Behold, Thou dost desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part Thou wilt make me know wisdom. Psalm 51:6. The fifty-first Psalm is a psalm of repentance, but it also shows that God has a desire for people to worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23). You must have a deep integrity, a truthfulness, an honesty of heart if you want to please the Lord. God desires truth in the inward parts. Down in the hidden part He will make you to know wisdom.
Newcomers to this walk inevitable go through a time of deep testing and shaking. It is under fire that they get into this walk. I am very much encouraged by the new ones who prophesy the word of the Lord and enter in, but I wait for the time they are really set in the body and welded in by fire, and have come through the deep testing as veterans. What God is doing in this hour is different from anything you have known in “churchianity” as a whole. No more do you lightly adhere to a cause—you go through it in a baptism of fire. You are set into the body as it pleaseth Him, by the deep dealings of the Lord upon your heart and upon your life.
God wants truth in the inward parts. If there is any area of self-deception in us God will certainly make us discover it. If something within us has become conditioned until the least bit of deceitfulness creeps in, a self-deception comes upon us and we will be open to the great deception Satan would bring. Galatians 6:7 warns us, “Be not deceived.” Satan cannot deceive a man on the truth of God. He cannot deceive a man if that man refuses to deceive himself.
A number of prophecies in the Word speak about this problem of deception in the end time. Everyone is tested on this sooner or later. In II Timothy we find a prophecy of the apostle Paul directed toward the end time. But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (Paul definitely saw our day); holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; and avoid such men as these. II Timothy 3:1–5.
Verse 7 says they are always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. We are living in an age of greater educational opportunities, and yet more idiots are being educated beyond their intelligence than ever before. Isn’t that about the truth? Paul continues in verse 13: But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. It is a mutual deception. Because they are deceivers themselves and dishonest at heart, they are also open to deception. It is very difficult to con an honest man. If you want to con someone, find a crook. You can swindle him quicker than you can an honest man. That is the way it will work in the end time.
These Scriptures are leading us to understand one thing: Down deep in our hearts we must have an honesty and a sense of integrity. Once the human mind has sinned, a certain quality about it makes it easy to sin again. The conscience does not become more painful as an individual goes on in his guilt; rather he becomes more concerned about rationalizing his action, justifying it, and finding excuses for it. We must keep a sensitive conscience before God, not one like Paul predicts for the last days, when men’s consciences will be seared with a hot iron (I Timothy 4:2). In other words, seared to the point that there is no sensitivity left, only the scar tissue of former experiences they have tended to disregard. That scar tissue on the conscience builds up until they are no longer sensitive to what is right or wrong.
Someone has said, “Let your conscience be your guide.” It cannot be your guide! If you were in Brooklyn around the street gangs of teenagers, you would find they have a conscience against cops. Even if they become law-abiding citizens, they grow up with a conscience against the police. They won’t be a fink and squeal on anyone. Even if they see a crime they won’t report it. Their consciences have been geared that way, even though they know the act is wrong.
Let’s go on a little further in the Scriptures and see what God is trying to show us about the human heart. The prophet Jeremiah said, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9. It is desperately wicked and deceitful. It is very important in this walk that you do not deceive yourself, or lay yourself open to self-deceit. At the beginning of the walk I faced the fact that many of those who had a superior knowledge of the Scriptures would not walk in this, whereas many who did not know much about the Scriptures would walk in it. That’s not a good sign. When people hold the truth in unrighteousness, having a great knowledge of the Scriptures but refusing to walk in it, even what they do know causes their mind to become reprobate. The Pharisees and scribes knew more about the Scriptures than Peter, James, John, Andrew, Bartholomew, or any of the other disciples, yet they were the ones who plotted behind closed doors to crucify Jesus.
Keep your heart sensitive to the truth. It is easy for religious people to feel they must build an image of being religious; so they stand before others with that veneer of everything being right. How much better is the perfect combination God is bringing in this generation; first of all, the frankness and honesty of the younger generation. They are much more honest and less hypocritical about a lot of things than their fathers and mothers were. Their parents criticize them, but they themselves did most of the things this younger generation is doing; they just covered it over a little better. They didn’t let everything out in the open. Add to that characteristic of the young people this amazing walk in which God requires an honesty and an openness of heart, and you have something fantastic. If you sin, come out and admit it. You may say, “What will people think about me?” That is not as important as what you think about yourself. Other people will have to forgive you and forget the sin, but you have to condition yourself to walk with God or not walk with God, according to the honesty and the openness of your heart before the Lord. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:9. If we walk in the light we have this fellowship one with another and the blood cleanses us from all sin (I John 1:7). It is an openness of heart that we must have. I once heard a preacher say that the most deadly sins were pride and selfishness. I don’t know if that is true, but I do know there is something about pride that leads you to cover over. Then God cannot get to the problem because you refuse to let it come out and be exposed.
It is very important that this walk does not become a religious movement in which we try to impress people as being superior to them religiously or spiritually or any other way. If the people in this walk should be known for one thing, let them be known as the most sincere repenters anyone has ever seen. Let us not boast of superior gifts or ministries, but let us have a diligence to see that we are very deep repenters and have an honesty of heart before the Lord.
God desires truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part He will make us to know wisdom—down deep below the conscious thought, in the subconscious level. You may be trying to excuse or justify the things in your life that God would condemn. Be sure that you are not covering them over.
We must have almost a vicious determination that we are going to walk with our hearts open toward God. It is for this purpose that the ministries are given. The fourth chapter of Ephesians talks about the giving of apostles and prophets and other ministries. Again we are impressed with the purpose and function of their coming forth. For the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming. Ephesians 4:12–14.
What is the purpose of all the ministries being restored? So that we will not be children who will be deceived. False prophets will arise in the end time and show such great signs and wonders that if it were possible they would deceive even the very elect (Matthew 24:24). We cannot afford that. We cannot afford to be self-deceived, deceived by Satan, or by anything else.
We are going to walk through the most precarious days. Mankind has already learned how to brainwash and condition people’s thinking. Things that man’s conscious mind doesn’t even register can be flashed on a screen or television. The subconscious mind can record them, though the conscious mind cannot. We have reached the day of the conditioning of people’s thinking and their emotions and their attitudes. We live in the day of the big snow job, and I don’t want to be a part of it!
The Scriptures say that Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, has fallen, and he goes about knowing that his time is short. He’s raging, trying to bring an end and a destruction to the human race. O God, help us. If it were possible—if it were possible—he would deceive the very elect, Jesus said. That deception will not always come from a Satanist church. Even Satan’s ministers are transformed into ministers of righteousness. Satan himself comes forth as an angel of light (II Corinthians 11:14–15). Religious people who are basically dishonest in their heart will become deceived and go along their way. Jesus said that the time will come when they will kill you, thinking they are doing God’s will. We cannot be a partaker of this; we must walk before God with an honesty of heart. We must love the truth, even if it hurts. Sometimes it hurts deeply, and it becomes very expensive. It means we lay things right out before God and before man to our own hurt, so that the ultimate good of that integrity before God—to be a man after God’s own heart—is attained.
What do we do to keep from being deceived? Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ. Ephesians 4:15. It is by speaking truth in love. I have seen people use factual truth to destroy another person. It cannot be so with us. Our love of the truth must be an expression of the truth in love. The early church faced this after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. On a human level we tend to feel that the events related in the fifth chapter of Acts were just a little too severe, too harsh. A man and his wife selling their property, lying about it, and dropping dead—isn’t that carrying things a little too far? If we had a return of that, we would soon have empty churches. And if God would bring that to the whole earth, no one would have to worry about the population explosion for another thousand years!
In this day of deceit, of lying wonders and lying spirits, how are we going to know the truth? How are we going to walk in it? The early church had the same problem. The Spirit of the Lord had moved from the day of Pentecost on, with thousands being added to the church. At present we are in a growth pattern, not as rapid, not as great, but it promises to be just as great. With all the people coming into the church now, what we need is either a good Ananias and Sapphira incident or else we need to learn the lesson this incident teaches us. Why? Because people can join a going thing and adhere to it rather lightheartedly without the basic integrity and honesty of heart to face it, as they go along down the road, only to find that they are very much in trouble. This is a remnant that God has searched out and He has tried. When men are set aside for the office of elder or deacon they go through trouble; they go through the fire.
Some individuals may have survived in a day of anarchy, wandering though their wilderness, but when they come into the divine order of the kingdom they have to leave the other order behind. Every other order they have walked in becomes disorder when they come into God’s order. This is when people can become deceived. Sometimes the only way a young person can survive as a Christian is by continually rebelling against the authority of the home, especially when his parents will not permit him to go to church. When he is loosed from that situation, the arrogance and independence has to leave also. The independent action that made him survive in his home will destroy him as he walks on with the Lord. Now he will survive by submission. If he reverts to become a law unto himself he will perish spiritually.
It takes a lot of honesty of heart to face the fact that you might be rebellious in your heart. You make excuses for yourself time and time again, but you had better face the little seeds of rebellion that are there. You cannot be submissive only to the words that sound good. You cannot say, “I’m not going to be submissive to that word because I can’t really see it; I can’t believe that.” That’s not submission. “Be not deceived”—how many times the Word brings that out! One of the greatest ways in the world to be self-deceived and end up in some church of antichrist is to be a hearer of the Word and not a doer of it. You don’t dare to get the truth in the Word without making every effort to walk in it!
Some of our young folks coming into the church still have a problem with one habit or another. Sometimes some of the older ones who come in also find it hard to drop off the old life and the old flesh. What should they do? In the name of heaven, don’t conceal it! Visitors sometimes comment, “If your pastor were a man of God, you wouldn’t see any young folks standing in front of the church smoking cigarettes.” No? Where should they be? back in the restroom? some place around the corner? I’ve told the young folks again and again, “Don’t excuse or condone what you do, but while you are looking to God for a victory, come out and say, ‘This is wrong. God help me.’ Let it be in plain sight with no hypocrisy, for it will be far worse if you create a deception in your own heart.” We are believing in holiness, yet sometimes it may look as if we are very unholy. The only way to achieve that holiness is by an honesty of heart. All the faults begin with deception that covers over with hypocrisy, the thing that God hates and abhors. O God, teach us to be honest in our hearts.
But a certain man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and kept back some of the price for himself, with his wife’s full knowledge, and bringing a portion of it, he laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back some of the price of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God. Acts 5:1–4.
There was something deceitful in his heart. Ananias knew what he was to do, but he didn’t have to do it. He could have come right out and said, “I’ll only give you part of it,” and God would have honored him. The amount of money wasn’t the reason he died. He died because of the lie. He told God he was going to give it all. He could even have reneged on it afterwards and said he didn’t want to give it all, and thereby he could have gotten by in a measure. The money was in his own hand and under his control.
And as he heard these words, Ananias fell down and breathed his last; and great fear came upon all who heard of it. And the young men arose and covered him up, and after carrying him out, they buried him. Now there elapsed an interval of about three hours, and his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter responded to her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for such and such a price?” And she said, “Yes, that was the price.”
Then Peter said to her, “Why is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they shall carry you out as well. And she fell immediately at his feet, and breathed her last; and the young men came in and found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.
And great fear came upon the whole church, and upon all who heard of these things. And at the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people; and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s portico. But none of the rest dared to associate with them; however, the people held them in high esteem. Acts 5:5–13.
Don’t be glib in making a quick little confession or a dedication that you don’t intend to walk in. Do one thing: Honestly look to God to lead you and guide you in every word that He gives you, and endeavor to walk in it, but don’t draw back from it. Romans talks about those who hold the truth in unrighteousness, of those who do not want to retain the knowledge of God in their hearts. I want to hear the truth and I want to walk in it. I want to be honest in my heart before the Lord.
Something within us just has to respond to this word. These days of deception are so great that we cannot be a part of them in any way. I have watched people come into the church who were highly criticized, but I have refused to let them be criticized. It doesn’t matter what they have wrong with them, as long as they are in motion and repentant, and when they are reproved, they open their heart to God. But it still becomes dangerous when people have created an image of themselves, and then suddenly have too much spiritual pride to humble themselves before God to confess a sin or to get down and ask the Lord for mercy.
No one will ever be rejected for a weakness, but we can deceive ourselves out of the walk and lose it all. Let this walk that God has set before us be characterized by the depth, the sincerity, and the instant quality of our repentance.