p. 3 | The Truth and Fables

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jul 27, 1905

The Truth and Fables

In his solemn charge to Timothy, his own son in the faith, the apostle Paul commanded him to preach the Word, giving as a special reason for this exhortation that “the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables.” It seems astonishing that men should deliberately turn from the truth to fables, but this reveals the deceitfulness of sin. He who succeeded in persuading the mother of the race that God did not tell the truth concerning the tree, has substituted fables for the truth in many an instance since that time, and in these last days he is filling the world with his fables. As a result of this deceptive working, the inspired Scripture is being rejected or explained and modified, until human theories inspired by Satan are being accepted in place of the truth, and fables are received as the light of heaven. What ought to be done under these circumstances? We should remember the injunction of the apostle, “Preach the Word.” The Word is truth, and it is living and active. It is the best antidote for fables. It is the sword of the Spirit, the divinely ordained agent “for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness.” Satan has clothed his ideas in such a pleasing garb, and has so skilfully adapted them to minister to the pride and self-seeking of the natural heart that no human eloquence can successfully break the spell, and God must speak in power in order to bring deliverance. Let the Word of the living God come to the people. Let the truth in its divine beauty be presented, and let it be seen by the power of the truth in our lives that we have not followed cunningly devised fables. Then those who “turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables” will be without excuse when the Word which has been spoken to them shall judge them in the last day. “Preach the Word.”