The Truth Project: What is Truth: Session Two

Truth Claims

• The truth claims of God
• The truth claims of Satan.
• The truth claims of Satan are the Pernicious Lie
• per·ni·cious: 1. causing insidious harm or ruin; ruinous; injurious; hurtful: pernicious teachings; a pernicious lie. 2. deadly; fatal: a pernicious disease. 3. Obsolete . evil; wicked.

Antithesis

• This difference in truth claim creates an antithesis.
• an·tith·e·sis: 1. opposition; contrast. 2. the direct opposite.  
• This is not just an honest disagreement or a slight difference in perception. This is an evil purposeful destructive distortion of God’s reality.

The Truth Claims of God 

• Unity: Marriage for life
• Diversity: Male and female
• Roles: Family structure
• Responsibility: Confession
• Authority: Obedience
• Delegation: God given rights
• Freedom: Liberty within limits

The Truth Claims of the World.

• Unity: Divorce
• Diversity: Homosexuality
• Roles: Desertion, Feminism
• Responsibility: Blame, Psychiatry
• Authority: Rebellion
• Delegation: Tyranny
• Freedom: Bondage

Worldviews

• A worldview is the filter of presuppositions that all of our knowledge must pass.

Two opposing worldviews :

• Layers of rock formed over hundreds of millions of years. Naturalistic evolution.Dr. Karl E. Karlstrom, Ph.D.,Geology,University of Wyoming
• Layers of mud hardened into rock, laid down quickly by moving water. A great worldwide flood.  Dr. Andrew A. Snelling, B.Sc.(Hons), Ph.D. Geology, University of Sydney, Australia.
• Two different worldviews. Two different presuppositions.

God’s truth claims work

The world’s truth claims are illogical, do not work and cause pain suffering and dysfunction.                           

 The world says, “It is wrong to oppress the poor and weak of society”. Darwinian evolutionary theory

which is taught in every university in the world tells us that evolution advances by eliminating the unfit among us. It is then a good thing to oppress the poor and weed out those who are weak. There is a logical disconnect here. It makes no sense.

Anthropology: What is man?

• Imago Dei (“image of God”). Man created in the
  
  image of God.

• Man evolves from non living chemicals through random chance, mutation, natural selection, macro evolution. Goo Man. He came up from the goo in the prebiotic pond, grew legs, crawled out on the land, evolved into an apelike creature and then a Wall Street stock broker.

Sin and the fall of man.

• Augustinian theology. Man born with inherited sin and has no ability to seek God unless God initiates the relationship.
• Pelagian theology, man born sinless makes mistakes, is evolving toward perfection, can find God through his own will.

    This is the most pernicious lie.

What is truth?…………….Pontius Pilate

Post modern Truth

There is no absolute truth.

Truth is relative according to Jude the Unitarian Universalist.

 Truth is a cathedral with truth streaming through the different prisms of glass.

• Your truth, my truth, all truths are equally valid.

 Absolute truth.

• Kyle the 13 yr, old understands that for the universe to operate there must be absolute truth. 2+2=4.
• Our world requires universal laws of order to exist

Universals:

• Laws of physics and mathematics
• Gravity must work just like it did last week
• Laws of logic
• Cause and effect, non contradiction
• Laws of morality and ethics
• Murder, rape, theft wrong.
• Why?

Definition of truth:

• RC Sproul: Truth: That which corresponds to reality as perceived by God.

• Noah Webster 1828: Truth: conformity to facts and reality. ie the truth of the scriptures.
• Truth is reality.

Isaiah 44:20

• He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is
  
  there not a lie in my right hand?” Isaiah 44:20 (ESV)
• All idolatry is a lie.
• I hold in my hand
• ……………………………. a lie.

Romans 1

Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. Romans 1:25 (ESV)

Man exchanges the truth for a lie.

• Lies are powerful and can cause us to believe insane things.

Insanity

• Insanity; losing touch with reality.
• Believing that the lie is real.
• Worry is a form of insanity in that we lose touch with the ultimate source of all reality.

In order to overcome pernicious worry we must start with God as our reference point.

All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge

To reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, 3  in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. Col 2:2-4 (ESV)

Faith?

• Faith: What is faith?
• Faith in faith?
• Hope in hope?
• Faith in Him.
• Faith like a child.
• Not based on feeling.
• Faith connects to actions.
• We act upon what is real.

So………….the big question

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