Dimming The Pure Gold

 

This has been done in the first place, as we have seen, by doctrine. 

If the enemy can introduce any suggestion of false doctrine, if he can but insinuate the slightest degree of error, he will cause it to work like an evil leaven till a development of that kind has become the occasion for the Holy Spirit's drawing back, the Lord being unable to go on where that is, and a state of compromise, and paralysis, and weakness obtains.

The pure gold, the fine gold, has become dimmed. 

Not only along the line of doctrine has this been done, but along the line of life.

The same method, and the same object, governs the enemy's activities.

It is possible to stand very strongly upon what is absolutely orthodox as to doctrine, and to be in a very doubtful state in your own life, your own spiritual life, your own moral life; to be very faithful to the letter of the Word of God, and yet to be compromised in your own spiritual life and testimony.

This may be in business dealings, in other relationships, or in your own life before God; something not clear, something not pure, something not clean, something not straight, something doubtful, maybe a secret habit.

Oh, it may be one of a multitude of things which takes out of the life that certainty, that definiteness, that positiveness, that clearness, and creates, sometimes almost unconsciously in the one concerned, a fear of being confronted with something, of having to own up to being found out.

There is something in the background of the life which is causing an arrest.

It is taking the real drive out of testimony, the real impact out of life, and the real fruitfulness and value out of fellowship.

There is something there, though very often intangible. You cannot put your hand upon it, but you know there is something there in that life which is not right, which is not clear; and then there develops a secretiveness, an evasiveness, a detachment, or many other kinds of evil symptoms may develop.

It is all because there is something there which is not absolutely clear before God.

The enemy has got in an element which has destroyed the pure light, and there is a shadow, a film about that life. 

The enemy's purpose is to destroy that perfect crystal clearness of a life in God, and so paralyze the whole life. The outward form may still be the same, the profession may be just as ever it was, but there is a check.

This is said, not by way of accusation, but by way of indicating one of the favorite lines along which the enemy works to destroy what God has in view for His people, for Jerusalem; namely, that she should eventually come out of heaven having the glory of God, her light like unto a stone most precious, as a jasper stone, and that everything about her should be pure gold, as transparent glass, clear as crystal.

Oh, the spiritual value and weight of words and phrases like those!

All this is indisputable and patent. We have to recognize this, that the enemy is continuously seeking to get us into some place where, in spite of ourselves, we feel that we are under a cloud. 

Sometimes he sets up a false position, and makes us feel that we are false. We may not be false, but he seeks to make us feel that we are false, to get us into that realm where we have lost our confidence, our assurance, our certainty, our standing, our position, where we are weakened by some element which has crept in. 

The enemy is out to bring God's People under clouds, under suspicion, and to bring them in their own hearts under doubts and questions, so that the clearness, the certainty, the strength is destroyed and they are a big question to everyone, even to themselves. 

~T. Austin Sparks~