By Dr. Robert Fowler
Victory MBC

In a national poll 70% of Americans expressed concern about the “decline in moral values” in our society.  In my research I found about 350 articles on the topic “Decline in Moral Values in Society” – just written in the last year.  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.  You can probably give me an example of a scandal in every major sector of our society. 

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.

I intentionally chose this phrase “truth decay” because I think it exemplifies what’s been happening in our society in the last fifty years.  Slowly, little by little, imperceptibly at first there has been an erosion of the value of truth in our society.  We don’t value truth like we used to.  If you don’t stop that erosion, it’s like on your teeth.  When it first starts you don’t know what’s happening.  You can’t feel it.  You can’t see it.  But that tooth decay is happening and if you don’t stop it you lose your smile.  You’ll eventually lose your teeth. 

The same is true if we don’t stop the decay of truth in our society.  All kinds of problems are going to happen.  Even greater than the ones we’re facing right now.

The past fifty years there has been a shift away from truth as the foundation of our society.  Forty-fifty years ago 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.

I was shocked awhile back when I read about a jury that deadlocked and they had to dismiss the case over a woman who cut off the arms of her eighteen-month-old baby. The jury deadlocked because they said this woman didn’t know the difference between right and wrong.  Can you imagine that even happening in America. I just couldn’t even imagine that happening that a jury would deadlock over a woman saying I don’t know the difference between right and wrong. 

This idea that there is no such thing as truth is called relativism.  Here’s the big idea behind relativism.  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. 

The sincerity myth says it really doesn’t matter what you believe if you’re sincere.  That’s all that matters.  You can be sincerely wrong.  I’ve been sincerely wrong many, many times.  If you decided to get on the toll road and you went up what you were thinking was the on ramp to the freeway 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.  If you were going up the off ramp thinking it was the on ramp to the freeway you’re sincere and some irate driver comes off the off ramp says to you “Wrong way!  Don’t go this way!  Wrong way!”  It’d be kind of silly for you to say, “Who are you to tell me what the truth is?  It may be wrong for you but it’s right for me.” 

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.

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?   If you want to back up on away street in a taxi, go right ahead!  If you want to crossover five lanes of other people, go right ahead.  Total chaos!  The whole world, every single day of your life, operates on absolutes.

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’s tolerance.  
What happens when we throw out truth for tolerance?  And all of a sudden we value tolerance more than the truth?
All kinds of things happen.  There are actually six signs of truth decay.  You can see them in our culture.  You can see them in business.  And actually you can see them in your own life.  These things happen when you start giving up on truth.

1.  Immaturity
Immaturity happens when we give up on truth and we value tolerance more than truth.  In many ways our society is getting more and more immature.  You can see it on television shows.  One of the ways you can see it is we are less willing to accept responsibility which is a mark of maturity.  When there’s no right and wrong when there’s no standard of true and false then we all act in irresponsible ways.  I can just be a kid, I can just act like a juvenile.  I can blame other people for my problems.  There’ s no right or wrong.  I can be disorganized.  I can pass the buck.  I can expect other people to take care of me, which is what immature kids expect.  I can expect the government or anybody else to solve my problems because I’m not responsible.  That’s immaturity.  I can change my mind.  I can one day believe “this” and one day believe “that” and the next day believe something else because there is no truth.

The Bible says this in Ephesians 4 “Let us be no longer like children forever changing our minds about what we believe because someone else has told us something different or has cleverly lied to us and made the lie sound like truth.” 

It makes you think of the rumors you believed in junior high school.  One person would tell you one thing and you believed that until somebody else told you something else and then you believed that until somebody else told you something else.  The gossip went on and on and on.  Have you ever noticed how often teenagers change their minds?  Even in just getting dressed.  Have you ever noticed the chaos in a nursery?  Why?  Because they can change their minds all they want.  All you do is change the diapers!  Do preschoolers automatically keep their rooms in order?  No.  Why?  They’re immature.  They’re irresponsible. 

When we become a society like that here’s what happens the Bible says in Proverbs 29:18 “A nation without God’s guidance is a nation without order.”  Why?  Because we’re acting immaturely.  The ability to know the difference between right and wrong is a mark of maturity.  It’s what every parent hopes for.  As you’re growing up your parents wanted you to learn the difference between right and wrong.  So they didn’t have to tell you, so that you on your own could go, “I know this is always true.  I know this is always wrong.  So I’m going to make the right decision.” 

2.  Immorality is a mark of truth decay.
When I say the word “immorality” most people think of sexual immorality.  But that’s only one kind.  Immorality just means no morals.  It means I do whatever I want to do.  If there is no standard of right or wrong then anything goes.  The Bible tells us back in the book of Judges that there was no king, no ruler in Israel and it says “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”  In other words everyone did their own thing. 
It sounds like our culture today.  If there’s no standard of right or wrong, anything goes.  When there’s no truth and I become the center of the universe and I get very concerned about my self- involvement, I’m preoccupied with me, I’m self-centered, I worry about my pleasure, my goals, my getting ahead.  I don’t really care about anything else. 

The Bible says this in Ephesians 4:19 “They don’t care anymore about right and wrong and they’ve given themselves over to immoral ways.  Their lives are filled with all kinds of impurity and greed.”  They say, I don’t care what God says.  If there’s no right or wrong, I’ll just do what I want to do.  God says sex is only for marriage.  I’m going to make up my own truth.  I’m going to do what I want to do. 

Here’s how truth decay works.  When you do something wrong every time you do it, it gets easier.  I don’t know if you’ve figured that out.  The first time you do something wrong it really bugs you and you feel bad about it.  All kinds of warning lights go off in your life.  But the more you do something it becomes easier and easier.  All of a sudden it just doesn’t bother you any more that you’re lying to your husband/your wife or somebody else.  It just gets easier and easier. 

The more immoral, that means without morals, society becomes the more they make fun of morality.  Have you noticed this on television?  They call it the South Park Syndrome.  Nothing’s sacred.  We make fun of everything including things that are true, things that are right, things that are good.  The Bible tells us this.  In Proverbs 14:9 it says “The stupid ridicule right and wrong.” 

3.  Unreality
Unreality is a sign of truth decay in a society, in a business … not in touch with reality in my own life.  When people stop believing in truth, they’ll believe anything.  When they stop believing in right or wrong, true and false, they’re gullible.  They become extremely gullible. 
I meet people who are more likely to put faith in a crystal than in God.  It’s just a rock!  They’re more likely to trust a rock than Jesus Christ.  I meet people who are more likely to trust tarot cards than Jesus Christ.  Or more likely to trust tea leaves.  Or their horoscope.  Or all kinds of other questionable superstitions.  They say I'm going to trust that!”  Why?  Because they’ll trust anything except Jesus.  I know people who don’t believe in God but they believe in UFOs. 

The Bible says this in 2 Thessalonians 2 “Since they refused to trust truth, they’re banished to their chosen world of lies and illusions.”
Let me ask you, you’re not into some of the things I just mentioned but what illusions in our culture have you already fallen for?

How about this one?  The illusion that having more will make me more secure.  That’s an illusion because you can lose it all.
Or the illusion of having more will make me happier.  I know a lot of billionaires who aren’t necessarily happy.
Or having more will make me more valuable.  Your value and your valuables are not the same thing.
That’s an illusion.  But we often buy into lies.  You say, “I'm not out there reading tea leaves!  But I’ve bought into a lot of other illusions that we see in our society.”  When a culture stops valuing objective truth, people feel free to believe in all kinds of stuff.  Actually they feel free to make up stories to blend fact and fiction, just make up their own reality.  Make up their own agenda. 

4.  Illegality
What do I mean by that?  I’m saying if there’s no standard of right or wrong then everything can be considered legal.  Because all law is built on an idea that there are things that are right and there are things that are wrong.  If there is no right or wrong, if there is no truth, there are no laws.  If there’s nothing illegal then you can go around arguing about what the meaning of “is” is.  It doesn’t matter if you murder somebody because you can get off on a technicality.  When murderers go free because of technicalities in a culture that’s called truth decay.  It doesn’t matter what the truth is, what matters is the technicality.  That’s truth decay.  Nobody in Enron or Tyco or MCI or any of those mammoth organizations that collapsed after the bubble, none of them started out by saying, “Let’s figure out a way to rip off 500 billion dollars of investors’ money.”  Nobody woke up one morning and said at Enron, “Let’s just think up a big lie that will steal a ton of money, waste it and then we’ll go bankrupt.”  No.  How did it start?  All of those scandals started when they started cheating at the edges.  In little ways.  They started telling what we call white lies.  As if lies have color!  A lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie and it’s false and it’s never going to be true no matter how you color it.  A lie is a lie. 

When truth goes out the window and there’s no standard of right or wrong then you’ll go after anything.  Anything becomes legal. 
I don’t know if you saw this  about this guy Nathan Chapman.  He was sentenced in Maryland to 7½ years in prison for defrauding and stealing money out of the state pension plan.  They caught him and put him in prison for 7½ years thanks to his three former mistresses.  They were getting even.  I wrote this quote down from the US prosecutor.  He said this “When we look for white collar criminals we know that if their life is a lie then it’s not confined just to their personal life.  If they’re lying to their wives there’s a huge potential that they’re also lying to their colleagues, their board of directors and the auditors.” 

Some of you are falling for what I call the Titanic myth.  The Titanic myth was that if we compartmentalize the stuff we can’t sink.  Until the Titanic came along the ships had one giant hull.  If that got breached the whole hull would fill up with water and the thing would sink.  So the Titanic was called unsinkable because they compartmentalized the hull.  This had never been done before.  The theory was we can take on a little bit of water in our ship and still not sink.  Because we’ll compartmentalize the hull and therefore some of it could be breached and actually fill up with water but it won’t sink the whole ship.  And they were wrong. 

If you are compartmentalizing your life you’re in for a disaster eventually of Titanic proportions.  You can say, I’ve got this little thing going on over here but that’s compartmentalized.  Or I’ve got this little thing over here at work.  I know it’s wrong but I’ve got it compartmentalized.  It’s not going to sink my ship or my family or my reputation.  I’ve got this thing over here but it’s compartmentalized. 
Here’s a fifth one. 

5.  Idolatry
Idolatry is a symptom in a culture of truth decay.  What do I mean by that?  We idolize the wrong things.  When I don’t know right from wrong, when I don’t know the truth, then my priorities and my values and the things I worship get out of whack and get really messed up.  I Idolize things like wealth.  Or I idolize success.  Or I idolize physical beauty.  Or I idolize athletic ability.  Or I idolize intelligence.  Or I idolize popularity.  Or I idolize cars and homes.  Or I idolize the way your house is redecorated.  Or I idolize any number of different things, which may not be wrong in themselves, but they don’t deserve worship.  They don’t deserve to be top, to be number one goal in your life. 

Today because truth decay is taking place in our culture we’re actually flip-flopping values and wrong things are now becoming right and right things are becoming wrong.  And good is bad and bad is good.  Black is white and white is black.  It’s all messed up.  We’ve just seen this reversal.  Today we turn criminals into celebrities.  Then we give them multimillion dollar book contracts and make them millionaires.  The worst crime you do the more money you can make off of it.  That’s out of whack. 

We kill unborn human beings.  Forty-four million Americans aren’t here that would have been here because of abortion.  We kill unborn humans while protecting parasites and insects.  What’s the logic of that one?    It’s all reversed and people are willing to worship anything except God. 
The Bible says this in Romans 1:25 “Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God they deliberately chose to believe lies.  They worshipped the things [that’s called materialism] God made but not the creator Himself.” 
Here’s the question for you personally: what have I been idolizing?  What has become a little bit too important for me?  It’s not wrong but it’s all of a sudden at the top of my life like that’s the number one goal of life.  I’ve been idolizing the wrong thing.  I’ve been worshipping the wrong thing. 

6.  Injustice
Injustice is a sign of truth decay.  When there’s no standard of right and wrong, no truth and no falsehood you can get away with anything.  The Bible says in Isaiah 59 “Our courts oppose people who are righteous; justice is nowhere to be found, truth falls dead in the street and fairness has been outlawed.”  If that’s the damage of truth decay in our society, in our businesses in our families, in our lives, what’s the solution? 
We have to reverse the tide.  How do we reverse the tide?  Not through politics.  Not through legislation.  But by being people of the truth.  The Bible calls it being salt and light.  Being people who stand for truth in a relativistic, anything-goes society. 

Now that brings up the question, Then how do I know what the truth is?  Is there a way to know the truth?  Absolutely.  Yes.  There are at least five ways that you can know the difference between what’s true and what’s untrue.  What’s real and what’s unreal.  We’re going to talk about that. 
But it starts with an attitude of openness.  An openness that says I want the truth more than anything else.  I want the truth even if it’s uncomfortable.  Remember that phrase “You can’t handle the truth!”  I want the truth even if it’s uncomfortable.  That is an openness. 
I’m amazed.  I've been speaking to a lot of different secular type groups.  A lot of intelligent people, smart people.  I’m amazed at how many people think they are open-minded but really aren’t.  What actually happens is if you’re intelligent, the more intelligent you are the more you tend to be secretly proud of your intelligence.  And you go, “I’m smart!  I’m really smart.”  That’s called arrogance.  When you get arrogant about your smartness, your intelligence, you actually start closing your mind down.  I meet people all the time.  They think they’re open-minded.  But you start talking about God they freeze up.  They’re closed even to the possibility  of it.  They’re closed even to that possibility.  Not even open to it. 
Jesus said this, John 7:17 “If anyone chooses to do God’s will he will find out whether or not My teaching comes from God.”  He said, You want to know whether I’m telling the truth or not?  You must have an attitude of openness.  And you say, “God, if there is a God, I want to know You.”  It’s not closing myself to that possibility.  It’s saying if there is a God I want to know You.  Jesus, if He’s telling the truth, I want to know the truth.  It may be difficult for me to hear but if it’s true I want to know it.  I’m opening myself up.”  That’s the required attitude.  Because you can’t share truth with a closed mind. 

 Jesus said you can know the truth and it will set you free.  And you can know what’s false. 
Truth can be discovered.  How do we discover it?  Five ways.

1.  We know what’s true through creation, simply by looking around at the world. 
We learn a lot about God, a lot about truth, just by looking at nature.  This is why science is so important.  It helps us understand how things work.  It helps us understand truth.  It helps us understand God and His universe.  That’s why we value science.

2. We know what’s true through conscience.
There are some things that are hard wired in us by God that we know that are always right and always wrong no matter what anybody else says.  Our conscience tells us this.  The Bible says this in Romans 2 “Some people naturally obey God’s commands even though they don’t have the law [in other words there are people all around the world that do the right thing.  They don’t have a Bible] some people naturally obey God’s commands even though they don’t have the law.  This proves that the conscious is like a law written in the human heart and it will show whether we are forgiven or condemned.” 

3.  We know what’s true through consideration. 
We know it’s knowable.  It’s intellectual.  You can observe it.  Truth is knowable.  You don’t just get truth by faith.  You can test it.  You can experiment with it.  You can prove it.  Truth is intelligent.  It’s rational.  You can observe it.  Just like I did with dropping the pen.  You can test it.  Truth is testable.  It’s verifiable.  You can examine the evidence. 
If I’m going to go to Reno and you give me a map and I follow it and it takes me to Reno.  Then next week I’ve got to go to Reno again and I use the map again and it takes me there.  I use this over and over and over.  Eventually I figure out this map is true.  It’s reliable.  When I look at this map and it takes me to Reno like it says and it doesn’t take me to Alabama, then this is a true map. 
For fifty plus years I’ve been following this map called the Bible.  I have found it to be true.  It always takes me where it says it’s going to take me.  I don’t always feel comfortable there.  I don’t always like it there.  But it always takes me to where it says it’s going to take me.  It has never, never taken me to some place I didn’t expect because it said something different.  So we can through consideration, we can think it. 
4.  The fourth way you can know truth is through God’s commandments.
Through what God tells us and the direction He gives us in the Bible.  2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what’s true and make us realize what’s wrong in our lives.  It straightens us out.  It teaches us to do what’s right.” 

If I discover truth from the Bible, how do I know the Bible is true?  If you’ve ever thought of that question I honor you for asking that question.  You should.  How do I know that this book is true?  I know it’s true because of the difference it’s made in my life.  I know it’s true because Jesus said it’s true. 
Some of you might be asking, “Is there any objective truth?  Objective evidence that shows me that the Bible is true?”  The answer is yes there is.  There’s a world of objective evidence that says that this book is true.  There is both external evidence and internal evidence.  The external evidence is it’s a historical book that you can rely on.  The internal evidence is there is the truth in this book. 

How about the Bible?  How many copies of the Bible?  There are 5366 copies of the Bible from when it was written and to just seventy years afterwards.  Let me tell you why that’s important.  It dispels what I’d called the urban legend about the Bible.  The urban legend is out there that somehow the Bible was passed down from generation to generation and so it got changed as it was passed down translated from this language to that language to this language.  That’s just not true.  That’s like alligators in the sewers of New York.  It’s just not true.  The truth of the matter is when translators translated the Bible they go back to these 5000 copies from right around when it was written to compare them to see how they all match so we know that it is what it is and says what it says.  That’s external evidence. 

External evidence is also stuff like archeology.  The cities are there, the places are there.  You can go back and find them.  In fact it’s sort of humorous.  There’s been many times in history when historians have said The Bible’s probably wrong.  That’s not really accurate.  Then the Bible has proved itself to be true and the historians wrong.  There was a long period of time when historians said there was such thing as a tribe called the Hitites like the Bible talks about in the Old Testament.  There was no such thing.  Somebody made it up.  Until about a hundred years ago a man by the name of Hugo Winkler discovered a place with ten thousand clay tables at the Hitite capital.  Now everybody accepts it as a part of history. 
Historians used to say that when the Bible talks about Solomon having all these horses and that was wrong.  Nobody had horses back then.  But then they dug up a place called Megiddo and guess what they found?  Thousands of horse stables.  Again the Bible has proved itself to be true. 
There is the external evidence in history.  There’s also the internal evidence of the Bible itself.  Internal evidence is the fact that something can be trusted.  One of the evidences that people look for is eyewitness accounts.  If something is second hand or third hand I can’t trust maybe what somebody has said.  If it’s an eyewitness account I can trust them.  In a court of law if a prosecutor has two or three eyewitness accounts on something he has a pretty good chance of making his case. 

The Bible is filled with eyewitness accounts.  Moses was there when the Red Sea split.  Joshua was there to watch Jericho fall.  The disciples of Jesus stood in that upper room and all of a sudden saw the resurrected Jesus.  It’s filled with eyewitness accounts.  The internal evidence of the Bible is also in the fact of how this book tells one story with consistency.  This book, the Bible was written over a 1500-year time span.  It was written on three different continents by forty different authors.  Kings, and shepherds and fishermen and tax collectors.  People from every walk of life.  Yet it speaks with consistency on the most controversial subjects of the day. It tells one story from beginning to end.  God’s salvation and love for man and how He came into this world through Jesus Christ.  No human being could account for that.  It’s an amazing example of the power of God to write that story for our lives.

As true as this book is the truth of the matter is if it stays on my shelf it doesn’t make much of a difference in my life.  The Bible has no shelf life.  I’ve got to pull it down off the shelf so it can get it in my life. 

5.  The fifth and highest way we know the truth is through Christ. 
Through creation, conscience, consideration, commandments and Christ.  God came to earth in human form to personify truth.  The Bible says that Jesus was full of grace and truth.  He incarnated truth.  He personalized truth.  Truth is not a principle.  Truth is a person.  Truth is relational.  Truth is someone you can relate to.  Truth is Jesus Christ. 

One of the clearest and the most well know verses in the Bible is “Jesus said, I am the way the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father but by Me.”  Notice He says “I”.  Not a religion.  Not a race.  Not a ritual.  Not rules and regulations.  I.  It’s a person.  Truth is a person.  I am.  Not I might be.  Not I hope to be.  Not I wish I could be.  Not I’d like to be.  I am the way, the truth and the life.  He says, I am the truth.  Not one truth.  Not part of the truth.  He didn’t say I am a little bit of the truth.  He said, I am the truth.  This by the way is what separates Jesus Christ from every other person on the planet.  Every other leader, every other faith. 

Mohammed said “I am a prophet of the truth.”  He says “I teach the truth.”  Buddha said “I am searching for the truth.”  He made a very famous statement at the end of his life he said “ I am still searching for the truth.”  The Hindu scriptures say truth is very illusive.  You’ve got to look for it.  You don’t really know if it’s here or there.  It’s postmodern actually.  So you get all these different leaders saying I’m looking for the truth.  I’m teaching the truth.  I point to the truth.  I’m a prophet of truth.  Jesus comes and says, “I’m it.  I am the truth.”

That is an incredible divisive statement.  It’s either right or it’s wrong.  He’s either who He says He is or He’s the biggest liar in history.  A lot of people say I think Jesus was a great teacher.  He couldn’t be.  He couldn’t be a great teacher.  It’s impossible for Jesus to be a great teacher.  Because no great teacher would claim to be God if he wasn’t.  That’s not good. 

In other words if I stood up here today and said “My name’s Robert Fowler.  I’m a good teacher.” You might say yeah, I can buy that.  “My name is Robert Fowler and I’m a man of God.”  Or “My name is Robert Fowler and I speak for God.” or “My name is Robert Fowler.  And by the way, I’m God.”  If I said that would that change anything in our relationship?  Absolutely  All of a sudden you’ve got to make a decision.  If I  said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.  There’s not chance in hell you’re going to get into heaven except through me.”  Well! 

That means one of three things.  I’m either a fool ,Or I’m a con man ,  Or I am who I say I am. 

Those are the options.  What is Jesus when He says “I am the way, the truth and the life.  Nobody comes to the Father except through Me.’ He’s either conning 2.3 billion people in the world right now who totally believe a lie.  Or He was nuts.  He didn’t know what He was talking about.  Or He’s who He said He was.  It doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room.

What do I do with the truth once I’ve discovered it?  Four things.

 1.  Believe it.  The Bible tells us continue to believe this truth.  Stand in it firmly.  Believe it. 

 2.  Do it.  Truth is not just an intellectual exercise.  It’s something you do.  You practice it.  You apply it.  You live it.  You obey it.  The Bible tells us, Obey the truth that we’ve learned already.  Before you start learning any other new truth why don’t you start doing ones you already know. 
 
3.  Stand for it.  Don’t be ashamed in a relational, postmodern world that says it doesn’t really matter.  Stand for truth.  The Bible tells us our responsibility is to never oppose the truth but to stand for it at all times.  We need to be people of the truth in this relativistic age.

 4.  Spread it.  Spread the truth.  The Bible says we must be about the business of spreading the truth.