Deuteronomy 32 verse 4 He is the rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are judgment. A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. especially these words in the middle of the text, a God of truth. We come to the last in the series of sermons on the attributes of God and today we hope to look at that God is truth. And when we've been looking at these attributes, we've been trying to keep two things in our minds at all times. Firstly, to try and be Christ-centred, not to just speak of God in general, but to show these attributes specifically in a Trinitarian way. especially as they are seen in Jesus Christ. The second thing we've tried to do is to be practical so that this was not just some kind of academic, theoretical series but that it would impact us in our souls, in our spiritual experiences and in our everyday actions. and words. And so today as we conclude by looking at the truthfulness of God, again we would like to focus on the Trinity. We would like to look at how this attribute is seen as demonstrated in each of the three persons of the Godhead. And we would like to see how this attribute should be reflected in our own lives. And so we shall look at three points. We shall look at the Father, and in Him we see essential truth. And we shall look at the Son, and in Him we see enfleshed truth. And we shall look at the Spirit, and in Him we see effectual truth. essential truth, in flesh truth, and effectual truth. First of all, let us consider the Father. And when we think of God the Father, we are thinking here of Him as the One who embodies the essence of all truth, who is in substance truth, who is the found and the source of all that is true in the universe. And usually when the Father is considered as truth, we're thinking of two particular characteristics. First of all, there is the veracity of God. When we speak of the veracity of someone, we're speaking of their truthfulness, their their ability, their willingness to tell the truth. This is referred to in verses like Titus 1-2 which says in hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. And then in Hebrews 6-18 that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie. There the truthfulness of God is stated negatively. It says he cannot lie. It says it's impossible for God to lie. Blessed inability. A blessed impossibility. A virtuous impossibility. And so positively this means that God is true in all his communications. He's true whether he is speaking or whether he is inspiring someone to write what he has spoken. He is true whether he is talking about history or geography, or theology, or morals. He is true whether he is speaking of the visible or the invisible world. He has never lied. He has never deceived. He has never spoken a half-truth. He is true in all his communications. And he's also true in all his communications to all people. There might, in our experience, be people we would think, well, we will always tell the truth to them. But then there might be others, maybe we're not so close to them, or maybe we dislike them, and we might think, well, they don't really deserve to be told the truth, or I don't need to speak the truth to them. We might have a kind of league of people who we tell most of the truth to or all the truth to and then others we think well that's not so important. We might think well we'll always tell the truth to our parents but maybe teachers, that's not so important is it? But God is not like that. However undeserving However much people have forfeited the right to have the truth told to them, He always tells the truth. However many times they have rejected the truth, however much they dislike the truth, yet He will keep speaking the truth to them. And is that not a cause for rejoicing? Is that not the reason, Christian, why you are here today? that despite all your rejection, all your counter-arguments, all your refusal to accept the truth, God kept speaking to you. So undeserving to you, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So God is true in all his communications. to all people and on all subjects. Whatever subject there is in this world under the sun, when God speaks on it, He speaks truth. And in this, we might contrast Him with another Father, as Jesus does. For example, in John chapter 8, We find the Lord Jesus there speaking to Pharisees and Sadducees, people who seem to specialise in lies. And what does he say to them? You are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and a bold knot in the truth. Because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own. For he is a liar and the father of it. Here Jesus is contrasting the Father in heaven and the Father of hell. God the Father and Devil the Father. He's saying here is God who cannot lie and here is the devil who cannot tell the truth. That's what he says. He abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him. No truth. Not one truth. Just as there's not one iota of a lie in God, so there's not one iota of a lie, of truth in the devil. Who should we listen to? So we have the veracity of God the Father. But then the other side of the truth of God when thinking of the Father is the faithfulness of the Father. There is his veracity and there is his faithfulness. His faithfulness, for example, in fulfilling all the prophecies that he has recorded for us in the Scriptures. We see God utterly loyal and faithful to all that he predicted would come to pass. How many hundreds, probably thousands of prophecies there are in the Old Testament that have come true already. We might make a prediction about tomorrow, barely safe, and yet often we are proven wrong. So one thing, one day later, and we are incapable. But God makes predictions about hundreds of things over many thousands of years, and every single one of them comes true. He is faithful in his prophecies, but he is also faithful in his promises. The prophecies are more concerned with the unfolding of his plan of providence. We might say the promises are more to do with individual spiritual experience. The prophecies may be more emphasise the objective and the historical, whereas the promises are more about the subjective and the experiential. And in all God's promises to his people about their own subjective state, about their own Christian experience, he has proven faithful. Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. How many promises in the Psalms? How many promises in Isaiah? Though you pass through the waters, I will be with you. How many promises in Jeremiah? How many promises in the Minor Prophets? Great, major promises in the Minor Prophets. And has anyone ever failed, Christian? We make promises ourselves and how hard it is to keep them. Here God makes promises to all those who put their trust in him. He says these promises are yours. They can be true in your experience if you take them to yourself and if you exercise faith in them and you apply them. not going to be true if you just read them and they remain out there. But draw them into your soul and feed upon them and exercise faith in them and follow their conditions and experience the joy and the gladness of God's faithful promise keeping. God is faithful. And he's also faithful not just in his promises to bless and give us many good things, but also in his chastisements. In the book of Psalms, in Psalm 119, the great psalm of God's Word, celebrating his truth, the psalmist speaks there of how God afflicted him in Faithfulness. This isn't as if God gives us all good things and happy things and joyful things and we say, he is faithful. But then when he sends pain and distress and hardship and trouble into our life, well God's no longer faithful. No, says the psalmist, he's faithful in both. And here in the chapter we were reading, Deuteronomy 32, yes there are great promises of good. but it also promises to chastise. The Father would cease to be faithful if he did not chastise us for our sins. As Israel surely found out, so many of these verses, if not all of them, came true. So God is true, His veracity and His faithfulness What does this mean for us? What does this attribute mean? What action should it result in? Well, first of all, we should confide in God the Father. We should have confidence in Him. This is why in this verse we read in Deuteronomy 32.4, He is the rock. Someone to rely on, someone to put our trust in. Someone to have total confidence in, to lean heavily upon. Have you confided in Him? Have you put your trust in Him? Have you leaned upon His faithfulness, His veracity? It's all very well to say the catechism and end up with the great word truth. infinite, eternal, unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. But what does it result in? What action? Here is the action. Confide. Trust. Trust His promises. Trust His prophecies. Trust His very being. He is essential truth. And also this should not only provoke confidence but consolation. What joy this should give us in a world so full of lies and untrustworthiness and unreliability. Here is one that we can have joyful confidence in and so derive assurance. and consolation. But what else? We also have surely to compare what he says with what everyone else says. When we have competing verses, verses which compete with what's being said outside by scientists and philosophers and politicians and even religious leaders, even Christian religious leaders. When so many people are standing up and saying, well, this is the truth, what do we do? Well, we take God's truth and we compare it. And when we see a conflict, what do we say? We say, let God be true and every man a liar. however eminent a scientist or writer or churchman, let God be true and everyone else a liar. And whenever we find this comparison resulting in a conflict and a clash and a contradiction, let us never ever put the claims of men and women above the claims of God. Is there another way to certain disaster? And sometimes we find a conflict in the Word of God itself. Our small minds come to God's great truth and we see, well, here it's saying something and here it seems to be saying something else. How do we square this? Is this a contradiction? We cannot deny that there are seeming contradictions in God's Word, but that's all they are, seeming contradictions. They seem to be contradictory to us. And what many people do is, well, there are three options. Some people say, well, here's a contradiction, it's all rubbish. We throw it all out. If there's a conflict, then nothing's true. Here, that's what people say, is it not? Look, we can prove the Bible's false. Here's truth A, here's truth B, they can't both be true, it's all false. And other people, they see two things that seem to be contradictory and so they drop one of them. They say, well I'll hold on to this truth and either explain that one away or just ignore it. or so explain it that it just doesn't seem to be what it originally was anymore. But what's the best way to handle these things? It's this, neither to throw both away or throw one or explain one away, but to hold both and say, well this is God's truth. It says this is true, it says that is true. And God is true, therefore they are both true. Although I can't put it together. Is that not the safest route? You think, for example, the Word of God says God has an elect people, a chosen people. People he has determined to save. And then there are other passages which call all to be saved and seem to express God's willingness to receive all for salvation. You say, how can this be? I don't understand that. How can it be that He's chosen some and He calls all genuinely, sincerely? Unless it's not sincere, unless it's not genuine, what are we to do? Well, let us not explain either way. Let's not ditch both, but let's hold both. Let us believe both. Let us preach both. And let's leave the reconciliation to God. The fundamental truth we must hold on to is God is truth, is faithfulness and is veracity. And then we have confidence, we have consolation, we have comparison, finally let's have conforming, let's have copying. of our Heavenly Father. If we are to, here we have the pharisees, they're told you're of your father the devil, he was a liar, you're a liar. If we claim to be children of our Heavenly Father, he is truth, therefore let us be truth. Let us be true in all our dealings. True in keeping our marriage vows. True in keeping our baptismal vows. True in all that we say, True in all that we don't say? Let us be true. Let us be known as men and women of truth. As children of the Father who is truth. We need to move on though. Secondly, to the Son. To the Son of God. And in Him we see enfleshed truth. In some ways it's difficult for us to grasp the attributes of God when they're explained in relation to the Father because no man's ever seen Him. And so we're left with sort of abstract, sometimes vague generalities. We're trying to imagined concepts. And these things are very difficult for us. We like the concrete. We like the definite. We like evidence. We like something we can see and hear and touch. And so God in his mercy enfleshed his truth and sent this enfleshed truth, incarnate truth into this world in Jesus Christ. That's why we have, for example, these words in 1 John. What does he say? That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life. For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. This is what God did. The word, the truth, became flesh and dwelt among us. God is saying, well, in a sense, in the Old Testament, here is the theory, and then he says, and here's the demonstration. As you might get in a science class, the teacher gives you the theory and then says, now we'll do the experiment. Now we'll see it, now we'll hear it, now we'll touch it, now we'll smell it, This is what God did. All the Old Testament is saying, God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. And in the New Testament it's as if, and here's the proof, here's the demonstration, here's the evidence. Touch it, taste it, handle it, look on it. Could God have made who he was and is any clearer than he did in Jesus Christ? No. And that's why he says, I am the way, the truth and the life. Here's God's fullest revelation of truth. In the Old Testament we have sacrifices, we have symbols, we have shadows. here we have the fullest revelation of truth. In the Old Testament we have prophets and priests and kings. We have words spoken. We have dreams. We have visions. But as the writer to Hebrews tells us in chapter 1 God who at sundry times and in diverse manner spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. And that is why the Son can stand before all and say this, He that hath seen me had seen the Father. He's saying there's nothing hidden, there's nothing concealed, it's not half the Father, it's not the best bits of the Father, it's the Father. You've seen me, you've seen all there is to see about the Father. to one degree or another. But what amazing words. He's saying here is enfleshed truth. Here's God's fullest revelation of himself. Don't be a fooler one. Here's God's final revelation of himself. There's not going to be another Christ. Another phase. These, as the writer of Hebrews says, are the last days. In 1 John we read, we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true. And we are in Him that is true. Even in His Son, Jesus Christ, this is the true God. He is the fullest revelation of truth. He's the final revelation of truth. And He's the most faithful revelation of truth. All the previous revelations had were marred, you might say. There was no such thing, really, as an unblemished sheep. There was no perfect prophet, priest or king. They were full of flaws. And therefore, yes, they revealed, but they were unfaithful as well, just as we are, claiming to be witnesses for Christ, and yet our lives often conceal the true reality of Christ. But when we think of the Lord Jesus, He was so faithful and perfect He didn't say, he that has seen me in my best days has seen the Father. He that has seen me in most days has seen the Father. He said, he that has seen me has seen the Father. And when was that most true? Was it not in his lowest moments? In his most painful moments? Yes, we see the Father. In every phase of Christ's life, but especially on the cross, with stretched out arms and bleeding flesh, with crowned head and bleeding side, he that has seen me has seen the Father. And the Son of God, He frees with the truth. In John 8, He said to the Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Are we in bondage? to a sin. Is there a sin that's gripping us in a vice and that's crushing us? Or has the devil got us in a snare? He's enticed us and now we're trapped. Here Jesus says, is the way to freedom. Know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Get in the truth, get to him who is the truth. For as he goes on to say, if the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed. And so, what does this mean? What action results from this attribute of God as seen in Christ, the enfleshed truth? Well, first of all, surely a willingness to speak the truth as he did. regardless of consequences. To speak the truth in our homes, to speak the truth in our workplaces, to speak the truth when we might lose out because of it. If we are claiming to be followers of He who enfleshed truth, should we not enflesh it? Is there a more Is there a more painful accusation against a Christian than to be thought of as a liar? To be thought of as a promise breaker? To be known as someone who cannot be trusted? But that's agony, is it not, for a Christian? And so, let us speak the truth. And that even when we think perhaps we can stay silent and not sin, because the larger catechism speaks of the sin of keeping undue silence in a just cause. And that's referring to Leviticus 5 verse 1. It says, If a soul sin and hear the voice of swearing and is a witness, whether he hath seen or known of it, if he do not utter it, then he shall bear his iniquity. Here's a home and somebody comes in and starts gossiping. Somebody starts telling lies about someone else. And you sit there and say nothing. You just enjoy it in fact. There's something perverse in us that at times seems to enjoy hearing others produced and brought down and their motives impugned and they're being thought of as worse than can be imagined. And we think, well it's them that are sinning. It's they that are speaking these things. It's terrible. But the Bible says, if you let that happen without speaking, you too bear iniquity. It's undue silence and a just cause. What happens when we see sin in the church? What happens when we see wickedness and evil around us? Oh yes, it's easy to stay silent. But it's undue silence in a just cause. And the Bible puts it on the same level as lying. Not telling the truth. Not correcting lies. equals a lie. So let us speak the truth and let us be willing to suffer for the truth as Christ did. Finally and briefly we come to the Spirit. The Father essential truth. The Son in flesh truth. The Spirit effectual truth. By this we mean It's the Spirit that makes the truth effectual in our lives. The Father inspires it, the Son demonstrates it, and the Spirit makes it effectual and powerful and influential in us. It's great to have the Word, but we need more than the Word. We need the Spirit. And that's why He's called in John 14, 17, Spirit of Truth. This is His instrument and this is what this instrument needs. The Word alone, nothing. The Spirit alone, nothing. The Spirit and the Word are mighty power together. And so the Holy Spirit comes and we need this. If the truth is going to exercise a mighty influence in our lives, we plead for the Spirit. We read, for example, in the Gospel of John, when the Spirit of truth has come, He will convict the world of sin. He comes and He points out with the Word what is wrong in our lives. and he makes it painful to us and he causes an agony in our hearts and the things we were once comfortable with and happy amongst, we begin to feel polluted, we begin to feel endangered, we want to put a distance between us and it. And then we begin to see things in ourselves that we cannot get away from. But we begin to pray that it would be taken out from us. And so there is this process of convicting and then of converting. Jesus tells us in John 3 that the Spirit blows where it lists. It's the Spirit that blows into a life and that causes a soul to be born again. And does he do it independently? No. We read in James, of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. The Holy Spirit takes up the truth. He doesn't just blow generalities or a mysterious influence or something vague and non-specific. blows with truth, with God's truth, of His own will begat he us with the Word of Truth. This is what we need if we are to be born again. And so we pray if we are unconverted when we come to the Word, Holy Spirit, Spirit of Truth, come and beget me again, make me born anew by the Word of Truth. This is our hope, our only hope. And then he comforts with the truth. He's known as the comforter. How does he comfort? With warm feelings? No. With a kind of vague, mysterious feeling that maybe parallels some of the good feelings the world can have. He comes with truth, as it was recently described to me. He whispers in your ear or whispers in your soul with the truth. What a wonderful experience. Oh, to hear more of these comforting whispers, bringing the truth to us, bringing Christ to us. And he also conforms to the truth. He's of course the great agent of sanctification. And how does he do it? He does it with the truth. He does it with the truth. And we can't expect to be sanctified if we're not in the truth, if we're not using the means of grace. We cannot pray, make me holy and then not read the Bible or not come to church or avoid means of grace when we can get to them. It just doesn't fit, it doesn't gel. God uses means, the Spirit uses the Word, and though perhaps it's so undetectable to us, He conforms us, He shapes us and moulds us to the Word, and not to this world. And then He carries, He conserves, keeps us in this world and he carries us all the way to glory. How? By the truth. The spirit in the truth. He makes it effectual in our lives. How vital it is to keep this connection all the time. It saves us from dead orthodoxy and it saves us from dangerous emotionalism. that keeps together the objective and the subjective, the word and the spirit, the truth and all the experiences that the spirit creates within us of joy and of hope, of patience, of repentance and conviction, perseverance, all these Christian experiences, spirit and truth. We might say we have finished the attributes of God if we are foolish. Because who can even begin? Who can even begin to understand fully the attributes of God? We will never finish them. Not in this world, not in the world to come. But this is eternal life. To know God. And Jesus Christ whom he has sent. This is heaven. And praise God it can begin here below. And that's all we can do. We can never exhaust it. We've not even been taking baby steps. We have but begun. Let us go on. Let us make God our chiefest joy, our great delight. Let us explore. Let us investigate. Let us research. Let us enjoy all that He is in all His persons. And let that impact and act upon our lives. Let us pray. great God of Truth. We thank Thee for all Thou hast made known to us. We pray that Thou wouldst cause us to experience Thee on a daily basis, that we would not just be doctrinal, that we would not just be emotional, that thou would combine both truth and spirit and keep us safe in the midst of many dangers and extremes. We pray for thy persevering with us. We pray for thy preserving of us by the truth and help us to play our part, to take responsibility and to keep ourselves immersed in thy word. In Jesus' name, Amen.