Truth is eternal. It springs out of the very nature of God. It is true whether or not I believe it. Therefore, it is imperative that one finds the truth among all of the choices out there. The question is, how do we find it?
Pilate, the final Roman authority at the trial of Jesus, cried out, “What is truth?” Paul wrote this to Timothy:
“If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13-KJV).
It gives us a turning point on our belief—that is, if our beliefs deviate from the truth of Jesus Christ, they fall away into oblivion or nothingness. They are of no eternal value and are, in that sense, meaningless.
So we come to Jesus’ own claim: “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but by Me” (John 14:6). He also spoke of two avenues of life, a narrow one and a broad one:
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow isthe gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
He follows that with comments of how we can know them by their fruits.
It is apparent that the above claim Jesus made of himself directly contradicts any claim that there are more ways to heaven than just by Jesus Christ. The second quotation suggests a limited pathway to find everlasting life. The more narrow something is, the sharper it becomes. A knife blade, for example, is made sharper the more narrow its edge becomes.
And the sharper it is, the more cleanly it cuts. And when it cuts, it hurts. And sometimes the truth hurts. Out in Idaho there is found a substance called “obsidian,” which came from the eruptions of ancient volcanoes that were in the area. It is molten glass and has such sharp edges that it is said to have been used to make surgical instruments.
Truth is very narrow, and it cuts and hurts when it refutes falsehood. A standard of truth permeates the whole of our society—a sailor must learn what “true north” means; a carpenter has in his tool box an instrument he calls a level.
When I was a kid and listened to local farmers recount their experiences in farming with their teams of mules or horses, they would often tell how they managed to plow a furrow through a field that ran in a straight line so that other parallel rows also would be straight. (A first straight row was viewed as a real accomplishment!)
Over my sixty years as a Christian I have learned to search out the truth of a passage of Scripture that was troubling to me by first, visiting again the character traits of the Lord. Is He truthful, unchanging, consistent, not contradictory to himself, such as Numbers 23:19 describes Him:
“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”
The Scriptures often disclose truths in such a casual way that a truth can be easily missed, almost like the writer assumed that common knowledge or even common sense would recognize the truth. One such situation comes to mind in regard to the invention by Augustine (A.D. 354-430) and claimed by Catholics that Mary was a perpetual virgin, that she had only one child, Jesus.
The old adage that says, “If you want to know what kind of person someone is, just check with his neighbors,” comes into play here. In Matthew 13:54-56 we can see this revelation by Mary’s neighbors, not degrading her but merely recognizing the truth of her family situation:
“When He had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, ‘Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works?Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers, James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Manget all these things?’”
This is the more complete reference with details and names than any of the several others in the New Testament that decry the claim of Mary’s continual virginity.
What kind of person was Jesus according to those who were His constant companions during those last years? That abrupt old fisherman named Simon Peter echoed the claim Jesus made in John 14:6 when he declared:
“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
When he wrote his first epistle, he also made this observation without hesitation, that Jesus “committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22).
And Paul, that killer of Christians when he was known as Saul of Tarsus, was compelled by the power of a transformed life to pen these words of Jesus: “For He [God] made Him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21), and the writer of Hebrews 4:15 makes this declaration:
“For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
If your belief is that of the proponents of amillennialism and the Preterist theology, who say that we are now in the millennium period and Satan was bound in the bottomless pit when Christ was crucified, that Jesus is ruling the earth from His throne in heaven, and all remaining prophecies were fulfilled in the first century, then, be aware that your belief does not make it so!
Those events that you say will never happen are actually happening before your eyes—beginning with the return of the Jews to their promised land and the subtle formation of the New World Order with its one-world government. It should be obvious that Satan is not bound and Jesus is not ruling the earth with a rod of iron, as it is said He will be in the actual millennium, from His place on the throne of David in Jerusalem.
If your prophet is the courier of a gospel that does not identify a blood sacrifice of a person who is without sin by inheritance or practice (that is, He is deity) as the One who provides redemption without the aid of mankind, then you must revisit your beliefs.
In my recent four-part series titled, “Devious Doctrines of Diabolic Deception,” posted at Rapture Ready.com, I wrote of the subtle entwining of truth and fiction, facts and falsehoods that are hidden in many belief systems, and how “any old god will do” as long as you are signed up with something religious—because you are told there are more ways to heaven than just “believing in Jesus.” Remember this—heaven is where God is. Do you want to be with Him, having that attitude?
I am reminded of a phrase in a popular song of a few decades ago that went like this: “…how could it be wrong when it feels so right?” And this brings us to Paul’s warning in 2 Corinthians 11:1-4 and 13-15:
“Oh, that you would bear with me in a little folly—and indeed you do bear with me. For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!”
“…For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.”
Solomon’s wisdom is often acclaimed, even by the world. One certain kernel of truth was so important to him that he recorded it twice–Proverbs 14:12 and 16:25: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end isthe way of death.”
The opening Scripture reference bears repeating: “If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13-KJV).