There’s a famous scene from the movie, A Few Good Men, in which the question is asked, “Do you want the truth?” with an immediate addition of: “you can’t handle the truth!” That pretty much sums up the condition of our world. We live in a world where on one hand we are crying out for the truth concerning the COVID19 virus and all the statistics that seem to be manipulated, the validity of wearing a mask, and the excessive cause for fear from every form of media. It’s almost a case of there being a cry for truth but we are being told that we can’t handle the truth. On the other hand, when it comes to the truth about God and His word, there seems to be a turning away from the truth to some really bizarre ideas. No surprise. That is what is foretold in the Scriptures.
2 Timothy 4:3–4 (ESV) — 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
Over ten times “the truth” is mentioned in the books of 1st and 2nd Timothy, indicating a specific body of factual information concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, His accomplishment, and redemptive history.
1 Timothy 2:3–4 (ESV) — 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
1 Timothy 3:15 (ESV) — 15 if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.
2 Timothy 2:15 (ESV) — 15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
2 Timothy 2:24–26 (ESV) — 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
There is definitely a lack of truth in the world today as well as a lack of hunger for “the truth” concern the Lord Jesus Christ and salvation through Him. Do you want the truth? Before you can handle the truth about what is or what isn’t happening in the world today, we must be a person who seeks for “the truth” in God’s word. The Bible is clear that those who want to handle truth must pay the price of diligently seeking after the truth, for God is truth and those who seek Him must seek Him with all they have.
Proverbs 23:23 (ESV) — 23 Buy truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.
Buying the truth means dedicating ourselves to God’s truth every day, in searching His word, as you seek out wisdom and understanding it means calling upon Him, seeking insight into His word of truth, knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ is truth and He has promised the Holy Spirit will lead us in the way of truth, in the word of truth. We also know that the only way to worship God acceptably is in spirit and in truth so even the church is called the “pillar and buttress of the truth.”
Psalm 25:5 (ESV) — 5 Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.
Psalm 51:6 (ESV) — 6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
Psalm 145:18 (ESV) — 18 The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
John 1:14 (ESV) — 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 4:23–24 (ESV) — 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
John 14:6 (ESV) — 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 15:26 (ESV) — 26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.
John 17:17 (ESV) — 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
Do you want the truth? It means selling out to the truth – not half-way but all the way which is the only way to find the truth. As Proverbs says, once you find the truth do not sell it which indicates you don’t allow it to lose it’s value and you give in to those seducing teachings that take away from the truth. It means the way of truth requires diligence in progressing the truth. Otherwise, we prove the fact that we can’t handle the truth, for which we are warned about those who refuse the truth so much so that God sends a strong delusion.
2 Thessalonians 2:9–12 (ESV) — 9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
As we desire truth in the news we receive and from those in government, let us first be people of truth as in “the truth” of God and His word. Otherwise, if we aren’t people of truth, then we can’t handle the truth.
Godspeed,
Bob Brubaker
