What Are You Eating?
Among the many mysteries of life, one is often impressed with the different things eaten and how life may be sustained by the same. The bee eats honey, the sheep eats grass, the horse eats corn, and the buzzard eats offal; yet each fleshens on what it eats. Of the idolater the prophet said: “He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say. Is there not a lie in my right hand” (Isa. 44: 20.) When Israel had wandered from God, the prophet said: “ Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolation” (Hosea 12: 1.) There are people today who feed on lies rather than the truth. Truth has no attraction for them. It makes no difference how plain and simple the truth may be told, how great or how grand may be the man who tells the truth. He may be some old soldier who has been fighting life’s battles for forty years; he may have added thousands to the church of Christ; he may be as well up on his lessons as the aged doctor is on his practice who for forty years has been giving certain remedies for certain diseases, and has had the pleasure of seeing hundreds recover under his treatment; yet I find many who cannot feed on gospel food, but who call long and loud for an up-to-date preacher who can draw and who is up on all new matters, so he can dish out lies, mixed with a little truth, for the benefit of the hearers. We are in a fast age, and everything is going at lightning speed. All are seeking pleasures and something pleasant to eat.
The old-time sermons on hell fire and brimstone, the evils of sin, the horrors of hell, the certainty of damnation, that used to turn thousands, are no more heard from the pulpit. The most popular evangelist to-day is the one who can tell the most lies from the pulpit, create the greatest amusement, and draw the largest crowds. To that class of church goers one solid, gospel sermon on “What must I do to be saved?” would be to them a gospel in an unknown tongue; for it is not the kind of food they are looking for, neither the kind they want. Would to God a religious wave could pass over all the churches, and a few great, spiritually minded men could arise and once more call attention to the old-time gospel that sinners may be aroused and converted to God! Multitudes are ready to feed on lies; they hire men to lie for them. Men tell lies, publish lies, and hire men to defend lies; and these lies fall into the hearts of the young and bring fruit continually to their destruction. It has long since been truthfully said that no editor can retain his position in any town as an editor of a secular paper and tell the truth. Let an editor tell the truth one time in his paper about a marriage that occurs, and he would be run out of town. Let him say: “John Jones, a worthless boy, who is no account and who cannot get credit for twenty-five dollars, married Sallie Smith, a girl who is ugly, uneducated, and not well thought of because she will not work” Such marriages often occur; yet the editor must state: “John Jones, one of the most intelligent young men and one of the leading business men of our town, married the beautiful and highly accomplished daughter of Major Smith last night” “He is a fine business man. and she is highly accomplished,” must go into the paper to permit the editor to continue business. Men stand on the street corners and lie. Evil talk is heard all the time. Parents lie thousands of times in making promises and threats to their children. The young are educated to lie. Lying has become popular from the pulpit, from the press, and from the home. Such being true, can there not be a reformation started, that people may be educated to speak plainly and tell the truth?
When we call to memory that lying comes under the same head with adultery, drunkenness, and murder, and that all liars and those who love to make a lie will have their part in the lake that is to burn forever and ever, we cannot be too careful in educating the mind along this line. I have recently examined some school books where children are taught to read, and some of the books contain some of the most notorious lies on record. As long as we teach children to lie at home; and send them to school to study lies, and let them go to church to hear lies, we cannot expect to have anything but a generation of liars. Christ said: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” Then, let us learn the truth, tell the truth, and practice the truth, that heaven may be our home.
J.D. Tant Quanah, Texas.
Gospel Advocate Vol 43,7/6/1905, page 427