TRUTH DECAY
In a national poll, it was stated that 70%
of Americans expressed concern about the “decline in moral values” in our
society. There is what we would call a crisis of credibility in our nation.
You can find corruption pretty much everywhere. You can find it in politics.
You can find it in business. You can find it in sports. You find it in
academics. You can find it in entertainment. You can find it in churches.
What is the cause of this “decline in moral
values”? I can say it into words – truth decay.
Jesus said “You will know the truth and
the truth will set you free.”
Freedom comes from truth. The more you
know the truth the freer you are in your spirit, in your life, in your family
whatever. The opposite is true. The more you give up on truth the more you
forfeit your freedom.
The past half of a century there has been a
shift away from truth as the foundation of our society. It wasn’t that long
ago that people genuinely agreed on what is right and what is wrong. If
people didn’t do right at least they knew right. They knew what they were
doing was wrong. Now today many people claim they don’t even know the
difference between right and wrong. A lot of people even claim there’s no
such thing as truth. How do you even know there’s truth. It may be truth for
you but not truth for me. So there is no right or wrong.
Postmodernism
This idea that there is no such thing as
truth is called postmodernism. Or relativism.
Here’s the big idea behind postmodernism.
What’s true for you may not be true for me. And what’s right for you may not
be right for me. This is very convenient philosophy because it means I can do
whatever I want to do. It basically lets me off the hook saying there is no
objective standard of behavior and I can do whatever I want to do.
When Jesus said “You will know the truth
and the truth will set you free” He’s talking about The Truth will
set you free. Not a truth, not any truth, not the truth you
make up for your own agenda. That’s not the truth that sets you free.
It is THE TRUTH that sets you free.
Last week when I began this series on
worldview we talked about the sincerity myth. The sincerity myth says it
really doesn’t matter what you believe if you’re sincere. That’s all that
matters. We talked last week in detail that you can be sincerely wrong. I’ve
been sincerely wrong many, many times. If after this service you decided to
get on I-275 and you went up what you were
thinking was the on ramp to the interstate but it was actually the off ramp
you could be sincere about it but you would be sincerely wrong. And you would
head into traffic and inevitably you would cause a collision and there would
be damage to your car and most likely to you because you were sincere but you
were sincerely wrong. And as angry drivers are yelling at you “Wrong way!”
It’d be kind of silly for you to say, “Who are you to tell me what’s the
truth? It may be wrong for you but it’s right for me.”
No Absolutes
Postmodernism, relativism, is built on the
idea there are no absolutes. Have you heard this one? There are no
absolutes. That is absolutely a stupid statement! Because it’s not only
illogical, it’s unreasonable. In the first place when you say there are no
absolutes you’re making an absolute statement. So it’s illogical. Whenever
somebody says there are no absolutes I want to say, Are you absolutely sure?
Because you’re stating an absolute it is an illogical statement.
Not only that it’s just unworkable. It’s
unusable. It’s irrational. The entire world operates on absolutes every
single second of the day. When you go into a pharmacy to get a prescription
filled you don’t say, “Just give me anything.” And the pharmacist doesn’t
say, “I didn’t have what you wanted but this is kind of like it. It’ll
do. I know it’s for your back but this is a good thing for your head.”
You want the pharmacist to give you absolutely the correct prescription in the
right dosage. You don’t want anything kind of true. You want it to be
absolutely true.
When NASA shoots a rocket off they don’t
want it to go near the moon. They want to hit the target! They want to be
directly on line. There are thousands of absolute corrections to keep it on
course.
What if the law about stop signs was “You
don’t have to absolutely stop. You just stop when you feel like it.”
No. Can you imagine what traffic would be like if we had no absolute traffic
laws? What would that be? Boston?! Total chaos! The whole world, every
single day of your life, operates on absolutes.
In postmodernism, in relativism, what’s
happened is people now value tolerance more than they value truth. The
supreme value in our culture has become tolerance. It’s more important to be
tolerant than it is to be truthful. In fact, if you are truthful then you are
considered intolerant. And how dare you say that something is always right
and something is always wrong. That’s intolerant and that’s being
judgmental. We’ve even redefined the word “tolerance.” Tolerance used to
mean we may totally disagree on something but I still treat you with respect
because you’re a human being. You’re made in the image of God. Although we
may totally disagree on politics or morality, whatever, we’re still going to
treat each other politely. That used to be tolerance.
The word now means all ideas are equally
valid. That’s nonsense. All ideas are not equally valid. If I say, “The
moon is made out of rock,” and you say, “The moon is made out of Swiss
cheese,” that is not an equally valid idea. If I say, “The sun rotates
around the earth,” and somebody else says, “The earth rotates around
the sun,” those are not equally valid ideas. If I say “The earth is
flat,” and you say “It’s round,” those are not equally valid
ideas. There are a lot of things in life that are absolutely true and there
are a lot of things in life that are absolutely false. They will always be
true and they will always be false.
Truth is not new. It has been around
forever. We now know that we’re made up of DNA. But that’s not a new truth.
It’s just new to us. God knew it all along. So truth is something that’s
discovered. But today if anybody dares to say, “This is always right,” then
they’re accused of being intolerant and judgmental. It’s not judgmental to
tell the truth.
If you’re in an accident and you’re laying
along the side of the road bleeding to death and I walk up to you and say,
“You need a doctor! You’re bleeding to death.” You’re not going to say, “I
don’t want to hear that! You’re being judgmental!” That’s not judgmental.
It’s just the truth. You’re bleeding to death and you need help.
Today we’re going to talk about “Truth
Decay” and we’re going to look at the most radical claim that Jesus ever
made. And it was radical.
In a culture and time when truth is so
relative. How do we really know what truth is? Let’s explore this together.
