And the truth will set you free.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” Philippians 4:8

“Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.”  Ephesians 4:25

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”  I Corinthians 13:4-6

“’If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” John 8:31-32

Hans Christian Anderson was a Danish Author who lived in the early – mid 1800’s and is today most well known for his fairy tales and folktales.  One of his folk tales “The Emperor’s New Clothes” tells the story of a vain emperor who gets swindled by several con-men and winds up exposed before everyone.  The conmen come before the emperor claiming to be skilled weavers able to make the most ornate clothing.   They tell him that they are able to make cloth that only the wise will be able to see; all fools won’t be able to see it at all; therefore if they were to make clothing out of this cloth for the emperor, he would be able to distinguish those wise and loyal from those who are foolish and unworthy.  The idea appeals to the emperor,  and so he pays them handsomely to make him such clothes.   The conmen pretend to be weaving and cutting and sewing invisible cloth, and though neither the emperor nor his officials can see anything, not wanting to be shown to be fools nor unworthy, they all pretend to see the most beautiful clothing ever.   Eventually, the conmen claim to finish their work, and pretend to dress the king in royal robes, and all his officials comment on how wonderful he looks.   The emperor then parades with much fanfare down the streets of the capital to show off his new “clothes”.  Although embarrassed that their leader is parading down the streets naked, everyone applauds the king, both because they wish to be thought wise, and because they wish to avoid the king’s wrath.  Then, much to everyone’s alarm, a little child calls out “The emperor is naked!”   Everyone, including the emperor, is both alarmed and embarrassed, and yet the emperor continues his parade, even more proudly.    The fable is, of course, a commentary on why people with common sense will stand behind blatant lies, and one of the reasons it remains a classic is that Anderson is very perceptive about human nature.    Why would people stand behind obvious falsehoods?   It seems ridiculous, but it is quite true that as fallen people, both pride and fear often make us willing to ignore or deny the elephant in the room.  Both the desire to be considered wise and the fear of being rejected or punished often prove to be a strong enough motivation for us to ignore or deny what would otherwise be obvious.   

The scriptures I’ve quoted above are just samples of what the Bible teaches us about the relationship a Christian ought to have with the truth.   Without wavering, these verses teach us that truth comes from God, is contained in his word, and ought to be on our minds and in our mouths.  They also teach that falsehood belongs to the sinful nature, and should be put away.    Said plainly, the Bible teaches that honesty honors God and dishonesty does not.  Merely saying these things doesn’t rock the boat too much.     Most Christians today will easily, and quite correctly, see all around us evidence of man’s willingness to believe blatant untruths for the sake of pride:  the transgender issue, our insistence on ‘choosing pronouns’, and the widespread denial of life beginning at conception immediately come to mind.   The problem is, Christian, that lest we be hypocrites, we ought to make sure our stand for the truth encompasses more than others’ shortcomings- it needs to expose and respond to our own as well.   We need to ask ourselves an extremely important question:   if someone says something untrue, but which supports my point of view, will I stand behind the untruth, or will I expose it?   I’m a preacher, so let me start with an example that hits home for me:  an increasingly difficult task for any preacher is to come up with new sermon illustrations each week that will move people.    A preacher will search his own experience, of course, for stories, but he will likely also be scouring the internet for good illustrations.   It isn’t that difficult to find really moving stories on the internet, especially on sermon help websites, but the temptation is very strong if you’ve found one to decide on the spot to use it.   The problem?   Some of those stories are blatant mistruths that even a little bit of investigation will expose.  If a preacher doesn’t investigate, and uses one of these stories, he could easily say “well I didn’t know it wasn’t true- I meant well by it”. But would that make it right?  Part of being committed to the truth means that I actually engage with what I communicate to try to be SURE that it is true before I say it.  I personally, have had to make a commitment that in my search for sermon illustrations, “powerful,” “moving,” and “useful” have to come as SECONDARY categories to “true.” It isn’t just a preacher issue, Christian.   Recently, I saw an unfortunate irony:  one of my siblings in Christ posted a quote on Facebook about it being unhealthy for society to abandon the truth.   It was a good quote.  The problem?   The quote was attributed to George Orwell (likely both because of Orwell’s fame, and because of the comparison of the statement with Orwell’s famous, post-apocalyptic “1984” .)   George Orwell didn’t write the quote- a fairly recent and much lesser-known author did.   And so, this quote, meant to encourage people to return to the truth of God, got ‘fact-check’ tagged by Facebook. (And I know sometimes we have to fact check the fact checkers, but in this case, the flag was legitimate.)  Isn’t it ironic that we might be tempted to stand behind falsehood for the sake of promoting truth?   Christian, we really have to ask ourselves “Is the cause of Christ supported by falsehood?”    Is it Ok for me to say something not true if it might influence someone for God?    Is it ok for me to share things as true if I haven’t really scrutinized them to see if they are?  I would maintain, friend, that if we want the world around us to believe us when we speak about a God they cannot see and a resurrection that depends upon the supernatural, then we need to stop being mercenary about truth. We can’t only stand for truth when it benefits us. In the end, we need to believe from the core of our souls that the truth matters and that God will eventually uncover and vindicate the truth.    God calls us to a mission, friend, but he never calls us to dance with the devil to accomplish it. Nothing speaks to the truth of the gospel quite as much as our own willingness to tell the truth equally about God, about others, and about ourselves. This necessitates a radical commitment to both honesty, to humility, and to love for God and others. And it means we need to ask ourselves “Am I willing?”