At one point in the history of the world, truth was very important and people sought to know truth and thereby gain wisdom. It used to be that people who searched after truth were called “lovers of wisdom”: Philosophers (phileo meaning to love, and sophos meaning wisdom). Today, philosophers are those who question truth. In our culture, we question whether truth really even exists or not. If there is such a thing as truth, is there anything we can call “absolute truth”. Others want to know, if indeed truth does exist, is it knowable at all? Can anyone know truth with any kind of certainty? Is truth even important? We have become people who live according to their feelings rather than their minds. We base our decisions (moral and otherwise) by what we “feel” is the right thing to do, not necessarily because we have carefully thought it through. Our feelings have become more important than our ability to think.
I always wish one of these people who do not believe in truth would ask me directions to Cleveland. I would have fun directing them to Columbus and then to I-70 West. And then if they should complain, I would say, “But I thought you didn’t believe in truth. I thought you believed that there was no such thing as right or wrong. And now you are complaining that I did not tell you the truth, and that you believe that what I did was wrong. Now which is it? Is there such a thing as truth, and nothing is really right or wrong, or not?” These people who say there is no such thing as right and wrong, surprisingly do not want you to lie to them, steal from them or harm them.
I was recently reading an article by Chuck Colson where he said : “Relativism is so rampant that in a Barna poll, 71 percent of the American people said there is no such thing as absolute truth. But don’t get smug: In that same poll, George Barna surveyed evangelical, born-again Christians — those who go to church regularly, who pray regularly, who believe in Jesus Christ, who have had an experience with Christ — and 40 percent of evangelical Christians responded the same way: There is no such thing as absolute truth! In a 1992 Gallup poll, 69 percent of the people said they believe there are no moral absolutes.” As a pastor, I have seen this many times. A church I once served hired a youth pastor who told me one day that he did not believe in absolute truth. I learned that when he left the church he embezzled money from his next employer. He was just living according to his beliefs.
What I want to say to you today is that truth is important. What you believe to be true is important, because it will determine how you see life and how you live your life. It will determine your ability to understand life and obey God. Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). Civilizations have grown and advanced as they have sought truth, discovered truth and lived according to the truths they found. And civilizations that did not understand truth, and live according to it, did not advance, and in some cases they perished.
The Word of God, the Bible, contains the truths that civilizations, and individuals, grow by. It is the moral foundations (like the 10 commandments) and ethical principles that the Bible teaches that hold nations together when they follow them. The same is true for us as individuals. The universe is slanted to favor those who live according to truth. But not everyone follows the truth. The truth can be painful. The writer of Hebrews says, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:12-13). You remember Jack Nicholson when he played Col. Nathan R. Jessep in the film “A Few Good Men.” Perhaps Nicholson was right as he yelled: “You can’t handle the truth!” The fact that there is truth means that we are accountable to live according to the truth. It means that we may not like the truth. It means that we may be wrong.
I was so amazed to hear Mother Teresa in her speech before the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994. She stood before national leaders, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, the most powerful couple in the world at the time, who were well-known advocates of abortion. Remember that Clinton vetoed the ban on partial-birth abortions. But Mother Teresa, with her small twisted body that was less than five feet tall, spoke to the large gathering of elegantly dressed dignitaries and said, “I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child — a direct killing of the innocent child — murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?” Many of those present could not handle the truth.
A similar story happened in July of last year. The papers reported, “A New York town clerk announced her resignation in a letter saying that she would be compromising her ‘moral conscience’ if she signed marriage licenses between same-sex couples. Laura Fotusky said her decision was based strongly on her religious convictions and obeying the law of God over the law of men. ‘The Bible clearly teaches that God created marriage between male and female as a divine gift that preserves families and cultures,’ Fotusky wrote. ‘Since I love and follow Him, I cannot put my signature on something that is against God.’” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo responded to Fotusky’s resignation, saying: “The law is the law, and when you enforce the laws of the state, you don’t get to pick and choose.” Actually you do, Mr. Cuomo, for as Fotusky simply said, “I had to obey God rather than men.”
You see, there is truth that is above our commonly accepted wisdom. Truth is not merely a social construct. There is a law that is above human law. It is transcendent. There has to be a standard that is higher than my own desire and what is best for me. And this moral law is written on the hearts of all human beings. It was the philosopher Immanuel Kant who said, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” We come equipped with a conscience which enables us to respond to the moral law of God and the natural laws of the universe. We can squelch our conscience, or listen to it. But to squelch the conscience is to sin and invite disaster, because we go against the very laws that are built into us, and the universe as well. For the Bible says, “For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law [or Scripture], do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them” (Romans 2:13-15). So, according to the Bible, there is a law that transcends the laws of men, even though we may not like it. This law, this truth, is knowable and has been planted in all our hearts. It can be distorted, but it is nonetheless there. More than that, we are accountable to this law. It is knowable truth. It is doable truth. It is what keeps us from being savages.
I was reading an online magazine this week, and there was an article which said, “The next time someone insists moral truth is relative and enlightened people don’t ‘legislate morality,’ you might consider asking them to read the 23-page grand jury report that documents the (alleged) predatory acts of Jerry Sandusky. What you’re likely to hear from them aren’t excuses or self-doubt or ethical tentativeness. What you’re likely to hear is disgust and outrage... I’ll take it as a sign of the starry heavens above and the moral law within.” (“ Penn State, the Starry Heavens Above and the Moral Law Within”, Peter Wehner 11.21.2011 - 3:00 PM – Commentary Magazine)
Here is the great truth in Scripture that is at the center of our faith, as well as the center of the universe itself: “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:13-17).
To be in touch with truth is to be in touch with reality. Charles Colson, in his book, How Now Shall We Live?, says, “All citizens live better in a world that more closely conforms to reality, to the order God created.” The world is built on truth and operates on truth. That is why scientists can depend on the laws of nature they have discovered. The “laws of science” do not belong to science, they belong to God. Science is only discovering the laws which God used to create the world. We often hear people say, “Well, that’s your truth, and I have my truth.” There is no such thing as “your truth” and “my truth”, there is only God’s truth. Truth is transcendent. We cannot both be right. You might be closer to the truth than me, but we cannot both be right. There is an objective standard of truth outside of us and above us. There is a moral order to the universe, just as there is a material/physical order. Truth is a person, for Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). We hear people say that there are many paths up the same mountain. That is perhaps true, unless of course you are going up the wrong mountain.
You have probably heard the old fable about the six blind men who came upon an elephant. One took a hold of the elephant’s tail and declared with certainty that the elephant was like a rope. Another blind man felt the elephant’s great side and said it was like a wall. Another felt the ear and said the elephant was like a fan. Another felt the tusk and said it was like a spear. On it goes, but you get the idea. And the story is told to demonstrate the idea of pluralism — to show that no one really understands reality or has a corner on the truth, and that we should therefore be open and tolerant of all ideas. There are only two problems with this story. The first is that all the men are blind, and the assumption is that we are all really blind, when the truth is that God has opened our eyes as he has revealed his truth to us in Jesus Christ. The second problem with the story is that all of the men were wrong, and that the elephant really existed and was truly an elephant. So, we might say that God is the obvious elephant in the room that everyone has agreed not to see or talk about, especially with any certainty.
We live in a culture where it is more wrong to judge evil than to do evil. Tolerance is the great virtue of the day, and judgmentalism is the great sin. But hear the Word of God which says, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Romans 1:18-20).
Truth is something that can be seen and understood. Slavery is clearly wrong and setting people free is right. It is better to love someone than torture someone. It is better to build something than to than destroy something. A Mozart concerto is better than acid rock or a violent rap song — if you can even call it music. It is more like an assault on the senses. Truth is something that touches us profoundly and resonates in our soul. Truth is like being in a scene of majestic beauty that touches something deep inside us. When we hear truth, something within us says, “Yes!” That is how we are made. Truth is about reality; it is about beauty.
Can this ability to perceive truth be distorted? To be sure. Adam and Eve heard God speak and believed the truth that God spoke — that is, until the satanic voice spoke a lie to them and called it truth. That same voice speaks today, calling his lies “an alternate truth”, when it fact it is not truth at all. The Bible speaks of this when it says, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie” (Romans 1:25). Scripture teaches us this important truth: “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God” (John 3:20-21). So, we have to stay close to God, to come into the light, to keep in his Word and to pray that we might be able to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). We need to pray that we will be able to detect the word of error. And remember that Someone else is praying for us as well. Jesus said, “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:15-17).
As Jesus stood before Pilate, he said to him, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me” (John 18:37). Pilate’s languid response was, “What is truth?” That is the question the world is still asking today, and it still believes there is no real answer. The problem is that truth was standing directly in front of Pilate and he could not see it, just as the truth is standing before many today who cannot see it. Paul said, “Let God be true, and every man a liar” (Romans 3:4). This is why it is so important, as the Bible says, to: “put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place” (Ephesians 6:13-14). May that be your armor today and always.
Rodney J. Buchanan
January 8, 2012
Amity United Methodist Church
rodbuchanan2000@yahoo.com
