Truth

 

"Truth" Has it passed your lips lately?

A PERSONAL COMMITMENT TO TRUTH

Truth is abstract but very real. It is the standard in every realm of
existence. There are true or genuine products and there are those
which are false and counterfeit. There are true and false friends. We
are confronted daily with true and false information. There are true
and false answers to questions. There is also true and false
religion, true and false doctrines and practices, hopes and promises.
It is of this category of religious truth of which we write.

The illustrious Bohemian reformer and martyr, John Hus (1369-1415), is
credited with the following lines. "Seek the Truth, Listen to the
Truth, Teach the Truth, Love the Truth, Abide in the Truth and Defend
the Truth unto Death." This was his personal credo. For God's truth he
lost his life to the fiery flames of the executioner's stake.

Truth exists. It is within our reach but we must seek and find it
(John 5:39; Acts 17:11). God's truth is bound up in a remarkable book
of sixty-six units. It is time-tested and universally applicable to
the needs of man. The message contained therein renovates ruined
lives and makes men acceptable to their Creator and Judge. Truth is
attainable. It can be known (John 8:32).

To profit from God's truth, we must be willing to listen to it. Not
all are willing to do so. Some harden their hearts and close their
ears to truth (Matt. 13:14-15). Truth cannot save or benefit those
who will not listen to it.

The true servant of Christ will teach the truth of God (Acts
20:26-27). Paul liked to say, "I speak the truth, I lie not" (I Tim.
2:7). In a very hostile environment, John Hus believed and taught
that the Sacred Scripture was the sole and final authority in all
things moral and religious.

For truth to be fruitful in our lives we must love it. Some do not
have a love for the truth (II Thess. 2:10-11). Their faulty attitude
leaves them vulnerable to delusions and lies. Truth can easily slip
through their fingers and be lost or forgotten.

For truth to do its perfect work in our lives, we must abide in it.
Those who go onward and abide not in the teaching of Christ have not
God. Only those who abide therein have the blessings of the Father
and the Son (II John 9-11). Abiding in truth means to live by its
precepts, to abstain from that which truth forbids and to keep truth
ever in our minds and hearts (Eph. 5:18-19).

We must be willing to defend the truth at any cost. Paul understood
this. He was set for the defense of the gospel (Phil. 1:16). In the
2000 years of Christian history, thousands of believers have paid the
ultimate price for defending God's Truth. Weak, cowardly men quail
before the enemies of truth. They flee when the hateful champions of
error appear. The very thought of suffering for truth enervates their
fickle hearts. At best they are peacetime soldiers, short-timers
hoping the avoid the enemy

John Hus searched for the truth. When he found it, he loved it and
abode in it. He preached the truth throughout Catholic dominated
Bohemia. He shook the foundations of error and struck fear in the
priestly tyrants. They responded with deceit and violence. On July
6, 1415, the Catholic authorities declared Hus an obstinate heretic
and ordered him burned to death. May it never be said of us that we
failed in our duty to God's Truth.

-John Waddey