The Holy Ghost the Great Teacher

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John 16:13

However, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself…

Here is —

I. AN ATTAINMENT MENTIONED — knowledge of all truth.

1. Nature itself gives us a strong desire to know all truth. What we call curiosity is something given us of God impelling us to search into the knowledge of natural things; that curiosity, sanctified by the Spirit, is also brought to bear in matters of heavenly science. A true Christian is always searching the Scripture that he may be able to certify himself as to its main and cardinal truths.

2. A knowledge of all truth is very essential for our comfort. Many persons have been distressed half their lives from the fact that they had not clear views of truth. Many souls — e.g., under conviction — abide in sorrow because they have no one to instruct them about justification. Give me the congregation whose faces are bright with joy at the sound of the gospel, then will I believe that it is God's own words they are receiving.

3. This knowledge will keep us out of danger. No doctrine is so calculated to preserve a man from sin as the doctrine of the grace of God. Those who call it a licentious doctrine know nothing about it. A man cannot have an erroneous belief without by and by having an erroneous life. Keep the head right, and especially keep the heart right with regard to truth, and your feet will not go far astray.

4. This knowledge will make us useful. There will be no character, however perplexing may be its peculiar phase, but we shall be able to speak to it and comfort it. Almost every man whom God has blessed to the building up of the Church in prosperity, has been a man who has held firmly free grace through the finished salvation of Christ. The sturdy truth of God touches every chord in every man's heart.

II. A DIFFICULTY SUGGESTED. We require a guide. Truth is not so easy to discover. Why this? Because of —

1. The intricacy of truth itself. Those who fancy they know everything of course see no difficulties; but the most earnest student of Scripture will find things which puzzle him. Truth is a path so narrow that two can scarce walk together in it; we usually tread the narrow way in single file. If you step an inch aside you are in a dangerous error. On the one hand there is a huge precipice, and on the other a deep morass; and unless you keep to the true line, to the breadth of a hair, you will go astray. Truth is like the veins of metal in a mine, it is often of excessive thinness, and runs not in one continued layer. Lose it once, and you may dig for miles and not discover it again; the eye must watch perpetually the direction of the lode. Grains of truth are like the grains of gold in the rivers of Australia, they must be shaken by the hands of patience, and washed in the stream of honesty, or the fine gold will be mingled with sand.

2. The insidiousness of error. It easily steals upon us, and we are often like men in a fog. We think, surely this is the right path; and the voice of the evil one whispers, "That is the way, walk ye in it." You do so, and you find that you have been walking in the paths of unrighteousness and error. The way of life is a labyrinth; the grassiest paths and the most bewitching are the farthest away from right. There is not a counterfeit coin in the world so much like a genuine one, as some errors are like the truth.

3. We are so prone to go astray. If grace did not guide a man, he would go astray, though there were hand-posts all the way to heaven.

III. A PERSON PROVIDED.

1. Infallible. If I pin my sleeve to another man's coat, he may lead me part of the way rightly, but by and by he will go wrong himself, and I shall be led astray with him. But if I give myself to the Holy Ghost and ask His guidance, there is no fear of my wandering.

2. Ever present. When we have no commentator or minister, we have still the Holy Spirit. Whenever you cannot understand a text, pray over it, and if it does not open itself, try again. If prayer does not explain it, it is one of the things God did not intend you to know, and you may be content to be ignorant of it. There is no college for holy education like that of the blessed Spirit, for He is an ever-present tutor.

3. Guides "into" the truth. Now, man can guide us to a truth, but it is only the Holy Spirit who can "guide us into a truth." There are many of my hearers who are brought to the truth of their depravity; but they are not brought into it, and made to feel it. Some of you are brought to know the truth that God keeps us from day to day; but you rarely get into it, so as to live in continual dependence upon God the Holy Ghost, and draw fresh supplies from Him. The thing is, to get inside it. A Christian should do with truth as a snail does with his shell, live inside it, as well as carry it on his back.

IV. A METHOD SUGGESTED. He guides us into all truth —

1. By suggesting it. There are thoughts that dwell in our minds that were not born there, but which were exotics brought from heaven and put there by the Spirit. Have you not at times had unaccountably — in the middle of your business — a thought concerning God and heavenly things, and could not tell whence it came?

2. By direction, not so much putting a boat on the stream as steering it when it is there. Time after time have you commenced a meditation on a certain doctrine and, unaccountably, you were gradually led away into another, and you saw how one doctrine leaned on another, as the stones in the arch all hanging on the keystone of Jesus Christ crucified.

3. By illumination. There is nothing like reading an illuminated Bible. You may read to all eternity, and never learn anything by it, unless it is illuminated by the Spirit; and then the words shine forth like stars.

V. AN EVIDENCE. You may know the Spirit's influence by —

1. Its unity. The Spirit never says one thing at one time and another thing at another. It has been always held as a first principle that truth is one thing. But some persons say, "I find one thing in one part of the Bible, and another thing in another, and though it contradicts itself I must believe it." All quite right, if it did contradict itself; but the fault is not in the wood but in the carpenter. Many carpenters do not understand dove-tailing; so there are many preachers who do not understand dove-tailing.

2. Its universality. The true child of God will not be led into some truth but into all truth. When first he starts he will not know half the truth, he will believe it but not understand it. Certain doctrines take years to develop themselves.

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