To Tell the Truth
To Tell The Truth,
I was raised in a family of often-strange morals.
For generations alcohol was a part of our life. So it was okay to drink white lightning, or my Grandpa’s homemade muscadine wine, or Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. It was even okay if you cursed after reaching a certain age, you just didn’t do it in front of a lady.
Even with those things being allowed we still had some things that were just NO NO’s. These things would cause you to receive the near death penalty. You would get an old fashion whoopin. (AKA: whipping, switching, and spanking).
One thing that would bring about this great wrath was to talk back to your parents. I only remember trying that one just once. I was in recovery for some time after that adventure.
Another thing that would definitely cause the just rod of my Daddy was to tell a lie! One of the worst whoopings I ever received was for lying, and truthfully I did not lie, that time. Years later I would get up the nerve to explain to my Daddy that I had not lied, and the whoopin was unjustified. After I finished pleading my case he told me that whoopin was for all the ones that I should have got, but it slipped by him.
Since my childhood days I have heard many lies. I remember going to a funeral after first coming to Shiloh Baptist Church, and there was a flower arrangement from the, “Shady Dale Liars Club.” Through the years I have known some people who I believe were professional liars.
During the summer of 1980, the youth group from Trinity Baptist Church had gone to the North Georgia Mountains for a retreat. We had one of those professional liars in the youth group. He was so good that he could lie at the blink of an eye, and then start to believe the lie was the truth.
We had rented a canoe and traveled up Lake Rabun to the swimming area. After arriving we would proceed to turn the canoe over, hit the paddle in the water, and just joke around. The only people at the swimming area were our youth group of about 15, and one local family that consisted of a Mom, Dad, and two small children.
I stood in the canoe and began to preach about the, “Great Turtle Religion!” With the fire and brimstone of the old fashioned preachers I would shout and hit the paddle in the water. The youth would laugh and shout amen, and that would lead me to preach harder. I hit the paddle in the water one last time and it shattered into hundreds of pieces.
The strange lady spoke up and said, “okay boys, you’ve had your fun, take the canoe and paddle back down to the store. Tell the boy what you did and ask him how much it will cost to replace it.”
Our professional liar stood up in the canoe and said to the lady, “We will do that, but he want charge us anything because he’s my brother.” I thought to myself, WOW; he’s good to come up with something so fast. Boy was I wrong!
The lady replied, “That’s mighty funny, he’s my son, I own the store, and I don’t remember you.” Needless to say, we used our bare hands and paddled down the lake at record speed.
Jesus said, “you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” I do not wish to take this out of context, because I know that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. However I would like to make application with this thought.
If you lie, you are in bondage trying to remember what you said, but if you tell the truth you are free from this. Let’s tell the truth and the world will be a better place!