The Journey to Truth

Jn.17:17 - Thy Word is Truth.

Jn.14:6 - I am the way, the Truth, and the life.

I Tim.2:4 - Who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the Truth.

Eph.4:15 - But speaking the Truth in love, may be able to grow up into Him in all things.

There is one certainty that eclipses all others and that is the Person of Jesus Christ, His work of redemption, and His offer of salvation by grace through faith. The core, the heart, and the one foundational truth that can stand alone, whole and immutable, and it is the throne of truth around which all other truths must bow. This is the truth that binds or separates people, that heals or destroys, that redeems or casts off. The eternal plan of God’s redeeming love is contained wholly within the Person of Jesus Christ, Who He is, and what He has accomplished alone.

There are so many levels of truth that are important and yet cannot be held to the same pinnacle as Christ Jesus and His gospel. Now we as believers are so concrete in our beliefs that we have a tendency to assign answerable certainty to almost everything we believe. There are some Christians who spread tracks all year long about the evils of Halloween and cannot even fellowship with anyone who might see it differently than they do. They live and die the Halloween issue and in their demonstrative energy they have placed it on the same level as the gospel itself. It consumes them.

That is just one example, there are others. Some believers hold to the opinion that every Christian couple should have as many children as possible and they are equipped with an arsenal of facts and surveys and Scripture verses about the will of God in this area. Some, not all, can really only fellowship with others who are as aggressive as they are about this subject. The same goes for some about Biblical foods and vitamins. Inadvertently some believers have taken issues, sometimes important issues, and brought them into the center core of their Spiritual persuasion. Not only does that injure the credibility of that particular person, it diminishes the redemptive truths of God’s Word by diluting them with a comparable importance with much less important truths.

Mental subjectivism is what we battle in order to come to a fuller and more complete understanding of Scriptural truths. All of us are in possession of many different idiosyncrasies that tend to steer our thinking process in certain directions. This is also why different witnessing tools can be helpful. Farming illustrations do not work as well at a doctor’s convention as they do at the 4-H gathering. We all are molded to an extent by our surroundings and about which we have knowledge, and also the mental bent we were born with. All of it is called subjective thinking and we all do it.

Stephen Hawking, the renowned cosmologist who fills the seat once held by Isaac Newton, was accused of subjectivism when he revised his black hole theory after having been proved wrong. But instead of coming to the other side, he invented his own view and was roundly criticized. So if the physicists engage in subjectivism we certainly can understand how that occurs in all of us. So how do we attempt to minimize our own subjective influence while studying the most important subject of all, God’s Word?

First, the Bible must speak for itself in a vacuum. What I mean is that no other voice can influence our understanding of Scripture. We all are so prone to lean on someone else’s understanding other than the Scriptures themselves. All of us have gained particular books, writings, and men or women of God who we give more credibility than others and in fact sometimes rely wholly on their views and teachings. That is not isolated to one or two systems of Christian thought, that happens to all of us. And once that happens it soon becomes apparent that we are entrenched in our seeking of Scriptural truth and if we are not careful we petrify. We are no longer seekers who have found truth and want more and even purification or correction of the truth we now hold, we are simply defenders. That is easy and even lazy.

Engaging in discussion, reading, and even dialogue about truth that you and I would never compromise is a strengthening process, like witnessing. We witness to a person and he asks questions about the truth we are sharing. His view of truth is very different from the Bible, but we continue to share. After one half hour, sitting and sharing back and forth with someone who rejects truth, we walk away refreshed and renewed and not compromised. Why? Because we have used truth, engaged with truth, and shared not just defended truth. Our hearts were desirous of seeing that person come to truth, not just defending our truth and with that be satisfied.

And is it not possible that God’s truth is capable of being sifted, presented, shared, and thrown into the lion’s den of modern humanistic thought without being consumed? Did not the Lord command Aaron to cast his rod before Pharaoh and it became a serpent, and as the Magicians cast their rods and they also became serpents did not Aaron’s rod swallow them all up? Truth, if it is truth, can withstand testing. If two and two equals four, it can withstand the test of division. And God’s truth can stand in the midst of any onslaught, whether it comes from friend or foe alike.

When I was first saved I went into Manhattan and purchased my first Bible. I brought it home and would take it out of the box every day and read the letters in red and then safely place it back in the box. I was horrified the first time I saw a person actually write in their Bible. That is not how we should treat God’s Word, like a museum piece and we are all His chosen curators. And when some particular truth is attacked we should lovingly and boldly present the truth of God’s Word, without malice and certainly without pride. It sounds simple but in practice it is daunting. Our life in the Word should appear as an old, ruffled Bible, pages torn and written upon, evident tear stains of joy and compassion on its pages, and used to share, correct, edify, reprove, and most of all exalt the Author Himself.

But as important as how we communicate truth is how we arrive at truth. This is where we must all take a fresh look. The Word of God, the Old and New Testament, is the source of all truth when revealed by the Holy Sprit. But that still does not eliminate our personal subjectivity, hence all the different beliefs within even the true body of Christ. So first we must decide what are the core truths of the Christian Faith, ones that have a direct link to issues of redemption and salvation. Those issues can never be compromised and must always be presented in the clearest terms while continuing to be wrapped in forceful humility, a lost art. While standing our ground in the life giving issues of truth, we must still be charitable in reproof, bold while humble, unmovable yet reaching, and always have understanding at the very heart of our endeavor, not just rebuke or correction or most of all “winning”.

And it is a dangerous practice to quote someone else as the example or template for our behavior or speech, all men have feet of clay and even the greatest of all God’s servants were not perfect. One can find the flesh of Luther or Spurgeon or Wesley and upon quoting them in a culled out snippet insist that this supports our view on Christian speech or even doctrine, it does not. That at best is using their subjectivity to support our own subjectivity and elevates the acts of man to a level that should only be afforded Scripture and the acts of our Lord. God desires His Word to be fresh to all generations and we must not rely like baby wolves on the already chewed Word to be our main course. Some insight, some edification, and some exhortation comes from the Lord’s committed conduits, but their words are still not God’s and their interpretations are wrapped in a degree of their own subjectivity. Past saints, mightily used of God, should for the most part exhort us to serve the Lord Christ and be comforted by their example, but we should never rest upon their visions and teachings, everything should be continually sought after as if it was a treasure chest containing brand new truth.

When we read books and commentaries we must continually ask the Spirit to help us divine the truth and lay aside the opinion of man. That, my friends, is also what we must do when searching the Scriptures ourselves, lay aside our own opinions. And once we have been led to God’s truth, what then is our calling and responsibility concerning that same truth? Are we to present it as a proof of our spiritual post graduate work, implying that we have arrived upon this truth in large part due to our own energy and intellect? Or should we humbly carry this precious truth to all who are in need, lovingly but forcefully reproving all who would attach it, and attempting as much as within us lies to remove ourselves from the presentation?

Have we lost the power of Spiritual confrontation and humble discourse about God’s eternal Word, and have we also lost the trust that when presented alone it can stand on the basis of its own inherent power? And when rejected do we feel indignation that indicates our own flesh and not the patient ministry of the Spirit? God is well able to protect His Word and His honor, our attempts to serve Him must not be misconstrued as attempts to defend the Creator with our puny and convenient efforts. At the end of a great presentation of God’s Word, Stephen’s words and the truth they represented were rejected. He was stoned, and instead of hating and mocking and desiring revenge, this man who was seconds from seeing Christ asked God not to hold this against them. Have we considered this as our template?

So the different denominations have scattered on the basis of issues of such Scriptural importance that fellowship and worship must be separate. And common enemies will bind together brothers and sisters who seemingly have substantive issues of doctrine but which are sacrificed on the altar of attack. Their issues separate them from united worship but unify them as defenders. And many have congregated in the theological balconies of dead and living Christian teachers and have become complacent and content with those servings of interpretations without continuing a rewarding and fresh searching of God’s Word that very well may unearth new and spectacular facets of the established truth they have locked away.

With every generation comes error and even apostasy, it comes with this fallen world. We are no different and the cults and liberal streams will continue to flow downstream, picking up passengers as they flow. But God’s Word must not be kept as a keepsake, free from the dust of the conflict, no, God’s Word demands a place in the dialogue and discourse. It demands confrontation and examination, it demands to be used and presented, it demands an unashamed pronunciation in the power of God’s Love and Spirit! We need not fear God’s honor, it is secure forever, we must be the repairers of the breach here on earth, rebuilding the walls with the bricks of God’s truth, not our interpretations of other’s interpretations of other’s interpretation. Humbly, painfully, sacrificially, we must live Christ, and if we are always comfortable we need not wonder, we are not living Him.

Some will hate and some will love but both are without merit in our quest to serve and even live Jesus Christ in the midst of an eternal tragedy that begs redemption. Our pride is as much an enemy as is the devil and we must be as vigilant as a king’s sentry concerning our own pride and flesh, it must be destroyed daily. Asking and giving forgiveness will be our practice, brokenness must be our wholeness, prayer must be our first language, and His reflection should be in our spiritual mirror. Brothers and sisters, we have strayed from the road and paved our own path and called it His. There is so much fallow ground to be unearthed and cultivated in our hearts revealing good soil which can receive the seed of His Word again.

Do not be afraid for God or His truth, He is not fearful, be afraid that you will interject your own will and poison into that which must be His alone. The city we seek is Revival, we have not reached its outskirts as of yet, most have not even broken camp yet. Pray for yourselves, examine everything in His light, reject the teachings of friends, reject the teachings of men, and most of all reject the teachings of your own understanding, only the Words that He speaks must be your life and bones. This might require a cleaning of some cupboards, but He will not leave them bare but fill them with the life giving food that alone can both strengthen a pilgrim and glorify His Guide. Set a course, shed the weight and the besetting sin, and with our face like a flint start a determinative journey that not only enjoys Bunyan’s narrative, but lives it. You and I are not nearly where we should or could be, He awaits our renewed pilgrimage that leads away from us and only to Him.

Make sure you have good shoes, ones with one nail pierce in each…