TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles - Date: Feb. 9, 2026 - Lesson 26-2026. Title: The Crushing Wheel & The Candle of the Lord

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

Proverbs 20:26–27 reveals how God deals with both leadership and the human heart. A wise king separates the wicked and brings judgment with discernment, even employing the crushing wheel to expose and restrain evil—an image of decisive and sobering justice. At the same time, the spirit of man is described as the lamp of the Lord, searched and examined by God down to the deepest places within. In today’s Morning Manna, Rick Wiles and Doc Burkhart explore how righteous authority mirrors divine wisdom, how God brings hidden evil into the open, and how the Lord searches motives, intentions, and thoughts, calling every believer to live transparently before Him. Lesson 26-2026 Teachers: Rick Wiles and Doc Burkhart You can partner with us by visiting MannaNation.com, calling 1-888-519-4935, or by mail at PO Box 399 Vero Beach, FL 32961. MEGA FIRE reveals the ancient recurring cycles of war and economic collapse that have shaped history for 600 years. These patterns predict America is now entering its most dangerous period since World War II. Get your copy today! www.megafire.world Get high-quality emergency preparedness food today from American Reserves! www.AmericanReserves.com It’s the Final Day! The day Jesus Christ bursts into our dimension of time, space, and matter. Now available in eBook and audio formats! Order Final Day from Amazon today! www.Amazon.com/Final-Day Apple users, you can download the audio version on Apple Books! www.books.apple.com/final-day Purchase the 4-part DVD set or start streaming Sacrificing Liberty today. www.Sacrificingliberty.com

Welcome to morning, man, Welcome to morning nurture nourishment. Your teachers, Rick Wiles and Dr. Burckhardt, get your body before. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to morning, Manna. This is where souls are nourished. My name is Rick Wiles.

My co-partner in teaching the Word of God is Dr. Raymond Burckhard. And wherever you are in the world, we are just delighted that you're here. We are now on Faith TV. That started on February 2nd. And so we're on DirecTV in the USA. We're on Sky TV in Great Britain and Europe and DSTV and Africa. And we want to welcome the Faith TV audience to us. By the way, if you're watching on Faith TV, to get the rest of the lesson,

you'll need to go to our internet home, which is mananasation.com. manna nation.com and look for the lesson. The lesson number today is 26-20206. That's an easy one to remember. 26-26-26-226. We are in the book of Proverbs. Let's pray, invite the Holy Spirit. We can't do anything without the Holy Spirit.

Let's invite the Holy Spirit. He's here anyhow. But let's just tell him he's welcome. He's desired. He's native. Father God. Father in heaven. we pray to you in the name of our King Jesus Christ,

and we humbly request the presence of your Holy Spirit to preside over this Bible study and bring forth truth and revelation from your word that we would be greater witnesses for your son in this world. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. And we are so privileged to have you join us today for this Bible study, and we continue our journey in the book of Proverbs, as Rick mentioned, this is lesson 26-2026, and we didn't plan it this way, but we start off with Proverbs 20, verse 26 today.

And so we got a lot of 26s going on today. We are looking at Proverbs 20 versus 26 and 27 today. Read along with me, if you would. I'm reading from the King James this morning, A wise king scattered the wicked and bringeth the wheel over them. It's going to be a good verse to study today. And then verse 27, the Spirit of Man is the candle of the Lord,

searching all the inward parts of the belly. Two great verses here and probably verses that need some clarification. And, you know, just to kind of sort the teaching out on it a little bit, right, Rick? That's right. This was actually meant to be yesterday's lesson, but we spent the entire lesson one hour on one verse.

And so we moved the rest of the other two verses over to today. We'll start with the first verse, A wise king scattereth the wicked and bringeth the will over them. We always break the verses into parts. So the first segment is, A wise king scatterth the wicked. The Septuagin translation says, a wise king winnows the ungodly.

It means the same thing. So to understand this verse, one must grasp the ancient harvesting practices. The word scatterth, the Hebrew word, is a term for what we call winnowing. After the harvest, now see, Doc and I, we grew up in

farming areas. We know what winnowing is. Right. But if you live in a city, you probably have no idea what is winnowing. When's the last time you went winnowing? Probably never. But the way it was done, and it's still done in some primitive parts of the world. After the harvest, the farmer throws the grain and the chaff mixture into the air. And the heavy grain falls to the floor, but the wind,

scatters. It blows away the chaff, which is useless. So they're throwing the grain up in the air, the wind carries away the chaff. That's winnowing. So Solomon said, the wise ruler views his kingdom as a threshing floor. That's where you do, you're winnowing. Okay. The righteous citizens in the kingdom are the wheat. the wicked or the chaff. And his job is not to let them mix comfortably but to actively separate them.

This terminology is the same thing that Jesus used in a new covenant where he said he would come on Judgment Day and he would separate the wheat from the chaff. And say his fan is in his hand. That's what John. That's what John the Baptist said.

His fan was. Talk about the fan. That was what you used to winnow the wheat. So it was like through the wheat, the chaff up in the air, and the wheat, of course, fell down, and then the chaff flew over here in another pile. That's how it was separating. This proverb is about crime and corruption in a government,

in a nation, not just a government, in a nation, crime and corruption. So a kingdom, a nation, cannot prosper, and it cannot survive if criminals who are the chaff are allowed to bury the honest men and women in the kingdom, who are the wheat. So the wise king uses the win to scatter them. What does the win represent?

It represents the rule of law, the justice, the court system, enforcement. In this proverb, the win represents law enforcement in the court system, judges and prosecutors. And what are they supposed to do? Their assignment in a society is to blow away the corrupt elements that are stifling the growth and the peace of the good citizens.

A government is supposed to take care of its good. citizens and law and order is necessary. And so Solomon is teaching us in this one proverb about law enforcement, courts, justice. Did you ever see that? Did you ever know that this proverb is about law and order? That's what it's about. Remember, Solomon as the king was also the chief judge. he would have been like the you know this the chief justice of the Supreme Court right carrying out justice was one of his primary responsibilities enforcing the laws of his kingdom was a primary responsibility winnowing requires action there's no such thing as passive winnowing you can't sit in a recliner in winnow I mean it's just a

work. You've got to be up and you've got to be moving. The king cannot stay in his palace. He can't just sit on his throne and execute justice. He must be on the threshing floor. That's the court, the court of judgment. And he must be actively sifting the evidence and distinguishing between right and wrong. Now, I don't mean to become political. But I'm going to try to bring this into focus in modern events and current events here in the USA. Here in America, previous U.S. administrations allow tens of millions of migrants to illegally enter the U.S. and stay here. Most of them were very good people. That's the fact.

Most of them are good people who just are seeking a better life. Now, they came in illegally and that's another matter. But most of them are good. However, there is a portion of them. That's not good. They're violent. They rob. They rape.

They steal. They do all kinds of, they molest children. There is an element of those illegal immigrants who are very corrupt and evil. And so the current president launched a national campaign to drive the criminals out of America. What Donald Trump is doing is winnowing. He's scattering the wicked.

He's making them run and several million have gone home. So, Doc, this is an example of a political leader saying, I am going to winnowing. out the chaff. I want to get rid of the criminals because they're harming the good people in my country. All right. All right. I'll let you take it from there. I'll let you talk about the wise king. Well, and I want to start off with that because Solomon does start this off by calling this the wise king. And so we're talking about the ideal ruler. There are very few ideal rulers in history or in the world.

I can't think of a single ideal ruler offhand. But King Solomon is pointing to that, the ultimate one being Jesus Christ, but it's one marked by wisdom. Every leader has the opportunity to gain wisdom, wisdom, discernment, justice, and what's essential is the fear of the Lord, not just mere intelligence and power.

And Solomon here is saying that a wise, King is not defined by his charisma or his military success by, but rather by his ability to discern, restrain and dismantle evil within his air of influence, within his community or nation. In that verse there he talks about scattering the wicked and you talked about that, that winnowing that's taking place. What's happening when you willow? Everything is being scattered. It's dispersed, it's driven away. There's a separation that's taking place, a separation between good and evil. And the wise king does not tolerate or compromise with wickedness in Israel.

So the idea here is that scattering is an active governance. The king, the wise king, identifies, confronts, and removes evil and protects the innocent and upholds righteousness. And so this whole phrase here is teaching that true leadership isn't passive. It's not tolerant of sin. It just doesn't kind of just go by the wayside. Wisdom demands decisive action against evil. A leader who tolerates or protects the wicked wreck is unwise and brings ruin to his people. And it's interesting that this verse talks about a farmer winnowing grave.

The wise king blows away the check. like the wicked with the wind of justice. Now, what's the message for us today? Well, disciples are warned that those in any authority, that could be parents, pastors, employers, government leaders, their function, their job is to scatter evil influences, not to harbor them. Okay, that's one of their tasks. Now, this scattering is not meant to be cruel, but rather meant to be merciful.

It protects the righteous and gives opportunity for the wicked to repent. And only those who would be in opposition or who would be in favor of wickedness would be angry at the king for doing that, right? So ultimately, a wise king scatters the wicked point. to Christ. And he's the king who will separate ultimately at the end of time, the wheat from the tears, the sheep from the goats, and he'll do it with perfect justice. Amen.

It's pointing to Christ. A wise king is a ruler who fears God. Loves justice, governs by truth, not by his personal whim or favoritism. A throne is established by righteousness. Tolerating, favoring, or promoting the wicked undermines authority, and it will invite God's displeasure for that nation. Wickedness gains power through unity and reinforcement, not through isolation. So the wise king understands that evil rarely operates alone.

it organizes, it persuades, it embeds itself. I mean, you have, what do we call them, doc, crime syndicates. That's the term in law enforcement, a crime syndicate. What is a syndicate? It's a network of criminals. Right. So a wise king knows that criminals organize. So what does he have to do?

He has to scatter them. He has to break them up. He breaks him up and he scatters him. So scattereth the wicked pictures separating and dispersing the evildoers, the criminals, breaking up their power, breaking up their alliances, busting up their influence so that they cannot work together to harm the good people in the society. In winnowing grain, the chaff is thrown up and blown away. but the good remains.

The good grain remains. So the wise ruler distinguishes between the wicked and the righteous. He desires that the righteous stay and the wicked are blown away. And again, we see this, and there's an uproar in America right now because the president is chasing away criminals. It's the strangest thing I've ever seen, Doc, that people are, upset that the president is chasing away criminals. And again, I don't want to become political about it, but you have people who are defending the criminals. Right. And condemning the leader

who's trying to chase them away. See, when you look at this from a biblical viewpoint, it makes sense what's happening right now in the USA. We're trying to chase off the violent illegal immigrants. So what this implies is an active discerning judgment. A wise king does not ignore evil, nor does he allow it to cluster near the throne, but he identifies it and he removes it. Now we're talking about political crime. Right. Sinister forces, conspirators that would seek to undermine a,

leader. And so a wise leader's got to be looking around and see, who is close to me that I can't trust? Wow. Who is undermining my administration? And the king removes the wicket from the proximity to power. He removes the wicked from his counsel, from his advisors. He delegitimizes them. And I'm not going to say that I'm speaking under the

under a prophetic function from the Holy Spirit. I'm not going to say that at all. But I do believe, Doc, in the coming year, I believe the people in America will be shocked at revelation of corruption and that there will be an exposure and a house cleaning, and it will make people gasp

because I think people are going to be outed that nobody suspected as being conspirators against the president. But I just sense that's coming this year. Again, that's not a prophetic utterance. I'm just something that I kind of sense in my spirit as I'm watching affairs in the country. So the scattering is preventive justice.

It's not reactionary punishment. It's preventive justice. We're going to bust up their power. We're going to break them up. We're going to make them run. Get out of town. That's justice. That's preventive justice.

We'll make it hard for them. Make it difficult for them to be crooks and criminals. Right. Okay? Now, spiritually, this points to our Savior Jesus Christ, because he is the perfect wise king. And what will he do when he returns? He will separate the righteous from the wicked, the wheat from the chef, the bad fish from the good fish. There's separation throughout the gospel.

This concept of separation is to rally. the gospel, Christ will separate. He will divide between the sheep and the goats. And so he's the perfect wise king, talk. Now, let's go to the second part of this first, and bring the wheel over them. What is he talking? What wheel, Rick? What are we talking about here? I mean, some people might say, he's going to drive a car over them, okay? Actually, it's worse than that. Bring the wheel over them. Solomon is talking about the threshing wheel, or it's called the cart wheel.

It was a heavy roller that's used to crush grain to separate it from chaff. Doc, where I grew up, the Potomac River was nearby and the C&O Canal, which was one of my favorite places. I just, I can't tell you how much time I spent on C&O Canal as a boy and a teenager and young adult. But along the canal, there were old gristmills. Right.

And the remains of them are still there, Doc. And you can see the grinding wheel. Okay, and they use the water from the river to turn the wheels. And they're still there, these massive big stones. Right. Okay. So the threshing cart or sledge or wheel, whatever term you want to use on it. Well, that's the cart.

I'm talking about the wheel, the cart was a heavy wooden plastic. with the wheels or the sharp stones. They were either iron wheels or stones, and they were drawn by oxen over the grain to break the hard shells of the grain and release the kernel. Right. Now this is threshing.

So threshing is a repetitive process. The wheel goes over the grain again and again until the julys. job is done. If your grain and that wheel goes over top of you think this can't get any worse, well, it does. It just goes over and over until that grain has been cracked and the kernel is released. It symbolizes a thorough, unrelenting crushing of evil in a country.

The wise king does not punish once and walk away. He maintains the pressure until the evil is completely crushed. If you do not walk out, if you do not destroy evil, it will reconstitute and come back. Right. It will somehow regatter itself. You have to take it out. So to bring the wheel over them conveys the concept of decisive, severe punishment. crushing the power of a wicked, making their works come to nothing,

shattering their influence to do wrong things. Doc, I think about decades ago when, and I'm talking a long time ago, when the FBI would raid mafia gangs, mafia families, they'd hit them hard again and again and again. Why? To break them up. Right. To correct them, to wipe them out.

To scatter them. To scatter them. So it's decisive judgment that a wise king applies. He uses the full weight of justice to crush evil for what purpose? To protect the righteous. Right? And lately, I mean, we've seen where governments have been crushing the righteous to protect the evil.

Yes. Completely upside down. Well, you know, if I could jump in here, Rick, I think that this phrase teaches that wise leadership should never be soft on sin. It's using authority to execute justice firmly and completely. And any leader that hesitates to, if you will, bring the wheels over evil, is allowing wickedness to grow and corrupt the land. You can't be passive about it.

And just like that threshing wheel that you talk about, and these things are massive, folks. They're not like a little bit of wheels, but they're the size of cars, and it'll be anything that's underneath that wheel is going to be crushed. And just like the threshing wheel, breaks that husk to free the grain that's in it, so righteous and just,

judgment breaks wickedness so that good order and righteousness can flourish in the land. And as I mentioned before, this isn't an image of cruelty here, but of necessary firmness. Leniency that leaves evil untouched is like refusing to thresh the wheat. Everything remains mixed and useless. You can't do nothing with the wheat unless it's threshed. Even after you've winnowed it, all you've done is you've separated it now, what do you do you've got to thresh you so this is a picture of god's judgment now there's a related verse uh it's Isaiah 28 verses 27 and 28 speaks of that cartwheel used in threshing but in that verse

that passage there I'll read it here real quick Isaiah 2827 for the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument neither is a cartwheel turn about upon the coulman but the fitches are not beaten out with a staff and cooman with a rod. That's the King James version. English standard. Dill is not threshed with a thresh and sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over cumin, but Dill is beaten out with a stick and cooman with a rod.

So what are we saying there? That there are times where some sinners need a gentle rod, you know, just the winnowing, you know, just a little bit, and which need there are others that need the crushing the threshing wheel to break their pride. But either way, whether it's the

winnowing, whether it's the rod, or whether it's the wheel of the thresher, this is not meant to be cruel, it's meant to be redemptive. It's to protect the innocent and call the wicked to repentance. That's the purpose of this.

God is a like, mercy in this by administering justice through a just king to draw the wicked to him. Romans 134 says, for he, the ruling authority is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain, for he is the minister of God. Think about that. He is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath. upon them that doeth evil. And so this stirs longing for that ultimate day when Jesus himself, the ultimate wise king,

thoroughly threshes his floor. At that day, he's going to end all oppression, Rick. He's going to scatter wickedness to the forever wind, and he will establish perfect righteousness in that day. So in this picture, Christ is the winnower. We mentioned this verse a couple times, Matthew 312, whose fan is in his hand and he will not just purge his floor, thoroughly purges the floor.

He will eventually bring that wheel of judgment over the wicked systems of the world. We were not had this thought regarding this passage here. He said, the wicked are the chaff, they are light, useless and essentially separated from the good. The king's duty, duty is to drive them away. Amen.

The threshing will is a symbol of decisive separation, not brutality. The threshing distinguishes what has substance from what does not. The image that we see in this verse presupposes that there was a prior evaluation. The grain has already been identified. The person in charge here has already identified the grain from the chaff. So in this verse, judgment here is discriminatory, not indiscriminate.

The wise king distinguishes between talking about, Jesus between repentant sinners and hardened evildoers. So the wheel does not annihilate grain. The grain represents the righteous. The wheel destroys the chaff. So this reflects the biblical principle that some forms of wickedness can be corrected only through forceful restraint. And the severity of the image.

It underscores the danger of the wicked, not the cruelty of the king. The emphasis here is the wicked are dangerous to society. Don't focus on the actions of a good king to rid his land of evildoers. Focus on the damage that the evildoers are doing to your society. Now let's go to verse 27. The Spirit of Man is the evil do. The candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly. We'll begin with the first segment.

The Spirit of Man is the candle of the Lord. I've got to tell you, Doc, I learned something preparing for this lesson. And it was one of those moments like, how did I not see this all these years? Okay. All right? He's a bored of this. Yeah, I'll talk about as we go. just a slight

misconception. The spirit of man, the spirit of Adam. Adam means man. Doesn't mean male. God created man, male and female. Right, right. Okay.

The spirit of man, meaning the breath of life, the inner spirit, the immaterial part of a man or woman that makes him or her a living soul. The deepest seat of your consciousness, your self-awareness, your inner being. This is the spirit of man. This verse calls the spirit of a man, when I say a man, the spirit of man, not a man as a male. The spirit of man, the spirit of males and females.

This verse calls the spirit of humans a candle, a lamp of the Lord. Now, this is the revelation for me. I've always known, I've always believed God searches our inner beings, our inner hearts with his length. All right. I've always accepted that. I always believe that. Okay, the Holy Spirit,

got a big old flashlight, he'll shine it inside of you and reveal what's there. Right. That's not what this says. That's not what the Bible says. Listen to me. Your spirit,

your spirit is a lamp of the Lord. Okay. God placed within you an inner light. Doc, I never saw this before, never realized it like this. There's a light inside of me. I always took it as, hey, you know, you never know when the Holy Spirit is going to show up with his flashlight and start looking.

That's not what this verse says. It says every single human has a light in, inside of them placed there by God. It's your light. Your light is not my light, Doc. You've got your own lightball. I've got my own personal lightball. You've got a light inside of you. And it was placed in you by the Lord. As he formed you, he put a light inside of you. It's not the Holy Spirit showing up with a big flashlight. It's the light that he placed in you when you were born. Yes. Yes. Is the candle of the Lord, the lamp of the Lord, the light belonging to God, it belongs to him?

Doc, it would be like if I brought a, I'll just say a battery powered lantern over to your house. And I said, Doc, this is my lantern, and I'm putting it in your house. Okay. Okay. Who does the lantern belong to? It's your lantern. And where is it? It's just in my house.

Right. Okay. It's his light in your house. Do you get it now? He placed his light in your house. It is a light that's kindled and provided by God himself. It is called the candle of the Lord because the soul comes from God. Yes.

In a unique way, it did not evolve. it was directly given to you. God is both our maker and our creator. Doc, God made animals. But when it came to Adam and Eve, he both made them and created them. And the verses are in Genesis, where he is called maker and creator.

How could that be? He made their body. Our bodies are made from the dust of the earth. I'd like to tell people we're mut-pies with eyes because we're made of we're basically dirt and water and so God made mud pies with eyes he made us

he made us from the things that he spoke into existence but he did not make our souls he created our souls our souls our souls came from him not the works of his hand our spirit is created by God, our bodies are made by God.

So this verse is a profound statement of divine origin. Every person carries within them a spark of a God-given light, a capacity for moral and spiritual perception. The candle belongs to the Lord. his property. It is entrusted to you for his purposes, not for your self-glorification, not for your misuse. He breathed into the man, Adam, Genesis 2-7. He breathed life. The spirit is a divine gift. Yes. meant to reflect the creator's light.

John Gill explained it this way. He said that this is the light of nature, a divine endowment enabling even unregenerate men and women to have some awareness of God, some awareness of truth, some awareness of moral obligations. In other words, there's nobody on earth who on judgment day can say,

I didn't know that there is a God. I didn't know that there are right things and wrong things. You can't say it. Not one human being can say it. That's right. Why? Because God has placed a light inside of them. That light is his light and it is there to light up the inner parts of their being.

I don't know, this is amazing to me. I just, I never perceived it this way. Okay? So, at creation, the lamp burned brightly. But then after the fall, the light became dim. And yet it remains bright enough to leave all people on earth without an excuse before God on Judgment Day. Right. And so when the, when the lamp burning dimly or is misused, it reveals a heart that has turned away from its maker. Yes. You know, Rick, the Solomon calls that human spirit that resides within us, the candle or lamp of the Lord here.

And just like a lamp illuminates a dark room, the spirit is our faculty of self-awareness and conscience that illuminates the inner man. Now, when we say this, this is not a saving light, but a light of awareness that God has put in us. God uses the human spirit like a flashlight. He doesn't need a physical light to see inside us. He knows everything. He's omniscient.

But he uses our own conscience to make us see inside ourselves. So the image in this proverb is a candle lit from the flame of heaven. It's placed inside a man to illuminate his inner being. So even in a fallen man, this lamp exists. It may be dim, it may be smoking, it may be hidden under a bushel of sin, but the capacity for moral judgment remains. God's given that to each and every one of us.

And so while a fallen man's lamp may be feeble, may be burning out, regeneration, and the Holy Spirit can restore and intensify its illumination. You will lift the candle of the Lord fully lit inside of you. So Jesus warns over in the Gospels in Matthew chapter 6, verses 22 and 23, against letting this inner light become dark, and become darkness through sin and neglect. the lamp must be kept clear and burning. Beginning of John's gospel, you get a deepening of this picture. John 1-9 says that this lamp derives its light from

he, the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Lighteth every man. Lighteth every man. You can't get away from that. That means each one of us has the capacity to reflect the light of God, but it's not that saving light. Just want to make it clear there.

But it is a light that allows you to be aware of what's good and evil. Doc, you mentioned Jesus' words in Matthew 6, verses 22 and 23. Let's look at what he said. The light of the body is the eye. Jesus is identifying this light. It's your eye. If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

But if your eye be evil, the whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness? So Jesus was warning people, you've got a light that can go dark. What you're letting to enter into you through your eyes. can dim this light until darkness overtakes you. We'll go to the next part of this first. Searching all the inward parts of the belly. Inward parts of the belly refers to the deepest interior of a person,

the hidden chambers of our thoughts, our motives, our desires, our intentions. The searching indicates active probing the spirit does not merely sit passively but examines tests and exposes what lies within this is the spirit of man we're supposed to be examining ourselves we're supposed to be using this light that god gave us to search ourselves the searching test all thoughts feelings and desires and what do we compare it to the word of god view my thoughts, my feelings, my desires, my actions, my words, how do they match up with the Word of God?

Well, if you never read the Word of God, if you never study the Word of God, how are you going to know whether your words and actions and thoughts line up with the Word of God or contrary? Thank God for the people that are in Morning Manah. You've made a decision. I need to know the Word of God. And so Apostle Paul, he said, this is in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 11, What man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? He's talking about that light.

What man knoweth the things of a man save the light of the man which is in him? We were just told Solomon and said, the spirit is the lamp of the Lord inside you. So verse 27 teaches that through this, this God-given light bulb inside of each one of us, a man and woman can come to genuine self-knowledge, seeing his or her true moral or spiritual condition. John Gill, Baptist pastor hundreds of years ago, said that by this candle, a man can look into his own heart the inmost recesses of it, exposing both, is good and it's corruption.

Yes. This verse, this has changed the way I pray. I'm talking here just recent days as I've prepared this listen. Because now I'm saying, okay, Lord, I'll understand. It's my responsibility to have this light burning brightly inside me, and it's my responsibility to be walking around inside. me looking in different chambers of my heart, my mind. Yes.

It's my responsibility to do this. You know, with this light that you gave me, you gave me a light, you gave me the light, it's your light. It's my responsibility to explore me and see what's in me. Yes. And that light that's been placed in you is enough light for you to discern sin. discern right from wrong. The Lord prompted me here just a moment ago to read Genesis chapter 3, verses 9 and 10. And it says there in Genesis 3 versus 9 and 10, this is after they ate of the knowledge of

the tree of good and evil. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, who told thee that thou was naked? Now, prior to this, we don't read any prohibition in scripture or guilt associated with nakedness up to this point, right?

So where did Adam get that? It was that light, that light that God had placed in him, that told him what he did was wrong. and that guilt was a necessary response to sin. Matthew Poole talking about this verse here says that the candle that the soul can reflect upon and judge its own dispositions and actions, discerning what no other person can see. Just like Adam knew he was naked. We can know that we're naked in our sin too.

So this light, this lamp, searches the inward parts of the belly. Right? Now, in Hebrew thought, Hebrew thinking back long ago, the belly or the bowels was really the seed of the deepest emotion, not the brain. That came about with the Greek thing. In Hebrew psychology, it was the gut, the belly. That was the seed of our deepest emotions, secrets, desires. So the idea here is that the conscience, just doesn't look at the surface, which are the actions, it goes down into the basement, down into the motive, down into the belly. You know what, Rick? You can hide your sin from others, but you cannot hide it from yourself, from your own spirit, right?

So that candle, if you will, imagine that internally, walks through the corridors of your memory, eliminating the hidden things. And this is why guilt is so powerful. It's an internal witness that never sleeps. And so while the natural conscience searches, oftentimes it's too dim to see everything. Jeremiah 179 said that the heart is desperately wicked.

Who can know it? Who can know it? And so the spirit of God works through this human spirit, intensifying that light and enabling believers, to discern things once hidden. So when we enter into a relationship with Christ and with the Father, that's when the Spirit of God begins to do its work in us to enlighten the interior, if you will.

So the searching function really calls for cooperation. You know, we shouldn't be afraid of the light that is searching inside. We shouldn't be afraid of the light that the Spirit of God provides. we should try to suppress or extinguish it by hard to your hearts. You know the New Testament warrants about quenching the spirit. And so these are, God places in us in order to draw us, you know, to point out that we fall short and to push us toward him. That's the purpose of it.

To make us realize our sin and realize we need a Savior. Yes. Doctor, the human spirit as the candle of God, the Lord's candle, is the instrument he uses to expose what is truly inside of each of us. That no darkness is hidden from this light that he has placed in us. Again, the searching must be active. It must be thorough. Our conscience must convict us. it must first reveal the sin, convict us, and then bring the hidden things to light.

The proverb is teaching us that no part of us is truly secret. Amen. That God's light inside of us searches even the deepest, most remote parts of our inner being. Yes. So for the Christian, the Holy Spirit, who is the great light, inhabits the human spirit with a small light. Holy Spirit is the great light. The lamp of the Lord, the light of the Lord, is the small light that he places in you. Romans 8, 16, Apostle Paul said, the spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit.

Amen. The great light, the Holy Spirit, bears witness. with the small light that's inside of us. And they both agree, that's sin. That's got to change. So when the Holy Spirit lights the candle, the search is perfect. It reveals sins that we didn't know ever existed.

Yes. And that's that moment of conviction. So the purpose of the search is not just to expose sin, but to facilitate cleansing. You cannot sweep a dark room. Right, right. You have to turn on the light, so God gives us a light so that we can do the sweeping of ourselves,

that we confess the sins, and then ask to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. You know, I want to make sure, I want to clarify, I want to make sure people understand. When I said, this was new to me, I just, I didn't, I never knew it this way. I want to clarify what I'm saying. I've often prayed.

I mean, for a decade, Lord, Holy Spirit, search me, search my heart with your light. This verse has made me understand that God is saying to me, no, you search yourself. Yes, yes. I gave you a light. You search your light. You search your heart. I gave you a light. You search.

This revolutionizes my thinking. Because I was thinking that it's the Holy Spirit who comes to us and says, hey, open up, I'm going to search. And really what it is is that God says, no, I put a light inside of you. And it's your responsibility to search. yourself. Yes. And then come to me with what you have found. Yes.

Now, what happens, Doc, is that when we don't search ourselves, eventually what happens? The Holy Spirit says, okay, you're failing at your job. I've got to do this for you. And I've got to bring great conviction on you for something that you have not dealt with. Right. Right. But we had we been searching ourselves? we would have found it.

Right. You know, there's a verse in the Psalms, David crying out, Psalm 139, 23, where he says, search me, oh, God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts. But the only way that David could get at a point to say, search me, oh God, is to have searched himself. Would you agree with that? Yes. That's the only place.

The only time that you can get to a point and say, search me, oh God, is you're out of point, Lord, I found wickedness in myself that I'm repenting of. If that's all I found, what will you find, O Lord? And know my thoughts.

Know the Lord. This is a truly repentant, so crying out, I have searched myself. And now I'm inviting the Holy Spirit. Search me, search me, oh God. Know my heart.

Know my thoughts. Okay, so, Doc, Here's a picture I have of this. If you've ever had a cleaning company, a clean your home or your office. Okay? I know where you're going with this. Okay, so you think, hey, it looks clean, doesn't it?

Okay. Or maybe you're doing the cleaning. All right, let's do it like this. You're doing the cleaning. You're cleaning your home. You're cleaning your office. And everything looks okay. But then you decide you're going to have a professional.

professional cleaning crew take over that assignment. The first thing that they say is we have to do a deep cleansing. Deep clean, yes. All right? This is going to take a number of hours, going to cost more than a regular service, but we're going to go through your house, top to bottom, and clean it. Then we will start our regular service. So if you compare this to the lamp that's inside of us, we do our own searching.

Right. But there are days that we have to say, Holy Spirit, I need a deep cleansing. All right. I've done my best to find what's wrong, but I have a feeling there's some dirt in the corners. Search me, oh God. Search me, oh God. See what I've missed. see what I've left behind.

See what rooms I didn't open up. I thought you were going to go a different direction with that, Rick. I thought you would say, well, the cleaning people are coming over. I better straighten up the house before they come over. But that would apply too. You know, we get to a point, we know, we know we have frailties. We know we have shortcomings then. And we try to fix it.

But you know what? when the professionals come in, they really get down to the nitty gritty, as we like to say. They do that deep cleaning like you're talking about. So no matter how clean, we try to get it on the inside, there are times where we have to call it the professional, right?

Yes. I had a flashback from an old TV show back in the 60s, Dick Van Dyde and Mary Tyler Moore. And so they were a married couple. and Dick Van Dyke comes home, and he tells his wife, which is Mary Tyler Moore, hey, honey, guess what?

I'm doing something for you. I've hired a maid to come over and clean the house every week. And she's all happy. And she goes, great, when's this start? And he says, well, she's on her way. And Mary Tyler Moore goes into a panic. And she starts gathering things,

and she's vacuuming. And he goes, what do you do? doing it. And she says, I can't let anybody, I can't let a stranger see this house in the condition that's in. That's exactly right, yeah. You know, and so we, we get used to our, we get used to our sloppy cleaning. We get used to our filth. Yes. And then the Holy Spirit has to come in and say, hey, we're going to do a deep cleansing of this, of this home. You're being. Okay. All right, let's, Let's see what the great old preacher said hundreds of years ago. Doc, I'll let you go first with William R. Not.

Yes, William R. Not said that this proverb tells us that man carries his own candle within. God does not leave him to grow open utter darkness. He has set up a light in the soul. With that light, man can search his own heart, and there find calls for both humiliation and for hope as the Lord gives grace. You know, Rick, when I read that quote earlier, I got to thinking about when I was a kid and I would come home, you know, I'm talking about when I was eight, nine, ten years old. And we'd go out and play all day, ride our bikes, do everything. And folks who'd say, just be home before dark.

And they would always leave the front porch light on for us so we can find our way home. And that's the way I'm thinking about this too. God's put that candle, that light within us so we can find our way home. It's not home, but it helps us to find the way home. Yes. I think, Doug, the scary thing is we can put that light out. Yes. We can allow darkness to overtake our souls.

Yes. And that is scary that people keep going. the direction of sin to the point that the light goes out inside of them. And, you know, there comes a point where God himself will put out that lamp. We read it back in verse 20, remember? Yes. You're dealing with your appearance and dishonoring them? God said, also about your lamp.

There comes a point where you go too far. And God himself out of your life. Now we know what light he's talking about. Right. The light of man, the light that's inside of you. That's right. Alexander McLaurin said, The spirit is the inner eye,

the lamp set within, by which a man becomes known to himself. Its spear of illumination is the whole inward life, the many secret corners and folds of the soul. By its light we test and know our moral and spiritual condition. Amen. So God has put a candle within each of us, and he intends to use it.

So the conscience is searching us out and will not let us rest in secret sin. Blessed is the man who welcomes us searching and cries out, Lord, let thy lamp shine into every part of me. Amen. G. Campbell Morgan said, The human spirit is the point of contact between man and God. It is God's lamp within us,

kindled that we might see ourselves in his light. When that lamp is kept burning, nothing in us can remain finally hidden from our own view or from his. Praise God, it's a good lesson today. I hope this has been a blessing to our class. Yeah. I've just encourage our viewers, our listeners today. Don't ignore that light inside.

some of you may you may not have confessed Christ yet and yet he's been drawing you and he's lit a lamp inside of you and I would just say to you allow the Spirit of God to search you allow the Spirit of God to draw you

to the Father. That's the purpose of that divine light that's been placed inside of you to bring you home, to bring you back to the Father, to bring you back into fellowship with the son. That's That's the reason.

It's mercy. It's not condemnation. He loves you so much that he set up a way for you to make it back home. He didn't leave you in utter darkness. Now, there's going to end up a group of people at some point in time that will be in utter darkness, the Bible says. But that's not you right now.

Right now, the fact that you're here, listening to the Word of God, being taught, being preached, and allowing it to change your life. proves that God still has that light all inside. Amen. Amen. And just as the negative applies,

the light can get dimmer and dimmer and dimmer through repeated exposure to sin, the light can also get brighter. Yes. The closer you get to the flame, the Lord Jesus Christ, the brighter your light's going to be. Okay, we want to move towards the sun. Right. And for the believer, for the, believer, I want to replace that light. I would the light of the world. Amen. I want that light

shining bright inside of me so everybody can see it. See, doesn't it make sense now, Doc, when Jesus says, don't put a bushel re-light. Yeah. See, it's you enter man. Your inner man is the light. They say, don't put a bushel basket. Don't cover it up. Let it glow. Let it, let it, Let it. Let it shine. Let it shine. Okay. We're always ready to do another lesson.

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