“These aren’t my facts I’m quoting, they’re the figures of someone who Knows what he’s talking about.” Paul reminds us in the Bible’s beautiful love chapter, I Corinthians 13, that we should not rejoice in iniquity, but rath er rejoice in the truth. Why is it that we are always so ready to believe every thing but the truth. Look at the story of Jacob. His sons came with Joseph’s coat and said, “A wild animal killed him.” He believed them, at least we have no record that he tried to dis prove the statement, or find out any thing to the contrary. On the other hand, years later when they came with the report, the truth, “thy son liveth,” he would not believe it. The same is true in the spiritual sense. Men will believe all sorts of concepts and phil osophies of man, ranging all the way from the weird practices and ideologies of the cults to the evolution of man from a jellied mass of substance in an tiquities millions or billions of years ago. The fact of the matter is, men don’t want to retain God in their knowledge. Now, for you, my friend, and for me, the Bible says, think on the truth. May I suggest if you’re like most of us, you don’t spend a great deal of time during the course of the day thinking about God’s truth, about some promise from His Word, about some statement of His goodness which can be found only on the pages of Scripture. Think on this . . . upon the truth! Then, next is “whatsoever things are honest.” Here is an evaluation of our own minds. How many people in the course of a year think of honest thoughts. Well, the government reports that somewhere around 75 per cent of the citizens cheat on their income tax, so there must be a good many who think about this. The American Bank ing Association reports that robbers stole more than one million, five hun dred thousand dollars last year. Their employees, however, walked out with, embezzled, took in some form or other, more than nine million three hundred thousand dollars. You see the point? The honest thoughts of man are not (continued on next page) 29
cided to return to his former dwelling. When he got there he discovered the man’s house had been cleaned and set in order, and was such a spiritual va cuum that he went and got seven other demons to join him in the human residency; so that the last estate of the man was far worse than the first. The point is, psychiatry, or psychology may instruct you to be rid of the emo tional upheaval. However, if that’s where it stops, you have done nothing more than to sweep out the house and create an emptiness, a vacuum. God says there are certain things upon which your mind must feed. If these are not your thought patterns the end will be worse than the beginning. Here in Philippians 4:8, the list of six sug gestions is given, and to comment on these ideas almost spoils the beauty of them! You see, our thoughts are the threads of which the garments for our souls are made. Have you ever stopped to realize just how shallow most people’s thoughts really are? We may be dwelling on money, or fame, or pleasure, or scan dal, or temptations, or upon nothing more than just the menial cares of the day. The Lord says that as a man think- eth in his heart, so is he. A good man, out of the treasure of the heart bring- eth forth that which is good; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil.” I am afraid too many of us have minds like the one Vance Havner sug gested, “Concrete minds, all mixed up and permanently set!” It is a truth that we are not what we think we are, but we are what we think. The first thing suggested in the list for this spiritual menu is that what soever things are true,- these we are to think upon. We have just seen another political campaign. I don’t know how your candidates came out, but haven’t you sometimes been impressed with the fact that you wondered just which politician was telling the truth? None of them seem to agree, and someone along the line must be incorrect. I heard of a politician who made a speech in which he forcefully declared,
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