Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart, So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and man.
-Proverbs 3:3&4
Have I not written to you excellent things of counsels and knowledge, To make you know the certainty of the words of truth That you may correctly answer to him who sent you?
-Proverbs 22:20&21
Buy the truth, and do not sell it, Get wisdom and instruction and understanding.
-Proverbs 23:23
Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’
-John 8:31&32
In discussing ‘truth’ I often refer to Proverbs 23:23 because it says to “Buy the truth, and do not sell it,…”. This brings up an interesting question. If we can ‘buy truth’ , then what do we need to ‘exchange’ in order to purchase truth? In other words, how do we ‘pay’ for it? No amount of money can buy real truth. Jesus Christ is the one and only Truth, but here we are looking for ‘truth’ as we deal with everyday life. The answer is simple yet profound. The only way we can ‘buy truth’, is to pay for it by giving up ‘lies’! Think of it this way. Satan is the father of lies and sin. Jesus Christ is ‘the Way, the Truth and the Life’. If you want the Truth that Christ gives us, you have to give up the lies of Satan. There are no ‘half way’ measures in this either, you can’t have them both. Lies hide the truth, while truth
exposes the lies. Also, love and truth walk hand in hand with each other. If you lie to the one you say you love, then you do not truly love them. Your love becomes a lie. Think about it! I learned this some years ago when I was about six or seven years old. I was a walking, breathing, talking liar. I was living proof that God was right when He told Noah that; “…the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his
youth;…”, and I had been caught in a whopper of a lie! (see: Gen 8:21) I can still see myself sitting on my sister’s bed waiting for my dad to come in and give a spanking I would never forget. But when he came back into the room, he knelt down and looked at me eye to eye and said; “You have to stop all this lying. Do you know that when you lie to me, you are telling me that you don’t love me?” I was horrified! I loved my dad very much and the thought that I had done something that made him think I didn’t love him broke my young heart into pieces. I was in tears. I promised him I would never lie to him again. I hugged him and he hugged me. It was over, but it was a day that changed me forever. Lies hurt people, deeply, very deeply!
I can’t say that I never told a lie after that, because that would be a lie, but I can truthfully say that I do every thing I can to be sure that my words are said in truth; and I have learned to hate lies. If you love your spouse or future spouse, don’t lie to them. Buy the Truth, and do not sell it! Ever!
Here’s a little research study for you. Look up the various families in the book of Genesis and see how they handled telling the truth and lying. Remember, lying has many faces, such as scheming, manipulation, half truths and more. Try these for starters: Cain and Able (chapt. 4), Noah and his sons (chapt. 9:18-27), Abram and Sarah (chapt. 12:10-20; 16:1- chapt. 23:20), Isaac and Rebekah (chapt. 25: 19- chapt. 33:20). Many of these you can read quickly and find the ‘problem areas’. Most of them read like a day time soap opera without the T.V. screen!
-Dan Conley, 2008