Overcome lies with truth

“What’s true for you is not true for me” has now become, “If a lie is told often enough, people will believe it and then it becomes true.”

With fewer standards of measurement, who can be sure what is true? Uncertainty is bad enough, but twisting the definition of truth makes me feel a bit sick. For one thing, it is dangerous. Many are telling themselves lies like taking certain drugs will not hurt them, then dying because their lie was not based on facts.

I could fill the page with examples, but am more concerned with how truth is measured. These days, it is too often about personal feelings, desires, and other subjective elements rather than factual, outside, black and white, objective sources. For centuries, the Word of God was the truth and even if people didn’t follow it, most knew it was, and that their own sense of right and wrong agreed. Not anymore.

I’m in a Bible study called The Armor of God. The first week is about identifying the source of lies and how our enemy works to throw us off by telling us lies so we will not agree with or believe what God says.  While many of the lies that we hear are out of human mouths, those people are not the actual enemy, the one who Jesus called “the father of lies.”

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:10–12)

Prior to this declaration of war against the liar and his cohorts, Ephesians has several chapters of truth from God that I am to believe, live by, and defend. However, I need the power that God gives to do that. Without Him, I cannot stand against the evil schemes that are determined to mess with my thinking and my life.

Some of those truths spill out in passages like the first chapter of Ephesians. Since it is so rich, I’ve tried to put some of what it says them in list form. It begins with praise: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ  who has . . .  

·         blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places

·         chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

·         predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ

·         (according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us)

·         redeemed us through His blood and forgiven our trespasses

·         lavished on us the riches of His grace

·         made known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose set forth in Christ

·         planned in the fullness of time to unite all things in Him

·         given us an inheritance (which is eternal)

·         predestined all according His purpose so we might be to the praise of His glory.

·         sealed us with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1:3–14)

The liar is busy convincing people that Christ is only a swear word, God does not exist, the Bible is just a book, sin is a non-issue, eternity with God is a human idea, religion is a farce, and a host of other innuendos and suggestions that are not only contrary to what God says, but destructive to human life. Worse yet, without having and using God’s Word as a weapon against them, these lies win. They totally defeat people and keep them from knowing about or enjoying this list of blessings.

The world is in a confusing mess. The Liar excels at directing attention away from his lies as the cause of that mess. He points to everything from politicians to climate change, technology to terrorism, from declining this to over-dependence on that. The bottom line of evil is and always has been the tendency of humanity to turn from objective truth to the so-called comfort of subjective lies. The devil loves and exploits this tendency and throws in more of his lies and stirs the mix.

No one person can win the war, but everyone who believes in Jesus Christ and knows how to wear His armor and will pray can extinguish those lies. The trouble is, that liar works with a greater fervency on God’s people so we can think of a million excuses for not believing in the power of God, and not standing against the enemy’s evil schemes in prayer.

Ask me how I know.

Jesus, You are "the truth" — bless You for being my anchor in a world that has wandered far from truth and into confusion and uncertainty.

Two kinds of war

It is easier to fight than get along. As Veterans Day and Remembrance Day in Canada approach, I’m reminded of global scale spats. Wars go on almost at every point in the world’s history. Every time I read or watch the news, conflict almost always makes the headlines. People want their own way and are willing to be wounded or worse to make it happen.

This propensity to fight comes partly from our propensity to sin. Sin is thinking I know better than God and sin is simply going my own way in defiance of God’s way. I want what I want and sin will make me push others out of my way.

But God’s way includes fighting too. The Old Testament is filled with physical battles, and God is often misunderstood because of these literal skirmishes where thousands were slaughtered. Why did God want war, and does He still endorse “religious” wars?

We took two of our grandchildren to church one Sunday. Old Testament battles were the topic in their class. On the way home, one of them asked about God’s reasoning in asking His people to kill so many people. We didn’t answer, waiting to see what he would come up with on his own. After a few moments of silence, he said, “Oh, I understand. It was because those nations were so evil.”

Generally people ask the wrong question. Instead of wondering why God had people killed, we need to recognize the sinfulness of sin and wonder why God allows anyone to live!

Besides that, it seems to me that the Old Testament battles were literal representations of the spiritual struggles described in the New Testament. For Christians, we are clearly told that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness and evil forces in the spiritual realm (Ephesians 6). For this, we need to fight, not with each other (shame on us), but against the enemies who would ruin our walk with Christ and destroy our testimony of His grace.

Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God. For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake. (Philippians 1:27-29)

Fighting that is worthy of the gospel of Christ does not mean fighting with other Christians over correct doctrine or what color the church carpets should be. It means that we stand together on what we believe, agreeing that Jesus died for our sin, was buried and rose again the third day. It means we know who the enemy is, and it is not us.

Fighting that is worthy of the gospel might also mean standing against people who teach otherwise. This is not about a physical altercation, but about taking all sorts of abuse for what we believe rather than backing down or arguing. Yet this passage is mostly about getting along with other Christians.

Such spiritual harmony requires work. It is easier to fight that to love others unconditionally, even when they like blue and we like green. It is easier to fight than support and sustain people, especially if we don’t see eye to eye on every issue, major or minor.

When Christians do not agree and sin like criticism, bitterness, unforgiveness, partiality and pride spread through the church, we are not to go to war but to our knees. Only the God of peace can restore to us that loving attitude that is rooted in the heart of Christ — who lives in our hearts.

With Jesus in control, we can care and pray for each other, support the weak, lift the fallen, restore the broken, and stand together against spiritual wickedness and the forces that threaten to destroy us. We need to fight, not with each other but the evil forces that work to maintain their stranglehold against the people in the world by holding them in darkness and sin and encouraging them to be always at war with one another.