General Session 2: Triumph Through Principle - Mike Riccardi
00:00:00.000 | Well, in John chapter 18, the ruler and the judge of all the earth was standing trial
00:00:11.760 | for his life.
00:00:14.380 | Pontius Pilate was questioning Jesus about why the Jews would want to put him to death.
00:00:21.080 | In verse 37 of John chapter 18, Pilate asked Jesus, "Did you really consider yourself a
00:00:28.840 | king?
00:00:29.840 | Are you sure that you're a king?"
00:00:30.840 | And Jesus responds with this remarkable declaration, "You say correctly that I am a king.
00:00:39.520 | For this I have been born and for this I have come into the world to testify to the truth.
00:00:47.960 | Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice."
00:00:54.160 | Pilate heard Jesus' emphasis on the truth and he responded with a question.
00:00:59.360 | Maybe he was asking rhetorically or dismissively, but certainly incredulously, John 18, 38.
00:01:06.600 | What is truth?
00:01:11.420 | May not be an exaggeration to say that no one has ever asked a more fundamental question
00:01:17.200 | than that.
00:01:19.400 | What is truth?
00:01:21.920 | In every era of human history, people have wrestled with the nature of the truth, and
00:01:28.440 | rightly so, necessarily so.
00:01:31.960 | The truth speaks not merely of that which is true, but of the standard itself by which
00:01:39.540 | all truth claims are measured.
00:01:44.080 | Concept of truth is absolutely foundational to the concept of knowledge itself.
00:01:49.280 | What we know, as well as how we know what we know, depends on our understanding of the
00:01:55.400 | nature of the truth.
00:01:58.520 | The truth is what distinguishes the genuine from the counterfeit.
00:02:02.720 | Is this a true $100 bill or is it fake?
00:02:07.240 | It's what separates fact from fiction.
00:02:09.480 | Is this a true story or is it just a myth?
00:02:14.360 | It's what separates reality from fantasy.
00:02:17.160 | Is this truly happening or am I dreaming?
00:02:21.720 | It even separates the moral from the immoral.
00:02:24.600 | Is this the truth or is it a lie?
00:02:29.400 | In Pastor John's book, "The Truth War," he writes on the first page, "Every idea we have,
00:02:35.640 | every relationship we cultivate, every belief we cherish, every fact we know, every argument
00:02:41.840 | we make, every conversation we engage in, and every thought we think presupposes that
00:02:47.880 | there is such a thing as truth."
00:02:50.960 | The idea is an essential concept without which the human mind couldn't function.
00:02:57.480 | And yet, as fundamental as the truth is to every aspect of human thought, there has been
00:03:04.000 | historically and there is today widespread confusion regarding the very notion of truth
00:03:10.520 | itself.
00:03:12.480 | Three different approaches to the concept of truth characterize the three broad epics
00:03:17.920 | of history.
00:03:19.680 | In the era of premodernism, which spans from the beginning of civilization through the
00:03:24.360 | mid-17th century, it was generally accepted that truth could be known and that any truth
00:03:29.600 | that was known was given by divine revelation.
00:03:33.840 | Whether the true God of the Bible or any combination of false deities from the pantheons of the
00:03:40.000 | pagans, premodern peoples believed that only a being with knowledge that transcended human
00:03:46.500 | limitations could reliably reveal objective truth to mankind.
00:03:53.440 | The era of modernism, which runs from around 1685 to 1989, was spawned by the so-called
00:04:01.340 | Enlightenment of the 16th and 17th centuries.
00:04:05.320 | There were great strides being made in scientific discovery and man's understanding of the natural
00:04:11.200 | world and the result was that mankind became overly impressed with his own intellect.
00:04:18.700 | Philosophical advances caused thinkers to become skeptical of religious claims, skeptical
00:04:24.200 | of the reliability of the Scriptures, skeptical even of the very existence of God.
00:04:31.400 | Reason replaced religion and philosophical rationalism demanded the rejection of claims
00:04:37.460 | that couldn't be squared with the reasoning of modernity.
00:04:41.920 | The test of truth became whether it was rational, whether it made sense, which is a good canon
00:04:47.600 | as far as it goes.
00:04:50.020 | Problem is, when it's divorced from the Bible and when it's subjected to the natural fallen
00:04:54.740 | human mind, it leaves no room for the supernatural claims of the Gospels.
00:05:00.020 | A virgin-born, miracle-working, prophecy-fulfilling Savior who bore the sins of His people and
00:05:05.860 | the wrath of His God by His death and rose bodily on the third day simply could not surmount
00:05:12.520 | the bar of naturalist rationalism.
00:05:16.960 | Then into the 19th century, further scientific advancements along with the Industrial Revolution
00:05:22.660 | gave birth to positivism, which was a form of empiricism that held truth could be known
00:05:28.080 | through the scientific method.
00:05:29.400 | If we design well-run experiments and if we make the proper observations and inferences
00:05:34.880 | on the basis of the data, we can know what's true.
00:05:40.240 | In short, modernism held that man was able to discern truth for himself through what
00:05:44.840 | he could observe with his senses and what he could understand by his reasoning.
00:05:51.740 | But the 19th century seemingly unbounded optimism in mankind's limitless potential was followed
00:05:58.720 | by the bloodiest century in the history of the world, two world wars, the consistent
00:06:04.780 | threat of nuclear destruction, the emergence of several dictators throughout the world.
00:06:10.060 | That all provided a more realistic view of human nature.
00:06:14.880 | All the philosophical and scientific advancements of the Enlightenment, all of the innovation
00:06:20.120 | of the Industrial Revolution only led to devastation and suffering.
00:06:26.400 | And with the fall of the Soviet Union, typified by the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in
00:06:31.240 | November 1989, the modernist era gave way to what has been called postmodernism.
00:06:38.280 | Premodernism held truth could be known by divine revelation.
00:06:41.860 | Modernism held that truth could be known by the rigorous testing of the natural world
00:06:45.320 | and making rational deductions.
00:06:47.200 | But postmodernism is doubtful that absolute truth can be known at all.
00:06:54.100 | Some versions of postmodern thought allow for the existence of objective truth but they
00:06:58.700 | rather dogmatically reject the notion that human beings can arrive at such truth with
00:07:04.480 | any certainty.
00:07:06.280 | They're quite certain that no one can be certain of anything.
00:07:11.000 | Sure, there may be truth out there somewhere but it's far beyond our ability to comprehend.
00:07:17.800 | But then there's another stripe of postmodernism that's becoming increasingly popular which
00:07:23.360 | asserts again rather certainly that absolute truth does not exist at all and all truth
00:07:29.520 | claims basically boil down to mere opinions.
00:07:34.680 | And in these days of critical theory and cultural Marxism, it's become popular to say that those
00:07:41.760 | claiming to speak truth are just persons from privileged groups aiming to impose their opinions
00:07:48.640 | and preferences upon marginalized groups so that the privileged oppressor classes can
00:07:53.720 | preserve their own power and influence over the oppressed.
00:07:59.480 | When you look at the world today, it doesn't seem that truth is triumphing.
00:08:07.960 | Illustrations of the postmodern rejection of truth are ever present.
00:08:11.880 | A couple of years ago, a conservative apologetics ministry produced a video series called Road
00:08:17.360 | Trip to Truth and they traveled to local university campuses and interviewed college students
00:08:23.320 | about their views on truth and morality and authority.
00:08:27.620 | And then they invited Christian professors and theologians to offer biblical responses
00:08:32.100 | to the students' claims.
00:08:34.840 | And though they asked these students questions on a variety of topics, there was one question
00:08:38.360 | they always asked everyone, whether they believed that absolute objective truth exists.
00:08:45.760 | And almost every one of them said no.
00:08:49.520 | You may have your truth, but I have my truth.
00:08:53.280 | And if my truth contradicts your truth, how could either of us be so arrogant and oppressive
00:08:58.800 | as to claim that one of us must subject our truth to the other person's truth?
00:09:05.160 | One young man who was interviewed even said, "Anything can be true, even a lie, if enough
00:09:12.360 | people believe in it."
00:09:15.360 | Now that is not consistent with reality, but it is consistent with postmodernism's rejection
00:09:21.200 | of absolute truth, which is to say postmodernism is not consistent with reality.
00:09:26.800 | You see, if there is no objective standard by which we can measure truth claims, both
00:09:31.280 | morality and reality descend into pure subjectivism, and the result is absurdity.
00:09:40.040 | For example, if we can't say that there is an objective standard by which to judge an
00:09:44.600 | action to be truly good or evil, then morality itself is denigrated into nothing more than
00:09:51.600 | competing personal preferences.
00:09:54.000 | It's popular today for people to say that morality is subjective, that it's socially
00:09:58.960 | constructed.
00:10:00.240 | Certain societies sort of socially contract an agreement upon certain things that are
00:10:04.200 | virtues and others that are vices.
00:10:06.560 | But what falls into what category differs from culture to culture and across time.
00:10:12.960 | But if that were true, if morality were subjective and socially constructed, by what consistent
00:10:19.920 | standard could we condemn the evils of chattel slavery, or of the Holocaust, or of race-based
00:10:29.460 | segregation laws?
00:10:32.520 | Were not the societies of antebellum America, Nazi Germany, and the Jim Crow South living
00:10:39.080 | their truth?
00:10:42.380 | If truth were nothing other than a social contract where certain values, we people just
00:10:46.880 | decide that certain values are right and others are wrong, who are we to tell the Nazis their
00:10:52.480 | culture was wrong?
00:10:55.980 | Wouldn't that just be us arrogantly trying to force our own worldview and moral standards
00:10:59.640 | upon others?
00:11:01.600 | If there were no such thing as absolute truth, we couldn't consistently say, "It is absolutely
00:11:06.960 | true that it is always wrong to kidnap people and enslave them as if they were property."
00:11:14.680 | The most a consistent post-modernist could say is, "I find race-based chattel slavery
00:11:20.100 | to be unpleasant, and I don't think it should be allowed.
00:11:23.600 | But I can't say that it's always wrong in all cultures.
00:11:26.720 | It could be morally right if enough people agree that it is."
00:11:29.800 | And those students in that video series on those campuses said that very thing.
00:11:34.120 | Well, I guess the Nazis' culture agreed on it.
00:11:38.360 | No clear-thinking person would ever dream of saying anything like that.
00:11:42.280 | It is absolutely true that slavery, the Holocaust, segregation were moral evils in every society
00:11:49.280 | no matter what the majority agreed upon.
00:11:52.880 | But you see, when a consistent application of your worldview prohibits you from denouncing
00:11:57.760 | such obvious wrongdoing as objectively evil, your worldview has been proven wrong.
00:12:05.640 | It can't account for reality.
00:12:09.920 | And that's where I'm going next.
00:12:10.920 | The post-modern theory of truth not only upends morality, but it undoes reality itself.
00:12:17.920 | Matters of fact are reduced to mere opinions.
00:12:19.960 | You know, sure, you believe the Bible, but I believe the Koran, or I believe the Talmud,
00:12:25.080 | or I believe the Bhagavad Gita.
00:12:27.920 | Well yes, I understand that we believe different things, but it doesn't matter what we believe,
00:12:33.420 | it matters whether what we believe is true.
00:12:37.560 | Well we can both be right.
00:12:40.400 | Well no, we can't both be right because we're making mutually exclusive truth claims.
00:12:46.480 | And if mutually exclusive truth claims can both be right, well then we would transgress
00:12:52.520 | a fundamental axiom of all rational thought, which is the law of non-contradiction.
00:12:58.520 | The law of non-contradiction states that a truth claim, call it A, and the negation of
00:13:02.800 | that truth claim, call it not A, can't both be true at the same time and in the same relationship.
00:13:09.240 | The law of non-contradiction is that A and not A cannot both be true at the same time
00:13:14.820 | and in the same relationship.
00:13:16.240 | And if that is not a sound principle of thought, we lose all rational basis for knowledge and
00:13:22.320 | nothing means anything.
00:13:25.960 | If you are listening to this sermon and you are not listening to this sermon can both
00:13:30.920 | be true at the same time and in the same sense, then there is no consistent logical basis
00:13:37.520 | for either statement.
00:13:40.400 | The statement, even a lie can be true.
00:13:43.280 | If that's true, then that statement can be a lie and there's no reason to believe it.
00:13:51.120 | Thought and communication are rendered impossible.
00:13:54.640 | The claim, "There is no absolute truth," is itself an absolute statement.
00:14:01.000 | There's as much rational basis for using words to say, "There's no such thing as words."
00:14:07.640 | Saying it proves that it's false.
00:14:12.280 | You should always ask somebody who claims there's no absolute truth if it's absolutely
00:14:15.520 | true that there's no absolute truth.
00:14:18.400 | Because you see, if it is absolutely true that there is no absolute truth, then there
00:14:23.140 | is absolute truth.
00:14:25.080 | And if it's not absolutely true that there is no absolute truth, then there is absolute
00:14:28.840 | truth.
00:14:29.840 | If the claim is true, it's false.
00:14:34.520 | Now of course, not everybody who makes these self-defeating arguments openly embraces the
00:14:39.200 | absurd conclusions that necessarily follow from them.
00:14:41.960 | The point is simply that when a consistent application of your worldview leads to the
00:14:47.320 | absurd denial of reality or to self-defeating and contradictory claims, it's a surefire
00:14:53.540 | indication that your worldview has failed.
00:14:58.920 | And that is where our society lives right now.
00:15:03.340 | The choice has always been the God of the Bible or absurdity.
00:15:10.800 | And our culture has long ago rejected the triune God of the Bible and they are coming
00:15:15.720 | down now to the end of the slide of absurdity.
00:15:20.760 | The consistent outworking of that rejection of God was the choice of the absurd, of self-contradiction,
00:15:27.800 | of fantastical denial of reality.
00:15:31.880 | And at the present time, there's no greater popular level illustration of post-modernism's
00:15:35.720 | descent into absurdity than the transgender movement.
00:15:40.180 | There is no more brazen denial of reality than to suggest that a man can be a woman
00:15:45.680 | if he feels like it.
00:15:48.800 | Not long ago, the notion of a pregnant man was a comedic fantasy.
00:15:54.320 | Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger made a movie about it in 1994.
00:15:57.600 | It was called Juniors.
00:15:58.960 | Schwarzenegger gets pregnant.
00:16:00.600 | Everybody understands it's a joke, right?
00:16:03.000 | It's make-believe.
00:16:04.000 | It's like Santa Claus.
00:16:05.000 | Today, 30 years later, that's it, 30 years later, if you deny that men can get pregnant,
00:16:11.260 | you're a transphobic bigot who should be banished from the public square, who should lose your
00:16:15.540 | job, who shouldn't be welcomed into polite society.
00:16:22.300 | When the newest Supreme Court Justice, Kintagi Brown Jackson, was being interviewed for the
00:16:27.100 | position by Congress, she was asked whether she could give a definition of the term "woman."
00:16:31.060 | She said she couldn't because she wasn't a biologist.
00:16:36.620 | What is that but the consistent application of a denial of the absolute truths of basic
00:16:41.780 | biology?
00:16:42.780 | In fact, in a recent documentary called What is a Woman?, a conservative commentator interviews
00:16:49.140 | several people who've embraced transgender ideology seeking an answer to that very question.
00:16:54.300 | If you can be a woman, if you feel like it, what is a woman then?
00:17:00.020 | And during one interview with a gender studies professor, he says that, the interviewer says,
00:17:05.460 | he wants to get to "get to the truth."
00:17:10.900 | And the professor responds, "I'm really uncomfortable with that language.
00:17:16.900 | It sounds deeply transphobic to me."
00:17:21.140 | Then the professor threatens to stop the interview saying, "You keep invoking the word truth,
00:17:27.460 | which is condescending and rude."
00:17:31.580 | You see, truth is inimical to those who wish to embrace absurdity and deny reality.
00:17:39.960 | And they recognize it.
00:17:42.220 | You keep talking about truth and we're going to stop the interview.
00:17:45.880 | But it's not that truth is transphobic.
00:17:50.580 | It's that trans is truthphobic.
00:18:02.420 | I don't mean to be triumphalistic about that.
00:18:04.140 | I mean to take the mask off of the lies.
00:18:10.080 | Why is our society so eager to embrace transgenderism?
00:18:13.260 | You ever ask yourself that question?
00:18:16.460 | It's not as if there's a huge transgender constituency in the United States.
00:18:20.780 | The entire LGBTQ population in America is still estimated to be only a little over 7%.
00:18:28.060 | Why is the transgender cause part of the Democratic Party platform when it embraces only 1 to
00:18:34.540 | 2% of all Americans?
00:18:36.460 | See, our society is so eager to embrace transgenderism because it is so eager to deny the absolute
00:18:44.700 | truth and the objective standard of morality that are incompatible with transgenderism,
00:18:51.280 | that relegate transgenderism to the realm of the delusional and condemn it as immoral.
00:18:57.980 | And why would that be?
00:18:59.820 | Paul writes in Romans 1:18, "God's wrath is revealed from heaven against sinners who suppress
00:19:04.420 | the truth in unrighteousness."
00:19:06.940 | You see, the truth has been sufficiently revealed to mankind.
00:19:12.220 | Romans 1:19, "God has made it evident to them," and verse 20, "His attributes have been clearly
00:19:17.540 | seen through what's been made so that men are without excuse."
00:19:20.980 | And if they were to admit that there is an objective standard of truth, they would be
00:19:25.820 | forced to admit that every one of us is accountable to the God of truth, whose law condemns them
00:19:33.660 | for their own sins, whatever those sins may be.
00:19:39.780 | And so they suppress the truth of the very existence of truth.
00:19:44.740 | If there's an absolute standard by which transgender perversion is judged to be immoral, well then
00:19:51.300 | there's an absolute standard by which my perversion, whatever it is, could be judged to be immoral.
00:19:57.920 | I'm accountable to the God whose law sets that standard.
00:20:01.380 | No, no, no, no, that can't be.
00:20:04.660 | Sure, men can be women, anything, so long as I can sin in peace, so long as I can sin
00:20:13.300 | without the pangs of a conscience informed by the Word of God.
00:20:18.780 | Transgender ideology isn't pressed on us solely by transgender people.
00:20:23.540 | In many cases, they're the victims of a corrupt society seeking to undermine the foundations
00:20:30.140 | of truth, not to serve those folks, but to serve their own sinfulness.
00:20:38.300 | Jesus explains the phenomenon in John 3, 19 to 21, this is the judgment that light has
00:20:45.380 | come into the world and men loved the darkness rather than the light.
00:20:50.100 | Why?
00:20:51.100 | For their deeds were evil.
00:20:52.500 | For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that
00:20:55.900 | his deeds will be exposed, but he who practices the truth comes to the light so that his deeds
00:21:01.740 | may be manifested as having been wrought in God.
00:21:04.680 | People reject the truth, both that which is true and the standard of truth itself, not
00:21:09.620 | for intellectual reasons, it's intellectually bankrupt, if it's true, it's false, right?
00:21:14.680 | But for moral reasons.
00:21:19.020 | Pastor John says again in the Truth War, "Sinners love their sin, so they flee from the light
00:21:23.460 | denying that it even exists."
00:21:27.620 | Now straight talk like this is no longer tolerated, right?
00:21:30.500 | The culture that castigates you for not being tolerant of drag queen story hour simply will
00:21:36.420 | not tolerate being told the truth.
00:21:40.240 | It's derided as unloving and anything that is unloving is violently opposed to the ethic
00:21:47.180 | of Jesus who preached that love was to be his followers' cardinal virtue.
00:21:53.860 | Love is love, they shouted us rather unlovingly.
00:21:58.940 | Well, yes, love is love, but love, 1 Corinthians 13:6, does not rejoice in unrighteousness
00:22:08.980 | but rejoices with the truth, which means that a culture that revels in unrighteousness and
00:22:16.640 | rejects even the existence of truth can have absolutely no idea what love is.
00:22:26.540 | Love and truth are inextricably bound together.
00:22:29.820 | They're bound inextricably in the nature of God himself, Exodus 34, 6, "Yahweh God, compassionate
00:22:35.580 | and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth."
00:22:42.900 | They're bound inextricably as the sustenance of the worshiper of God, Psalm 40, verse 11,
00:22:48.300 | "You, oh Yahweh, will not withhold your compassion from me.
00:22:52.140 | Your loving kindness and your truth will continually preserve me."
00:22:58.880 | They're bound inextricably in the Christian's life of conformity to Christ's likeness, Ephesians
00:23:03.340 | 4, 15, "But speaking the truth in love," literally truthing in love, "we are to grow up in all
00:23:10.980 | aspects into him who is the head, even Christ."
00:23:15.540 | And they're bound inextricably as the sphere in which the Christian life exists, 2 John,
00:23:20.860 | verse 3, "Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus
00:23:25.460 | Christ the Son of the Father in truth and love."
00:23:30.100 | You can't separate love from truth, and any society that rejects the truth will inevitably
00:23:38.900 | find itself not only unloving, but in chaos.
00:23:44.240 | And one telltale sign of such chaos is that they celebrate hatred as if it were love,
00:23:50.480 | and they denounce love as if it were hatred.
00:23:53.660 | They call evil good and good evil.
00:23:59.060 | Homosexuality and transgenderism are soul-destroying perversions.
00:24:03.140 | Again, you don't say that triumphalistically.
00:24:06.820 | You can say the truth unlovingly, of course, but that's not what we're aiming at.
00:24:11.980 | The truth of the matter is that if not repented of, those sins, those pattern of sins, just
00:24:18.500 | like your precious pet sins, end in eternal punishment if not turned from.
00:24:25.300 | And affirming or celebrating or even refusing to warn against such sins is evidence of hatred.
00:24:35.220 | Maybe malicious, maybe just cowardly, but it's not love.
00:24:41.300 | It is not love to see someone careening toward a cliff, and because they're having the time
00:24:46.020 | of their lives in that car on the way to that cliff, you say, "Oh, I wouldn't want to interrupt
00:24:51.180 | their fun.
00:24:52.180 | Look how they're enjoying themselves.
00:24:54.460 | I don't want to get in between them and that."
00:24:58.420 | That's a level of apathy that really only deserves the name hatred.
00:25:03.620 | It's in fact self-love that refuses to incur the ire of sinners because we don't want them
00:25:09.340 | to be mad at us for telling them what they're doing is wrong.
00:25:13.540 | "The world can't receive me."
00:25:16.460 | Why?
00:25:17.460 | "Because I testify of it that its deeds are evil."
00:25:21.760 | We love like Jesus loves when we warn of sin's mortal danger and proclaim the gospel of truth
00:25:29.300 | by which sinners can be rescued.
00:25:32.300 | And so, my fellow ministers, don't be deterred from issuing those warnings and proclaiming
00:25:40.020 | that gospel because of accusations that you're just full of hate.
00:25:45.620 | Don't be full of hate, but don't fall for the trick that if you say the truth, you're
00:25:51.940 | automatically hateful.
00:25:54.460 | Should be no surprise to us that a culture that has no idea what love is also has no
00:25:59.400 | idea what hate is and sees the loving act of truth-telling as hatred.
00:26:05.620 | When you reject the truth, all you can do is accuse as hateful those who would dare
00:26:11.180 | disturb your delusion.
00:26:15.620 | So what do we do with all that?
00:26:17.700 | We live in this world that is under God's judgment to such a degree that they've been
00:26:22.740 | given over to a reprobate mind, to a mind that doesn't function, to such a degree that
00:26:27.660 | they've embraced this failed worldview of post-modernism, have denied reality and have
00:26:32.900 | descended into absurdity.
00:26:36.780 | So what?
00:26:37.780 | Well, friends, it's not enough to diagnose the problem.
00:26:43.420 | It's not enough to accurately discern it.
00:26:46.300 | It's not enough to lament it or decry it or mock it and then long wistfully and nostalgically
00:26:53.420 | for the good old days.
00:26:56.840 | And yet neither is the proper course to coddle post-modernism's uneasiness with truth by
00:27:02.180 | toning down the definitive and right-angled claims of the biblical worldview, by trying
00:27:07.460 | to compromise in order to contextualize the gospel to a culture that has set itself against
00:27:13.020 | the very fundamentals of knowledge and rational thought.
00:27:17.180 | No, the proper response is not to compromise with the culture nor to retreat from the culture.
00:27:24.380 | The proper response is to boldly confront the culture by unashamedly proclaiming the
00:27:29.880 | truth that triumphs, the truth of biblical Christianity.
00:27:35.140 | Understand you are here and where you are when you will not be here, when you return
00:27:39.560 | home later this week, to be the salt of the earth.
00:27:46.040 | We are here to be that preserving and seasoning influence upon a world that is rotting and
00:27:51.760 | decaying.
00:27:53.620 | We're here in 2024 to be the light of the world.
00:27:57.940 | We're to shine forth the light of the truth into a world that is lost in darkness.
00:28:03.260 | And you remember, salt that isn't salty is useless.
00:28:07.020 | No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket.
00:28:09.660 | And so we need to be equipped to engage these errors with the word of the living God.
00:28:15.460 | So let us resolve to be salt and light to this dying culture by graciously yet boldly
00:28:22.660 | confronting its lies with the truth of Christ and Him crucified, and by training the saints
00:28:29.100 | we are responsible for to do the same thing.
00:28:33.680 | And that starts by considering how supremely central the concept of truth is for the Christian
00:28:38.100 | worldview, especially against the backdrop of a society that's rejected truth altogether.
00:28:44.100 | In an effort to equip us to do that, I want us to consider five pillars of the truth of
00:28:49.700 | the Christian worldview.
00:28:51.340 | Five pillars of the truth of the Christian worldview so that we might be able to sound
00:28:55.460 | forth to the world and to the church a clear answer to Pilate's question, "What is truth?
00:29:01.960 | What is truth?"
00:29:03.420 | First, consider the value of truth.
00:29:07.740 | The value of truth.
00:29:09.500 | So far from finding the concept of truth to be offensive or rude or condescending, absolute
00:29:18.020 | truth is essential to the Christian worldview.
00:29:21.100 | What is truth?
00:29:22.100 | First of all, it is inestimably valuable.
00:29:26.740 | Proverbs 23, 23, "The sage exhorts those who would gain wisdom to buy truth and do not
00:29:34.900 | sell it."
00:29:36.660 | Truth isn't a stock you get into, get a little bit, it goes up, okay, sell it quick and make
00:29:41.020 | a profit.
00:29:42.020 | No, this one is one you hold on to.
00:29:45.180 | Buy truth and do not sell it.
00:29:48.000 | Truth is to be regarded by Christians to be such a precious treasure that we exhaust all
00:29:52.940 | lawful means to get a hold of it, and once we've got it, to never let it go.
00:29:59.440 | By nature, all mankind is born in captivity, enslaved to sin and doomed to reap its deadly
00:30:05.860 | consequences.
00:30:06.860 | But John 8, 31 and 32, Jesus says, "The truth will free us from the bondage of sin and death.
00:30:14.460 | If you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine and you will know the truth
00:30:20.040 | and the truth will make you free."
00:30:23.720 | Without the truth, we lie helpless in our slavery.
00:30:29.800 | Just several verses after that, John 8, 44, Jesus says, "The truth stands in mortal conflict
00:30:35.400 | with Satan.
00:30:37.000 | The devil does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.
00:30:42.180 | Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father
00:30:46.520 | of lies."
00:30:48.280 | So lies are satanic and evil and wicked.
00:30:53.200 | Truth stands against such wickedness.
00:30:57.320 | The teams are clear, aren't they?
00:31:00.280 | Satan and lies on this side, God and the truth on this side.
00:31:06.940 | When you hear criticisms of truth as a concept, guess which team that's coming from.
00:31:15.520 | And then as a result, to stand against the truth is to court the wrath and indignation
00:31:19.720 | of God.
00:31:20.720 | In Romans 2, Paul speaks of the righteous judgment of God who will render to each person
00:31:24.340 | according to his deeds.
00:31:25.920 | Romans 2, 8, "Those who do not obey the truth will receive a judgment of wrath and indignation."
00:31:34.600 | In Thessalonians 2, 10, Paul characterizes the followers of Jesus as those who received
00:31:41.000 | the love of the truth so as to be saved.
00:31:46.880 | If you're going to be saved from sin and the judgment to come, you have to be one who loves
00:31:51.580 | the truth.
00:31:54.680 | And then similar to the comment in Romans 2, he says, "Those who don't love the truth
00:31:57.800 | will perish under the judgment of God."
00:32:03.120 | So essential is the truth to Christianity that Christ himself summarizes the entire
00:32:08.140 | purpose for his incarnation and mission from heaven in terms of the truth.
00:32:12.680 | It was the verse I began with, John 18, 37, "For this I have been born and for this I
00:32:17.860 | have come into the world to testify to the truth.
00:32:22.720 | Everyone who's of the truth hears my voice."
00:32:25.320 | Now, who hears the shepherd's voice?
00:32:31.080 | Romans 1, 10, "Those sheep who were given to him by the Father, out of whose hand no
00:32:34.920 | one can snatch them."
00:32:36.560 | The elect hear his voice.
00:32:38.880 | And so here's another instance in which the people of God are defined as those who are
00:32:44.200 | of the truth.
00:32:48.040 | First Timothy 3, 15, "The church is the pillar and support of the truth."
00:32:51.580 | And 2 Corinthians 13, 8, "Truly a text for our times."
00:32:55.600 | You talk about binding words on your forehead and putting them as frontals in Deuteronomy
00:33:00.640 | 6.
00:33:01.640 | Here's a text for us.
00:33:02.640 | Paul says of true believers, "We can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth."
00:33:11.360 | That is your motto.
00:33:13.960 | We can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth.
00:33:16.520 | Why can't you just call him the name he wants to be called?
00:33:19.880 | Why can't you just use his preferred pronouns?
00:33:23.000 | Why can't you just attend the wedding?
00:33:25.880 | Because we can do nothing against the truth and reinforcing someone's delusion like that
00:33:32.240 | is acting against the truth.
00:33:37.400 | It is impossible to exaggerate the centrality of the concept of truth with respect to Christianity.
00:33:42.840 | These passages show that Jesus and the apostles saw the truth as identical to Christianity
00:33:49.560 | itself.
00:33:53.440 | But more than the system of Christianity or the Christian worldview, Scripture goes on
00:33:57.680 | to identify the truth with the nature of God himself.
00:34:00.200 | That brings us to our second point, not only the value of truth, but number two, the God
00:34:05.760 | of truth.
00:34:08.720 | In Psalm 31, 5, David prays to God for rescue from his persecutors and he writes, "Into
00:34:14.080 | your hand I commit my spirit.
00:34:16.220 | You have ransomed me, O Yahweh, God of truth."
00:34:21.920 | Isaiah repeats that title for God in the latter portion of his prophecy, Isaiah 65, 16, "He
00:34:27.080 | who is blessed in the earth will be blessed by the God of truth, and he who swears in
00:34:31.640 | the earth will swear by the God of truth."
00:34:34.520 | This is who God is.
00:34:38.000 | There's no middle ground.
00:34:39.560 | There's no way to be antagonistic to the idea of truth while also not being antagonistic
00:34:45.920 | to the idea of God.
00:34:48.280 | If you don't like the truth, you don't like God.
00:34:56.160 | And further than that, since God is a trinity, since the Bible reveals one God subsisting
00:35:01.440 | in three coequal consubstantial persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Scripture identifies
00:35:08.140 | each person of the trinity with the truth.
00:35:11.680 | John 7, 28, Jesus speaks of the Father when he says, "He who sent me is true."
00:35:18.480 | John 14, 6, we learn the Son is truth incarnate.
00:35:23.240 | Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.
00:35:28.160 | No one comes to the Father but through me."
00:35:31.680 | And then we hear the same thing of the Holy Spirit in 1 John 5, 6, "The Spirit is the
00:35:37.240 | truth."
00:35:40.200 | What is truth then?
00:35:42.240 | In short, the triune God is the truth.
00:35:46.060 | Speaking metaphysically, Yahweh is the one true God, the only genuine God that exists
00:35:51.040 | as opposed to the counterfeit deities of the pagan nations, right?
00:35:54.440 | The Thessalonians turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God.
00:36:01.640 | Speaking logically, the God of the Bible is incapable of erring or being mistaken for
00:36:07.180 | his understanding is infinite, Psalm 147, 5, and he knows all things as they actually
00:36:13.240 | are, 1 John 3, 20.
00:36:16.960 | And then speaking ethically, the triune God is opposed to all lies and deceit and duplicity.
00:36:22.960 | He is, Titus 1, 2, the God who cannot lie, who is perfectly and unfailingly faithful,
00:36:30.280 | whose faithfulness reaches to the skies, Psalm 36, 5.
00:36:36.320 | Hermann Bavink said, "God is the truth in its absolute fullness.
00:36:41.820 | He therefore is the primary, the original truth, the source of all truth, the truth
00:36:47.320 | in all truth."
00:36:51.320 | What is truth?
00:36:53.600 | Truth is that which is consistent with the mind of the triune God of truth.
00:36:58.160 | And the culture is in chaos because its people have rejected this God from being Lord over
00:37:03.400 | them and they've exalted themselves in his place.
00:37:07.760 | They've exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather
00:37:12.480 | than the creator.
00:37:16.720 | And God has graciously revealed his mind to mankind through the inerrant scriptures, the
00:37:22.880 | 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.
00:37:25.600 | That brings us thirdly to the word of truth, to the word of truth.
00:37:31.260 | Because God is the God of truth who cannot lie, his words which he has breathed forth
00:37:36.280 | into the pages of the Bible by the agency of human authors, those words are pure and
00:37:42.280 | unalloyed truth.
00:37:44.560 | 2 Samuel 7, after God gives the Davidic covenant promise, David responds to that revelation
00:37:51.360 | by declaring, 2 Samuel 7, 28, "Now, O Lord Yahweh, you are God and your words are truth."
00:38:01.040 | Proverbs 30 in verse 5 says, "Every word of God proves true."
00:38:06.360 | And then Psalm 119, 160 says, "The sum of your words is truth."
00:38:12.320 | Both individually and collectively then, we must confess what Jesus says to the Father
00:38:17.160 | in John 17, 17, "Your word is truth."
00:38:22.280 | The word of God, the inerrant scriptures are not merely true as if their content happens
00:38:28.860 | to cohere with an external standard of truth.
00:38:32.320 | No, as an expression of God's own nature and mind, God's word is truth itself.
00:38:38.640 | It's the very standard by which all truth claims are to be measured.
00:38:42.960 | It is, as 2 Timothy 2, 15 says, the word of truth, which is to be accurately handled by
00:38:48.560 | the servants of God who labor in preaching and teaching.
00:38:51.880 | And so if anyone desires to know the truth, they must measure every truth claim against
00:38:56.880 | the teaching of the Bible.
00:39:00.960 | What is truth?
00:39:02.680 | Truth is that which is consistent with the word of God as revealed in the inerrant and
00:39:06.760 | sufficient scriptures.
00:39:08.720 | And the culture is in chaos because it's rejected God's unchanging word and has exalted in its
00:39:14.640 | place man's own twisted reasoning and fluctuating feelings.
00:39:22.400 | And what's the message of those scriptures?
00:39:24.520 | That brings us number four, to the gospel of truth, the gospel of truth.
00:39:30.720 | The Bible is the word of truth, but the central message communicated to mankind in the Bible
00:39:35.800 | is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of forgiveness of sins by grace alone, through
00:39:42.800 | faith alone, in Christ alone, apart from works.
00:39:47.760 | It is the message that although all people have sinned and fall short of the glorious
00:39:52.960 | standard of perfection that a holy God demands for fellowship with him, nevertheless, God
00:39:58.320 | the Son took on a human nature so that he could live and die in the place of the people
00:40:03.160 | his father had given him to accomplish their righteousness and to pay for their sins.
00:40:09.120 | And then having risen from the grave in victory, he welcomes all to lay hold of the forgiveness
00:40:14.440 | through repentant faith in him alone.
00:40:17.000 | And so I say to you who are here this morning, and yet remain a stranger to God's grace,
00:40:25.000 | today is the day to turn away from your sins, to turn away from the absurdity and fruitlessness
00:40:32.800 | of a failed worldview and a righteousness which cannot surmount the bar of God's justice.
00:40:39.160 | And then to trust with your whole heart in the blood and righteousness of Jesus for rescue
00:40:45.120 | from that just judgment of God.
00:40:48.720 | Repent and trust in Christ this morning, you who do not yet know the sweetness of justifying
00:40:55.480 | grace.
00:40:58.180 | That message, the gospel of your salvation, is called in Ephesians 1.13 the message of
00:41:04.800 | the truth.
00:41:07.400 | In Psalms 69.13, David speaks of the "saving truth of God."
00:41:15.440 | Galatians 2, Paul speaks twice of the truth of the gospel.
00:41:19.660 | And in Colossians 1.5 and 6, he says the gospel is that word of truth that bears fruit throughout
00:41:25.240 | the world.
00:41:27.360 | James 1.18, James says the same word of truth, the gospel, is what brings sinners forth out
00:41:32.920 | of death unto spiritual life.
00:41:35.000 | You're regenerated by the gospel of truth.
00:41:40.280 | And the gospel of truth is exclusive.
00:41:42.800 | The apostles declare in Acts 4.12, "There is salvation in no one else, for there is
00:41:47.440 | no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."
00:41:52.520 | John 14.6 again, "I am the truth and no one comes to the Father but by me."
00:41:59.640 | That means every other proposed way to God, every other religion, every other philosophy,
00:42:08.040 | every other way of life in the history of the world stands opposed to the truth.
00:42:15.360 | Christ alone is the door of the sheep.
00:42:18.280 | All others are thieves and robbers.
00:42:22.680 | What is truth?
00:42:24.380 | Truth is that which is consistent with the gospel of salvation by grace alone through
00:42:28.200 | faith alone in Christ alone.
00:42:30.600 | The culture is in chaos because it has rejected this wonderful news.
00:42:36.000 | Light has come into the world but men love darkness because their deeds are evil.
00:42:43.760 | Now to say that truth is what corresponds to the mind of God is to say that truth is
00:42:49.520 | that which corresponds to reality.
00:42:53.580 | This is because God, who possesses all knowledge and perfect wisdom, can't know what's false.
00:43:00.720 | He can't say, "I know this," and it not really be so.
00:43:04.320 | He can't be mistaken.
00:43:08.440 | Reality itself is a result of God's universal decree whereby He has ordained whatsoever
00:43:13.880 | comes to pass.
00:43:16.160 | And so God can never be deceived or mistaken or misled and therefore His mind is identical
00:43:21.800 | to reality as it is.
00:43:26.600 | This brings us, number five, to the reality of truth.
00:43:30.560 | The reality of truth.
00:43:31.560 | It means that truth is that which corresponds to reality.
00:43:35.480 | Nothing can be true that manifestly contradicts what is real.
00:43:41.400 | That's actually called the correspondence theory of truth.
00:43:44.120 | And, of course, no text of Scripture explicitly says the people of God subscribe to the correspondence
00:43:48.760 | theory of truth.
00:43:50.160 | Perhaps it presupposes the correspondence theory of truth on every page.
00:43:55.560 | So for example, Proverbs 12, 17 states, "He who speaks truth tells what is right, but
00:44:03.380 | a false witness deceit."
00:44:07.000 | What does it mean for a false witness to speak deceitfully?
00:44:10.520 | Well, it means he testifies of a version of events that does not comport with reality.
00:44:17.360 | He claims words were spoken which weren't spoken or that events took place which didn't
00:44:21.540 | take place.
00:44:23.240 | His testimony does not correspond with reality and so it's not the truth.
00:44:31.360 | By contrast, the witness who speaks truth tells what is right, which means what?
00:44:36.840 | That he reports words and events as they really happened.
00:44:41.940 | His testimony of the truth corresponds to reality.
00:44:47.660 | Another example comes from Paul's testimony to Festus in Acts 26.
00:44:52.340 | As Paul testified to the suffering and resurrection of Christ as predicted in the Old Testament
00:44:56.620 | Scriptures, Festus accuses Paul of being insane.
00:45:00.180 | Acts 26, 24, "Paul, you're out of your mind.
00:45:02.760 | Your great learning is driving you mad."
00:45:05.620 | My students tell me that sometimes.
00:45:11.060 | But Paul responds, "I am not out of my mind, but I utter words of sober truth."
00:45:18.060 | You see, a man who's out of his mind mistakes fantasy for reality.
00:45:24.740 | He believes things that are not so.
00:45:26.700 | But the truth here is sharply contrasted with falsehood and fantasy.
00:45:31.580 | The truth is sober.
00:45:33.420 | The truth is consistent with reality as it is.
00:45:38.300 | Similarly, Titus 1, 14 says, "Those who turn away from the truth pay attention to myths
00:45:45.940 | and commandments of men."
00:45:48.860 | This means that the truth is neither man-made nor mythical.
00:45:53.640 | It's divine, and thus it is in accordance with reality as God has made it.
00:45:59.740 | And all throughout Scripture, we observe a consistent contrast between the truth and
00:46:04.060 | lies.
00:46:05.060 | Ephesians 4, 9, 3, "Lies and not truth prevail in the land."
00:46:08.220 | Romans 1, 25, "They exchange the truth of God for a lie."
00:46:11.460 | Ephesians 4, 25, "Laying aside falsehood, speak truth to each one of you to his neighbor."
00:46:17.220 | 1 John 1, 6, "If we say we have fellowship with him and yet we walk in the darkness,
00:46:21.180 | we lie and do not practice the truth."
00:46:24.620 | 1 John 4, 6, "By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error."
00:46:29.740 | It's plain that the biblical authors presuppose the correspondence theory of truth.
00:46:36.500 | So contrary to that young man's claim that anything can be true, even a lie, if enough
00:46:41.460 | people believe it, the Word of God declares emphatically, 1 John 2, 21, that no lie is
00:46:48.020 | of the truth.
00:46:50.660 | Truth is not variable from person to person or from society to society because reality
00:46:57.820 | is not variable from person to person or society to society.
00:47:01.620 | We all inhabit the same world under the same God who governs providence by the same inviolable
00:47:07.940 | laws of nature and logic.
00:47:10.660 | If someone doesn't believe in the law of gravity and jumps from a five-story building, the
00:47:15.660 | effects of gravity will not be suspended because no gravity is his truth.
00:47:21.780 | Gravity exists.
00:47:22.780 | It is reality, no matter who believes it or not, and the truth is the same.
00:47:28.580 | God is God and we are not.
00:47:31.380 | His moral law is revealed in the Bible as the rule of our lives.
00:47:35.740 | If we disobey, we are liable to His judgment.
00:47:38.680 | The only way of escape is faith in Jesus Christ.
00:47:42.260 | Someone may not believe those facts, but those facts are true, the truth is true, no matter
00:47:47.340 | who believes or disbelieves it.
00:47:51.420 | What is truth?
00:47:53.300 | Truth is that which corresponds to reality.
00:47:56.500 | And the culture is in chaos because it's rejected reality and exchanged it for subjectivist
00:48:02.700 | fantasy and self-determination.
00:48:07.500 | They've rejected the truth, not only the truth of the gospel or the truth of the Bible or
00:48:12.020 | the truth of God's existence, they've rejected truth altogether.
00:48:17.300 | And the fruit of that rebellious, failed worldview is the chaos we observe all around us, where
00:48:23.420 | people self-identify as cats, in which Supreme Court justices can't define what a woman is,
00:48:30.580 | and in which math professors say that insisting upon two plus two equals four, and this is
00:48:35.700 | a quote, reeks of white supremacist patriarchy.
00:48:43.640 | Our culture has exchanged the truth of God for a lie, Romans 1:25.
00:48:48.740 | God has given us over to the lust and impurity we see in Romans 1:24, to the homosexual perversion
00:48:55.340 | we see in Romans 1:26 and 27, to the depraved mind that embraces the absurd, Romans 1:28.
00:49:03.540 | But as John MacArthur has said, if our society has come under the judgments of Romans 1,
00:49:09.600 | we must follow the prescription, the mandate, and the commission of Romans 1, and that is
00:49:14.800 | the proclamation of the truth of the gospel by which sinners can be saved from divine
00:49:20.160 | judgment.
00:49:21.160 | "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God.
00:49:26.000 | It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to
00:49:31.800 | the Greek.
00:49:32.800 | For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, 'The
00:49:37.480 | just shall live by faith.'
00:49:40.960 | Though the things of the spirit are foolishness to the natural man, 1 Corinthians 2, 14, though
00:49:45.160 | the natural man suppresses the truth in unrighteousness, nevertheless God still opens the blinded minds
00:49:52.560 | of the unbelieving and shines the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
00:49:57.020 | of Christ.
00:49:58.020 | And he does it by the proclamation of the very word of truth the unbeliever so hard-heartedly
00:50:03.360 | rejects until he doesn't, until the spirit of God blows over that heart and says, 'Mine,
00:50:10.740 | Christ will have, the lamb will have what he is worthy of.'
00:50:14.760 | Faith comes not by philosophical speculation, not by cantankerous bickering.
00:50:19.400 | Faith comes by hearing the message concerning Christ.
00:50:22.600 | And so my plea to you brothers, both for yourselves and for the people you serve, is do not retreat
00:50:29.680 | from this culture.
00:50:32.160 | Touch right in to this culture, engage, have the difficult, annoying conversations, answer
00:50:40.240 | the hard questions, equip your people too with gentleness and reverence, give the Bible's
00:50:46.000 | answers to the lies of the age.
00:50:48.240 | Friends, be salt and light, proclaim the truth, the truth of God, the truth of God's word,
00:50:56.440 | the truth of the gospel.
00:50:59.120 | It's true.
00:51:00.360 | We don't have a lasting city here.
00:51:03.240 | And the truth seems to suffer under the assaults of the prince of the power of the air.
00:51:09.280 | But the truth will triumph.
00:51:12.640 | At the last, the truth incarnate will take his stand on the earth, and the earth will
00:51:17.880 | be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as waters cover the sea.
00:51:23.620 | And amidst the joy and the triumph of that day, you will be glad that you stood firm
00:51:29.680 | and resisted in this evil day.
00:51:32.400 | You may weep, you may lament now, while the rest of the world rejoices, but your sorrow
00:51:37.440 | will be turned into joy, because you will see him ruling the nations in righteousness
00:51:43.560 | and truth, then who shall fall on bended knee?
00:51:47.280 | All creatures of our God and king.
00:51:51.440 | Lift the eye of faith, brothers, to behold him in that day of consummation, and trust
00:51:56.960 | him, and rest in him, and fight for him, and labor for him.
00:52:04.280 | And if it comes, suffer for him.
00:52:07.320 | Do all for the truth.
00:52:10.600 | Let's pray.
00:52:14.160 | Father, we can only rejoice in those realities because of the conquest of the truth incarnate.
00:52:21.560 | Lord Jesus, we thank you for bearing the awful wrath in our place, for setting your face
00:52:27.920 | like flint to go to Jerusalem, for getting up from Gethsemane and going to the cross,
00:52:34.280 | and staying on the cross, and then rolling the stone away and coming out of the grave.
00:52:42.420 | On that resurrection morning, truth triumphed once for all time.
00:52:49.040 | And we walk in that triumph, not as consistently as we'd like, but we do.
00:52:55.680 | We are free from the penalty and power of sin.
00:52:59.460 | We have seen your grace at work in our hearts.
00:53:03.880 | We have seen sinners saved and saints sanctified.
00:53:08.720 | Would you refresh us with the reminders of those things, the tastes of fruit that we
00:53:14.480 | see in the ministry, even when it gets difficult and wearisome.
00:53:21.000 | And Lord, we pray that you would just break the back of the lies of Satan in this world,
00:53:26.560 | in our culture, even especially in this city, which seems to be the hub of so much of it.
00:53:31.480 | We pray that you would use the people of Grace Church, of the churches represented by the
00:53:35.680 | men in this room, to be faithful witnesses to the truth.
00:53:39.480 | The truth needs to be testified to.
00:53:43.400 | A faithful witness to Christ is desired each and every day in the workplace, in the neighborhood.
00:53:50.320 | Oh, would you satisfy the hearts of your people to send them into that battle, ready to suffer,
00:53:58.720 | ready to die, ready to lay down their lives for the sake of proclaiming the truth.
00:54:05.640 | What you could do for the faithful ministries of the men in this room, be zealous for the
00:54:10.720 | glory of your own name and accomplish it, not for our sake, but for the sake of Christ.
00:54:15.840 | We pray in his name.
00:54:16.840 | Amen.
00:54:17.040 | Amen.
00:54:17.540 | Amen.
00:54:18.040 | [BLANK_AUDIO]