A W Tozer on Truth
Sep 13, 2023
All of the below is from A W Tozer:
To know the truth is the greatest privilege any man can enjoy in this life, as truth itself is without doubt the richest treasure anyone can possess.
This follows from the nature of truth, and from the world-outlasting dowry it brings to those who open their hearts to it.
Apart from truth our human lives would lose all their value, and we ourselves become no better than the beasts that perish.
Our response to truth should be eager and instant. We dare not dally with it; we dare not treat it as something we can obey or not obey, at our pleasure. It is a glorious friend, but it is nevertheless a hard master, exacting unquestioning obedience.
While a life lived in conformity with the truth will come at last to a good and peaceful end, candor requires us to admit that the lover of truth will have to endure many a heartache, many a sorrow as he journeys through the wilderness. This is the price the world makes him pay for the priceless privilege of obeying the truth. The world being what it is, truth must carry its own forfeit. The servant of truth will be penalized for his devotion. So goes the world always.
Any man who would escape the heavy tax which humankind lays upon the righteous must make a satisfactory compromise with error. This is so because sin has perverted the nature of things. “He that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey” is as true now as when it was first uttered. Little as we like to admit it, two thousand years of Christianity have not made much difference. The human race is still cursed with what Bacon called “a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself.”
Nevertheless the hazards of truth should not count in our final tally. Truth is such a royal patron that we should embrace it without regard to cost. The cautious calculator, who tinkers with truth for fear of consequences, is no worthy servant of such a noble master.
We Christians above all people should value truth, for we profess to belong to the One who is the Truth. The Stoics who had no access to the Scriptures nevertheless had a noble concept of truth and of man’s responsibility to it. When on trial for his life before a hostile and prejudiced court one of them told his accusers: “A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong—acting the part of a good man or a bad.”
The true follower of Christ will not ask, “If I embrace this truth, what will it cost me?” Rather he will say, “This is truth, God help me to walk in it, let come what may!”
Tozer, A. W., and Harry Verploegh. 1986. The Set of the Sail. Camp Hill, PA.: WingSpread.
