I have often wondered in amazement how so many people are strangers to the truth. Perhaps it is because truth sometimes hurts and some people cannot endure the pain it causes. Perhaps it is because some people have a hidden agenda. Perhaps it is because they are afraid it might condemn someone they love, or themselves. Perhaps it is because they have been conditioned to believe a certain way by their upbringing. Perhaps it is because they just do not reason correctly. Some people are honestly mistaken while others purposefully deceive others and themselves.

It matters not what the subject may be, many people simply believe what they want to in spite of the truth. In sports, I have seen people disagree over a call by an official and see something that was not there, always, it seems, siding with their preferred team. In politics, some people believe a certain thing to be true in spite of the evidence. In history, some people believe certain events to have happened, when they really did not. In science, some people believe that something is so when it is not possible for them to know. Sadly, the same thing happens in religion.

The reason for people being so divorced from the truth is not because the truth cannot be known. Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth” (John 8:32; cf. Gen. 42:6). God has endowed man with the capacity to reason (Is. 1:18) and we have the full capability to comprehend the physical world by our senses. Further, if truth could not be known, then we couldn’t even know that truth could not be known, if truth could not be known. Agnosticism is a miserable, self-defeating, ignorant philosophy. Truth can be known and it sets us free (John 8:32).

A dishonest man runs from the truth unless it advances his cause. A dishonest man will not engage in an honest dialogue with someone because he is afraid that his point of view will be challenged. A dishonest man will use all sorts of tactics to avoid answering questions, like ridicule or jesting or theatrics. An honest man has nothing to fear from the truth because he is willing to go where ever the truth leads him. An honest and good man places a premium on knowing what is right and true so that he can do what is right and true.

The Bible tells us to buy the truth and sell it not (Prov. 23:23). We should treat truth as a precious, hidden treasure (Prov. 2:2-4). It is as a pearl of great price and the Lord teaches us that we should sell all that we have to buy that truth (Matt. 13:44-46). God wants all men to come to a knowledge of the truth (I Tim. 2:4) and those who do not hold the truth as valuable will one day be damned because they received not the truth in love (II Thess. 2:12).

It is the devil that deals in lies (John 8:44). From the beginning he was a murderer and abode not in the truth. When he speaks, he speaks a lie for he is a liar and the father of lies. Those who do not like the truth are aligning themselves perfectly with the doomed company of the devil. The devil handles the word of God deceitfully (II Cor. 4:2). If a preacher or Christian purposefully mishandles the truth then they side with the devil and will receive the devil’s reward (Matt. 25:41).

God, on the other hand, is a God of truth (Ex. 34:6; Deut. 32:4; Psalm 31:5). Since God created all things, reality, both physical and spiritual, is what it is. Just as God is the God of the material world, He is also God of the spiritual realm. Spiritual truths are just as certain and ungetoverable as are the material ones. We can no more escape spiritual truth and reality than we can escape material truth and reality.

Jesus is the way the truth and the life (John 14:6). Jesus was full of grace and truth and grace and truth came by Jesus Christ (John 1:14,17). The Spirit of truth guided the apostles into all truth (John 16:13) and they manifested that truth through their speaking and writing and lives (II Cor. 4:2). We must obey that truth, the gospel, in order to be saved from our sins (Eph. 1:13). We must rejoice in the truth (I Cor. 13:6). If we are going to worship God at all we must worship Him in truth, that is according to His commandments (John 4:24). We are sanctified through the truth (John 17:17) and we are begotten, purified and saved by it (James 1:18; I Pet. 1:22; I Tim. 2:4).

We ought to love the truth so much that we can say with Paul, “For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth” (Corinthians 13:8).

Eric L. Padgett