Fixing the Mind on Absolute Truth

• The Nature of Truth and Relativism [00:03:15 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts the modern cultural belief in relative truth (citing Gallup polls and Supreme Court rulings) with the biblical concept of absolute truth.
• General vs. Special Revelation [00:17:18 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains how God reveals Himself through creation (general revelation) and specifically through the person and work of Jesus Christ (special revelation).
• The Person of Jesus Christ [00:20:26 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor details the dual nature of Jesus as both true God and true man, emphasizing that He is the ultimate truth to be contemplated.
• Christological Meditation [00:22:08 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor urges the congregation to think on Jesus' life, from His infancy and ministry to His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, emphasizing His divinity and humanity.
• Scriptural Authority and Inerrancy [00:30:37 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that the Bible is God-breathed and without error, using the analogy of breath condensing in cold air to explain the tangible reality of Scripture, while acknowledging difficulties but affirming harmony.
• Biblical Hermeneutics and Postmodernism [00:37:14 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor critiques a Presbyterian minister's sermon that claimed Jesus never condemned homosexuality, arguing that such a view tears Scripture apart by ignoring Paul and Moses, and asserts the unity of biblical truth.
• Christian Reading and Leisure [00:33:16 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor encourages reading Christian books and theology to grow in understanding, contrasting this with the reluctance of professionals to engage with spiritual literature, and notes the Bible's 'theology of leisure'.

• Sermon Illustration [00:15:29 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about being married for fifty years, illustrating how knowing a person involves understanding their preferences, triggers, and habits, analogous to knowing God through His self-revelation.
• Sermon Illustration [00:17:53 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the analogy of shaking a soda bottle and holding the cap on to describe how the natural man suppresses the knowledge of God received through general revelation.
• Sermon Illustration [00:23:24 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references the historical event of Herod's decree to kill babies in Bethlehem, noting that approximately a dozen babies were killed, to illustrate the reality of Jesus' early life and the fulfillment of deliverer imagery.
• Sermon Illustration [00:31:16 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the analogy of breathing out on a cold morning to illustrate how God's breath (Scripture) becomes solid and visible truth, just as moisture solidifies in cold air.
• Sermon Illustration [00:34:44 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor mentions a text message from an elder who was reading theology to grow in his understanding of truth, illustrating the value of engaging with Christian literature.
• Sermon Illustration [00:37:14 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references a recent sermon by a Presbyterian minister who claimed Jesus never condemned homosexuality, using this as a negative example of tearing Scripture apart by ignoring the Old Testament and Paul.

• Pastoral Charge [00:30:32 ▶️ 📄]
  > Open and read the Bible daily.
• Pastoral Charge [00:32:18 ▶️ 📄]
  > Read the Bible to hear God's voice.

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:00] I am assigned a text, and the text is from Philippians 4, finally brothers, whatever is true. That's it. So my text was five words, and to speak on a very, very important topic. So before I begin,
[00:00:38] Let me pray with you. Father, we thank You for Your Word. Your Word is truth itself, infallible, inerrant, able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We ask now for the ministry of the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds,
[00:01:11] to illumine our hearts and affections, and that we might see Jesus only.
[00:01:22] For Jesus' sake we ask it, amen.
[00:01:28] Whatsoever is true, think on these things.
[00:01:37] My mind, of course, immediately went to the words of our Lord Jesus, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me." An absolute statement that Jesus claimed
[00:02:00] to be the truth, truth personified. His words were true, His belief system was true, but He He Himself is true.
[00:02:21] You'll remember, of course, Jesus' encounter with Pilate, Pontius Pilate.
[00:02:32] This man, of course, has gone down in history never to be forgotten for those of us who recite the Apostles' Creed, crucified under Pontius Pilate.
[00:02:45] And you'll remember in the final interrogation of Jesus after he had been tried by the high priest and by the high priest's father-in-law, he was then handed over to Pilate.
[00:03:04] And you remember Pilate's response, what is truth, he said.
[00:03:15] According to a Gallup poll recently taken, 66% of Americans think that there is no such thing as absolute truth.
[00:03:26] That's two-thirds of the population.
[00:03:29] Christians, of course, you and I believe in the notion of absolute truth.
[00:03:41] The Bible is true, inerrant, infallible.
[00:03:48] Jesus Christ embodies, personalizes truth.
[00:03:56] But our modern society thinks that it's free to choose their own truths, their own values, their own belief system, worldviews, gender, sexual orientation.
[00:04:22] In something of a groundbreaking ruling of the Supreme Court in 1992, they concluded that the heart of liberty is to define one's own concept of existence of the meaning of the universe.
[00:04:48] Well, there you have it.
[00:04:49] The highest court in the land agrees that there's no such thing as absolute truth.
[00:04:58] You define human existence for yourself.
[00:05:03] You define the meaning of the universe by yourself.
[00:05:11] So what do we say?
[00:05:15] Psalm 31 and verse 5 speaks of the God of truth.
[00:05:21] He's speaking, of course, of the self-disclosure of God, Jehovah, Yahweh in the Old Testament as the God of truth, that He Himself is true and what He reveals is true, the God of truth.
[00:05:40] Interesting that Pilate didn't ask what is the truth as though he were referring to a a specific thing, but he simply said the more general thing, what is truth, skeptical that it could even be defined.
[00:06:04] Manic Street Preachers, now this is a band that Steve Nichols would know, and I don't.
[00:06:14] I just researched this.
[00:06:16] I've never heard Manic Street Preachers and never heard of them, and I've never heard them sing.
[00:06:22] But in an album released in 1998, the album was called, This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours.
[00:06:37] It epitomized the world in which you and I now live.
[00:06:44] There are two worldviews here, and they're at odds with each other.
[00:06:47] There's Pilate's worldview, skeptical that truth can be known.
[00:06:53] Truth is whatever you make it to be.
[00:06:56] And then you've got Jesus' view of truth, I am the truth, Jesus says.
[00:07:11] Back in the late 90s, David Wells, a friend of Ligonier Ministries for sure, wrote a four-volumed work entitled, No Place for Truth.
[00:07:27] He was not speaking of himself, he was speaking of the society that we now live in.
[00:07:31] He was speaking especially of the decline even among evangelicals of the concept of truth, and what is truth, and where truth can be found.
[00:07:46] I grew up in a secular home.
[00:07:49] I believed that science had all the answers, and a lot of people believe that science, if not all the answers, it has many of the answers until COVID came, and then all of a sudden people weren't trusting in science anymore.
[00:08:13] Alan Bloom in his book, The Closing of the American Mind says that on the portal of the university is written in many ways in many tongues, there is no truth, at least here.
[00:08:38] The statement of course is self-contradictory.
[00:08:42] There is no truth, at least here is a statement that's being purported as absolute truth.
[00:08:59] Where can truth be found?
[00:09:05] I thought in 1971 as a college freshman that truth could be found in mathematics, and indeed we still live in a world that trusts the basic elements of mathematics, that two plus two equals four and not five.
[00:09:25] Now, of course, there are some wackos who believe that two plus two could be made out to be five, but that's just crazy talk.
[00:09:37] So we live in a universe that displays concepts of absolute truth.
[00:09:51] Scientists place a great deal of their energy and weight in the formula E equals MC squared.
[00:10:04] The pie – sorry, I was a math major – pie, the ratio of the circumference to the diameter is 3.14159 dot, dot, dot, and it never ends, and that's a constant.
[00:10:30] To fly to the moon, you have to believe that that's a constant, it's an absolute truth.
[00:10:38] To drive a car, you have to believe that that's a constant.
[00:10:41] It's an absolute truth.
[00:10:46] Anything in this world that you use that involves mathematics, you must believe that pi is an absolute truth.
[00:10:58] These are facts, true facts, true truths.
[00:11:09] The truth that is found in general revelation and the truth that is found in special revelation in the Bible, in Jesus.
[00:11:22] And then we turn to the Scriptures and we read Jesus of Nazareth saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
[00:11:38] I am truth itself.
[00:11:43] If we take something like a rock, for example, and ask, what is the truth about it?
[00:11:53] And you can list various materials, minerals that it's made of, truth about these materials that they're made of, molecules and atoms and elementary particles.
[00:12:13] Does this go on forever and ever?
[00:12:17] And I believe that most scientists will say no.
[00:12:23] And then Christianity comes and says that Jesus Christ is the cause of everything, including this rock.
[00:12:30] He made it.
[00:12:31] He brought it into existence.
[00:12:33] He spoke it into existence.
[00:12:36] John in his prologue to his gospel, when he speaks of Jesus, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
[00:12:47] The same was in the beginning with God.
[00:12:50] And then he goes on to say that nothing that is made was not made without Him, that He made everything.
[00:13:04] Truth is ultimately a person.
[00:13:10] God is not a set or a list of properties.
[00:13:15] Now we do ascribe properties or attributes to God.
[00:13:21] God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
[00:13:31] We're ascribing what God is like, but God is personal.
[00:13:43] How can I get to know a person?
[00:13:48] Well you can examine him anatomically using very sophisticated equipment and take all kinds of measurements, but do I know that person?
[00:14:09] And the answer is no.
[00:14:12] I know some things about him, but I don't know him.
[00:14:17] For a person to be known, he has to reveal himself to you.
[00:14:22] He has to talk to you.
[00:14:23] You know, sitting next to somebody on a plane, it's my nightmare scenario, and he's a talker.
[00:14:34] And I'm going to be on this plane for two and a half hours, and this guy is not going to stop talking.
[00:14:39] And he's going to tell me everything about himself and his wife and his children and his dogs and cats and what he does and his likes and dislikes.
[00:14:49] And at the end, you'll say, well, I think I know this person now.
[00:14:55] I know him a little.
[00:14:58] I don't know everything about him, but I know him because he has revealed himself to me.
[00:15:09] You can know a person by knowing a person's thoughts, a person's belief systems, a person's gestures, inflections, mannerisms.
[00:15:29] I've been married this year, I'll be married fifty years to my wife who's here somewhere, And I think after 50 years I can say I know her, I know what she likes, I know what she
[00:15:47] dislikes, I know the triggers.
[00:15:51] I know how to annoy her.
[00:15:56] I'm learning how to please her.
[00:16:01] I know what she will order on a menu pretty much, 95 percent of the time I can guarantee I look at the menu and think, she's going to order that.
[00:16:13] If there are lamb chops on the menu, she's definitely going to order it because I know her.
[00:16:19] I've lived with her for 50 years.
[00:16:27] The basic question, is there a God, and has He revealed Himself?
[00:16:37] Well, the Enlightenment said, yes, there's probably a God, but you cannot know Him.
[00:16:48] He belongs in a different sphere to us.
[00:16:52] We live in what Immanuel Kant called the phenomena.
[00:16:57] God dwells in the noumena, and they cannot perforate each other, making, of course, the story of the incarnation in the Scriptures impossible.
[00:17:18] God has revealed Himself.
[00:17:20] He reveals Himself in creation.
[00:17:23] He shows what He is like.
[00:17:25] Even His eternal Godhead, Paul says in Romans chapter 1, day unto day and night unto night, God is revealing Himself, the firmament on high is constantly revealing something about God, that He is a Creator.
[00:17:47] And the natural man receives that revelation.
[00:17:53] He may deny it, but he receives it, he gets it, and he holds it down in unrighteousness like a Coke bottle.
[00:18:05] And you take the cap off, and you put your thumb on the top, and then you shake it, shake it, and shake it, and shake it, and shake it.
[00:18:12] And there's pressure building up, but you're suppressing that pressure unless you're wicked and you take your thumb off and spray your friend that's next to you.
[00:18:31] God has revealed Himself in general revelation.
[00:18:41] You go to the Grand Canyon, actually I've never been to the Grand Canyon.
[00:18:46] But if you go to the Grand Canyon and you stand in a certain place and it says, God, God made this.
[00:18:59] You go to the southern tip of South Africa and drive down that coastline that goes to the very southern tip of South Africa, and there are whales in the bay, and you say there There is a God, and He made this.
[00:19:26] The natural man, you see, cannot avoid this knowledge.
[00:19:31] It comes at him.
[00:19:32] It bombards him day and night that there is a God, that He is a Creator, that He's powerful.
[00:19:45] And then in Jesus Christ, He reveals His grace, something that you don't see in general revelation.
[00:19:58] He sends His Son into the world by the power of the Holy Spirit, conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, taking of Mary twenty-three of her chromosomes, the Holy Spirit providing the other twenty-three, including the Y chromosome.
[00:20:21] That's how I understand the incarnation.
[00:20:26] So that this zygote, this embryo, this baby that is born in Bethlehem is both God and man.
[00:20:37] He is true God, God of God, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things are made.
[00:20:51] Jesus claimed to be God.
[00:20:54] He accepted the worship of His disciples, who referred to Him as Lord using the Greek word kurios, which was the word that translated the divine name Jehovah Yahweh in the Greek translation of the Old Testament.
[00:21:16] But He's also a man, a human being with a human mind and a human body and human affections and a human will.
[00:21:27] Two natures in one person.
[00:21:32] There's only one Him, but He's both divine and human.
[00:21:40] And this Jesus, this Savior that the Father sends into the world says, I am the truth and you can trust me.
[00:21:56] Paul in Philippians 4 is saying, think on these things.
[00:22:02] Think on things that are true.
[00:22:08] So Jesus is true, so think about Him.
[00:22:18] Think about Him a lot.
[00:22:23] Think about Him every day.
[00:22:27] Think about who He is and what He said and what He did, the words that He spoke recorded for us in the Gospels, His words, divine words, and they're true, and they're words that changed
[00:22:53] the world.
[00:23:02] Think about him when he was a little child, when he was two years of age, and Herod issued that decree to kill babies up to two years of age in Bethlehem.
[00:23:24] How many?
[00:23:25] Bethlehem wasn't that big, and outside of the census two years previously, its population was relatively small, so maybe a dozen babies were killed, but a dozen.
[00:23:40] And Jesus and Joseph and Mary flee to Egypt, and He comes out of Egypt like Moses came out of Egypt because He's a deliverer.
[00:23:58] Think about Him as a teenager.
[00:24:00] Think about Him when He's twelve years of age in the temple, and He has this massive understanding.
[00:24:05] He's grown, Luke says, in wisdom, so He's grown in knowledge, He's acquired knowledge and stature.
[00:24:18] He's grown, he was a two-year-old, he was a six-year-old, and now he's a twelve-year-old.
[00:24:31] Think of him in his ministry in Galilee, and in the Transjordan, and in Jerusalem, and the miracles that he performed, and the words that he spoke.
[00:24:47] Think of him as he delivers the Sermon on the Mount.
[00:24:54] Think of Him when He is betrayed by a close friend, a disciple.
[00:25:05] Think of Him when He experiences that flagellation, and according to Don Carson in his commentary and John because of the need to see the timing of this flagellation.
[00:25:32] With the Synoptic Gospels, Don Carson suggests that there were actually two flagellations, one more severe than the other.
[00:25:47] Think of him as perhaps his kidneys and his back were exposed by the brutality of what they did to him that they flogged him to within an inch of his life so that he was unable
[00:26:04] to carry that cross beam down the Via Dolorosa to Calvary.
[00:26:15] Think of him when they nailed him to that cross as they pierced his hands and feet and hoisted him onto that upright pole that was there from probably used over and over.
[00:26:45] Think of him when he says, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
[00:26:54] Think of him when he speaks to his mother and gives instruction to John, behold your Son, behold your mother," so that John would take care of Mary when Jesus is gone.
[00:27:19] Think of him when he cries, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
[00:27:32] And he's not simply quoting Psalm 22 from memory.
[00:27:38] He's experiencing the utter abandonment of the loving presence of His Father that had upheld Him throughout the whole course of His life, and that He did it for you to satisfy the demands of divine justice, do you see?
[00:28:05] That He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be reckoned the righteousness of God in him.
[00:28:17] Think of him when they laid him in a tomb, dead, no brainwaves, no heartbeat, his body cold to the touch.
[00:28:33] Think of him on that resurrection morning when Mary Magdalene on her second visit to the tomb thinks she's talking to the gardener, John says, and John is playing a little trick with you because He is the gardener. He's come to restore the Garden of Eden and make
[00:28:56] it new again. Think of Him as He ascends six weeks later from the Mount of Olives and disappears.
[00:29:08] Think of Him as He now sits in the heavenly glory in a resurrected body that can be touched, and He prays for you and He intercedes for you. And according to the book of Hebrews,
[00:29:27] He sympathizes with you.
[00:29:32] Think of Him when He promises that He's coming again.
[00:29:38] Just as you saw Him going, He will come again in power and glory and bring about the new heavens and the new earth.
[00:29:48] And Jesus says, I'm truth, that's true, that's absolutely true.
[00:29:56] These are not half truths, they're not myths, they're not parables.
[00:30:03] This is not the Lord of the Rings.
[00:30:06] This is true.
[00:30:07] It happened.
[00:30:13] Think on these things.
[00:30:16] Turn your eyes upon Jesus and look full in His wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.
[00:30:27] Think on these things.
[00:30:32] Open your Bibles.
[00:30:37] Open them daily.
[00:30:40] Read them.
[00:30:42] Read those pages because every word of Scripture is true.
[00:30:49] What you have in Scripture are God's words, God breathed out words.
[00:30:58] Peter says, holy men of old wrote as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
[00:31:08] All Scripture, Paul says, is breathed out by God.
[00:31:16] Like on a cold morning, like tomorrow morning, and what in the world?
[00:31:19] In Florida?
[00:31:20] What?
[00:31:21] I didn't bring a coat." But tomorrow morning when you get up, go outside and breathe out, and perhaps you'll see the water moisture in your lungs solidify before you, and it goes from being a gas to something
[00:31:47] solid that you can see, and that's what Scripture is.
[00:31:54] it's God breathes out. And what have you got? You've got Scripture. What Scripture says, God says. You want to hear the voice of God? Just read the Bible, and you have the voice of God.
[00:32:18] That doesn't mean that you can't enjoy the truth that God reveals elsewhere, the truth that is revealed in general revelation. It doesn't mean that you can't enjoy the artistic skills that God gives to men and women, Christians and non-Christians to
[00:32:50] produce works of art and music and literature, and you can enjoy them in proportion, everything in proportion. You know, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. That's not in the Bible, but it sounds as if it should be in the Bible. And so, the Bible has a theology of
[00:33:16] leisure, or leisure as you say. Think on these things. Then there are Christian books, so many of them, tens of thousands of Christian books, good books, sound books, books that explain Scripture to you, reveal the truth to you. What are you reading?
[00:33:58] I like to ask that question. And there's sometimes a response that suggests a bit of guilt.
[00:34:11] It's amazing to me that lawyers and doctors and highly skilled businessmen who read all sorts of things, but try getting them to read a Christian book is like pulling teeth.
[00:34:32] I had a text message from an elder just a few days ago, told me what he was reading.
[00:34:44] He was reading good stuff, good stuff.
[00:34:50] He was trying to get his teeth into some theology.
[00:34:54] He wanted his mind to grow in his understanding of truth.
[00:35:05] It's amazing, isn't it, that we are surrounded tonight by truth itself, and we are in union and communion with truth itself.
[00:35:21] By the grace of God in the gospel, we are in union with Christ, who is the truth.
[00:35:29] He reveals the Father to us, who is truth.
[00:35:33] He indwells us by the Holy Spirit, who is truth.
[00:35:39] He gives us His Word, which is true in every part.
[00:35:48] There are no errors in the Bible.
[00:35:51] There are difficulties in the Bible.
[00:35:54] I'm pretty sure a question will come tonight or tomorrow about a problem that folk have, a genuine problem, a real problem, harmonizing what the Scripture says here with what the Scripture says there, and so on.
[00:36:15] And in most cases, there are perfectly understandable answers to why one thing says one thing and another thing says another. And they can be harmless. Sometimes I'm still struggling with a couple of things in the Bible, and maybe I will until I get to heaven. But I believe the Bible
[00:36:42] to be true and without error because Jesus did. Jesus never questioned the authority of Scripture, never. In one instance, he said, the Scripture cannot be torn apart. You see, there were people in Jesus' day just as there are people in our day who want to make the Scriptures contradict each
[00:37:14] other, and they tear them apart. I was listening to a couple of sermons recently from a Presbyterian minister who was trying to deal with the issue of postmodernity and gender and sexual orientation and so on, and the gist of these two sermons were that Jesus never condemned homosexuality.
[00:37:40] That was the message He wanted people to go away with, that Jesus never condemned homosexuality.
[00:37:46] So what has He done?
[00:37:47] He's torn the Scriptures apart because Paul does in Romans 1, and Moses does in the book of Leviticus.
[00:37:57] So you've got now, you can trust Jesus' words, but you can't trust Paul or Moses.
[00:38:03] And what have you done?
[00:38:04] You've torn the Scriptures apart.
[00:38:11] Whatsoever is true.
[00:38:19] It sounds arrogant, doesn't it, to say, I know the truth.
[00:38:26] I know the truth in its absolute form because I know Jesus.
[00:38:36] I know Him as my Savior. I know Him as my Lord. I know Him as my prophet and my priest and my King. I know Him as my Savior. I know Him as one who sticks closer to me than a brother.
[00:38:56] I know Him as I know no other because He speaks to me in the Scriptures. Not that I hear voices or anything, but what the Scripture says, Jesus is saying. He's given us this, He's given us this
[00:39:22] book, three quarters of a million words in the original Hebrew and Aramaic and Greek, about a million in the translation into English, and He's given you truth. It's in your hand. It's in your head. It's in your memory, and you can read it every day, and you can hear it explained to you
[00:39:54] in sermons and in Sunday school classes and in discipleship groups and on renewing your mind, and you have truth. You have access to true truth. You can know what the truth is, and you can go to sleep at night. You're not searching for your identity.
[00:40:25] You're not trying to conjure up what sex you are. You're not fretting about why you're here in this world. You're here because Jesus made you and remade you by the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:40:43] So, think on these things, whatsoever is true.
[00:40:56] Father, we thank You for Your Word.
[00:41:02] Thank You for the Word made flesh.
[00:41:07] Thank You that in the midst of a world that is completely out of joint, this post-modern world in which we live, where up is down and down is up. We thank You, Lord, that we can be still
[00:41:31] and know that You are God and You are truth itself. So, grant Your blessing, we pray in Jesus' name.
[00:41:42] Amen.