What is Truth After Hours

This is Stu Epperson from the Truth Talk Podcast, connecting current events, pop culture, and theology, and we're so grateful for you that you've chosen the Truth Podcast Network.

It's about to start in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Coming to you from an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of central North Carolina, Masculine Journey After Hours, a time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast. So, sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here now.

Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours. We're glad that you're with us, and we're talking about a topic that I'm going to let my friend Danny set up, because Danny, you brought the topic to the team. Now, it doesn't mean we stayed on topic, or we're going to stay on topic, but you did bring the topic to us. So, if you'd like to go ahead and tell us what that is. What's the topic again? I don't know. I forgot.

In the whole setup there, I can't remember what it was. The topic is what is truth, and we've been talking about, and kind of the premise of the whole thing is, you know, in a world and a culture where you're bombarded with information, you're bombarded with different opinions, different things. How do you sort through and get down to truth to navigate your heart and live well? And that's kind of what we've been pulling and tugging at when we weren't off topic. So, yeah, we're around the topic. We're the general area of truth, and it is such a broad topic. I mean, we got the Hebrew definition, which was awesome. If you didn't listen to that, you need to go to masculinejourney.org and download the regular show before the one that doesn't say after hours and listen to it on truth.

And Robby did a great thing of telling us what it meant in Hebrew, which is really a cool thing. And so, you have to go listen to it there. We're not going to tell you again.

But it's pretty awesome. And there's other people that's going to share in this part of it. But Danny, you didn't really get a chance to share how you find truth fully, did you?

No. My life is such a checkerboard sometimes. But ultimately, to sort through things if I'm on point, obviously, does it bear out in Scripture? And that applies to anything. And even taking that in perspective, and I love what my friend Robby said, is you have to look at it from Genesis to Revelation. There is a whole story there. And because you can take so much out of context, but does it bear fruit?

What kind of fruit does it bear? And those are kind of my litmus test is, okay, what is this doing to my heart? And I found myself in all the political stuff, no matter where you were last week, knowing that no matter what happens, this is not good for my heart.

My heart is hurting because it was unprotected. And so having to settle in and go, okay, what is truth? And what is the healthy part of where I navigated in? And so kind of changing the process a little bit, but being a little more, getting older, I ain't got as much fight in me, even though I got my fight gloves on. But not so much that the fight is gone, but it's just, okay, there's more wisdom in discerning more, rather than, because I can be a knee jerk reaction.

You can call my wife, she can tell you. So that's kind of my heart behind the thing, I think. Thank you, Danny. Andy, we got you on the phone. We didn't really revisit you last time.

Sorry, we kind of dropped you for a little while. But how do you navigate and try to find truth? Well, obviously, I start with what God says, Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life.

And I like to start there. But that whole Christian worldview, what Jesus came to do to set us free, the good and the evil in this world, we have an enemy, we have to fight that enemy. All those things are part of the truth, I mean, are the truth, the foundational bedrock truth, non-negotiable, that's the way it is. Then you get into scripture that, you know, things can be interpreted a different way, and you kind of evaluate those things over your time, and you may look at a scripture and have seen it a particular way all your life. And then it changes over time based on your experience.

That doesn't mean the Word of God changes, it means your interpretation may be coming more in line with what the actual truth is as you grow and mature. I mean, we're constantly changing people, and the truth is always the truth, but how we see the truth may change over time. But then when you get into the kind of stuff that Danny was talking about, about what's going on in the world, who can I believe? Can I believe the media, or can I not believe the media?

Can I believe doctors or not believe doctors on the current health crisis? And I just, as far as the way I evaluate it, I try to take it and look through the lens of the Bible, I try to see what people's motives are, I pray a lot, I pray for discernment, and, you know, and at times you just have to say, I don't know, I really don't know, and chuck it, and I think that's where you guys were talking about kind of guarding your heart. If it's too deep for me to be able to figure out, and I'm not getting an answer from God right away, I just kind of back away and say, well, that must not be essential for me to know right now, and move on, and maybe I'll get the answer later. But that's kind of my process and what I go through. Thank you. I want to go ahead and play a clip here, and Danny, I hope you're okay with it, I'm going to go a little bit out of order. But this is from the movie A Few Good Men.

And I want to go ahead and play it, because I want to say something about it, and then we'll get to a couple of the other guys here. But I want to go ahead and play the clip, and in the scene, you've got Jack Nicholson's character that's standing, he's, what's it called? Court martial? No, he's being court martialed, but yeah, he's in the jury. Right, he's on the witness stand. Thank you, I kept thinking jury box, that's not it, it's not the jury box. He's on the witness stand, and he's being questioned by the other guy. Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise, yeah, I'm really drawing a blank right now, you know. So anyway, I have seen the movie, and I know the clip, it's my clip. But in this, he's talking about the topic of truth, and it's a very short clip, we're going to come back and talk about it, and here we go. Colonel Jessup, did you order the code red? You don't have to answer that question. I'll answer the question. You want answers? I think I'm entitled to it. You want answers!

I want the truth! You can't handle the truth! That's me. There are times I can't handle the world's truth.

You know, and Andy, you kind of touched on it a minute ago, that's one, I want to go ahead and kind of switch over to it. I've had to, at least for me, the way I look at things politically, COVID, everything that's happened in 2020 and everything before that, it's not like we didn't have issues before 2020, they just kind of magnified, right, this year. But a long time ago, I've kind of realized I may never know the truth, and I got to be okay with not knowing the truth as far as the way the world sees it or the truth in a situation.

I can't really look in Scripture and necessarily find what to do about COVID, right, specifically. I can say that God's got me, right? He's going to cover me.

He's going to, you know, take care of me, whatever that means, either in this life or in the afterlife. But I can't get that answer in Scripture. But what I can say is, you know, the truth of the world for me isn't the greatest truth I got to worry about. The truth of God is what I need to worry about, what it says in Scripture, what He tells me about my heart, and guarding my heart from some of those things, because honestly, I don't know where to look. You know, we've got the great internet out there, and supposedly we can get to all these answers, but you can find every side of every equation that you're looking at, right? And so where do you even find the truth to get it on some of this stuff? Because this study says this, and that study says that, or this party says this, and that party says that, right? And I'm a firm believer of truth somewhere in the middle.

It may be shaded to one side more than the other. But at the end of the day, I'm probably not going to get to it myself. And I've just resigned myself to be okay with it.

Not that I want to be ignorant of it. I'm going to wash my hands when we use hand sanitizer. I'm going to wear a mask around people. I'm going to do the things I think make sense to keep myself safe and other people safe. But at the end of the day, that may be the greatest truth I know about it. And that's got to be okay because I need to focus on God's truth so much more. The things that bring joy to my heart, that bring healing to my life, those are the things that matter, right? Not that the other things aren't important.

I'm not saying that. But at the end of the day, four more years, we're going to be in another election. We're going to have another medical crisis. We're going to have another this.

We're going to have another that. I want to hold to the truth that doesn't change, right? To God's truth.

Jim, that kind of throws it over to you. Where do you navigate this thing on truth? Patience.

Lots and lots of patience. God's word says that all will be revealed. And I'm a firm believer, and I've told my kids often growing up that the truth will reveal itself. Even though when you know the person is lying through their teeth, they will be exposed. Sooner or later, they will be exposed. And navigating in the waters, especially in today's political climate or medical situations, you have to take everything that you hear with a grain of salt. The media is into sensationalization and we see a lot of that going on. And a lot of that takes patience. Listen.

You know, hear both sides of the story. But don't jump to conclusions. We all want to jump to conclusions like we were talking in the pre-show. A lot of us get tired. We get frustrated. We get angry.

And we want to hear something that's going our way. And so we tend to grab a hold of that and hold on to it. And we end up talking to people who we know are going to agree with us.

And we can look at each other and say, hey, look, why can't all these other idiots see this? And so what ends up happening is we tend to start losing that ground. We start to tend to lose the truth when the truth is God's still going to be on the throne tomorrow. And God's going to have God's going to have his way with this world.

It takes me back to a time when I about lost my wife and I was looking at her son and says, the truth is she's not going home until God's ready for her. And you and I are not going to stop that. And how selfish would we be to stop that? Because our worst day is going to be her best day.

And God uses all things for his glory, not ours. And if we keep these things in mind and continue on down the road and have patience, that's the only way we can process. Agreed. It's easier said than done sometimes.

That is true. I want patience, but I want the answer now. Well, just come to me, Sam. I'll give you the answer. Well, thank you.

Jim, you want to add something? Yeah, mine actually fits with his well, because I look at things, first of all, as a part of history. And COVID, it's a small bump compared to many of the plagues and illnesses that have hit humanity since the beginning. Right now, you know, Christians may be in trouble in this country compared to what we were a while back.

But I don't think we're going to see them being burned in the garden for light or fed to lions for entertainment, at least not anytime soon. If you can get a perspective on what's going on, it's a lot less likely to shake you. And the truth is, as Jim pointed out, that the king is still on the throne. And what happens here in the temporal has no real impact outside of being an opportunity for us to share Jesus Christ to others. Thank you, Jim. Jim, I want to ask you one other question.

I want to get over to Rodney. Andy said something about Scripture. Now, how can we read Scripture at one age, read it a few years later, read it a few years later, read it a month later, read it a week later, and it has a different meaning to us? Is some of them not true? Are they all true?

Are you the same person you were six months ago, six years ago, 16 years ago? It is a living document. What we read, if we are reading it correctly, which is asking God to, you know, show me what you want to see, want me to see in this, what I need in this moment, in this moment, you will see all kinds of interesting things that you never saw before in the Scripture. And that's, I've been reading it for 60 something years, one or two, and I will still find something fresh every time I go in it.

Now, I don't go in it as much as I would like to, and that's one of the things I'm working on this year too. But God's going to speak to you through His Word, and He'll speak to you in prayer. You just take things to Him and get it from Him, because that's the only real truth. Yeah, and hopefully, as we're going along the way, we're getting closer to God, you know.

And so I started way out here, you know, and hopefully I'm at least, I'm still a great distance away, but at least I'm a lot closer than I used to be. And Robby, that's kind of what happens for you when you go back into Scripture. God introduces these new things to you all the time, right? Yeah, well, you know, I'm just listening to everybody and thinking about, you know, the word truth, which ends in a tav. And what is taught about that letter, which is absolutely critical to the understanding of truth, is it is the end of the story.

And you're going to understand what the truth was at the end, so your patience word is absolutely correct, because, and things will be revealed, because at the end of the story, here it comes. But here's the other amazingly beautiful thing about the letter tav, is in the most ancient Hebrew script that you can find, it is a cross. That's a sign. It's like a stamp of God. That's what the tav means. It's like, it's God's stamp on something. Well, what is that? It's a cross.

And that's the end of the story. For my sin, for Robby, you know, it was, it's there at the cross. And so when you put all those things into perspective, you're like, oh my gosh, so we need Rodney. We haven't had enough Rodney. We haven't had any Rodney so far today.

So Rodney, what do you got? I got nothing, Sam. You're talking about truth here, Sam.

I'm like, I'm on the very outskirts of this conversation. The words that come to my mind are exegesis and eisegesis, because in what we've said here today, scripture, scripture, scripture, right? We talked about from beginning to end, Genesis to Revelation. We've talked about making sure that, you know, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. We're all completely there. So I try to apply that in regular life.

You know, as you guys have said, really, I'm probably just reiterating what a lot of people have said already, but it's, you need to know the full story. So letting scripture interpret scripture and have that coming to you, like you said, at different points in your life, at different times, in different settings, and letting it speak to you. You know, you want to make sure you don't go into the eisegesis where it's like, I want this to be true, therefore I want it to mean something, right?

And it can be an easy thing to trip over and go in that direction, and many people do. So that's where people get in this whole scared category of ever saying, yeah, I've heard Jesus talk to me. You know, obviously we're not scared to say that. But you can get into that to where it's like, I want things to mean what I want them to mean, and now it's my truth. It's not truth anymore.

It's not his truth. So when I go into understanding like you guys that I've become so close with, I listen over a long time, probably not with patients like Jim was mentioning, but I listen. And you try to put the whole picture together, because you're only going to get bits and pieces of the picture. So it's like a puzzle you're trying to put together to find out, is this person bringing me truth in this situation?

Well, what did they do in the last situation? Do I have other things to go by from that person? Because again, I loved where I think it was Andy mentioned something about down to the individual again, because you have individual truth. What am I saying?

Is it true? Because we love to put things into categories these days and say these grandiose things are true, and we never talk about a person. We talk about systems. We talk about groups of people, and it's this group think stuff.

And it's like, well, okay, fine. You want to group things together. You want to put theories out there, but where does the truth lie in exactly what they're saying? Because what you're saying is about this group of people, and they're saying don't stereotype these group of people, but yet that's exactly what we're doing.

They can do it in one context and not doing another. So the truth comes down to the individuals and your communication one-on-one with people, and that's where I think we need to keep landing. And that's where Jesus kind of always did his communication was I'm going to talk to you directly.

I'm not going to come in and through all kinds of other places. He had brought prophets and things like that in through the Old Testament that spoke. And then when he came, he spoke one-on-one, spoke right to you, right to your heart. And I think that's where we need to always try to always try to really let that kind of guide us as to, okay, what does Scripture say?

Where do they land there? Because if they're off on Scripture, they're going to be off in many other places really quickly. If they're really good on Scripture, we probably have a better tendency that they're going to be correct in other things in their life. Yeah, although the enemy knows Scripture quite well.

I know. That's why you have to, again, Scripture, you know, interpreting Scripture rather than just, well, boy, yeah, he said exactly what I wanted to believe, like where Jim's at with his patience. Well, you know, as I'm sitting here listening to you talk, I'm imagining, you know, this object of facts. And people like to dress up the facts, right?

You know, lead you to believe one way or another. And it's kind of like an onion, right? You're peeling those layers off of what's dressing it up, what's not really there to get down to this core, to get down to the fact. And then the fact may or may not be what they've dressed it up to be. And then once again, it goes back to patience to get to that core. And you use that, we don't even have a Shrek clip. We should have a Shrek clip.

We should. If you're going to talk about onions and peeling back the layers. Rodney, you know, whenever you talk, I always have to get out the dictionary because you said exo and iso, and I really have no clue what you meant when you were saying those, to be quite honest. Honestly, I don't know what they mean. Exegesis or exegete Scripture is just letting Scripture interpret Scripture.

Okay. Rather than bringing your own version of whatever you think or believe into the meaning, eisegesis is just the opposite. Bringing your own belief into it before you read it and just reading into the meaning rather than letting it tell you what it does mean by itself. Well, I'm sure everybody else out there knew what it meant. I just didn't.

And so I went to ask and say, I have no clue. It's kind of like if you're looking for divorce and saying, Paul said it's better not to be married. That's taking what you want to believe and torturing the Scriptures until it's what you have. Yeah. I want to ask you guys just another question here. Do you believe the truth of what the world tells you who you are?

Or should you believe the truth of who Jesus tells you who you are? We know the answer to that, right? Right. That's the easiest answer is. I'm a prince to the king of kings.

We've all been adopted into the family if you know Jesus is your Lord and Savior. Yeah. And that's the truth.

And it's kind of like the bump that we all loved. The voice of truth, that's what that song is all about. Don't believe the lies the enemy's telling you. Listen to the voice of truth. Listen to what God is telling you.

We often talk about the boot camp. There's only one person who knows who you were created to be, who knows the truth about you. And that's your creator. And that's who you have to go to talk to and get in touch with in order to know the truth about you. So Danny, a different question. Do you want to listen to what the world says about interpreting your wounds that you've had over life or what God says about the interpretation of your wounds?

I want to listen to God, obviously, but that's the good spiritual answer. That's the right answer. It's the only answer. But I was thinking as Jim was talking, Jim 1 or Jim 2 or Jim Squares, whatever this is over here. Yeah.

But the reality is I don't wake up every morning thinking I'm a prince, thinking I'm a warrior, thinking I'm that kind of thing. And the voices start in, well, you know, and it goes down a path so it's not my fax box, so to speak. It's my antenna where it's turned. Right. Right. And that was the point I was wanting to get to that, you know, we keep talking about going to the truth of God. Right? Well, on the most important things, the only place who can truly find truth is with God.

Right? Now, we walk in a band of brothers, and we're very lucky to do that. And you guys have all spoken truth into my life. And you've helped me with healing, and you've helped me with my identity, and you've helped me with other things. And God's used you as a great gift in doing that. But still my deepest things come directly from Him.

Now, sometimes it's through you, but it's directly from Him. You know, and no, we're not going to give you the answer today to what the answer to COVID is because none of us know. We don't know what really happened over the last six months politically. None of us truly know what happened. We all can have an opinion, but at the end of the day, none of us truly know what happened. We don't know what's true about any of the stuff that we've been facing.

Right? We just need to know how God needs our hearts to process it. Yes, with patience. Yes, with trying to find the truth. Yes, with knowing it'll all be revealed. Yes, with some level of I can be okay not knowing the truth right now.

Right? Because I got no place to turn to find it in every answer that I'm looking for. But what I'm throwing out there and what I'm saying is the deepest truths you need to know about are always at the same source.

Because honestly, if you focus on your healing, your identity, the reason He brought you to this earth to show His glory uniquely through you, man, those are the things that matter. Well, the clip we didn't get to, which is fine. I know I realized we weren't going to get to it. It's The Matrix. And there's a line in that, and I'm hoping a lot of you have seen the movie, but there's a line in there that literally changed my life tremendously. And it said, there's a splinter in your mind, Nemo, that you know that there's something more going on.

Neo. Nemo. He's not under the water.

Too many Disney movies. There's a splinter in his mind, too. He's looking for a son. But the point is that he's saying there's more to it. And the splinter that's currently in my mind as I look at all the events of all this stuff is like, oh my gosh, there are people out there who do not know Jesus and He could be coming next week. I mean, of course, I don't know. How short the time is. But one thing I am certain of, there's a splinter in my mind saying, time is short. And I'm really feeling like, oh my gosh, how much time do we have to share the light, to share what God has given us, and to do the ministry that He's given to us.

We don't know. And so the beauty of that particular truth is I don't think it's wrong to listen to those splinters. I think it's important to go down those rabbit holes to see what Alice may have for you down there, as is pointed out in that, because it still points, in my opinion, back to Jesus is on His way and I want to be at my post doing what He wants me to do. And you're going to bring people to know Jesus when you talk about what He's done in your life.

You know, I firmly believe you're not going to convince anybody to change your stance on this or that or the next thing, they have to decide to do that. Right? But what you can share is the truth of what Jesus has done in your life and create, hopefully, a hunger in them to want to know it for themselves. Right? And that's really, at the end of the day, the deepest truth is to let them walk with Him.

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