Truth And Not “Truthiness” – Part 2 of 3

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. The idea of absolute truth has gone the way of the dodo. The people who say it's dead are the same people who proclaim their truth as the ultimate truth. In a crazy world, relativistic truthiness has replaced the real deal.

The fallout is a pervasive destruction of our society. Today, more truth about truthiness. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, as your Eclipse of God series continues, you're telling us how the very idea of truth has been subverted. Dave, I love the way in which you introduced this.

You nailed it. We're living in an age of confusion where people live with contradictions and they think that that's okay. In my book entitled The Eclipse of God, I tell a story about a student who said, there's no such thing as truth. And he wrote a paper on no such thing as truth. I read it and I wrote a note and I simply said that if what you are saying is true, we know in advance that what you have written is false. We need to think clearly in a world that has lost its way.

And that's why I've written the book entitled The Eclipse of God. For a gift of any amount, we're making it available. And by the way, once you understand the change in our society regarding truth, you'll now understand why this generation, the younger generation often thinks very differently than we who are older. Here's what you do. Go to RTWOffer.com. Ask for my brand new book entitled The Eclipse of God.

RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. May we be known as people of truth, not truthiness. I want to spend the next few moments about talking the way in which truth is viewed in our society and especially in our colleges and universities. There are those who say that there's no such thing as absolute truth. Well, of course they contradict themselves when they say that.

I have to tell you this story. When I was a pastor many years ago, there was a young woman in church who said, you know, I'm sitting next to a boy in class who has written a one page paper on why there is no truth. I said, show me the paper. So I read the paper and I wrote a two sentence response. I said, number one, if there's no such thing as truth, you have certainly written one page full of lies.

That's for openers. But furthermore, I said, every time you speak, we will know in advance that you are not speaking truth. She gave him the answer.

He never said a word to her for the whole semester. And thank God for his consistency because there are tons of people out there who would believe that there's no such thing as truth and then go on talking as if they have the truth. Now, what happens in our society today regarding truth? Regarding history, what we must understand that Karl Marx believed that truth was actually a tool for interest groups to hang on to power. So when it comes to such things as the study of history, what you have today is people studying history and trying to find out, and you've heard the word deconstruction, they are deconstructing the text to try to find out what hidden messages of power and a grab for power the writer might have had. So the question is not what does the text say and in saying that, what does the text say? That isn't really the issue. The issue is what does it mean for me?

What hidden meanings do I see in this document which cannot be taken at face value? Because after all, history is a tool to increase your self-esteem. It is not a tool to try to find out. You know, we used to in America have arguments as to what the facts are regarding history. That isn't the issue anymore. The issue is what does it mean for me? And there is no real objective reference point or facts that can be uncovered.

So that's where we are today. And it really becomes a means of self-esteem. You're not supposed to tell students that they are wrong. I'm quoting here from a handbook that says, don't tell a student he's wrong because you're going to do him psychological harm.

He can't handle it. So here are some alternatives. Why don't you say, oh hum. Wait, that's a thought. That's one possibility. That's one idea. That's another way to look at it.

Or I hear you. And then there are 12 other possible suggestions that you should use. But don't tell him he's wrong because if he is, if he's told that he might have to find a safe place where he can go and lick the wounds of his unappreciated victimhood.

So what you have to do is you have to see that history is really a psychological experience for him to elevate his self-esteem and find out who has oppressed him and what groups are the oppressors and what ones are the oppressed. And that's where things have happened in history. Now what about speech codes? Michigan State University has a speech code. They discourage words such as tribe, minorities, America. Yeah, don't use America because you give the impression of supremacy. So don't use the word America.

And religious imagery during Christmas and Easter must be decoded. So don't say Merry Christmas or something like that. Say, you know, have a good spring break, et cetera.

It goes on and gives details. I have another university where it says don't use the word freshman. Freshman? No. No, that's toxic. So don't use the word freshman. And it goes on to say that if there's a barbershop in your area, don't say that he takes in walk-ins because after all, you might offend those who can't walk.

There are people who are in wheelchairs. Now parents, grandparents, adults in the room, figure out what is happening. Is the intention to elevate the discussion? Of course not. The intention is to silence the discussion. You have no idea what is appropriate.

Can you go into a restaurant and still ask for a menu? Nobody knows. Maybe we should ask for a woman, you. Who knows? Maybe by next week, that's the new speech code.

Can women have a manicure? I don't know. Sounds toxic to me. Folks, the intention is to silence speech so nobody knows what is appropriate. And what is appropriate today may be wrong tomorrow. That's the whole point. And then I could go on to talk about truth in the media. And in my book, No Reason to Hide, I have a chapter on how language is used in the whole business of propaganda, which always has been an interest of mine.

The purpose of propaganda is to so shape people's view of reality that even when confronted with a mountain of evidence, they will not change their minds. I don't want to get into the controversy of the vaccine, so I will stay out of it except to enter it very briefly. Probably most of you are vaxxed. Some of you are strongly unvaxxed. But I think we would all have to agree that the vaccine promises did not live up to expectations.

I think we can agree to that. And you know, there are those who always say, well, you know, it's a conspiracy if you're against it. There's such a thing as a fantasy conspiracy, but there's also such things as a factual conspiracy. And we must be aware of that. And an economist in England said something very interesting for you to keep in the back of your mind in the future. He said, data, data, if tortured long enough will confess to anything. Those of you who study data know that numbers can be twisted. They can be made to say things that are not true.

So be very, very careful. Get information from many different sources, but move on. Now, religion. In 1993, I attended the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago. 5,000 delegates from all over the world come together to try to see if they can unify the religions of the world. The first night, the man stood up and said, I want you to think of a wheel. And the spokes represent the various religions, but we all agree on the hub, which he defined as the clear blue of sky.

And in that hub, we all agree. This of course is nonsense. He also said, hang on to your chair.

Pretend that you are hanging on so tightly that if you didn't hang on, you'd go through the roof. And now he said, let go. Nothing happened.

Did it? He said, take your most cherished doctrine and just give it up and you'll find that nothing will happen. So that's where we are today. The whole idea that truth no longer has objectivity. Truth is something that is malleable and you can have many different truths even though they are contradictory. What I'd like to do now is to give you a biblical view of truth. Number one, biblically, God is the source of all truth. It says in the book of Exodus that God is gracious, long suffering, abounding in loving kindness and truth.

God is the standard. The Bible says in the book of Deuteronomy that he is the God of truth. And in the Psalms, thou has redeemed me. Oh God of truth. So we have truth to the extent that we understand God's opinion. Now sometimes we may not fully understand God's opinion. God's opinions of course are very difficult to understand.

Those that are revealed are of course for us to ponder and to think about. But God is truth. And we also must understand that in order for the law of non-contradiction to exist, there has to be a God.

In fact, that leads me to number two. Truth is exclusive. America wants a God that is inclusive, that includes this and that and the other thing. And there is no such God in existence because all truth is exclusive. Take for example, two plus two is equal to four. That's very exclusive. And I think most people actually do believe that two plus two is equal to four. But that is very exclusive.

What that means is you have almost an infinite number of wrong answers and I'm sure those wrong answers feel very badly when they are told that they are wrong. But truth is exclusive. And when Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the father but by me, he was excluding other religious options.

At the World Council of Religion, Jesus was presented as someone who is the savior or the teacher of the West and Buddha is one of the teachers of the East. And so Jesus was not universally the way, the truth and the life. But of course he is the way, the truth and the life. And if he is that, all others are excluded. And you must teach your students and your young people and your grandchildren why Jesus had the authority to be able to make such a statement.

He made that statement because he's the only one who has the credentials to actually save people. All the other religions of the world are gurus, you know, follow this path, here's this path, do this and it'll go well with you, meditate on this. That's all the other religions of the world. But Jesus is one, the only one who actually can be a savior, who can wipe away our sins, take us into the presence of God and present us to God as if we are perfect.

Nobody else has those credentials. And so what we might, thank you for that amen, it was weak but I certainly take everything up here. Jesus is the one that is exclusively the savior. Now let's go back and talk about that wheel I mentioned at the Parliament of World Religions that all the other religions, you know, they are religions and they represent the spokes but at the hub we all agree. By the way, that is utter nonsense, we don't even agree at the hub but let that stand for a moment.

That's a bad illustration. The spokes of a wheel can be taken and thrown into whatever configuration you would want the spokes to be thrown in but if you are going to have it represent truth, those spokes would have to be like train tracks throughout all of eternity because in all of eternity two plus two is going to be equal to four forever. Christians believe that not even God is capable of contradiction because if God were capable of contradiction we could not trust his promises.

The promises could be true one day and they could be false the next day. So we must understand that truth, you know, we always say, well you know your truth is exclusive. Yeah, because all truth is exclusive and if all the religions of the world were equally right we would be living in a mad house. Here you have Christianity with one God and you have Hinduism with 300,000 gods.

And when the parliament of world religions wanted to come up with a document that everyone could agree on they never even used the word God because Buddhists don't believe in God. So we all agree that there is some truth that we can share. No, there is no religious truth that we can share, really.

And so what we must do is to gladly affirm, and I'm going to see if I can remember this, Jesus said he is the way, the truth and the life. Without that way there is no going, without that truth there is no knowing and without the life there is no living. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and yes, that is very exclusive. But there's a reason why it is exclusive. So let's keep in mind that truth, biblically, is very exclusive and it is consistent.

If you can believe that two plus two is equal to five, you have a charley horse between the ears. Number three, truth exists independently of us. It exists independently of us. It is not a matter of saying now what is true to you. There are certain things that are true to you, perhaps obviously the life that you live and the issues that you face are unique to you. But if we're talking about universal truth, if we're talking about what Francis Schaeffer used to call true truth, then we are talking about transcendent truth and that of course exists independently of us.

If there's a certain star in the universe, it is there whether you believe it's there or not. It does not depend upon your belief or your feeling. This is so absolutely critical because there are people today even in some seminaries that look at the Bible and they say, you know, the Bible was written by people who had authority. It was written by people who were oppressors and on and on the argument goes. And therefore when we read the Bible, we have to ask the question, what does it really mean to me? And it means one thing to me, it means another thing to you and there is no stable meaning. But we come back to what we've learned about the study of history, that this is very destructive and what we must do is to recognize that the issue is the text itself. And we may have disagreements, but the disagreement is not because I feel this way and you feel that way. We have disagreements as to what the text has to say, but the text has to control the conversation. Truth exists independently of us. Booker T. Washington said it best, an awesome statement. He said, evil doesn't become good and wrong doesn't become right just because the majority believe it to be so. Now all of you should have clapped after I said that.

I'll take it. Number four, truth of course, and I'm assuming this in this discussion, in this part of the message, it comes through the word of God. Thy word is truth and that's why the word of God can be a lamp onto our feet and a light onto our pathway because it is truth. Now, something else that the Bible teaches, and that is that by nature there are some truths that we will not accept, truths that we fight against with all of our hearts. That's why Jesus said men prefer darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. In other words, what we find in scripture is this motif between light and darkness and darkness has to do with the lies and of course light has to do with truth. And the Bible says in first John is just coming to mind while I'm up here speaking. It says that if any man say that he has no sin, he lies and deceives himself and obviously he's walking in darkness.

Well, my friend, this is Pastor Lutzer and of course there are other ways that people walk in darkness. Did you know that there are many universities and even seminaries where professors today are teaching that Adam and Eve were not literal people? They may say that there was an Adam and Eve but not the Adam and Eve of the Bible. We find these compromises all throughout evangelicalism.

Why? Because so often we interpret the scripture through the lens of culture rather than interpreting the culture through the lens of scripture. These are the kinds of issues I deal with in my new book entitled The Eclipse of God. And we're making this resource available for you and I want to thank you in advance for helping us as we get the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world. I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because you want to connect with us.

Here's what you can do. Go to RTWOffer.com. That's RTWOffer.com. Of course RTWOffer is all one word.

RTWOffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. This book represents my desire that we get back to the God of the Bible, not the God of popular culture. I believe that this resource will be valuable not only for you but for college students, those who are wrestling with the big issues that oftentimes confront us in this very confused world. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. The Word of God is powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. It cuts into our hearts and minds, clearing out falsehoods and imprinting truth within us. Next time, the final portion of one of the most powerful messages ever given on Running to Win. Plan to join us. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.