Isaiah 59:14-15 - Homiletics

Truth the foundation of morality.

Surprise is sometimes expressed at there being no distinct prohibition of all lying in the ten commandments. "False witness" alone is forbidden. But the reason may be that truth is assumed as too fundamentally necessary for any one to suppose that it could possibly be dispensed with. Similarly, piety is assumed as a duty in the commandments, where men are not bidden to worship God, but warned against worshipping more than one God, and against worshipping him in an improper way. Truth throughout Scripture appears as a quality assumed to be possessed by men, rather than as a virtue which they are to be exhorted to "put on." It lies, in fact, at the root of all real goodness.

I. TRUTH LIES AT THE ROOT OF JUSTICE . The administration of justice consists primarily in a series of efforts to find out the truth. There is always a question before the court, and the first question is one of fact, "Has the thing charged been done or no?" What is the truth of the matter? When this has been decided, if decided on the affirmative side, then a second question arises, "What is the degree of the guilt?" It is essential for the judge to have the most earnest desire to discover the truth, and the highest power of eliciting the truth. Nor is this all. To every one concerned in a cause—whether prosecutor, defendant, witness, counsel, or attorney—the sole object ought to be the discovery of the truth. The importance of veracity in the witnesses is universally admitted; but veracity is really incumbent on all concerned. A prisoner who knows himself guilty would do best to confess his guilt. It is no real benefit to him to be acquitted unless he is innocent. Truth ought to govern all the utterances of counsel, who are not entitled to make any suggestions but such as they think may be true. Chicanery, quibbles, special pleading, are unworthy of those who take part in the administration of justice and exercise what is really a sacred function. The first requisite of all those who bear part in the solemn work of "doing justice" is that they should be "men of truth" ( Exodus 18:21 ).

II. TRUTH LIES AT THE ROOT OF KINDNESS . The desire to be kind is independent of truth; but the moment that the desire has to pass into action, considerations of truth come in. Am I prompted to praise a person? But if I praise him when he is deserving of blame, I am doing him the greatest unkindness. If I even overpraise him when he deserves praise, I am doing him an unkindness to a certain extent—an unkindness and a wrong. I am helping him to content himself with a low standard of goodness. Again, suppose that I am prompted to relieve a person who appears to me poor and distressed. To decide aright whether I ought to relieve him at all, and, if so, to what extent, I require a true knowledge of his circumstances. I do him an injury if I allow him to impose upon me. I do him an injury if I repress efforts that he would otherwise have made to help himself. In all the kindly acts that we seek to do to others there is always room for, and generally much need of, careful consideration of facts, discovery of the exactly true state of the case, before we allow ourselves to follow our impulses. Otherwise we may make great blunders, and, while striving to be kind, be guilty of many an unkindness.

III. TRUTH LIES AT THE ROOT OF PIETY . Piety is a feeling of love and reverence towards some being, or beings, whom we feel to be superior to ourselves, and believe to afford us help and protection. It is impossible to say that many of the heathen, many even of the grossest idolaters, were not, in a certain sense, pious. But for piety to attain its full proportions, and to be the virtue that it was intended to be, it needs to rest upon a basis of truth. We need to have true conceptions of the nature of that which is the object of our love and reverence. Until we conceive of that "eternal something outside us that makes for righteousness" as One, as a Person, as the Creator of all things, as omnipotent, as omniscient, as beneficent, and as perfectly good, we cannot have the feelings towards him that we ought to have, or worship him acceptably. True piety is the worship of the true God. The votaries of false religions possess only a semblance of piety—a dwarfed and cramped, sometimes a distorted, imitation of it.