Article of Faith: Are you a child of the truth or the lie? (2), By Femi Aribisala

If you tell a liar the truth of God, he will reject it.

 Jesus told Pilate that he who is of the truth hears His voice. This means Jesus is only acceptable to the truthful. A man is either of the truth or he is of the lie:

 “Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.  You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.  But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me.  Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?  He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God. (Jn 8:43-47).

Two Kinds of Human Beings

Here is a stark definition of two kinds of men. One who is of the truth and one who is of the lie. One who is of God and one who is of the devil. One who can hear the word of God and one who cannot but can hear the voice of the devil.

The world says that opposites attract. But the word of God says like attract. Only those who are of God find the gospel of Jesus Christ attractive. Jesus says those who are attracted to the gospel are those who are of God. 

Jesus is like a magnet. His people are drawn to Him and they welcome His revelation. Although His light rebukes their sin, they nevertheless respond to that light in repentance and faith. They live by His truth. But those who are not of God reject the gospel. Otherwise, why would a man not believe the truth and prefer to be told a lie?

Rejecting the Truth

If you tell a liar the truth of God, he will reject it. Jesus said the reason the Jews did not believe Him was because He told them the truth. If He had told them a lie they would have believed Him.

Look at this scripture again:

“Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?” (John 8:46).

Jesus asked the Jews if He had ever told them a lie. “Have you ever caught Me telling you a lie? Have you ever caught Me sinning? On the contrary, you have only observed Me telling you the truth. Everything I tell you I practice. I do everything I tell you I can do. I do everything I teach. You have never heard Me or seen Me contradict Myself. You have never observed Me being hypocritical. You have always known Me to be truthful. And yet, you don’t believe Me. Therefore, the problem is not in what I say. The problem is in you. The problem is that you are not of the truth. The problem is that you are not of God. For God is a God of truth.”

We cannot know our true selves if we don’t know the true God. If we don’t know God, we will be open to lies, especially about humanity. It is in the wisdom of God that men who reject the truth of God will believe lies: 

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” (Romans 1:18).

Because men did not like to retain God in their knowledge, the Bible declares that God gave men over to a debased mind and vile passions, allowing men to do ungodly things:

“For this reason, God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12).

So, God says to Isaiah:

“Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ “Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed.” (Isaiah 6:9-10).

Unbelievers Are Liars

Unbelievers are liars and they make God a liar. Because they are liars, they reject the truth. But the truth we reject will judge us on the last day. Jesus says:

“He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him — the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.” (John 12:48).

Those same words of truth we rejected will come back to question us. The truth will ask: “Did I not tell you so-and-so on such-and-such a date? Why did you reject what you knew to be the truth?” 

We reject the truth because it is true. We reject the truth because we are liars. We reject it not because we believe it is false, but because we know it is true. We reject truth because we are not of the truth. We reject it because we don’t like the truth. We reject it because we don’t think the truth is profitable in this life. 

We want the world to like us but if we speak the truth they will not. If we are truthful, we will not get away with murder. If we are pastors, our ministry will suffer. Our membership will decline. We might not be able to pay our bills.   

In which case we cannot expect to spend eternity with the truth.  We must spend eternity with the lie.  Jesus says:

“I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.” (Luke 16:9).

Eternal Habitations

A man will end up in the end with what he believes. According to our faith so shall it be unto us. We will end up with who we believe. If we believe in idols, then we should be prepared to spend eternity with the idols where they are. If we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, then we can look forward to spending eternity with Him where He is.

Truth in man comes in response to the truth of God. It is received as a gift from God. This gift comes by way of teaching and also by way of the working of the Holy Spirit in the life of a man. 

Jesus is the word of God. The word of God is truth. The more we read the words of Jesus and trust the Holy Spirit to quicken what we read to our spirit, the more our hearts are cleansed so that we think the pure thoughts of God.

In the end, the pastors, bishops, popes and other members of the religious establishment decided that the way out was to kill Jesus. But can you, O great Christian, kill the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, today? 

Hating the Truth

God is love and He is also the truth. There is a very close relationship between the truth and love. The truth is to be spoken in love. (Ephesians 4:15). 

Love thinks no evil. Love rejoices in the truth. Love believes true things. Love hopes true things. Love never fails to love.

Why do we hate the truth? We hate the truth because the truth is bitter. We hate the truth because the truth exposes us. We hate the truth because the truth reveals who we are. We hate the truth because we believe in self-deception. We hate the truth because we don’t like ourselves. We hate the truth because we are not who we want to be.  We hate the truth because we are not who we claim to be.

We like lies because we cannot handle the truth. Yes, he is a preacher of the gospel.  Everyone acknowledges him as a man of God. But nobody knows he is a closet drunkard. Nobody knows he is having an affair with his secretary. They call him Archbishop, but nobody knows that he is addicted to pornography.

 Would they still love me if they knew the truth? Would they still love me if they knew I am a fraud? Would they still love me if they knew I am still striving against sin? What if they found out that I beat my wife? What if it becomes public knowledge that I have children outside of my marriage? What if they knew that I shoot cocaine? Would they still love me? 

Secrets don’t exist

All the things we are hiding are already known. Nothing is hidden from God.

The prodigal son went away into a far country so that he could be with prostitutes without having to bother with his father. No such luck. God is Jehovah Shammar. Take solace. God knows already. What a relief. 

He knows I am a thief. He knows I have lustful thoughts.

He knows I still shoot cocaine.

God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world. He did not send Jesus into the world to condemn me, but to save me. He knows that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Therefore, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. 

Even though my sin is scarlet, the promise of God says His grace will ensure that it will be as white snow. Jesus says about a sinful woman: “Her sins, precisely because they are many, have been forgiven her because she loved much.” She has been accepted into God’s beloved. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

Gospel of Truth

 We have met the truth and it did not destroy us. The truth is not as damning as we feared. The truth is the gospel. The truth is ultimately good news. 

“Adam, who told you that you were naked? That is not the truth. The truth is that although you have been stealing, you are not a thief. It is not in your nature to steal, beat people up, lie, cheat and fornicate. The truth is that we can be righteous, and live godly lives. God in Christ has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

The truth is that God has provided the opportunity for the man who has messed up, the man who has blown it, the man who has failed, the man who has sinned and the man who has transgressed to begin again.   

How has he done this? He did it by giving us the avenue to a new birth.

But I am an old man says Nicodemus. Would I have to go back into my mother’s womb? 

It does not matter if you are young or old. It is a spiritual and not a physical rebirth. The slate is wiped clean. The past is forgiven and forgotten. God is the most merciful of all. Once we repent, confess our sins and make a turnaround, He does not remember our sins anymore.

Thanks to the path of life laid out before us by Jesus, the believer has new principles, new affections, and a new nature. He has the divine ability to overcome temptation.

When a man is born again, his spirit is re-generated, quickened and made alive by God. He is now able to see, understand and perceive hitherto hidden things about the kingdom of God. The things of God are spiritually discerned. 

 Nicodemus was a teacher and a ruler of the Jews. Nevertheless, he could not understand this because he was spiritually dead. What Christ spoke spiritually Nicodemus passed through carnal filters?

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:17-21). CONCLUDED.

Faribisala@yahoo.com; www.femiaribisala.com