Accepting the Truth

Introduction

For the past couple of weeks, we have been looking at what God would say to us about truth. In our modern society truth has become a relative term. What is true for me may not be true for you and vice versa. Or at least that’s what most people think nowadays. While I can agree that we do not all have to think the same way or like all of the same things, there are some absolute non-negotiables when it comes to God’s truth.

God’s truth, as we have intimated for the past few weeks, is unchangeable. If can be altered in any way, it is NOT truth by definition. Truth concerning individuals speak to likes or dislikes are inclinations or preferences, not truth as defined by God. We suffer in this generation from a serious lack of knowledge concerning God’s truths.

We have seen the abuses of the Church in the past and it has thrown many people off from wanting to be part of any such organization that such scandals are possible. But one glaring truth none of us can escape now looms before us. There is absolutely no place to hide in our present culture from the lies and deception that have so overcome our world. Many of us have watched in unbelief as the events of just the past few weeks have unfolded. We seem to barely be able to catch our breath from one calamity as another event that threatens the very fabric of our country explodes.

A Correct Response To The World

What does God expect us to do with everything we are facing? Many of the things we see are unprecedented at least in our generation, does God really have the answer we need to navigate through this? The answer is without a question YES! The problem for some of us is that God’s truth and direction for our lives may not necessarily look the way we want it to look. We have plans that we want God to help us with and we sometimes get frustrated that God doesn’t seem to be willing to get with our program.

Many times throughout the stories given to us within the Bible, we see where the inclinations of man and the truths of God are two different things. It is sometimes hard for us to accept a truth that we are unfamiliar with or that we have no frame of reference for. For example we know from the Bible that God is eternal having no beginning and no end, but our present reality is that people are born and they eventually die. Yet as we come to understand God’s truths we can come to know that although we are created beings, we will have no end. The part of us that truly makes us who we are will live on.

The world has gone crazy chasing what they believe to be truth but in most cases are nothing more than personal preferences and inclinations. Their choices are far below God’s best for them, for God has a life prepared for each and every person that has ever been brought into this world.

Psalm 139:13–14 ESV

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Yet people have always found a way to resist God

Romans 1:18–32 ESV

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

User Friendly Truth

In my time in ministry I have always been amazed at the capacity of people to cherry pick the things they like about God and to ignore the things they do not agree with. In any facet of life if you are ever going to achieve anything worthwhile there will be aspects or tasks that do not come easy. They will be a challenge to you, as well they should be. We can somehow accept that reality when it comes to the things of this world but when we are talking about the things of God most people somehow have the idea that it should be so much easier than it often is.

When God draws us to Him He wants us to show Him that we are serious. There are no participation trophies in Christianity.

For example:

James 2:26 ESV

For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Salvation is free to all who believe, but do you have any idea how hard it is for people to truly believe in a biblical context?

Jesus didn’t die on the Cross so that you and I could just have a nice day. Yet so many preachers will give people what they want to hear; non-confrontational messages that do little to nothing to draw a person’s heart closer to God and away from the sinfulness of this present world.

We love to hear about how God is going to strengthen us, bless us, provide for us, heal us, and protect us. Those are wonderful benefits to being in the will of God. But if that’s the entirety of God for an individual, they are not in God’s will but rather they have deceived themselves into believing in a God that simply does not exist.

Inconvenient Truths

Christ suffered and died in our place, in my place, and in your place.

There IS a hell that Jesus warns us to shun.

God gave the Prophet Jeremiah a difficult task. He sent him to tell the people what they didn’t want to hear. Because of their sin, God was going to send the Babylonians to take them into captivity and destroy the city of Jerusalem. Nobody wanted to hear that. Everybody hated poor Jeremiah because of it.

What made matters worse is that a number of false prophets were telling the people, “God would never do that.” They were God’s people. He would never let the city of Jerusalem or the temple be destroyed.

Jeremiah was persecuted, beat up, thrown into a pit and eventually led off in chains. The Babylonians did come, however, and did exactly what Jeremiah said they would do.

Every time I feel sorry for myself as a pastor – every time I want to complain about how difficult my ministry is – I remember poor Jeremiah. God sent him to proclaim a truth nobody wanted to hear.

As Christians living in 21st century America, God has given us the same task as Jeremiah: share an unpopular truth nobody really wants to hear. In our world today, the only thing not tolerated is intolerance. The only true sin is to say that what somebody else is doing is wrong. That’s unloving. That’s racist. That’s being a Christian Nazi.

But God commands us to preach his law anyway – to call a sin a sin – to talk about guilt and God’s punishment. Nobody likes to talk about those things. It’s not fun when people point out our faults to us. What the Bible says about sin – especially about things like human sexuality – angers many people.

Many in our world would rather not talk about it. Many don’t consider it sin. In the end, though, we don’t get to decide what is or is not a sin. God does. He tells us clearly in his Word.

But that is an inconvenient truth. People don’t want to hear it. Just look at the uproar caused by the United Methodist Church recently when they affirmed what the Bible says about homosexuality. People in our country, even many Christians, were infuriated.

That shouldn’t surprise us, though. God said it would be that way. The Apostle Paul wrote to young Pastor Timothy:

2 Timothy 4:3 ESV

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,

.All of us need to hear the truth of God’s law. Sin is sin. We are guilty. We deserve to go to hell. If we fail to realize that, then the good news of the Gospel will seem like an unnecessary truth.

The Prophet Jeremiah told the people that if they repented, God in his great love would forgive them. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, there isn’t a sin God won’t forgive. But when you think you’re okay just how you are – then God’s promises of love and forgiveness seem unnecessary.

God’s Word is an inconvenient truth. God grant us the courage to lovingly and firmly share the truth of his law and the truth of his love, even if people don’t want to hear it.

Because, in the end, whether you want to hear it or not, it’s the truth.