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.
The Arnold Journey 