One Word of Truth Outweighs the Whole World

By Carl Wells

When Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn told us, decades ago, that one word of truth outweighs the whole world, he was quoting from a Russian proverb.

According to the proverb (and to Solzhenitsyn), that would mean that truth is extremely weighty and important.

The Bible seems to agree, because the Bible stresses over and over the loveliness of truth—and the ugliness of falsehood.

One Word of Truth Outweighs the Whole World, by Carl Wells, examines what it will mean for us, in practical terms, if we begin to have a high respect for truth.

Caring about the truth may be easier said than done!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 22, 2024
• ISBN: 9798823017374

Carl Wells

Carl Wells enjoys living in Southern Indiana, in what might be described as Flyover Country, except that almost nobody flies over.

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© 2024 Carl Wells. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/22/2024

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1738-1 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1737-4 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

For Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,

who spoke, wrote, and lived the truth with courage. He endured physical danger and lies from the communists. Then he endured verbal abuse and lies from Westerners. He kept on telling the truth. His example humbles and encourages us. Thank you.

Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

John 8:31-32

One word of truth outweighs the whole world.

Russian proverb

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1   Why One Word of Truth Is So Weighty

Chapter 2   The Bible Has a Lot to Say On the Topic of Truth

Chapter 3   Deception

Chapter 4   Satan Is the Father of Lies

Chapter 5   Jesus Christ Is the Truth

Chapter 6   God the Father and the Holy Spirit

Chapter 7   Theological Untruths We Have Believed

Chapter 8   The Truth Is Not Enough, Part I

Chapter 9   A Painful Truth

Chapter 10  The Truth Is Not Enough, Part II

Chapter 11  Hardcore Enemies of Truth

Chapter 12  Solzhenitsyn Tried to Warn Us

Chapter 13  Our Current Prospects

Chapter 14  Why We Have a Chance

Chapter 15  Things We Can Do to Live More Honestly

Chapter 16  Summing Up

Appendix I: A Prayer

Other Books by the Author

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INTRODUCTION

And He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And the man said, The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.

Genesis 3:11-13

It’s one d— thing after another, as Bertie Wooster might say.

Preemptive war on Sunday, numerous deaths via drug overdose on Monday, the homosexual agenda ruling the land on Tuesday, Islam’s sharia law being established in our cities on Wednesday, mostly peaceful Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots destroying lives and property on Thursday, transgender operations on children on Friday, money printed out of thin air causing the value of our money to drop on Saturday.

The next week will be similar. Covid lockdowns with shots and masks on Sunday. Illegal hordes of immigrants pouring over our borders on Monday. Black crime going through the roof on Tuesday. Main Sleaze Media fibbing on Wednesday. Big Tech closing down free speech on Thursday. White people being blamed for everything on Friday. Suicides skyrocketing on Saturday.

Rinse, repeat.

We seem to be living in a time of crisis. If this is not a time of crisis, it will do until something more dire comes along. Granted, something more dire may indeed come along. We may face widespread civil warfare, the value of our money disappearing completely and thus rendering many of us paupers, starvation, nuclear war—any and all may happen.

But if more dire events come upon us, it will be because we did not wisely deal with the more manageable problems we are currently facing. So I’m sticking to my theory that right now, 2024, we are living in a time of crisis.

But why are we living in a time of crisis?

If we figure out why we are in a time of crisis, then maybe we can stop what we’re doing wrong, do something better, and avoid further disaster.

We are in a time of crisis because we didn’t love truth enough.

When I say we, I mean we—all of us. However, one group is especially guilty.

Who might that be? Woke leftists? Neoconservatives? Democrats? Republicans? Conservatism Inc.? The mainstream Christian church filled with me too hipsters?

Well, none of these groups is helping. But the group most especially guilty is the Bible-believing Christian church. (The group to which I belong.)

We are more guilty, because we had every gift from God, and we made a weak, self-absorbed, pathetic use of those gifts. We had the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We had the Bible. We had freedom, relative wealth, plenty of time, and sufficient intellect. We knew we needed Jesus Christ. We knew the Holy Spirit was quite willing to guide us ‘into all the truth’ (Jn. 16:13).

We had everything.

But we refused to speak the truth about how reality is put together. We told quarter-truths. We told half-truths.

We also told full truths. In fact many of our churches pride themselves on the fact that they speak the full biblical truth!

But in fact we can speak full truths, and still be lying.

We are lying because we have not spoken full truths which convict us of our continuing sinfulness. We told plenty of full truths. But they were only the most comforting full truths. We said nothing about numerous uncomfortable full truths which convict us Christians of our guilt.

Thus, our sin is the greatest of all, because we Christians of all people should have known that it was our duty to speak, and face up to, difficult full truths. Of those to whom much is given, much is required (Lk. 12:42-48). We have not responded appropriately to the bounty we have received.

The solution is simple—but not easy. We need to start speaking painful truths, not sparing ourselves. It is not easily done—or we would have done it long ago. But we can begin to make a start.

It may be some consolation to us to realize that our difficulties in believing the truth, speaking the truth, and living the truth are not new things. Our race from the start has had difficulty in separating truth from falsehood, and difficulty accepting responsibility. Take Adam and Eve . . . please, as Henny Youngman might say.

Neither showed up well when dealing with the deceiving serpent.

It is fascinating to note that Adam was not deceived by the serpent.

And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being quite deceived, fell into transgression. (1 Tim. 2:14)

Adam knew that the serpent was lying, and that they should not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He spoke up bravely, but Eve recklessly plunged ahead anyway.

Well, no, not exactly. Adam, despite the fact that he knew better, and despite the fact that he was the head of his family, instead acquiesced in Eve’s bad decision concerning whether or not to eat the fruit. He followed Eve’s bad example, and ate the fruit after she did.

When called to account by God for their actions, Eve admitted she had been deceived, and that she had indeed eaten the fruit (Gen. 3:13). At this point, she shows more integrity than Adam.

Adam’s response is hilarious. Yes, he had eaten the fruit. But, he said, the true fault lay with 1/God—He was the one who came up with the bright idea of giving Eve to Adam; and 2/Eve, who apparently was a very flawed creation by God and who had given the fruit to poor innocent bystander Adam.

Thus Adam established the pattern for male behavior from that day forward in all of world history: first passively standing by doing nothing instead of leading his family in obedience to God, and then secondly shifting the blame onto others when things go wrong.

Contrast the first Adam with the second Adam. The first Adam said to God, "It’s all your fault, and the fault of that woman you gave me."

The second Adam, Jesus Christ, said, Yes, Father, things have gone horribly wrong because of man’s disobedience to you. Kill me—I am God and man—instead of them. I accept the punishment for the sins of mankind.

We can reject the pattern set by the first Adam, if we confess that we need the salvation offered by the second Adam. God can regenerate and convert us, can make us people who no longer shift blame, who no longer passively acquiesce in bad ideas and in foolish behavior.

He can make us people who love and speak and live the truth.

Our fallen human nature—even after we are regenerated!—inclines us to blame-shifting, to intellectual and spiritual and physical laziness. But our potential for telling the truth—even difficult truth—is huge, once God regenerates us through the blood of the Savior Jesus Christ.

Our country and Christian civilization as a whole are in crisis because we have grown lazy and dishonest. We can take up the full armor of God (Eph. 6:13-17). When we begin to do that, we will notice that an important aspect of our armor is that we gird our loins with the truth (Eph. 6:14).

If we refuse to gird our loins with the truth, our Christian civilization will continue to suffer violent attacks which harm countless millions of people. Someone else will have to do work that you and I should have done.

Mordecai’s words to Esther demonstrate his faith that God would not be defeated even if Esther failed to take advantage of her opportunity.

For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arrive for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. (Esth. 4:14)

We should apply that warning to ourselves. If we remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise from other people. It will arise—but no thanks to us. It will be shameful if we remain passively silent like the first Adam, when we should be speaking up with the truth.

The germ of the idea for the title of this book entered my head over five decades ago. I don’t think I read the full text of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s 1970 Nobel Lecture in Literature—delivered in printed form to the Swedish Academy, rather than spoken as a lecture—until recently.

But one thing Solzhenitsyn wrote in that lecture—the phrase is all in capital letters in the printed version I have—was that ONE WORD OF TRUTH SHALL OUTWEIGH THE WHOLE WORLD.

Somehow I knew about that part of Solzhenitsyn’s address, fifty years ago. Later on I learned, as Solzhenitsyn made clear, that he had borrowed the idea from Russian proverbs.

The same proverb shows up in slightly different phrasing, depending upon the source. I have chosen to use this version for my title: One Word of Truth Outweighs the Whole World.

The organization of this short book is straightforward. The chapter titles give an accurate summary of the material included in each. I close with one appendix, which is a prayer, and with a listing of my other books.

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CHAPTER 1

WHY ONE WORD OF TRUTH IS SO WEIGHTY

They hate him who reproves in the gate,

And they abhor him who speaks with integrity.

Amos 5:10

‘These are the things which you should do: speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgment for peace in your gates.’

Zechariah 8:16

Why is one word of truth so weighty that it outweighs the whole world? That can seem like an exaggeration.

After all, the world is pretty heavy.

According to information available on the Internet, the approximate weight of the Earth is 6.585 billion trillion tons. Or, put another way, 13,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds.

While the Earth ranks only sixth in size of the eight planets in our solar sister—as Huck Finn insists on calling our Solar System¹—it is also the most dense planet of the eight. It is not light.

So, for example, the simple truth that the grass needs mowing, is weightier than the whole Earth?

No, that is not what the proverb is trying to express.

The one word of truth of which the proverb speaks is the moral and spiritual truth that we would prefer to avoid hearing and with which we prefer to avoid dealing. The one word of truth is convicting, painful truth.

The one word of truth is so heavy because lies are so commonplace and so powerful to persuade us to live dishonestly.

We bathe in lies—and we love them. We usually don’t know that we love them but we do.

And again, when I say we, most emphatically that includes Bible-believing Christians.

The following quote is an excerpt from a letter I wrote a few years ago to a man who was a potential candidate to be called to the pastorate.

I really don’t want to be ungrateful for the teaching I have had. I have heard good preaching for much of my life. It was pietism, but it was good pietism. If I had applied half of what I heard, I would be a sort of Protestant saint, famous for my godliness of character. But really, the pietism is not enough.

Please do not become a pastor if you are going to follow in the path of the hundred thousand pastors who don’t tell us the painful truths we need to hear. (Here is where your courage may be sorely tested; you will need all you can muster if you intend to tell your people the truth.)

Think about what we hear every week. We don’t need to hear anything more about the holiness of God, or about the need for the Savior Jesus Christ. We know all that. We always need to have these truths refreshed, but where is the preaching which convicts us of our sins and moves us to change the way we live? Such preaching does not exist.

Think about it. Have you ever heard even one sermon, in your entire life, about any of the topics listed below?

1/The Bible teaches us to tithe, and we need to be obedient. Don’t claim full church membership unless you are willing to tithe.

2/Many (most?) U.S. Christians have made an idol of the nation of the United States.

3/Many (most?) U.S. Christians have made an idol of the U.S. military.

4/Many (most?) U.S. Christians are warmongers to the core, supporting U.S. preemptive war against other nations, and supporting torture as a legitimate means of extracting information from people.

5/Most Christians are quite willing to educate their children at public expense, and to earn a living in public schools and universities, which means we are willing to force our neighbors to pay for the education of our children and to pay our (inflated) salaries.

6/Most Christians are quite willing to involve ourselves in receiving stolen goods via Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment compensation.

7/Many Christian farmers are quite willing to accept government subsidies to farm (or to not farm).

8/Most Christians shrug at the murder of unborn children, and many even vote for pro-abortion candidates.

9/Most Christians have zero interest in a biblical system of punishment for criminals. Where is our call for restitution, for execution for murder or for execution for rape? We are smarter than God, apparently. And thus we doom countless people to receive unbiblical punishments. We refuse to protect children from sexual abuse because we refuse to execute child rapists. We doom ordinary people to death or crippling because we refuse to execute drunk drivers who cause horrific accidents.

10/We worship the false god democracy, while claiming that Christian laws would be mixing government and religion. Whereas every nation without exception is a theocracy; the only question being, which god will rule?

11/We have failed to model love in our family life. We acquiesce in unbiblical divorce.

12/Most Christians are anti-intellectual, refusing to read and think.

Have you ever heard even one sermon in your life on any of these topics (and others could be listed)? Well, maybe you’ve heard a sermon supporting the necessity to tithe—but even then there is never any real follow-up, where people are held to account. I remember hearing from one pastor how he tried to follow up on the need to tithe, and his board of elders shot him down in a New York minute, and refused to let him really to hold people accountable.

It would take real courage to preach on any one of these issues! How much easier to give us quarter-truths, half-truths, and full truths about which there is no controversy.

One word of truth convicts us and points to how we can live more honestly in the world created and run by the God of the Bible. Such truth weighs more than the Earth.

Is this hyperbole? After all, how can we even compare the physical weight of the Earth, on one hand, with the weight of a moral idea on the other?

We are comparing apples and oranges, in a sense.

The proverb is intended to cause us to think, to ponder, to contemplate how crucial to us is truth.

The proverb is intended to startle us awake. When we hear it, we should say, Wait . . . what? What does that even mean?

Gradually, tentatively, we begin to see that it means that convicting moral truths are incredibly valuable.

How much better it is to get wisdom than gold!

And to get understanding is to be chosen above silver. (Prov. 16:16)

The Bible statement is literally true. Which is more valuable, 13,170,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds of gold at $2,043.30 per ounce (the year’s highest price the last time I looked), or truth and wisdom? What is it more important that I have, the wealth of the entire heavy world at $2,000.00 per ounce, or a love of truth and wisdom?

Well, I would love to have even a few ounces of gold, but in the long run I need truth and wisdom more—much more—than I need gold. After all, I can earn enough money to live a comfortable life, by working a few hours a week. But I can’t live with practical wisdom unless I honor God and obey Him. To do that I must love truth. And, unless I am exterminated via eternal death—a danger the Bible warns against—I am going to be living for eternity. Truth is more valuable than gold and silver. It’s actually not even close.

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CHAPTER 2

THE BIBLE HAS A LOT TO SAY ON THE TOPIC OF TRUTH

Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written,

"That Thou mightest be justified in Thy words,

And mightest prevail when Thou art judged."

Romans 3:4

As I made plans—several years ago—to write this book, one of the things I did was to record, in a notebook, those Bible passages which potentially had something to say on the topic. I came up with several categories: deception, speaking falsehood, honest words, honest people standing up for truth, false vows, careless words, miscellaneous, Jesus Christ as the truth & telling the truth, God the Father & Holy Spirit—in regard to truth, lie or lying, verse or verses with more than one aspect of categories, Satan.

By the time I was done, I had approximately 55 pages of notes.

In fact, the process of making notes, alone, was considerably instructive. I learned that the Bible is extremely concerned about the topic of truth, and about its opposite, falsehood.

Truth, from the Bible’s point of view, is very good.

Falsehood is not the loyal opposition, wrongheaded but honorable. Falsehood is very bad, from the Bible’s perspective.

The Bible clearly tells us that God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the truth, and tell us the truth. ‘God is not a man, that He should lie’ (Num. 23:19). God cannot lie (Titus 1:2; compare Heb. 6:18).

This is not a small point.

Christianity stands or falls on whether or not it is true. As Paul says, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar (Rom. 3:4).

But, Paul points out, Christianity is either true or false. He clarifies this in his discussion of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and of people.

Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we witnessed against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. (1 Cor. 15:12-19)

If Jesus Christ was not raised from the dead, then Christianity is not true, and we are of all men most to be pitied.

Paul does not say to us, If believing in Christianity makes you feel good, go ahead and enjoy your faith. Rather he tells us, Believe Christianity because it is true.

The entire Bible makes the claim over and over—it begins to seem obsessively so when you are filling 55 pages with notes on the topic—that the truth is crucially important, and that God is the source of all truth.

This is good news if the claim is true, because if God cannot lie, He has given us a book in which He tells us the truth.

However, we can reject the claim that God is the source of all truth. If we do that, we would have to find another source for truth. Many people do choose another source for truth. I would contend that when they do, they bring disaster upon themselves and upon other people. If we look around, we see that people who reject the God of the Bible as the source for all truth, end up living in a world in which lies are the foundation for living. Reject God’s truth today, and murder unborn children tomorrow.

If I were to discuss every Bible passage recorded in my 55 pages of notes—or even half of them—this book might be ten times longer than it is. That is a project I will gladly leave to someone else! For our purposes in this short book, it is enough for us to know that woven throughout the entire Bible is both a claim to be truth and a love of truth, as well as a hatred of falsehood.

It appears that both truth and falsehood are extremely important. Who could have guessed?

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CHAPTER 3

DECEPTION

"The heart is