Truth from God's Side
Mike Doyle · May 8, 2011
Specials, No. 01
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926234321517

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. I have to tell my favorite Mother's Day story. When years ago, when Miles Stanford was alive, we would go to this Tuesday men's Bible study and every once in a while, there would be a guy there that would try to elevate Miles above what he was. And so one day a guy said to him, Oh, Miles, you know, when we get to the beam of judgment, you're going to be right down in front with all the heroes of the Apostle Paul."

And Miles' answer was, no, he said, only the moms are going to be in front. Because the moms did what God called them to do, and that was to be a mom. And the moral is that we should just do what God has called us to do. And being a mom is one of the most important things you can do.

So this morning I want to talk about what I've titled the balance of truth. And the first thought that hit me is that we as men for all of history have spent an awful lot of time developing communications between ourselves. Originally there was just the ability to orally communicate, to talk verbally. Then it was written in ancient times. Then there were things like signaling devices. There was telegraph, telephones, radios, radio phones, TV, cell phones, smart phones, the internet and Skype. All designed to do what? What are we trying to accomplish with that? We're trying to communicate between persons.

Now it's interesting, in Genesis 126 God said, let us make man in our own image according to our own likeness. And God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. So I think God had a desire to create a human being that he could communicate with and who could communicate back to him, who could receive and send expressions of who they were who he could love and they could love him back. So God had various methods that he used too in ancient times and even today.

In the Garden of Eden he did direct communication. He would talk to Adam, give him instructions, tell him what the parameters were. He would walk with him in the cool of the evening. And then as time went on and sin entered, he would use revelation. He would inspire men to speak and inspire men to write.

And now we have the inspired Word of God. It's God's communication to us about himself, about who he is. So, why do you think God would try to communicate to us? I think it has to do back with He created us in His own image. He wants us to receive who He is and to respond in like.

In Genesis 128, God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Then God said, Behold, I give you every plant yielding seed that on the surface of all the earth and every tree and the fruit yielding, etc. God said, Adam received.

So today I want to talk about how important truth is. How do you know what the truth is? How do you receive it? I came up with this definition. In response to John 14, 6, where the Lord Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.

I think we can define truth as follows. Truth is the things as they exist and are in the mind of God. I'm going to repeat that. Truth is things as they are in the mind of God. There's not one side of truth or another side. but the whole as a thing stands in the eye and mind of God. That's what truth is.

If I, from man's side, go in and study and understand, and I can explain a subject according to my own mind, it's true to my mind. But if I'm challenged by God's Word as to the truth of what I know, and it's different than what I think it is, then what would be the result? I would not know the whole truth. I wouldn't have it. And so it isn't really truth if it's only known from my perspective. So the view of a subject might appear to be true to me, but it would only be one-sided. If the light of God in which it is seen is not understood, then it isn't truth.

So I think this accounts for over time for the partial and one-sided view of which we have in our time and time immemorial doctrines and subjects and spiritual scriptures that are spoken of from different sides because of the way we go at it. The great mistake in every age, I think, which causes great differences about doctrines and subjects is attributable to the one-sided view of them.

If any subject is clearly seen from God's side. There must be accuracy and perfection in it. It reaches as far as God has designed it because it springs from himself. Whereas if it's limited to just man's view and is only seen as it affects man, at best he can only trace it from himself upward to God, seeing it from the source and reaching downward.

He doesn't have it all. The next part of this truth equation is grace. There can't be any balance of grace in truth if it's measured just by what I gain or man gains by the grace received. If my need is the only criteria, then I don't really understand grace. Because if I made the focus and the entire blessing is confined just to me, then I'm the measure of it. And grace can't be defined as how I become the measure of the grace. It's one-sided. So it's less than what it should be. Some examples.

Man in the Garden of Eden. He was the absolute object of God's grace. And he appropriated everything as given to God in relation to himself. But then man falls, and now he's got a different frame of reference. With judgment resting on him, God now has a different view, or he has a different view of himself and of God. He's now at enmity with God and he actually shuns God. The first example of that is Cain and Abel. Cain was interesting in that he only thinks about himself and forms judgments based on his own mind and the way in which the distance between him and God should be bridged. and the way in which God had presented the restoration of man to himself, and he's off target. So he recognizes the necessity of there being an offering to God, but he confines his thoughts entirely to himself and not to God's thoughts for him as a sinner. And so he has no place and surely there isn't any balance in his view.

Abel, on the other hand, by faith, he sees what God requires in an offering, and hence lies the great difference between the two of them. Abel had the truth, Cain didn't. The righteousness of God required that there be a victim, not chargeable with the offense or the sin, but bearing a judgment undeserved by it. That was the truth. Abel understood that, Cain didn't. The mind of God as to righteousness is answered to, and therefore man is accepted with God. Thus both sides are fully provided for, while Cain, who only thought of himself, he didn't secure either side. Then you take a look at Lot and Lot's life.

He retained the true possession of being in Canaan, but he limited the truth to himself. He sought of his own interest and ended up in Sodom. If he had regarded his position from God's side, he would have preserved like Abraham did. And in the end, he would have found that what was right, what was the right thing, the thing honoring God was also the best thing for him. But he only thought of himself. And so, therefore, the balance of truth is lost in him. And thus he forfeited a high privilege that God had called him to. and which the truth would have put him.

If he had kept his eye on the Lord, he would have found out that his own side was as well secured if he had kept the Lord's side. It's a really important principle here, and that is whenever we limit a doctrine or a revelation to ourselves, we lose the value of it. But when we maintain God's side, we always ensure our own side. The next guy that I picked was King Saul. This man was very interesting, the first king of Israel.

He never saw things from God's side. He only saw them from his own side. And so because of that, he missed blessing after blessing. Whether he was subduing Amalek or keeping a feast or in a battle, he never could see things as it was in the mind of God. He viewed everything from his own side and never from God's side.

So the more I persist in looking at the Word of God and looking at the truth from God's side, the more forcefully I secure what is perfect and good for man. And that's something Saul didn't understand. But the next in line, David, he was always on God's side, even though he had plenty of failures. He sees things from God's side of the equation all the time, and he acts accordingly. The truth is only the truth which is as it is from God's perspective. Anything else is a false view.

The great evidence of Israel's departure from God for which they suffered 70 years of captivity in Babylon was that they forgot God. It's very interesting when you look at the 70 years of captivity In the structure that God set up for Israel, every seventh year was to be a sabbatical year.

And what that meant was that they weren't to grow crops, they weren't to farm, they were to rest, and they were to rest the land. And they were to trust God for provision for that seventh year. Well, the Jews decided that they probably didn't need that seventh year, and they were going to work that year anyway. So they went And they forgot the sabbatical year for 490 years.

How long do you think the captivity was when God came in and intervened? Seventy years. Every seventh year, if you do the math, you take 490 years and divide it by seven, you end up with 70 years. So when they went into captivity, what happened? The land rested for 70 years.

So the Sabbath is very interesting because it's from God's perspective, it is not only the day of rest once a week for the Jewish nation, but the Sabbath year was a year of rest not only for the people of Israel, but for the land too. And so the problem was, this sabbatical year was a remarkable evidence of God's favor to them and his presence with them. But they didn't think of God. They just thought the sabbatical year was just another year to make a little extra.

And so they forfeited their high privilege. And they brought about themselves a severe captivity for 70 years. So the captives in Ezra's time, after enduring much, and then they returned to the land, and they start to rebuild the temple. And things get a little hard, and so They stopped building it, and they stopped working for 16 years. And they excused themselves by saying, the time has not come that the Lord's house should be built.

That's in Haggai 1 and 2. But they did persistently care for their own things. And God's side of things were overlooked by them. And consequently, when you read Haggai 1, 2 through 6, it's interesting. He talks about what they're doing and that they have forgotten God's house, but in the end he says, and you have so much, but you harvest little. You eat, but there's not enough to be satisfied. You drink, but there's not enough to become drunk. You put on clothing, but no one is warm enough. And he who earns wages puts them into a purse with holes.

If you forget God, that's the consequence in those days. I think that there's a cause now for grievous loss with the saints in every single age. As long as we approach Scripture and the truth of God, looking at it for what we gain out of it, and that's the revelation we go for, that's the only thing we're interested in, then we lose the source.

Paul even said to Peter in Galatians 2.5, when Peter decided that he wasn't going to eat with the Gentiles anymore, that the truth of the glad tidings might remain with you when he called him out.

And the glad tidings were God's side, His grace. And Peter didn't mean to give up the gospel, and he didn't give up the gospel. But for a moment he looked at it only from man's side, and thus he lost the balance and he lost the truth, which is always endangered when you lose the balance. You could probably defend what he did reasonably, or he could, and doubtless there were arguments used to excuse his conduct.

And even Barnabas in Acts 15 betrays his side, and only looking at it from his side, when he wants to take his cousin Mark with him on the next missionary journey. And Paul says, no, he shouldn't go because he didn't see things. In the middle of the first missionary journey, he bailed out on him. And he didn't see things from God's side.

So in Acts 15.39, and there occurred such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another and Barnabas took Mark with him and he sailed away to Cyprus. He lost the perspective. So if you look later on in Paul's epistles, you find in 2nd Timothy that Paul says that all in Asia have turned away from me. Wow.

Do you think that they stopped being Christians? No. It wasn't that they turned away from Christianity itself, it's that they turned away from the truth as seen from God's side. The interesting thing about the Apostle Paul was that he knew and taught God's perspective in his word. They could keep God's side no more, and just like Lot, they returned And like the captives, they returned like Peter to their own side too often, and they lost the blessing.

The loss of balance is in making man the object instead of God. So how does this loss begin? In Revelation 2.4, the Lord says, the first love is lost. Christ, as the simple object, is lost.

Though there may be, as there was in Ephesus, a hating of the evil and a trying of false clerical pretensions, Revelation 2.2 says, I know your deeds and your toil and your perseverance and that you cannot tolerate evil men. And you put to the test those who call themselves apostles who are not apostles. And you found them to be false and you have You have perseverance and have endured in my namesake and have not grown weary." Sounds pretty good to me. But then the next line he says, but I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

They didn't see it from God's side. So the force and scope of the truth is lost the moment the eye turns from God to the revelation of himself to man primarily. So that in the last days we find in 2 Timothy 4 that their ears will be turned away from the truth and they will have teachers who will suit their taste, faulty taste, and have turned away from the truth. Paul says in 2 Timothy, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. I happen to think we're probably living in that age now pretty close. But wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate to themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.

So, to characterize the faithful in the last days, in Revelation 3.8 it says, they have kept my word, they have not denied my name.

Christ's side is insisted on by what is called in Revelation the overcomers, and hence the rewards are all marked by the word my. A pillar in the temple of my God, the name of my God, the name of the city of my God, my new name, all from God's side. The truth has been preserved and the rewards are in keeping with it.

Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews, but they are not, but lie, I will make them come and bow down to your feet and make them know that I have loved you, because they have kept the word of my perseverance. I also will keep you from the hour of testing, the hour which is about to come upon the whole world. He who overcomes, I will make a pillar in my temple. So every saint of God today finds, if he's careful to maintain the truth, how easy it is for him that he could be drawn away from it. He could be drawn away from the side that makes man prominent in the matter of the truth he is presenting. And more distinctly, he insists on making God first in it.

The more that happens, the more he will be weakened, like Barnabas was, and like Demas. I don't know if you remember Demas. Paul said about Demas in 2 Timothy, he said, for Demas, having loved the present world, has deserted me and gone back to Thessalonica. So if the gospel is preached by that which pleases the taste of man, it must be entirely occupied with man and his need. and speak only of the benefits conferred to it by man.

There isn't any question, however, that it does confer benefit on man, and this is the first word to him. But it's not balanced unless the relation is shown in which it places him with God. The Philippian jailer was told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. He believed on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he rejoiced in God.

We've had a class that we've taught here for quite some years about how to study the Word of God, and in there, there's a sequential formula about how to study the Word of God, and I'm just going to quote from some of it. Understanding, applying, and appropriating God's Word in keeping with God's intent for Scripture.

The first principle is observation. We should study the language and the history and the culture, the content, the context, the correlation of words, the phrases, the topics with other biblical passages. And that's an objective approach. Then we should interpret. We need to start with the same set of consistent, biblically based approaches, which are also objective. Then we should apply the word. There should be application, one correct interpretation of any passages, even though there's a lot of applications. We get to be a little subjective when we get to this part.

And then appropriation involves the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, John 17, 17, and the sovereignty of God in circumstances. But appropriation of the truth of Scripture requires that we have received the true meaning of the original author of Scripture, who is the Holy Spirit. What is the true meaning of any passage? I think it's how Christ is presented and that He's first. Even implementing these methods, we need to be mindful of a few things.

The popular gospel today dwells on the benefit to man, the relief and the ease with which it imparts what it imparts to him. It does not insist on the nearness to God to which the ransom one is brought. It occupies him with the good and the benefit to himself, instead of founding his joy on the relationship in which he is now with God through Christ. In a word, God is not made prominent to the soul, but the benefit is made prominent. Acceptance with God is not the gain that is presented, but the ease to oneself. I repeat, there's no question of gain to oneself. That's certainly what grace is about.

But there's a great difference between having before one the person who accomplished the gain and the gain merely as one feels it. Scripture puts the person first every time and then the gain to the believer. And the result is that the heart becomes occupied with the one who confers the gain, and not merely with the gain. Now, if one is exclusively occupied with the gain for himself, there must always be a turning in on oneself, an occupation with the gain which does not increase it and tends to make it one merely a favored individual instead of one bound to Christ.

Hence, souls are not rooted and built up in Him. There's no balance there. All the truth has not been apprehended. There's no balance in the gospel which occupies the soul exclusively with the relief it will enjoy, instead of with the person by whom the relief has been secured. So you have to ask yourself, can that be truth where God does not consciously and prominently get a place? Surely not. There's no balance there.

It is not only the sinner's freedom from condemnation, which the gospel proclaims, but that God has found him a savior. Not only that he's safe, but that as forgiven, he is now near to God. The step between the truth and half-truth is often really small, yet it is plain that if the gospel is limited to the benefit it incurs to men, then man is before the mind and rather than God. So what would be the balance of truth in the gospel? The gospel sets forth the grace of God to man, but it presses on him what the God who has and gives the grace is. Not merely the effect on man's heart, but a sense of him who confers it. Not the relief only, but the one who relieves. Not the deliverance only, but the deliverer.

So I would say it's the same principle as to all truth and all teaching. The first principle is if the saint's benefit or happiness or order is looked at and sought apart from Christ, or is making Christ secondary, it will soon be seen that the truth has been lost and there isn't any balance. And this is usually not readily seen because it is addressed so peculiarly to oneself and for one's own specific benefit. It seems so good and so useful and come so within the comprehension of my natural mind that many compete for the practical usefulness of it. The evidence of ever-failing stewardship in biblical history is the attempt to exhibit in externals that which was lacking internally. And that's why ritualism and Phariseeism will always crop up when the heart is not occupied with Christ. The whole issue is occupation with Christ. with the deliverer, not the deliverer, the delivery.

Like Saul, destroying all that was vile and refuse, but he spared Agog. In 1 Samuel, it says that he captured Agog, the king of the Amalekites, alive, and utterly destroyed all the people who edged by the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agog, and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were not willing to destroy them utterly, but everything despised and worthless that they utterly destroyed. And then the word of the Lord came to Samuel saying, I regret that I had made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not carried out my commands. And Sammy was distressed and cried out to the Lord all night. We have the same Pharisee issue today. We live in a Laodicean period in which benefit supersedes the benefactor. Man's side is always dwelt on now, but God's side is overlooked. All is one-sided and the balance which marks the truth is lost.

So in conclusion, I would say individually and collectively the source of all strength is Christ himself. For without me you can do nothing. And the moment the eye is turned from Christ's side of truth to self-occupation with the blessing, i.e. satisfaction with the benefit, one has begun to fall away. The bottom line is simple and blessed. If the truth is apprehended as it is in the mind of God, then all of my side will be fully and perfectly insured.

This explains the little progress in many souls today, I think, notwithstanding the amount of truth and light we have received. May Christ in his word and the name be more simply the object of our hearts today. And as I was working on this, I had kind of finished this part of it up, and then I read A couple of days ago, out of that None But the Hungry Heart, and I thought, wow, this sort of says it maybe better than I could.

He quotes Colossians 3.1, or since you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sits at the right hand of God. The growth truths seem complicated and difficult to understand on first encounter. However, With progress and grace, we find them to be as clear and logical as the truth of our justification.

For both time and eternity, all summed up in John 17.3, and this is eternal life, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ. Study on.

The marvel of divine grace is that not only has everything according to the heart of God been secured for me through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, but that I, a child of Adam, should be not only in peace with God where I was under his judgment, but that I am transferred from Adam to Christ, and I am to have Christ formed in me now. I am born of God of new and divine origin, a new creation to be here on earth now where I was a child of Adam.

In the grace and beauty of Christ, led by His own power to stand for Him daily, more and more transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. I used to study this passage and that passage to obtain guidance and light. I see now that if I were really near Him, beholding His glory, I should be transformed. I should come from him so impressed with himself that his interests would, as it were, naturally control me. When the heart has found its rest and satisfaction in him, it can turn to him naturally, continually in every circumstance. So set your affections on things above and not on things of the earth.

Let's pray. Our dear Father, how we thank you for your Word and your Son and your Spirit, that we would as we move forward recognize that all that you have done, all your Word and the work of your Spirit is designed so that we might know and behold the glory of the Lord Jesus himself, and that he might be the center and the focus of everything we learn, everything we do, and not just the benefit to us, Father. I thank you for the grace we live under. I pray in your Son's precious name. Amen.