“Speak each man the truth to his neighbor …” (Zech. 8:16a, NKJV)
We are currently reading the story of Elijah in a typological manner, to elucidate the way in which each member of the Bride gains their specific mantle.
In the previous teaching we focused on Ahab’s loaded words to Elijah: “Is that you, o troubler of Israel?” (1 Kings 18:17). In verse 18 Elijah answers Ahab, mincing no words: “I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father’s house have, in that you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and have followed the Baals.”
By now we know that Ahab also carries the carnal mantle of the first Adam, and because of this he has a lying tongue – “all human beings are liars” (Rom. 3:4,GNB). It is, as Isa. 59:4 suggests – “No one calls for justice, nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; they conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.” The prophet Jeremiah (9:3) also sketches this terminal condition of lies in which all people (Ps. 116:11; Tit. 1:12; teaching of Day 833) function: “’And like their bow they have bent their tongues for lies. They are not valiant for the truth on the earth. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me,’ says the Lord.”
The lies that spread within us of course originate from the spiritual seed of the snake (Gen. 3:15), which is our father in Adam: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” (John 8:44).
God’s expectation of man is that he learns to live outside the lying ways of the snake. Throughout the Old Testament an appeal is made to the believer, as it is for instance made beautifully clear in Zech. 8:16: “These are the things you shall do: speak each man the truth to his neighbor; give judgment in your gates for truth, justice, and peace.”
Alas all people remain, even if they have reached the cross, liars “in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Tim. 4:2). It is only once one is born-again that the seed of Truth – his Name is Jesus (John 14:6) is implanted within us, and through the Holy “Spirit of truth … will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13).
Wearing the spiritual armour means that you have “girded your waist with truth” (Eph. 6:14), also means that the seed of truth is sown within you and in your environment. In this way the godly nature (2 Pet. 1:4) is made manifest through the “fruit of the Spirit” which consists of “goodness, righteousness, and truth” (Eph. 5:9).
As a mantle’s nature is nestled in the Anointed’s “Spirit of the Truth” it can only be entrusted to those who “tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord …” (1 Kings 22:16). Do you walk “by the word of truth, by the power of God” (2 Cor. 6:7)?
- Selah: Answer the last question (Ps. 51:6).
- Read: Mark 11; John 12.
- Memorise: John 12:7.
