PART 5 HANDOUT # 3 Trust is only as good as the object it trusts in. If the object of trust is not the truth, then the trust is misplaced—it has been betrayed. Our Commander-in-Chief, the Lord Jesus Christ stated in our Christian Army field manual, “I am… the truth…” (John 14:6) Any man who has his wits about him would never put himself in the service of, and under the command of a man who cannot be trusted. Our commander-in-chief never lies to the troops. He does not parse the truth in any way. This sterling virtue of truth-telling is not limited to speaking the truth only, for he being God of very God, is the truth. This cannot, in the view of your staff, be emphasized enough! Our commander-in-chief is the truth. To be precise our Lord—our commander, is not only the Truth among many perceived truths, but He is the Absolute Truth—Absolute Truth as opposed to relative truth as will be covered in later training. The statement by our commander-in-chief that He is the Truth is considered, by some, to be controversial as acknowledged by our fellow Christian solider Paul. Paul writes in our manual (the Bible) in Romans chapter one, verse 18 that “the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” The key phrase here for this training is suppress—as in, suppress the truth.” The very fact that our, shall we say opponents, are at war with this army is that they are fighting to suppress the absolute truth of our commander-in-chief, the very truth that we, here at Fort Lazy W are sworn to protect and proclaim. Man’s problem with truth is nothing new. It started at the beginning of time in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve exchanged the truth of God—fellowship with God in obedience; for the lie. God, their Creator had told them that “…of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:17) God told them, in no uncertain terms, that if they disobeyed Him they would die. The creature told Eve that if she rebelled against God she would “not surely die…your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5). She believed the relative truth (a lie masked as the truth) of the creature rather than the absolute truth of the Creator. Eve did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. She decided instead that she wanted the knowledge of good and evil which would give her the ability to be like God—that with this newly acquired knowledge she would, without God, know and determine for herself what is good and what is evil, thus making her, in reality equal with God. To this day the children of Adam and Eve have been cursed with this god-complex of “doing it my way” by suppressing the truth of God. “Professing to be wise, they have become fools. “(Genesis chapter one) The bottom line is that the human race has replaced the knowledge of God with the knowledge of good and evil. Man, as religious as he is, in his mind, has become as God, thinking his knowledge of good and evil will impress and please God—that God will accept him if he does all the right things—if he stays true to the truth as he understands it. Man has indeed become a fool, in not realizing that in losing eternal life in the garden, he can never regain it on his own. The sad commentary interjected here is that it seems that most people are not in the category described in the paragraph above. They do not care about pleasing God. They do not care about their Creator-God. They are not really too much concerned with good and evil. To them it is all good. Immorality and ethical behavior are subjective—are in the eye of the beholder. No need to worry and be concerned about these heavy matters. Live, drink and be happy, for tomorrow we die is their philosophy of life. Money and education rule. Once again, Professing to be wise, they have become fools. God sealed man’s fate by sending Adam and Eve out of the garden. Instead of having eternal life in the presence of God, man now lives an unknown number of years facing not only his physical death but his eternal death as well. The reason Adam and Eve were driven out of God’s paradise was, “…lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life; and eat, and live forever.” (Genesis 3:22) God has declared that man shall not regain heaven by his own hand. The human race is now on the outside looking in. Man faces a desperate dilemma. Is it possible to regain paradise and once again have intimate fellowship with God, his Creator? The answer is yes, but only by God’s hand can paradise lost be regained. A man, woman or child in repenting of his rebellion (sin) against God and in humiliation accepting God’s salvation is submitting to and trusting in a savior—a savior only God has the power and ability to provide. God’s penalty for sin is death—eternal death. The sinner must die unless a substitute is found to take his place in death. Now if death conquers the substitute there is no hope for the sinner whose place the substitute has taken for the ugly scepter of death is still “alive” and able to continue dooming its victims to everlasting darkness. Only a substitute who has conquered death is able to save the sinner leading him to eternal life. Only our Commander-in-Chief, the Lord Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, is qualified to be our Savior because He rose from the dead. The mission of the Christian Army is to counter the forces of darkness and death by proclaiming the good news of life through our commander-in-chief. Now the reason for Christian forts like Fort Lazy W is that there are forces out there which are enemies of our commander-in-chief—whose goal it is to defeat him and overrun our fort resulting in their victory. They are not submissive to God, the absolute Truth. They think as Eve did that they can determine what the truth is. Thinking of themselves as God, they think they have the wisdom to determine what is right and what is wrong. Man has a perverted knowledge. Man, in replacing knowledge and understanding through the filter of God’s eternal love with the knowledge of good and evil has, since the time of Eve been the human race’s downfall. Humanity’s voluntary separation from God through Adam and Eve’s disobedience in conjunction with the natural rebellion against God by every individual ever born has plunged planet earth into a spiral of death. Salvation is possible only from a force from without the created earth and that force is the Creator-God manifested in the divine person of our Commander-in-chief, the Lord Jesus Christ. Troopers; here are the two overriding thoughts in this handout. They are as follows: 1. There is Truth—Absolute Truth. 2. There is suppression of the Absolute Truth Denial of the Absolute Truth is the core issue of the struggle this army is engaged in—the conflict that everyone knows is raging world wide since the beginning of time, the war between good and evil. Our commander-in-chief here at Fort Lazy W is the leader of the good. He, with no reservation, is the Absolute Truth! August 2013 Aw NEXT: PART 6 TIMEOUT—Absolute truth vs. relative truth
Posted on: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 06:36:50 +0000
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