;)
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”— John 14: 6-7
"Without the ultimate warrant of Divine Revelation, all claims to authority are vulnerable to the 'Grand Sez Who'."
—Arthur Leff
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“People want to be comfortable in their sin, and there is no way of doing that without eliminating God.”
—John McArthur
The Bible teaches that, as the offspring of fallen Adam and fallen Eve, all of humanity is born with an inherited spiritual blindness, and as such we are turned away.. (“quarantined”, if you will)… from God, the ultimate Light of Truth and Life Eternal . The Holy Scriptures call this debilitating and deadly spiritual condition “sin”1. We are all carriers of this spiritual gene. There are no exceptions, we are all infected, and we cannot fix or cure ourselves. As such, we all run from the Truth, and we hide from its light despite the fact that facing the Light of Truth is the first step and the only chance we have of being saved and set free to live in the Presence of God….forever.
But, alas, that is who we are…
The fact is, we’re not “basically good”, as we are so often told today in the Therapeutic-FantasyLand of this broken world. We’re not sinners because we sin. We sin because we’re sinners.
As fallen men and women, we walk…naturally… in darkness2. And, naturally, we believe and follow a lie. We play the “I’m OK, you’re OK”-game for all it’s worth. We duck and dodge. We evade and run for cover. We sit in the dark and compare ourselves with each other in order to “feel” good about ourselves. Like Adam, we ”hide among the trees”3 from the true God who is there and from the true light that is already shining4.
;)
The holy, holy, holy light of Truth and Righteousness distresses us. We would prefer to huddle up in the supposed safety of self-delusion and darkness rather than face the fact of our woeful (and lethal) condition of sin. For unregenerate man, the Light of Truth is a holy terror, an awe-full, existential threat. To put it mildly, we do not appreciate being exposed.
Our Truth-evading tactics are legendary and legion. Not only do we try to deny the authority of God’s word in our lives, and our own revealed sinfulness before it5, but more and more today we seem to be in open, unabashed, full-throttle rebellion, clamoring boastfully that God does not exist at all, that objective truth is just an illusion, true meaning is meaningless, and morality (if there is such a thing at all) is essentially up to each individual6. In an attempt validate these deceptions to ourselves, we will stop at nothing,….. even if it takes swinging the wrecking ball of feel-good, Self-justification to the building blocks of syntax and language itself.
Today, such insanity is regarded as avante garde, “progressive”, “forward- thinking” and “cool”.
This attitude is everywhere…even inside of some professing Christian churches.
When man foolishly dons the mantle of divine authority, he will begin to divine, then define reality7 according to his own good pleasure8. When this happens, eventually wrong becomes right, up becomes down, and light turns into darkness. And, when THAT cup of iniquity is finally full,…be forewarned…. all hell will break loose.
“If God has not spoken, then there is no one who is right and there is no one who is wrong. If God has not spoken, then all you have is the end game of post-modernism — nihilism without knowledge.”
—Albert Mohler
The idols speak deceitfully,
diviners see visions that lie;
they tell dreams that are false,
they give comfort in vain.
Therefore the people wander like sheep
oppressed for lack of a shepherd.
—(Zechariah 10: 2)
;)
You May Tighten Your Own Noose
If no God, true Truth’s an error….
If no Truth, just sinking sand,
If no Deity, no Reason,
Only Grand Subjective Man.
If no God, there’s no true meaning,
Speculation’s all we’ve got…
Just some vague and foggy feelings,
Maybe so’s and maybe not’s.
You may claim, sir, absolutely,
That no God has ever been….
You may state with proud Omniscience,
That true Truth is just pretend.
You may claim God’s Truth a no-no!
“It Shalt NOT be entertained!”
Lower-case “truth”, we’ll allow for…
(IF there’s no one to complain!)
Dress it up in fancy verbiage,
And dissect things endlessly,
But TRUE meaning will escape you,
If there is no Deity.
You can protest, file objection,
Toss vague concepts all around ,
You can analyze forever,
But you won’t find solid ground.
You can test your formal logic,
You can tell us how you “feel” …
But if God’s not in the picture,
All that talk will be un-real.
You may laugh with smug derision,
Perched on high with pompous pride,
Then with sleight-of-hand evasion,
Brush the Gospel Truth aside..
You may deal in innuendo,
Never letting down your guard…
Then while cutely changing subjects,
Play the Mystic-Buddha card.
You can call on Bertrand Russell,
Foucault, Nietszche and the rest,
But without that Grand Designer,
Sir, true Truth won’t be addressed.
You may hope for magic bullets…
“Multiverse! Please save the day!”
You may swear ”It’s all illusion!”
If it helps keep God at bay.
You may hop up on your soapbox,
And while there pontificate…
You can dream up endless theories,
And the Word you may berate.
You may keep your fingers crossed, sir,
As you chase the dragon’s tale…
But if there’s no Revelation,
It will be to no avail.
You may revel ‘round the campfire,
Yes, and do just as you please…
Gather Golden Calves around you,
While you hide among the trees.
You may trust post-modern skeptics,
Who present their alibis,
Climb again that Babel Tower,
While averting idol-eyes.
You may claim you need more proof, sir,
You may tighten your own noose,
But as Paul wrote to the Romans,
You will be without excuse.
Turn around, my friend, please listen
To the Truth that’s been revealed,
Look to Jesus…He’s the answer,
And Physician who can heal.
;)
"Crucifixion", Georges Roualt
Turn aside from sin and darkness,
Tarry in the Word awhile,
Come, behold the Truth from heaven….
See the Cross…God reconciled.