The Devaluation of the Truth

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4:24 

We fight many battles in this neo-pagan, post-Christian world today, but recently I realized that perhaps the most important battle has been lost some time ago. It was the battle for truth or more particularly the battle for the importance of truth in our lives, churches and relationship with God.

I realized this recently when in the midst of a discussion a minister basically told me that God didn’t send him to start Baptist churches but instead to just preach the Gospel. There is no argument about the importance of the Gospel and that without it all other truth fails, but what dismays me is that the truth that follows the Gospel is failing anyway. It is failing because too many today deem it unimportant or simply a matter of personal conviction rather than truth of the same caliber and source as the Gospel.

There is a truth taught by the Bible about baptism. There is a truth about the Lord’s Supper. There is a truth about the church and there is truth about missions.  There are many other vital truths that God has given us in order that we might glorify Him in the practice of that truth. Without the truth of the church and its ordinances the truth of the Gospel is soon lost in ritual, forms and human ideas. Are we allowed to pick and choose those which somehow fit our tastes or our culture? If so then wouldn’t those who advocate homosexuality be right when they say the Bible must be interpreted by modern mores and practices? If we would not accept a new truth, tailored to the times, about marriage then why would we accept a new idea about baptism, the church, communion or any other truth? Is own less vital than the others? Can the concepts of faith, sacrifice and service be taught if the truths upon which they are built are ignored?

I understand and preach that truth must be balanced with love, but to devalue the truth through a sense of loving people and not wanting to offend them is no balance at all. It is just a cheap balm to our own conscience and an unwillingness to trust God who would use His word to accomplish His own will. God has said, “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Do I believe that? Do I value the truth enough to believe that it is powerful enough to do what God chooses even if I would rather He chose something else? Truth makes its demands on me; I do not make my demands on the truth.