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John 18:28-40 WHAT IS TRUTH? Intro: This passage
records what may have been the last intimate, personal conversation that Jesus
had with another individual before He was crucified. In this exchange between the Lord Jesus
Christ and the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, we see two men with opposing
agendas. Pilate
comes across as one who is agitated at having been placed in the middle of what
he sees as a religious dispute between Jews.
His sarcasm and short answers reveal his irritation. Jesus, on the other hand, uses this
conversation to reveal His true identity to Pilate. When asked if He is really the King of the
Jews, Jesus pulls no punches, but responds in the affirmative, v. 37. Then
Jesus tells Pilate that His mission in coming to this world was that of going
to the cross and dying to bear witness to the truth. At this point, Pilate asks a question born
out of pure cynicism. He asks Jesus, “What
is truth? This was a rhetorical
question. Pilate did not really want an
answer, and he did not wait around to receive one. In essence, he was telling Jesus, “What
is true for you may not be true for me!
You say ‘to-may-to’, I say, ‘to-mah-toe’. Don’t talk to me about truth
for truth cannot really be known! So,
Pilate threw away a glorious opportunity to come to know the truth for
himself. He looked truth in the face,
refused to see it and walked away, forever lost in his sins! I
would like to take Pilate’s question this evening and ponder it for a few
minutes. I believe the Bible gives us
enough information about truth so that we can answer this question for
ourselves. In fact, I want to take the
texts I will use to examine truth from just the book of John. Of the 222 verses in the Bible that contain
the word “truth”, 22 or 10% are found in the Gospel according to John. What is truth? Let look at the book and find out!
A.
Pilate’s question leads me to believe that he had no grasp of the
truth. Perhaps his thinking had been
jaded by the empty philosophies of the day that said truth was unknowable and
unattainable. Evidently, Pilate had come
to believe what many in his day believed: there is no absolute truth! B.
We are in the same shape in C.
They can believe what they will, but there is such a thing as absolute
truth! Jesus Himself, in this passage, stated that He came “to
bear witness to the truth. So, what
is truth? The word from which it
is translated means, “That which is accurate or true in any matter
under consideration. It is the opposite
of that which is feigned, fictitious or false. ( If
I say, “Rocks are hard; water is wet; and grass is green. If you dont
believe in absolute truth, then you might say, No, to me rocks are soft; water
is dry; and grass is orange.
But, just because you may believe it with all your heart, it does not
make it so! Truth is something that is
always true! (Ill.
Abraham Lincoln once used a very clever ploy to teach some people about truth.
They had come to him with a decision that was based on suppositions rather than
truth. After hearing their logic, D.
I, for one, believe in absolute truth!
I believe that black is black; white is white; up is up; down is down;
left is left; right is right; in is in and out is out. I believe absolute truth can be known,
learned and taught to others. In fact, I am holding a copy of absolute truth in
my hand right now! I will say more about that in a minute. But, if there is truth and truth can be
known, then how can we learn the truth? Well,
for those of us who are saved it is a task made easier by the presence of the
Holy Spirit in our lives. Jesus tells us
three times in John’s Gospel that the Spirit of God is the “Spirit
of Truth, John 14:17; 15:26;
16:13. John 16:13 is especially important, “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of
truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of
himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew
you things to come. This verse
tells us that the Holy Ghost will reveal the things of God to us, thus teaching
us the truth. Therefore, believers are
in a far better position to learn the truth because of the Spirit of Truth Who
lives within us. The world, on the other
hand, has a spirit within them which blinds them to the truth, 2 Cor. 4:4; ***1 Cor. 2:14***. This accounts for the fact that they will
consistently reject the truth and choose lies instead. This also demonstrates why they live their
lives the way that they do and how they attempt justify their sins before God
and man, Eph. 2:1-3. E.
Jesus believed in absolute truth.
He believed in absolute truth so strongly that He came to this world,
lived and died to bear witness to that truth.
Yes, there is such a thing as truth, regardless of what society says
about it. This truth can be perceived
and it can be known! II. v.
37B THE POWER OF TRUTH ( A.
Truth Has The Power To
Liberate John 8:32 When
Jesus said this, He was telling His hearers that the truth had the power to
deliver them from their bondage to sin and the Law. It would literally set them free in
Jesus. When you come to know the truth,
you come to know something that sets captives free; opens blinded eyes; heals
broken hearts; transforms shattered and ruined lives and fills men with the
love of God, the peace of God and the joy of God. ( B.
Truth Has The Power To
Separate John 17:17 In
this passage Jesus is praying for His disciples, and for us too! As He does, He asks the Father to “sanctify
them through thy truth… The
word “sanctify means to render something holy; to dedicate or
consecrate something to God.
Jesus says that the truth of God has the power to cleanse us and make us
more like our heavenly Father! I have
heard it said that “sin will either keep you from this book; or this book will keep you
from sin! What a truth! When you yield yourself to the truth of God’s
Word, and walk as the Spirit directs you, you will find your life becoming
cleaner and more pleasing to God. His
truth sets us apart and cleans us up, Eph.
5:6; John 15:7. C.
Truth Has The Power To Invigorate
John 4:24 Here, Jesus tells the
woman at the well that the truth will make you want to worship! You see, real
worship is us acknowledging Him to be our everything! Real worship arises out of a heart that had
been saturated with His truth. Real
worship comes about when the Holy Spirit takes the truth of God and makes it
clear to us. When we comprehend Who
Jesus is, what He has done for us and what He is doing; it will leaves us at
His feet in humble, simple worship of Him!
But, if we do not understand the truth about Who God is and what He has
done, then our worship will be warped. Until
we know the truth about Him, we cannot truly worship Him! There is nothing like the truth to put a fresh
spark into your worship! III.
v. 38 THE
PERSONALITY OF TRUTH ( A.
The Scripture Is Truth
John 17:17 Everything either
stands or falls right here! If the Bible
is the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God as it claims, 2 Tim. 3:16, then it and it alone is
the final authority and standard of living for all of life. Not the opinions of men; not the musing of
great philosophers; not the teachings of great religious leaders, but the Bible
is the final word in all manners of life. However,
if the Bible is wrong and cannot be believed, then our foundations are
destroyed and we have no faith, no hope and no rules, Psa. 11:3. If the Bible is a
lie, then there is no absolute truth!
Yet, we have raised a generation that has been taught to doubt the truth
of this book! When a child sits in a
classroom and hears that the earth is billions of years old and that man
evolved from a single-celled organism over millions of years, the foundations
have been destroyed! If God did not make
man in His image then it is not wrong to kill babies through abortion. It is not wrong to rape and murder other
people because we are all just animals.
If man evolved, then there is no sin, there is no right and wrong, there
are no absolutes. You might as well live
like you want to because there is no Hell; there is no accounting to God; there
is no after life. If the first 11
chapters of Genesis are not true, then you might as well junk the whole
book! If God lied in Genesis 1-11, then He is not worthy to
be trusted anywhere else in the book! If
I can’t trust Him in Genesis 1:1,
then I can’t trust Him in John 3:16. When
we take the Ten Commandments and say they are not relevant for today, we have
undermined the foundations. When we tell
society that the Bible cannot be trusted, we undermine the foundations. When we treat the Bible like a giant buffet
and choose the parts we like and ignore the parts that bother us personally,
then we undermine the foundations. There
is a price to pay for our haughtiness; and that price is the absence of truth
in Do
you see why being able to trust the Bible is so important? In its pages, we learn about God, the
creation of man, sin, salvation, good, evil, the family, etc. If that foundation is destroyed, then there
is no basis for truth and if there is no truth then everybody is right and
nobody is wrong! Thank
God, we can trust the Bible! It is the
Word of God! It is inspired! It is truth, without any admixture of error. Praise God, it can be believed for it is
forever settled in glory, Isa. 40:8;
Psa. 119:89. B. The
Savior Is Truth John 14:6
Jesus plainly calls attention to the fact that He and He alone is the real
deal! Jesus was and is the embodiment of
truth, John 1:14; 17. All other would be saviors are merely
pretenders. It doesn’t matter how many
followers they have or how sincere their followers are. Jesus and Jesus alone
is “the
way the truth and the life! Jesus and Jesus alone is the Lamb of God
slain from the foundation of the world.
Jesus and Jesus alone is the truth!
All other men are liars and all other methods are lies; and they all
lead down the broad road of destruction.
They have their terminus in the fires of Hell! Jesus alone is the door onto the narrow way
that leads to life everlasting, John
14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 John 5:12! Our
world doesn’t like that truth tonight, but it is still true, regardless of
whether they like it or not! ( In
all fairness to Ms Fonda, it needs to be said here that it has been confirmed
that she was saved couple of years ago, and has been attending Conc: What is truth? It is the
difference between night and day. It is
the difference between in and out. It is
the difference between black and white.
It is the difference between saved and lost! What is truth? The Bible is truth! Jesus Christ is truth! And, if you accept those as truth in your
life, you have a standard for living and a reason to life. But, if you reject them as your standard,
then you have no absolutes and can do as you please. However, it does not change the fact that the
Bible is still true and Jesus is still the only way to God. So, the things of God are true whether we
accept them or not! Thank God for the
truth! |
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