Well, it’s always a pleasure to come and share here every year, because I always get relaxed after I hear Jim Boggs the Don. He’s a mafioso guy. You all know that, of course. He pretends he was a basketball player. Wait, no—wait, wait, no. He was in organized crime for a long time. Jim Boggs the Don—that’s it.
But I’m just a humble servant from New York, which actually doesn’t make any sense. Humble and New York don’t go together.
We’re looking at this matter, of course: What is truth? You have the Scriptures here before you, and we just want to look at sort of an overview of the whole thing tonight, just as we get started.
Of course, Webster always puts in his word. Truth is “the body of real things, events, facts, actuality.” It’s a good start. “The state of being the case; actual fact.” Wouldn’t it be great if truth were actual fact?
And more spiritually, Webster even mentions, often when it is capitalized, “the transcendent, fundamental, or spiritual reality,” which actually is the main point of the Gospel of John. We will try to touch on that a little bit.
As you see, truth is truth, even if no one believes it. A lie is a lie, even if everyone believes it. Quite a difference there, huh?
Pilate’s question. Jim already mentioned this morning what a cynical, pragmatic ruler this guy was. He had to worship the emperor, even though he knew the emperor was dirt. Because when they became an emperor, they were deified, and he had to do homage: “Oh, great God Tiberius,” you know.
I mean, how cynical would that make you? Then you are worshiping gods like the squirrel god, the god of love, and the god who plays a pipe and drinks wine. I mean, if you’re a pragmatic former army guy and now you’re a politician, you’re pretty well cynical of the whole business, you know?
Then, on top of it, he sees the Jewish religion being used for all the wrong reasons. Now they are going to kill this guy who obviously does not have anything they can hold against Him by way of guilt. If that doesn’t make you skeptical when you see religion abused that way, I don’t know what does.
The thing about Pilate that makes this story interesting—and that is why John recorded it—was that even with all of that cynicism, something about Jesus rang true and caused him to stop just a minute.
In his conscience, he bore a noble protest, saying to the Jews, “I find nothing wrong with this man.” Three times he did that. But finally, of course, you know, if you are a cynical, skeptical, pragmatic person, you let your conscience suffer for the sake of expediency.
So, because it was politically expedient, they let Jesus die, even though Pilate knew in his conscience, “This isn’t the truth.” Jesus caught him, as cynical as he was. That’s really something.
Pilate’s question is a question spoken by people frustrated—all mankind today that lives UTS. That means “under the sun.” Why? Pragmatic, consensus truth without underlying principle is absolutely frustrating, because there is no point to it.
Okay, I’m going to be good. Why are you going to be good? Well, because I’m going to be good. How far will that take you, especially when you get a chance to be bad?
Today, people do not feel guilty because they know their conscience did something wrong. They feel guilty only because they got caught. But that’s very frustrating. If you have no foundation and your truth is totally arbitrary, truth without absolutes is empty, vain—whatever.
“Your truth is different from my truth”—whatever. That means there is no truth. It is very frustrating to try to live, even to get along with a wife, if there is no basis. You know?
Truth with no foundation—no foundation outside itself—is merely opinion. That is why, on the news shows on TV and on radio shows of opinionation, probably almost nobody is speaking the truth. They are just giving their opinions. Opinions are cheap. Truth has to be based on substance.
You can have an opinion. I can have an opinion. I can say, “Well, I think that’s true.” You say, “That’s true.” If there is no foundation, it is just your opinion, my opinion. So we’ll make a million dollars telling our opinions.
There is absolute truth. Truth is absolute, and therefore based upon one foundation, which you’ll learn many things about. Truth is absolute; it exists beyond us and judges us. Truth is outside of us, you see.
But truth is absolute, yet always more than one-dimensional. That is the problem with people who, with moxie, say, “Ah, yeah, I believe in absolute truth.” Well, there is absolute truth. But, as you’ll see, there are more dimensions to truth than just some kind of simple proposition.
The one who says, “There is no absolute truth,” by the way, has just made an absolute statement. So you should ask him, “Are you absolutely sure?” It’s ridiculous, anyway.
Truth is also relative, as the picture on the right shows you. It depends what angle you are looking at the thing from. You know, that kind of thing is how they get about and say truth is relative.
But it is not relative in the way the world means it is relative. Truth is relative to your relationship to the Absolute. How true is your walk? That is the question of the Scriptures, and that has to do with how well you are related to God, who is light, and how well you are walking in that light. Isn’t that true? See?
So, just a few questions to stir your mind to understand: Well, what’s this guy saying? Can you really know the truth if you’re not walking in the truth?
Let’s say, “I believe God is holy, and I believe I’ve been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb,” and you’re not walking in the light. Is that the truth? Well, what do you say? “Well, it is the truth. It’s right in here.” But is it the truth? It is not the truth you’re walking in. You’re just saying words.
There is a lot of difference between somebody who is living in the reality of, “I’ve confessed my sins, and I’ve trusted that He has cleansed me from my sins,” and those who are just saying words. Aha. You see?
Truth will always seem relative to anyone walking outside of it. So you knew the absolute truth, and then you get involved in sin. I have heard married men say, “I got married to this chick, but now I have met my soul mate. God wants me to go be with them.”
Then, in the darkness, truth suddenly becomes relative. Their faithfulness to their wife falls apart. Interesting how we get out of the light and suddenly truth gets fuzzy. You know?
A seeker of truth is humbly exploring some dimension of truth—some dimension, because there is a lot further to go.
On the other hand, an absolutist—who is an absolutist? It is somebody who believes in absolute truth, and they’re absolute about it. An absolutist who holds the truth in arrogance, by the way, is not in the truth.
Does that make any sense to you? I didn’t think so. That’s why we have seminars, you see, because the brothers can explain all these things.
The problem is that men, as sinners, cannot handle the truth. Anybody see that movie that was on the right? Yeah, A Few Good Men. At one point, here’s where Nicholson yells, “You can’t handle the truth!”
Sinners can’t handle the truth. What are you going to do with truth staring you in the face? Hide, of course, right? So once transcendence is gone—that is, absolute, real truth—once transcendence is gone, truth becomes baloney.
Truth is baloney because it is your baloney, my baloney. What do you make your baloney up out of? Well, a little ham, a little beef. I made mine of pure beef, but it is baloney. Logic is gone.
There cannot be truth without logic—reason, factuality. This makes sense. You know what? Logic is going out the window now. How many of you who are in college, or have gone through college, had a course in logic?
One guy? Two guys—and she’s a girl. Three. You see, there is such a thing as logic. It is the basis of mathematics and science and philosophy and life. Almost gone now.
Here are three great positions today that are absolutely illogical. I’ll just show you the logic, if you understand logic—like two plus two equals four. Logic. Okay, skepticism is illogical. Why?
A skeptic says, “We can’t know anything for certain,” and by making that claim, he is saying something is certain. You get that? “We can’t know anything for certain.” “Are you sure?” “Yeah, I’m sure. I’m absolutely sure you can’t know anything for certain.”
Scientific materialism is illogical. Scientific materialism argues that the claim that all truth must be scientifically or empirically verifiable—testable—is a proposition or theory which cannot be scientifically verified.
You understand? Their very basis—“All truth must be scientifically verifiable”—is a proposition that cannot be proven scientifically. Oops.
Postmodern relativism—oh, yeah. Postmodern relativism, which is the thing of the day, has a motivation behind it that you should know immediately. It smells like it immediately.
By holding that all perception is equally valid and relatively true—that is, your truth is relatively true, my truth is relatively true—therefore all truths are valid.
So I believe if you love your wife, you should kill her with a coconut at thirty years old. But that’s what I believe is true. You believe that your husband’s a coconut. Well, okay.
When everybody can believe anything they want because everything is relatively true, behind it, the end is to make individualism the absolute.
You know what the absolute is in our society today? “I do anything I want, and you can’t tell me what to do.” Now, that’s the religion of today.
Everybody’s, “Oh, I’m sorry. I know—you are a beast of a big man with a hairy face, but you say you’re a woman? You’re a woman.” “Leave me alone. I feel like a woman.” You say, “Okay, you’re a woman. We have a third bathroom for you.”
I’m not going to get into this whole thing, but it is all based on the fact that nothing makes sense. Genetics means nothing. X and Y chromosomes mean nothing anymore.
The goal is, “Don’t you tell me what to do. I’m going to smoke marijuana, do whatever I want to do. I’m going to rob a bank until they catch me. I’m going to die because you can’t touch me.” That’s the one rule in our society.
Well, a society that lives like that won’t live long.
Truth is one of several words that is becoming obsolete. Obsolete. I don’t know if we hear much about right or wrong. How often do you hear, “Oh, yeah, you were right”? “No, you were wrong.”
Well, you do, because you have Christian parents. We still can tell you that. But morals, ethics—you ever hear sin talked about in the public square? Bad and good? What’s bad and good? “There’s nothing bad.”
Nobody takes responsibility. Whatever my sin, addiction, or anything, I do not take responsibility. I’m just sick. I need help.
You see, all of these things—PC rules are consensus rules formed by progressives in education, media, and entertainment, whose goal is absolute, unqualified individualism. Once again, tolerance is the highest tenet of secular religion.
Barna is a religious institution that takes surveys all the time on the religious state of things. Barna says 65 percent of millennials believe morals are relative and not absolute. Sixty-five percent of millennials.
Most of you aren’t millennials here. You have to be born before 2000 to be a millennial, right? So fortunately, your generation is Z, and I hope much better things for you than those scoundrels who are graduates from college and everything. They’re rascals—a whole bunch of them.
Sixty-five percent of millennials believe that morals are relative. Listen:
Now, that’s what Barna says. Sixty-five percent of millennials today—that is, people born between 1980 and 2000—that’s where they’re coming from.
So you can see in the public square that it is very difficult to stand for truth. One of the seminars is exactly doing that: talking about how to stand for truth in a basically evil, untruthful world.
All right. Well, Christians, of course, are perfect. Well, no, they’re not. Christians often talk, but don’t walk in the truth, and that becomes a great problem.
Truth is not knowledge; it’s life. The true source is the tree of life, not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Some people have a lot of Bible knowledge. It comes straight from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. How much they have eaten from the tree of life is a whole other story.
Walking in the truth is a relational experience between the believer, God, and other Christians. So don’t tell me you believe the truth. Tell me you’re walking in the truth, because that means you’re walking in the truth with God, with Jesus, and with other brothers and sisters. Now that is truth.
As an example, you know, Ephesians 4:15 says, “Speak the truth in love.” If we speak the truth but not in love, is that truth? Right? “Well, I’m going to tell you the truth.”
Is this a recording going on? You know what this is? Why am I hearing it?
Okay, well, somebody else is lecturing right next to me—an invisible man.
Getting back to my question, are you still with me on this? If we speak the truth but not in love, is it speaking the truth? You see what I mean? There are more components to truth than just, “I got something here, a bit of information.”
So my advocacy and my avocation is for humble truth-seeking, right? The truth. Let God be true, but every man a liar, so Paul says. And that’s the truth.
Truth is one of the fourfold essences, or the fourfold nature, of God. Now, what we’re talking about is this: God’s nature is what He is.
So the Bible says, as an example, “God is love.” That is His very nature. Everything that God expresses is love.
Also, His nature is that He is holy: “I am holy.” That is His very nature. He is righteous: “I am righteous.” And, “I am light.”
That is where truth comes in, because truth comes out of light, one of the segments of God’s being. So truth has an absolute foundation because it is founded in God, who is light. And light has no darkness at all. It’s the truth.
Logically speaking, just to explain to some of you—you may not understand this—Jim mentioned this morning that the Lord God has a lot of attributes. I don’t want to get into something really complicated here, but these attributes are combinations of love, righteousness, light, and holiness.
The combinations express these essences of His life. The things He does, the actions of God—“I will”—come out of that. When God says, “I will,” whatever He is going to will is loving. It is also righteous. It is also holy. It is also true.
So out of God’s being, what God does—like when He redeems—is a combination of His love and His righteousness working together. You understand? That’s God’s being, and so He expresses Himself this kind of way.
Truth is seen out of God’s essence as light. God is light, it says in 1 John 1:5, and in Him is no darkness at all.
God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
So look: light, total light. Nothing can hide from it. The darkness cannot overcome it. Darkness is an absence of light. When God shines, all is exposed.
So if you’re trying to hide something naughty between your pinky toe and your fourth toe, God can see it. He sees everything.
God is light in essence: all light, no darkness. When His light shines upon our minds, we see truth.
Light shines on me, and I say, “Ah, I see.” That’s what truth is. It is an effulgence of light that comes to our mind, and it refracts out of our minds as truth. I can understand that because the light has shone on it, you see?
John 1:4:
In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.
The reason I say that is because the first thing that comes from God, whenever you get hit by God—has God ever hit you? I hope He does. I hope He hits you good—whenever He hits you, He hits you with life.
In Him was life, and His life was the light of men. So out of His life comes love, comes righteousness, comes truth, comes holiness. But it is always life. He never touches you without life being involved. He is life.
When He touches you with truth, it vivifies your life. So whatever comes from God gives life. When God shines His light upon a man, he can see how to live. “God, shine on my path. Now I see what to do. Lord, what’s Your will? I need to know.” Now I see.
God is the light under which we see all these things. Psalm 36:9:
For with Thee is the fountain of life:
In Thy light shall we see light.
I’m studying the light. Here we go, studying the light, and boom: I see light on my light. Now I know what that means. There was a Scripture; it was just a doctrine. Then the light shone on it. Now it’s mine. It’s life. It’s light.
In Your light, I see light. Don’t read the Bible without God’s light. Don’t say, “Okay, God, I’m going to read the Bible in a dark, creepy corner. I don’t want Your light. I want my own opinion.”
Well, you might read a lot of the Bible, but you won’t get much out of it. That is why we always ask God for light when we read the Bible. You do that, right? I hope.
Psalm 43:3:
Oh send out Thy light and Thy truth, let them lead me:
Let them bring me unto Thy holy hill,
And to Thy tabernacles.
Isn’t that wonderful? David even talks about truth that becomes real when God shines His light on us. Then we know how to live in the house of God.
What’s your calling in the house of God? Are you an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, worker of good works, worker of miracles—a prophet? What’s your place in the body of Christ? “I don’t know.” Well, God, send Your light and truth. That way I can dwell in Your house. I know what to do.
What are you doing in the house of God? “Well, I’m sitting on my hands, and I give ten a week.” I don’t think you’ve quite caught on to the light of what you’re supposed to do, right?
All right, so we’re seeking truth in all the areas of our life, right? God is absolute. You cannot say anything more absolute than this: Ego eimi—“I am.” That’s as absolute as you can be.
God is absolute, and therefore His truth is absolute. His life is our foundation. His light always reveals the truth.
This truth becomes the stake pole around which we discern light and darkness, truth and lies, right and wrong, and life and death. That is why it is so important to understand that our truth and our light are in God.
If we live in the light, we understand right and wrong. Nobody has to tell you that. Truth and lies, you can tell. Right?
Yet we walk humbly in the light, knowing that without His light, we do not see the absolute, real truth.
We all have come to some truth—some good propositional truths, some real truths about God and who Jesus is, about the Bible and life. These are all good, but we still need more light to understand the reality of these things that we now know.
So we live and walk in the light and the truth, but we do not yet walk in the fullness of light. Who here walks in the fullness of light? Well, I think you’d have a bad sunburn if you really lived there.
Truth in full reality is always related to love, righteousness, and holiness. So I say, “I’m walking in the truth.” “Yeah, no, I’m still a jerk, and I still yell at my mom, and I still do this and that. But that’s all right. I’m walking in the light.”
Well, it is true—you may be walking in light. But you still need to learn that truth has to be connected to love and righteousness and holiness. That’s truth, because truth is reality.
The problem of truth for man, of course, is that sin undermines truth. Now listen to Paul. Paul just cuts through the red tape sometimes.
The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, let me be very candid with you: the world suppresses truth.
You know, they have this thing raging in the United States now about environmental—what is it called? Global warming, all these things. It is a big fight in the United States between dumb and dumber. They’re just fighting with each other about the whole thing.
But the whole point is, they find out that both sides that have statistics have suppressed statistics. The global-warming people were just exposed last month for basing their decisions on some data that was suppressing cool-down trends in the environment.
So you understand my point. I don’t want to get into global warming. My point is that human beings suppress truth. They squeeze it. They manipulate it. They hide it.
Sin takes us out of His light, and the truth darkens. You see? That is what man did. The motive for suppressing truth is what? To erase its obligations.
What Paul is talking about is this: the fact of the matter is, the truth is that God created you, you are His creature, and you owe Him obedience and thanksgiving and worship.
But I don’t want to worship God. So I say, “Forget it. This invisible God in the sky—there ain’t no God. My god’s a fish god.”
So he says, they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.
Now I’m just looking, while I’m here in Toronto, for my cockroach god. Where is he? I worship the cockroach god. Oh, how wonderful he is. And it’s just baloney.
But when you don’t want to worship the true, living God, you’ve got to worship something, you see. A cockroach god is a lot easier to kill. So I worship the cockroach god. You understand?
Men do this all the time. Your teachers in school suppress truth. I hope you have the best teachers, especially if it is in science and math—things like that. You should be learning things that are factual, you know? But suppression is what the world does.
John 8:44 says—He says to the Jews in this case:
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do.
He was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.
When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.
When man fell, it brought him under a false light. You know, Lucifer, the angel of light—he casts a light. It’s luminous. I don’t know, is it ultraviolet, infrared?
When you see through Satan’s light, you have rose-colored glasses. You see things warped, because when we fell, we fell into the grips of the father of lies, who came up with lies upon lies.
As an example—can you see the bottom? I did this thing too low, didn’t I? Some of you can’t see the bottom line. Sorry about that.
If the enemy can remove even one leg of the fourfold essential nature of God, he can distort the truth about life, morality, marriage, family, and government.
What are the four essences of God? Love, righteousness, holiness, light. Let’s take one of them away. Let’s take holiness away.
All right, you sinners, God’s got to do something, and so He just says, “Oh, that’s okay. I forgive you.” If He is not holy, He does not care about sin. A lot of people worship a god who doesn’t care about sin. They say, “Oh, there’s no hell. Come on.”
But they do not take into account that God is holy and wholly separate from sin. You just pull out one of those legs, or take love out of God, and you make Him a nasty god.
Some people believe in one god, and he is the nastiest god you could possibly imagine. He has no love in him. He crushes you like a cockroach. Let’s get off the cockroach thing.
So in the world, all truth is skewed with lies, twisted, because we have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You learn truth from the knowledge of good and evil, don’t you? You learn right, you learn wrong, you learn a lot of things there at the tree of knowledge.
But in the end, all of it is warped because all of it has to do with your undoing and your relationship to God, right?
Or you can imagine. Isaiah 50—Isaiah 50. He says you can make up your own truth pretty much. In verse 11:
Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that gird yourselves about with firebrands,
Walk ye in the flame of your fire, and among the brands that ye have kindled.
This shall ye have of My hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.
So go ahead, make up your own truth. “I believe in such a god. I believe in such a thing.” Go ahead and build a fire based on your truth. “I’ll build a whole religious system based on my perception of truth,” which is a lie. Fine, you can do that.
But imagination, in the end, it’ll get you, right? “Imagine there’s no heaven, easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky. Imagine all the people living for today.” You know the rest of the song? Oh, oh.
The Bible says that’s baloney. When your foolish dreams are done, then from hell’s eternal bondage, the world will be condemned as one. So imagine whatever you want, but the truth still works.
If you think you’re going to live by a lie like that, one day you’ll see that it’s nothing. Sorry about the stupid song.
And also, I guarantee you, ladies and gentlemen: when truth starts from yourself, it’s wrong in the end.
This guy in Isaiah 45 is complaining about the way God made him. “Hey, God, why’d You make me so pleasantly plump? What’s the matter with You, huh?”
God says, “Are you telling the potter what to do?” Suddenly now you’re smarter than the potter? You telling Him what to do? “Yeah, I’m smarter than the potter.”
That is the way men are today. “Yeah, I’m right. God’s wrong. What’s the matter with You, God? Why’d You do this to me? You didn’t give me a break. Didn’t give me Chinese, beautiful black hair.”
Self is a starting point? Yikes.
There is a Brazilian song I love—sorry, I like these things—and it says, talking about this kind of selfish life, a life so consumed with self. It is talking about romance that is absolutely consumed with self:
In the art of survival, you depart on arrival.
Any friend is a friend you can lose.
You treat your heart as your rival in the art of survival.
Nobody’s help is too good to refuse.
Because you are yourself. That’s the main and only thing: self, you see. Oh, how we love self. But the self won’t find the truth.
So the whole world is immersed in deception from the evil one. 1 John 5:19:
The whole world lieth in the evil one.
And there is the devil pushing some poor computer scientist to work.
Praise God, God’s light penetrates into the darkness. Light shines in the darkness; the darkness cannot overcome it. There is absolute truth, which can be known when the light of God shines upon us.
The light of creation produces worship. When you see creation under the light of God, man, you sing, “O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder,” right? Now, you’ve sung the song, but when you sing it under the awesome response to nature, that is really very precious.
The light of your conscience confirms the truth within. The light of the Word of God reveals reality to you. The light of Jesus quickens your life. The light of the gospel convicts of truth. The light of the anointing within you discerns the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
There is verifiable truth when you are in God. You don’t have to live, “I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I don’t know what to do.” No, you don’t have to live like that.
Truth must be revealed to believers in the light. Unfortunately, when believers first meet the truth—when you first get saved, let’s say—almost everything has been warped in your life by lies and by sin.
Look at that fourfold nature of God. Here is how our mind thinks until it gets renewed.
Number one: righteousness. We are self-deceived as to our basic goodness. We think we are right. How many of you argue with your mom and go in a snit, go away into your room: “Come on, I’m wrong, I’m wrong, right”? You are always right.
When is the last time you were wrong? Right—1984? You weren’t even born. But we’re self-deceived. Everybody thinks they are right.
That is why marriage is so much fun, because both parties think they are right. They wrestle each other for seven, ten years until they fall in exhaustion on the canvas and say, “All right, you’re right. I don’t care.”
You have to be adjusted to that, you know. And blaming others—oh, boy. Talk about righteousness: blaming others and others’ motives. “I know why they did that good deed—for some nefarious purpose.” Questioning people’s intentions, full of prejudice.
Our lives are supposed to be lining up with righteousness, love, light, and holiness. But at first, we’ve got so much self-deception and self-righteousness in us, there is some burning going to happen.
Love. Oh, now everybody loves love. When you get saved, you’re just a lover, aren’t you? Oh, yeah—except you mistrust God, questioning why things happen. You’re afraid of God. You doubt His love.
When He tells you He loves you, He says, “Now step off that cliff in Niagara Falls. I love you.” You say, “Wait a minute. That’s God. He’s giving me the creeps again, like the copper lady down the hall.”
Holiness. You see, the problem with you right now as a holy being is that you have to deal with negative attitudes: about reading the Word, about prayer, about the saints, the saints you go to church with, about obedience to the Word, about getting up in the morning for devotions, about your turn to pray in the cabin.
If you get a lousy attitude, you know, this is a sign you have a little further to go into the truth of holiness. Right? Wouldn’t you say?
And the light—well, who we are, who God is, and our worldview are quite twisted, right? Our minds need light.
Just a couple of questions, because I think maybe some of you still say, “Wait, wait, I’m saved. I see the light.” Well, you’re starting to.
My question, number one: did the disciples see the real truth of Jesus when they first started walking with Him? Huh? Did they see who He really was? Is that the truth? No.
They thought He was a great teacher. They thought He was a miracle worker. They had different things. They were happy He came from Galilee. But it took a while for them to begin to realize who Jesus was, right?
Why did those who thought they knew God’s kingdom repent when Jesus drew near? It is because suddenly they realized they were not in the kingdom. They thought they were until Jesus drew nigh, because He is the King of the kingdom. But that’s another story.
If religious knowledge is truth—“I believe everything in the Bible; everything I do is true”—if religious knowledge is truth, then why was every question posed to Jesus by Bible scholars based on some misunderstanding of the Word?
Every one of those questions. The Sadducees asked questions: “Well, that guy got married seven times and didn’t have any kids. Gets up to heaven—ah, yeah, see, I got You on Bible knowledge. I’m killing You, Jesus. I got You on that one.”
Jesus says, “You know what your problem is? You are ignorant. You totally misunderstand the Word of God.”
If Peter knew the truth about Jesus, why did he still need correction after Pentecost? The truth is that he knew Jesus. He was an apostle to Jesus. He was preaching Jesus and people were getting saved, and he still needed correction because he slid out of the truth with prejudice and various things.
See, truth is a profound thing to walk in.
Why do we often need to repent in order to come to the truth? Do you realize this is one of the most beautiful passages in 2 Timothy, about how we need to repent and come to a knowledge of the truth?
Sometimes repentance is what’s standing in the way and preventing us from really seeing truth as it is.
Well, the way into the truth, of course, is by way of the cross. When you think of the Corinthian Christians, how many of them were saved? Every one of them. How many of them had a spiritual gift? Most of them. Miracles, all kinds of things those Corinthians were up to, man.
Yet they were wrong about so many things. Now, once again, let me put something by way of contrast so you can see what I’m talking about.
When you get saved by the true God, the immediate metamorphosis of your life begins to move you in the direction of His fourfold nature. He will make you loving, righteous, holy, and true. That is the direction you’re going.
But look at where the Corinthians were: instead of love, self-love; instead of righteousness, self-righteousness; instead of holiness—which is always humble—pride; instead of light, worldly wisdom.
When you have a foundation like the Corinthians had up there, the cross is going to have to do a work in your life that gets you to see the truth as it really is. You understand that?
The Corinthians just did everything wrong, it seemed like, even though they were Christians. Are you a Christian? Are you doing right and wrong? Do you know? Which of those models is more like you?
Now, here is the guarantee. It says so in every Bible: Jesus is going to make you like that bottom configuration. That’s absolutely right. But what He has to do to get you there is called the work of the cross, right?
Paul says, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” So I say to your pride, “No.” To your worldly wisdom, “No.” That is what Paul did. He shut them down where they thought they were so smug and so smart and so advanced.
Just a couple more things, and we’re through here. The church is the pillar and foundation of truth. I think you probably all know this verse, but there in 1 Timothy 3, let’s just touch that for a second.
In 1 Timothy 3, Paul is talking to Timothy about how things should operate in the church of God. He says there in verse 15:
But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God,
Which is the church of the living God,
The pillar and ground of the truth.
This is such a wonderful thing, brothers and sisters, because it is not just like, “I have to walk in the truth in isolation. It’s me and God. I’m walking in His light.” You need to do that personally.
But thank God, we fellowship in the church, which has a lampstand of testimony, of light, and it becomes the pillar and foundation of truth.
I can know if I’m off sometimes because, even though I feel like I’m right, when I get into the church, I get the idea I’m wrong.
We need brethren to help us walk in the light. If you’re left to yourself, the enemy will find some way of deceiving us off the path.
Praise God, the church is the pillar and foundation of truth. Isn’t that wonderful? Amen.
So this is my final slide: just some food for thought. This is one example of what I’m talking about—truth. Why are truth and love so often paired together in God’s Word? That is, in God’s being.
Why does it say in the Bible so often, His love and His truth together? I stacked some up here just to let you see.
Psalm 85:10:
Mercy and truth are met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Psalm 86:15:
But Thou, O Lord, art a God merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth.
Psalm 89:14:
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Thy throne:
Lovingkindness and truth go before Thy face.
Psalm 108:4:
For Thy lovingkindness is great above the heavens;
And Thy truth reacheth unto the skies.
Psalm 115:1:
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us,
But unto Thy name give glory,
For Thy lovingkindness, and for Thy truth’s sake.
Psalm 117:2:
For His lovingkindness is great toward us;
And the truth of the Lord endureth for ever.
Now, the Scriptures put other things together as well, but righteousness, holiness, love, and truth—these are the four essences of God. Why is it that so often truth is put together with love?
I mean, it should really tell us something. If truth is something that separates us from the brethren—that is to say, if we become unloving—there is some question about our truth.
Or if we become loving in such a way that denies the truth, there is something not being held together.
So if we begin to walk, we start walking in the light. The more we walk in the light, the more we see. Whenever you share the truth—wow—you need a baptism in love.
Love and truth go together. It is part of the very foundation of God.
Well, okay. Next time we’re going to look at this: Jesus is the truth. Now, I’m sorry, I know I confused you completely. You said, “Let’s see, it’s absolute. No, it’s relative. No, I’m not sure if I have a relative. What’s going on?”
That’s why you’ve got all the discussion groups and the seminar guys to straighten you out from my confusing thing.
But I just wanted to give you an overview, because truth is big. Truth is God—comes out of God’s light. It’s big.
If you want to pursue truth, you’re going to pursue it all your life, and you’ll just barely get into the foothills of truth when the Lord takes you home.
I think most of you probably know our dear brother Christian Chen. He’s been up here, right, in Toronto and other places. You all know him. That guy was studying truth all of his life. The Lord took him just two weeks ago, and he was just in the foothills—and he was loving every minute.
If you find yourself pursuing the truth, I’ll tell you one thing about it: there is such life in it, because God always gives you life, and out of life comes truth.
If He finds a true seeker after truth, He loves you and He draws you to Himself for life, so you can perceive more truth.
Truth is a wonderful aspect of who God is. May we all come to know the God of truth. But we have to be obedient to that God of truth, right? All right, this is the way it works. All right, let’s pray.
Lord, we thank You so much that Your truth is way higher and deeper than we could possibly imagine. And yet, in a very simple way, through Jesus Christ, You set us in the truth, and You would have us walk in His grace and His truth.
Help us to humbly come and recognize that You are asking a great thing when You ask us, “What is truth?” We want to be those who can say, “I’m discovering the truth as I walk in God through Jesus Christ.”
We thank You, Lord, for teaching us these things. In Jesus’ name, amen.