Imagine for a moment that you are relocating across the country for a job promotion with a substantial salary increase. You decide you will build your dream home. After working with an architect and designing every detail, you send the blueprint to a contractor at the new location. It will be finished by the time you arrive. After a long drive, you arrive anxious to see your new house. When you pull up in the drive, your real estate agent is waiting. However, you assume you are at the wrong address because the house looks nothing like the blueprint. In fact, it looks like someone built it for an amusement park—the house is leaning, not a single corner is square, it is tall on one end and short on the other, and the windows are crooked with no window at the same level. You discover the contractor didn’t use a square or a measuring tape; in fact, he didn’t even want the blueprint; he finds them too restrictive. He builds by his feelings, and by what seems right.
I know you are saying “Ridiculous!” Everyone knows you must have a standard as a ruler, a tape measure, a square, a level, and a plan. The tape measure can be in inches and feet or the metric system as long as the manufacture based them on a universal standard. Yes, this is ridiculous for any type of construction, but what about standards in spiritual matters. Surveys show that 70% of Americans do not believe in absolute truth, and only 38% who attend a ‘conservative’ church believe in absolute truth. So from where are they getting their moral standards? Sad to say that many, like my fictitious contractor, don’t like restrictions and live by their feeling and what seems right—yet, not something new. Note three translations of Judges 17:6; everyone did as he saw fit (NIV); every man did as seemed right to him (BBE); People did whatever they felt like doing (MSG).
Philosophers have struggled for thousands of years trying to answer the question, “What is truth?” Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” Until the late 1700’s, a majority of people believed in a supernatural world and made moral decisions based on God’s revealed truth. Yet, a shift took place and the focus moved from the supernatural world to the ability of the human mind to determine truth through the natural realm. Through the centuries of time, the world pushed the idea of the supernatural into the background and finally out of the picture. This left people without an absolute moral standard seeking for another source for moral decisions. Thus, truth became relative to science and reason, popular opinions and feelings.
One can look no further than world news to see the effects brought about by the rejection of absolute truth and moral standards. The truth is all around us; For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse (Rom 1:20). Paul wrote in v18 that ungodly and unrighteous men suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom 1:18). The word ‘suppress’ literally means to hold down. The devil—the father of lies—works through people and systems to hold it down, hide, and prevent others from seeing truth. Note a few methods he uses: media, schools from kindergarten to college, government, textbooks, etc.
One subtle deception becoming more prominent today occurs by altering the definition of words. Someone said that anything is possible if one has the power to change the definition of words. In the mid-1980s, somewhat prophetically, Francis Schaeffer pointed out that society was slowly changing the definition of death from the succession of breath to succession of brain activity, and moving toward a lack of quality life. Note the current battle over the definition of gender, male and female. Is it defined by biological and physical birth traits or personal feelings? Last week a judge granted a new classification, ‘non-binary’ for a female who didn’t want to be any gender. Look at the absolute truth from Jesus, the one who is the Truth, But from the beginning of creation, God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE (Mar 10:6). The most misdefined word today is ‘love’. It is nowhere near the biblical definition. The world bases its definition on good feelings and now tolerance has crept into its meaning.
Believers must be the standard-bearer of absolute truth. Yet, note truth is not always comfortable. It requires that people live by standards that don’t always feel good or satisfy their lust. Paul warns that in the last days people will be deceived because they did not receive the love of the truth (2 Thess 2:10). If your life looks like my imaginary house, you need to check the standards by which you are living. The truth is powerful, a weapon, it protects us, brings freedom, and most important, it is unchangeable. The only source of truth is Jesus and His Word. I am the way, and the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Seven times the New Testament refers to the Word (Bible) as truth.
Sustaining Word for the Week: Do you need a new spiritual tape measure? Or maybe you need to calibrate the standard by which you measure your morals and life.