TRUTH TELLERS

Our purpose in life, our mandate and mission, said Major Ian Thomas, “is to tell the truth about God.” (he meant by our motives, morals, and message)  “How many lies have you told today?” he then asked.  He could have been repeating Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:25, “So stop telling lies.” (the wording of the NLT)

A survey conducted in 1991 discovered that we Americans constantly tell lies, and the fact is, we lie more than most “ever thought possible.”  But not only do we lie, we lie about lying!  Politicians are a prime example.  They are caught red-handed, and they, like slippery eels, simply dismiss the charge by saying “it was taken out of context,” or sometimes it’s admitted, “I misspoke,” not lied, “misspoke,” to soften the reality.

“One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie,” said the legendary Mark Twain, “is that a cat has only nine lives!”  We must mention, it seems to me, Aristotle’s comment about this subject.  He said, “All that one gains by a falsehood is not to be believed when one speaks the truth.”  All liars have one thing in common, they all are weak cowards.  Today, the media constantly charts the reality with constant factchecking, continually going back to see what was said, by whom, and when.

Because the Bible is a book of truth, it tells us often about those that lied:  Abraham, Rachel, David, and, of course, Simon Peter lying as Jesus was being betrayed and abandoned, and others.  It is “impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18), and it’s impossible, we might add, for man not to lie!  Proverbs 19:9 tells us plainly, “A false witness shall be punished, and a liar shall be caught.” (Living Bible)

Since Satan is “the father of lies” (John 8:44), all people who lie are under his control.  Peter said of a man, “Satan filled thine heart to lie” (Acts 5:3).  Charles Spurgeon, the great Victorian preacher, once said in a sermon, “Every liar is a child of the devil, and will be sent home to his father.”  And decisively we are told in the last book of the Bible, “all liars”  will end “in the fiery lake” (Revelation 21:8, NLT).  This, of course, relates to those whose constant practice is to lie and whole character is one of deception, dishonesty, and a life built on untruth.  Their fate is settled!

But on the other side of this matter, all Christians follow the God whose Word is truth and who says to us, “tell me nothing but that which is true” (I Kings 22:16).  The meaning must surely involve truthful confession of all duplicity and dishonesty.  Telling a lie is a sin and we must ask the Holy Spirit to cleanse us through and through, so that we live in truth and speak the truth.  There is a promise from God, being a person of integrity and truthfulness means we have His protection: “his truth shall be thy shield” (Psalm 91:4), and those with the “lip of truth shall be established” (Proverbs 12:19).  Ask God to make you “a truth teller.”

What a wonderful insight into life came from the lips of Sinclair Ferguson, “It cannot be overemphasized that men and women who have accomplished anything in God’s strength have always done so on the basis of their grasp of truth.”  And I might add, their commitment to tell it in love!

David’s repentance was recorded and he confessed and realized, “thou desirest truth in the inward parts” (Psalm 51:6) of our lives, that is, truth from the heart of our heart.  We could say it’s being “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14) as was Jesus always.  So that, we are to be known as people who are continually “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15).  The Puritan saying is worth remembering, “Keep to the truth always and always the truth will keep you.”

Truth lives after some think it is defeated.  As Vance Havner said, “Whenever unbelief thinks it has buried the truth, the ‘corpse’ always comes to life in the midst of the funeral to outlive all the pallbearers.”  An early church father who saw much persecution of Christians said, “The devil tries to shake the truth by pretending to defeat it.”

The work of truth is to set people free.  So we must say, do not seek happiness, seek truth, and you will discover them both married and living happily ever after!  Truth may not make a claim to make us comfortable or casually relaxed, but it does make a claim to make us free and to be a complete person.

Personally, I very much like the word “integrity,” which includes shades of meaning such as:  uprightness, honor, and honesty.  Peter, in his New Testament comments about the nature of Scripture, said there was total truthfulness and integrity in Scripture.  He said the Christian message that he proclaimed was not a collection of “cunningly devised fables” but the result of eyewitness experience of him and others. (II Peter 1:14-21)  The Greek word he used for “fables” is really the word for myth, and it could be translated “fairy tales.”  Peter was a truth teller.  He was not relating concocted fables.  He maintains that he was sharing things he handled with his own hands and heard with his own ears and saw with his own eyes.

Billy Graham was very plainspoken on this subject of truth telling, calling the Bible “the infallible Word of God.”  He maintained, all who preach as evangelists “must be convinced that the Bible, the written Word of God, was prepared under the direction of the Holy Spirit, who preserved the authors from departing from God’s revelation in their writing …”  Paul’s conviction was that Scripture was pure truth, the words and thoughts of Scripture were inspired and recorded without error as He desired. 

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” II Timothy 3:16-17)

Because it is God’s Word and God cannot lie, the Bible does not contradict itself or teach untruth and falsehood.  The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is the only infallible rule of faith and practice.  So, we believe what we believe, not because humans invented it but because God revealed it.  John Stott said it well, “In consequence, there is an authority inherent in Christianity which can never be destroyed.”

The Bible tells the truth to us—it is God’s self-disclosure—literally God is speaking about God, His will, His way, and His wonder.  This leads us to worship, believe, obey.  Call it, to worship Him sincerely, to believe Him totally, and to obey Him consistently.

We have arrived then at a conclusion as truth tellers, which is as follows:  God does not allow us, freely, at our whim, to believe it or disbelieve it, to obey it or disobey it.  Divine revelation carries with it a human responsibility.  We are to believe it and obey it without second guessing it.

Peter says, “No prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation.”  It came to us not “by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (II Peter 1:21)  And the phrase “private interpretation” means it had no human origin and did not come through personal discovery, and it’s not your personal opinion—it’s truth!  It was inspired, which literally means “God-breathed.”  Peter used an interesting word, “moved,” and that literally means to be picked up and carried or borne along.  God carries us along as He unveils the truth.

When Paul spoke of it, he said, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (II Timothy 3:16), and the word “All” literally means “every single part of the whole.”  That is, it is all truth, every single part of Scripture is the inerrant Word of God.  

And to add a final word or two, God is more honored that evil is conquered by simple truth told in humility, than by miracles seen in wild blaze.  And it is true that “Opinions alter, but truth certified by God can no more change than the God who uttered it.” (C. H. Spurgeon).  If we want our life to last after we are gone, “seek the truth, listen to the truth, learn the truth, love the truth, speak the truth, adhere to truth and defend truth to the death.” (John Hus, who died telling the truth, burned at the stake) 

A final story about truth telling.  The French Revolution was at times very brutal as heads rolled from the guillotine and prisons filled with people.  One such place was the dark dungeon, the famous Bastille.  It was jam-packed with prisoners.  Very briefly, for a short time, the dark dungeon had a small, short sliver of light come through a narrow opening.  One man had a Bible, but that brief light was too high for the man to read the Bible.  For it to be read, a cooperation was required.  When the light came through the shaft, the man was lifted by the others so the words of Scripture could be read.  The agreement was, read it, and when you drop back into the darkness, be a truth teller, and tell us what it said.

They said in so many words, “Tell us the truth you read from the Book while you were in the light.  Just tell us the truth—be a truth teller!”  And the same call goes up today—tell the truth, be a truth teller.