The Truth Project Veritology Part 2

1. What was Satan’s first truth claim.

Genesis 3:4-5  Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”

 

2. What is a Pernicious Lie?

per·ni·cious: 
causing insidious harm or ruin; ruinous; injurious; hurtful: pernicious teachings; a pernicious lie. 
This is not just a little “white lie” or a subtle shading of the truth.
This is a malicious attack on truth.

3. What is an antithesis?

an·tith·e·sis   opposition; contrast,  the direct opposite.  

An antithesis is created between the truth claims of God and the truth claims of Satan.

This is not just an honest disagreement or a slight difference in perception. This is an evil purposeful destructive distortion of God’s reality.

4. Let’s look at the Truth Claims of God

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

5. In contrast the Truth claims of the world. 

The Truth Claims of the World

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

6. Last week I referred to a dramatic example of a how the same evidence can be viewed differently by experts because of a worldview issue.

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. Steven Austin, Ph.D. Geology, Penn State University.

Two different worldviews. Two different presuppositions.

7. How is that secular anti-God worldview thing working out for you?

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

Secular society pretends to care about the poor and weak of society,  yet they indoctrinate school children with Darwinian evolutionary theory, which tells us that evolution advances by eliminating the weak 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.

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

Bad ideas have bad consequences

 8. Does our view of Anthropology (who is man) really matter?

• 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.

9. Is man basically good or basically bad?

Augustine taught that man is born with inherited sin, has no ability to seek God on his own and it is God who initiates the relationship draws man to Himself.

John 6:44 (ESV) 
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

Romans 9:15-16 (ESV)For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

Pelagius taught that man is born sinless, makes mistakes, is evolving toward perfection, and man can find God through his own will.

This is the most pernicious lie.

Elevating the will of man and good works over the will of God and His grace.

This difference in worldviews blew up into the “Pelagian Controversy “

 Pelagius was declared a heretic by the Council of Carthage in 418 AD. His interpretation of a doctrine of free will became known as Pelagianism.This controversy keeps coming back in various forms.

In 1524, Erasmus published his treatise On the Freedom of the Will. In 1525, Lutherresponded with his classic The Bondage of the Will.

What is truth?…………….Pontius Pilate

10. Is truth absolute or is everything relative?

Some say there is no absolute 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.

Postmodernism

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

11. Why would there be universal laws in a random undirected coin flip universe?

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?

12. What would be a good 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.

13. Why do we believe lies?

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?” 

All idolatry is a lie.

I hold in my hand

……………………………. a lie.

 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.

14. What is 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.

15. Can Christian be deceived in believing lies?

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

16. 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

Do you really believe what you believe is really…………………………Real

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