I n sc r ip t io n s o n p u b l ic buildings are often amusing and sometimes pathetic, especially if they quote Scripture. In one metropolis the City Hall bears these words, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Lifted out of its context and taken as it stands, such a verse could mean anything to anybody. It raises two stupendous questions: What is truth? What is freedom? It presents two tremendous issues: How to know the truth and how to be free. It sets forth two mighty pur suits that engage mankind perhaps more than anything else on earth, the search for truth and the quest for freedom. Every school building, every scientific labora tory, every religious institution speaks of man’s search for truth. All the world-wide present-day turmoil, with new nations being born every few days, testifies to man’s quest for freedom. Could more be packed into one sim ple inscription than this: “ Ye shall know the TRUTH and the Truth shall make you FREE” ? But without its context this verse does not answer the questions it raises. It merely faces us with two colos sal abstractions, Truth and Freedom. A missionary in a pagan land would need a better text than this. I do not know of a more striking illustration than this of the danger in not quoting enough of a passage of Scripture. These words were spoken by our Lord (John 8:32) but they are not His complete statement. The City Hall inscription left out the first word in the verse, “AND.” That means that something has gone before and we have it in the preceding verse: “ If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.” The next verse follows naturally, “ AND ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” But even that is not enough. If we continue in the Word, there must be a start. The preceding verse begins, “Then said Jesus to those Jews WHICH BELIEVED ON HIM” which goes back one verse more where we read, “ As He spake these word, MANY BELIEVED ON HIM.” Their faith was cheap and superficial but the false im plies the true. Putting these verses in order, we get this sequence as it applies to us: We believe on Jesus; we become His disciples; we continue; we abide in His Word; we know the truth. We are set free for “ if the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Now it makes sense and what a pity to carve part of it on a City Hall and not carve it all! Here then is the secret of Freedom and the secret of Truth. We have never heard more about freedom and seen less of it than we do nowadays. Even Christians fall far short of the liberty our Lord was talking about. They are slaves of fear, slaves of doubt, slaves of worry, slaves of habit, slaves of self and sin. We hear much about truth but the outstanding characteristic of this age is ignorance. The generation of Noah’s time “ KNEW NOT” until the flood came and as it was in the days of Noah so it is today. We have more education than ever but much of our ignorance is educated ignorance. Will Rogers used to say, “The stupidest fellow on earth is an educated man when you get him off the subject he was educated on.” A leading educator says, “ The intelligence of the race has failed before the problems which the race has raised.” Our Lord declared that the basis of error is ignorance: “Ye do err, NOT KNOWING the Scrip tures, nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29). The man who does not know God’s Word and God’s' power is an ignoramus, no matter what else he knows. The secret of Freedom is to know the Truth. Jesus Christ is the Truth. According to our text the way of freedom is to believe on Christ, become His disciples, continue in His Word. Thus we come to know the Truth and the Truth sets us free. This is the secret-which the
world does not know. Most church members do not know it either which means either they are not believers or not disciples. The word believe does not mean today what the New Testament word means. It has come to mean head acceptance of a proposition instead of heart thrust in a Person. The majority of church mem bers show no evidence of having been bom again; they are' just what they have always been. They certainly are not disciples for a disciple continues in, abides in the Word. This abiding is not a condition of discipleship but a manifestation of it. We show that we are disciples by learning and obeying. The sheep hear the Shepherd’s voice and follow Him. The believer comes to Christ, the disciple comes after Christ. We come to Him and re ceive His rest; we learn of Him and find rest. Our churches are filled with many professed believers but there are few faithful followers. We are long on mem bership and short on discipleship. Crisis is not followed by continuance. Too many “take the step” but they do not follow it with the walk. The Great Commission tells us to teach the disciples TO OBSERVE all the things our Lord commanded. Knowledge of the Truth that sets men free comes not merely from dissemination of informa tion but from obedience to the Truth. Our Lord con tinually emphasized the price of discipleship. He did not encourage cheap faith, He demanded costly obedience. Plenty of people will join church, come to church, “ come forward” to dedicate and re-dedicate, who will not fol low it up with day-by-day obedience. There is nothing spectacular, sensational, Hollywoodish, about Christian discipleship but without it men cannot know the Truth and be set free. We are more anxious to gather statistics than to grow saints these days. We are out to swell the roll and are not too concerned about what church members believe or how they live. We have mob-ilized a host like the mixed multitude that followed Moses out of Egypt but went to pieces in the wilderness. We are not going to bring freedom to the captives today by rallying hosts of superficial converts who profess to come to Christ byt will not come after Him, who will take Him as Saviour but refuse Him as Lord. The Jews to whom our Lord spoke the words of our text professed to believe on Him but when He began to talk about continuing in the Word, they argued with Him. They believed on Him in verse 30 of this chapter but were ready to stone Him in verse 59. We read in John 6 that His listeners complained of His hard teach ing and “many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him.” I see that happen almost every week in my meetings. When church members are called upon to deny self, take up the cross, give up the world and follow Christ, make Him Lord of all, they resent it, they argue, they fall away and do not even return to the services. They are like those who believed on Jesus in John 2 but whom our Lord did not trust because He knew their faith was cheap and worthless. They never intended to take Christ seriously and they knew nothing of the liberty wherewith He sets men free. Friday night of the revival finds them at the ball game and Sunday night at home watching Ed Sullivan. I could ignore these professed followers and preach to church “ prospects” but here lies our main trouble, a superficial faith that fails to follow our Lord and that argues back when the terms of discipleship are laid down. We have packed our church rolls with these people but the business of the church is to make DISCIPLES, true believers who con tinue in the Word, who know the Truth and have been set free. This is the way of the believer-disciple, freedom through faith that follows.
9
APRIL, 1963
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