Truth Decay

5/21/23

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Sermon Transcript

Good morning. Isaiah’s great prophecy in Isaiah 59 that we just heard seems like it’s been lifted from today’s headlines. Justice is turned back, righteousness stands far away, truth has stumbled in the public squares. Unrighteousness cannot enter. Truth is lacking. He who departs from evil makes himself a prey."

I want us to look this morning at the subject of truth, and this was not the lesson I had intended to give, but this week I read a news article that resulted in the sermon you’re about to hear. This news article that I read was about a seventh grader who was sent home from school because he was wearing a t-shirt that said, “There are only two genders.”

To say we live in crazy times is quite the understatement. Who would have thought, even just a few years ago, that anyone would wear such a shirt? And who would have thought, just a few years ago that if you did wear such a shirt, anyone would disagree with it. For almost all of recorded human history, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone outside of an asylum who would have disagreed with the message on that shirt. But now, in just a few years’ time, anyone who publicly agrees with the message on that T-shirt risks being fired, expelled, or worse. Yes, we live in crazy times. But why? Why are we living in such crazy times? What has happened? And what can we do about it? Those are our questions for today.

I think most of us would probably agree with the statement that we live in modern times. But technically, that’s not correct. We are currently living in what is called a postmodern time, postmodern. And that distinction between modern times and postmodern times is the key to answering the question of why our society seems to have so suddenly fallen over the edge of a cliff. Why? Because the main difference between modern society and postmodern society is the view that each of them has toward the truth.

For modern society, truth exists, but we can never say that we know it. We may have a desire to know it, but we can never attain it. But modern society agrees that it does exist. I think modern society is described well by 2 Timothy 3:7, “Always learning, but never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.”

But post-modern society, the society we’re living in, is different, is different than that. For post-modern society, truth no longer exists. Truth does not exist. There is no absolute and final truth to post-modern society. The post-modern philosophy has four pillars: one, a rejection of the truth; two, a rejection of any objective standard of right and wrong; three, an elevation of the self as the sole arbiter of reality; and four, a glorification of power.

Those four things together represent post-modern society, which is the society we’re now living in. If that change from the modern world to the post-modern world, if that change explains the problem of our seventh grader, can we say when that change happened? Well, you know, the process is gradual. We can’t point to a specific day on the calendar. But roughly, the modern era lasted 200 years, from the French Revolution in 1789 to the fall of communism in 1989. 200 years. And what that means is that we’ve been living in this postmodern world for about 30 years. It also means that Bill Clinton was our first postmodern president. And that may not be the most surprising thing you hear today.

You know, if there’s no such thing as truth, then there’s no such thing as lying. And the cost we assign to lying, it’s the same as the value we assign to the truth. So how does postmodernism explain the craziness of our times? That’s our question. Because it is post-modernism that has created the odd notion that if I choose to believe something, then that thing magically becomes the truth. Not the truth in the sense of an absolute truth for all people in all time, because they reject the notion that that even exists. Instead, it becomes the truth for me. And that short little phrase, “poor me,” is the root cause of the craziness that we see around us today.

In a postmodern world, we can each have our own truth. And my truth and your truth can be completely contradictory, but they’re both the truth in the postmodern mind. Prior to the postmodern world, if I chose to believe that I am a woman, I would be delusional. In the postmodern world, if I choose to believe that I am a woman, then I am a woman. That becomes my truth. That becomes my reality. Why? Because in the postmodern world, truth and reality are my own creation. And they are solely under my own control.

You know, perhaps the best way to illustrate the postmodern mindset is with an old riddle. It’s a riddle about a dog. And here’s the riddle. If we call a tail a leg, then how many legs does a dog have? Well, the answer, of course, is that it doesn’t really matter what we call that tail. It’s not a leg, and a dog has four legs. The postmodern mindset does not get that joke at all. To that person, if you call that dog’s tail a leg, then that tail is a leg, and that dog has five legs.

And keep in mind, this is all coming from the same group that for decades has told us all to just follow the science. What does science have to say about a five-legged dog? What does science have to say about there being more than two genders? It rightly causes us to wonder if they’re following the science, and we know they’re not, because that’s not the science. What they’re following is their own desire. Each of us, each of us has a choice in this life. Each of us. Either we conform our desires to the truth, or we conform the truth to our desires. Something has to give, and for the post-modern man, it’s the truth that gives. And they don’t just distort the truth to match their desires, they dispense with truth.

And the world has lost so much because of its denial and devaluation of truth. For starters, we’ve lost our sanity. If that t-shirt news article shows us anything, it shows us that. Hosea 8:7, “They have sown the wind, they are reaping the whirlwind.” And we are reaping the whirlwind today. We’ve also lost our heroes. Throughout history, our greatest heroes have been those who were defined by the truth and by their adherence to the truth, and by their willingness to suffer on behalf of truth. Where are the heroes if there is no truth? And we’ve lost our moral compass. Our rejection of truth has resulted in a space-age people living in a moral stone age. The world desperately needs to understand the truth about the truth. So let’s look at 10 things today that are the truth about the truth.

The first truth about the truth is that the truth does not care what we think about it. Many people today would likely agree that truth exists, but most of them would not agree that objective truth exists. And even if they said they did believe in objective truth, their speech would betray them when they started talking about my truth and your truth. That’s not how objective truth works. language suggests that what is or is not the truth depends upon my interpretation, my belief, and on my perspective.

You know, many people believe that if I read the Bible and if I think that baptism is essential for salvation, then that’s my truth. But if you read the Bible and you don’t believe it’s essential for salvation, then that’s your truth. Under that view, truth is my creation. Under There is one verse in the Bible that perhaps better than any other verse answers all of our questions today about the nature of truth and it’s Romans 3:4. “Yea, let God be true but every man a liar.” That one short verse is all it takes to slay the postmodern dragon. If we all leave this morning to confront the postmodern world with only one verse in our quiver, let it be Romans 3:4.

That one short verse tells us that truth does not depend upon any individual experience or interpretation or any group’s experience or any group’s interpretation. Romans 3:4 tells us that truth is independent of our view of it. The phrases “my truth” and “your truth” don’t make any sense but the phrase God’s truth makes sense. Why? Because God’s truth is everybody’s truth. We all have the same truth and that truth comes from God. It’s absolute, it’s unchanging, it applies to all men in all places at all times. There are many worldviews today but there is only one worldview that is true. it is the worldview we find in the Bible.

But what if we take a poll and what if we find that the majority of us is that we’re opposed to something we read in God’s Word? It matters not. “Let God be true but every man a liar.” But what if most scientists are opposed to something we read in God’s Word? It matters not. We all agree we all vote the outcome of the vote is 100% to 0 against God and against something in the Word of God We’re all disagreeing with what we find in the Word of God it matters not “Let God be true, but every man a liar” we cannot each create our own truth Truth exists apart from anything we do from anything we think and nothing we do and nothing we think can ever change that We have no vote when it comes to truth. We have no veto when it comes to truth One word of truth outweighs the entire world.

So back to our seventh grader and his t-shirt. Maybe that’s just his truth. That there are only two genders and maybe I can have my own different truth that gender is fluid. Well that work? Well, no, it won’t work. For starters as that t-shirt event shows us the post-modern view of truth comes with a dirty little secret. Yes in a post-modern mind truth is created but not all truths are created equally. I can have my truth about gender and you can have your truth about gender. But if your truth makes me uncomfortable and if I have a howling mob on my side, then you better keep your truth to yourself. When truth dies and power reigns supreme the outcome will always be forced conformity to the view of those with power always.

Our seventh grader learned that lesson the hard way didn’t he? The postmodern world is not fine with us each having our own truth as they call it if our truth disagrees from their truth and the more we see them in action the more we start to understand that their truth looks a whole lot like that absolute unchanging truth that they deny even exists. But second and more to the point We cannot each have our own view when it comes to gender. We cannot each have our own truth when it comes to gender why? Because God has given us the truth on the subject of gender. Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them.” We can vote all we want to, we can gnash our teeth all we want to, we can shout at the news cameras all we want to. We can cancel, we can fire, we can expel everyone who disagrees with us. It matters not. “Let God be true but every man a liar.” God’s Word stands. That is how absolute truth works.

The second truth about truth is that we have the truth. The motto of a popular TV show in the 90s was that the truth is out there but we can say a lot more than that. We have it. It has been given to us. John 1:17, “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John 14:6, “Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” John 17:17, “thy word is truth.” We have it. God gave us his word. God gave us his the Word made flesh, we have the truth. Do we thank God every day that we have the truth? Do we thank God every day that we have His Word? Do we thank God every day that He sent His Son full of grace and truth? Do we thank God every day that we can open the Word of God freely, read it? We have it. Amos 8:11 talks about a famine in the land for hearing the words of the Lord. We are not living in that famine. We have the words of the Lord. Let’s thank God and praise God every day for that wonderful truth about truth. We have it.

The third truth about truth is that truth can be known. Not only do we have it, we can know it. Yes, we have the word of God, but can the written word convey absolute truth to us? Can we know absolute truth from reading the written word? Postmodernism says no. They say words can never represent some objective reality. They say written text must be freed from the prison of objectivity. They say there’s as many different meanings to any written text as there are different people reading it and no different meaning can be placed above another meaning. They say at best from any written text, whatever we can discern is hazy and indistinct and vague and unknowable. What does God say? What does God say? The Bible tells us that not only do we have the truth, but we can know the truth. John 8:32, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” We do not open God’s word to create a truth. we open God’s Word to discover the truth, to know the truth, and we can know the truth. We can understand the truth.

The fourth truth about truth is that the world hates the truth. You know, some people say that truth is scarce today. Maybe it is. but the supply of truth has always exceeded the demand. The world shuts its ears to the word of God. The world hates those who proclaim the word of God. In Acts chapter seven, when Stephen proclaimed God’s word, those who heard it gnashed their teeth upon him and stoned him to death. And that howling angry mob in Acts chapter seven hasn’t gone anywhere. Why does the world hate the Word of God? Well, Jesus answers that question in John 3:19-21. “This is the judgment. The light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his work should be exposed. But whosoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” The world hates the truth because the world loves darkness.

Let’s get back to our courageous seventh grader again. You know, here’s the really puzzling question about what happened to him. Why does the world fear that T-shirt so much? Just a T-shirt. Doesn’t that seem odd? That a t-shirt with that message on it, there are only two genders, would create such angst and create national news? Doesn’t that seem odd? Why do they fear it so much? The answer’s simple. That child with that t-shirt, that child is the small child telling the emperor he has no clothes. That simple, undeniable truth on that t-shirt only two genders. That’s all it takes to show the insanity of mankind apart from God and the world will not hear it. If that t-shirt is allowed to go unchallenged it could bring everything crashing down around them and of course that t-shirt is just saying the same thing we read a moment ago in Genesis 1:27 male and female he created them. The world hates the truth because the world loves darkness.

The fifth truth about truth is that truth can be suppressed. Romans 1:18, “for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” Well how is the truth suppressed today? Well first, the truth is suppressed when it’s twisted. When it’s twisted. We need to always approach God’s Word to discover the truth that God is telling us and not approach it to to back up or support some preconceived notion we have about the truth. We don’t ever want to use the Word of God like a drunkard uses a lamppost. You know how a post for support rather than illumination and that’s not the way to approach the Word of God. We twist it, we’re suppressing it.

Second, the truth is suppressed when it’s buried. We need to be people of the book. Yeah, there’s a place for commentary, there’s a place for opinions, there’s a place for speculations, but we need to always start and end with the Word of God. Third, the truth is suppressed when it’s adulterated. We should not mix the Word of God with the wisdom of man. That was the mistake of the Gnostics in the first century and it’s been repeated many times since. We want the pure words of God. And fourth, the truth is suppressed when it’s persecuted. Today in this we see people being fired for quoting Scripture. In other countries, in countries in Europe, we already see people being imprisoned for quoting Scripture. What should we do when we face persecution for quoting Scripture? We should quote scripture and a good one to start with is 2 Timothy 3:12-13, “indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted while evil people and imposters will go from bad to worse deceiving and being deceived.” And what can we do to prevent the truth from being suppressed I think Paul answers that as well. Titus 2:15, “Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no one disregard you.”

The sixth truth about truth is that truth can be exchanged. Yes, truth is a wonderful gift, but it’s a wonderful gift that many people want to take back in exchange for something else. Romans 1:24-25, “Therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever.”

I think Chesterton said it. Well, the problem with people who don’t believe in God is not that they will end up believing in nothing. The problem is that they’ll end up believing in anything. And don’t we see that all around us today? Don’t we see people who have exchanged the truth about God for a lie and as a result they’ll believe anything. Everything we see around us resulted from a giant explosion. There aren’t just two genders there are hundreds of genders. Life came from lifelessness all on its own. Can anyone look around in this world today and not believe that absent God People will truly believe any crazy idea that comes along? Why is that? because they have exchanged the truth about God for a lie.

The seventh truth about truth is that the truth is upheld by the church. You know, having looked at some of these crazy postmodern views we may be tempted to think that our best response to all that nonsense is just to ignore it. Maybe it’ll all go away. After all, that’s not how Christians think about the truth. Well, it is nonsense, but no it’s not going anywhere and what comes after it’s probably going to be worse. We can’t just ignore something that we live in every day and that our children are growing up in. And no, we can’t even say that Christians don’t think that way. In a recent poll, over half, over half of the people who call themselves Christians agreed with the following statement, “There is no such thing as absolute truth. Two people can define truth in totally conflicting ways and both of them still be correct.” Over half of the people who call themselves Christians believe that statement.

So no, I don’t think our best course of action is just to ignore the problem and hope it goes away. And I don’t think we’re wearing the whole armor of God, including the belt of truth, just so we can turn tail and run when postmodernism steps onto the battlefield with its arguments and lofty opinions. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5, “for the weapons of our warfare, not of the flesh, but had divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God.” That is the battle we’re in. That’s why we’re wearing the whole armor of God. That’s why we’re wearing the belt of truth. That’s why we’re carrying the sword of the spirit. The church has a vital role to play in this fight. The church upholds the truth in this sin sick world. 1 Timothy 3:15, “but if I tarry long, that thou mayest knowest how thou ought to behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth.” We have a great responsibility toward the truth. If we don’t guard the truth, who’s gonna do that? If we don’t proclaim the truth, who’s gonna do that? If we don’t teach the truth to our children, who is gonna do that?

The eighth truth about truth is that the truth must be loved. 2 Thessalonians 2:10, “because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.” Zechariah 8:19, “therefore love truth and peace.” Psalm 119:97, “Oh, how love I thy law, it is my meditation all the day.” What does it mean to love the truth? What does it mean to love the truth? We all know the answer to that question. We all know what it means to love something. We all know what it means to delight in something. We all know that. It means that we care about it. It means that we care what happens to it. It means that we’re focused on it. It means we want to know all about it. It means we never tire of it. It means we never find it boring. It means we follow it. It means we trust it. And in a world where the truth has been pushed to the edge of a cliff, surrounded by an angry mob, we need to love it more than ever.

The ninth truth about truth is that the truth sets us free. John 8:32, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” We looked at the first half of that verse earlier to show that we can know the truth. Let’s look at the second half of that verse now to show that the truth sets us free. You know, John 8:32 is, I guess, the most popular motto found on universities today. I can certainly testify that it’s emblazoned in big, bold letters on the south entrance of the main building of the University of Texas at Austin. It’s probably on some building at Texas A&M, but I don’t know that campus very well. And we could say a lot about the irony of John 8:32 being the motto of universities that are working every day to free us from the truth. But that’s not the freedom promised in John 8:32. If we keep reading a few verses after that verse, what we find is that the freedom Christ is promising is freedom from the bondage of sin and death. And what provides that freedom? The truth. The truth shall set you free. The word of the truth of the gospel. Colossians 1:5.

What does that tell us? Well, several things. First, it tells us how dangerous is any attack on the truth. You know, we tempted to laugh at some of the craziness around us, but we should never doubt the seriousness of the situation here. You know, we may be tempted to chuckle when we’re filling out that little survey and we get to the question of gender and there’s a third checkbox. We might be tempted to chuckle about that. It is not a laughing matter. They have exchanged the truth about God for a lie. When our society undermines the truth, it is affecting the eternal destinies of those led astray. What we believe about God and the truth has consequences, eternal consequences.

But second, John 8:32 tells us something else about the truth. We have nothing to fear from the truth, ever. You know, I sometimes encounter people who are scared to study certain subjects about the Bible for fear of what they will find? The truth does not imprison us, the truth sets us free. John 8:32. We have nothing to fear from a search for the truth. In fact, we should invite it. Christianity is truth-based. Christianity is fact-based. Christianity is rational. Apart from all the other religions in the world, Christianity is based entirely, entirely on a fact of history that is open to investigation by all, the resurrection of Christ from the dead. We do God no favors if we ever act like we’re scared of the truth. The truth is on our side, always on our side.

The tenth truth about truth is that truth must be obeyed. Romans 2:8, “but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness Ignatian and wrath.” Galatians 5:7, “you did run. Well, who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth?” Truth is not just something we study as an academic subject. Truth makes demands upon us truth is something we must obey something we must do. James 1:22, “but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”

We’ve looked at the problem. We’ve looked at the truth about truth. We have one question left. What can we do about it? You know, the title of my sermon today is “Truth Decay.” And much like tooth decay, there are things we can do to stop it, prevent it, and slow it down. We need to do some spiritual flossing. For starters, we can be the salt of the earth. We can be that voice crying in the wilderness, declaring the Word of God. We can remind the world that there is a God and that His Word is truth. John 17:17. Will that make us popular? No, it will not. Galatians 4:16, “Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” You know, I have to make a confession here today. I grew up hating that verse because every time my dad told me something I didn’t much want to hear, he’d always quote that verse. Those of you who knew my dad can probably picture him turning to me and said, “Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” But I like that verse now.

A second thing we can do is make sure that we’re not ourselves deceived by the philosophies of this world on the subject of truth. Colossians 2:8, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy in vain deceit after the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ.” We need to always be on guard against that. We are surrounded on all sides by postmodernism and by the false view of the truth everywhere we turn. So we need to work every day to make sure we’re not deceived by that.

A third thing we can do is be ready to teach people about the truth. 1 Peter 3:15, “Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you for a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” That’s something else we need to do every day and be ready to do at every moment. A fourth thing we can do is to be personally devoted to the truth in everything. Ephesians 4:25, “Therefore having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbors, for we are members one of another.” As children of God, as members of the body of Christ, we must know the We must study the truth. We must speak the truth. We must live the truth. We must love the truth. We must obey the truth. We must embrace the truth and We must point others to the truth.

Despite the best efforts of this postmodern world many of our friends and neighbors are still searching for truth. Most of them had the same questions. We all have this God exists. How did this universe come to be is? What I see around me all there is? How did mankind come to be on this earth? Why am I here? How can I know the difference between right and wrong is there life after death? Is there any meaning to my existence here on this earth? They’re all asking those questions and many of them are asking the same question pilot asked What is truth? Those questions cannot be answered apart from God they cannot be answered apart from God That’s what Paul tells us when Romans 3:11. He says there is none that understand it There is none that seeketh after God. You cannot understand the answer to those questions apart from God and We have the answers to all of those questions. The very thing our friends and neighbors are looking for we have the answers. Let’s not hide it under a bushel.

In John 18:37 Jesus said “everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Is that you this morning? Are you on the side of truth? Are you on the side of Christ? The answer is no If you have not obeyed the truth. If you have not believed in God repentant of your sins Confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Then baptized immersed in waters of baptism through remission of your sins and then been raised to walk in newness of life being faithful unto death. That is God’s plan of salvation. That is the truth. Will you obey it? If we can help in any way today, please come while we stand and while we sing.