Saturday, July 23, 2011

Attributes of God--T

God is trustworthy and triumphant, but we dealt with His trustworthiness when we discussed His faithfulness, and we will deal with His triumph when we talk about how He is victorious (a few letters down the line...)

Today, we will talk about the truth of God.

Not many people understand about truth anymore. The powers of evil have very successfully challenged the idea that there could, in fact, exist something objective called "truth." They say that each one of us has the right and ability to design our own idea of what is true, and when something is "true for me" it is irrelevant whether it is true for you or not.

You can insist that a foot is 11 inches instead of 12. I can say, "That's OK. That can be true for you. If you want your foot measure to be 11 inches instead of 12, who am I to argue?" But if this is what you believe, I don't expect that the house you build will come out right. And I would never hire you to build a house for me, or even a bookshelf. Just saying.

If your house burns down, no matter how "truly" your friends decide to believe that it didn't happen, you still have no house.

There is objective truth, whether people want to admit it or not.

There is also one true God. All religions are not equal, and this is because there is one living God who exists, who created the heavens and the earth, who hears and answers prayer, who is sovereign. And there are a whole lot of other "gods" who exist mainly in the minds of the humans who imagine them, who did not create the heavens and the earth, and who are unable to hear or answer prayers. There is one God who will judge the world at the end of time, and there are a bunch of false gods who, if they exist at all, will be judged by Him and sent to the pit of destruction.

You can say that this is not true. To do so reminds me of something one of my kids used to do when she was in trouble when she was very small. I would come to confront her about her misbehavior, and she would close her eyes and squeeze them really tightly. She was trying to wish me away, thinking that she could make me disappear if she did not see me. This is what people are like when they refuse to accept the truth that God exists. It's rather pitiful, really.

You can insist to yourself that there is no heaven and no hell. You can tell this to yourself 100,000 times. You can decide that maybe there is a heaven, but surely there isn't a hell, and if there is a loving God, "obviously" he would never send anyone to hell. You can take a vote, and 99 out of 100 people can vote that there is no God, no absolute right and wrong, and no eternal destiny. However, at the end of time, it doesn't matter how many times you repeated something to yourself or how a vote went. It matters whether God does, in truth, exist, and this truth is not up to us to decide. It is outside of us, yet it affects us, and whether we like it or not, it's the way it is.

You can disagree with me. The problem is, if I am right and you are wrong, it will not go well for you, sort of the way if your house burns down, you no longer have a house regardless of what you decide to believe about the matter.

God is TRUE

Psalm 33:4
For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.

Jeremiah 10:10
But the LORD is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King. When he is angry, the earth trembles; the nations cannot endure his wrath.

John 1:14
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 7:28-29
Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.”

John 14:6
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

John 17:3
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Next up, U.

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