Does God ever deny the truth to maintain a relationship?

Imagine you became an employee of a small startup company whose owner invented a revolutionary medical device for doing blood tests in half the time and expense of any current technology. Your starting salary is more than you ever imagined you could earn, and in less than a year the owner informs you she is so impressed with your work she wants to promote you, double your salary, and give you hundreds of shares of company stock. She also suggests that if you keep up your good work, you could be a vice president in no time.

Your head is spinning. You feel as though you have struck gold.

But a few months later you discover something troubling. Reviewing one of the company’s marketing presentations for use with venture capitalists, you find it contains what appear to be false claims. What should you do? Who is the source of these claims?

You go to the person in charge of the presentation and investigate. “All the data in this presentation came from the top,” says your colleague.

“But I don’t think all of this is true,” you insist.

Your colleague replies, “The owner told me the data is based on information that up till now has been secret.”

For the remainder of the day you ponder what to do. The need for secrecy is a given in this business, but you are being asked to put your approval on a presentation that appears to you to be fraudulent. That’s criminal. On the other hand, there are many things you don’t know about the company. You are not yet in the inner circle. It seems more reasonable to trust the owner because she has information you do not. You don’t want to challenge her information and imply she is lying. In the end, you decide to keep your mouth shut.

To your relief, the marketing presentation eventually goes nowhere with potential investors, and you resume your ambitious work. Within months, the owner promotes you again, and you find yourself now working closely with her. In fact, you have become good friends, eating together often, even hanging out at one another’s homes.

One day she calls you into her office and puts you in charge of making an investment appeal to a huge venture capitalist. She hands you a folder. “Here is the current information to use in your pitch,” she says. You return to your office and get right to work. As you read the documents in the folder, though, to your astonishment you once again find data you know to be false, and this time you have enough firsthand access to know the truth is not hiding behind a wall of secrecy. The owner is lying.

Your path forward is a simple, though painful, one. You believe in telling the truth. You are committed to honesty in business. Although you don’t want to lose your job, income, or friendship with the owner, integrity is more important than this relationship.

The next day you meet with the owner, confront her regarding the facts, and immediately you are fired. You return to your office, pack your belongings, and walk from the building knowing you have done the right thing.

Love must be truthful

Truth can bring people together, and truth can separate them (Matthew 10:34–38). Whenever people do wrong, the truth becomes their enemy (John 3:19–20), and truth-seekers become their enemy (Galatians 4:16). In such a situation, truth becomes divisive, but there is no avoiding this divisiveness if we are to be people of integrity (John 8:31–47).

Satan is a liar and the father of lies. Jesus said there is no truth in him (John 8:44). Lies and evil walk hand in hand. Evil-doing needs lies and depends on deception (2 Timothy 3:13).

God is a truth-seeker, a truth knower, a truth teller. He is light and brings all things sooner or later into the light (1 John 1:5–7; Matthew 10:26). The Lord hates lies (Proverbs 6:16–19). He loves truth (Psalm 15:1–2). He is the truth (John 14:6).

The unavoidable casualty of God’s commitment to truth is some relationships. When Satan fell from his exalted place and became a committed liar, God’s loving relationship with Satan ended. When a host of angels followed Satan and likewise became committed deceivers, God’s relationships with them ended.

When Adam and Eve fell into evil and began their cover-up, God’s relationship with them changed dramatically.

Jesus had to choose between truth and relationships

God’s love for us rests on the foundation of truth. He does not compromise truth to begin or maintain a relationship (for example, see Mark 10:17–23). Anyone who enters into a relationship with God must be willing to hear the truth and follow it (John 6:51–67). Those who stubbornly hold to a lie in order to maintain their evil-doing will eventually find that their relationship with God has ended (1 John 2:3–5), for when there is a necessary choice between truth and a relationship, the God of truth and righteousness will always choose truth (for example, see Matthew 16:21–23).

He is patient and long-suffering in cleansing sinners of their deceiving ways, but there comes a point when that patience ends. God is love, but he is not a liar. So, his love for you will always be a truthful love (1 Corinthians 13:6).

Our way and God’s way

Our way: Fallen sinners need lies and tell lies. They compromise truth in order to maintain relationships they don’t want to lose. They can be loyal to a fault, loyal to the point of believing and supporting lies. They shade and twist the truth in order to please people they love. Postmodernism, which is the prevailing worldview of Western culture, is a belief system riddled with falsehoods, exemplified in phrases such as “your truth,” “everyone has their own truth,” and “follow your heart (even when your heart contradicts moral truths revealed in Scripture).”

God’s way: He cannot lie. He speaks only truth. This harmonizes with his love, for lies destroy. He is not sentimental, not guided by feelings over against truth and righteousness.

Does this mean there is no hope for deceived sinners? No, God, in love for evildoers, found a way to follow truth and still adopt them as his children. He sent his holy Son to die on the Cross to take the punishment that truth and justice require of deceived evildoers. As a result, God in love can uphold truth and forgive sinners. That is, sinners who confess the truth by repenting of their rebellion against him and trusting in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

Life principle: Those who love God must love the truth he reveals in Scripture even when it counters falsehoods that our fallen, deceived minds have followed for years. God knew the deceptive power of Satan and the falsehoods that would fill our fallen world and its fallen systems, so he gave a book of inerrant truth. Jesus, who is the Truth, always treated the Scriptures as a fully inspired, word-for-word, revelation of God’s truth. If you are wise, you will follow the example of Jesus, who as the divine Creator knows infinitely more than you do, and infinitely more than the deceived people who shape our confused culture.

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)

One of the greatest gifts God gives a person is his loving rebuke.

This week I saw on national news the story of a young woman who was murdered because she got in the wrong car. She had requested a ride-share from Uber. A car pulled up and stopped where she was waiting, and she assumed it was her ride, without confirming the license plate or the driver’s name. She got in the car and disappeared. All this was recorded on a nearby security video. Days later the police found her body.

Imagine if a friend had been waiting with her at the curb when that wrong car had pulled up. Imagine if that friend realized before the car door opened that this was not the right car or driver, but she said nothing because she didn’t want to tell her friend she was wrong or offend her by telling her what to do. Take it a step farther and imagine that she actually knew that the driver was a murderer whose mug shot she had seen on the news.

Such a scenario is ridiculous to imagine because what friend would be that uncaring? Sincere love always seeks the good of another, and that means not only telling them the truths they may not want to hear but even rebuking them sharply when necessary.

Rebuking love

This is the kind of love God continually gives people. It is one of his most gracious gifts to sinners. Psalm 25:8 says, “Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way.” It is so important and necessary that he mercifully speaks warnings in abundance. He tells you the truth, including the hard truths you may not want to hear. He warns you. “Don’t get in that car! It’s the wrong car!” In love, he rebukes you.

Jesus said, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline” (Revelation 3:19). Jesus rebukes people. Webster’s defines rebuke as, “To criticize or reprove sharply; reprimand.” Whom does Jesus rebuke? According to this Scripture, he rebukes those he loves.

He rebukes you with 100 percent accuracy. He knows all things—all potential harm, all who would do you evil, all your weaknesses and sins. He knows the future. He knows what is right and wrong, wise or foolish. He knows Satan and his deceptions. He knows the world and its seductive pleasures.

When the Lord must offend

In the Gospels you see Jesus continually saying things that will offend somebody, if not everybody. Jesus was not trying to win a popularity contest by his words; he was trying to save people. When Peter tried to keep him from going to Jerusalem and the cross, Jesus “rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man’” (Mark 8:33).

When his disciples worried about where their next meal would come from, Jesus said, “O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread?” (Matthew 16:8).

When a crowd sought him following in boats when he withdrew from them, Jesus told them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life” (John 6:26–27).

In love, Jesus said the uncomfortable things people needed to hear.

When God must harshly offend

In fact, the context of Revelation 3:19—“Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline”—is Jesus’s delivering one of the harshest rebukes found in the New Testament: his warning to the church in Laodicea:

“¹⁵ I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot! ¹⁶ So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth! ¹⁷ Because you say, ‘I am rich and have acquired great wealth, and need nothing,’ but do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked, ¹⁸ take my advice and buy gold from me refined by fire so you can become rich! Buy from me white clothing so you can be clothed and your shameful nakedness will not be exposed, and buy eye salve to put on your eyes so you can see! ¹⁹ All those I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent!” (NET)

Imagine Jesus appearing to you in a vision and instead of speaking comforting words like “I will never leave you or forsake you” he said, “I feel like vomiting you out of my mouth”! Would you feel loved? Would you feel cherished? But soul-saving love is precisely what Jesus was giving the Laodiceans. That is what he said: “Those whom I love I rebuke.”

Fellowship can follow rebuke

Indeed, Jesus followed up his loving words of rebuke to the Laodiceans with loving words of invitation and promise to the very same church:

“²⁰ Listen! I am standing at the door and knocking! If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into his home and share a meal with him, and he with me. ²¹ I will grant the one who conquers permission to sit with me on my throne, just as I too conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. ²² The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Revelation 3:15–22, NET)

Jesus said I want to fellowship with you. I want to make you a conqueror.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: We misunderstand correction as rejection. We don’t want to hear about our faults or be told we must change. We may suppose that because grace covers all our sins then God must love us unconditionally and not rebuke us. We may suppose that because God is gracious, our “performance” doesn’t matter. We may suppose that talking about sin is just negative and unhelpful.

God’s way: For our good, Jesus tells us everything we need to hear, including the truth about our faults, including everything we need to know about God and his will. But the severity of his correction is determined by the degree of the sinner’s pride, stubbornness, unbelief, or honesty and willingness to repent. Do you have a hard heart or a broken heart?

Life principle: We must not misinterpret correction as rejection or hatred. If all you want to hear from God or his spokesmen are positive words of comfort and blessing, you are making a serious mistake. If you close your ears to the hard truths, you may soon be getting in the wrong car.

I invite you to read my weekly posts about
knowing God and his ways better.
—Craig Brian Larson