Buy The Truth, and Sell It Not
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
23 Buy the truth, and sell it not;
Also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
As a general rule, truth is not very highly prized in the society in which we live. We live in a society in which lies and untruths abound.
Christians should be different.
The Bible consistently calls Christians to be people of truth. Proverbs 23:23 calls believers to “buy the truth, and sell it not; Also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.”
Using this verse as our springboard, I want to talk about truth and lies today.
Despite what we hear out of Hollywood and the Newsmedia today; truth is not open to interpretation. Truth is absolute.
To many people, truth is abstract; defined by situational ethics. Their standard for “truth” is their own personal opinion, philosophy, preferences or desires.
We hear it everywhere today, phrases like “my truth” and “your truth” - What our society has come to believe is that what is true for you might not be true for me. Is that the way things really are, or is that just wishful thinking on the part of a people who do not want to admit that God and the Bible are the truth?
You see, when it comes to God, the Bible and morality; society says, “there are no absolutes” - Yet, they live with absolute truths everyday, for example: people do believe in absolutes when it comes to money; when they go up to the bank teller and hand over a check that is written for $1,000, they expect $1,000 cash to be handed to them, not $1,000 half-dollars.
Yet we are told there is no absolute truth.
This attitude toward the truth in nothing new. When Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate, Pilate demonstrated his lack of knowledge concerning the truth,
37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. 38 Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.
Notice Pilate asked the question: What is truth?
I am fascinated by the world’s fluid, abstract, unfounded standard of “truth”.
While the attack on truth has been around for many centuries, the trend seems to be worsening in our day.
Where did it all come from? Where has this attitude toward the truth come from?
It came from the Devil, and it’s been around for a very long time. He is a liar, he is the father of lies!
We can find it all back in Genesis 3.
Gen. 3:1, “Yea, hath God said…” Here is the first lie. It implies that there are NO ABSOLUTES...
If you go back through chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis, you’ll find that 12 times, it says, “And God said...”
Then here comes the Devil and says, “Has God said?” - The answer is, yes, absolutely, God has said…but He had already injected the doubt from the wordplay…We have so much of this today and little by little, it’s chiseling away at truth!
This world says, “You can’t really know what a woman is.” “You can’t really put limits on love and marriage.” - Yes, yes you can, because God has said!
God has spoke, He said, male and female made He them…
We can see that the Devil has not changed his tactics one bit.
We see the lie of NO ABSOLUTES, but in Genesis 3:4, the Devil says, “Ye shall not surely die...”
The second lie of the Devil is NO CONSEQUENCES.
If there are no absolutes, there can be no consequences. People are living like there are no consequences.
Always remember, you are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequence of your choice.
In Genesis 3:5, the Devil says, “Ye shall be as Gods” - Here’s the third lie of the Devil, NO LIMITATIONS.
Well, if there are no absolutes, there are no consequences, then there are no limitations.
Satan has robbed people of the TRUTH!
The LIEs were NO ABSOLUTES, NO CONSEQUENCES, and NO LIMITATIONS. How did he achieve these lies?
He attacked the authority of God’s Word: “Yea, hath God said?”
He attacked the accuracy of the Word: “Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree?” (“How do you know that that is exactly what God said?”)
He attacked the acceptability of the Word of God by getting Eve to see the supposed benefits of abandoning it (“good for food,” etc.).
20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil;
That put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
That put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
I don't know how you feel about it personally, but I believe that there is such a thing as "absolute truth", and I believe that this "absolute truth" can be found in the Bible,
17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
160 Thy word is true from the beginning:
And every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.
Therefore, if the Bible is true, then it must be the standard by which all opinions either stand or fall. In other words, I say as Paul said, "Let God be true and every man a liar.", Rom. 3:4.
What Is Truth?
What Is Truth?
The word TRUTH is found in the King James Bible 224 times...
God has given to us three different editions of truth – they belong together and when you separate them, you are in trouble...
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Truth is a PERSON TO LOVE, truth is Jesus Christ!
Truth is a BOOK TO LEARN,
15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
It’s interesting, Jesus is truth, and the Word is truth, because the theme of the Word is Jesus!
From cover to cover, this blessed old book we hold in our hands is all about Jesus!
Truth is a PERSON TO LIVE FOR,
6 This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.
When I got saved, I believed in Jesus, Who is the TRUTH, how did I know that? Because of this WORD which is the TRUTH, and the regenerating work that was done in my heart was done by the SPIRIT, Who is TRUTH!
Truth is a PERSON TO LOVE,
Truth is a BOOK TO LEARN,
Truth is a PERSON TO LIVE FOR,
Think about this…When a Christian begins to drift away from the truth, it usually starts in one of those three areas...
Either, I stop LOVING Jesus like I should…Or I stop LEARNING from His Word like I should…Or I stop LIVING in the Holy Spirit like I should.
Isaiah 59:14 (KJV 1900)
14 ...For truth is fallen in the street,
And equity cannot enter.
There is a traffic jam in our government, our courts, our education system, and in our churches,
Why? Because truth has fallen. It’s been chipped away at slowly down through the years.
God help the church to be what it’s called to be!
15 But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
Going back to our text verse today,
Truth Costs Something
Truth Costs Something
23 Buy the truth, and sell it not;
Also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
There is only one way to buy something – pay for it.
So buying the truth requires paying a price for it. All buying requires ranking your desires, for no man can afford everything. You spend your limited resources by the priorities you set. And here Solomon tells you to put truth, wisdom, instruction, and understanding at the top of the list...
Once you buy truth, do not sell it to anyone – keep it. Others will try to buy it from you. How? By offering you pleasures or distraction that take you from truth.
The world will do what it can to get you to play their games until you are a fool like them without any wisdom.
You pay a price for the truth. You do not find the truth by accident.
It cost something for God to give us the truth. It cost the people who wrote this Book.
Think of what Moses had to go through to write the Pentateuch.
Think of what David had to go through to give us the Psalms.
Think of what it cost Paul to write the Epistles.
Think of what it cost John to give us the Book of Revelation.
Think of the price Jesus had to pay. He took on a body, suffered on this earth, and was crucified or we would not have the truth that we have.
The truth costs something.
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. 23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.
Paul asked the Church at Galatia,
16 Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
It costs something to obey the truth.
Think of what it cost William Tyndale when he was burned at the stake for his work in translating the Bible into English.
Think of what it cost Cassie Bernal back in 1999 at Columbine High School when she said, yes, I believe in God.
The truth has a price.
The truth will cost you friends, it’ll cost you family, it’ll cost you things…It can even cost your life.
The price of truth when properly reckoned would be beyond anything we could pay.
It is a priceless treasure!
Conclusion
Conclusion
Buy the truth. Sell it not. Don’t let your preconceived ideas, your wants, your preferences, your desires, your theology, your opinions be more valuable in your eyes than the truth.
If you know the truth, and you toss it aside in exchange for anything else, you’ve sold out.