Every true Christian should understand that the truth costs. If you donโt think so, make it your own, value it, defend it, stand for it, and see if it doesnโt cost. Before you are through it may cost you far more than you had thought โ hours of ease and pleasure, friends and money. Yes, the truth costs. Salvation is gloriously free but the truth costs โ that is, if you want it for yourself. Many who know the truth wonโt buy it. They wonโt pay what it costs to say: โThis is what I believe. This is my conviction.โ The truth isnโt worth that much to them.
But in Prov. 23:23 Godโs Word urges us: โBuy the truthโ! Not, โBuy it if you can get it at a bargain; if the price is not too great.โ No, โBuy the truthโ! Buy it at any price. It is worth far more than anything you can give in exchange for it.
And when you have bought it: โsell it not.โ How many, alas, have bought the truth only to sell out again! For a while they valued and defended some God-given light from His Word, but sold it again for something that seemed more valuable. Perhaps it was peace with others, or position, or popularity or some other temporal gain. They still gave mental assent to it but it formed no part of them. It was no longer a conviction.
It is because the truth is so little valued in this indifferent age, that many of Godโs people have become so spiritually powerless. They hold opinions instead of convictions, because they have given the infallible, unchangeable Word of God little place in their lives. God blesses and uses those who โbuy the truth and sell it not.โ source