Articles
Truth In A Sea Of Lies
It seems that every day brings a new story about the ongoing pandemic and facts and figures and charts and graphs showing its spread, its mortality, and how it is carried and spread. The problem is, those facts and figures don’t always match, and there are competing voices who explain how it spreads, who it affects, the effectiveness of a potential vaccine, and whether or not those already infected but not symptomatic are carriers or immune or likely to become symptomatic sometime in the future.
Add to this the competing voices as to how to best deal with the spread, how to protect oneself and others, and whether or not we should be “opening up” economically and socially, wear a mask or not wear a mask, and one might be tempted to just throw your hands in the air and just give up on trying to know who is telling the truth — if anyone is! And this is just on the subject of the coronavirus; the same problem exists in society regarding just about any topic. The problem is, we don’t know what truth is anymore.
It doesn’t matter who it is that is speaking, either. Nowadays, it is just expected that politicians are lying to us [“You can keep your plan and it will cost less”], and they rate right down there with used car salesmen [“This baby was driven only on weekends by a little old lady from Pasadena”] on the scale of trustworthiness. Coming in a close third on the lack of trustworthiness is the news media. It used to be that citizens would tune in to one of the three major networks for news, and they could believe that what they were hearing was true and actually news, and not a biased slant on some event or person that was aired or delivered in such a way as to persuade the listener or viewer of some underlying opinion, while conveniently omitting facts or views that would contradict the intended point to be made.
Now, we have 24-hour news networks who long ago surrendered mere reporting of news, impartiality, and truth as the main objectives, and are now driven by corporate greed, TV ratings, and a political agenda. It is getting more and more difficult to know what the truth is, and even when competing sources seem to be saying the same thing, it is presented in a way that would lead one to draw different conclusions based on the same “facts”! The problem, again, is that we don’t know what the truth is anymore. But even more revealing is the reality that we don’t want the truth.
How did we get to this point? Well, according to statistics outlined in her book Liespotting, Pamela Meyer tells us that one in four Americans believe it is okay to lie to an insurer, one third of all resumés contain false information, and deception costs businesses $994 billion each year. In other words, there’s a whole lot of lying going on out there in the world. Why do we accept it or tolerate it, though?
In a study done in 2017 about this, researchers found “that lying that served a shared moralized goal was more accepted and advocacy in support of the opposing view, or nonpreferred end, was more condemned, regardless of whether the statement was true or false.” [Alison Mueller, doctoral candidate, and Linda Skitka, University of Illinois Chicago, professor of psychology.] Add to this the finding of Dr. Paul Elkman, in his book Telling Lies, “that we want to believe that someone is telling us the truth, especially when that person is emotionally or psychologically important to us.” In short, we accept lies because we want to believe the statement or the person.
This is no less the case when speaking of spiritual matters. I probably don’t have to tell you that there is much confusion and a whole host of untruths being propagated by men and women who purport to be speaking God’s word and God’s will. One religious leader will tell you that everyone will eventually be saved, while another will tell you only a few will be saved; one will tell you man must do something to be saved, while another will tell you God or Christ has done it all and you can do nothing; one will tell you man is saved by grace alone, and another will tell you one is saved by one’s good works; one will tell you there is no such place as hell and another will tell you it is most certainly real. Whatever the issue, though, the contradicting positions on each of these subjects and more continue to exist and thrive among men for the same reason lying is so widespread among society: We want the statement or the person to be true.
This is nothing new, of course. Even when Jesus walked this earth and did miracles, signs and wonders that were beyond refute, the religious leaders said of Him, “We know that this Man is a sinner” (John 9:24). Today, people who have never seen Jesus will reject the written testimony of God — the Bible — because they don’t want it to be true, not because there is no evidence; many have, in fact, never investigated the testimony of the first-century eyewitnesses, and because they don’t want to admit there is evidence. Some, to be fair, believe Jesus is the Son of God because they want to believe it, and also not based on the evidence.
So, with all this conflicting and often contradictory talk going on, how can we know what is true? The answer is going to depend on you. That doesn’t mean truth is relative; it means you can only find and know the truth is you want to find it. [Conversely, a thief will never find a policeman because he doesn’t want to.] If you have no desire for truth, you will never find it; if you find truth and it isn’t what you expected or wanted it to be, you will reject it. Again, this is nothing new.
In the first century, the apostle Paul warned of those who would be led astray by “the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception” simply “because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thess. 2:9, 10). Then, some would believe the lie before they would accept the truth, and such is still the case even today.
For example, let’s take a simple statement of Jesus and see whether or not we believe it: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16). Do you believe that? Many will say they do, but then argue against the necessity of baptism until they are blue in the face. Why will they not accept the simple and clear statement of Jesus? Quite often it is because someone dear to them [i.e., parents and/or grandparents, husbands or wives] has told them baptism is not necessary because we are saved “by faith alone.” Because this loved one has taught them this, they want to believe it is true, else they would have to admit they or their loved one were wrong or deceived; many will not accept the statement of Jesus because it would mean their loved ones are not saved. But rejecting that simple statement is not done because it is not true.
Jesus said, in His prayer to the Father shortly before He was taken away to be tried and crucified, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17). God’s word is truth, but the question is this: Do you really want the truth? In a world that is a veritable sea of lies, only the truth can save you, but you must desire it, seek it, accept it, and obey it. — Steven Harper
