Value of the Truth

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 19, 1869

Value of the Truth.

This does not consist merely in the fact that it enlightens the mind. The truths of the Bible are well understood by Satan, yet he is by no means benefited thereby. He has no love for the truth, and no mind to obey it. The truth of God is that by which he sanctifies men. They purify their hearts by obeying it. The truth which God thus uses is the great battle-ground between the forces of good and of evil from age to age. But God has taken care that his truth shall not be mere theory. There is something to it always for men to obey. And so it will be found that there is a strong disposition on the part of many to shun those truths which call for self-denying obedience, and to make up for it in advocating such truths as have no special acts of obedience connected therewith. The Psalmist says: “Thy law is the truth.” Ps. cxix, 142. And again, verse 151, he says: “All thy commandments are truth.” This kind of truth is intensely practical. Every word of it is to be obeyed. But the fourth precept of God's law is so distasteful to men, that few are willing to obey it. This great truth, therefore, relative to the creation of the heavens and the earth, which can never become obsolete, and which places one grand duty upon us to obey, is strongly opposed and resisted. In place of this, many persons make mere theory, as that of the nature of man, the great subject matter of their preaching. This is a capital error. The cross of obedience is avoided, but the heart is left with little benefit.