Focus: The Truth

Text: Ps.51:6

"Behold, thou desirest TRUTH in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom."

Our world is in a terrible state and in a bad shape because of falsehood and the evil it breeds. The fetters of falsehood are heavy on us that we are in desperate need of truth as liberator. Only truth can free us from our madness.

*Truth liberates us

Jesus Christ says, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (Jh.8:32). Truth frees us from all moral filths and exempts us from all moral liabilities. Truth frees us from being culprits of mortal evil. Where truth is missing life is hell. Truth is the treasure of paradise. Those who live by truth live in a heavenly paradise while still on earth. By believing and knowing truth we experience true freedom.

*Truth sanctifies us

Jesus Christ prays to the Father for us, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth" (Jh.17:17). Truth liberates as well as sanctifies us.

*Truth to live by

John writes to Gaius, and says, "For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of THE TRUTH THAT IS IN THEE, even as thou WALKEST in the truth" (3Jh.1:3). Gaius has the truth residing inside him and regulating his external life. Truth is his internal reality. His decisions and actions are propelled from the reality within. Truth is reality's highest form. Gaius knows truth as the presiding presence in his life. He lives by the truth. All he says and does are regulated and directed by truth. He tells the truth in love. The Bible is about knowing truth and walking in it. In a world ruled by lies, living by truth is very risky, but that is the best way to live.

Truth restores our sanity and sanctity. In his book, 'The Dust of Death: The Sixties and How it Changed America', author and social critic, Os Guinness wrote, "Hell is nothing less than the truth known too late." Truth known too late is of no use, especially truth known at the point of death.

Hell is created by the absence of truth. It is real hell living against the truth of God. Satan is the author of lies and illusions, deceptions and delusions.

The Bible is the book of truth, and to believe otherwise changes nothing. The Russian Dictionary defines the Bible as a "collection of fantastic legends without scientific support. It is full of dark hints, historical mistakes, and contradictions. It serves as a factor for gaining power and subjugating unknowing nations." Russia fabricated this falsehood about the Bible to keep its people under lock and key of ignorance. My response to such a lie is the response of W. A. Criswell in his Ph.D oral examination as he stood in front of the group of professors. One of them asked him, "I am sure that in your study you have come across the scoffers, the critics, and the skeptics who say that Paul, in his conversion, in his trances, and in his visions, suffered from sunstroke, seizures and epileptic fits." W. A. Criswell answered, "Yes, sir. I have read that from the pen of critics and scoffers several times. The professor asked him again, "What do you think about that?" W. A. Criswell replied, "Sir, I hold in my hands the Holy Bible, and in that Bible are thirteen books written by the apostle Paul. Read them for yourself. They are inspired letters, literature of the highest order, whether you look at them as poetry, language, imagination and fancy, or truth. If they are the result of epilepsy, seizures, and sunstroke, then may God make all of us victims of sunstroke or seizures." Voltaire the atheist boasted before his death in 1788, that "one hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity-seeker." But, guess what, exactly one hundred years after, in the city of Paris, Voltaire's work sold in the market for eleven cents. Interestingly too, I read that on that same day, the British government paid to the Czar of Russia five hundred thousand dollars for the Codex Sinaiticus, a copy of the Word of God, which Count Tischendorf had discovered in the monastery of St. Catherine at the foot of Mt. Sinai. Also, Voltaire's house was bought over and used for the printing of the Bible. Isn't that amazing? Who dares to dare God? 

The Bible is supreme for the absolute truths it contains. Lies blinds and binds.

Adolf Hitler said it that "through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise."

According to Soren Kierkegaard, Christians live "under the audit of eternity." Everything we do is constantly being audited by God's eternal truths.

*Truth personified

Jesus Christ says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father" (Jh.14:6). Whoever encounters Christ encounters also the truth. He is the truth incarnate, the truth personified. The search for truth comes to an end the moment you are in the presence of Christ. The best thing a Christian can do is to bring a man to Christ. The light of truth breaks into our hearts as we embrace Christ. Paul says, "For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth" (2Cor.13:8). God's truth always prevails. We can't afford to be the foes of the truth, but only its partners, proclaimers and defenders.

Let's open our whole being to the truth now - truth as found in Christ Jesus - the personification of truth.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter