OPEN: Two psychiatrists were at a convention. As they visiting, one asked, "What was your most difficult case?"
The other replied, "I had a patient who lived in a pure fantasy world. He believed that an uncle in South America was going to die and leave him a fortune. All day long he waited for a letter to arrive from an attorney. He never went out, he never did anything, he merely sat around and waited for this fantasy letter from this fantasy uncle. I worked with this man eight years."
"What was the result?"
"It was an eight-year struggle. Every day for eight years, but I finally cured him... then that stupid letter arrived!"
APPLY: That letter was “truth”
It was the truth a man had waited for - for over 8 years.
But until that letter arrived – at least as far as psychiatrist was concerned – “truth” didn’t exist
Truth was a fantasy
Truth was the fabrication of a “mentally challenged” individual who needed to be cured
And even when that “truth” turned up in the mailbox – he was still uncomfortable with it
I. Many people have difficulty with the idea of “Truth”
ILLUS: According to a survey done by Barna Research back in 1995
About 3/4 ’s of all adults in America rejected the notion that there are absolute moral truths. Most Americans believe that all truth is relative to the situation and the individuals involved. Similarly, at least 3/4’s of our teens embrace the same position regarding moral truths. Not only did more than 3 out of 4 teenagers say there is no absolute moral truth, 4 out of 5 also claim that nobody can know for certain whether or not they actually know what truth is.
For these people – truth is a fantasy. It doesn’t exist. Or if it does exist – nobody knows for certain what real truth is. Nobody knows what it looks like.
ILLUS: Some have compared the search for truth to the story of the Hindu blind men who were standing around an elephant trying to figure out what it looked like.
· One man touched the side of the elephant – very much like a wall
· One man held its tail – an elephant is very much like a rope, he observed.
· One man stood beneath its massive ears as they waved back and forth – an elephant is very much like a fan, he said.
In other words, truth depends upon your point of view. Such people are fond of saying – there are to two sides to every issue. What is true for you, may not be true for me
ILLUS: I once read about a man who heard his friend say: “There are 2 sides to every question”
And the man replied “Yes, there are two sides to every question… just like there are two sides to a sheet of flypaper, but it makes a difference to the fly which side he chooses.”
In other words, the world thinks truth is flexible… but something inside tells us that IF we ignore “TRUTH” we do so at our own peril. There are consequences to setting truth aside. There are consequences to having a “flexible” morality
II. Pilate was a man who believed flexible morality. In a truth that was… adaptable.
But why? Why would Pilate (or anybody else) have a problem with “TRUTH?”
Why would people have difficulty with morality?
Why would they reject a standard of what is “right and wrong?”
Why would they prefer shades of gray to black and white?
I struggled with this question for nearly 4 hours as I was working on this sermon... and then, it suddenly occurred to me that the problem was not with the TRUTH.
Everybody has their own standard of truth. Everyone has a standard by which they decide what is right and wrong.
ILLUS: For example, a philosophy professor began each new term by asking his class, "Do you believe it can be shown that there are absolute values like justice?"
The free-thinking students all argued that everything was relative and no single law can be applied universally.
Before the end of the semester, the professor devoted one class period to debate the issue. At the end, he concluded, "Regardless of what you think, I want you to know that absolute values can be demonstrated. And if you don’t accept what I say, I’ll flunk you!"
One angry student got up and insisted, "That’s not fair!"
"You’ve just proved my point," replied the professor. "You’ve appealed to a higher standard of fairness."
Did you catch that? These students had a standard of what was right and wrong. And everybody does…
ILLUS: Even when I went to Purdue and many of the professors were trying to teach me that there were no “moral absolutes,” no absolute truths… what they were really doing was attempting to destroy my standards of right and wrong so that they could then teach me the standards they believed in.
III. The problem is NOT that people reject TRUTH –
They are not rejecting truth.
They are rejecting someone else’s truth.
They are rejecting some else’s right to decide what is right and wrong.
They want to be the authority. They want to be the ones who decide what is moral and what isn’t.
You see, that was Pilate’s problem. He’s used to being in charge. He is the Roman Pro-curator in Jerusalem. He is the one who sets the rules. He is the judge and the authority.
There are stories about Pilate, that when the Jews irritated him, he would at times simply put them to death. Nobody challenged his authority easily. In fact, he hated the Jews… and the Jews pretty much hated him.
IV. And then… along comes Jesus
From the moment Jesus steps thru the door, Pilate looses total control of the situation.
This Jesus speaks with the authority and confidence of a man who is judging Pilate rather than the other way around.
Pilate asks Jesus if He is the King of the Jews, and Jesus turns it around –"Is that your own idea or did others talk to you about me?" Jn 18:34
Then, when Pilate interrogates Jesus trying to discover why He has been arrested, Jesus replies with the calm authority of a King when He says:
"My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place…. 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."
This calm authority and fearlessness in the face of certain death rattles Pilate. "Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?" he asks in exasperation.
Jesus simply looks at him and replies: "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above."
This encounter is so unnerving to Pilate, that when the Jews tell him that Jesus has claimed to be the Son of God, Pilate becomes “even more afraid, and he went back inside the palace. "Where do you come from?" he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer.” John 19:8-9
V. What was Pilate’s problem with Jesus?
The problem for Pilate was simply this: from the moment Jesus stepped thru the door, He was in charge. This Jesus claimed not only to be a King, but He claimed to have a absolute moral authority:
"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)
You see… by His words and His actions Jesus was implying that even Pilate himself was under judgment, and Pilate wasn’t used to letting someone else be in that position. No one else was ever allowed to be the master of his life.
ILLUS: Some time back I had an e-mail correspondence with an atheist who had stumbled across our website and didn’t like some things he’d seen in my illustration files. So he challenged me on a number of issues. But one of the conversations we had was particularly interesting to me. He tried to claim that if someone claimed to be an atheist, it didn’t necessarily mean that they didn’t believe in God.
I read that e-mail – and I thought… “what?”
So I wrote him back quoting Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary which in essence said: atheists didn’t believe in God
He replied that the Webster’s Dictionary was influenced by religious institutions and therefore its definition was suspect.
So, I thought, I’ll go to the ultimate source of Dictionaries… the Oxford Dictionary.
I went to the library and asked for the Oxford Dictionary (and do you realize that dictionary is about 20 volumes in size… we’re talking 20 BIG books for one dictionary)
I faithfully wrote down the definition of atheism – basically it said that atheists don’t believe God exists…. and I put that in my e-mail and sent it off to him.
Lo and behold, he replies that the Oxford Dictionary is influenced by religious institutions and its definition is suspect as well.
I couldn’t help myself. I pulled an old illustration out of my files that read like this:
In his book Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll, related an encounter between Alice (in wonderland) and Humpty Dumpty that went this way:
Humpty Dumpty says, in a rather scornful tone "’When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more or less.’
’The question is’ said Alice, ’whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ’which is the master - that’s all.’”
Well, that ticked this atheist off. He said “if you’re going to compare me with Humpty Dumpty, then I see no reason to continue this conversation.”
That ended our correspondence.
But, you see, that was the heart of the conversation. The only authority this atheist wanted to accept was HIMSELF. He wouldn’t accept any dictionary - Pocket, Webster’s, or Oxford. Any authority (that contradicted what he wanted to hear) was wrong.
AND SO IT IS WITH TRUTH. People will accept only what they WANT to hear. They will agree only with the authority they wish to obey. BUT in reality… the real authority they want in their lives is - THEY themselves. They are the MASTERS of their lives
And many times people will agree with “truth” ONLY when “truth” agrees with them.
ILLUS: The story is told of 3 sons who read the will of their father, after he’d died.
The father left them 3 instructions.
1) They were to sell 40 acres of their ground in another county to cover the costs of the burial
2) They were take some of that money to dig another well on the farm to water the cattle.
3) They were to buy his stone memorial from a stone mason in a neighboring town that was his personal friend.
* Well, the boys went to look over that 40 acres in the next county, and they all agreed that their dad was very wise in this. It was property that hadn’t produced a good crop in a couple of years and it would help defray the cost of the funeral… so they put it up for sale.
* Then they took a look at the well that had been dug years before and realized it was not meeting the needs of the farm. A deeper well needed to be dug. They all agreed dad had been very wise. And so - when they sold the 40 acres - they hired a man to come in and dig a deeper well for the farm.
* Then, they went to visit the stone mason. They priced stones for their father’s grave and realized this man was charging almost twice as much for his head stones as what they could get in a larger city about an hour away. So they didn’t buy from their father’s friend, but instead went to the far city and got their father’s grave stone there.
NOW, a question. The father left his sons with three requests. Did the sons obey their father? (I asked for a show of hands, and the audience was not sure).
Well, how many of you believe they obeyed their father in two out of his three requests? (about half raised their hands).
The real answer to my last question is, "no" they didn’t obey their father at all. They only followed their father’s wishes "when they agreed" with him.
Why? Because once dad died, they were the masters of the estate… not their father.
VI. Now - how does that apply to us?
Jesus said "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
What He was saying was this… “I (Jesus Christ) am the Master.”
No one else will serve to be the authority you can trust to give you total truth.
I can’t be that authority. You can’t either. No President, no congressman, no religious authority can give you total truth. But Jesus can.
Only Jesus HAS the truth because ONLY Jesus IS the truth.
Now, the question is, what are you going to do with Jesus? How will you respond to His challenge?
CLOSE: There’s an old hymn that goes like this:
"Jesus is standing in Pilate’s hall
Friendless, forsaken, betrayed by all:
Hearken what meaneth the sudden call!
What will you do with Jesus?
What will you do with Jesus?
Neutral you cannot be;
Someday your heart will be asking,
’What will He do with me?’"
SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
Don’t Take With Broccoli – John 11:33
The Question That Condemned Jesus – Matthew 26:57
The Moment Of Truth – John 18:28
His Blood Be Upon Us – Matthew 27:16
Hail, King of The Jews – Mark 15:15
Guilty Of Innocent Blood – Matthew 27:1
Remember Me – Luke 23:38
Let Him Save Himself – Matthew 27:39
Surely This Was The Son Of God – Mark 15:33
