Truth
What
is truth?
A
question that’s asked by everyone sooner or later in life’s journey – maybe not
rhetorically, like cynical Pilate, but asked honestly with a desire to know.
According
to Webster, truth is the body of real things, events and facts – having to do
with reality. Capitalized, it is a transcendent fundamental or spiritual
reality. To be true, is to have sincerity in action, character and utterance.
Some synonyms for truth are veracity, verity, candor, honesty, accuracy,
correctness, validity, authenticity, reality, actuality, and fact.
I
remember during the destruction of my first marriage, when the proverbial
chickens came home to roost, how relieved I was to finally know the truth –
ugly as it was at the time. It was more welcome to me than the lies I had been
told for so long.
Truth
can be hard, cold, and difficult – but it is always better to know exactly what
we’re dealing with than to presume on falsehoods to our own detriment.
To
be fair, Webster also defines truth as a judgment, proposition, or idea that is
true or accepted as true. That introduces an idea of relativity that
contradicts the definition of the word – at least in my opinion.
I
don’t believe that truth is relative. I don’t believe what’s true for me, may
not be true for you. I believe truth is absolute. Something either is or is not
true – there is nothing wishy-washy about it.
As
Winston Churchill once said, The truth is
incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the
end, there it is.
Similarly
Mahatma Ghandi said, Truth stands, even
if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
Lest
statesmen and philosophers’ words be not good enough, even superstar Elvis
Presley said, Truth is like the sun. You
can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t going away.
The
prophet Jeremiah was given a tough job by the Lord. He had to tell a rebellious
people that their chickens were coming home to roost – judgment was coming and
there was no avoiding it. Poor Jeremiah had to endure abuse, imprisonment, resentment,
mocking – all the while mourning for the people and what they were going to
suffer.
At
one point, God had Jeremiah walk around with an oxen yoke on his shoulders to
signify the bondage Judah would experience under Babylon. Another prophet named
Hananiah contradicted Jeremiah and said God would give them victory over the
Babylonians and return their king, Jeconiah, who had already been taken to
Babylon. He even went so far as breaking the yoke that Jeremiah was wearing.
What
was Jeremiah’s response?
Amen! May
the Lord do so; may the Lord confirm your words which you have prophesied to
bring back the vessels of the Lord’s house and all the exiles, from Babylon to
this place. Yet hear now this word which I am about to speak in your hearing
and in the hearing of all the people! The prophets who were before me and
before you from ancient times prophesied against great kingdoms, of war and of
calamity and of pestilence. The prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word
of the prophet comes to pass, then the prophet will be known as one whom the
Lord has truly sent (Jeremiah 28:6-9).
Jeremiah
may have hoped Hananiah was speaking for the Lord, but the Lord told Jeremiah
this was not so. Furthermore, Hananiah had made the situation worse.
There’s
an old saying about not throwing the baby out with the bath water. Another
warns us not to shoot the messenger. Telling the truth might sting or offend,
but it is better than promoting lies. Premises people trust in, base decisions
on, alter the course of their life for – if we could see the beginning through to the
end of our life journey, would we want the path we travel to be true or false?
The word of
the Lord came to Jeremiah after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke from
off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “Go and speak to Hananiah,
saying, ‘Thus says the Lord, “You have broken the yoke of wood, but you have
made instead of them yokes of iron.” For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God
of Israel, “ I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, that
they may serve Nebuchadnezzer king of Babylon; and they will serve him…” Listen
now, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, and you have made this people trust
in a lie. Therefore thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I am about to remove you from
the face of the earth. This year you are going to die, because you have
counseled rebellion against the Lord.’” So Hananiah the prophet died in the
same year in the seventh month (Jeremiah 28:12-17).
Hananiah
paid a price for his lies – all who practice lying do – eventually. We just
don’t want to be their collateral damage.
Our
culture, indeed, embraces deceit. There are lies coming at us from all areas.
They’re loud and often persuasive. All sides proclaim to have the truth. We better know the truth or being fooled is
inevitable.
As
the Apostle Paul warns us, See to it that
no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to
the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world,
rather than according to Christ (Colossians 2:8).
Or
the Apostle John, Beloved, do not believe
every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because
many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1).
Everything
we come against needs to be weighed against the Word of God. What we think
politically, morally, emotionally, intellectually – every area needs to be
examined to ensure we are not deceived. We better know what the Bible says –
and that will only come by the daily reading of it – a spiritual discipline we
cannot afford to neglect.
Test
yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize
this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you – unless indeed you fail the
test (2
Corinthians 13:5)?
There
is always room for improvement. Maybe we’ve been saved for thirty years, grown
up in the church, served in the ministry – wrong thinking is subtle. We cannot
afford to be complacent.
Jesus
told us, I am the Way, the Truth, and the
Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me(John 14:6).
John
MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in California, has this to say
about truth:
I
particularly like these words:
Truth is not
subjective, it is not a consensual social construct, and it is not an invalid,
outdated, irrelevant concept. Truth is the self-expression of God. Truth is
thus theological; it is the reality God has created and defined, and over which
He rules. Truth is therefore a moral issue for every human being.
Ah,
but what do I know? Are you ready to shoot the messenger or toss the baby out
with the bathwater? Before the chickens come home to roost, do a little
searching for Truth – what do you have to lose?
As
Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and
Catholic theologian of the 1600’s exhorts us, Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm
will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you
gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that
He exists.
What
is truth? We cannot afford to ignore the question.
Amen Friend!!!
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