Sermon Tone Analysis

This past Sunday, I used the analogy of the television game show, “To Tell the Truth”, to make a point about our ability to recognize Jesus.

I spoke of how people in the Bible as well as people today, should be able to see and recognize Jesus in their lives and all around them.

This past Sunday, I used the analogy of the television game show, “To Tell the Truth”, to make a point about our ability to recognize Jesus.

I spoke of how people in the Bible as well as people today, should be able to see and recognize Jesus in their lives and all around them.

In giving this message, it prompted me to go back and revisit a message that I actually gave some time ago.

That message was called, “Grounded in Truth” and between the message that I gave then and the one last Sunday, I really felt impressed to park here tonight and talk with you some more about the subject of TRUTH.

I mentioned something Sunday that I have mentioned several times in the past, and it is one of those things that I can’t get out of my mind.

It is the account of Jesus standing before Pilate and the dialogue that occurs between them.

Allow me to read to you, the actual account as it is found within the Bible.

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That whole dialogue in which Pilate asks the great philosophical question, “What is TRUTH” and the relevance of where and to whom he was asking it, just floors me!

Pilate was standing in front of and in the very presence of THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH and NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!

In fact, I discovered something this morning as I was preparing this lesson, that I found extremely interesting and just had to take a moment and share it with you tonight!

In Latin, the words of Pilate are Quid est veritas?

These words take on a special quality in Latin, because they are actually an anagram.

If you re-arrange the letters you obtain the following sentence: Est vir qui adest,

Are there any Latin scholars in here who would care to explain to everyone what this Latin phrase means?

Please allow me to interpret it for you.

Est vir qui adest, means, "It is the man who is here."

You see, when Pilate asked Jesus, “What is TRUTH”, his own question as seen in the Latin phrase, “Quid est veritas”, contains the answer to the question.

By simply re-arranging the Latin letters of his question, it spells out the answer to his own question, “It is the man who is here”, or “It is the man who stands here!”

AMAZING isn’t it?

I mean here Pilate is asking a question to the one who is the answer to his question and his own question contains the answer to that question!

Pilate was looking for an answer to his question as to whether Jesus claimed to be a king, or not, so as to find some guilt in him.

Because the Jewish leaders were making accusations against Jesus saying that He claimed to be a king and thus an insurrectionist and a threat to the local Roman government who Pilate just happened to be placed over.

And as it stood, because of the Jews and there local uprisings, Pilate was already on thin ice with Tiberius, the Roman emperor.

One more misstep and Pilate knew that it could mean the end for him, as Tiberius would pull him out and bring him to judgement for not keeping things under control in his assigned region!

This whole situation, in the natural scheme of things, should not have worked out the way that it did.

Pilate, historically, was a somewhat cruel narcissist, who had a reputation of executing people, before they were even tried for their crimes.

So, the fact that he would hesitate to find fault and execute Jesus, a Jew none the less, seems unlikely in the natural sense.

The way that his whole time spent as prefect over Judea and the trouble that he had with the Jews and their uprisings and the way that he had previously handled them, all added up to a perfect storm for Pilate.

If he didn’t go along with the Jewish leaders request to have Jesus crucified, then he would be reported to Tiberius for not taking care of a Jew who claimed to be a king and who openly rebelled against Rome as an insurrectionist!

This would mean the end for Pilate!

So, Pilate, even though he could not make himself say that Jesus was guilty because, of all times in this pagan worshippers life which had most likely yielded to lies many time before, he could not claim Jesus guilty, because he knew that it was all a lie and that the truth was, Jesus was innocent!

Pilate did not say Jesus was guilty of their accusations, in fact, he never found fault in Jesus!

The only reason he conceded to the crucifixion of Jesus, was to save his own neck!

Pilate told Jesus that he had the power, as the local Roman judge and authority, to either release Jesus, or have Jesus executed.

To this, Jesus told Pilate, that in all actuality, Pilate had absolutely no authority over Him at all, unless it was first granted to him from above!

In other words, all authority in heaven and on earth, comes from God!

“Quid est veritas?” “What is TRUTH?”

“Est vir qui adest.”

“It is the man standing before you”, Jesus is the TRUTH!

What is truth?

This is one of those great philosophical questions, is it not?

To a philosopher, TRUTH, is not the easiest subject to philosophy, or answer upon.

For when they determine that something is TRUE, then another philosopher asks the question, “Is it really true”, which casts a shadow of doubt on their TRUTH statement and thus voids it.

In philosophy, when you start defining and answering on the subject of TRUTH, you are getting into the discipline of epistemology or the study of knowledge.

However, many philosophers categorize it as a study in metaphysics--the study of what is real.

And so now, you are starting to see how their view works; “what is truth”, is also like asking, “what is real?”

If it can be examined by the human senses, (if you can see it, smell it, taste it, touch and hear it), then it must be real and thus it must be TRUE!

But to everything else, that is non-tangible and of the realm of moralistic issues, there is a large gray area as to what is real, what is TRUE?

In our postmodernist culture, we are exposed to a wide array of thoughts on TRUTH and REALITY.

You see, postmodernists describe TRUTH not as a relationship outside of the human mind that we can align belief to but as a product of belief.

In other words, to the post modernist thinking (a.k.a.

our modern society) TRUTH is validated by one’s own beliefs!

TRUTH is decided upon by what we believe to be right or wrong.

THERE IS NO LONGER AN ABSOLUTE TRUTH, to many modern thinkers!

In our modern culture and society, there exists the philosophy of what is called, Modern Relativism.

Now in order to understand what this mindset is and how it affects our ability to witness the gospel message, you need to understand what exactly this represents.

For an easy to understand definition, I am using one websites definition for Moral Relativism - Moral relativism is the idea that there is no universal or absolute set of moral principles.

It’s a version of morality that advocates “to each his/her own,” and those who follow it say, “Who am I to judge?”

A person that thinks along the line of the moral relativism mindset, says that there are NO absolutes, in determining moral TRUTH.

They are the people who would say in a morally compromising position, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”, even if they know that something is morally questionable that they are doing.

Its morality is determined by human acceptance and not based upon any ABSOLUTE TRUTH!

Here is the big issue with this modern mindset.

Once mankind becomes the all inclusive answer for morality and it is open for each person’s determination as to whether something is right or wrong, then you have opened Pandora’s Box.

Meaning, you have now embraced any and every level of sin and sickness that a person cares to embark upon.

To the person who says in there heart, that there is NO GOD, then from where does that person or society get any sense of morality.

Morality does not exist without a higher logic to determine what is morally right or wrong.

If it is open to mankind’s opinion, then anything and everything is subject to change when there is no longer a moral compass to guide us!

It is like having a compass that has no indications marked of North, South, East and West and then trying to use that compass to find a destination.

Each person will be making the call as to where you are to head and it is open to each one’s opinion and sense of right or wrong.

I mentioned in my previous lesson on TRUTH, that currently in this country, there exists only about 17% of Christians have what the researchers consider a Biblical worldview.

A Biblical worldview is a belief that absolute moral truth exists; that the Bible is TOTALLY ACCURATE in all of its principles that it teaches; that Satan is considered to be a real being or force and not merely symbolic; that a person CANNOT earn their way into heaven by trying to be good or do good works; that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life here on earth; and that God is the all-knowing, all powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today!

Well, when only around 17% of Christians who sit in churches all over this nation believe this way and the other 83% are teaching and influencing others, it is not hard to see why we have such moral depravity in the world today!

I mentioned before, that the Oxford dictionary “Word of the Year”, for 2016, was the word, “post-truth”.

Without God’s Word as our moral compass and the ONLY source of Absolute Truth with which we operate under, then we are thus using the natural, human mind.

And we know that the carnal mind is born into SIN and will always operate under its natural means.

Basically, “post-truth” means that the TRUTH that people accept as the truth, is proportional to what is going on in their lives at that time!

There is no absolute truth in the moral and ethical arena with this mind set, it is all relative to what is going on around you and what others have embraced to be TRUE!

An example of the “post truth” mindset would be when a now ex-president was on trial for a moral issue during his time in the Whitehouse and upon being asked, under oath in court, “Is this true Mr. President”, the president at that time, responded, “Well, that depends on what the meaning of the word “is”, “is”!

Listen to what the Bible says in tells us,

That passage sounds exactly like the nation in which we live in today!

One in which TRUTH is not based upon God and His divine law, but rather one where TRUTH is relative to the individual and his/her mind-set!

The continual rejection of the TRUTH and His word begins to make you more and more prone to buying into deception and the lies of the enemy and with ultimate destruction.

, “This man will come to do the work of Satan with counterfeit power and signs and miracles.

He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them.

So God will cause them to be greatly deceived, and they will believe these lies.

Then they will be condemned for enjoying evil rather than believing the truth.”

Right before this in verse 7, Paul says that this lawlessness is already at work secretly.

In other words this

So, what is TRUTH?

I am not talking about the Webster’s Dictionary version of truth, but rather, when Jesus mentioned TRUTH in front of Pilate, what was He referring to and on the larger scale, what was He saying about TRUTH to the entire world for all times?!

The Psalmist said, “The very essence of your words is truth; all your just regulations will stand forever.”

Jesus prayed to His Father in and said, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

tells us, “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

Now add these verses with what tells us and we can see what absolute TRUTH is.

It says in , “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”