Valiant for the Truth | Letters to a Samuel Generation
by Rachel Starr Thomson
written June 2002
The other night I sat down for a rare evening of television, and I was struck by an appalling fact: despite society's preoccupation with violence and power, we are a nation of wimps.
I did not arrive at this through watching the actual shows. Rather, I went for the real mirror of society—the commercials. Do they ever tell a story! Does your head hurt? Take Advil. Do your allergies bother you? Take something for it. Do you have arthritis? Pop a pill! Osteoporosis? Take a pain-killer. Constipation? We've got something for that, too!
Mind you, I am not against pain-killers for pain-killers’ sake. However, I do find them rather indicative of a society in which personal comfort is the goal set before us for which to strive. We live in a nation where dreams for the future usually involve red convertibles, tropical vacations, and air conditioning. Nothing in life, the ads seem to say, has the right to make you uncomfortable.
I understand that physical discomfort is no fun, and perhaps I am unfair to label us wimps because we refuse to let anything hurt. However, I'm afraid that this preoccupation with making life comfortable is only an outward manifestation of a much deeper problem inside. In our spiritual lives, it seems, we have sacrificed truth on the altar of self. We have chosen to ignore everything that makes us uncomfortable, everything that would drive us to change, in order to live a life of ease and security.
Our public schools and universities preach the gospel of tolerance. Truth is what you want it to be. Don't you dare suggest that anyone else's lifestyle could be wrong –after all, right and wrong are relative terms, aren't they? Those who take a stand become targets. It's a little ironic, actually. We're so tolerant that we'll gun down anyone who disagrees with us—anyone who insinuates that there might be such a thing as absolute truth in this world.
Our disregard for truth shines through in every aspect of our culture. In the movies and on TV, we applaud the clever rather than the righteous. Modern heroes lie their way through situations instead of fighting their way through. Even our view of ancient heroes says something about how much we love truth. Robin Hood, the thief, is admired and loved; while Sir Galahad, the pure knight of the Round Table, is typically snickered at.
Thousands of years ago, the prophet Jeremiah spoke God's words to a similar society, one which was about to be taken into captivity in Babylon. All around him, false prophets stood up in the name of the Lord and told the people of Israel that they would be just fine. They were God's chosen people, weren't they? They had nothing to worry about. The false prophets of Jeremiah's day were preaching peace, where there was no peace. They stood on the brink of disaster and prophesied that God would bless His people no matter what they did.
And then there was Jeremiah, the lone voice of sanity and righteousness in a corrupt world. Casting all concern for his own life on God, he had the audacity to tell the truth. He was persecuted and maligned for it. His reputation was trashed. He was hated and mocked. The most tragic thing of all was that Israel, confronted with truth, would not listen to it. They, like us, were more concerned with their own comfort and peace of mind than they were with reality. As the guillotine came sweeping down on their necks, they closed their eyes and willed themselves into a state of apathy and unbelief. They would not hear the truth. Jeremiah 9:3 vividly describes the Israel of that day—and, at the same time, paints a terribly accurate description of our own world:
“And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.”
We are desperately in need of a generation that will stand up and be valiant for the truth. It is easy to blame the state of society on the media, on Hollywood, or on the educational elite. But this is only another form of avoiding the truth. Our prevalent attitude of wishy-washiness toward truth, like all sins, begins in our hearts. Truth hurts. It hurts our pride. It hurts our self-image. So we run from it, or do our best to justify ourselves.
We may not like it, but truth tears down before it ever starts building up. When God called Jeremiah, he said, “See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant” (Jer. 1:10).
Yes, this ancient truth-teller was called to build and to plant. But first, the words of God that flowed through him would root out, would pull down, destroy, and throw down the works of darkness. For those of us who are harbouring works of darkness in our lives, this is not a pleasant thought.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Truth, personified. In order to follow Him, there is a decision to be made. Remember? “Take up your cross and follow me. Go, and sin no more.” He has called us out of darkness. Those who would follow him soon find that many things in their lives have to be rooted up before anything good can begin to grow. The word of God can't really bring forth fruit in our lives while we are allowing weeds to choke it out.
“Valiant for the truth.” I want these words to describe me. My first instinct, of course, is to take what I believe to be true and start bashing people over the head with it. If I can tear down all the sin in everybody else's lives, then I can pretty much put off dealing with my own heart. It's a good thing for me that Christ does not allow me this luxury. You see, His brand of truth is a humbling thing. It doesn't judge and condemn others. His brand of truth took Him all the way to the Cross... while ours so often wants to crucify everyone else.
“Judge not,” He says, “that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye” (Matt. 7:1-5).
Then there is the other end of the spectrum, that of making inoffensiveness our ultimate goal. This is the gospel of tolerance. We refuse to take a stand for anything, and so, as the saying goes, we'll fall for anything. Jesus didn't operate on this kind of “truth,” either. He knew that people are not saved by being coddled. If we become professional yes-men, all we'll manage to do is cripple those we ought to be helping.
This world, this Church, this generation desperately needs men and women who will be valiant for the truth! We need men and women who will deal with God on an intimate level, allowing Him into every dark corner of their lives, so that truth can reign triumphant in them. We need men and women who can stand up for what is true without condemning others; who can call sin “sin” and do it in the Spirit of Christ. On our own accord we are capable of tearing up and leaving only rubble. With the Spirit of God leading us, the rubble becomes fertile ground for the Kingdom of God to grow in.
It begins with us. It begins in the deepest part of our hearts. Will we become another Israel, led away into captivity because of our own willful blindness? Or will we become “valiant for the truth upon the earth?”
In this world of over-drugged, under-developed human beings, it's about time that a few heroes stand up. How about you?
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