Below is a picture of a wonderful bridge near where I live. It’s a great piece of architecture, almost a sculpture in its design!

Almost every time one of our grandchildren stay with us, grandpa likes to drive them over this bridge and we marvel at how it gets us from one side of this valley to the other, and, it does it with complete safety!

We might say, “It’s a ‘sincere’ bridge.” Our English word “sincere” comes from the Latin words sine cera, which mean “without wax.” Now, how did that come about for a meaning?

It was a common practice in ancient times to cover the flaws in pottery with wax. When you looked at the pottery it “looked” fine, solid, true, strong, usable. But, it was flawed with a weakness that being put under stress or putting it in the sun would disclose.

So, you took your new pottery home, filled it with hot water, and it was a disaster in the making, most often someone got hurt. We all want “sincere” pottery!

Let’s take this “waxing” and apply it to words and consider what that does. When we cover up and hide our words, that’s what we call a “lie.” It’s an untruth. It’s a word that has been “waxed” so it appears to be what it’s really not.

So, how does this relate to our bridge? I like to use a bridge as a model, picture, an illustration for truth. Let me explain.

When I need to get across the valley, maybe of confusion, maybe of danger, and take to you wisdom, assurance, love, compassion (and much more!), I need to travel the bridge of truth. Truth is something “without wax”! It’s “sincere”! You can count on it, rely on it, hang your very life on it!

Words that have been “waxed” can’t take the weight, handle the stress, deal with the intense pressure put on them, and they crumble when put to the test! It’s a disaster in the making!

When we lie, we damage, even destroy, the ability to get back and forth to one another with the things we need for life, assurance, comfort, compassion, wisdom, and love, just to mention some of our live support.

I would suggest that the bridge, a “sincere” bridge, is a great illustration of the truth we must have between us. Lack of this truth isolates us across that valley, relationship falters, weakens, even fails from untruth.

What a great confidence we have as believers in the Lord that He is Truth, and here we build our lives, lives that can span confusion, discouragement, disaster, even the darkness of fear! It’s done in Truth!

Ps 25:8–10.

⁸ Good and upright is the Lord; Therefore He instructs sinners in the way. ⁹ He leads the humble in justice, And He teaches the humble His way. ¹⁰ All the paths of the Lord are loyal-love and truth To those who keep His covenant and His testimonies.

Ps 40:11.

¹¹ You, O Lord, will not withhold Your compassion from me; Your loyal-love and Your truth will continually preserve me.

The hard truth is that no truth is of the devil, absolute opposition to the very nature and character of the Lord. Jesus said, Jn 8:43–47.

⁴³ “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. ⁴⁴ “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ⁴⁵ “But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. ⁴⁶ “Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? ⁴⁷ “He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”

In a world of relativism and softness, this “hard truth” may not be what we wanted to hear, but, as we’ve learned from the bridge, we can’t get across in relationship with another, or the Lord Himself, without truth! It is that solid, “sincere,” foundation upon which we indeed build life itself!

Take a look at that next bridge you cross, you’re absolutely counting on it being “without wax” if you want to make it to the other side! Such is the bridge of truth upon which we’ll transport life itself to one another in our world of relationships!

It is through truth we show others who we really are. It is with truth we touch others with the One in whom we believe, His Loyal-Love, and, they can count on it! It’s “without wax”!