Do You Love The Truth?

Do you love the truth even if...

you didn’t like what it said, when it is difficult to hear, when it challenges your way of thinking, when it challenges your long held beliefs, when it makes your life more difficult, when it tells you need to change, when it says that you are wrong

Are you willing listen to it, accept it, and live it no matter how hard or challenging it might be, no matter if it tells me I am wrong and need to change, no matter how hard of a path that it might set me on?

Why would anyone leave our awesome God and trade priceless truth for false doctrine? Is it a lack of intellectual brain power? A lack of access to a Bible? Because God predestined such to happen? Absolutely not. To the contrary, note that God explains that the lost are ultimately responsible for their own lost condition because “...they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10). Paul in this context is discussing those people who are lead astray by the apostasy that was predicted (2:3). They gave it no welcome, they gave it no love

THEY DID NOT RECEIVE THE LOVE OF THE TRUTH

they heard the truth or could have easily heard it, but they did not love it. “Still there are people who have known the truth, but are restless and desire to know things that God has not revealed. They are always looking for something novel and spectacular”

To love the truth is to embrace what the Bible teaches (John 17:17; Proverbs 23:23). The following passages describe in more detail what “the love of the truth” looks like in practical application (Psalm 19:7-14; Psalm 119).

John 17:17 NASB95

“Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.

Proverbs 23:23 NASB95

Buy truth, and do not sell it, Get wisdom and instruction and understanding.

SO AS TO BE SAVED

For this reason...

: In other words, because they did not develop a love for God’s truth, obviously they did not truly love God with their whole heart. Sadly, in the end, they loved something more than God and His truth. It could be that they loved themselves, that is, immediate pleasure, personal comfort, the praise of men, fame, money, or simply what was most convenient, as Jesus said, “...the desires for other things” (Mark 4:19)

Mark 4:19 NASB95

but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

Romans 1:28 NASB95

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,

“A deluding influence”: This is simply a natural consequence of not believing the truth. Our allegiance to God’s truth will be tested. Guaranteed. If we sell the truth, the only thing left to buy is some sort of error. “Believe what is false”: Various conclusions must be drawn at this point: God will not prevent one from being tempted or believing what is false. The only prevention against error is a complete dedication to the truth. Not loving the truth has some unavoidable and serious consequences. God will determine our eternal destiny, not only the basis of what we did and said, but also on the basis of what we believed (2 John 9). Jesus stated the same truth: “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (John 18:37). “Every one who is on the side of truth” (TCNT), “Who is a friend of the truth” (Wey). “Who loves truth” (Phi). “Lives on truth” (Ber).

John 18:37 NASB95

Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

2 John 9 NASB95

Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.

“What is truth?”

(John 18:38)

Pilate seems to do what many people do today when someone says the Bible is the truth (John 17:17). He seeks to change the subject. Rather than facing his own need to obey the truth, he turns to a philosophical discussion concerning the question of whether any actual and final absolute truth exists. This strategy is like that of many: The continual posing of questions in an attempt to avoid the need to obey God by removing one’s sin. In contrast, the person who wants the truth, who wants it more than anything else, will spend his time not only learning the truth, but doing it. Jesus had reminded Pilate that the question “What is truth?” has already been answered – Jesus is the truth! (John 14:6) And anyone who really wants the truth will hear it in Jesus’ teachings. The only real question left is, “Will you listen?”

1 Kings 22 Example King Jehosaphat and King Ahab and the Prophet Micaiah

this man realizes that he can only speak what the Lord says to him regardless of what people want to hear and regardless of whether or not it spoils the entire mood.

In order that they may be judged”: The word judged here is being used in the sense of condemned. Ending up deceived and perishing by a lie is a just recompense for those who rejected God’s gracious message of salvation (Mark 16:16). Paul equally noted that when people reject the gospel, they are actually judging themselves as being unworthy of even hearing such a gracious offer (Acts 13:46 “since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles”).

Who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in wickedness

“Who did not”: Note the wording, these people did not believe the truth, the text does not say that they “could not”. They heard the truth, they were given a chance to be saved, and they rejected it. “Believe the truth”: A person really does not believe the truth until they love it and thus refuse to compromise it. “But took pleasure in wickedness”: “Delight in wickedness” (TCNT). “Have made evil their playfellow” (Phi). “It is of great importance to observe that the opposite of ‘believing the truth’ is ‘delighting in wickedness’. This is because truth has moral implications and makes moral demands. Evil, not error, is the root problem. It tells us that the downward slippery path begins with a love for evil. The only way to be protected from being deceived is to love goodness and truth”

I ask the question that I asked in the beginning. Do you love the Truth? To not love the truth is to give in to lies and deception and that only brings judgment, damnation, condemnation. To not love the truth is not believe in the truth so as to be saved. It means you take more pleasure in wickedness.