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Jehovah is the God of truth (Ps. 31:5). Jesus is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth (John 14:17). God's word is truth (john 17:17). His truth makes us free from sin and error, ignorance and superstition (John 8:32). His church is the pillar and support of truth (I Tim. 3:15). Part of our duty as Christians is to love the truth (II Thess. 2:10), support the truth (I Tim. 3:15), defend the truth (Phil. 1:16), and contend earnestly for the truth (Jude 3).
From the beginning Satan has waged incessant war against God's truth. He questions God's truth. He contradicts what God says and he creates his own alternative version of truth (Gen. 3:1-5). Sinners, whose hearts Satan controls, hate the truth (John 3:20). It makes them uncomfortable. It is too demanding, it rebukes their sin and threatens their agenda. They are determined to overthrow God's truth. The Bible is the target of their of their rage and assaults. Their weapons of destruction and methods of attack are numerous. Some of them we now consider.
* They labor to subvert the truth by questioning its reliability and pettifogging its assertions.
* They undermine the truth, hoping it will collapse like a building whose foundation has been eroded.
* Some of them compromise the truth with various kinds of religion, accepting as true that which is contrary to God's word.
* Some of them water-down the truth of God, preaching only parts of the truth that are pleasing and acceptable to them and their followers.
* Others adulterate God's truth by mixing it with error or with doctrines of their own making. Some of this error is borrowed from denominational sources, some from various human philosophers, some from the latest cultural fads.
* Some of them misrepresent the truth, claiming that it teaches things foolish, contradictory and even immoral.
* Some labor to distort the truth. They claim to love the truth and teach the truth but they twist its words to say things God never intended.
* Others deny the truth. Unable to twist it to their own purposes, they simply deny it is God's Word, or deny that it is reliable or that it means what it clearly says.
* Some wage full-scale war against God's truth. Atheists, infidels, Communists, Humanists, Secularists, Hedonists, Muslims and other pagan religions rage against God's truth. If they could, they would destroy it.
* Some would make truth tentative, relative or fluid. This questions God's wisdom, his immutability and his power.
* Postmodernism "is marked by a tendency to dismiss the possibility of any sure and settled knowledge of the truth" (John MacArthur, The Truth War, p.10).
* "Strong convictions about any point of truth are judged supremely arrogant and hopelessly naive" by postmodernists. The insist that "everyone is entitled to his own truth ( Ibid. p. 11).
God's truth exists objectively, outside of us. Having been given by the Almighty, it is fixed, and unchangeable, regardless of how men perceive it. Truth is the same in every society and situation. Truth does not consist in our personal interpretation of reality. We cannot read the Bible, asking, "What does this mean to me?" The only legitimate question is, "What does God mean by these words?" The true meaning of scripture is not determined by our desire, our intuition, or our experience. The proper meaning of Scripture is that assigned by God, its author. Our one task is to determine the meaning that God has attached to His Word! We freely concede that some things in the Bible are difficult to understand (II Pet. 3:16), but the overwhelming majority of its teaching can be clearly understood with reasonable study and application. Our responsibility is to conform our thinking to God truth. Our prayer should always be, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Jehovah..." (Ps. 19:14). We all will be judged by God's truth (John 12:48). If Scripture cannot be properly understood by man, God would be unjust in judging us by it! May we love God's truth even as we love Him who gave it. May we faithfully live it and defend it against its enemies. The reward He will bestow will be worth all our effort. (My thanks to John MacArthur and his book, The Truth War, for the heart of this closing paragraph).
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