[Darris McNeely] A few years ago, I was visiting with a good friend of mine out in Idaho who took me to visit one of his friends who actually was a gold miner. Just a few miles outside of Boise, Idaho, this gentleman had several acres of family land that his family had owned for over 100 years. And he was a prospector. He was a gold miner. It was a fascinating afternoon and visit with this gentleman, as I learned just a little bit about looking for gold, the gold process and it got me thinking about it. He told me that he could actually walk through his property and see where the gold might be because, at times, the gold that is on the surface begins to glitter a bit. And he was that well-versed in understanding how gold works. And he said, "A vein of gold can actually run for miles and miles and miles up to 100 miles or so," as he was explaining it to me. And it all is a part of the same vein under the surface of the Earth. Fascinating.

You know, as he went on to explain it, he had a lot of his equipment there to take the raw ore in the rock and then to extract the gold from that is quite a process. And of course, it's been going on for years and years. And you can tour the West and see even remnants of old gold mines and panning that people would do in order to search for gold in the streams of the mountains of California, the gold rush and all of that. The story, this quest, the search for gold is probably as old as human history is. What I learned that day is that gold is a very precious commodity. We know that. But also as the man was telling me sometimes when you begin to extract what you think is gold, you come up with what is called fool's gold or false gold. And so you have to be careful. And it takes a trained eye, as he told me, to be able to understand the difference ultimately, between real gold and fool's gold.

You know, the truth, I got to thinking about the truth of God in the Bible is, kind of, like that. The truth of God runs like a vein throughout the Bible. And throughout human history, that truth is always there from the Word of God but it takes a trained eye. It takes the calling of God. It takes wisdom and understanding, as the Scriptures say, to extract that truth. And that truth is like gold. It's like ruby. It's like silver that is extracted through experience.

There's a statement, actually in one of the parables, in Matthew 13:33, "Christ said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found, and for joy over it, he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field." People have sold all that they've had, thinking that they found gold and prospecting for gold. Their whole lives have been spent around that. And as this gentleman that I met in Idaho, he's still up in his years, still looking for gold, still processing it out of his family land.

The spiritual lesson that I draw from that is that we want the gold of God's truth. We want to be searching for that and be willing to buy or to sell whatever it takes in our life spiritually to gain the truth, the golden truth of God's Word, as God shows that to us and understanding that. God tests our heart. And we always must be able and willing to test the spirits, test what you might think to be truth.

You know, some people have truth, they think, but it's really a false truth, kind of like a fool's gold. They think they have gold, but it's really false gold. Truth is like that as well. And so we need to understand that and be able to test the spirits, discern what is right, God's precious truth, like a pure gold, be able and willing to go and sell all to obtain that truth that God has given to us, the truth of His Word, the truth of His Kingdom, and to be able to test everything that we think is truth against the words of the Bible.

That's "BT Daily." Join us next time.