Truth Be ToldSample

Wow! Those past two days were packed with a lot of rich and deep passages from God’s Word. From the people of Jerusalem not listening to God through the prophet Jeremiah and calling God a liar, to Paul writing to the Romans about God handing them over to the desires of the world’s truth. There are a lot of thought provoking verses between these two stories. Let’s take a closer look at what was happening in what we read over the past two days.

First, in Jeremiah 7 Jeremiah is communicating to the people of Judah what the word from God to these people of Judah specifically. The people of Judah had become unbothered by any threat of divine judgment so they chose the religions that the world had to offer as “truth.” So Jeremiah is communicating on God’s behalf to the people of Judah the reminder of what God did for their ancestors, how they chose to believe the false truths of the world, their desires, or pagan religions, and the result of that. God also reminds them that because their ancestors chose their own way they had consequences. Even with consequences, the generations after them still chose to believe false truths which resulted in hundreds of years of turmoil and destruction that the Israelites brought upon themselves. Now, in Jeremiah we see the same cycle of the people of Judah deciding to choose their own truth and the consequences that come with that decision. In chapter 43, we see a commander of these people call God a straight up liar and in chapter 44, we read the consequences of that. When we choose to believe our own truths or the world’s truth, it has great consequences.

In Romans 1, Paul is writing to the Romans about how the world influenced the Romans to choose their own truth. When they do this, Paul says their unrighteousness suppresses the truth that had previously been revealed to them. They claimed to be wise according to themselves which made them fools…does this sound familiar? This is a proclamation that so many people today make about being wise and “knowing” that their beliefs and perspectives on things are true, and that their beliefs are better than other beliefs. Yet, Paul writes that when we proclaim “truth” and it does not align with what God says, we are trading what we know about God and his greatness for images and idols that we make up ourselves which corrupts our minds and darkens our hearts. This is fleeting, if we choose to reject the truth of Jesus and who He is, then we will fall for anything foolish.

God gave these people over to their way and for clarification, this does not mean that God gave them up because He is okay with them choosing to believe a lie and follow their own ways. He is not okay with us doing this. However, God is just and in his righteous judgment and wrath he will give us up to our own desires and sin to allow us to feel the self-destruction that is the result of sin. There are times when someone is continuing in sin because they believe that it’s God’s mercy and forgiveness allows them to do so but it’s really God allowing them to choose their own way so that they may realize the destruction of choosing to believe the lies of the enemy. This is a dangerous place to get to in our walks with God and it is exactly what the enemy wants.

The rest of this week that is what we are looking at, alternative truths that the enemy will attack you with and learning who The Truth is. The enemy will tell you multiple truths are true, just pick one and it’s right if YOU say so but Jesus calls Himself The Truth. Jesus is the absolute truth. He calls Himself the truth and even if we choose not to believe in THE TRUTH, He is still the truth.