Help, LORD, for the godly man ceases!
For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.
They speak idly everyone with his neighbor;
Withflattering lips anda double heart they speak.

  - Psalm 12.1, 2

To heaven’s King he was known,
towards each threat He lit his mind...
His brilliant fame – just in speech – 
he was the spearcast, lies were slain.

  - Beccán mac Luigdech, Fo Réir Choluimb, on Colum Cille, Irish, 7th century[1]

There are but two families of human beings: those who embrace the Truth of God, and those who walk the treacherous paths of the Lie.

The Truth, of course, is to be known only in Christ Jesus. He is the Truth (Jn. 14.6); He proclaims the Truth (Jn. 8.45); and His Word, which is also the Word of the Father, is Truth (Jn. 17.17). The more we are transformed into the image of Jesus, the more His Truth will shape our lives and fill our words, and the more our world will thus be filled up with Him (Eph. 4.10).

The Lie is that slippery slope people descend who, knowing God from created things, nonetheless turn their backs on Him and His Truth and set off to find something else to worship, something that will permit them to express their autonomous minds and pursue their fleshly ambitions at will. The end of that descent is increasing sin and death (Rom. 1.18-32; Prov. 14.12).

They who, like Colum, have set their minds on the things that are above, not on those that are below (Col. 3.1-3), are shaped by Truth, grow to love Truth, and give their lives in service of Truth. Scripture frequently likens such people to weapons of war, deployed by the hand of God against the Lie in all its forms (cf. Zech. 9.13). Such people understand their mission in life as a struggle to set upright an upside-down world, beginning in their own souls, and working out the details in all their relationships, roles, and responsibilities (Acts 17.1-9).

But it is a hard row to hoe, and there are many obstacles, trials, and challenges. These days, as in the days of King David (Ps. 12), the Lie seems to be everywhere pervasive, infiltrating, discoloring, and corrupting every place where the cause of Truth has been abandoned or neglected by those entrusted with it. The cause of Truth is betrayed whenever we, who know the Truth, fail to live and assert it against the darkness of the Lie (Prov. 28.4). If we don’t like the darkness and lies which everywhere swirl around us, we need to remember that this is a condition about which we can do something.

We are ambassadors of the Kingdom and emissaries of Truth to an age that desperately needs relief from the deceptions, half-truths, and outright lies that are foisted on them every day from a wide variety of sources.

We who follow the Truth can be certain, at every moment, that God intends more for us, and is able to do more in and through us, than we have heretofore ever imagined or known. God can light up our minds and strengthen our bodies for service in Truth, and He can use us as powerful weapons to slay the Lie wherever we encounter it.

But only if we begin our day and live each moment of it grounded in the Truth.

We must prepare well every day if we are to make progress against the Lie. Seek the Lord, that you may be sharp and true and effective in serving the Truth of God against the everywhere-present Lie of unbelief.

How will God use you as His arrow, His spearcast, today?

Psalm 12.5 (Hamburg: “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”)
Rise up, O Lord, and rescue all
Your precious children, sore distressed.
Save those who faithfully on You call;
Grant them deliv’rance, peace, and rest.

Lord, take me under Your protection and defense and care, against all the elements and dangers of this world, that they may have no power over me. Adapted from Litany of Jesus[2]

Scriptorium
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T. M. Moore, Principal
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All Psalms for singing from The Ailbe Psalter. Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.