2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began.” (Titus 1:2 (ESV)
The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning May 8, 1864 by the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. The sermon text is Titus 1:2. The sermon title is What God Cannot Do.
After wandering over the sandy desert of deceit, how pleasant it is to reach our text, and feel that one spot at least is verdant with eternal truth. Blessed be Thou, O God, for Thou canst not lie.
We will use our text in the following manner this morning. First, while we do not attempt to prove it, we will remind you of a few things which may confirm your confidence that God cannot lie, so that our opening remarks shall be upon the truth of the text. Then secondly, we will speak upon the breadth of the text, endeavoring to show that we must give no narrow interpretation to the words before us, but must receive them with an extent of meaning not usual to the expression. And then, thirdly, we will try to use the text for our own improvement, arguing from it that if God cannot lie, He ought to receive our loving confidence.
- First then, let us commune together awhile concerning THE TRUTH OF THE TEXT, not, as we have said, to prove it, because we all believe it, but to confirm our confidence thereon.
I think we shall feel assured that God cannot lie, when we remember that He is not subject to those infirmities which lead us into falsehood. Lord Bacon has said, “There are three parts in truth: first, the inquiry, which is the wooing of it; secondly, the knowledge of it, which is the presence of it; and thirdly, the belief, which is the enjoyment of it.” In each of these three points, by reason of infirmity, men fail to be perfectly true.
In the search after truth, our moral eye is not altogether clear, and therefore we fail to see what we love not. We do not follow truth in a straight line, but are very liable to turn aside to the right hand or to the left, either to obey our prejudices or advance our profit. “Truth lies in a well,” said the old philosopher. Many go down into that well to find truth, but looking into the water they see their own faces, and become so desperately enamored of their own beauty that they forget poor truth, or dream that she is the counterpart of themselves.
Now the great God cannot be liable to this error, because there is no discovery of truth with Him. He needs not to search anything out, for “all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” When in Scripture that term is sometimes used— “Shall not God search this out?” when we hear Him spoken of as “searching the heart and trying the reins of the children of men,” it is not because He is not perfectly acquainted with all things, but only to set forth the certainty and accuracy of divine knowledge. God having no need to search, or if He had, having nothing in Him which should lead Him to make a dishonest search, therefore He does not lie.
When we have searched out the truth there is the knowing of it. And here the falsehood gets a footing in the form of a sin of omission, for we often refuse to know all that we might know. It would be inconvenient perhaps, for us to be too well acquainted with certain arguments, for then our prejudices must be given up, and therefore we close our eyes to them for fear of knowing the truth. Do not many men leave passages of Scripture altogether unread because they have no wish to receive the doctrines which are taught in them? Every time you refuse to give a hearing to God’s truth, you do in effect lie, because you prefer not to know the truth, which is really to prefer to hold error.
Now nothing of this kind can ever happen with our only wise God. He knows all truth, seeing it all at a glance, and retaining it ever in His mind. In nothing is He ignorant, either willfully or otherwise. He receives truth as His own beloved, and when the world casts her out, truth finds a happy shelter beneath His shield. We are quite clear that we frequently fall into the lie through a defect in our believing, for we sometimes know more than we care to believe.
Truth is grasped by the understanding, but thrust out by the affections. We know her as Peter knew his Lord, and yet deny it after the same fashion as that disciple did his Master. Moreover, through weakness, we are led to doubt what we know to be God’s truth, and even to speak unadvisedly with our lips.
Now this can never occur with God, since God is one, and is not to be divided into parts and passions, and His tongue can never be diverse from His heart. God’s tongue is His heart, and God’s heart is His hand. God is one. You and I are such that we can know in the heart, and yet with the tongue deny. But God is one and indivisible, God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all, with Him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Then, again, the Scriptural idea of God forbids that He should lie. Just review your thoughts about God, if you can. What idea have you formed of Him? If you have read Holy Scripture, and have gotten the slightest shadow of an idea of God, I think you will see that it is utterly inconsistent with the thrice Holy One, whose kingdom is over all, that He could lie. Admit the very possibility of His speaking an untruth, and to the Christian there would be no God at all.
The depraved mind of the heathen may imagine a monster to be a god who can live in adultery, and in theft, and in lying, for such the gods of the Hindus are described as being, but the enlightened mind of the Christian can conceive no such thing. The very word “God” comprehends everything which is good and great. Admit the lie, and to us at once there would be nothing but the black darkness of Atheism forever. I could neither love, worship, nor obey a lying God.
May the Lord’s truth and grace be found here.
Soli deo Gloria!
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