Are We Convicted of Truth?

I want to begin in a section here in John 18 that I know you're familiar with, because we often read through this whenever we go through the Passover service, and we're studying the death of Jesus, the time when he would offer his body and his blood as a sacrifice for sin. We were talking about that a little bit of Bible study the other night, about how that John the Baptist was actually pointing to Jesus Christ. He was pointing to the Lamb of God who was going to take away the sins of the world.

We read through this, and I want to focus on a section that involves Jesus and Pilate, because, as you know, as he in the beginning of this chapter is dealing with his betrayal by Judas, and then being arrested and taken to the high priest, and eventually a high priest questions him. And then finally, you see Jesus being taken to Pilate starting in about verse 28.

It says in John 18 verse 28, they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate's headquarters. It was early in the morning. So this was clearly a part of what was to occur in the life of Jesus.

But what I want to focus on is the interaction between Jesus and Pilate.

Pilate was a Roman official. He was a ruler, and yet he clearly represented a military power.

The Jews were bringing Jesus to him so that he could kill him. That was what Pilate's role was. He had that authority, and yet the Jews didn't have that. They, of course, had to trump up charges, and they had to tell things that were untrue. They couldn't really bring any accurate information about Jesus and have any reason for this.

But what I want to focus on is starting in verse 33. Pilate, as he entered the headquarters, again, he stung in Jesus and asked him some questions. Pilate asked Jesus, Are you the king of the Jews? That was the question that he posed. Jesus answered in verse 34 and says, You asked this on my or on your own, or did others tell you about me?

And so, you know, Jesus wisely asked a question that was going to lead somewhere. And, of course, Pilate wasn't Jewish. He was of Roman, and he was only involved because he had authority. He had authority from the Roman system. But as Jesus asked, or how did you find this out, Pilate replied in verse 35, I'm not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the high priest or chief priest have handed you over to me. What have you done? See, he really, you know, he seemed kind of clueless here. And in a sense, whenever you think about this interaction, it was quite a, it was quite a mismatch. Even though Pilate thought he had the upper hand, even though he thought, you know, that Jesus should be really concerned about what his decision was going to be, you know, the mismatch was that he didn't realize who he was dealing with. He didn't realize who he had been, had been brought before him and who he was going to be involved in putting Jesus to death. And so we read on. He asked him, what have you done? In verse 36, Jesus answered, and he said, My kingdom, the kingdom that I am the king of, My kingdom is not of this world. It's not from this world. If My kingdom were from this world, that My followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, My kingdom is not from here. And so what he told him was exactly correct. He says, I do have a kingdom. I am the king of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is not from this world. It's not going to be begun right now. It's not going to be overtaking the earth today. That's going to come later. But kind of ask him, well, you know, so you are a king.

And Jesus answered, saying in verse 37, You say that I'm a king. And for this, I was born.

And for this, to be a king, I came into the world to testify to the truth.

And everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice. See, now, he clearly had an answer. He knew what he was doing. He knew that he was ultimately laying down his life for all of humanity, for all of us. But whenever the pilot was asking him about being a king, you know, Jesus explained that, well, yes, I'm a king, and I was born for that reason. And for this, I came into the world to testify to the truth that I'm the king of the kingdom of God, that I am the Son of God, in essence. That's what he was saying. And of course, you know, then Jesus made some statements about truth that Pilate found, that just don't found Him. He says, well, how can you be telling me about, you know, testifying to the truth? And what do you have to say about those who belong to the truth, listening to your voice? Well, what Jesus was revealing was that truth, the truth, the truth, that all of us need to have our lives based on truth comes from God.

It was coming from Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And of course, Pilate, in a confused response, ends this chapter or this section in verse 38, saying, well, what is truth? See, Pilate had a similar misperception about truth as many people today. Many people today, and I'm sure you know, all around us, and even as Ken was reading and dealing with the topic of the sermonette, you know, there are a lot of things that people think are true, and they're absolutely false. There has been a great deception that has occurred on this earth. And of course, the God of this world is the one who accelerates that deception in multiple different ways. But today, you know, we actually find many people who are very much like Pilate. They don't really know what true truth is, what true values are, what truth, as we will describe here through the remainder of the sermon, what truth really is, and that that truth that all of us should ground and base our life on you know, it comes from God. It comes from the Creator. It comes from the one who made us and set us here on the earth and gives us a fabulous privilege to ultimately be a part of His Kingdom and family. And yet, that's going to be based on truth. See, and actually, if we think about it today, you know, most people or many people are unable to know, even if there is absolute truth, you know, they are confused. People in general are confused because, you know, there is a great mission to deceive and to cause people to think in a relativistic view of truth. Well, everything is relative. There are really no absolutes that you could say are absolute truths. And I want to go through a little bit of that here in a second, but I want us to look at 2 Timothy 4.

Because in this section, 2 Timothy 4, Paul is telling Timothy, he says, in the presence of God in verse 1, and of Jesus Christ, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing in His Kingdom, I solemnly urge you, Timothy, to proclaim the message, to be persistent, whether the time is favorable or not, to convince, to rebuke, to encourage, and with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming, he says in verse 3, a time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching or doctrine, but have itching ears, and they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and they will turn away from listening to the truth. That's a prediction of the end of the age. It's a prediction of the time that we live in. It's a prediction of the deception that Satan is perpetuating on society today, where people do not have a belief in absolute truth. And of course, as I've said, that truth is what our lives need to be grounded in.

He goes on to say, having itching ears, they accumulate for themselves teachers, turning away from the truth or listening to the truth, and wandering away to fables.

Wandering away to myths. I think you would have to say that the common view about true and false or right and wrong is clearly a topic that people are very confused about today. The Barnard Group does a lot of reviewing and reporting, and they ask a question of a number of people who would consider themselves Christian, even. Is there absolute truth? And I'm going to assume that all of us believe there is, and I think we can see that from the Word of God, but even from the people that they were interviewing, asking the question, is there absolute truth, two-thirds said there's no such thing. That's pretty sad. Two-thirds would not believe that there is an authority that has the prerogative to tell us what is true. Actually, you know, they had a report that said different people can define truth in conflicting ways and still think they're right. See, again, that's what you end up with. Unfortunately, it may be even more alarming, those in the kind of the younger range, 18 to 25, almost 75 percent of them said, no, there's no absolute truth. You know, that's not very promising. In a series of interviews they conducted at a large university, almost everyone said there is no absolute truth. Truth is whatever you believe, and if there were such a thing as absolute truth, how could you know what it is? That's a pretty sad commentary on people in general.

And so you can see that having a relativistic view of truth, that it really can't be pinned down, it can't be absolute, causes people to depend on simply their own views or the views of their culture. Because as we look around the world, we've got different cultures, different countries, even with different interests and different concepts of what is true and what is not. Actually using human reason as a standard to determine what is true. And they usually will even perpetuate this by saying, well, if that's true for you, meaning that, well, it's not true for everyone, but if it happens to be what you think or what you believe, well, then that's okay, but I have another idea about what's true. Or that we can't judge other cultures, because certainly, you know, you have other cultures even around the world that have different ideas, even about God or about Jesus. And that doesn't make them true. That doesn't make them accurate. And of course, with this type of view, anything can be said to be true. And, you know, it advances a certain level of tolerance, but it's not based on logic. It's not based on the fact that we should be able to determine certain things just depending on, you know, what did the facts show? If I tried to convince you that my shirt is blue, I don't think I'd be very successful, because that isn't based on fact. I think it's white. If I tried to tell you I drove up here in the red car, you would, if you knew what color my car was, you would know. You know, the facts don't bear that out. That's not accurate. But if you have a relativistic view, you know, you can believe anything, because, you know, if there are no absolutes, and there's no right, there's no wrong, and of course, you know, that's a darling of, you know, people who would like to just be free to do their own thing, to do whatever seems right to them. It's not based on the Word of God, as, of course, our lives should be. Our calling in this age, brethren, involves being convicted of the truth of God. See, that's a part of the calling that all of us should be able to think back to in our own lives. However God has worked with you, you know, we should be able to recognize that, you know, we were being drawn to Jesus Christ. We were being drawn to the one who, the only one who can save us from eternal death, the only one who can keep us from dying, and then ultimately, you know, no longer being retrieved. Jesus Christ is the one who is going to be able to help us. He's available. He is able to help us. And yet, you know, we're wanting us to think about our conviction, because there was a time when we were considering being baptized. We were wanting to come to know what repentance is, and it's impossible to fully be repentant and to understand repentance if we don't know an absolute truth about what is sin. If you can define sin, then you can determine what's wrong. And of course, the Bible, of course, gives us, you know, that truth.

But our relationship to God is not simply based on a certain level of emotion, but on a commitment that's based on God's Word, and truly understanding not only our sins and our need for forgiveness and our... clearly, as we are going to be studying the need for the Holy Spirit and the power of the Spirit of God that is described in connection with the Day of Pentecost that we will observe next week, a week from tomorrow, it goes beyond that. It goes beyond just simply what God offers us, because He also offers us an understanding of the purpose of human life. We need to know what that purpose is, and we need to be, of course, basing our lives on the way, you know, that God wishes us to live. So, I've got four areas that I want to cover here this afternoon that involve, you know, the Word of God and the truth of God that God has called us to. And actually, I guess the title would be, Are we convicted of the truth? Because, you know, that's what we find defended in the New Testament. We find it defended in the way that the church was even set up, and the people of God were called the people of the way, the way of Jesus, the way of truth. That's what they're called in numerous places in the book of Acts. We might need to go through there. But the first thing I want to mention about our conviction to truth is that faith is required to know spiritual truth.

See, I have mentioned to you, and I'll mention again here, Hebrews 11 verse 6 says, without faith, it's impossible to please God. And to those who come to God, they have to believe that God exists. They have to come to a perception that may be based on their faith. And I think it has to be based on faith and based on our perception of what God reveals about Himself and how He exists. But it says there in Hebrews 11.6, those that are going to come to God must believe that God exists and that He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. That's based on faith.

And whenever we look into what it is that Jesus said, we actually here in John 17c, Jesus praying for those who would be His initial followers. This is what He says in John 17. This is a prayer of the Father, a prayer not only about Himself because He does mention Himself and wanting to be re-glorified with the Father after He is put to death and then resurrected. But here in John 17 and talking about the disciples, those whom the Father had given to Him. And again, that's an important significant factor that we want to remember because if God has drawn us to an understanding of our calling and a recognition of the purpose of human life and a relationship with Him and with His Son, we want to realize how important it was that the Father was involved in creating that connection and perhaps in helping us have an awareness and faith in His existence. But here in John 17, you see Jesus mentioning His followers, those that He was praying for. And He says in verse 16, they don't belong to the world just as I don't belong to the world. See, that's why before Pilate it was such an unimaginable mismatch. You know, Pilate thought he was in charge, but Jesus clearly was in charge. He knew more about what was going on than Pilate did. But here in verse 17, He says to the Father, Father sanctify them, sanctify His followers, sanctify those who would become a part of His body, a part of His church, sanctify them in the truth. Your Word is truth. And so clearly, you know, as we come to a faith in God, as we come to a belief in His existence and in His ability to tell as a creation, to tell the creation how we're to live, that involves absolute truth. That involves, you know, His Word. Verse 19, He says, For their sakes I sanctify myself so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

See, we're set apart by truth that comes from the Word of God. And we can be very thankful and grateful for that. Over in John chapter 8, you find several statements about truth and how important it is to our lives. John chapter 8, you actually find Jesus, you know, in a sense, discussing this with the Pharisees later in the chapter. But I want to start back up in verse 31, because Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him. See, there were some Jews who were beginning to see, what? Boy, He's, it looks pretty impressive. He's able to heal the sick. He's able to, you know, feed the masses. He's able to do all of these things that certainly look unbelievable. And so they partially, at least some of them, were beginning to believe in Him. And He said to them in verse 31, if you continue in My Word, you are truly My disciples. And so that could apply to all of us. Not only do we believe in God and believe in Jesus Christ, but we've got to continue. We've got to act in following and obeying His Word. And in verse 32, He says, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. See, this was actually a description of the fact that they would come to know what Jesus had to offer. That they would know the truth because He's going to describe Himself as the truth. He's going to describe Himself as the way of truth. And of course, if they were going to accept Him, if they were going to receive what He had to offer, then they were going to be able to be forgiven. They were going to be able to live in a state of freedom, a state of forgiveness where they can be nurtured and cared for. And that's not talking about being sinless because none of us fit the category. But we can be in a state of forgiveness. We can be where we pursue the truth, where we live by that as a foundation and basis. And we realize that it's based on faith. In verse 34, Jesus answered them. Well, I don't know if I need to go through this section. You can read down. Actually, it's talking about being freed from having been captive to sin because that really is what we have to be released from. And that is what He makes available to us. The second area that I want to mention, and we've already seen this in John 17, 17, where it says, your word is truth. The Bible is the one that defines the way of truth. As I mentioned, the people of the way is the way we see the Christian church described, even as Paul was chasing down and putting to death people who believed in Jesus at that time in Acts 9. He says, I'm searching for those of the way. That was a description you see several times here in the book of Acts. But what we find about the Bible defining the way of truth, we can begin here in John 14. All of these are in the book of John. John 14, verse 6, after talking to His disciples and the disciples deciding that they really don't know what they need to do, they don't know what the way is, they don't know for sure what they can depend on. Thomas said to him in verse 5, Lord, we don't know where you're going. How are we going to know the way? How are we going to know what to do? How can we follow you? And Jesus said, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life.

And no one comes to the Father except through me. So here we see Jesus directly stating that He's the one who has truth. That was the same thing that happened in Pilate's exchange. Pilate didn't know what was true. He had a relativistic view. It was true of He thought it was. But that wasn't the case. Jesus was talking about spiritual truth. He was saying, I'm here to testify to the truth that I am the King of the Kingdom of God. But I'm not setting up that Kingdom right yet. I'm going to, but I'm not setting it up yet. If we turn back to John 1, we find in verse 14 that Jesus, the Word, became flesh and lived among us. And we have seen His glory, the glory as of a Father's only Son, and He is full of grace and truth. See, not only is Jesus stated directly as being the one who is true, who is the truth, who offers truth, but He's full of truth. And here in John 8, again, if we go back there, because there's a lot of verses we could go through here, in John 8, again, in exchange with the Pharisees, He says in verse 44, you are from your Father, the devil.

They didn't want to hear that. They said, our Father is Abraham. They put a lot of, I guess, importance or significance on their genealogy, on their heritage. And yet, what Jesus was talking about was very true, whether they believed it or not.

He says, you are of your Father, the devil, and you choose to do your Father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and He does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in Him. See, again, Jesus was explaining what really is true.

You know, truth comes from God. It comes from the Creator. It comes from the Son of God, as He interacted with Pilate and as He interacts with the Pharisees here.

In again, in verse 44, when Satan lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar, and he is the Father of lies. And He goes on in verse 45, but because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. See, this was Jesus proclaiming. His proclamation, He says, I'm the truth. He says, I'm full of truth. He says, I speak the truth.

We have a very valid and very strong description of how Jesus is defined in the Bible as the way of truth. You also see, we go to chapter 14. In verse 17, He says this is, He's talking about the Holy Spirit here. He says, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, a Spirit whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him or knows Him. It doesn't know the Spirit. It doesn't know the divine nature that's available through the Spirit of God. But it is talking not only about Jesus being true, but about the Holy Spirit being true. And here in Ephesians 4, we see a description.

Ephesians chapter 4, Ephesians chapter 4, of course, is a description of how we are to live. Chapter 4 talks about being united. It talks about us all pulling in the same direction. It talks about us being able to love one another and, of course, to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace and build one other up. This is what first part of chapter 4 is about.

But what I want to read is starting in verse 17. Verse 17 says, Now this I affirm and I insist on in the Lord, you must no longer live as the Gentiles live in the futility of their minds.

To hear Paul was telling people who were in the congregation in Ephesus, they had been drawn into the church, they had been drawn into the body where they were to be forgiven and led by the Holy Spirit, given the Holy Spirit, led by that Spirit. He said they were not to be. They were not to continue to be confused in the futility of a deceived world. He says you must no longer live as the Gentiles live in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. And he says in verse 20, that is not the way that you learned Christ. For in verse 21, surely you have heard about Him and you were taught in Him as truth is in Jesus Christ.

So he said He's the one who is your head. He is the one, your leader. He is your captain. He is your example. You were taught in verse 22 to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lust and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to clothe yourself with the new self, created according to light in the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. See, this is a contrast between the way they had been and the way that they needed to be. Then they needed to be calm because their lives were to be based on truth. Their lives were to be based on Jesus Christ and Christ living in them so that they are no longer the same, that we are transformed. So the second thing is that simply the Bible defines the way of truth. The third thing is described here in 2 Timothy 2 and actually several of the scriptures that Mr. Wellman read earlier are very close to where I'm reading, kind of following up on some of the things that he said earlier. But here in 2 Timothy 2, it tells us that we can escape the deception of the world by knowing the truth. That's actually how we are able to escape the deception. Starting here in verse 22, Timothy was told, and again Paul was lovingly caring for Timothy. He wanted him to understand how he should function in the church. He wanted him to be able to be a good minister. He wanted him to serve people.

And he said in verse 22, Shun, 2 Timothy 2, 22, Shun, youthful passions and pursue righteousness and faith and love and peace along with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart.

And so in describing the members of the church, he said they should be pursuing a closeness with God, a relationship with Jesus Christ, based on a pure heart.

And he goes on in verse 23, He had nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies because you know that they simply breed quarrels. So as Paul directed Timothy, he said some things are not worth arguing about. But he goes on to say in verse 24, The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kindly to everyone and to be an apt teacher in patient and correcting opponents with gentleness. And then he said God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth and that they may escape from the snare of the devil having been taken captive or held captive by him to do his will. See, we escape the deception in this world by knowing the truth of God, a truth that comes from God Himself, it comes from Jesus as the Son of God, it comes from the Word of God that we face our life on. And of course, as I mentioned earlier, if we think back to the time when we were brought into the commitment that we now have with Christ and with God, when we were called, when our minds were opened or our hearts were opened to understand the truth, see, that's an amazing miracle that God does, that He does in performing or providing us a connection and understanding that, well, it's not simply that I need to read the Bible, because there are a lot of people who do read the Bible probably more than I do or perhaps than you do, but they don't fully understand it. And they don't see that it describes not just what we've already read, which in many ways I think are very clear, and maybe a lot of people would agree.

But see, we also can see from Genesis to Revelation that the Bible describes an understanding of the purpose of God's created human beings, the purpose of breathing into Adam and Eve, the breath of life, and having created them out of the dust and created them subject to death.

See, He did that for a reason. He did that with a purpose in mind, that as human beings, we would come to see our need for God and our need for forgiveness, to be redeemed, and then to be empowered, to be empowered by the Holy Spirit, to be able to know that our lives are based on understanding God's purpose. I know that as I think back on, you know, when God brought me to an awareness of my need for God, you know, I was a young kid, and I was, you know, a relatively simple farm kid. I was, you know, I was a big city slicker. I was, you know, pretty much just a regular average kid. I grew up on a farm, but I, you know, there were certain things that were simple and yet extremely valuable because I loved to be outside, and I loved to be, you know, running around, and I had a couple of younger brothers and later a younger sister, but my brothers and I, you know, we play outside a lot. One time, I guess we had to be pretty small. Dad put up what ended up being kind of a hog-wire fence, tried to keep us in, tried to keep us from going too far because, you know, he had a fair amount of land to be able to roam, but we always loved to be able to be out, and there were a couple of ponds, and we could go out and go fishing, and I loved to do that. I loved to be able to be out, go over, be at the pond, mess around, and then, you know, if it started raining, that didn't make any difference. You know, you can crawl under a cedar tree and try to keep mostly warm, and of course, rain isn't much of a problem. Hail is a little more of a problem, which I remember distinctly, trying to scamper away from the hail, but see, that's shaped, in a sense, my connection with God, because at that time, as little as I knew, I certainly knew of something about the outdoors, and I, you know, I mentioned up in Fulton earlier, you know, how absolutely fabulous it was to be able to drive over to the Bible study this past Wednesday evening. If you'll think back to Wednesday, we've had a lot of somewhat similar days, and we've got some pretty cool-looking clouds outside, but absolutely incredible time that I had going to Bible study. I'm sure that the hour traveling there was much more impressive than the hour we were there, because everybody hadn't listened to me talk for now. If they were driving like I was to get there and looking at all of the clouds and looking at the different little water cells, you know, because we've had, you know, this is a little unusual. We've had not just a great big huge thunderstorm that comes through and, you know, just drenches everything. You have a bunch of little smaller cells that are here and there, and you have these huge white billowy clouds, and then you have a little darker cloud, and then you have a black cloud, or then you have another, you know, white puffy cloud, and maybe below it. And I saw this even on some of the weather casting they've done the last day or two, people sending in pictures of just incredible clouds, and even below them, just a drenching rain, you know, which you don't normally see. And, of course, as I was driving the Bible study, I could see that, well, you know, I've got all of these gorgeous clouds, and I can see different, I, God is just impressive. That's all you can say. He is absolutely impressive. Whenever you see, and, of course, this is described in Romans, you know, the evidence of the power and the existence of God, when you look at creation, is clearly there. And He is able, you know, not only to draw things, He can draw things better than Cleo. And Cleo does a good job.

But God can draw clouds that are unbelievable, and He can then make them disappear and make them different. You know, we can, you know, I was talking to the girls, I was talking to Alexis, and I told her I saw a seahorse, and I saw a pufferfish, because the clouds look like different things to different people.

And she told me she saw a cloud that looked like a horse, and then it turned into an alligator. And so I thought that was quite impressive. She's looking up and watching, you know, the clouds and what's going on. And you often find, you know, if you relate to the outer doors, if you relate to God's creation.

And of course, you know, we're here in a pretty flat spot. And there are a lot of very beautiful scenarios in mountains and in other places and oceans. I love to be on the ocean as well, but I'm not very often on the ocean. But I love to hear the waves, to just listen to the waves coming onto the shore. And to know that God is decreed, you know, you'll come this far and that's it. That's, you know, kind of the way He set it up.

And of course, He describes that. But, you know, whenever we become convicted of the truth, it's more than just what I happen to read in the Bible, although that is the basis to tell me what the Word of God is and what the truth of God is. But it's more when we truly come to understand what is sin and what is the purpose of life and how it is that God is going to enable us to rule over our defective human nature because our nature, we don't talk a lot about human nature, but that's very important that we understand the description you find in Romans 8 about how it is that the Carl mind is hostile against God and it cannot be any other way because it is hostile toward His law.

It's hostile toward His authority. And if we come to recognize the truth that comes from our Creator, then we can escape the deception of this world. And certainly, we come to see the truth is there are absolute truths. That truth comes from the Father, it comes from the Son, it comes from the Word of God. It's defined by our Creator here in 1 John 4. I think we read a verse there earlier. But as John was writing this little book and he was, again, a long-living apostle, he had been with Jesus, he had watched Jesus die, he had cared for Mary after Jesus was no longer there to care for her, and he had lived longer than any of the other apostles, and he was writing these books, 1, 2, 3 John, late in the first century.

He was giving instruction to the church. He wanted them to be reminded of what it was that they had been drawn to understand. And here he says in 1 John 4, and we'll read in verse 6, he says, Brethren, we are from God. We have been drawn into a relationship of knowing God, of knowing our Creator, of actually submitting our lives to our Creator to where we're no longer our own, and we've been bought with a price.

We have been covered by the blood of Jesus. And so, he says, we are from God, and whoever knows God, and see, that should be a goal for everyone to truly, truly know God, the only true God, and to know Jesus Christ whom he sent.

But it says, whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. For this we know, or from this, we know the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error. He said, if we come to base our lives on our commitment to God, our conviction of His truth, of an understanding of His purpose for our lives, then we can absolutely be grounded and absolutely then walk in the truth.

And he says it a number of times. We'll read a little bit more here. In this last point, I want to make, see, this last one or fourth one that I want to mention is that we must be grounded in the truth, grounded in the truth, because, see, that's going to provide stability, that's going to provide peace, it's going to provide joy, it's going to enable us to be able to stand. That's what we read here in Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 is a, and again, Ken read one verse here in Ephesians 6 earlier. But Ephesians 6 talks about how, as we're fighting a battle, struggling against the deceptions that Satan perpetuates in this world, he tells us what to do. He tells us we're not left alone, we've been given the Spirit of God. And in verse 13, verse 13, he says, therefore, since we're in that kind of battle, take up the whole armor of God so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day and having done everything to stand firm. See, that's what he said. I want you to have an absolute firm foundation.

That foundation is going to be Jesus Christ. It's going to be the Word and the truth of God. But he goes on to describe the armor. And he says, stand therefore and fasten, what? Fasten the belt of truth. The belt of truth around your waist and put on the breastplate of righteousness. And he goes it through many other of the armaments here. But see, he said, one of the things that's going to ground you, one of the things that will keep you stable and sound and growing, will be being convicted of the truth.

Having that truth around your waist and across your chest when you see the description of Revelation 1 of Jesus with a white raiment and, of course, flaming eyes and beautiful white hair, he has a golden band across his chest. You know, similar to a belt, but maybe more this way than just around your waist.

And yet the belt of truth is supposed to be stabilizing us. And here at 1 Timothy, 1st and 2nd Timothy, over a few more pages, 1 Timothy 3, you see Paul in this case telling Timothy, I want you to be functional in the Church of God, in the ministry that you have. He says in verse 14, I hope to come to you soon.

1 Timothy 3, 14, but I'm writing these instructions to you so that if I'm delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the Living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth. See, that's even the way the Church is described.

You know, it is based on an understanding of God's purpose for man and how it is that as we continue to draw close to God and are led by the Spirit of God and are united with the help and power of God, you know, that we are stabilized by that truth. And in 2 Timothy 2, we can read, starting here in verse 14, 2 Timothy 2, again, Paul tells Timothy, remind them of this and warn them before God that they're to avoid wrangling over words which does no good, but only ruins those who are listening. He says, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by God, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly dividing or explaining the word of truth. See, that's what we're basing our lives on is an understanding of the Bible, an understanding of the words. We want to keep them in our mind. And of course, it takes a while to get the Bible in our mind. And maybe we're all in the process of yet getting it in our mind. And yet, you know, that's what he tells Timothy. And he says in verse 16, avoid propane chatter for it will lead people into more and more impiety and their talk will spread like gangrene. And among them are Hymenaeus and Phileas who have swerved from what? They've swerved from the truth. They've swerved from the truth by claiming the resurrection has already taken place. They obviously were wrong. Paul was pointing that out. But he says, you know, you need to rightly divide and explain the word of truth and not swerve from what the Word of God teaches and tells us to do. So, you know, those are four things that I think tie together with an understanding of what is truth. Pilate clearly didn't know.

Jesus clearly did know and clearly told him, I'm here to testify to the truth and those who hear my voice are the ones who will know the truth. I want us to take a look again at 2 John.

Again, this is John in these little epistles that he wrote toward the end of the first century.

And he was excited about people who had lived for decades now since the time of Jesus and his death and the beginning of the church. And they had been for 40, 50, 60 years, kind of come and gone. You know, turnover, I'm sure it occurred within the church. People had died. Other people had populated the Church of God. But he says in verse 1, 2 John, verse 1, he says, The elder to the elect lady and her children. This was maybe to a given woman, I don't know, but certainly it could very applicable be to the church that is often referred to as a woman.

Elder, the elder John, to the elect lady and her children whom I love in the truth.

See, this is the description that he would give for the Church of God in Christianity that is being faithful. He says, To this lady and her children whom I love in the truth, and not only I, but also all who know the truth because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever. See, he said, you know, that grounding, that foundation of knowing your relationship with God and believing the truth. He said, Grace and mercy and peace will be with you or with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son in truth and in love. And I'm overjoyed. Verse 4, he says, I am just absolutely thrilled that even after decades in his life and after decades perhaps in some of theirs, I'm overjoyed to find that some of your children are walking in the truth, walking in the truth just as we have been commanded by the Father.

But now, dear lady, I ask you, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but one that you had from the beginning, let us love one another. Now, this is what he had written earlier in John, in the Gospel of John chapter 13. He said, you should love one another. That actually identifies who is the people of God. But he says, let us love one another. And this is love in verse 6, that we walk according to his commandments. Those commandments are not grievous. They're not poisoned. They actually stabilize us in the absolutes of the truth of God. This is love that you walk according to his commandments. This is a commandment just as you have heard that you must walk in it.

So, you know, it's amazing to see the emphasis that the Bible places on knowing the truth, being grounded in the truth, being guided by the help of the Spirit of truth, leading us into truth. And so, you know, I hope that in going over this, it helps us see, you know, that we can be firmly grounded in the truth of God. And it's not so much a matter of, you know, again, I'm trying to read this to you. And I want you to believe what that says, not just simply what I say, but to believe what the Word of God says, because that's what grounds us. That's what stabilizes us in our lives. And that enables us to be able to live lives of transformation, of being converted.

And I'll leave, I'll use one last scripture here in Psalm 51.

Psalm 51, of course, is a familiar psalm and one that is well known about David and about his commitment to God, his conviction to the truth.

Now, he was so clearly not sinless, and even toward the latter part of his life. He couldn't say that I've never sinned. He couldn't say that I'm not in need of mercy and forgiveness right now.

But what he did say, as he explains really throughout this chapter, a great deal about repentance, a great deal about a converted heart, a converted mind. Because you can see that down in verse 10, he's verse 11, I guess, he's saying, please don't take your Holy Spirit away from me. He said, I want to be yielded. I want to acknowledge. And in a sense, you could say, as he was, in a sense, pleading for forgiveness, you could say he was apologizing. He was apologizing to God, because in a sense, that's what asking for forgiveness is. If we're really repentant, then we see that, well, you know, we have erred. We need to be rectified. We need to be justified. We need to be forgiven. We need to apologize to God, because he says sin is against God.

But he said what God really wants in verse 6, you desire truth in the inward parts.

Therefore, teach me wisdom in my secret heart. See, that's dealing with each of us. Our own lives, our own hearts, our own minds. Truly, not just believing the truth, and not just living the truth, or walking in the truth, or being grounded in the truth, which is, we've already read, but truly having truth as a part of our life. A part that exudes from our heart, from our inner heart, and enables us, then, truly to be the children of God.

So, I want to encourage all of us to live with absolute truth. There will always be a lot of waffling on what is true and what is not. People will argue about that till Christ returns, and then they'll find out that, well, there is a direction that we need to hit.

And yet, all of us can live with absolute truth that's defined by the Word of God, and clearly live lives of joy and peace as we follow the lead of Jesus Christ, who says He is the way, and the truth, and the life.