Telling The Truth
Photo: © Mairi Nonhebel
The Creation Declares The Truth
Paul highlights the fact that we have no excuse for our unbelief because God has given us the evidence of his unimaginable power in the creation of the universe. And yet human beings still refuse to believe the evidence and try to find alternative explanations. Even the internationally renowned scientist Stephen Hawking avowed that there was no need for God to light the blue touch paper to start the creation because the universe was capable of creating itself and there is even the possibility of multiverses.
The Word of God is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path Photo: Lightstock
The Written Word of God
The Bible is the Spirit-inspired Word of God consisting of the Old Testament (Jewish Tanakh) and New Testament consisting of the Gospels, The Acts of the Apostles and Letters. It is the record of God's dealings with the world since its creation and how he chose to have a relationship with the human beings he created.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
It has the ability to change lives by showing us our need to repent of our sin in the eyes of a holy God and how God promises to forgive our sins and fill us with his Holy Spirit, when we put our trust in Jesus Christ's death on the cross and resurrection from the dead so we might have eternal life with him in heaven. It is why the psalmist says:
Psalm 119:105 Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Jesus the Living Word Photo: Lightstock
Jesus Christ: The Truth & Living Word of God
Jesus quoted large parts of the Old Testament as the inspired Word of God and said he had come to fulfill God's Law, not abolish it.
In John 14:6 Jesus claimed to be the truth of God. If we want to know the truth, we need to come to him and he will set us free from all sin, falsehood and bondages of every kind (John 8:31-32).
The Biblical Worldview
The shekinah glory of God Photo: Adobe Stock
Heaven
The Bible says that God - the Uncreated Creator of all things visible and invisible - dwells in unapproachable light accompanied by cherubim, seraphim, archangels, angels and the company of God's children whose names are recorded in The Book of (Eternal) Life.
In The Book of Revelation the elderly apostle John describes visions of heaven beyond anything human beings could imagine or see.
In 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 Paul talks of being taken up to "The Third Heaven" he calls Paradise in an out-of-the body experience, where he saw things too wonderful to be expressed in words.
The Cosmos
The cosmos is the invisible area between heaven, including our universe, and the physical world inhabited by supernatural forces of good (God's forces) and evil (Satan, his fallen angels and demonic spirits). It is the unseen battleground of the spiritual warfare that is taking place every moment for world domination and Satan's attempts to take over God's throne.
The World
Our world is part of God's creation of the visible universe. It is the battleground for both the natural and the supernatural warfare being waged by Satan's forces against God.
Anti-supernaturalist vs Supernatural Worldviews
Scientific rationalism and atheism deny the reality of the supernatural, relying on a worldview based soley on what is observable by scientific methods of observation and mathematical proof
Jesus Is The Truth
Pontius Pilate
Jesus Before Pontius Pilate
In John 18:33-38 Jesus appeared before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea.
" Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
“Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
“What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him."
When Pilate asked Jesus "What is truth?" he spoke in Latin with the words QVID EST VERITAS?
Jesus did not answer. An anagram of what Pilate said is: EST VIR QVI ADEST, which means "It is the man who is (standing) here."
Jesus' Claim
In John 14:6 Jesus made an extraordinary claim.
" I am the Way, the Truth and the (Eternal) Life. No one comes to God the Father except through me."
Earlier in John 8:31-32 he had said to the Jews who had believed in him:
" If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Jesus was saying that if we want to know what truth is, we need to come to him, because he is the truth that sets people free from sin, bondages of all kinds and death
The Battle for Truth
The Problem of Fake News and The Battle for Truth Photo: Adobe Stock
Living In A Post-Truth World
The twenty-first century will go down in history as a world characterised by the greatest use of disinformation and lies on a global scale because of the internet and social media. Never before in the history of mankind has it been possible to spread lies so fast or so internationally.
Satan's Strategy of Disinformation
Satan's strategy has not changed since he succeeded in persuading Adam and Eve to disobey God's instructions not to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden, or they would certainly die.
Satan simply cast doubt on God's love and God's words by asking the question:
"Did God say?"
He has been asking this question by casting doubt on God's love and God's Word - The Bible - ever since.
Satan as The Father of Lies
In John 8:44-47 Jesus rebukes the Pharisees and religious leaders, who claimed to be God's children because they were decended from Abraham, for not believing what he was saying about himself.
"You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”
The Liar's Playbook
Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda, emphasised the importance of using lies to control people.
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it (long enough), people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained for only such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to suppress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus, by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
Imagine There's No Heaven
Gaza "Worse than Hell on Earth"
The Israeli response to the Hamas massacre of October 7th 2023 has included what the United Nations has condemned as the use of food as a weapon of warfare, the indiscriminate killing of women and children, and the widespread destruction of buildings by the Israeli Defence Force in their determination to destroy Hamas.
One Red Cross observer was reported as saying that "Gaza is worse than hell on earth."
The Atheist's Anthem: "Imagine there's no heaven!"
The Beatles' song, which became the atheists' anthem, has a superficial attraction for those who reject the traditional values of western democracies founded on Judaeo-Christian values of morality.
An Age of Rebellion Prelude to the Arrival of the Man of Lawlessness
The era of the '60s and '70s saw the rise of an age of rebellion, as the restrictions of the post-war years gave way to rock and roll, the free love movement and the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations by America's younger generation.
The problem with this lies in the corollary of such lawlessness, which is the lack of accountability, or justice, abandonment of the rule of law and the resulting hell on earth.
In 2 Thessalonians 2:2-12 Paul warns his readers about the coming of the "man of lawlessness," who will turn out to be the False Messiah, or Anti-Christ, prophesied in Revelation 13.
" Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day (the day of Christ's Second Coming) will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God."