Overcoming Falsehood with Truth
In their book Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner tell the story of an IRS officer named John Szilagyi. In the early 1980s, Szilagyi had completed enough random audits of other people’s tax returns to know that many US citizens were inflating the number of their dependents so they’d receive a bigger refund at the end of the year.
Szilagyi decided that something needed to be done, and his solution was to require taxpayers to list their children’s Social Security numbers. “Initially, there was a lot of resistance to the idea,” said Szilagyi. “The answer I got was that it was too much like 1984.”
A few years later, however, Szilagyi’s idea was revisited and passed into law for 1986. When the following year’s tax returns came trickling in, he and the rest of the IRS were astounded: seven million dependents had suddenly disappeared!
Perhaps no other temptation—or tempter—is as easy to embrace as a simple lie. What harm can it do? After all, it’s just words. . . .
And that’s where the slippery slope begins.
We see it all around us: telephone and email scammers, serial cheaters, dishonest coworkers or bosses, men who use women and vice versa, bullies and social media trolls, even family members who take advantage of our love and generosity.
Most of those who took advantage of the easy exemption for dependents probably didn’t consider themselves liars. Or cheats. But that doesn’t change the truth or the facts. No matter how much you dislike the IRS, or anyone you choose to deceive, a lie is still a lie.
It’s easy to assume that a lie is a foreign thing to us—something that invades our lives, homes, and relationships from the outside. But be careful you don’t make excuses for yourself that you wouldn’t make for others. Make time to take inventory of your own actions and choices. Doing so will be a lesson in humility and the first step to understanding how you can be deceived by the emperor of lies.
The Belt of Truth
The soldier’s basic attire was a tunic—a shirt-like garment that draped from shoulder to knee. Over this he wore metal torso armor and long, protective leather strips that hung from his waist to his lower thighs around his entire body. His belt was a band of wide, thick leather with loops and slots that clamped over these items. From it hung a sword, rope, ration sack, money sack, and darts. Everything the soldier needed in hand-to-hand combat was on his belt, right there at his fingertips.
When running, the soldier pulled up his tunic and tucked it in his belt, freeing his legs for speed and maneuverability. This was known as “girding one’s loins.”
While the belt had no offensive function of its own, it was the piece of equipment that essentially held everything else together, keeping the soldier ready for anything he might face.
Here’s what this means for us today: truth is what fits us for the life of a Christian. Truth holds everything together and makes us ready
When we know the truth and live the truth, we can access our weapons quickly and confidently, without fear that anything is out of place in our lives.
As a soldier wearing the belt of truth, you need not be timid about standing strong in defense of God’s reality. From that belt you draw all the resources you need to combat a culture that promotes falsehood and attacks truth.
God Is Truth
God The Father Is Truth
God The Son Is Truth
God The Holy Spirit Is Truth
Truth is not some nebulous idea, a flexible concept, or a theoretical assumption; it is a solid, clearly defined, unalterable entity. It is ultimate reality, residing in the triune God of the universe, and it is not open to reevaluation or redefinition.
We Overcome Falsehood By Seeking The Truth
Study The Truth
To seek the truth we must begin by recommitting ourselves to an in-depth study of doctrine. Doctrine is the truth of the Word of God organized and categorized to give us clarity about the issues of life. It is systematized truth.
The more we know of the pieces of Scripture, the less we will puzzle about how to live our daily lives and how our lives fit into an overarching picture. Intimate knowledge of the Bible enables us to understand how every action and event has meaning in relation to other acts and events, whether on a personal or cosmic level. This is why it’s imperative that Christians become conversant with the Bible.
I urge you to answer for yourself the question Stu Weber asks: “Are you involved in a regular, rigorous regimen of Bible study? If not, what in the world are you doing? . . . Your mind, your most critical weapon in battle, is braced by doctrine. Your soul is strengthened by biblical knowledge.”10
If God’s people will make the knowledge of God and His Word the pursuit of their Christian lives, Satan will be thwarted in his every effort to divide, deceive, and destroy.
To seek the truth, you must diligently search the Scriptures. The wonderful news is that our seeking after the truth will never be in vain. God has promised to reward us when we diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6).
Submit to the Truth
Last year I had the privilege of writing the foreword to Not God Enough, a new book by pastor and theologian J. D. Greear. My favorite chapter, “You Don’t Get Your Own Personal Jesus,” included this provocative passage:
When God appeared to Moses, he declared, “I am who I am.” “I am who I am” is not “I am whoever you want me to be.”
Can we imagine how offensive it must be to God when we attempt to reshape him according to our preferences? How would you like it if someone did that to you? . . .
My guess is that you’d be offended. If we wouldn’t like someone else doing that to us, why would we think it’s OK to do that with God? Do we think that our idea of God is better than who he actually is?
Have we forgotten who we are talking about?11
God is not my God or your God; He is simply God. He has never changed, and He never will. It is God’s desire to change us into His image, but we have neither the authority nor the ability to change God into our image. It is simply not our place to create a God who makes us feel good about the way we’re doing life.
As believers, we’re called to overcome falsehood with truth. We aren’t called to make up truth but to submit to the truth that is found in God—and to never waver.
We Overcome Falsehood By Speaking The Truth
Unfortunately, there’s a sanctioned form of lying used by some to justify not telling the truth. It’s called “spin.” Spin is the recasting, reinterpretation, or revising of the truth to make it more palatable. The point is not to be truthful; it’s to reinterpret facts as necessary to take the edge off the truth and make it more politically correct and less offensive for your own goals.
But in God’s sight, spin is nothing short of lying, and it is not acceptable in His sight:
Speak The Truth Boldly
Speak The Truth Lovingly
Live The Truth
To walk in the truth means living out the biblical tenets of the Christian faith. It means, as the saying goes, ensuring our walk matches our talk.
It Takes Confession To Live The Truth
It Takes Correction To Live The Truth
Almighty God wants sincere believers who face up to the sin in their lives and then face it down through confession and repentance. This is the way an Overcomer learns to live the truth
Turn Up The Volume On Truth
One of the vivid memories of my growing-up years took place in a little village in Indiana called Winona Lake. This was the home of the Winona Lake Conference Grounds, and during the fifties and sixties it was a major conference center for evangelical Christians.
During that time my father was working on a graduate degree at the Winona Lake School of Theology. Every summer he took our whole family to Winona Lake for several weeks.
One of the groups that gathered in Winona Lake each year was Youth for Christ, at that time a huge and growing nationwide organization. One summer Youth for Christ invited Dr. Billy Graham to speak at their event. The little village was transformed into a media center as thousands of people came to see the celebrated evangelist.
Dr. Graham was to speak in the Billy Sunday Tabernacle, a throwback sawdust-trail pavilion—yes, there was actually sawdust on the floor. The pavilion seated more than 7,500 people on hard wooden benches. The huge windows were flung open to allow the lake breeze to cool the building and let people outside see what was going on inside. On this night, people stood twelve deep all around the tabernacle. Every seat inside and every spot where someone could stand was occupied for hours before the event.
A friend of mine operated the follow spotlight from the roof. He invited me to join him for the night, and that’s how I ended up having one of the best places in the house to watch this dynamic young evangelist.
I don’t remember the details of Billy Graham’s message that night, but I do remember he preached the truth: that Jesus Christ is the only hope for lost mankind. When he gave the invitation, scores of people, young and old, came forward to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior. I never really recovered from that moment.
Billy Graham was a truth-teller, the greatest preacher of the gospel message in modern-day history. He opened the door for all of us who have used the power of radio and television for the purpose of preaching the truth to the masses.
As I was finishing this chapter, Billy Graham died. He was ninety-nine years old, and for over seventy years he dominated the evangelical landscape. My wife, Donna, and I attended his funeral held under a gigantic tent in Charlotte, North Carolina. As I sat there surrounded by almost every evangelical leader I’d ever met, I felt a great sadness—a great sense of loss.
This megaphone for the gospel had been silenced by death. And then I thought, It’s true that the megaphone has been silenced—there will never be another Billy Graham. But there are thousands of microphones still left. I cannot be a megaphone, but I can be a microphone for the truth of the gospel.
On that day in Charlotte, I made a commitment to turn up the volume on telling the truth of the gospel. I challenge you to do the same.