Christians Are to Be Lovers of Truth

How Believers Witness to Their Faith Through Resting in What God Has Said

Good Morning,

As we turn to April and the annual celebration of Psalm 14:1 day it is also a good time to meditate on truth. For the Christian there is no greater feeling then the deep, well-felt assurance of God’s truthfulness to us. His word is sure. Every time we pick up the Bible we do so with the remembrance of the Holy Spirit tugging at our soul that He is ours and we are His. There is for certain nothing greater in the believer’s arsenal of faith that that knowledge. No matter what the situation outside, even if hordes of Assyrians or Canadians are at the door, we know the truth that God has us in His hands and we need not fear whatever might be on their minds.

There is nothing more practical in our day-to-day than truth. It is a common theme of David’s in the psalms that His hope is built on nothing less. As he speaks of his trials his peace is grounded in the fact that God is the one who kept His word to His forefathers. Psalm 89 which comes to us from the hand of Ethan the Ezrahite points particularly to the covenant as a way to illustrate this blessing. He says:

I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever; with my mouth will I make known Your faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, ‘Mercy shall be built up forever;
Your faithfulness You shall establish in the very heavens.’, ‘I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn to My servant David: ‘Your seed I will establish forever, and build up your throne to all generations.’

David confirms this in Psalm 105:

He remembers His covenant forever, the word which He commanded, for a thousand generations, The covenant which He made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac, and confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, ‘To you I will give the land of Canaan as the allotment of your inheritance,’.

This coming Lord’s Day morning at Bethany we will see these testimonies in two different, yet complementary ways. Firstly, in our sermon text, Genesis 2:15-17, and secondly in the corporate celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Each in their own way shall point us to consider afresh what it means that we are those who rest in truth. Every time we eat the bread and drink the cup our Lord Jesus tells us we are to remember His assurance of the resurrection, “. . . for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”. Christ’s words there are a keen testimony that as we drink the fruit of the vine in Communion that we are doing so not merely in remembrance, but in active participation in the life of Jesus as He reigns from Heaven above in all His glory, feasting on the bounty of His victory over the grace, of which we are the fruits. It is why when we do come to the Table that we do not do so lightly or without all due preparation. It is a violation as much of the Third Commandment as much as any other.

The reason for this is because to live in the truth and believe in the truth we must in our hearts and in our walk witness to the fact that we actually do understand it. It’s easy to say, it is much more of a commitment to act outwardly the true feelings of the heart. We show what we truly think about the truth of God by whether or not we trust its threatenings as much as how we rest in its promises, for those two things actually go hand-in-hand. Our Lord teaches this in His conversation with the folks after the feeding of the 5,000. Many are willing to follow Him as long as He fills their belly, but the second He asks anything of them they flee like rats off a ship. Much of contemporary Christianity is like this. Lots of praise and flowery talk surrounding the kind of blessings God can give, even when they talk about salvation and free grace it is with an antinomian spirit of sin boldly that grace might abound. We must remember the warnings of our Savior in Matthew 7 and 25 and in other places about how we treat His truth. As those born from above by the power of the gospel our calling is to see all that God is, and seek after Him in a Luke 9 fashion, pushing the plow and trusting in the path the Lord has us on, regardless of what the outward realities might be. All the more reason as the skies darken that we push on in faith.

Going back for a second to the reception of truth in the covenant of works made with Adam in Genesis that I referenced earlier. That passage forms with his breaking of it in the next chapter the reason for Christ’s death as Paul makes clear in Romans 5. But, God did not make a covenant with Adam in order for him to break it. Our Lord was not setting the first man up for failure, he did that all on his own, even if it happened by the providential hand of Jehovah. What that event, God’s condescending to make a promise to Adam for his obedience, was grounded once again on his whole question of truth. Our first parent was asked a simple question.

Did he believe that the trees which made up the garden were sufficient for his needs? There was only one he could not partake from, but hundreds that he could. As long as he was faithful to the trust of God and rested in the truth of his word then he was safe along with Eve to enjoy the bounty at their disposal. It was the idolatry of doubting God’s truth at the word of the serpent that led all humanity into death, as had been the warning the Lord gave, and as we saw He was faithful to keep His word, because God is truth. Yet, in the same manner our own redemption which was purchased by Christ came at the same truth found in Genesis 3:15.

In closing, all this is a keen word to all of us to remember what truth is, where it comes from, and why of any people on earth the people of God must be known for one thing, and it is being lovers of the truth.

Here is another thought:

https://www.jvfesko.com/blog/thepoweroftruth

Blessings in Christ,

Rev. Benjamin Glaser

Pastor, Bethany ARP Church