Truth or Consequences

Some of you are old enough to remember Truth or Consequences. Ralph Edwards started it on NBC radio in 1940, and in one form or another it stayed on television until the late 1980s. The premise was simple. A contestant was asked a question, usually a trick question nobody could answer, and given about two seconds to answer it. Miss it, and Beulah the Buzzer went off and you paid the consequences... some ridiculous stunt in front of a laughing studio audience. The funny thing is, most contestants blew the question on purpose. The consequences were the fun part. Bob Barker, who hosted it for close to twenty years, signed off by "hoping all your consequences are happy ones."

I have been thinking about that show, because I believe the first round of truth or consequences was played in a garden. There was no buzzer and nobody was laughing. And the consequences were not happy ones.

This started at our Wednesday morning Bible study. We are working through Apologetics for Everyday Believers by Pastor Terrell Wilson, and the thought began forming as we read chapter three, which deals with truth. It put me back onto something I had read and chewed on a while ago. Then, over the past week, I found myself watching some of the testimony in the Caleb Flynn murder trial, and I realized this was not an idea to file away for later. It speaks to the time and place we are living in right now. I want to dig into it here, because I believe it sits at the root of most of the messes men get themselves into.

A world with one question

Picture Eden before the fall. Adam and Eve lived in a perfect relationship with their Creator, and all they knew was His truth. Everything God made, He called good. At the end of the sixth day, "God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31).

There was exactly one thing God called not good. "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him" (Genesis 2:18). The King James calls her a "help meet."

Then notice how He did it. He did not form the woman out of the ground the way He formed the man. He brought her out of the man. "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man" (Genesis 2:23). That is a key detail. It is why marriage, and the physical act of a husband and wife becoming one flesh (Genesis 2:24), carries meaning that is very spiritual and not only physical.

"And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:25). Nothing to hide. Nothing to judge. In that world there was really only one question worth asking about anything... is it true? Does it line up with what God said?

One tree, one command

Two trees stood in the middle of the garden, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:9). God put one fence around one of them. "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17).

That tree was their place of obedience. It was the point where man had the ability to make a choice... to know the truth and follow it, or not.

Now notice who God said it to. "The Lord God commanded the man" (Genesis 2:16). The command comes in verses 16 and 17. The woman is not formed until verses 21 and 22. There is no record in Scripture of God giving that command to Eve directly. She had to get it from Adam.

"Indeed, has God said?"

So when the serpent comes, he goes to the one who heard it secondhand. "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?" (Genesis 3:1).

Eve answers him with what God said, and she gets it mostly right. Then something extra shows up. "From the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die'" (Genesis 3:3).

Or touch it. God never said that. Maybe Adam added it when he passed the command along, one more fence to keep her safe. Maybe she added it herself. Scripture does not say. Either way, somewhere between God's mouth and the serpent's question, the truth picked up something that was not in the original. That gap is exactly where the enemy likes to work.

The bait fit the calling

Look at what the serpent offered. "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5).

He did not tempt her to rebel. He never said, "Go against God." He offered her exactly the thing that would pique the interest of a woman made to be a helper to her husband. Help him be everything he could be. Help him know more. Accomplish all that the two of them could accomplish. They would be fulfilled. They would have more value. They would be more complete. Surely more knowledge had to be a good thing.

"When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate" (Genesis 3:6).

Read that verse again and look for the word "true." It is not there. Good for food. A delight to the eyes. Desirable. Every test she ran was a test of whether it looked good. Not one of them asked whether what the serpent said was true.

Adam's part

"Her husband with her," the verse says. I believe Adam was in the garden with her, but the text does not say he stood there listening to the serpent. When God confronts him afterward, He names exactly what Adam did: "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you" (Genesis 3:17). Paul adds that "it was not Adam who was deceived" (1 Timothy 2:14). Adam was not fooled. He chose.

There is a whole article in what Adam could have done differently in that moment, and I have written it: Adam, You're the Man!. For now, hold onto this... the man who heard the command straight from God put another voice above God's.

What they actually got

They were promised their eyes would be opened, and they were. "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked" (Genesis 3:7).

Think about that. Nothing about their bodies had changed. They had been naked the whole time, and it had been very good. Now they judged it not good. They sewed fig leaves together. When they heard God walking in the garden, they hid. And God asked the question that exposes the whole thing: "Who told you that you were naked?" (Genesis 3:11).

That is the knowledge of good and evil. They traded a world where the question was "Is it true?" for a world where the question is "Is it good or is it bad?"... and they made themselves the judges. God Himself confirms it: "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:22).

Then came the shame, the guilt, the fear, and the blame. "The woman whom You gave to be with me" (Genesis 3:12). "The serpent deceived me" (Genesis 3:13). The consequences had begun.

We are still playing the wrong game

Here is what I believe was set in motion that day, and it is still running. Instead of asking what is true and what is false, people make judgment calls about what is good and what is evil. Look around. It is the prevailing attitude of our culture and of nearly everything we deal with. We rarely argue about whether something is true anymore. We argue about whether it is good.

The problem is that good and evil, judged by us, make a terrible guide. There are things that appear good and yet are very evil. There are things that appear evil and yet are good. Paul warns that "even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14). He does not show up looking evil. He shows up looking good.

And because we assume the good-looking things must be true and the bad-looking things must be false, we are very easily manipulated. Isaiah saw where that ends: "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20).

"There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death" (Proverbs 14:12).

Where this hits a man

This is how affairs happen. This is how marriages end in divorce.

No man wakes up one morning and decides to do evil. He meets someone and the relationship feels so good. She listens. She understands him. And at home, maybe, things feel hard, cold, even bad. So he begins to rationalize. How can something this good be wrong? How can God want me to stay in something this bad?

Notice the question he is asking. Good or bad. He is not asking whether it is true... whether it lines up with what God said. Once a man has made himself the judge of good and evil, he can talk himself into almost anything, because "The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9).

The same pattern sits underneath the bottle, the screen, and the shortcut at work. It always looks good first.

Truth... or consequences

We need to go back to judging by true and false. And we do not get to set that standard ourselves. We already have one.

The Word of God is the standard. Yeshua prayed to the Father for His followers, "Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth" (John 17:17).

Yeshua Himself is the living example of it. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me" (John 14:6). Truth is not only a list of right answers. It is a Person.

And He did not leave us to work it out alone. He gave us His Holy Spirit to lead us into truth and wisdom. "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13).

So here is the practical part. The next time something looks good, feels good, and seems like it could only make you better... stop and ask a different question. Not "Is it good?" but "Is it true?" Does it line up with what God actually said, not with what somebody added to it or passed along secondhand? If the honest answer is no, it does not matter how good it looks.

That was the real game in the garden, and it is the game every man still plays. There is no host and no studio audience. There is only a choice. Truth... or consequences.

Choose truth. "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32).