10 - THE WHEEL OF TRUTH

A certain automobile manufacturer uses the slogan “When America needs a better idea, - puts it on wheels.” When the time came for the last-day threefold-message movement to arise and begin its advance into all the world, God gave the people of that movement a wheel of divine truth. This enabled them to go into all the world and proclaim the everlasting gospel for this end-time.

Picture and old-time wagon wheel. It had three main parts-the hub, the spokes, and the rim. Let us use this to represent God’s wheel of truth.

Christ is the Truth of truths. He is the embodiment of all saving, sanctifying, transforming truth. Therefore. He is the hub of the wheel of truth.

Grist is the canter of everything. He is “all, and in all” (Col. 2:3). His fullness “filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:23). All the treasures of knowledge and wisdom are hid in him (Col. 2:3). Thus, true religious teaching has Christ in the center, because He is the center of all true doctrine.

An off-center automobile wheel is sure to make trouble until it is corrected. And religious teaching not centered in Christ as the Creator and only Saviour deviates from God’s appointed way.

Christ’s sacrifice as an atonement for sin is the great truth around which all other truths revolve. To be rightly appreciated and understood, every truth in the Word of God, from Genesis to Revelation, must be studied in the light that streams from the cross.

If truth is not rightly appreciated and understood, how much will it accomplish? O how much religious teaching – flooding the world by way of books, does not have Jesus Christ and the cross as its center. We should focus entirely on what is Christ-centered and cross-centered. Unless we do, our teachings are as unacceptable to God as was the offering of Cain.

Next to Christ, Paul was the greatest teacher of truth. His teachings, whether in oral or written form, were cross-centered. He told the Corinthians, “I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). His watchword was “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14).

In the days of the Caesars there was in the city of Rome a golden milestone from which highways went out to the provinces of the empire. Regardless of which road a man followed toward Tome, the ultimate marker would be that golden milestone. Thus it was said, “All roads lead to Rome.” So, regardless of what doctrine we expound, it must be presented in a way that will bring men to the golden goal – “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).

What are the spokes in this wheel of divine truth that proceed from Christ, the hub? They are the truths He taught, either in person when He was here or through the Holy Scriptures, which were inspired by His Spirit.

The truths of Christ as revealed in the Holy Scriptures are inexhaustible. Since this revelation is progressive, it is impossible to identify all the spokes in God’s wheel of truth. But some of these truths that can be identified are:
Jesus, the divine Son of God, Creator, and only Saviour. His incarnation, sinless life, atoning death, bodily resurrection, ascension, and priestly mediation. His literal, personal, visible second advent.

Conversion, or the new birth coming by way of conviction, repentance, restitution, faith, forgiveness of sin, receiving a new heart, acceptance with God, sonship, and baptism. The work of the Holy Spirit. The Ten commandments as God’s eternal standard of righteousness. The Sabbath. Conditional immortality, Christian living in all its phases, such as prayer, the daily crucifixion of self, healthful living, consecration, imputed and imparted righteousness, growing up in Christ, sanctification, perfection of character, and conformity to the image of Jesus. Glorification and eternal life in God’s eternal kingdom.

Make no mistake about this: Unless a doctrine is according to the Scriptures, it cannot be a spoke in God’s wheel of truth, regardless of how many preach it or believe it or how long it has been taught.

What is the rim of our wheel of truth? We find an answer in Revelation 14:6. The first of the three angel messengers described in this chapter had “the everlasting gospel to preach… to every nation … and people.” In preceding chapters we have shown from the Bible that this good news is the final phase of the one true gospel of the ages. This threefold message includes all the timeless truths of the gospel that have come from preceding generations plus the special truths announced by the three angels. Thus, the threefold message is the rim of the wheel of truth in which every truth (spoke) from Christ (the hub) is securely fastened.

The rim of a wagon wheel binds all of the spokes into a unit for the movements of the wagon. So the threefold message, the rim, binds all the truths into a harmonious unit of belief and conductor for making ready a worldwide people for the second coming of Christ.

Since that threefold message is the final phase of the gospel of the ages, it is a full-truth message. Il includes all the truths needed at the present time – all lost or neglected truths are restored in this message.

One may preach a Christ-centered message today without necessarily proclaiming a full message-the threefold message. There are thousands of ministers in the various denominations who are preaching excellent Christ-centered, cross-centered sermons.

This is good. But they need to go further and accept the special truths of God’s threefold message. Then their Christ-centered, cross-centered sermons will be in the proper setting for these last days, even as John the Baptist and the apostles preached in the setting of God’s present truth for their times.

The situation of these ministers is somewhat like that of Apollos, as described in Acts 18:24-28. a man mighty in the Scriptures, he preached the truth only as John the Baptist proclaimed it, not knowing the present truth for the time as it was in Jesus. So two Christian believers, Aquila and Priscilla, “expounded unto him the way of the Lord more perfectly” (Acts 18:26). Then he was used of God to bring many into the present truth in Jesus.

When you used to buy a ticket for a long railroad journey, perhaps from coast to coast, you travelled on line operated by a number of railway companies. There was a coupon in your ticket for each of these respective lines. Upon each coupon would be the notation “Not good if detached.” So in religious reaching for today, there is a double notation: “Not good if detached from Christ”; “Not good if detached from His threefold message.”

The figures of the wheel of truth illustrates Christ’s threefold message as it is in Him for our day. And those who, today, would preach the gospel must teach “the truth that is in Jesus” (Eph. 4:21. T.E.V.) for today. There is a life-and-death difference between teachings in which people simply hear of Christ and rightly directed teachings by which he reader, and the hearer, is taught the full truth as it is in Him.

Look at Ephesians 4:20-32. Take note what the truth in Jesus does for the believer. It leads to a transformation of min- a radical change of attitude, of ambitions, impulses and interests. It causes a corrupt according to the putting on of “the new man, which after God in created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:24).

What are the results? The thief steals no more. The liar puts away his lying and specks the truth. The idles become diligent; they now have something to gives to one in need. Laying aside off-color stories and jokes, the impure speak that which is good and edifying. There is a putting away of bitterness, anger, clamor, evil speaking, and malice. All who experience the transformation become king, tender-hearted, and forgiving, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven them.

All this is the fruit of the preaching and receiving of the truth as it is in Jesus. It is this energizing by Christ that is needed to accomplish His purpose in the believer and in the world.

When truth is presented as it is in Jesus, every doctrine and practice comes in a Christ-attractive and Christ-compelling manner. The requirements for baptism come, not as a series of musts from a church, not merely as so many musts from the Bible, but leads to His heavenly home. As surely as we love Jesus, we gladly accept these respective truths and cling to them in preference to any other teaching.

What an incentive Christ’s wheel of truth is for becoming a Seventh-day Adventist, and remaining one to the end!

The truth as it is in Jesus, in a heart inhabited by the Holy Spirit, is the only safeguard against the masterful deceptions of Satan. He will work “with al power and sings and lying wonders” (2 Thess. 2:9). All except God’s remnant, who obey the truth, that they will think they are following the true Christ. So it is written: “all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him (the beast), whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).

God sent fire down from heaven in Elijah’s time to prove that He is the only God. In his final overmastering delusion, Satan will bring fire down from heaven to deceive nearly all into worshiping him (see Rev. 13:13, 14).

Thus it will be that only those who have fortified their minds with the truths of God’s Word will stand through the last great time of trouble.

“Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Rev. 3:10).

The Word of God tells us that Satan will work “with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:10-12).

Every soul will be confronted with the inescapable choice of either obeying God’s truth and being saved or believing the devil’s lie and being lost. O how this underlines the supreme need to follow God’s message, which is the only way to escape Satan’s masterful delusions.

What a treasure Jesus has given us in the truths we have been discussing. They are “like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath , and buyeth that field” (Matt. 13:44).

Greater than all earthly possessions are a knowledge of and an adherence to truth. Obedience to it not only brings the assurance of an endless life and everlasting happiness but is a prescription for getting the most out of this present life.

The psalmist expressed his conviction this way: “The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver” (Ps. 119:72). It is better to know and obey the truth than to be, without the truth, the possessor of the entire world (Matt. 16:26). Every soul today should heed this counsel: “Buy the truth, and sell it not” (Prov. 23:23).