Truth's Disappearing Act

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Help, O Lord, for the godly are fast disappearing!  The faithful have vanished from the earth!  Neighbors lie to each other, speaking with flattering lips and deceitful hearts.  May the Lord cut off their flattering lips and silence their boastful tongues.  They say, “We will lie to our hearts’ content.  Our lips are our own—who can stop us?”  The Lord replies, “I have seen violence done to the helpless, and I have heard the groans of the poor.  Now I will rise up to rescue them, as they have longed for me to do.”  The Lord’s promises are pure, like silver refined in a furnace, purified seven times over.  Therefore, Lord, we know you will protect the oppressed, preserving them forever from this lying generation, even though the wicked strut about, and evil is praised throughout the land.  Psalm 12:1-8

It's impossible to come to a conclusion that truth is hallowed in 21st century culture.  Rather, we would be forced to admit (if honest) that truth is seen as optional, if lying brings you the resuts you’re after.  More than half of school children admit to cheating on tests; the key word being admit.  It doesn’t help that some teachers are actually promoting test dishonesty.  In Florida a cheating on tests scandal was recently uncovered, where teachers were rigging the tests to make sure more of their students pass.  The motivation is that teachers get bonuses ($25-$50 per student) for passing grades.[1]  While this is certainly not the standard, it shades public perception of the integrity of teachers holding their careers to a higher ethical standard.  But it does give one pause to recall James Russell Lowell’s famous quote:  Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.  Evil, as the Psalmist put it, is praised throughout the land.

There are plenty of examples of the prevaricating nature of our culture’s moral turpitude.  Election campaigns are battlegrounds no longer for presenting the genuine character of the candidates; they are all about pandering to the polls, and tickling ears.  It isn’t about presenting clearly an agenda of how the county will benefit from the course of action an aspiring office-holder will enact.  Rather, it’s a matter of hiding the true agenda, and how it will keep the candidate’s party in power, and line the pockets of those who got the candidate elected.  And if it takes a small white lie (or a big whopper) to get there, well, integrity is a little over-rated, and besides, the end will justify how we got there.

The Psalmist clearly states God’s agenda for that kind of forked-tongue, snakiness: 

The Lord replies, “I have seen violence done to the helpless, and I have heard the groans of the poor.  Now I will rise up to rescue them, as they have longed for me to do.”  

For You Today

It isn’t going far out on a limb to say that the only way our nation’s young will get it, that truth is important, is if they see it in the generation that’s raising them, even when it hurts.  No, make that, especially when it hurts!  That’s the time the truth will really set you free.[2]

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Walk with Integrity and Truth, Whole Truth, Nothing BUT the Truth

[1] Images:  via Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] Teachers Caught in Test Cheating Scandal

[2] John 8:32

Taking the Measure of Wisdom

 

Monday, July 27, 2020

If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom.  But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying.  For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom.  Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic.  For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.  James 3:13-16

Trying to define, or measure something like wisdom is much like the tale of three blind men who were describing an elephant.  Their “eyes” were, of course, their hands.  One of the men stood at the front of the elephant feeling the trunk; he exclaimed, it’s like a tree, round and reaching upwards.  The second man stood at the side of the elephant with his hands exploring the animal’s rib cage; he said, what do you mean, tree…this beast is a wall.  The third man stood at the rear side holding the elephant’s tail.  He concluded, well, whatever this is, it’s tied up with a rope.  Three men seeing the same animal and giving three different opinions…and all three of them right.  Sounds like a board meeting at church, doesn’t it?

I used to have a somewhat different opinion than I do now of wisdom.  I used to think wisdom was common sense that made sense.  It was like Ossie and Bobby McDuffie.  One was highly educated, the other barely so.  But, when either spoke, their common sense just seemed to cut through any difficult situation and set a standard you could count on.  I still think they were among the most clear-headed and Godly men I ever met. 

But, my understanding of how you define true wisdom, especially of the Godly sort, has matured past that point.  It’s like the three men describing an elephant…their analysis of what they’d felt was correct; it just wasn’t complete. 

James, the half-brother to Jesus, gives us a more complete, no-nonsense description of true, or Godly wisdom.  The measure of true wisdom is not taken by merely looking at a person’s words; rather it is the person’s actions.  If you want to measure whether someone is wise, check the life, and the way others are treated.  Do their actions match up with their words?  Is there a sense of honor, that a person would never lie to you?  James warns that evil and disorder is to be found in selfish ambition, boasting, and lying.  It is the polar-opposite of honor, which lives in truth-telling.

There are times I’m tempted to lie.  I don’t like being in situations where I must tell someone a hard truth, and if there is a lie, small, white, somewhat “harmless”, that would make the uncomfortable moment fade away with nobody getting shamed or angry, the temptation causes me real internal conflict.  It’s a genuine temptation, because my desire to not hurt another person is pressing my mind to search for a way out of the possibility of causing harm.  But the honorable, wise person, recognizes where that suggestion comes from, because it smells like smoke, right out of the pit of hell.  It eases into the back of your mind with a smoothness that got Eve’s attention in the garden. 

If a person is a practiced, skilled liar, there comes a time when lying becomes, for them, the only truth they know.  They go past the point of even being able to recognize truth.  But the opposite is also true; the person who lives in truth, being honrable, always speaks truth, because nothing less will let them sleep. 

I served as pastor at a church once that was falling apart.  A power stuggle had erupted into a full-on congregational split.  The music director had moral issues and had to be fired, and we were in dire need of a music program.  News like that gets around, and one Sunday a couple showed up at church.  After worship the man asked if I’d come to visit them; they were interested in becoming part of the church.  When I visited with them the next night, he and his wife showed me into their den.  On the wall were at least 10 certificates…all extolling the merits of the man’s muscial talent.  He elaborated on each one, boasting how he’d taken terrible music programs and brought his gift of music to each one.  Then he got to the agenda; he and his wife had just left another church that, in his opionion, had no spirit at all.  He had taken six other families with him, and they were just waiting to find out where he was going so they could follow him.  He then laid out the offer:  If you’ll make me your new music director, you’ll get those other six families; I just have to give them the word. 

Frankly any definition of honorable, or wise, does not include that!

Let’s Pray Together:

Father, we would be wise; help us to know it is always found in truth.

For You Today

The next time temptation to bend, twist, or re-invent the truth comes along, don’t!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on Wisdom, James 3:  The Marriage of Belief and Behavior and Humility

When the Foundation Crumbles

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

What are worthless and wicked people like?  They are constant liars, signaling their deceit with a wink of the eye, a nudge of the foot, or the wiggle of fingers. Their perverted hearts plot evil, and they constantly stir up trouble.  But they will be destroyed suddenly, broken in an instant beyond all hope of healing.  There are six things the Lord hates—no, seven things he detests: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that kill the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a false witness who pours out lies, a person who sows discord in a family.  Proverbs 6:12-19[1]

A family, any kind of family, people gathered for any purpose of home, business, government, or some kind of endeavor have both the possibility of experiencing success or crumbling defeat.  It all depends on trust and truth.

Jesus made sure we understood how you cannot overestimate the value of truth.  He said it so plainly in teaching his disciples, identifying everything he did, said, and meant as steeped-in, and sourced-by truth.  He claimed to be the very embodiment of truth when he told his questioning disciple, Thomas:

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one can come to the Father except through me.  John 14:6

Truth is so intricately woven into the fabric of God’s creation that humans can never achieve God’s purposes for our lives if there is a crack in the truth foundation. 

And therein is the answer to why things fall apart.  God’s purposes are clear, right, and unfailing…and they are inexorably tied to truth. 

The example of Adam and Eve’s fall hinges on the truth.  In Eden we observe the chief enemy, Satan, tempting Eve, planting a seed of doubt over what God had commanded; 18 seed-words of doubt which began generations of misery: 

Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?  Genesis 3:1

It was a question, but not an innocent one; Satan was setting Eve up.  This was a plot, an evil ploy to get Eve to intentionally transgress against God’s instructions.  The enemy’s evil lying tongue deceived the innocent woman, sowing a seed of doubt against God’ sovereignty.  When Adam and Eve allowed that seed to take root, truth was violated, and the fruit was full-blown discord between God and all humanity. 

For You Today

No one can undo history.  We cannot go back and undo Adam and Eve’s fall.  Neither can we return to the scene of the crime of our own first sins.  What is done is forever done. 

But we can affect the present and future.  We can make a commitment to truth; we can affirm God’s sovereignty over us, trusting that Christ’s forgiveness extended from the cross is true.  The original foundation may have crumbled, but a new building is possible.  He said it was so!

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!  2 Corinthians 5:17

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation© 

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[1] For another post on Proverbs 6:12-19 see The Art of Division

Cleaning Up Our Act

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Monday, January 27, 2020

Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.  Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.  He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.  Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you.  Such sins have no place among God’s people.  Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you.  Instead, let there be thankfulness to God.  You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God.  For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.  Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him.  Don’t participate in the things these people do.  For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord.  So live as people of light!  For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.  Carefully determine what pleases the Lord.  Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them.  It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret.  But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them, for the light makes everything visible.  This is why it is said, “Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”                           Ephesians 5:1-14

With the struggle of our culture over human sexuality currently coming to a head, particularly in the United Methodist Church, today’s poignant reading from Paul is a vibrant reminder that the sins of one group ought not to be categorized worse than the sins of another.  Telling coarse jokes, or spewing expletives, and even foolish talk seems to be of little consequence, matched up against sexual immorality and rampant greed.  However, Paul lumps them all together and calls it all worthless deeds of evil and darkness.  He flatly says, expose that nonsense; don’t take part in it, or make excuses for that kind of behavior.  Wouldn’t you just love it if Paul didn’t beat around the bush so much?

Paul’s blunt rebuke for ungodly behavior is no stranger to me.  Years ago, in a new pastorate, I met a church member for the first time in the nursing home.  She was struggling with the fading strength of age, complicated by dementia.  Her family told me before I went that Grandma didn’t have long to live.  So, when I arrived at the home I introduced myself and asked her to share her faith story with me.  She immediately began to tell about the revival that was held when she was a young girl, and how she’d served Jesus at that church in this way and that way.  When there was a brief pause in the recounting of the last 70 years, I asked if she was secure in her heart that when she left this world she would meet Jesus in heaven.  She said, Oh, yes, young man.  I know I’m going to heaven, and if you want to get there too, YOU’D BETTER CHANGE YOUR WAYS!  Granny had nailed me like Paul the Apostle, right where I live.

Funny, I don’t remember much else we may have talked about on that visit.  What I do remember is being caught up short about how in world she knew I was such a sinner.  This was the first time we’d laid eyes on each other, and she didn’t know me from Adam’s housecat. 

On one level I knew it was the dementia speaking, but on another level, spiritually speaking, she was spot-on; I was (and am) a sinner.  And it makes little difference if it’s greed, coarse speech, foolishness, gossip, anger, lust, or homosexuality; how much, or what kind of sin does it take to make one a sinner?  When you think about it, it’s kind of like robbing banks, or killing, or lying; one will do!

And so, this morning I’m thinking particularly about how United Methodists will treat each other in the coming days at the meetings where they’ll try to work on how to part and go separate ways, as opposed to staying together like two fighting cats with their tails tied together.  Or how the people I know who populate the churches I serve (along with their pastor) will treat our community.  We are, as Paul the Apostle (and Granny the nursing home sage) said, supposed to be about the business of changing our ways to be more like imitators of God’s godliness, and less of the other!

For You Today

You and I won’t be able to solve every bit of what’s wrong with the world, or even within our own hearts by lunchtime today, but we can start to bend our ways to His ways with a season of prayer that shines a little light on our darkness.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image:   Pixabay.com    Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

Snake in the Grass

[i][ii]

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

“When you make an agreement with your neighbor to buy or sell property, you must not take advantage of each other.  When you buy land from your neighbor, the price you pay must be based on the number of years since the last jubilee.  The seller must set the price by taking into account the number of years remaining until the next Year of Jubilee.  The more years until the next jubilee, the higher the price; the fewer years, the lower the price.  After all, the person selling the land is actually selling you a certain number of harvests.  Show your fear of God by not taking advantage of each other.  I am the Lord your God.  “If you want to live securely in the land, follow my decrees and obey my regulations.  Then the land will yield large crops, and you will eat your fill and live securely in it.  Leviticus 25:14-19

You can legislate against evil intent, but how can you stop or change intent without a grip on the heart?  Especially when no heart exists, as in the case of sociopaths?  Among the characteristics of sociopathic behavior is a lack of shame.  

If the person is a true sociopath, then he or she will feel no remorse about hurting others, lying, manipulating people, or just generally acting in an unacceptable way.^[2]

God’s instructions to Israel about the way they were to treat each other is just the opposite – there is to be genuine care for each other, particularly in business dealings.  It was explicit in the Levitical mandates, written as the law of Jubilee, where fair prices were to be central in transferring property.  As such, there could be no lying, no truthful hyperbole to promote one Hebrew over another.  But some people will find a loophole in any law.  That is why “the law” is something God designed for the heart, as opposed to the courts.

Someone who breaks the law of compassion, withholding fairness and restraint of personal gain, is being sociopathic, taking every advantage over his neighbor, rather than loving his neighbor, and thus, not loving, (let alone fearing) God. 

That being said, sociopaths need to be loved also.  In fact, a key diagnostic in recognizing a sociopath identifies lack of love as a factor of abusive parents in the early stages of a sociopath’s early years.[iii]

This law of love is something tied to the quality of life we lead, whether you consider an individual or the entirety of humanity.  In Leviticus God describes the impact that integrity and fairness will have on a culture in terms of whether we will have enough to eat.  Loving your neighbor means everyone has enough; taking advantage of anyone is what a snake in the grass does, and it makes sure some will go hungry.

For You Today

In every aspect of living there are opportunities to exert power over others; Godly people do not slither!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[i] Title Image:   Pixabay.com

[ii] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

[iii] How to Spot a Sociopath

Love Like a King

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Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.  Romans 12:21(NLT)

There is a hinge that holds Romans 11 and 12 together.  In Romans 1-11, you read all about God’s gracious sacrifice of grace for our sins.  The great divide between grace and duty begins with the hinge that connects chapter 12.  Paul tells us that, as a response to all that grace he described in chapters 1-11, we are to offer our lives to Him in service.

And when that is so in the life of a believer, what happens to us is similar to the life of a caterpillar as he changes to a butterfly in a cocoon.  God uses His grace to transform a believer into a different strain of the human species – a child of God, born from above, living a life of sacrifice – in His name. 

The practical conclusion about that change is that our theology – what we know about God – must determine and drive the actions of our everyday lives.  We follow Jesus, not the world’s fads, customs and behaviors; otherwise…. why bother?

The twelfth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Roman believers is all about relationships, not just how we treat one another, but how we act and work together, so we can serve as God’s ambassadors to the world. 

The “relationship” is described in one, Biblical word…agape’, the God-kind of love!  This morning we look at two very important truths about how to live in that love.

Genuine (in relationships)

Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.    Romans 12:9 (NLT)

To be genuine in relationships is the foundation of Christian living.  If there was ever a character trait which does not conform to this world’s ways, it is truthfulness. 

A little girl had developed a bad habit; she was always lying.  She was given a St. Bernard dog for her birthday, she went out and told all the neighbors that she had been given a lion.  The mother took her aside and said, “I told you not to lie.  You go upstairs and tell God you are sorry; promise God you will not lie again.” 

The little girl went upstairs, said her prayers, and then came down again.  Her mother asked, “Did you tell God you are sorry?”  The little girl replied, “Yes, I did.  And God said sometimes He finds it hard to tell my dog from a lion, too.”^[2] 

A Christ-follower who has submitted his/her body as a living, holy sacrifice, and is transformed by God’s grace is genuine; being false in relationships in any form is a form of lying.  God hates it because it destroys relationships.

Gracious (to all people)

Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.   Romans 12:10 (NLT) 

There is a tendency to tear-down one another today, especially in American culture.  The old word “gossip” is generally thought of as being a “behind the scenes” or “behind the back activity”. 

It isn’t even that quiet these days!  Today even the ugly attitudes and rudeness of anger and careless words are flung around like cow dung in a pasture.  The Scottish preacher Alexander MacLaren once wrote:  Ugly Christianity is not Christ's Christianity.

Gossip is the opposite of gracious.  You cannot take delight in honoring anyone if you’re willing to gossip about him or her. 

A gossip separates the closest of friends.  Proverbs 16:28b(GWT)

There’s no room in any theology connected with Jesus Christ that includes in-your-face attitudes, or rudeness.  In our relationships we must be gracious towards one another.

There is an apocryphal story of Abraham that tells of a traveling stranger.  Abraham saw the old man coming along the way, very weary, and his feet bleeding.  With true hospitality he invited the old man to share his meal and to lodge with him for the night.  When Abraham noticed he asked no blessing on the meal, he enquired why, and the man said, "I am a fire worshipper and acknowledge no other god."  At this Abraham grew angry and sent him from his tent.  Soon after, God called to Abraham and asked, "Where is the old man I sent to you?"  Abraham told God he'd sent the infidel away.  The Lord answered in reply, "I have cared for him for over a hundred years, even though he has dishonored me.  Could you not endure him one night and so prove to him God's love?" 

Servanthood is not popular these days.  However, Jesus never claimed that following Him would make us popular on this earth. 

He DID say that our reward in HEAVEN would be great!

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Let the church say “Amen”!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com

[2] Illustrations Unlimited© 1988 by James S. Hewett. All Rights Reserved.