Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1265
“The truth endures to all generations.” Psalm 100:5.
IT was very solemn work, this morning, to lay bare the sin of unbelief. [Sermon #1238, Beware of Unbelief] It was the burden of the Lord to him who had to speak and it could have been but very small pleasure to those who had to listen. Nevertheless, I trust it was something better than pleasure to many and it drove their souls to pray to God for others. By His Grace sinners were moved, as we already know, to yield up their hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ. After meditating upon the heinousness of this sin—the sin of making God a liar—after even thinking of it, horror took hold upon my soul and it seemed to me that we ought to have a supplementary sermon, tonight, in honor of the Truth of God.
As we have, as it were, cleansed the temple and swept out the dreadful filthiness of giving the Lord the lie, it is now our part to offer a sweet smelling offering by declaring the faithfulness of the Lord. It is my earnest desire that each one of us may join in the devout exercise and bear our witness that, as far as we have known the Lord, He has been a God of truth to us. We will also rehearse the Scriptural Testimony to this great and certain fact that God cannot lie—and meditate upon the evidence that in Him and in all His actions, faithfulness shines in the highest possible perfection.
I desire in the courts of the Lord’s House and in the midst of His people, to extol Him whose counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. We will consider only two points, though those will subdivide into many others, and the first is, that, according to the text and according to fact, God is true. And, secondly, that God is true in all generations.
I. First, then, GOD IS TRUE. He is true in His very Nature. There is no deceit, falsehood, or error in the essential Nature of God. It could not be. We, from our very birth, have deceitful hearts, deceitful above all things. And in us, the old serpent who deceived our first parents has fearfully perverted our judgement and turned aside our souls from their integrity. As a result we often put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. And frequently we believe a lie and reject the truth. But God is not a man that He should lie. His very name is, “The Lord God, abundant in goodness and truth.” This is only a part of His holiness. The angels could not cry, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth,” if God were not true. Admit for a single moment, untruthfulness on the part of God, and you have, at once, destroyed the wholeness, or holiness, of His ever blessed and adorable Character.
What makes men untruthful? Whatever it may be, it is clear that nothing of the kind can operate with God. When a man tells a lie, it is often through fear—fear of the consequences of the truth. But the eternal Jehovah cannot dread consequences—He is Omnipotent—all things are in His hands. When a man utters a lie, he frequently does so because he thinks there is no other way of accomplishing his end. But the Infinite Wisdom of God is never short of resources—He knows how to accomplish His will and pleasure without adopting the mean devices and paltry schemes of poor pitiful man. Man sometimes promises what he cannot perform and then he is false to his promise. But that can never be the case with the Almighty who has but to speak and it is done—to command, and it stands fast.
Falsehood is the wickedness—I dare not call it the infirmity—the wickedness of little natures. But as for the Great Supreme, you cannot conceive Him acting in any manner that is otherwise than straightforward, upright and truthful. He is essentially a God of truth and righteousness. He must be so. The Lord our God is not only true in His Nature, but He is true to His Nature. We are not always true to ourselves. I have known a generous man who, in a spot, has acted very ungenerously. I have known a man universally admitted to be just and upright who, nevertheless, under pressure, has stooped to an action which he could not justify.
And we have read of persons exceedingly kind by nature who, nevertheless, have perpetrated cruel deeds in times of fear. They were not true to themselves. They did actions of which any candid person would say, “This is not like the man—we are astonished that he should do this. He seems to have stepped out of his ordinary path to do a something al-
together foreign to his better nature.” But the Lord is always true to Himself. You never find Him doing anything that is not godlike. Select the acts of His Creation. If He makes an aphid to creep upon a rosebud, you will find traces of infinite wisdom in it—you shall submit the insect to the microscope and discern a wisdom in it as glorious as that which shines in yonder rolling stars!
If in Providence some minor event comes under your notice, in that event you shall find no deviation from the constant rule of right and love by which the Most High characterizes all His doings. There are no emergencies with God in which He could be driven to act an untruth. There are no pressures, no difficulties, no infirmities which could produce falsehood in Him. “I am Jehovah: I change not,” He says. Find Him where you will, He is what He was and what He ever shall be—the eternal and ever glorious I AM, over whom circumstances can have no kind of influence—who, indeed, knows nothing of circumstances, for He fills all places, and all times and all ages are present with Him! As for the creatures, they are as nothing in His sight and He is All in All. Ever true, ever true by Nature and His Nature is true is the Lord our God and adored be His thrice holy name! By Jesus Christ, we present to You, O Jehovah, our adoring praise!