom privately, Et eheu quam familiariter, as one of thine own domestics, or disciples. John Trapp Complete Commentary. We are never more in danger of forgetting that we are sinners than when contemplating the sufferings and death of Him who died to save us from our sins.

Like the first tearful spectators of His sufferings, while we weep for Him we forget to weep for ourselves. If any portion of God's word can teach us what sin is, and how it should be looked upon by us, it is this fifty-first Psalm of David, the deepest and most heartfelt confession ever poured forth from the heart of a saint of God in the first bitterness of his sorrow for his greatest sin. On examining this confession of sin, we find that it is twofold.

There are two things present to David's mind to be confessed and mourned over. The first is the sin he has just been guilty of; the second is the sinfulness of his nature.

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This declaration, "I was shapen in iniquity," implies two things—guilt and corruption. It means that every human being is born into the world with the wrath of God abiding on him, and the corruption of sin abiding in him. We inherit from Adam guilt; he stood before God the representative of all humanity, their federal head, in whom they entered into covenant with their Maker; in him we all once stood upright; in him we were tried; in him we fell; in him we were judged and condemned.

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Paul adduces, in evidence of this doctrine, one fact familiar to us all; it is the fact that men die. Death is the wages of sin; whoever dies therefore has earned death by sin. The death of those to whom no actual sin could be charged is a clear proof that they were held guilty of the original sin of Adam, their federal head. For the injustice of imparting to us Adam's guilt is certainly no greater than that of inflicting upon us Adam's punishment. There is no greater difficulty in admitting that we inherit from him a guilty soul than there is in admitting that we inherit from him a diseased and dying body.

Imputation is to be seen in our salvation as well as in our condemnation. If we are accounted to have fallen in the first Adam, we are accounted to have risen in the second Adam. If "God has concluded all under sin," we see that it is that "He may have mercy upon all. Fallen man inherits not only a guilty, but a corrupt, nature.

Original righteousness consisted in three things—knowledge in the understanding, righteousness in the will, holiness in the affections. Original sin must then consist in the loss of each of these qualities. Original sin is 1 darkness in the understanding, 2 disobedience in the will, and 3 lawlessness in the affections. When we are tempted to plead the sinfulness of our nature in excuse for our sins, let us think that the one offends the holiness as much as the other offends the justice of God, and both alike require His pardoning mercy and His sanctifying grace; both equally need to be confessed and mourned over.

Life is a journey, and the training of the soul by the toils and changes of its pilgrimage is expressed by the law that the character undergoes a gradual preparation, and that thai preparation is subject to an apparently sudden close. What is the hindrance in the human soul to a right application of this fundamental law?

The answer broadly is this: The poison of character. Pride and sensuality are the chief evils that poison character. To counteract this, we need to establish the undisputed authority of truth. Jesus Christ is the Truth. It is by the illumination of grace that the harmony of truth is seen, and only so; it is by the co-operation of will, assisted by the grace of God, that man can see and use what he sees.

To direct the soul in the path of preparation, it is needful then that that soul should be struggling to be true. This desire is cramped, is injured, by the Fall. And one of the blessed gifts of the regenerate is a more earnest revival of such desire. There are at least three forms of conspiracy against truth observable in human character: All is well, and we are completing our systems reconfiguration. To those of you who missed us, welcome back, and we hope to provide you with further information soon. And the Guardian is running out of air.

So celebrate the last night of Hanukkah and days of Christmas with us. Since the time of Rimon Farris, atrocities have been committed upon us to keep us from attaining our goals. To the roll of martyrs, the name of Feleho, who of his own free will became Ambrov to Zeor, is added.

Let not his death break our spirit. Let us lift his burden and carry it on so that his death will be imperceptible to his enemies. T hese words shed an instructive light on our rememberence of events ten years past. They destablized our government operations and our own everyday lives. They created an undercurrent of distrust. They transformed air travel, which hitherto had been merely uncomfortable and annoying, into a fiesta of frustration, paranoia, and occasionally outright foolishness. In short, they infected us with terror. A far better response would deny them their success.

They want us terrified? Let us not fear. They want us destablized? Let us affirm our confidence. Let us respond with sadness, with grief, with determination — but not with fear of the unknown future. Since the time of the Founding Fathers, atrocities have been committed upon us to keep us from attaining our goals.

Testimonies for the Church, vol. 2 — Ellen G. White Writings

To the roll of martyrs, let the names be appended of those who perished in the Twin Towers, in the Pentagon, and on board United Airlines flight Let their deaths not break our spirit. Let us lift their burdens and carry them on so that their deaths will be imperceptible to our enemies.

If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. With such an honest and inflexible openness to evidence, they could not fail to receive any real truth which might be manifesting itself around them.

The fact that religionists do not follow this honourable course, but cheat at their game by invoking juvenile quasi-hypnosis, is enough to destroy their pretensions in my eyes even if their absurdity were not manifest in every other direction. Lovecraft, in a letter to Maurice W. Moe, August 3 Thanks to Andrew M. Because of our fallen nature and because we have so much to unlearn from our culture sorry, nobody comes into this world a tabula rasa, and failure — or refusal — to receive truth is widespread; see Rom.

But once the toolbox is supplied … go for it! Along with writing, I've also begun narrating audiobooks. You might find one or more of them to be of interest; also, if you are a writer or producer in search of a male voice for your project, feel free to contact me. Here are the books I've done so far, all available through Audible. Brother Osric's Scriptorium A webcolumn by Michael Spence, wherein science fiction and fantasy meet "the queen of the sciences". Posted in General Leave a comment. Posted in General 1 Comment. Wellington Thornhill Books and Eliza D.

And make no mistake: Posted in General 2 Comments. Posted on 6 February by Michael Spence. Facing disaster Posted on 13 February by Michael Spence. Posted in General , Signposts , Theology Leave a comment. Posted on 30 January by Michael Spence. The way to win Posted on 11 September by Michael Spence. Consider rewriting the Zeor litany thus, with special attention to the last two sentences: