TEXT: James 1:26

SUBJECT: Bridled Tongue #2: Truth

Today, with God’s blessing, we’ll continue our study of The Bridled Tongue. Last week, I tried to briefly expound and apply the text.

• It’s written to people who think they’re religious. They go to church, pray, read the Bible, give to missions, and more.

• Yet for all the good these people do, they don’t bridle their tongues (or, control their speech).

• Therefore, their religion is phony! It may boost their egos, and impress other people, but it doesn’t please the Lord.

This means, if we’re to be real Christians—and not just Church People—we have to be careful of what we say. We have to devote our words to the glory of God and the good of His people. That’s never been easy to do. And today, where every lie, vulgarity, and gossip is hailed as good, fun, and innocent, it’s doubly hard. Yet do it we must. If we want our religion to count for anything.

The topic for today is telling the truth.

On some points, the Bible is pretty hard to understand, but this is not one of them. It everywhere teaches and assumes that telling the truth is good and telling a lie is bad.

Jesus Christ is the Truth; He spoke the truth; He commands us to tell the truth; He hates every kind of lie—including the ones we have polite words for.

On the other hand, Satan is the Lie; he urges us to lie; he loves every lie; and hates all truth. Our Lord said he,

Telling the truth, therefore, is every believer’s duty. Ephesians 4:25 is a good summary,

That’s your duty. Tell the truth.

Having said that, let’s move on to the big question, "What is truth?" You recognize the words, don’t you? They were first spoken by Pontius Pilate. And not only by him. Our world is so full of lies, half-truths, spins, and so on, that many people don’t even know what telling the truth means. And some of them are Christians, believers more "conformed to the world" than they’d care to admit.

Nowadays, telling the truth pretty much means not lying under oath. There is no stigma to telling lies anymore, unless you’re under oath. Then, it’s not the wrongness of the thing that’s so bad, but penalty for it. You can go to jail. It’s called perjury.

I wish I could say that this low regard for truth was unique to our secular age. But I can’t. The most religious people in the world were guilty of the same thing. The Scribes and Pharisees would "Swear by the altar and not the gift on it". If you swore by the "gift" you were bound to keep your word. But if you only promised on the "altar", you were free to go back on your word. The oath, which God gave to guarantee the truth ended up being a loophole for lying.

What does it mean, then, to tell the truth? In Matthew 5:33-37, our Lord makes it quite what He means by it,

How do understand the teaching?

Some have taken it in a mostly negative way. For 500 years the Anabaptists have understood it to mean Don’t take an oath of any kind. I don’t think that’s what our Lord is getting at here.

Others have taken it more like this: Don’t worry about oaths and promises, but just tell the truth all the time. That’s a true doctrine, but I think our Lord means more than that here.

I think what’s He teaching is this: Every word is an oath. Saying "I’ll be there" is no different than swearing "I’ll be there". Saying "I’ll pay you back" is the same as signing a contract and notarizing it with witnesses!

If I say yes, I’m legally bound to do it; if I say no, I’m not allowed to do it—no matter how much I want to.

This brings up an important question: What if circumstances change? For example, I borrow $100 from you, promising to pay you back on Friday. But then something happens: The weather goes bad and I miss three days of work. Friday comes and instead of having my whole paycheck, I only have 40% of it. Am I still obliged to pay you back?

It all depends.

You can come to me and ask for an extension. If I give it to you—or forgive your debt—then you’re free.

Or, if you cannot pay me back then you’re free. But note the word cannot. I didn’t say, cannot conveniently. You may have to make a big sacrifice to pay me back. Like selling things worth way more than $100 to get the money; or working a second job—maybe a low-paying job, beneath your dignity—but whatever you have to do, you have to make good on your word. Why? Because your word is an oath. That’s what makes the holy man of Psalm 15 so impressive. He,

There are two other exceptions, as I see it. If you make a promise you have no authority to make, then you’re free of it if your husband or parents overrule it. And, if you make a sinful promise—not messy or stupid, but stupid—you’re not allowed to keep it. For proof, see King Herod’s wicked vow and how it cost John the Baptist his head!

There are exceptions to the rule, but they are very rare. Let’s face it: When we go back on our word, most of the time, it’s because we want to. And that is lying.

If what I’ve said is true, two observations come to mind.

The first is our need for grace. A good, honest man can pretty much keep his oaths. Why? Because he doesn’t make many! But if every word is an oath, being "good" isn’t good enough. We need grace from above. We need the love of God, the work of Christ, and the purifying ministry of the Holy Spirit to even start telling the truth as we ought to!

Christianity is not a program for self-improvement. It’s a miracle of grace! Do you want to be an honest person? If you do, trying harder won’t do the trick. You need Christ.

Next, we ought to be thankful for any success we have. If you’ve learned to tell the truth at all, you learned it from Christ. You ought to thank Him for it every day. Every time you’re tempted to shade the truth—but don’t—thank the Lord for it.

Telling the truth is good. Lying is bad. Not only in their natures, but also in their effects. What does telling the truth do? What does lying do?

In the first place, telling the truth is good for you.. When we see public men twisting and turning and mutilating the truth, we wonder "How do they live with themselves?"

It’s easy to accuse them of having hardened their hearts to the truth. But it’s not only they who do it. We do too! More often than we'd care to admit. How do we do it—and sleep at night? It’s very easy. We sear our consciences. They don’t hurt like they used to, but that doesn’t mean they’re healthy, but only numb.

If lying gives you a bad conscience, then telling the truth results in a good one. And, if you’ve ever had a good conscience, you know nothing in the world feels better! Telling the truth is good for you.

In the second place, telling the truth is good for others. If you keep your word, people can count on you and not worry all the time! Worry itself is a sin. And by being unreliable, you tempt others to commit it.

One more thing: Being unreliable wastes other people’s time. If you’re the sort of person who can’t be counted on, people have to make back-up plans. They could be putting their time to something more productive than drawing up Plan B.

On the positive side of this, living truthfully frees people from fretting and wasting their time, and sets a good example for them to follow. It’s one way we

In the third place, telling the truth is good for the unsaved. Not only in the general sense, but because it supports our witness to them and makes our Lord look better to them.

Very few people tell the truth, but just about everyone admires it in other people. How many people can you name who never "spin" things and always do what they say? Very few. They stand out. And that’s what our Lord wants us to do.

It glorifies God, Matthew 5:16.

Do you want to tell the truth? If you do, here’s where to start:

Commitment to Christ. Most people don’t tell the truth, because they don’t know the Truth. William Bennett has written several books on Virtue (including truthfulness). For what they do, they’re good. But they don’t do enough! They build a house without laying a foundation. Truthfulness does not start with parents or teachers or books. It starts with Christ. Until you know the Truth, you will never tell the truth.

Ernest Hemingway is the most important writer of the Twentieth Century. Brought up in a Christian home, he rejected it all as hypocrisy. His key word became Truth. Unlike the phonies all around him, he would tell it like it is.

Yet this man, so fiercely dedicated to Truth was one of the biggest liars who ever lived. Four times, he promised to be faithful to his wife. He never was. He betrayed his friends; he lied about his parents and sisters; he lied about his fishing, his hunting. His whole life was a Lie!

He couldn’t build a life of truth without Christ. And neither can you. No one can do it.

Having committed yourself to Christ, you need to take some practical steps in telling the truth. The four most important are these:

• Be careful what you say. If every word is an oath, then you’d better not speak so many of them. I’ve told a million lies without meaning to. Why? Because I’ve talked too much. And I’m not alone. Solomon said,

• Remember what you say. It’s easy to forget things—especially the things you’d rather "forget". But keep this in mind: God doesn’t forget what you’ve said. And He wants you to keep your word. For some of us that means write it down or have someone remind you of what you’ve promised to do. That’s a real discipline.

• Do what you say—even when it’s really, really, really inconvenient. Nothing will make you take your words more seriously than having to back them up!

• Pray.

Let me close with a special word to parents. We lie more to our children than to anyone else in the world. We tell them we’ll play ball with them this afternoon—but we’re too tired to do it. We promise to take them fishing—but something comes up. Or, we tell them "If you do that again, I’m going to punish you"—they do it—and we don’t.

Is it possible to keep your word—even to your own kids? It is—Philippians 4:13. And if that seems too remote, let me point out the example of my father. Kids remember when parents break their promises a lot more vividly than when they keep it. My dad isn’t perfect, of course, but I cannot remember one time he promised to do something and didn’t come through. Whether it was something big—like paying my way through college or small—like playing catch after work, he kept his word.

I’m not lying to you.

We ought to be more conscientious than we are about keeping our word to our kids.