The Spirit of Truth -Art Katz

The Clash of Kingdoms

The clash of truth with untruth is not a verbal confrontation, not a cosmic debate to be won by the contestant who scores the most points in an argument. Rather, it is a clash of kingdoms, which are wholly opposed in ways of living, relating, conducting businesses, being wives and husbands, etc. True words alone cannot contend with the subtle and all-pervading spirit of untruth. In order to oppose the lies, Christians and the Church at large need to be true. The new humanity, the Church, needs to be as total an expression of truth as the old humanity is an expression of a lie. The Spirit of Truth is the distinctive of the believer, and of the Church of believers, as opposed to the world. It is, therefore, the distinctive of heaven as opposed to hell, of the new creation as opposed to the old, in the midst of which it has been placed. What sort of evangelism follows from such a picture of truth in the midst of lies? From the beginning it manifested itself in the cry, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" (Mt 3:2 NAS) and thousands were snatched out of the old and into the new creation. "Be saved from this perverse generation," (Ac 2:40 NAS) Peter urged, and that is just what men did! What was the power and authority that caused those words to penetrate and break the grip of the lies and deception and darkness into which they were spoken? When men cried out, "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!" those hearing repented because the kingdom was at hand. There was a living declaration of it already present, a new Israel in which there was no guile. How much power is there going to be in my declaration, if in my life there remains guile and pretense and all the same manifestations of the spirit of the lie that captivates the world?" Save yourselves from this perverse, twisted generation." Come out from a whole life, a whole humanity, a whole world that is being suffocated and devoured by unreality and lies. Come out of death and into life; out of lies and into clarity and truth; out of extortion and greed and into unfeigned love. This is the good news that the Church is commissioned to proclaim, but it is seldom sounded today, and when it is, it is most often lacking in penetrating power. Our evangelism is the projection of our Christian experience. When salvation has actually been a translation out of one creation into another, out of a kingdom of darkness into one of light, we can sense the difference. When salvation is being daily experienced as something far less than that, we can sense that also regardless of the words that are employed. If our evangelism has become shallow, then it is only because our Christianity has become shallow. If our evangelism has become mechanical and predictable, then more than likely so have our lives as believers. If our proclamation of the good news is merely verbal and formalized, then that is a sure sign that truth has become mere words and formulas in our daily walk. I cannot draw someone to a place I am not in myself. We can always speak the proclamation; to do so requires only that we remember the correct words. However, in order to move men, we need also to be the proclamation, and that requires a life immersed in the Spirit of Truth. Jesus knew very well that right words alone were not enough. His followers already had all the right words when He commanded them to wait in Jerusalem for the power to turn those words into life:

You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. (Ac 1:8 NAS).

What is the power to be a witness of Him? The Spirit came and gave the words to speak and the boldness to speak them and the miracles to confirm them, but being a witness entails more than being able to testify. We continually lapse into the mistaken notion that being a witness is something that we do, apart from something we are. This mistaken notion of ours follows from another more fundamental error, which is our belief that the Holy Spirit was sent to the Church on Pentecost as power, apart from His essential nature the Spirit of Truth. While the Spirit did fall as power, He also came as the Spirit of Christ Himself, the very Spirit of Truth by which alone we can be a living demonstration, a witness of the truth. The power that the newborn Church was commanded to wait for was, and still is, the Spirit of Truth.

Being Right vs. Being Real

The world is suffering from its calculated indifference to truth. How are we going to bring it healing if we are indifferent to truth ourselves? As Christians, we can be very exacting about sin, as we ought to be, but we go on as if we did not consider pretense and guile to be sin as well. There has been too much pretending in Christendom, too much withholding of ourselves, too much putting on a brave face and whistling in the dark. We have for too long gone on saying the customary words while our hearts were out of tune with our professions. We have succeeded at being "right" but have failed at being real.

God has been very merciful and patient with us. He has a great compassion for our fears and weaknesses, but He has given us a power to be real, and He has the right to expect us to live by it. He has waited long for us, but we should not expect Him to wait forever. It is going to take a painful, fearful adjustment for many of us to begin to walk in truth, but what is the alternative? Our health requires it, our sanity demands it, and our very lives depend upon it, for a life that is not true is not life.

There has been too much pretending in Christendom, too much withholding of ourselves, too much putting on a brave face and whistling in the dark. We have for too long gone on saying the customary words while our hearts were out of tune with our professions. We have succeeded at being "right" but have failed at being real.

I think one of the things that characterizes the body of believers here at SI is our totally frustration and utter unwillingness to continue in such a pretense. I know that in my time here the cry of my heart has become for the reality of Christianity to become the experience of my life. As this desire has increased and thoroughly overtaken me I find myself feeling very out of place among other believers who seem to be content with showy, superficial and artificial “Christianity”. And my heart is saddened when on Sunday morning a brother or sister will ask how I am when my experience has taught me that there is really no desire in them to hear the truth of the issues I am facing in my walk of faith. I have been guilty of this many times as well. And thus the “withholding of ourselves” continues as we are unwilling to open our hearts to those who have no real concern for what is within. True community and fellowship cannot be fostered in such an environment, and thus our gathering together becomes only a weekly event that we participate in with no real involvement in each other’s lives. We have lost something precious and we don’t even realize it.

Danielle

I have only recently begun to make any comments here at SI, having been emboldended by the spirit of sincerety and hunger and thirst for revival that was evident among those who were at the Conference in Ohio. And I have also only recently discovered the messages of Art Katz. I do appreciate his candor. There are things that he has said that take some processing, but his take on the church here in this country certainly coincides with my experience. Thanks for putting this thread online and your comments.

Clint

Paul told Timothy that the church is to be the ground and pillar of the truth. Many today only interpret that as a ground and pillar of sound doctrine, but I believer it goes even further to mean a ground and pillar of reality and authenticity.

Thank you for posting this book. This book has been a blessing for me. I use it as devotional reading: what a blessing! Over the weekend I've shared some with a friend.

This book is found online for those that would like to read it:
http://www.benisrael.org/writings/online_books/spirit_of_truth/sot_contents.html

I will post an excerpt that had an impact on me:

The Subtleties of Deceit

There is an unspoken covenant between the deceiver and the deceived that allows the pretense to go on. There is no preacher who allows himself to become a performer without a congregation willing to become an audience. There is a self-serving end for both. The flatterer and the flattered, the seducer and the seduced, have both ceased to love truth for the same self-gratifying reasons. Our spirits should wince every time an assembly of God's people are referred to as an "audience". In truth, that is precisely all too often what it is: an audience, enjoying—as well as prompting—the performance of the man on the stage. He who preaches plays his part well and receives his reward from those who came to see and hear him. He knows how to stir the emotions. His voice rises and falls evocatively as he prays; his bearing and manner fulfill our image of what we expect and desire a preacher to be. The words are correct, even stirring, but the spirit of the speaker is saying, "It's all right; I don't really expect you to be changed by this. I'm just doing my part in an unspoken agreement, and you are doing yours, but we know that it is really all just a show."

We have become the willing accomplices in each other's lies. No one is willing to call the other's bluff for fear of having his own bluff called. Truth has become just as relative and captive to our own needs and wants as it is for unbelievers. And as long as truth is suppressed in us, we will be kept from being Nathaniels to a world beguiled and bewitched by the subtleties of deceit. We have been accomplices in each other's illusions. We need, and are called to be, accomplices in each other's sanctification. We need one another desperately. There is no one without a blind spot. We are all apt to be hypocrites. If we cannot and will not confront one another in love, then we will go on being the prisoners of our own illusions. We are afraid to hurt and to offend, so we remain silent and call our silence love. What we desperately need, and what true love instills, is a greater sense of horror at the sight of lies eating away the souls of those around us. Love constrains us to speak, not to remain silent; for if zeal for God's house and the purity of His word does not consume us, then the spirit of the lie will.