JOHN xviii. 38. “What is truth!”
THIS question of Pilate is in the air to-day. It is repeated
on every side and in every department of intellectual
pursuit. What is the spirit in which it must be asked to
obtain a reply?
I. It must not be asked in Pilate’s spirit, in scepticism
and sceptical indifference. Such a spirit is wanting in the
very first element to secure success.
II. He who would receive an answer to this question
must ask it in the spirit of an earnest seeker and votary of
truth. He must not only wish to have truth on his side,
but to be on the side of truth.
III. He who would receive an answer to this question
must ask it in a spirit of willingness to follow it, to obey
its voice, to submit to its guidance. Men, it is to be feared,
are too often afraid to know the truth, lest it prove a hard
master. The surest way to keep men in unbelief is to keep
them evil in their lives. Then unbelief becomes their
interest, for the truth would rob them of their cherished
sins.
IV. The decay of faith in Christianity has another
cause in our day. It is the utter neglect of the words of
Christ. It is an age of marked indifference to the study of
Scripture among the masses. Everything, alas! takes the
place of this. The romance, the magazine, the newspaper,
are the only intellectual food of millions, and much of that
a poisoned diet. The words of Jesus are in the air amid
the confusion of tongues. Yet he who searches them will
find their divinity. Unto him truth will appear, not in a
philosophy, nor in a dogmatic system, but in the Person
Jesus, Son of God and Son of man.
Bishop Cummins