Your Tuesday Spurgeon - with some John Calvin, too!

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The Leadership of Our Guide

"Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all Truth" (John 16:13).

Truth is like a vast cavern into which we desire to enter, but we are not able to traverse it alone. At the entrance it is clear and bright; but if we would go further and explore its innermost recesses, we must have a guide, or we shall lose ourselves. The Holy Spirit, who knows all truth perfectly, is the appointed guide of all true believers, and He conducts them as they are able to bear it, from one inner chamber to another, so that they behold the deep things of God, and His secret is made plain to them. What a promise is this for the humbly inquiring mind! We desire to know the truth and to enter into it. We are conscious of our own aptness to err, and we feel the urgent need of a guide. We rejoice that the Holy Spirit is come and abides among us. He condescends to act as a guide to us, and we gladly accept His leadership. "All truth" we wish to learn, that we may not be one-sided and out of balance. We would not be willingly ignorant of any part of revelation lest thereby we should miss blessing or incur sin. The Spirit of God has come that He may guide us into all truth: let us with obedient hearts hearken to His words and follow His lead.

It's interesting that I just finished up Chapter 5 of Book One in Calvin's Institutes yesterday. This chapter is entitled, "The Knowledge of God Conspicuous in the Creation and Continual Government of the World," and Calvin's main point seems to be that even with all the evidence from Creation around them and the witness of their conscience within them, fallen man persists in his willful suppression of the truth, and chooses to worship the false gods and demons conjured by his own fancies.

Spurgeon makes the point that, unless God guides us, we are to prone to fall into error. It is only in God that "true truth" is found, because all truth is God's truth. Spiritually, we cannot know the truth, because in our natural state, we are dead men - zombies immersed in sin's clutch, and the puppets of Satan. It is only when the Holy Spirit comes to convict us of sin and give us new life that we can turn to God and to the truth.

If we do not receive that new life from God, then

In vain for us, therefore, does Creation exhibit so many bright lamps lighted up to show forth the glory of its Author. Though they beam upon us from every quarter, they are altogether insufficient of themselves to lead us into the right path... When Paul says that that which may be known of God is manifested by the creation of the world, he does not mean such a manifestation as may be comprehended by the wit of man (Rom. 1:19); on the contrary, he shows that it has no further effect than to render us inexcusable (Acts 17:27)... But though God is not left without a witness, while, with numberless and varied acts of kindness, He woos men to the knowledge of Himself, yet they cease not to follow their own ways, in other words, deadly errors. (Institutes, Book 1, chapter 5, sec. 14)

We cannot plead ignorance, without being at the same time convicted by our own consciences both of sloth and ingratitude. It were, indeed, a strange defence [sic] for man to pretend that he has no ears to hear the truth, while dumb creatures have voices loud enough to declare it...But while man must bear the guilt of corrupting the seed of divine knowledge s wondrously deposited in his mind, and preventing it from bearing good and genuine fruit, it is still most true that we are not sufficiently instructed by that bare and simple, but magnificent testimony which the creatures bear to the glory of their Creator. For no sooner do we, from a survey of the world, obtain some slight knowledge of Deity, than we pass by the true God, and set up in His stead the dream and phantom of our own brain, drawing away the praise of justice, wisdom, and goodness from the fountain-head, and transferring it to some other quarter. (Ibid., sec. 15)

Thus, when Truth makes Himself known to us, we need to be very careful and humbly give Him the praise and glory, rather than ourselves. After all, compared to Him, we are certainly not "all that!" We need Him - we desperately need Him! - to teach and guide us, to lift us up out of the pit and place our feet on Christ, the solid Rock of our Salvation.

I mourn that I came to this so late in my life. The salvation I professed when I was a young teenager did not produce any fruit until my 30's, and so many years were wasted! So many habits and thought patterns now need to be broken and confessed, and I struggle with them daily. I pray that as God continues His work in me I will be more and more faithful, humble and obedient to His call and leadership in my life.