Why do You not Believe Me?
John 8:44-46 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?
We just had a major tax bill passed by Congress. The House and Senate versions need to be reconciled and the President needs to sign it, but we are going to have a new tax bill. As I understand it, the bill passed the Senate in the dead of the night before the final version was read by those who were forced to vote on it. The bill consisted of over 500 pages and some of it was hand written. The country is divided as to whether this tax bill is "good" or whether it is a way of robbing the poor and giving to the rich. Whom should we believe?
In 1977, I was a practicing CPA. President Carter passed the 1977 Tax Simplification Act. It only added complications to the tax returns I prepared. I did not see any provisions of the tax code get removed (there may have been some), but they added pages to the tax code and regulations that I had to study and use in preparing tax returns. We called that law “The Accountants and Lawyers Employment Act.” I wonder what we will call the present one when all the dust settles?
When men are trying to deceive, things get complicated. They lie. They usually flatter. Then they confront. Then they threaten. And yet, we who are the “simple” ones follow the ones who know how to deceive and we reject those who are trying to tell the truth. How do we become “prudent” with regard to what we believe?
First of all, we can be sure that all people tell lies. Sometimes they are lies of omission. We fail to tell the truth when we should. Sometimes they are lies of commission. We say things we know are not true. We want to cover up our own “sins” or we don’t want to offend someone by telling the truth. Sometimes we intend to lie but sometimes we lie because we have “jumped to conclusions” without having all the facts. But all people do not like to lie and they do not make it a habit. They are not “liars” in that sense. But some people lie when the truth would do better and they make a habit of lying. They have to have good memories because when we lie we have to remember the story we told so we don’t tell a different story to someone else at a different time and have the lie come back to haunt us.
Why do we believe liars and discredit those who tell the truth? That is the question that the Lord has asked in this section of the Bible. Sometimes the truth is hard to believe. I think it is difficult to believe that “believing” or “trusting” in the Lord is sufficient to save us eternally. I think it is always difficult to believe God since He thinks differently that we do which is why our minds have to be changed about spiritual things before we can truly trust in the Lord. I think complicated ways of salvation that involve complicated laws and ceremonies and sacrifices make more sense to most of us than simple trusting faith. The Lord never lied to us. People have misused His words to promote lies, but the Lord never lied. But His simple message is rejected for the more complex but changing “truth” of science, philosophy and religion.
When it comes to this tax law, I only use it as an illustration because as a former CPA, it is something that I understand. I frankly don’t know who to believe about who benefits, because I haven’t read the final bill. I don’t know who is lying about the bill’s costs and benefits, but I am fairly sure that someone is. But when it comes to eternal things, I just want to make sure that we all believe the truth. I have read the manual on what pleases the Lord, it is called the Bible. I have believed the One who sacrificed Himself for us and who never told a lie. There was no deceit found in his mouth (1 Peter 2:22). Satan attacks these simple truths. Why is it so easy to believe liars, and so hard to believe those who tell the truth?
Bruce Collins
Meditation for the week of December 3, 2017