A good many people say they are, and think they are, but they are looking in an entirely wrong direction to find the truth. They are searching in systems of human philosophy, reading what men have written, looking to man for guidance. Think how foolish that is. Mere human speculation cannot be the truth, for man cannot find out the truth of God by any manner of searching. Truth belongs to God; only One who trod the earth as man could say, " I am the truth."If you are seeking truth with your face turned away from Him, you will never find it. For He is the Truth; He is that which man needs; He makes known to the heart of man all it needs to know of God and His ways with man. Why is not the truth to be found in the great professing Church ?Because it has largely lost sight of the real Christ. It has become a stranger to Him; and so far as it has lost the knowledge of Him, it has lost the truth. Remember that the truth as to man, the truth as to God and our relations to Him, the truth as to man's future, and in fact all the truths we need to know or can know here, are to be found in Christ, and nowhere else. To learn of Him, we have to take the place He makes known in those sweet words, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."
The truth we need, the truth that satisfies and gives rest to the soul, can be learned nowhere else, and from no other person. If any one has ever found the truth, has ever found real rest of soul, it has been learned from the Son of God. Men change, but He changes not. Men die and pass away, but He died and lives again, and He is alive forever-more. And there is one fact which He Himself most solemnly affirmed, and which is affirmed by His apostles, which is one of the greatest claims ever made by any one:it is, that He is now sitting on the throne of God in heaven! Now either that is most awful presumption, or else it is most wonderful truth. But it is the truth; and He who sits on the throne of God must be God, yet as really and truly Son of man. Thus He is the truth, He can teach you the truth, if you will but come to Him in the way of a learner, in the words quoted above from Matt. 11:28-30.
Is it not a most wonderful thought that One who was once a Man on earth is now on the throne of God in heaven, and is just as ready to teach you and every one who will come to Him as He was to teach all who came to Him on earth ? Learn of Him, if you want to know the truth. He speaks in His Word, in Scripture. To those who desire to hear, the words of Scripture come from Him with living power-"they are spirit and they are life." For all Scripture is His Word, it is "living and effectual, and sharper than any two-edged sword." Listening to that Word, you will learn the truth.
J. W. Newton