Likewise I have dealt with this subject matter in my other blog, FROM the MIND of FIRE.
So here I am again, writing another article! However this one examines the issue from a slightly different perspective.With the obliteration of truth as absolute and rather asserted to being relative (even non-existent) running rampant in the public school system as well as those halls of higher learning, what will be the consequences of such?
Or one might ask the question: Will there be any consequences? Can we abandon the idea of truth and still maintain a society of peace, justice and order?
A hungry child at school gets into line for lunch period, and was especially interested in arriving early as to ensure he gets his food quickly. Another child, much bigger than the first gets ahead of him, which produces a shrill protest: "NO FAIR, I WAS FIRST!"
The much bigger child sneers and ignores the smaller one.
The truth is, that the first child was in fact first, and because of this, had justice been served, the bigger child should have been made to step behind him, giving the first his rightful place.
The bigger child having ignored the smaller was ignoring the truth and thereby also ignored justice. Instead he employed the "might is right" principle, which can easily prey upon the smaller, the weaker, the disadvantaged.
In such a society where truth, both conceptually and practically, is demoted or even ignored altogether, can there be any hope for civilization? Justice will deteriorate more and more as we continue as a culture to ignore truth.
Who then will make the rules? The 'biggest kid on the block' or simply put, those who hold the most power. Any of you out there beginning to connect the dots? Who holds the most power in any nation?
Its government.
And ours, on a Federal level is acquiring more and more of it as each passing year goes by. With the abrogation of truth we could be looking at the makings of an unjust system that will govern all of our lives. It may already be here!
Yet, there is never anything new under the sun; everything we see today is as it once was long ago.
Even the prophet Isaiah spoke about such things and this leads to another aspect of Truth.
God Himself is a God of Truth:
DEUTERONOMY 32:4
He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
PSALM 25:5
Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.
The Lord Jesus Christ, God incarnate, declared Himself to BE Truth in JOHN 14:6.
God determines what Truth is, for He is the only true source of Truth, and in Him is no lie (1 JOHN 2:21). It's true today. It was true in the early church. It was true in the Old Testament, and during the days of Isaiah.
I've been meditating on the ramifications of the denial of truth in our culture. In a day and age in which post-modernism seems to be in full swing (the conceptual paradigm that truth is unobtainable in absolute form), and will in itself devolve (the post-modernist would say evolve!) into such a relativistic quagmire that truth would seem to suffer an early death (when in all actuality, its impossible to destroy truth as its not within the grasp of human endeavor to kill off).
I've also found some very interesting scripture in ISAIAH 59!
Let's travel the length and breadth of this chapter and discover what the WORD of GOD says about the abandonment of truth, and its Siamese twin, justice, and how it effects a culture such as Israel, back in their day, or our own American culture.
ISAIAH 59:1-2
Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
Note that God's hand can indeed save; no one, no matter how far gone they may be, no matter how depraved, is beyond God's reach, and He is able (He is capable) to hear the cry of any who would call upon His Name.
Yet our iniquities and our sins have severed us from Him, so that He is hidden from us (He cannot LOOK upon us in our sin, but He can HEAR us when we cry to Him): we cannot in our own natural state, with our own natural senses perceive God because of this. He will not hear (He, of His own volition) . . . as long as we remain in this state of unrepentant sin and iniquity; we can have no relationship with the eternal God, who is the singular source of truth, thus we will have no access to pure, unadulterated truth. Without truth, how can there be justice?
ISAIAH 59:3
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
Note that God's hand is able and ready to save: an admirable, good and gracious cause. In contrast, God declares of Israel (and any who turn their backs on God) that "your hands are defiled with blood" - murder; "your fingers [dirty] with iniquity, your tongue has muttered perverseness.
"None calleth for justice..." To call in the sense of this verse can imply to call out, and sometimes to call out to a specific name. Perhaps this could even suggest that none would even cry out to God for justice, that the society had deteriorated that badly, that such a thought would have never even occurred to them or even that they would REFUSE to call on the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for their sinful obstinacy?
To plead, in this sense, to plead for truth, is in the Hebrew an actual term for litigation, in reference to a court of law. How astounding that even in such a place as a court of law that truth would not be sought! That bribes, deceit and lawlessness would preside! Is this beginning to take on a familiar tone? Think about the liberal judges we have today, and how many GUILTY people have been and still are released, or incarcerated but then get an early parole!! Speaking of judges, have you seen the newly appointed Supreme Court Justice, and what she stands for?
In the latter half of the above verse, observe the change of the pronouns: from "you" to "they". While at the same time Israel as a nation had fallen into a state of amorality and a departure from God, it affected certain people more than others. I'm convinced that the one's this spiritual condition effected the most were those in power, that is, governing authorities.
"They" are guilty of such things as Isaiah wrote about:
"They trust in vanity . . ." tohuw in the Hebrew - "to lie in waste, desolation, a worthless things, vanity, confusion, without form, empty place."
"...they conceive mischief..." conceive - harah - "to become pregnant, progenitors", that is, they breed mischief. Mischief - amal - "A wearing effort, worry of mind or body, labor, mischief, misery, travail, trouble, sorrow , grievance, iniquity, perverseness, wickedness."
ISAIAH 59:5-6
They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.
The idea of 'hatching a plot' is very much represented in the above verse; something formerly under cover, yet fully conceived and matured, and then finally released in open view.
"....and weave the spiders web..." or to put simply, the creation of a network in which to entangle others; one gets the idea of a snare set to trap others.
"Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works..."
The Hebrew word for garments is beged - clothing, also treachery or pillage (theft that leaves the victim utterly poverty stricken, especially theft as in the 'booty' of war).
"...neither shall they cover themselves with their works..."
or "They shall not conceal themselves by their transactions, fine work, needlework, poem, property, business".
ISAIAH 59:7-8
Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
"wasting" - shod - violence, ravage, spoil, destruction, robbery, oppression, spoiler.
"destruction" - sheber - fracture, ruin, breach, affliction, vexation, broken footed, broken handed.
"crooked" - aqash - to knot, distort, pervert.
That is to distort and pervert the path. One suggestion would be the path that leads to righteousness, or the Way, that is Jesus Himself. Today perversion is looked upon as an alternative view of the Word of God and of Jesus, achieved by "dialogue" with people of other faiths; this is accomplished to such a degree that the Way is a distortion and a perversion of the Truth!
It seems an inevitability that when those in power cease to acknowledge God as the Supreme Authority and One to whom they themselves will one day give an account for their own rulership, that they become autonomous. They themselves become the 'supreme authority' in their own eyes and govern with impunity (or so they think!), conducting themselves in whatever fashion they want, no matter how unjust or oppressive that may be.
Elsewhere I've stated: God created man to be man, under the authority of God. When man forsakes God, he esteems to become a god himself, and aspires to great heights of supposedly human nobility, worshipping his virtues as though they were of his own making. Yet such 'godhood' deteriorates until such 'noble aspirations' become twisted, ugly, reprehensible, and man himself becomes a monster, feeding on his fellow man like so many parasites.
As we look around the landscape, there is much we see in our own nation that's beginning to develop such a complexion as this. All as a result of rejecting the Truth, and thereby the truest form of justice.
ISAIAH 59:9-11
Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men. We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.
There are always ramifications for a nation when truth and justice are trampled down and those wielding power are not held accountable. The actions and deeds rulers enact inevitably effect the entire nation, in its liberty of political and religious expression.
When a people look for clarity in navigating through troublesome times, hardships, the deterioration of an economy or freedoms, they are met with obscurity, and are perplexed, and lost in a kind of darkness. They are lost.
They yearn for a standard of some sort, a guide, a code of conduct, some sort of "wall" that in their blindness, they could use to steady themselves and guide them in a sure direction. If by Truth we are able to discern right from wrong, justice from injustice, then by the absence of such, there is no such discernment and we are left with no moral absolutes, no moorings by which to attach ourselves, no anchor to weigh in times of storm, no compass or light house to lead us safely into harbor.
In the absence of justice there is no means of equity or legal form of self defense against predators; all becomes anarchy with each individual vying for the means to survive, and the ones with the 'biggest guns' wins (or in the case of national gun legislation which, thanks to the UN, is seeking gun control laws to be forced on us Americans: he who HAS the guns, wins!)
See this article by Chuck Norris re: the current situation about this issue.
ISAIAH 59:12-15
For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them; In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.
Those that fail to value and esteem truth will have it taken from them, and they will be left with deceit and lawlessness. All they will have to look forward to, according to God's Word, is "oppression and revolt[ion]".
For a society wholly given over to these things, such a people will mark those who attempt to stand for righteousness, who will declare the truth with unflinching resolve, and such a one will "make himself a prey", that is, they will stick their necks out to make a righteous stand, at the peril of their own lives!
The LORD is not absent from His throne, neither is He negligent of what's become of our nation. He sees everything! Not just what's on the 6 o'clock news! What He sees, displeases Him ("...and it displeased Him that there was no [justice]")!
Ultimately we know that the time ahead, during the reign of anti-Christ, there will be an unparalleled time of truth-rejection, and at the climax of that time, the LORD Himself will don His armor and make war against anti-Christ and those forces aligned with him.
Yet what of today's world? Is there no one in the church here in America that is willing to intercede for this nation? I believe there are yet those here who are not only willing, but committed to doing so, in serious fashion! We may be few in number, but since when did numbers matter to our God?
May it not be said that here in this country, that God looked and "...saw that there was no one; that He wondered that there was no intercessor..."
ISAIAH 59:16-17
And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him. For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.
Aside from those of the "Philadelphia" spirit, that is, while they have a little strength, they have not denied His Name, and provision is made for them, an open door (of escape) that no one can shut, the church will continue to 'apostatize' until its condition is totally deplorable (Laodicea), and this 'church' is so anemic, so lacking in salt and light, that the Spirit of God is incapable of convicting a single soul through her. She is bereft of truth!
In such a day at that, the LORD Himself will come, prepared for battle, and vanquish all enemies of the Truth, that is, those who have sworn allegiance to Lucifer and his own emancipation of evil in leading all the world away from the fountain of living waters, only to vainly hope in broken cisterns!
ISAIAH 59:18-21
According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence. So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD. As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.
The Coming Judgment of Christ Jesus will bring an end of oppression, an end to the lies and deceptions, an end of preying upon the poor, of 'legal theft' and of all governing bodies, movements, laws, ratifications of religious intolerance towards the Truth, etc. This Judgment will reach even to the "islands" that is, coastlands or continents overseas: the entire globe. No one will be exempt, all will have their case reviewed and sentencing will be irrevocable.
This is why its vitally important to receive salvation now, prior to that time of Judgment. Those who receive salvation will have their sins judged at the Cross of Christ, Who bore our sins and its resulting judgment FOR US!
In the meanwhile, even though the situation grows worse and worse in today's environment of the abrogation of Truth, even though the enemy may come in with a flood of wickedness, perversion, hostility, and injustice, the LORD Himself will raise up His Standard, and thereby may those of us who love the TRUTH find shelter under it.
And keep in mind: There is NO SUCH THING AS ETERNAL INJUSTICE!
NIKAEO (victory) AIONIOS (eternal) A.V.R.A.S.!
Yours in the spiritual battle from the Victory of Truth,
brother James
4 comments:
But few western academics would risk their reputations by admitting even the possibility that in our rush to secularize and empty out our public institutions of Christianity, we may have thrown out something that could make us and our children noble. No political leader would ever risk his or her vote by even remotely questioning the wisdom of ‘secularizing’ not only the state but the spirit as well.
http://scrapbookwithtony.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/dark-falls-upon-the-land-and-we-cannot-speak-of-it/
"The Coming Judgment of Christ Jesus will bring an end of oppression, an end to the lies and deceptions, an end of preying upon the poor, of 'legal theft' and of all governing bodies, movements, laws, ratifications of religious intolerance towards the Truth, etc. This Judgment will reach even to the "islands" that is, coastlands or continents overseas: the entire globe. No one will be exempt, all will have their case reviewed and sentencing will be irrevocable"
Amen. It is a scary time for mankind as we know it, but the cleansing and True change from this evil planet is going to be such a blessing. I can't wait.
Amen!
Amen!
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