“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (I Thess. v. 21).
IN the things of this life all persons of intelligence are in the habit of proving things. When we want to thatch our houses, we usually make a rough ladder from branches of trees to enable us to get up to the roof and down again. Nobody of ordinary intelligence would think of climbing up his home-made ladder without first proving whether it is strong enough to support his weight.
Again, when we build brick houses, we prove the foundation before putting up the walls. If we find that the foundation is neither strong nor level we know that our house will not stand, and we do not proceed with the building until the fault has been corrected.
At this time of year, when the Shangani River is often in flood, no man attempts to cross it until he has first tested the depth of the water. If he finds that the water reaches to his chest, he knows that it would be folly to attempt the crossing and that he must wait until the flood subsides.
In these and many other ways we are constantly proving things, and so safeguarding the life and goods which God has given us. But are we equally careful to prove the things that are bound up with the salvation of our souls. God’s command, “Prove all things” has special reference to those things which relate to our immortal spirits, things which are bound up with eternal life and death, and it is of the utmost importance that we hearken to the Lord’s command and do prove them with all diligence.
Here are some of the things which we must prove:—
(1) CHARACTER.
Much harm has been done in the world, and especially in the Church of Christ, by a failure to prove things which relate to a man’s character. We all form judgments or opinions regarding our fellow-men, and there is no harm in so doing, but grievous harm is done if we do not prove the foundation on which our judgments are based.
The Lord Jesus said, “Judge not by appearance, judge righteous judgment.” How often is this command disregarded! However empty a man’s head may be, there is in his heart a firm conviction that his discernment, his ability to form judgments regarding his fellows, is well nigh infallible. This proceeds from the pride of fallen man. Judgments which are based only on appearances do harm enough in the life of him who forms them, but they almost inevitably break forth in public, and very often to the prejudice of another person’s character.
Beware of appearances! A solemn face may hide a malicious, lustful heart and a coarse exterior may conceal a heart of gold. It is an awful fact that men are often secretly devoted to the sins which they most condemn in public.
Let our judgments regarding our fellows be based upon the Word of God, and let us prove them by that same Word. “By their fruits ye shall know them,” said the Saviour. He did not say, “Ye shall know them by their blossom,” or “Ye shall know them by their leaves.” For our guidance the fruits of the Spirit are clearly listed in Galatians v. 22-24, and the fruits of the flesh are equally clearly pointed out in Galatians v. 19-21. It is our Christian duty to prove all things regarding our neighbour’s character and to be slow to form judgments which are unfavourable to him.
Again, we damage a man’s character by accepting rumours as truth without any honest attempt to prove the foundation on which the rumours rest. To some people, and professed Christians are among the number, rumours and the back-biting connected with them, are food and drink. When the Truth of God is being discussed, they are dumb and lifeless, but when some unsavoury rumour is in the air, their tongues and their feet suddenly spring into action and they gather round a corrupt reproach on a man’s character as eagerly as vultures surround the body of a dead donkey. And, worst of all, they are as disappointed when the rumour is proved groundless as the vultures would be if the donkey were suddenly to spring to life.
A man may be so poor that he doesn’t care whether his pockets are holed or not, for he has nothing to fall through them, but if he has an upright character, and especially a character moulded by the Spirit of the living God, he has a priceless possession. Touch it not! If you do, you are tampering with his soul. Prove all things!
(2) COMPANIONS.
It is essential that we prove our companions. The great majority of the young people of this Reserve who have fallen into the two besetting sins of drunkenness and fornication have been drawn to these depths by evil companions. Satan has used the wicked talk and filthy suggestions of ungodly companions to drag them down to the very brink of hell. Many a young man and young woman has left this Reserve with spotless character to work in Bulawayo and has come back in a few months as an agent of the great enemy. They themselves were lured into the horrible pit by the hosts of Christless people in town who called themselves friends, and now they come back here with no higher aim than to drag others down with them. Oh! my young friends, boys and girls here to-day, do not make a companion of anyone until you have proved him by God’s Word. Does he love the Word of God? Does he seek the Saviour? Does he honour the great name of God? Prove him by these tests, and if he fails, keep clear of him. Your eternal salvation is at stake. If you choose as your companion an enemy of God, you are in great danger of making God your enemy; you are playing with everlasting fire. Prove your companions!
The need for proving your companions is specially great when you come to choose your life companion—the young woman or young man whom you hope to have as wife or husband.
It sometimes happens that an unbelieving man attends church for a few weeks or a few months in order to please a believing girl whom he plans to make his wife. The girl is impressed by the apparent change in his life, hopes for still better things to come, and agrees to marry him. Once they are married, the man not only ceases to attend church himself, but does his best to make his wife give up her attendance also. Or, if he is cunning, he will show no open opposition, but will see to it that the atmosphere of the home is such as to discourage all serious thought. What bitter disillusionment for the girl if she is a true believer! And it might all have been avoided if she had proved the man before she agreed to marry him. A few direct questions based on God’s Word would have revealed the true state of the man’s heart. His deep antagonism to the Lord and His anointed would have been evoked by a brief heart to heart talk, not on religion in general but on the eternal realities of sin and salvation. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” Prove your companions. Prove them by Psalm 1 which we sang at the opening of this service.
(3) SCRIPTURE TEACHING.
You must prove the Scripture teaching which you receive in school and in this Church. A common complaint among certain Africans is that there are so many different denominations at work among them, one teaching one thing and another teaching the opposite, that they are bewildered and don’t know what to believe. I have a certain amount of sympathy for them in this matter, but I must add that there is no real excuse for such an attitude as they adopt. You have God’s Word among you, and it is your duty to compare everything you are taught with that infallible guide. When you have heard a sermon in this Church, go home and take your Bibles and search diligently, like the Bereans, to see whether these things are so. If any man ever stands here and says anything which does not fully tally with God’s Word, reject it without question. But if you find that what is preached does agree with God’s Word, remember that you must accept it. If you do not, you will be fighting against God, not disagreeing with a mere man.
If you cannot read, you can still prove the truth or otherwise of what you hear. Ask God for Christ’s sake to give you the Holy Spirit, the great Teacher from heaven, so that He may witness in your heart as you hear. He will tell you without the shadow of a doubt whether what you hear is the eternal Truth of God or the carnal wisdom of man. Take heed what you hear. Prove all things. Your soul’s salvation depends on it.
(4) THE PLEASURES OF SIN.
You must prove the pleasures of sin and find out for yourself whether they are what God says they are or what the devil says they are. How are you to do this? Are you to taste of them for yourself and find out from personal experience what they are like? Must a young man go to a beer-drink and taste beer in order to decide whether it is harmless or soul-destroying? On no account! To do so would be madness, the madness of a man who reasons like this, “People tell me that a snake’s bite is poisonous and often leads to death; but I have never proved it for myself. Now, here is a mamba, one of the most deadly of snakes. I shall approach it and provoke it until it bites me, and then I will know for myself the effect of its poison.” The poor wretch will soon find that his personal knowledge was most bitter and that it would not save him from a swift and terrible death. So it is with sin, young friends; to taste of it leads to death. We know the effects of a snake’s poison, for we have seen the victims of snake-bite suffer and die. That is enough for all of us; we have no desire to know the effects from personal experience. And if we use the eyes and minds which God has given us, we can see the effects of sin just as clearly. We can see the spiritual death which rests on those who have tasted of its pleasures and thereafter were powerless to leave its paths.
Then we have the testimony of God’s Word, which should surely be proof sufficient for us. “The wages of sin is death.” Of the man who would play with sin in any of its alluring forms, God says, “He knoweth not that the dead are there and that her guests are in the depths of hell.” What a solemn warning from the lips of Him who cannot lie! Take His testimony as your proof of what sin is and of what sin does! Prove the pleasures of sin and see for yourself their deadly results. Prove them in the light of God’s Word and in the experience of others, especially of those who have proved their hollowness and their bitterness and whose souls are now as birds escaped from the fowler’s snare!
(5) GOD’S WAY OF SALVATION.
God has made His way of salvation abundantly clear in the Scriptures. The Old and New Testaments alike point us to the “Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.” Our sin, our worthlessness, our weakness, are clearly stressed, and over against these is placed the holiness, the infinite merit and the power of Christ to save to the uttermost.
We are to come to God saying with all earnestness and with empty hands and longing hearts, “Lord, I have no righteousness, impute to me the righteousness of Jesus which flows from His efficacious life and death. Clothe me with that righteousness as with a garment and place my straying feet on that Rock from which all the forces of hell cannot remove them.” It is the way of simple faith with Christ standing in the room of the sinner and the sinner in the room of Christ.
“Yes,” you say, “we know that is God’s way of salvation. We are not to trust in our works, but only in the righteousness of Jesus imparted to us by the Holy Spirit. It is full and free and so clear that the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.” But have you proved it? Do you know its reality and power from personal experience, or are you making the simplicity of God’s way of salvation an excuse for continuing in sin, thinking that at some convenient season, to be chosen by you, you will put into practice in heart and life what you already know in your head? If this is your intention, you can rest assured that when the day of trouble comes you will try the wrong way of salvation, the way of salvation by works! It takes a lot to make a man submit to the simplicity of the Gospel. The way is as clear as you say it is but if you are now giving it head admiration instead of heart obedience, you can be sure that Satan is blinding your eyes and that in the day of trial you will grope as in midnight darkness. “To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” And remember, there is no more effective way of hardening the heart than by giving mere lip praise to God’s way of salvation. “Prove me now,” saith the Lord.
Prove God’s way of salvation now and make certain, as for eternity, that it will bear the ponderous weight of your precious soul.
(6) PERSONAL SALVATION.
Sometimes we see children playing at weddings. One child acts the part of the bridegroom and another the part of the bride. They wear clothes which resemble as closely as possible the clothes usually worn by a couple about to get married. Another child acts the part of the minister. The whole party enters a hut which they call the Church. The “minister” says a few words, and out comes the wedding party ready to march off to the “feast” with hand-clapping and singing just as in real life among Africans. The whole ceremony is meaningless, just a child’s game. There was no real marriage, no marital love between “bride” and “bridegroom,” no authority in the words of the “minister.” Is your religion like that? Has it all the outward signs of the real thing yet devoid of love and power? In all that you do and say in the name of Christ, are you just playing a game, doing and saying what you have seen others do and say? Oh! my friend, God is not to be mocked. An outward connection with the Church of Christ cannot be accepted by the all-seeing God in the place of a true heart union, a true spiritual marriage with the Head of the Church Himself. It cannot satisfy your own heart and the standard set by your conscience: how then can it satisfy God? Prove yourself and know exactly where you stand, and rest not content until you can say, “My Maker is my husband,” and with Paul, “I know whom I have believed.” I cannot be too earnest or too serious in this matter, and neither can you. “Make your calling and election sure.” Be done with sham and make-believe, and make sure work of Christ. Give your soul no rest until the Holy Spirit witnesses to your soul through His Word that you are Christ’s and Christ is yours.
Can you say in face of death and of the Great White Throne that you stand on the merits of Christ alone? Nothing else will avail in the day when the secrets of men’s hearts will be revealed at the Judgment Throne and God requires nothing more and nothing less now. Prove with all the earnestness at your command, your relationship with Christ and your foundation for an endless world.
After proving all things—things I have mentioned, and many things which crop up in the course of a believer’s pilgrimage—we are to hold fast to that which is good: only to that which is good. That which is bad is to be rejected as chaff is rejected when we thresh our grain.
It is a sad fact that many have proved certain things in their life to be bad and yet they still hold fast to them. Often people have said to me, “I have seen that I have been doing wrong in this and that way,” and I have been hopeful that they would seek to cast these evil things out of their lives, but to-day they still hold fast to that which they have clearly seen to be wrong. They remind me of a certain family who always complain of the porridge made from grain known as Nyouti. “That porridge,” they say, “is ruining our stomachs. After eating it we feel as if we had swallowed a piece of concrete. It makes us unfit for work and we are never done taking medicine.” “And what about maize porridge? Does it not suit you better?” “Oh, yes, maize porridge is excellent. It never makes us sick or uncomfortable.” And yet to my great astonishment these people go on growing and eating a lot of Nyouti and scarcely a grain of maize.
Nothing is more dangerous than to cleave to that which we know to be evil. It hardens the heart and makes a man more brutish than the beasts of the forest. It is a quenching of the Holy Spirit.
Hold fast that which is good. Where is “that which is good” to be found? It is to be found in God’s Word. As it is written, “Every word of God is good.” Hold fast, then, to every word of God, not to portions of His Word, but to the entire Word of God from beginning to end. Do not be influenced by men, whether they be worldlings or missionaries, who would like you to let certain portions of God’s Word slip out of your minds and affections. One of our preachers who recently passed to his eternal rest used to pray like this, “Open our hearts to all the words of Thy Word.” There was a man who sought to hold fast that which is good!
Why is God’s Word so supremely good? Is it not because Christ is there from Genesis to Revelation? To make it simple for you, I would say, “Hold Christ fast and in Him you will find all the goodness that your soul needs for this world and the next, and much more.” If you are in search of that which is good, turn your eyes to the Lamb of God and in Him you will find the perfection of goodness. “For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell.” All the fulness of God’s abounding grace and mercy to sinners is wrapped up in Christ. The goodness of His saving compassion and the goodness of His eternal justice shine forth from the person and the redeeming work of Jesus, and if you are but willing, that goodness will be made your very own. “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”
Those who have tasted of God’s goodness in Christ dare not relax or grow careless. If the Holy Spirit has enabled us to lay hold by saving faith of the fulness that is in Christ Jesus, we have entered upon a warfare in which there is no rest. Our enemies are many and they are all trying by every means in their power to loosen our faith’s hold on the Saviour. For this reason we are earnestly exhorted to “hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering.” No power in earth or hell can loosen the Redeemer’s fast hold on His people, but that does not free them from the duty of holding fast to Him. It is natural to us to grow lax and to lose sight of the absolute necessity of cleaving close to Jesus. Few of us can say like the Psalmist, “I do not forget thy commandments.” But let us remember that it is only they who overcome, they who hold fast to the end, who “shall be clothed in white raiment.” “Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.”