Why Seek Truth?

 

Why Seek Truth? 

Do you have a little time to spare? I have a few questions for you and am wondering if you would take a few moments to consider them with me. I promise, doing so could change your life forever! 

What would you do if, at your next doctor’s appointment, you were confronted with the life altering news that you had been diagnosed with a terminal disease? 

Would you simply give up right away or would you begin to seek answers and reasons? Would you deny or ignore the diagnosis simply because you didn’t like it or would you ask about possible cures? Would you ask how long you had to live? 

What if I told you that, right now, you do have a terminal disease, that death is certain, and that the Truth we have been considering holds the secret - and the only hope available - for finding the cure? Would you be motivated to seek the Truth then? If a positive outcome was guaranteed, would there be any limits on what you would do, what you would spend or where you would go to obtain that Truth and the cure?  

It is hard to imagine that anyone would face this scenario and say, “I think I’m ok with dying because I just don’t feel like doing anything about it”, or “I’ll just wait for the inevitable because I don’t want to spend that much to live”, or even “I don’t want to go that far for the cure!” While these answers might seem ridiculous, let’s assume for just a moment that someone did respond this way. What else could be said to motivate you to press on to find the Truth? What if I told you that to acquire the lifesaving cure you would have to do nothing but accept it, you wouldn’t have to go to any special place to find it, and that the price of the cure had already been paid for you? Would that qualify as good news to you? 

Good News, Bad News 

Spiritually speaking, that is exactly what has happened to you and for you, and it is very Good News indeed! But, before we can fully understand just how good that news is, we must first consider and come to understand the bad and the ugly side of the Truth.  

This disease you and I suffer under is what the Bible calls SIN (We will discuss what the Bible is and why we should care what it says in the next BBG post.) Sin is not something we catch, like a virus attacking from the outside. Sin is something we are, more like genetic mutation we were born with that has sickened us from deep within. We might prefer to view sin as being like smudges of filth on the surface of ourselves but the Truth tells us sin is actually integrated and woven into the very essence of our being and into every area of our life. We don’t simply need a good cleaning, a wiping away of the dirt from our image. We need to be changed, to experience a radical genetic transformation, at the deepest core of who we are. 

History of Sin 

“In the Beginning…God create man in his own image…he created them male and female…..God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed.” (Genesis 1:1, 27, 31 – See 1endnote on “Finding things in the Bible”) 

Sounds like a positive start to things! Man and woman, created in the image of God, created for relating to and being with God; with no sin in sight. They lived in paradise, and that isn’t hyperbole, it was literally paradise! There was only one rule to obey: “You are free to eat from any tree in the Garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2:16-17) 

This rule seems straightforward and simple. It included permission, even invitation, to enjoy and partake of everything God provided in the Garden; and prohibition of only one action, “Don’t eat from that tree.” We know what happened next. Man and woman ate what they were commanded not to (with abundant prodding and tempting from an ‘outside party’, I might add). The details of the whole disaster are beyond the scope of this current discussion, but the key point for you to grasp is that SIN happened, SIN was born. Sin was not only the eating of what shouldn’t have been eaten; it was much deeper and more grotesque than just that. Sin was the willful disobedience to God’s command “do not eat”; it was the distrust of the God who gave so much and withheld only one tree. Sin was the disregarding and exchanging of the offered relationship with God in favor of gaining something else. They thought that something else was going to be something more but, as we soon discover, sin always overpromises and always under-delivers. Sin leaves us empty, separated, lonely and afraid. Sin leaves us with something much, much less than what God intended for us. This is sin, in all its horrible ugliness. Now, here is the really bad part; because Adam represented all of us (a big theological concept that explains that Adam was our ‘federal head’, or representative), his sin was passed down to us, like a parent passing a genetic disease to their child. I know, I know…that feels like a giant leap. However, the Bible is very clear, “…since death came through a man…For just as in Adam all die...” (1 Corinthians 15:21, 22), and “So then, just as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone…just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners…” (Romans 5:18, 19).  The universality of this resultant sin disease is captured in one terrifying verse, “For ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The question for today is, “Who is the ‘all’ that have sinned”? We really need to find out because there is one last piece of bad news to deal with, “For the wages (or penalty) of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23).  

The Wages of Sin 

The actual existence of sin is an unpopular subject these days. To even bring it up is a good way to become labeled as judgmental or intolerant. The problem with addressing the subject of sin is that it comes into direct conflict with the prevailing cultural belief that, deep down, most people are basically good, and those that aren’t good are bad because of some terrible thing that they have done. But when we make the blanket statement that all people are sinful at birth (the theological concept of original sin), apart from any specific bad behavior, it is considered in bad taste. The Bible, however, is very clear. Not only are we all sinful by nature, we are all utterly incapable of doing anything that meets with God’s definition of good. 

The ramifications of sin, and its penalty of ‘spiritual death’ and punishment, are eternal and spread to every area of our life and existence. Sin introduced physical death into the world along with all disease, degeneration and deterioration that people, and nature, experience. This wage is paid to “all that have sinned”, and that includes you and me. By this sin we are separated from a holy God and face an everlasting punishment, a fate we are entirely incapable of escaping on our own.   Thanks to the failure in the Garden of Eden we were doomed. Then something amazing happened!  

A Way Out, A Way Back 

God, through His creation of the universe, demonstrated that He is all powerful. God, through His provision of all that Paradise offered, displayed to the first humans that He is kind. God, through His punishment of sin, declared that He is holy. But all of that was not the end of the story. God, finding man and woman in the Garden, naked and afraid, ravaged by the effects of sin entering the world, did something unexpected. He covered the man and woman. They had tried in vain to hide behind fig leaves, but failed miserably. Instead, God covered them effectively with “garments of skins and clothed them” (Genesis 3:31). That’s important. But what isn’t directly stated is more important. The only way to make garments of skin is to kill. The high price of ‘covering’ their sin was the sacrifice of the life of an innocent substitute! The entire universe, that up to this point had never seen or experienced death, witnessed, along with the man and woman, the horror of sin’s penalty – death and the shedding of blood. The Bible tells us in Hebrews 9:22, “Apart from the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin”,  and by that sacrificial shedding of blood, to pay the price that man and woman could never pay to have their sin dealt with, God shows that He is love. 

A Mild Case of a Terminal Disease 

Strangely, it is possible for all this to be true and yet you be personally unmoved to take any action whatsoever. It’s like being told you have a terminal disease which will end your life but which has very few symptoms…until the very end. It would be foolhardy to deny that gruesome inevitability with a flippant, “But I feel pretty good right now!” or “Maybe I only have a mild case of that terminal disease”!  

It is one thing to hear and accept the great theological truths about sin and its effects and ultimate penalty, it is entirely another thing to accept that you are a sinner, that you have fallen away from God and His best for you, and that you will suffer the effects of that sin now and ultimately pay the penalty in the future for eternity. 

The only hope you and I have is God and His plan to save us. Friend, you do have a terminal disease and it’s called sin. It does kill you, a little bit every day, stealing joy, purpose and relationships with others and with God. It will kill you. One day you will die and you will face God. How you face Him will make all the difference in eternity. 

Wrapping Up 

This is, obviously, not a comprehensive study of sin. That would takes books and books (and more knowledge than I possess) to cover. This is not an enjoyable subject to write about, frankly it’s just not that inspiring! However, the pursuit of Truth is a wonderfully inspiring and enjoyable journey, but good news isn’t good unless you first understand the bad. Choosing God makes much more sense when you clearly understand what the alternative is. 

Next time we will take a short break from the Journey to discuss the Map we will be using, the Bible. Most have heard about It, many have strong opinions about It, but today far too few people actually stop to learn what the Bible is all about and deal personally with the questions of whether It is true and whether It can be trusted as “the rule and guide” of our Faith. This we will endeavor to do next time with The Bearded Bible Guy. Until then, God bless you on your journey. 

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1”Finding Things in the Bible” – I heard a story about a lady, we’ll call her Suzy, that was invited to a Bible study by a Christian friend. When she walked in, everyone was friendly and welcoming and made her feel very comfortable. They even gave her a Bible to use and to keep as she didn’t have one of her own. Then the leader started the Bible study by saying, “Let’s all turn to Philippians four-six and seven.” On the whiteboard she wrote “Phil. 4:6-7”.  

Suzy no longer felt very comfortable! “Phil’s-lippy-what?” she thought to herself. And what was that strange number code to mean?  

Some people who have had a Christian upbringing, with Bible reading and Sunday school, never think twice saying these kinds of things. They forget that the very people they are trying to reach may never have heard such things, may never have even held a Bible before, and are made to feel very much on the “outside” when confronted with these kinds of statements. 

This Blog will use A LOT of what are called Bible references. And I don’t want Suzy, or you, to feel like an outsider! So let’s take just a moment to find out why Phil is so lippy in the first place! 

The Bible is really a collection of many smaller books, 66 of them actually, and navigating to a specific place in all those books is actually quite easy, even if you’re a beginner. Let’s use the example from out story – Phil. 4:6-7. The first part of a Bible reference refers to the name of the smaller book in the Bible, and this is the only tricky part to figure out. The good news is that, in every Bible I’ve ever used, there is a Table of contents at the front of the Bible that lists all the names of those smaller books and the page number for the page where they begin. Here is a picture of the Table of Contents from my Bible: 

Unfortunately, a lot of Bible references will use an abbreviation of the book name, in our case Phil. All you have to do is find a book that starts with those letters. Uh oh! Phil has two possibilities! You might see that there is a book named Philippians and a book named Philemon. (You will notice the Table of Contents also lists normal abbreviations. In this Blog I will always use the full name of the book to help you out.)  

Now we know that Phil is the abbreviation for the book called Philippians, and in my Table of Contents Philippians begins on page 1071. Easy, huh? 

Now, what about the number code, 4:6-7? Each book is divided into chapters (usually BIG numbers at the top and in the text of a Bible page) and each chapter is divided into verses (usually SMALL numbers at the beginning of sentences within the text on a Bible page). These two divisions are separated by a colon ( : ). So Phil 4:6-7 means “Go to the book of Philippians, Chapter 4 and verses 6-7.” Simple!   

As always, if you have any questions, or if you feel uncomfortable with how to read the Bible, drop me a message, I would be happy to help!