Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans.  Tonight is study #8 in Romans 3,  and we will read Romans 3:4-6:

God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man) God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?

I will stop reading there.  We are presently looking at verse 4 where it said, “God forbid,” and we discussed that at the end of our last study.  They are the Greek words, “may,” and “ghin'-om-ahee,” which means “let it not be.”  And this was the response to the question asked in verse 3: “ Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?” And the answer was, “May it not be.”  It is not the case.  The faith of God would accomplish His purpose as the Lord Jesus would save His people, and spiritual Israel would be formed, as we read later in the book of Romans that all the Gentiles will also come in, and in this manner, all Israel shall be saved.  So the faith of God is evident, and, of course, it has done what it set out to do, and the Lord Jesus has done what He set out to do.  Hence, the use of the strong negative, “may - ghin'-om-ahee.”

Then we read in Romans 3:4:

… yea, let God be true, but every man a liar;

Let God be true.  The same Greek word that was translated as part of “God forbid,” or “let it not be,” is the word “ghin'-om-ahee.”  The word “ghin'-om-ahee” is Strong’s #1096, and it is the word for “be.”  It is also the same Greek (#1096) that is found here where it says, “yea, let God.”

This, of course, is telling us an absolute fact concerning God – He is true.  All we can do is thank God that He is true.  We are very familiar with why the world is immersed in lies and deceitfulness, with errors and falsehoods everywhere we turn in the world.  We can pick up a little children’s book, and it is full of lies.  They are “cute and cuddly” kinds of lies, telling a simple tale meant to teach some moral point.  At least that is how the world sees it, and the world has no problem making up stories that are flat-out lies and untruths because the world identifies with the lie far more than it identifies with truth.  The fact is that their identification with the lie is thorough, and they fully identify with the lie.  We will look at that more later, but “God be true” is the first statement here, and we will spend some time looking at this characteristic of God.  It really is a beautiful and magnificent characteristic of God.  It is a glorious trait and attribute of God, and it just shines in this world of darkness, the world of lies and deceitfulness.  It is really what sets the Bible apart from all else in the whole world.  And because God is true, then, certainly, His Word is true. 

God has given His Word to the world, and He took care to move the prophets of old to write it down, and then to have His words compiled together, and then He watched over it to keep it from the evil generation(s) of men to preserve it from corruption.  And corruption of the Bible does not refer to the “ancient pages” that are fading away.  No – it is not the kind of corruption caused by time.  But it is the corruption that men cause through lies as Satan, the father of lies, stirred them up to come against the Bible, and that happened countless times over the course of history.  Men have assailed the Word of God, and they have tried in every way imaginable to have lies inserted, and yet, it has never worked because God has kept His Word pure from this evil generation, as it says in Psalm 12:57: “…thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.”   He has kept a watch over the many centuries as His Word was compiled, and He preserved it over the New Testament era so that we can know with 100% surety that the original Greek and Hebrew that underlies the King James Bible is absolute truth.  It is not mostly true.  It is not 99.9% true.  It is fully true.  It is perfect truth – pure and holy truth.  So, of course, this is what sets the Bible apart that allows the Bible to stand out in a brilliant way.  It is like having the burning hot sun in the sky coming down to the earth in all its brilliance.  Of course that would destroy the world, but the point is that the Bible burns brightly and shines brilliantly in all its facets in the spiritual realm, and yet, man, who is dead in trespasses and sins and dead in soul, cannot see, hear, or have life in the spiritual realm, but they just know that there is something about that book. 

And when they hear the things the Bible says, they know deep down that it is the Word of God.  They know it is the truth, and that is why they must fight against it.  They must deny it, attack it, and claim it is not true.  It is the same tactic Satan used back in the Garden of Eden: “Hath God said?”  So men say about the text that underlies the Bible, “Is it really perfect?  Hath not error crept in?  Have the churches not taken away things?”  They say all kinds of things that could come right out of the mouth of Satan himself, but that it does not have to be (Satan) because every man is a liar.  And Satan is the father of lies, so Satan is their father the devil, according to what Christ said.

But for God’s people, we are born of the Spirit, and the Spirit is truth.  That is what we read in John 14:16-17:

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

You see, we are begotten by the Word of God.  Concerning that, we read in John 17:17:

Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

So the Word of God, which is truth, translates the individual sinner from the darkness into the light.  And Christ is the essence of truth.  John 14:6 tell us: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  When the Spirit of Christ enters into us, we are begotten of the truth (the Spirit is perfect truth) and through the Word, which is perfect truth.  Then we have the indwelling Spirit of Christ who is the essence of truth itself.  It is no wonder that the Bible says God’s people will hear His voice after they become saved.  We recognize His voice because it is so different from all the other voices of strangers, including Satan and all the philosophies and religions of the world, and even the false gospels of so-called Christianity. 

There are seas of lies and falsehoods and deceitful teachings out in the world.  It is magnified everywhere we look.  There are lies spoken that are designed to deceive and to keep the people of the world in the darkness and in the condition of untruth.  And most people are very content in that condition as they simply go along with the way of the world, and whatever the world says.  They try not to think about it too much.  They are nourished with deceit.  Just as the people of God are nourished with the truth of the Word of God, the world is nourished by falsehoods and lies.  So they feed upon fiction – fictional novels, fictional TV shows, and fictional movies.  And that is not enough for them, so they go to college and are educated with fiction and fairy tales, such as evolution and the “Big Bang.”  Everywhere we look in the world, there are lies!  It is just incredible the degree of lies that are out there.  You expose one lie, and there is another lie underneath it.  And this is how we are born into the world, as the Bible says of babies that they are “born speaking lies.”  Man is in tune with, and fully identified with, the lie.

And only by the grace and mercy of God, and by God’s goodness, there was His wonderful salvation program wherein He sent forth His Word, the Bible, which is the truth.  Truth is very rare in this world.  And yet by God’s grace, His truth entered into my life and your life, and we have heard that truth.  Not only did it come into our lives, but God used that Word of truth to save us, and He gave us a new heart and a new spirit within us.  What is the characteristic of that spirit?  We have an ongoing desire to not only do His commandments, but we want to know the commandments, so we have an ongoing desire to seek after truth and find the truth.  Finally, after living for years in the world’s lies and in the darkness of the deceitful dealings of the world, the truth entered into our lives.  We are blessed to be able to hear it, and understand it, and then to proclaim it and tell others that the darkness they have lived their lives in might be removed, and that they might begin to see.  No – it is not that they will become saved, but there is a great multitude out there that God has already saved, but they have not been taught; they were saved (prior to the shut door on May 21, 2011), but they have heard no other information.  So as the Word of God comes to them, it will be light that shines and reveals the darkness all around them, and then instructs them on the way they must go.