Eradicating Christian Worldview

The Christian point of view is not only disdained but frowned upon, including any mention or hint of it in the open marketplace of ideas. Back during the Scopes trial of 1925, they bemoaned the fact that the kid's minds must be kept open, and they shouldn't prohibit the teaching of evolution. In our nation, you can criticize the government, but not Darwin; in China, you can criticize Darwin, but not the government--which one is muzzling the Christian worldview the most is your guess. This is not the building block of secular worldview and religion in its own right. Now the reverse has occurred: You must teach evolution not as a hypothesis, but as unquestioned scientific fact, even though it doesn't even qualify as a theory--it is unproven and cannot be proved in a scientific manner, because no one has observed it nor is able, and there is no evidence in the fossil record. There are no missing links found when there should be millions. Darwin said that if his theory were correct it would be evident in the fossil record--it isn't!

It seems like Christianity is copacetic if one privatizes it and doesn't try to "proselytize" or spread the faith to the infidel. Evangelistic outreaches are a no-no in academia. The primary result of believing you are just a glorified animal is that you begin to act like one, irresponsibly and unaccountable with no hell to shun and make up your own set of values as you go along. Christians are to stand up and be counted and not be ashamed of the faith, nor of sharing it. They are to defend the Christian worldview and fight the secularization of society, forcing God out of our courtrooms and being politically correct, which is wrong--you want to be correct if it differs.

Daniel was forced to make his faith known when they prohibited him from praying. He neither flaunted his faith, nor privatized it, but demonstrated that he would not be hindered in the free exercise of his religion. The government, likewise, can make no law abridging the free exercise of religion, as well as establish a religion by force. Today they say: As long as your religion is private and doesn't bother anyone else, it's okay! However, we are a nation founded upon the Judaeo-Christian worldview and we stray from it at our peril. This interpretation and framework of thinking is not failing, nor has it failed; believers are abandoning it because they actually are convinced their faith cannot be defended on the open marketplace of ideas. When Christianity is no longer welcome in the public square it is time to take a stand and not lose our worldview by default or negligence, conceding it away without a fight--we are to fight the good fight and contend for the faith!

Au contraire! There is plenty of evidence to make our worldview believable and relative. There is plenty of evidence for those who have the will to believe--God can make a believer out of any skeptic if he is willing to do God's will (cf. John 7:17). No one can say there wasn't any evidence, because people reject Christ out of the hardness of their hearts, not because they are wise (cf. Psalm 14:1).


We are in the world, but not of it (cf. John 15:19), but this doesn't mean we are to love the world or its system--we are to be lights and salt to the lost. We, who see the light, are to share our vision with a lost world and stand up and be counted for Jesus, showing our Christian colors. Today it seems like the resurgent atheists are the militant ones out to convert the prospects to their way of thinking! We are to let our "lights so shine before men, that they may see our good works and glorify [our] Father who is in heaven" (cf. Matt. 5:16). In the final analysis, the philosophy of leftism says religion is unobjectionable as long as it is "privatized." What they really mean is that you make no effort to propagate your faith and spread the good news of Jesus and just keep your faith to yourself. There comes a time to act in protest and civil disobedience and to defy the law that prohibits any free exercise of our faith or establishes some other faith by decree or mandate. Soli Deo Gloria!

What Is Truth?

"Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth" (2 Timothy 2:25, NIV, emphasis mine).

"[A]nd you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32, ESV, emphasis mine).

"... For this purpose I was born and for this purpose, I have come into the world--to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice" (John 18:37, ESV, emphasis mine).

"Pilate said to him, 'What is truth?'" (John 18:38, ESV).

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge..." (Proverbs 1:7, ESV).

"Without the way, there is no going; without the truth there is no knowing; without the life, there is no living." (Thomas a Kempis (Thomas von Kempen in German) medieval author of the classic Imitation of Christ, emphasis mine)

This is the famous question of the notorious, weak-willed, wishy-washy Pontius Pilate addressed to Jesus during one of his so-called trials. Of course, he wasn't interested in waiting around for an answer, but only in being cynical. To him Rome was truth, there was no universal truth that applied everywhere except Rome's truth, because "might made right." To him, there were just too many religions for one to have the gall or audacity to claim exclusivity. He is the example that the Bible defines non-Christians as those "who reject the truth" (cf. Romans 2:8).

But truth is knowable because Jesus claimed to be truth incarnate ("I am the truth"). It isn't all propositional, but something we can have a relationship with and get to know personally. There are statements that are true or false, and there are relationships between them that are either valid or invalid, according to Aristotelian logic. When you make conclusions, you've assumed something beforehand! Conclusions are only as valid as their premise or presuppositions. Logic just defines the relationships between statements or propositions assumed as true. 

The point is that no matter what conclusion you reach or what you claim to know, you have started somewhere with some proposition that you cannot prove. "Faith precedes reason" is the formula. This means all knowledge begins with faith and assuming something you cannot prove, according to Augustine and all truth is God's truth. And Aquinas added that all truth meets at the top. What this also means is that God is the God of truth and "no lie is of the truth"--Satan is the author of deceit and father of lies, and there is no truth in him.

The problem with evil is that it isn't the opposite of good, but infection and distortion of it. There is an element of truth (this is what makes it so enticing and alluring) and this element is in every false religion and cult--that's why they are so dangerous and appealing to people in need or with a vacuum to fill in their desperate lives. New Age people would say that if it feels good it is truth for you. And Postmodernists (and the only truths that are really relative are those relating to Christianity) and Postmodernism would say that it might be true for you, though not for someone else and that all truth is relative (relative to what?). For them the "truth is a "short-term contract." "

You can know nothing for certain," they say. And they are certain! Pragmatists, on the other hand, may posit: "It may work for you, but not for me (confusing something that works as something that's true)." They sincerely believe you cannot know whether something is true, but only whether it works and this is the true test of an idea. New Age thinkers go beyond that in urging you to listen to the "God within." We do have a right to our own opinions, but not our own truths. We must not fabricate our own truth! Being opinionated is no compliment if not based on truth.

When we stray from "absolute truth" and God as its source, all things are permissible according to Dostoevsky. Would anyone argue that rape or incest isn't wrong under all circumstances, at all times, and for all people [unless you are forced to do it]? They're never right! That's because it is an example of absolute truth that exists and we don't argue about it, but accept it as a universal standard, just as much as a mathematical table. We all have a sense of right and wrong, or sense of "ought" and things like fair play, good faith, truthfulness, sportsmanship, integrity, altruism, courage, honor, duty, and unselfishness. This is a sense and a sense implies a person or personality, not a thing; which implies a "Higher Mind and/or Sense" or God behind the cosmos that keeps things going so orderly.

We all appeal to an ultimate standard of behavior all the time, even when someone buds in line, steals a parking spot, or cheats at golf. Life would be chaos without some standard of decency to expose lewdness and without principles to live by. We don't just make up our own rules as we go along and we don't live and do according to what is right in our own eyes. Even in prison, convicts have a "code" and a conscience that if you steal their cigarettes you will pay dearly. Man is a "moral" creature in that he has an inner sense of right and wrong, even if he ignores it at his peril.

"Absolute truth" is true everywhere and all the time and applies to everyone. Objective truth is true regardless of whether we believe it or not. There is absolute, universal truth, but there is no absolute, universal belief. There is no belief that is regarded as true by everyone, and just because we don't believe something doesn't make it untrue. What people erroneously do is think that belief and truth are identical. And they are right in saying there is nothing that everyone universally believes in the way of religion, for instance, but principles of right and wrong apply to everyone. There is an invisible moral code we all appeal to and it is just as real as the laws of logic or a musical scale or math table.

In a court of law, your opinions don't matter as evidence, except as expert testimony if you are one; however, people will believe what they choose to believe and will always have prejudicial and irrational opinions. By and large, it only matters what is truth, not what is an opinion. It's just like in the TV show Dragnet, when Sgt. Friday said, "Just gimme the facts, ma'am!"

Truth is defined by God (it's "true truth," according to Francis Schaeffer), and this truth is what God says it is because He is the God of truth--i.e., "the only true God" (cf. John 17:2). Things we believe may be true, but God's Word is truth and the difference is that truth doesn't just inform or reform, but transforms and sanctifies (cf. John 17:17). It is so true despite the fact that "they exchanged the truth of God for a lie" (cf. Romans 1:25, ESV). As Paul Little has said, "Believing something doesn't make it true; refusing to believe it doesn't make it false." Don't equate belief with truth! The Bible is objectively true; true regardless of who says what or who told us! It is self-attesting, appealing to no one or nothing for verification of its truth but itself as the highest authority. Only Scripture can objectively be called "truth," since total objectivity doesn't exist--except with God!

In the final analysis, truth is what God decrees as truth--you cannot dispute God! (it has been wisely said). And truth is what conforms to God's divine nature and is immutable, not subject to our criticism or scrutiny--it is often too profound for us to fathom ("Canst thou by searching find out God?" Job is asked). You cannot label it, put it in a box, confine it, nor define it because it is infinite and the "finite cannot grasp the infinite" according to the Greek maxim of antiquity. Soli Deo Gloria!

Transcendent Truth...

"If we are not governed by God, we will be ruled by tyrants." (William Penn)

NB: TRANSCENDENT TRUTH IS ABSOLUTE AND OBJECTIVE, NOT DEPENDING UPON OPINION OR POPULARITY, TRUE WHETHER BELIEVED OR NOT.


Morality is based upon transcendent truth and is not subject to debate.--it's not based on private opinion or feelings, but on God's inner law that we all have in our conscience. God's truth is objective truth and is true regardless of whether believed or not! All the foundations of society come apart by destroying the basis of truth based upon the facts, whether they like them or not, and whether they support their worldview and opinions or not. In denying truth, like Oliver Wendel Holmes did, "law is the majority vote that can lick all others--[how bleak an outlook!]."

Christians believe in a supreme entity of truth that is personified or incarnated in Christ as its exemplar. All we need to know is in Him and revealed by knowing Him. Every academic discipline is fulfilled in Him. Some things are true, but not truth; all truth meets at the top and is God's truth, which has the almighty power to transform, not just inform. In our day politics is leaning toward pragmatism, in which belief system truth is irrelevant and is not the test of an idea--whether it works is the litmus test (known as pragmatism)! Does it work for you? New Age believers think truth is whatever they "feel" is right for them. Postmodernism denies any Truth with a capital T and sees it all as relevant--that may be true for you, but not for me!

Is is any wonder that the governmental spin disregards truth and that it's absolute? Now we have to deal the post-factual world and the alternative fact, which is something related to an opinion, not substantiated--unfounded allegations and truth claims. When you destroy the validity of truth, as Pilate cynically asked Jesus: "What is truth?" you destroy the very foundation of all knowledge. We have nothing to have agreement on and cannot even compromise because we cannot agree as to what the facts are and how to arrive at truth.

Science is only one way to ascertain truth, divine revelation is another; for the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge. It is fallacious to believe that only religious people have taken a leap of faith; all worldviews start with some assertion they cannot prove--even nihilists have faith and scientists believe irrationally in science and have made a religion out of it. Faith in science is still faith--it's not a matter of faith versus reason, then, but faith in which set of presuppositions you wish to make your starting point and an axis of learning or foundation.

It is a sad commentary on our culture that truth is being filtered and downgraded to such ideas as "fake news." If the facts don't fit their opinions they automatically reject them as fake news. We don't accept or reject evidence according to whim or our worldview but make our opinions up according to the facts. Some facts may seem like a hard pill to swallow, but we must align our faith and worldview according to reality, and not a parallel universe in a fact-free bubble or reality.

Journalists must keep each other honest and seek the truth behind the story--just the facts without putting a spin on it like an administration does for damage control. The truth will eventually be known so why not be on the side of the truth? You can fool some of the people some of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time, they say!

There are two kinds of law: natural law or God's law (according to His nature) and legal positivism (that which the powers that be make up as they go along and force on the masses). Just because some power elites decide to make a law and enforce it doesn't make it right in God's eyes. Some laws are unjust and Christians ought to oppose them with civil disobedience because they violate transcendent law from God, which we all know in our conscience.

The ancient Greeks sought for truth, beauty, and goodness. You can make any truth claim you desire; however, it must be substantiated to be true. Many conclusions are possible from truth claims and conclusions are not true or false, but valid or invalid, depending upon the line of reasoning and the premise or foundation facts. Truth is not elusive, but God-given and we can personally know it by virtue of an encounter with the living God, via believing in Jesus and enjoying that relationship.
Since Jesus claimed to be "the Way," He is the gateway and starting point in our pilgrimage seeking truth--it all begins by knowing Him!
Soli Deo Gloria!

The Closing Of The American MInd...

"The wicked are too proud to seek God. They seem to think that God is dead" (Ps. 10:4, NLT).


Allan Bloom wrote a book by the same title, decrying the fact that profs nowadays teach that truth is relative--this is a completely useless proposition and has no truth value: relative to what or to whom? Is that premise only relative? Postmodernism arose out of the aftermath of modernism when scholars thought science had all the answers, now they are part of the problem (WMD), among other things--scientists have problems too!


Postmodernism is then a skeptical mood that has an anti-worldview worldview! They see no metanarrative (having a disdain for them), as they refer to it as--they have a hermeneutic of suspicion. They are doubtful as to whether any universal/absolute truth exists, and, if it does, whether we can know it: nothing exists; if it does, we can not know it; if we can know it, we cannot communicate it; if we can communicate it, we cannot understand it (according to David Noebel's estimation). I've heard that one prof told freshmen that they can know nothing for certain; one student asked if he was sure; he was certain! Student beware of this new governing epistemology that is highly irrational and anti-intellectual, as I shall expound.


The reason they deny worldviews is because they deny we can see anything from God's point of view or viewpoint, and they are suspicious of God too. They deny objectivity or a God's-eye view. If there is no God, it follows that truth is also up for grabs! But they dodge the no-truth bullet and see truth as a short-term contract. There is, therefore, no reliable truth and no one can judge your truth or what you believe--your claims have no power over another. It is possible that we refer to truth because it exists? You may have heard the common claim that someone says: that may be true for you, but not for me; they are confusing something: it may work for you and what works isn't necessarily true, though what's true does work!


To Postmodernists there is no Truth with a capital T, while Jesus claimed to be the personification or embodiment of absolute truth: "I am the Truth!" But these skeptics don't want to let a Divine Foot in the door, because then they would have to admit to absolute truth; they go hand in hand! Truth not only exists but God has made a revelation of it and we can know it; we have only rebelled from it! Shirley Maclaine said "you aren't in a position to know what's true for another." But Postmodernism patron saint is Friedrich Nietzsche, who said that God is dead! But God refuses to die and is alive today while Nietzsche is dead. What he meant in saying God is dead is that they have killed Him and that He was no longer necessary to explain reality or even no longer relative!


We see Postmodernism in SCOTUS as they see the U.S. Constitution as a living document open to be interpreted by today's understanding and not what the framers intended. Therefore it may have multiple meanings and changes in meaning to suit the times (polysemy). Just like a Shakespearean play may imply something different that he never intended when performed today. Confucius said, "When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom." Truth is not open to many interpretations and is absolute and universal, not variable and personal.



All knowledge begins in faith, it's been postulated, and Augustine said that he believes in order to understand: faith precedes reason and all knowledge is based on some premise he cannot prove and must accept by faith. All absolute truth begins with God as premise and starting point of reference just like Proverbs 1:7, says, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge...." If we deny God, we have no basis of knowing anything metaphysical for certain. There are only four ways to know something: faith, revelation, reason, experience or observation!


We all have to start believing something we cannot prove, even in mathematics and science! We never could've known for sure of God's existence had He not taken the initiative and revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ, who entered history and changed it in the process. Socrates said that to gain knowledge, we must admit our ignorance! You will never find the truth unless you're willing to admit you could be wrong and are willing to go where the evidence leads, having an open mind.


This explains why we have modern skeptics like Pontius Pilate, who asked what truth was because people assume they know it all and aren't willing to go where it may lead. Truth conflicts with their principles and ethics or morality, not intellect; no truth equals no virtue, according to Socrates! Postmodernism is a sign of moral rebellion and of stubborn hearts who conveniently deny any Supreme Being declaring Truth with a capital T, that they have to submit to and obey and be accountable to!


There is danger and threat from within the church as some theologians and pastors become taken in by this philosophy and don't think we have "arrived at the truth of the gospel" yet, but everything is still up for grabs and personal interpretation. The church has taken hundreds of years to arrive at its doctrines, and we are to profit from this, not start over each generation, as if it's all up for grabs all over again--deja vu! This is the ultimate result and consequence when man leaves God out of the reckoning or the equation of reason!


In sum, per David Noebel, Postmodernism is theologically atheist, philosophically skeptical, ethically relative, biologically evolutionist, psychologically materialist, politically leftist, and legally pragmatic. This is why it's the primary threat to Christianity and absolute, universal truth as we know it and has been revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ's person.


["They traded the truth of God for a lie" (Romans 1:25, NLT). "...because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them" (2 Thessalonians 1:10, NLT). Unbelievers are those who reject the truth, according to Romans 2:8!] Raise the war cry: there's a Truth War that we cannot afford to lose by default; we must not make any concessions to evil. Soli Deo Gloria!

All Truth Is God's Truth...

NB: WHERE YOU BEGIN VIRTUALLY DETERMINES WHERE YOU'LL END UP.

But the truth that Postmodernists just want to maintain is that the truths of Christianity are only relative or that some things may work for them and therefore be true for them (someone's truth has no power over you and you cannot judge another person's truth). They claim that one person's truth doesn't matter to another and their truth has validity for them. Like they say in the catchphrase: "That may be true for you, but not for me!" People often confuse what's true and truth: facts may be true and we speak the truth when we don't lie, but no one can "know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," like they demand in court, except God. Scripture is the fulfillment and revelation of truth and is the only source of divine truth and can be called "Truth." We can know the truth, Jesus is proof! Jesus said that he who is of the truth will listen to Him (cf. John 18:37), and He came to bear witness to the truth (ibid.). Pilate spoke like a typical Postmodernist and asked, "What is truth?" (v. 38), only not waiting for an answer--is it opinion or feeling?

To Rome, "might made right," (the Iron Rule); there was no universal truth. This refers to objective truth, meaning it's true regardless of doubt or affirmation, and no matter who says it or believes it, regardless of culture, context, or time. Postmodernists deny any possibility of knowing this kind of truth in their "hermeneutic of suspicion." They even go on to say that even if it did exist, we wouldn't communicate it adequately and understand it for sure. Don't confuse truth with "scientific fact" and "justified belief" or knowledge: e.g., that the earth was flat or the sun revolved around the earth, was justifiably believed in the past!

Augustine declared: "All truth is God's truth," Thomas Aquinas added, "All truth meets at the top!" Christians are, above all else, seekers of the truth (cf. 2 Thess. 2:10) and have experienced the truth to set them free (cf. John 8:32). We are responsible for the truth that God gives us and "speaking the truth in love" to another (cf. Eph 4:15, NIV), that means we are sensitive in its appropriateness, tactfulness, application, and timeliness. Wherever we encounter truth, it's because God ordained it as being the source of all truth, God Himself--whether in pure science (and this discipline could've only arisen due to the Christian worldview and the first scientists were Christians!) or in applied sciences, such as political science (just governance), sociology (society and groups), psychology (what makes us human? the study of behavior), biology (what is life?), law (what is just law?), ethics (how do we then live?), economics (who do we produce the most?), philosophy (how do we know something?), theology ("queen of sciences"--studying and knowing God), or history (recording the past using research and evidence). We all have a point of view that reflects on our interpretation of reality--not believing in God or that "God is dead" [or irrelevant and unbelievable], as Nietzsche proclaimed, is equated with there being no absolute truth as a consequence.

If we don't believe absolute truth exists, then we will not believe in a God of Truth with a capital T. There is absolute truth because Jesus came to bear witness of it and is the incarnation or personification of it. But there is no absolute belief! If they insist truth is relative, ask relative to what? We don't all agree as to our interpretations of the truth or the facts. And we have a right to our own opinions, but not to fabricate our own truths or make up so-called "alternative facts." Truth can be defined as what corresponds to reality and this is called the Correspondence Theory of Truth, but Postmodernists deny this and that we can even know an objective truth valid for everyone and all the time. They are, therefore, atheists by consequence, because, if there is no universal truth, there can be no God--at least there's no God's eye view of it or metanarrative (grand story of reality). Truth to them is what works for them or suits their fancy. In pragmatism, the test of an idea is not whether it's true, but whether it works--the results! Things that aren't true can work!

We must realize that all knowledge is contingent and it takes a leap of faith to know anything. And exists something besides matter/energy in the cosmos--intelligence! Scientists are people of faith as much as Christians; they have just accepted a different set of presuppositions to put their faith in. Scientists and science have been wrong before, and are not infallible nor inerrant--but limited. But with God there is nothing contingent; He knows all from the most trivial to the most profound and He chooses not to reveal everything to us, but to remain a God of mystery. Just like the first words of Scripture in Gen. 1:1 ("In the beginning God"), we must begin with God to know anything for sure and explain everything from there (just as Prov. 1:7 (NKJV) says, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge...").

He knows what lies in the future as well as the past, because everything is present with God, and He also knows all possibilities (past, present, and future), or anything that makes sense at all. Christianity is the only faith based on truth. Our faith is revealed because we could know nothing apart from revelation. This is the God we represent and we are to be dedicated to searching for and knowing the truth.

Christians have nothing to fear from the truth because we serve the God of Truth and in Him is no lie, for He cannot lie. Our faith is based on facts, not fable, fiction, myth, legend, or tall tale--but sound historically accurate narrative of eye-witnesses telling the truth with corroboration, and without collusion, and the veracity of their accounts is evidenced by their willingness to die for them, when they were in a position to know if it was the truth or a lie. Many will die for a lie, but they won't die for a known lie. NB: "THE ONLY SYSTEM OF THOUGHT THAT CHRIST WILL FIT INTO IS THE ONE WHERE HE IS THE STARTING POINT." --ATHANASIUS 

In Defense Of Truth...

"Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne." (James Russell Lowell, 1844, The Present Crisis)

By definition, truth is that which corresponds with reality (The correspondence theory of truth articulated by John Locke), or more directly AND BIBLICALLY that which God decrees or is concordant with Him.

"I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth" (1 John 2:21, NIV).

"All truth is God's truth." (Augustine) and "All truth meets at the top."(cf. Aquinas). 

"THEY REFUSE TO  STAND UP FOR THE TRUTH." (CF. JER. 9:3). 

There comes a time in our testimony that we must stand up for the truth and be counted as a test of our faithfulness. Jesus is the epitome of truth and all truth is God's truth, Jesus revealed Himself as its ultimate source. The trouble with truth is that no one person has a monopoly on it and we all need each other to arrive at truth per se (not abstract, but personified in Christ)--no one's cornered the market. What's wrong with cults is that they have just enough truth to be dangerous; they have an element of truth and inoculate people from the real thing, because of having error mixed with the truth so as to deceive. There's no such thing as pure evil--it's just a perversion or distortion of truth and good.

People go by what rings true for them personally for basically four reasons: it's true because it's believable or they believe it; it's true because their fellowship or group believes it; it's true because they want to believe it, and it's true because they have a vested interest in it. This is due to our bias and everyone has a bias; there's no such thing as perfect objectivity outside God. We all need to examine our motives and check facts because our faith is fact-based and our God is fact-based.

We must not dodge the "no-truth-premise" by insisting truth is only relative either. This is a "self-refuting statement" and cannot possibly be true or it contradicts itself--is that statement relative too? To the Postmodern, truth is but a "short-term contract." But Christians are hungry for the truth and love the truth; it's the rejection and hatred of truth that marks the unbeliever (cf. Rom. 2:8; 2 Thess. 2:10). One sure sign of a believer is his devotion to truth. Remember, Jesus promised the truth will set us free from this confusion (cf. John 8:32). There is Truth with a capital T! Truth, according to the Bible, is absolute, universal, and objective, meaning it applies to all, all the time, everywhere, and is true regardless of whether believed or not!

It is said that we cannot know the truth, and this would be true had not Jesus revealed it, the trouble is not in knowing truth, but that we have rebelled from it and are seeking rationalization to justify ourselves. Differing worldviews all posit certain "truths" and make truth claims that only their truths are true--they are all unified that Christianity is a lie. "No lie is of the truth," according to 1 John 2:21. However, there is a reliable truth that we all can put faith in.

The catchphrase that something "may be true for you but not me" is also fallacious. Some people refuse to accept truth in essence because they think it gives others power over them, and they claim no one's in a position to know what's true for them. People claim that our Christian claims are irrelevant, but God's truth marches on and is vindicated. Why do they all despise our truth? We all act like there's truth because there is truth! All Christians ought to devote themselves to the pursuit of truth with a passion. We all ought to be known as lie detectors and purveyors of truth!

As Christians, we are ambassadors for truth because we belong to the truth" (cf. 1 John 3:19) for Christ came to bear witness of the truth, and grace and truth came through Him, being full of grace and truth (cf. John 1:7), and all who hear Him are of the truth. And the church is known as the "pillar and ground of truth (cf. 1 Tim. 3:15). When they insist that it's merely our interpretation, we insist that truth is absolute and universal and can be communicated. Zechariah 8:19 exhorts us: "... Therefore love truth and peace.'" Soli Deo Gloria!

Take Your Stand!...

NB:  Satan plays mind games and uses psychological warfare and mind-bending drugs are his favorite way to entice the innocent even through legitimate means of psychiatrists. But according to Eph. 6: "We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens."

Sometimes we may think the pastor has gone off the deep end, gone nuts, or seem crazy to use inflammatory words. This is a judgment call and, if he is, he may be under divine discipline if he is depressed (this is just a deduction)--just like what happened to Nebuchadnezzar when he went mad.

The Spirit of Truth resides in all believers but no one has a monopoly on the truth and anyone can make an error of judgment, especially if he is spiritually in authority. The fear of God is to hate evil and heresy is evil. I have found out from experience that God even loves crazy people, so we are not to be judgmental and think they are beyond hope.

"The fear of man brings a snare," declares Prov. 29:25. We should not be too timid to challenge the teaching in question. We don't want to choose the path of popularity or be a people-pleaser but seek God's approbation. This is not necessarily a bad thing but may be an opportunity: Seize the day! Luther referred to an "Anfectung" which is German for "attack" and, if we don't end up fighting Satan on his turf, it is because we are on the same side. His chief tactic is to divide and conquer and he uses brethren who sow discord (God hates this according to Prov. 6). If we have on our weapons gave us for angelic warfare, then we can take our stand ("take your stand" and "stand your ground" are from Eph. 6:13).

What if the pastor is teaching heresy or evil such as astrology and he has such power of his flock that they swallow it hook, line, and sinker? Do not compromise with evil and guard your teachings according to the Bible taking your stand. This is not just a matter of disagreeing, but whether you will tolerate evil in the church--the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Do you want to please God or men? I know that sounds like a lot to ask but I believe there is a price to pay in standing for the truth. I would not want to share a pulpit with someone who is teaching evil. What does evil have in common with good? It seems like this is a way of being unequally yoked. Sometimes we have to let the chips fall where they may.

"If God is for us, who can be against us?" Remember, that the pastor is not your enemy because you disagree with him, but Satan is just using him and because you are invading his turf--the battle has just begun, but "the battle is the Lord's." I have been known to confront visiting preachers in my church and to let my pastor know where I stand but we agree to disagree. In the end, the truth will win out and sometimes the truth hurts; however, trust in it despite this. Where are the teachers of moral fiber who take their stands? In sum, sometimes we are our own worst enemy and we must heed the counsel of Scripture.  Soli Deo Gloria!