The Truth Again

With even a cursory glance at the news in our culture with politics, sports, and entertainment we see a myriad of ugly issues.  It's amazing how little of current events include truth in any particular subject.  We often hear of the latest developments such as the progress of a supreme court nominee, the changes being made in business acquisitions, the up or down votes on a health care bill, or who is still standing in the March Madness tournament.  Very little is written however about truth even in the editorial sections.  Even today the headlines focused on the state of North Carolina changing its infamous "Bathroom Bill" under the pressure of special interest groups.  Transgender people are politicking for the right to choose either male or female bathrooms, and even locker rooms in schools, based on their gender preference instead of the natural birth identity as found on their birth certificates.  This is crazy foolishness.

There is truth all around us but if there was no true truth, then the absence of it in the news would all be quite normal.  Truth may seem quite strange in a world that is changing all the time and where it is said that the only thing that doesn't change is change itself.  Even time is a constant for everyone and it tells us that we are changing, we are getting older day by day and year by year.  But are there any unchanging ethical standards in our world?  Yes, there are, or there could be no civil society to live in.  We hear all the time about the injustice of the economically oppressed in the developing world or the immorality of sex trafficking.  We all recognize the Holocaust was horrific and evil, yet the Nazis in WWII at that time did not.  How can it be that we do not see the immorality of our culture?

Many people have succumbed to a worldview that believes all is well if things keep changing, they even say that this is progress.  Who wants to be stuck in the past?  Isn't it time to upgrade that old cell phone for a smartphone, and then for an even smarter phone?  Does anyone really want to go back to high school, or be stuck in childhood forever?  Do we really want to be trapped in an archaic mindset that had black and white non-talking movies?  Isn't it time that we took charge of our lives and made some changes?  Novelty and autonomy are in, and it sells, it gives us hope for new business, and we really do like the idea that we can change society according to our preferences.

There are some problems in our progress, however, as we can unknowingly accept a change of morality and of reality for something unreal.  I for one really do like my computer and I don't have any desire to go back to a typewriter or snail mail.  Can we distinguish however between progress in technology and regress in morality?  This is the Trojan Horse in our culture as we have been made comfortable to think that man gets to decide what is right and wrong.  Take any moral hot-button issue today and you'll be hard-pressed to find an argument from the perspective of an objective truth or eternal standard.  But if there is no unchanging truth then anything can be normalized.

The definitions of words are really important in understanding the objectivity of morality and reality.  Our culture communicates in a thousand subliminal ways that to pass judgment on another person's beliefs is a form of discrimination.  It implies that there is no ultimate Truth, there are only personal truths and preferences, and who are we to judge someone else?  Yet the acknowledgment of Truth can bring great relief to all the insanity.  Instead of thinking of personal discrimination, we need to think in terms of truth principles, that some things in essence are good or bad, moral or immoral, independent of our personal perspectives.  Two plus two equals four despite what anyone might believe.  Male and female are different for a purpose, despite the trends of society.  Absolute Truth exists even in a democracy.

We need to recover the Truth of truth, which can be done in numerous ways, in order to establish moral standards.  This eternal Truth comes from the unchanging and eternal Truth of God.  In the Truth of Scripture, we find Light for living in the darkness that can't be found anywhere else.  This Truth is also a Person, and if we call out to him in faith he will give us forgiveness, newness of life in the here and now, and eternal life in heaven when we die.  This a good news, it's true truth that we all need because we all are mortal, but it's not discrimination.  The truth of morality and immorality doesn't change by the votes of any people in any government at any age.  We need the Truth of Christ to establish a just and righteous society, and to find salvation for eternal life.

FAITH TODAY:  John 14:6, "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.""

Forty-One Years!

Forty-one years ago today in the history of the Christian church, a very small blip on the screen occurred.  On this day I became a Christian one Sunday morning in 1976, right after the morning church service.  Pastor Dick McKeen, (Pastor Mac) wanted to talk to me about my Christian faith, and I said, "Oh, don't worry about me, I'm ok, I believe in God.  I'm not like the Biology professor at college who believes in evolution."  I was a freshman at the University of Lowell, in Lowell, MA.  That was the only open door that the pastor needed, and he went on and said graciously, "Well there's something more you need to know about becoming a Christian."

So we sat down and he explained that the Bible teaches us that we need to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior to become a Christian, and that belief in God was not quite enough.  He went on to tell me the gospel that Jesus was the Son of God and he came to the earth to live a sinless life, so that he could become the sin offering for us when he died on the cross.  And, most importantly, he described how Jesus rose from the dead three days later and conquered death itself.  Because of this, we can know that if we put our faith in Jesus as the Christ who was raised from the dead, we too would one day rise from the dead and be with him in heaven for eternity.  That was the part that hit home for me because I really wanted to know where I would be when I died.

As a young man, I had many questions running around my head as well as all the other normal stuff young guys do like playing sports, being a part of the Boy Scouts, and trying to stay out of trouble.  For me, I kept asking, 'Who am I, why am I here, where am I going, what's the meaning and purpose of life, and where will I be when I die?'  Some big philosophical questions for a teenager but they may have reflected my personality or my home situation more than anything else.  My parents had been separated and were about to be divorced while I was a senior in high school, and life was not always a whole bunch of fun.

But when I heard that there was a way to know that you could go to heaven through the gospel of Jesus Christ, I was thrilled.  When Pastor Mac asked me whether I wanted to accept Jesus as my Savior, I stopped and thought about what I really believed.  I remembered the pictures in Sunday School or Vacation Bible School when I was young, of the stone having been rolled away from the tomb where Jesus had been buried.  I asked if I really believed that Jesus rose from the dead, and I said "Yes," I did.  I believed there has to be something other than this life and I wanted to know where I would be when I died.  My conscience confirmed to me that this was the truth, this is the reality we all need to know to get right with God and to go to heaven.

Well, I'm not always a real outspoken person and it took me a while to start talking about my new faith with my friends back in school.  Eventually, I transferred from the state university and went to Gordon College, and changed majors from Biology to Biblical and Theological Studies.  I thought I wanted to be a pastor but I ended up being a pilot.  But I remember more than anything else the deepest and greatest joy of knowing the salvation found in Christ, and the joy of living in this faith all these years.

There's great theology to be found in the Bible too that has been a source of fantastic joy for me in knowing God.  In fact, one of the most influential books I've read has been J.I. Packer's, Knowing God.  We can know Christ in great ways through Scripture so that our lives are changed and transformed into his image and character.  It all began for me as Pastor Mac described it forty-one years ago today, that God has such great love for us that he sent his only Son to be our Savior and give us the gift of eternal life.

FAITH TODAY:  John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."