There
can be no place for lying in our lives. We live in a world that tolerates, perhaps
even promotes lying as a way of life. Little white lies abound. We are told
lying is OK if you are protecting someone. In almost every area of life, lying
has become an accepted process. The truth would be too hard to handle. We tell
them to protect people.
But
the truth is that most of the time we tell lies to protect ourselves. We think
of politicians and cultural icons who have fallen from their positions because
of the lies they told themselves. And once lies get told, they take over. Lies
compound over time.
Lies
also muddy the waters of our lives. And just as it is impossible to draw a polluted
glass of water from a pure stream, it is impossible to draw a lie from the
truth. There are no ends justifying the means here. Truth must stand on its
own, without any supporting lies. If lies are part of the foundation, the whole
building is in jeopardy.
We
have heard about people who built their careers on lies written into their
resume’. Finally, someone does their homework and the truth comes out. The lies
put into question everything else said about that person. Deleted emails with
the accompanying “trust me” won’t suffice. A polluted stream to be sure. No
crashed hard drive will hide the truth.
For
John, the people who left their fellowship and began spreading lies about Jesus
was too much to take. He couldn’t sit idly by and allow the Truth to be
dismantled. What these people were doing said something about everything they
stood for, not just what they believed about Jesus. Everything about their
teaching was in question. The lie cannot come from the truth. Truth brings
forth truth.
John
appeals to his reader’s knowledge of the truth. They know the Truth because
they have experienced its power to transform their lives. They were in
darkness, now they are in the light. They were dead, and now they are alive.
The Holy Spirit has confirmed the truth in them.
So
be careful about receiving teaching from someone who abandons even one part of
the Truth. Make sure the essentials of our faith remain. Don’t fight a battle
over the non-essentials. But go to the death defending the identity of Jesus,
fully God, fully man and alive forever more. Any watering down of our
sinfulness needs to be avoided. If we are only a little sick, then we only need
a little help to get better. But if we are, and we are dead, then we need
resurrection from the dead to save us.