Ellet J. Waggoner
The Present Truth : May 24, 1894, p. 323
“SEEK, and ye shall find,” said Jesus. The person who wants to know the truth, and seeks to know it, will find it. The way to look for it is to search for it as the man in the parable searched for the treasure that was hid in the field. He really wanted to find it, and was willing to give up all that he possessed for it.
The attitude of the one who is inquiring about truth makes all the difference between getting it and losing it. “If any man wills do His will, he shall know the doctrine” (John 7:17). If a man does not want to do the will of God, he can easily deceive himself by shutting his eyes to the light. He who sets his heart to learn the will of God in any matter, at whatever cost to self, will get the light.
The complaint is sometimes made that there are so many conflicting theories that one does not know what to believe. We have no business to believe anything but the word of God. Anyone who wants to know God’s will - will find it in God’s word. Multitudes of souls are being deceived, for the time has come when the devil has come down, “having great wrath, because he knows that he hath but a short time” (Rev. 12:12). His deceptions are so subtle, that if possible he would deceive the very elect.
The only safe attitude is to be truly seeking to know the Lord’s will. When the Lord speaks, the genuine seeker knows that what He says is truth, because His name is Faithful and True. The seeking will be to learn what He says, not to find out if He means what He says. Just here is the danger. One, who is seeking to be convinced that the Lord does not mean just what He says, is very sure to be successful, at the peril of his soul.
When men are convinced of a truth, and are looking for some way to avoid yielding obedience to it, they have a powerful ally at hand to help them. We are told that as the enemy nears the time when his work will be cut short by the coming of the Lord, he will work “with all unrighteous deception among those who perish; because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10).
It is the love of the truth, for truth’s sake, that we must have. Then it will make no difference whether it is popular and pleasant to the natural heart or not. We shall search for it and find it and obey it; for Jesus Christ is the Truth and the Life. Receiving the love of the truth is receiving the love of Christ. Rejecting a truth, or seeking for some way to evade it, is rejecting the Lord, its Author, because of the cross. Those who love the Lord, glory in the cross. “They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces toward it” (Jer. 50:5). They shall know the way of the Lord, and delight in it.
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