By Zachary Teasley
Since the beginning of time and the creation of mankind, God has given us the opportunity to be reconciled back to Him as we consciously decide to submit to His words of truth which can save us and make us prosperous in this world. 1st Timothy 2:2-3 confirms this for it says, “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” God’s love, patience, and long-suffering is abundantly evident throughout Holy Writ, as He has given men and women through His grace, the opportunity to be rescued from their faulty choices to serve sin and disobey Him. 2nd Peter 3:9 echoes this thought, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” We should be very thankful and relieved that God is patient and long-suffering with mankind which He has demonstrated throughout the ages in the Old Testament and in the New Testament periods. He is even as patient today, but please never forget Jehovah God has kept all of the promises that He has made and when He decides to act He will unleash His power in full force. The Apostle Peter in 1st Peter 3:18-21 also discusses how the Godhead has demonstrated patience and forbearance during the Patriarchal Age with Noah and how today the same element (water) that was used to destroy the earth and save Noah is now used today to save souls today because of the patience, sacrifice, and suffering of Jesus Christ. The scripture says, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an anti-type which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Please keep in mind that there was a span of about 120 years from the time God told Noah to build the Ark and when He brought the rain that covered the entire earth. Evidently and truly we can see that God’s desire is that we all will be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth as we read in the earlier passage in 1st Timothy 2:2-3. Consequently, this is why I titled this Sunday’s Article, “Buy the Truth and Sell It Not!” because God’s precious Word is divine and true and contains the keys to how to find favor in God’s sight and be spiritually and physically prosperous and ultimately how to be reconciled to God and have our souls saved when our life is done on this earth. Proverbs 23:23 which says, “Buy the truth, and do not sell it, Also, wisdom and instruction and understanding.” In the Bible, we have God’s complete divine revelation and we as individuals have to rightly divide it, to read, study, understand and apply it to our lives, see 1st Timothy 2:15. The point that I want to convey to you through this lesson is that once we hear and understand the truth which is God’s divine plan for the redemption of mankind we should happily latch onto it very tightly and never under any circumstance relinquish our hold on God’s word for in it is the plan on how we can be reconciled back to God through obedience and how to live honorably and acceptably before God unto death, Revelation 2:10, so we may arrive at our ultimate goal which is eternal life with God. Too often we hear the truth in God’s word and we understand it and we might even obey the gospel through baptism but later freely relinquish our hold on God because we became discouraged about what we no longer are able to do in our former manner of living. We are warned about letting God’s word slip away from us because of the attractions of this world and sin, Hebrews 2:1-3, “Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him.” If we possess a genuine desire to find and know the truth from God about salvation and living and we pursue it fervently, God will place someone in your path so you may be afforded the opportunity to hear and obey it but it is your choice to freely to accept it or reject it. Some examples in the Bible of people who pursued the truth and were rewarded are Rahab (Old Testament), Apostle Paul, Cornelius, the Ethiopian Eunuch (New Testament). We as a congregation are urging all men everywhere to accept it freely and not sell the truth away to selfish ambition and worldly lusts. Those who want to understand what the will of God is can find it under the New Testament plan of redemption only through Christ and His Church, Matthew 16:18. Hebrews 11:6, tells us, “He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Briefly, we’ll mention an example of one who found the truth and stuck to it. In 1st Kings 22, we find the great example of Josiah who became the King of Judah at 8 years old and did what was right in the sight of the Lord, verse 8, Josiah sent his high priest, Hilkiah to see about repairs to the house of the Lord and Hilkiah found the Book of the Law in the temple and notified King Josiah. Verses 11-13, “When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, that he tore his clothes.” Josiah then later sent his priest, scribe, and a servant to a prophet to inquire of the Lord for the people of Judah on what they needed to do. Verses 19, because of Josiah’s humbleness to the Law of the Lord, God decided that He would not bring the calamity which He had decided during Josiah’s reign. In 1st Kings 23:1 & 3 Josiah hearing the Lords report, “Now the king sent them to gather all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to him. Then the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes, with all his heart and all of his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant.” Let us also make a vow to never turn away from the truth!