Russell Lowell was well within the mark when he said,

“Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch over His own.”

We live in a world where truth has no real definition, where right is relative, where good wears a strange garment, and where wrong is held out as beautiful. It’s a strange world indeed.

The world has no conscience in this age. Whatever one wants to do, he can do it just so long as it doesn’t do too much damage to someone else or—perish the thought—just so long as he doesn’t get caught. What is advertised is pleasure, what is aggrandized is joy, what is honored is popularity. It’s a strange world, this one.

Values are distorted, worth is demeaned, morals are debauched, and, strangely, those who are supposed to be moral, those who are ostensibly the proponents for truth and piety, timidly look the other way, apparently feeling that if they don’t look too much, the evil won’t be as great. Or, worse still, who sneak a peek with some strange reasoning that it’s alright to sneak a peek as long no one is watching.

Relativity has set in with a vengeance. Truth is not definitive. It is relative to what we want to do. Principles suffer the damage of moral pollution and we stand by unconcerned. Standards are no longer standard, precepts are no longer strong enough to hold back temptation, and regulations are only applicable to those who are moral fanatics, and, if we are not careful, we—those proponents of truth—stand by unconcerned. We have constructed a method of moral tolerance that allows us to do whatever we want and still be free from any invasion of conscience.

“The world had no consciousness of things not seen, no traffic with the eternal, no dealing with the undying ages, no sense of God.” (G. Campbell Morgan)

Truth is either truth or it is not. Truth is neither relative nor is it tolerant of impiety; rather, it is objective, provable, reliable, and applicable. If not, we are miserable, wretched, and poor, for God will judge us by that which we cannot ascertain and condemn us by that which has no real meaning. If there is no truth, there is no God. If there is no truth, there is no true love, no real grace, no saving Jesus, no connection to the Eternal. If there is no truth, why bother?

God is truth. He is eternal, uncaused, and true in every aspect and by every standard of measurement. He never has offered to man some record of why and how He is, for He needs no vindication and He requires no proof. Nature declares Him (Psalm 19), salvation vindicates Him (John 3:16), man’s personal conscience validates His existence (1 Jn. 3:19-21). He is truth just because He Is.

Jesus is the personification of truth (Jn. 1:14). He is “full of grace and truth.” What He says is true and cannot be wrong because of Who He is (Matt. 22:16). His word is truth (Jn. 17:17). He is true. His word is true. His way is true. He is discernable, because His word is ascertainable, His way is applicable. Truth is by and through Him. He Is and He is true.

In a world where truth is indeed on the scaffold, where men regard what they say as being on a level with God, let us take a stand. Let us desist from being diffident or ashamed. Let us begin again to say—out loud—what we know to be true and right. Let us be those “who are of the truth,” those who will stand for right and make plea for the good, who will rescue the perishing and care for the dying, who will make time to tell the truth and who will make a life living it.