As Christians we believe that we possess the only book that is the one and only source of absolute truth – the Holy Bible. Sadly, we live in a world that doesn’t even believe that we can know absolute truth. Instead for most people truth is relative and is based on a worldview that states that truth is dependent on public opinion and majority rule. Fortunately, as Christians we know that the Bible is God’s only source of revealed truth and it is indeed absolute.
And when it comes to believing the gospel of Jesus Christ as the central truth statement of the New Testament we can take great comfort in knowing that the crowning proof that Jesus rose from the dead, thus proving He was God, is based on rock-solid evidence. Henry Morris shares why the truth of the resurrection is foundational to why we believe that the Christian worldview is the only belief system that is worthy to place our faith in: “The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the crowning proof of Christianity. If the resurrection did not take place, then Christianity is a false religion. If it did take place, then Christ is God, and the Christian faith is absolute truth.”1 And praise God Jesus did indeed rise from the dead!
Another important aspect of truth, and especially biblical truth, is our need to proclaim it, even though in our society today it usually won’t be readily accepted. But in the last analysis sharing truth is the kindest and most loving thing we can ever do with our fellow man. I absolutely love what Pastor Adrian Rogers said regarding truth: “It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error. It is better to speak the truth that hurts and then heals, than falsehood that comforts and then kills. It is better to be hated for telling the truth than to be loved for telling a lie. It is better to stand alone with the truth, than to be wrong with a multitude. It is better to ultimately succeed with the truth than to temporarily succeed with a lie. There is only one Gospel.”2
In our world where sin is rampant and an integral part of our unredeemed makeup, only a heavy dose of gospel truth, can open the eyes of the blind and open the hearts of the lost. Satan is clearly working overtime to blind humanity from the truth of the gospel. Our job as Christians is to boldly proclaim the one and only truth that can set the captives free – the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In closing I ask you to reflect on what Pastor Rogers shared above: “…It is better to speak the truth that hurts and then heals, than falsehood that comforts and then kills…”
1 TOP 18 QUOTES BY HENRY M. MORRIS | A-Z Quotes (azquotes.com)
2 TOP 25 QUOTES BY ADRIAN ROGERS (of 184) | A-Z Quotes (azquotes.com)
“Sadly, we live in a world that doesn’t even believe that we can know absolute truth. Instead for most people truth is relative and is based on a worldview that states that truth is dependent on public opinion and majority rule.”
This statement harps back to the devotion of the problem of evil. Evil is not really a problem for the believer but rather for the unbeliever. In order to use the argument from evil against the Christian worldview, he must first be able to show that his judgments about the existence of evil are meaningful, which his unbelieving worldview is unable to do. How can the unbeliever take evil seriously? The moral indignation expressed by unbelievers when they encounter wicked things does not comport with theories of ethics which unbelievers espouse. Such indignation requires recourse to the absolute. The unbeliever must secretly rely upon the Christian worldview to make sense of his arguments. Antitheism presupposes theism to make its case.
Logic shows us the sticking point for the unbeliever (and many believers) with the following three premises:
1. God is all-good
2. God is all-powerful
3. Evil exists
This apparent paradox is resolved by adding a fourth premise:
4. God has a morally sufficient reason for the evil that exists.
It is part of the Christian’s walk of faith and growth in sanctification to accept proposition 4 as the conclusion of props 1-3.
Think of Abraham told to sacrifice his only son. Think of Job losing all he had. How about the killing of Christ at the hands of evil men. Did God have a morally sufficient reason for it?
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God.” Deut. 29:29 The believer struggles with this situation, walking by faith rather than by sight. The unbeliever, however, finds it intolerable to trust God unless He subordinates Himself to his intellectual authority and moral evaluation. When the unbeliever refuses to accept the goodness of God, he perpetuates the source of all human woes which started with Adam and Eve and their lack of trust in God. Rather than solving the problem of evil, they are part of the problem.
Faith is believing that God has a morally sufficient but undisclosed reason for the evil that exists. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Gen. 18:25