Ensign: Is Truth Dead?

All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Isaiah 18:3


AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS                        5 May 2017


Last month TIME magazine had this simple sentence on its cover: Is Truth Dead?


The cover of another TIME just over fifty years ago had in the same red lettering on a black background this simple sentence: Is God Dead? That hearkens back to several well-known statements of 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, parts of which got used to espouse the rise of the Nazis and we could argue aome extreme social movements in our own day. But often that misses the point -- Nietzsche wasn't just in a bad mood when he said and wrote this.


He was reflecting a lot of what he saw of people going through the motions with God.


How much do we do that now? I'm trying not to speak to an exclusively American audience, but bear with me. But when you and I are raised in a culture where our faith hasn't really been tested in the face of major state-endorsed persecution, it's easy to let it slide and become what we manifest or talk about when we meet God in church, if even then. My point is that we become inured to truth when the only place we seek it, or believe we should expect it, is in God's house.


What is truth?


Pontius Pilate's question to Jesus when He "suffered under" him still hits us between the eyes. From all the way back in Genesis 24:27 where (presumably Eliezer) Abraham's servant is blessing the LORD "who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth" to 3 John 1:12 where Demetrius is bearing the truth (presumably in that letter) we see truth represented as something it is very desirable to have. Something we ought to have more of in our lives.


And in my deepest Deep Thought voice I ask, "Yes ... but what exactly is it?"


Let us turn for a moment in our Bibles to Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane, from the seventeenth chapter of John. Verse seventeen -- though really the whole prayer bears study -- is Jesus' call: "Sanctify [His disciples then and in the future] through thy truth: thy word is truth." Sanctify is a ten-dollar word for setting apart or declaring holy, so what Jesus is asking here is for His disciples to be set apart by His truth expressed in His word, in this case the revealed Scriptures.


That Bible you're reading this from.


That Savior Who died on the cross, rose from the dead, and is coming back again. Come back to John 14:6 where Jesus answers Thomas' question about how we can know the way to God by saying HE, Jesus Himself, is the way, the truth, and the life and nobody gets to God the Father except through Him. Nobody else has the backing to claim this. The truth isn't just what is not a falsehood (using a negative to define a positive, a big no-no) the truth is Living and can live in us


just as Christ can live in us.


Lives in us, when we welcome Him. So is truth dead? No, not unless falsehood is dead too. I'm recalling a passage from C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters where the devil "writing" the letters said everything had to be twisted before it was any use. To generate hate in someone, you have to corrupt love; to generate ugliness in someone's heart, you have to corrupt beauty; and to make falsehoods stick, you have to corrupt truth. With our Lord and our God as our Truth, that can stay as alive in us


As Jesus Our Brother is,


David


P.S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with you, and I hope to be an encourager to action too! If you find I'm not or you want me to get lost, just let me know -- thank you!


Thank You, Lord, that we can come to You in prayer and that You provide for all our needs, even when we don't know what they are. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence there and all over the world.


Thank You, Lord, for everyone in leadership and service both here and abroad. Thank You for the opportunities we have and the promise of new life through You. I pray that we all seek and have a blessed week! Amen.