“Destitute Of The Truth”
Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and Destitute Of The Truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. I Timothy 6:5
Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all. John 18:38
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. John 17:17
And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Isaiah 59:14
I’m reading now in I Timothy. This morning I was impacted by the phrase “destitute of the truth.”
It is a captivating concept.
Imagine being spiritually and/or morally destitute of the truth. That just sounds so stark, so dark, so hopeless, so bleak, so wrong somehow. To be that empty and void of the most essential element to living life is horrific. How can it get so bad? How does anyone ever get to that point? Does it happen quickly or over a lingering period of time — or both?
The way I look at it, truth is made up of both what is right and what is wrong. God at Creation established inherent guidelines, standards, boundaries.
The foundation of truth was infused right from the Garden with Adam and Eve. It’s imposition is to keep mankind from engulfing itself within a vacuum of self-destruction and … destitution.
Interestingly God’s creation, us, has the capacity and capability of creating its own vacuum of self-destructive destitution. Not sure about that? What about the Flood? The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? Read Romans chapter one. Or for that matter, just read the whole Bible.
Who gets to decide what is the truth? Is it by consensus? Group opinion? If so, what if the consensus changes. Does that create what is to be truth at that point? Can there actually be a cornerstone of foundational truth?
I guess if you’re an Evolutionist though, you can live within the framework of a constantly changing ethos. Everything changes and therefore the basis of existence at any particular time must conform to what is current. Each generation therefore gets to decide for themselves.
But … if you’re a Creationist/Biblicist then that’s not going to work.
First off, our God doesn’t change. He is constant. He’s the same yesterday, today, tomorrow and for all eternity. God doesn’t change with the times. He doesn’t morph Himself into something different to fit the whims of His creation. He’s not something at one point in history and something different as time unfolds. How confusing that would be!
For fallen humanity, God is the Great Monkey Wrench In The Sky. And because of God, man cannot decide what truth is and how fluid it can and cannot be. Why? Because God has set the standard. Man can beat his head against the wall of Divine truth, but he cannot break it. Truth ultimately will break him … for all eternity.
Over the span of my life, I can look back and see how man’s truth has ebb and flowed with the demands of the times. What was truth when I was younger no longer is the truth today. The standards and guidelines for societal norms are not the same now as then. Which norms are right? The ones I grew up with in this country or the ones being developed and implemented now?
As a whole, our country is destitute of the truth as laid out in God’s Word. We are quickly becoming Romans chapter one. We are no better off than Pilate when he asked Yeshua “what is truth?”
Well, the answer for Pilate is the same as it’s always been: “Thy Word is truth.” Truth, since the beginning of creation, has always been founded upon God and what He said. God doesn’t have several updated editions of His Handbook For Truth. He doesn’t take stock of the situation and readjust His truth. He doesn’t use whiteout. There are no do overs.
And so …
What we’re seeing in our country is that “judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” In other words, truth has dropped dead and it’s not going to get resuscitated.
I’m sure you don’t want to hear that. Believe me, I want to feel good about our country and the world around me. But we cannot keep our heads stuck in the sand of our own mental make believe worlds that we create within and around us. For help to be offered and hope to be found we, God’s people, must lead the way.
What’s that mean? I’m not exactly sure.
Perhaps it starts with allowing the Word of God to confront us consistently and regularly enough to where It challenges us, overcomes us and starts to change us.
I think this may be what happened to Jeremiah in his day when he exclaimed:
“O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. O Lord, correct ME, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring ME to nothing.” 10:23-24
We can’t wag our fingers at the world if we’re not willing to wag them at ourselves first. Notice what he then says in the next verse:
“Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name: for they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate.”
The lost society around us is not going to be “corrected” until and unless we come to the place Jeremiah did. We must lay ourselves on the tool bench of God’s Word and allow Him to fix us first. We can’t set things straight if we’re crooked ourselves, can we?
Brothers and sisters, we all know the times in which we live are increasingly destitute of the truth. We have to realize it’s up to us to make a difference. Will we change everyone and everything in one sweeping Revival as in days gone by? No, I don’t believe so. Those times are past for our Country.
However …
We can make a difference within the realm and scope of our individual worlds.
We are not individual search lights that can penetrate high up into the atmosphere. We are, rather, little individual candles empowered by the Holy Spirit. We don’t have to blind everybody with mega beams of light. But we are to be like the little pocket flash light I use every morning to check my school bus to make sure all is as it should be. I don’t check the whole fleet, but I do check my bus.
Don’t worry about your inability to “change the world.” But at least do your part to change the world that revolves around you personally each and every day.
Let’s due our part to minimize the surging destitution of the truth.