By Ron Bartanen
“(T)hey did not receive the love of the truth that they
might be saved. And for this reason God
will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie, that they all
could be condemned who did not believe the truth and had pleasure in
unrighteousness” (2 Thessalonians 2:10a-12).
Truth is a
precious commodity. Proverbs 23:23 urges
us, “Buy the truth, and sell it not.”
At the heart of saving faith is “the love of the truth”. Since the fall of man in the beginning, two
spirits have been at work in the world.
The apostle John identified them as the “spirit of truth” and “the
spirit of error” (1 John 4:6). In v. 3b
he referred to the spirit of error as “the spirit of the Antichrist which you
have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.” This spirit denies that “Jesus Christ has
come in the flesh” (v. 3a), a heresy of Gnosticism being promoted by false
teachers, a doctrine contrary to the apostolic gospel of Christ. The world prefers a satanic system that would
encourage them to take “pleasure in unrighteousness”. Or, as John phrases it, “They are of the
world. Therefore they speak as of the
world and the world hears them” (v. 5).
He had earlier reminded them of the error of the world, saying, “For all
that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride
of life—is not of the Father, but is of the world” (2:16).
The ”spirit of
truth,” however, is identified by John as the Holy Spirit who abides in the
true believers, assuring them that “He who is in you is greater than he who is
in the world” (1 John 4:4b). He made it
plain to his readers that “He who knows God hears us (the apostles): he who
knows not God does not hear us. By this
ye know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error” (4:6). Prior to His
ascension, Jesus gave promise to His apostles that He would send the Holy
Spirit to inspire and empower them, which He fulfilled on Pentecost Sunday, as
recorded in in Acts 2. He said, “When
he the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth” (John
16:13a). Their writings are, for this
reason, accepted as all other scriptures as the inspired word of God—the truth
of God (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16). Because of
the Spirit of truth inspiring the apostles, Jesus could tell them, “He who
hears you, hears Me, he who rejects you, rejects Me, and he who rejects Me
rejects Him that sent Me” (Luke 10:16).
Jesus made known to His disciples that He was more than just another
prophet with a message of truth, but the embodiment of truth, saying, “I am the
way, the truth and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). He, like the Father, “cannot lie” (Titus
1:2), in contrast to Satan, the spirit of error, who “does not stand in the
truth because there is no truth in him.
When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources for he is a liar
and the father of it” (John 8:44).
While we do not audibly hear God speak to us, we hear Him speak to us through
His word—the Old and New Testaments—He does not remain silent. Hebrews 1:1-2 encompassed all of Scriptures
when it reminds us that “God, who at
various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son…” The writers of the Bible were not expressing
their opinions, but spoke and wrote the truth by divine inspiration. They were—and still remain—God’s
spokesmen. We should not be surprised,
then, when people who may not even believe Satan exists become, unwittingly,
his spokesmen. We are warned that “The
Spirit expressly says that in the latter times some will depart from the faith,
giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in
hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Timothy
4:1-2). Note that this is not just
warning us of a world deceived by satanic rebellion, but of , at least, nominal
Christianity, departing “from the faith.”
Prominent denominations that once at least sought to make the Bible the
sole authority in the faith have, with the passing of time, abandoned the
Scriptures and conformed more and more with the world. It is common now to know of churches
approving abortion, sexual perversion, the “woke” ideology, etc. Jesus is seen in such churches as just a
man—a sinner like the rest of us, but not the virgin-born Son of God and
Savior. Truth, to such, is nothing more
than what the denomination declares to be truth.
The apostle Paul,
describing those “whose foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21), listed
numerous sins such as sexual perversion, envy, murder, etc.—sins that
characterize our world today. He
summarizes the list by warning of the consequences: “To those that are
self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation,
and wrath, tribulation and anguish on the soul of man who does evil….”
(1:21-32). As I view this, I believe one
of the primary devices of Satan is to change “the truth of God into a lie” (v.
25). Can we see that happening today?
While God has said when creating humankind, “male and female created He them”
(Genesis 1:27, defining two genders, now we’re led to believe there are
innumerable genders. I recently wrote
that some were claiming there to be 57, but I heard recently that the number
has gone up to 107. I surely don’t know
how they can define gender! Satan’s
newly devised “ruth” of transgenderism is spreading like wildfire. God, at creation, defined gender as male and
female, and it was defined by how we were made, with man providing the seed,
and the woman the egg, from which a child of one of the two genders will be
born, but now teachers in schools tell their captive audiences that they can
have hormones and bodily mutilations to change genders. And if you dare to not bow the knee before
Satan by recognizing and honoring this change, you’ll pay the consequences.
Marriage, as defined in Scripture as being a commitment of a male and female,
but now needs not to be limited to the opposite sexes. Same sex “marriage” is the new “truth”
about marriage, and if you openly disagree, you may be subject to a lawsuit or
loss of a job. On all of the current
issues, God’s truth is discarded as the world’s ears are attuned to Satan’s
lies.
Satan, who is
described in Scripture as “the god of this age” (2 Corinthians 5:4) who has
blinded the minds of unbelievers to the gospel (2 Corinthians 4;4), Spiritual
blindness comes from substituting “my truth” for God’s truth. As Christians, we cannot bend the knee to the
demonic gods of this world. We must not
only hold sacred truth in our minds, but also defend God’s truth by our words
and conduct. God has not called us to
silence, fading our testimony into the world’s darkness, but to be the light of
the world. The ultimate light of the
world is Jesus Christ, who said, “I am the light of the world: he that
followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”
(John 8:24). Because He would return to
the Father, He appointed His apostles to be His light-bearers, saying, “Ye are
the light of the world. A city that is
set on a hill cannot be hid” (Matthew 5:14).
But it was not to be limited to them, as the apostle Paul made clear
when he encouraged Christians to “be blameless and harmless, the sons of God
without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye
shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15). Then he adds that in addition to being
blameless, harmless and without rebuke, he adds in v. 16, “holding for the word
of life….” We, as believers, are not to
cower in fear before the world, nor adopt the world’s standards, but to
shamelessly present the light of truth, God’s word, as the life-giving
message. The world should never have to
wonder where the children of light are standing in regard to false “truths”
promoted by the powers of darkness. We
must never cease to stand up and speak up for the truth. When Christians collectively let the light of
Christ shine, the church lives up to its divine calling, as expressed by Paul,
writing to the young evangelist, Timothy, defining the spiritual body of Christ
as “the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and
ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15b).
Salvation is not available apart from
divine truth. Jesus said, “Ye shall know
the truth, and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32). Paul declared that we are “chosen through
“sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (2 Thessalonians
2:13b). Paul said to the Thessalonians,
“when ye received the word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as
the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually
worketh also in you that believe’ (1 Thess. 2:13b). One who commits his/her life to Christ in
faith and obedience to God’s truth, has reason to “rejoice not in iniquity, but
rejoice in the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6).
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