When Men Choose Their Own Truth

Both liberals and conservatives can get it wrong sometimes.  We live in depravity and our minds are not perfect.   Those who are knowledgeable of their own mental shortcomings and humble enough to admit them may offset some of their weaknesses by turning to the Source of all truth.  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)  Men cannot arrive at wisdom by wandering about in the mud of his own mind, wisdom can only be found by looking to a transcendent Source that reveals his wisdom in a love letter written to those he created.  We acquire wisdom when we reverence God.  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Psalm 111:10)

Many of the liberal persuasion are quick to turn away from the Source of wisdom.  This brings great mental confusion as was predicted by the prophet Isaiah, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”(5:20) Truth provided by God’s word is like an ancient GPS.  It directs us.  It speaks to us and shows us the way.  If we fail to heed its warnings we will surely lose our way.  “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” (Proverbs 14:12)

The truths found in scripture are absolute.  They are not malleable nor can they be textured to suit our own persuasions.  They are the everlasting words of the Almighty God.  We are warned not to add to his words or “he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.” (Proverbs 30:6)  We are cautioned not to subtract from his eternal truth because “if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.” (Revelation 22:19)  For some, this makes no sense because they don’t believe in the Bible.  God has so mysteriously and miraculously designed us with a consciousness centered in the heart.  This consciousness makes us aware of ourselves and aware of a Holy God.  Disbelief is not a problem of the intellect. It’s not a problem of logic. It is a problem of the heart.  Belief starts in the heart, not the mind.  “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified…” (Romans 10:10)

The unbelieving mind questions and even tries to eliminate the absolute truths of God’s word.  It embraces a relative truth rather than an absolute truth.  Some would simply declare that real truth cannot be discovered.  Others will declare that it doesn’t matter if they ever grasp truth, what is really important to them is that they are sincere in what they believe and do.  Pre-marital sex, homosexuality and adultery are all justified by asking the question, “Are they really in love?”  Somehow, being ‘really in love’ justifies violating laws written for men by an eternal God. 

If you were slated to have open heart surgery, would you want your doctor to be sincere or competent?  Sincerity is a warm, fuzzy that makes everyone feel good.  But when it gets down to the nitty-gritty, absolute truth trumps sincerity any day.

Some will justify their choice of relative truth over absolute truth by promoting the myth that a situation can make it right.  They believe that truth depends on circumstances.  An adulterous affair is acceptable as long as neither family finds out.  Killing an unborn child is ethically acceptable if the mother is poor or simply too immature to rear a child.  Those who make moral choices based on whether those choices bring comfort or make other people feel happy have created their own moral compass.

The moral relativist tends to develop their own ethical constructs when it suits their own purposes.  The conservative, right leaning mind does the same thing. That is why it is important for a liberal or a conservative to base their beliefs on “God's solid foundation (which) stands firm” (2 Tim. 2:19) The Word of God is the moral compass that will lead both mindsets to the truth.  The moral relativist tries to choose his own direction.  Imagine being lost in a deep, dark forest and pulling out a compass only to make your own choice about which way is north?  Many are roaming endlessly in a black forest of confusion and despair because they have not yet discovered that “the truth will set (them) free.” (John 8:32)

There is no human logic that can dismantle the absolute truth of the Creator.  It may have been Woody Allen who said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”  God must laugh even louder when we tell him how much we know.  Job was humbled when he contemplated the answer to God’s question, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much.” (Job 38:4)  Isaiah was echoing this thought when he said, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (55:9) 

The wisdom of the secular humanist, the relativist, pales in comparison to the wisdom of God.  The liberal mind that seeks truth in his own understanding and ignores God violates the warning of God to such men, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5)  This truth cannot be opposed.  This truth awakens fear in the hearts of men, a fear they cannot explain.  They cannot refute it.  They cannot disprove this truth so, as a last resort, they desperately try to silence it.   The most popular way to do this is to proclaim to their opponents, “You’re being judgmental!” 

The inconsistencies are glaring.  They blow their bugle for tolerance but it is a selective tolerance.  They are tolerant for homosexuals, but not heterosexuals.  They are tolerant for Muslims and atheists, but not Christians.  They are tolerant for socialism, but not capitalism.  They have ignored scriptural truth and built their own Babel of truth.  They have decided to be their own gods and determine their own direction. 

The ultimate danger for a conservative or a liberal who turns their back on God’s truth is the possibility that he will give “them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.”  God has demonstrated over and over again how patient and longsuffering he is.  But here is one absolute truth we dare not ignore, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal.” (Gen. 6:3)  We only have so much time to find the truth that will set us free.

Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.

Adoption: How To Save Someone’s Life

It was a custom in ancient Rome for a father to decide if he wanted to keep his infant children.  Many fathers chose to reject their babies, especially their daughters.  Rejection usually meant the child was taken to a barren place where she eventually died from exposure or was taken away by a wild animal.  This hatred for their own children was a symptom of a worldview, a common thought process that would eventually destroy the structure of the family and a civilization of people.

Christians believe that truth is eternal. New truth cannot be manufactured.  It can only be discovered.  “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)  It is not at all surprising to see that human behavior hasn’t changed much in 2,000 years.  Just like the ancients, we are still sinful creatures.  Modern man affirms daily “that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) 

Modern culture is filled with people who hate their children.  In the U.S. alone we have murdered 50 million unborn babies since Roe vs. Wade in 1973.  We don’t feed them to the wolves but we do rip them limb by limb from the womb and flush their remains into the sewers of America.  We do this for the same reasons the ancient Romans did it.  We choose to murder them because we don’t want to be inconvenienced by them.  Infants are demanding.  They require lots of attention and they claim their own fraction of the family income.  The truth is often too horrendous to comprehend, but, selfish mothers who refuse to share their time and resources are often moved to murder their children.  It is a contract with the devil, the life of their children for the removal of inconvenience.

The Bible records the reconciliation of two feuding brothers.  Jacob was not at all comfortable about meeting his angry brother, Esau.  Setting aside the dynamics of their relationship, or lack thereof, let’s simply look at the question Esau asked Jacob, “Who are these with you?” referring to the passel of women and children following Jacob.  Jacob replied, “These are the children God has graciously given your servant.”  (Gen. 33:5)  Children are a gift of God.  Can you imagine the pain your loved one might feel if your birthday gift or Christmas gift were returned unopened?  We so often return to God his gifts to us, unopened, because we fear what might be within the wrappings.

There is a situational myth many apply when violating God’s 6^th commandment.  They rationalize the murder of the unborn by creating a situation to justify the decision.  “I am still trying to work my way through college, I couldn’t possibly care for a baby.”  “The father doesn’t want anything to do with the baby.”  “I can’t bring a baby into this world by myself.”  “I am too poor, I don’t have enough money.  I am too young.  I’m just not ready for this.”  These are all unfortunate situations but none of them justify the murder of a child.  The Ten Commandments are absolutes truths that apply for all generations of all ages.  God’s command to obey them cannot be altered by our own rationalization, or discomfort or desire.  

24% of Americans make moral choices based on comfort. 1/3 believe in moral truths, 1/3 believe moral truths are based on situations and 1/3 choose not to believe that moral truth even exists. You must be thinking, “How did a Christian society get to this point?  Killing our children with no conscience or fear of repercussion?”    We got here by ignoring God’s word.  We tried to compromise the truth.  We redirected our minds from the absolute truth of God’s word and started chasing rabbits down trails that led to death and confusion.  It began with poor thinking.  “Be careful how you think, your life is shaped by your thoughts.” (Proverbs 4:23)  The way we think shapes the values we will embrace.  Our actions are our values on display.  Thinking leads to values and values determine behavior.  Blindness overcomes us when we demand to find truth in places truth cannot be found.  “If people can’t see what God is doing they stumble all over themselves:  But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.” (Proverbs 29:18, msg.)

Few Christians would argue the fact that Satan has declared all out war on the American family.  The family is being destroyed by divorce, alcoholism, drug and pornography addictions, abandonment, neglect, etc.  The focus of this paper is the destruction of the family and of human life through the evil of abortion.  What can a Christian do?  How can our churches be more proactive in addressing this destructive, Satanic process of murdering our innocents and destroying our families? 

Christians need to engage.  I love to see Christians standing firm in the battle against this evil.  They write articles, they preach sermons and they carry their placards in front of abortion clinics.  My prayer is that more Christians might experience the joy and blessing of saving a child from abortion through the process of adoption.  What the church must not do is to say no to abortion, or say no to homosexual adoption without providing an alternative.  Adoption clinics abound throughout the nation and they perform a wonderful service but they are also very profit conscience, I know, I adopted six years ago and I’m still paying.  I pray more churches would place adoption on their priority list.

We believe that the best, most stable family for a child to grow up in is a Christian family.  A family that lives by the principles taught in God’s word.  Christ defined pure and undefiled religion as this, “look after orphans and widows in their distress and….keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1:27)  Let us encourage our young pregnant mothers to see the actual life in her womb by viewing the sonogram.  Let’s find creative ways to help average families finds ways to afford adoption.  Let’s prepare meals, offer to do household chores and care for the other children of families embarking on the journey to adoption.

Let us pray.  Pray that the unborn life will be spared.  Pray that young women will choose to keep and mother their young.   If not, might they choose life for their children by allowing their young to be adopted by mothers who yearn deeply to nourish the innocent and helpless.


Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.

Barbarians at the Helm

Our nation experienced a cultural revolution in the 1960’s.  It was the decade of the anti-establishment counterculture.  It was the decade of deception.  The Woodstock crowd believed that by dropping all the social mores regarding sexuality they would experience freedom.  They swallowed that lie hook, line, and sinker only to realize that sexual freedom is a short-term pleasure that leads to long-term bondage.  Breaking away from the social constraints of previous generations brought a certain liberty but not without a price.  Those who wanted to participate in this freedom had to embrace a ‘new’ way of thinking.

The focus was always narcissistic.  It was the ‘me’ generation.  How might I find more satisfaction in life?  Self-sacrifice had become a nerdy concept that belonged to the people who wore thin ties and white shirts.  The rise of the hippie generation was marked by the questioning of all authority, especially the ultimate expression of authority, God himself.  The existence of God was questioned in the April 8, 1966 issue of Time Magazine which featured the headline, ‘Is God Dead?’  If God was dead then the absolute truth that he had authored must also be dead.  Relativism paved the way to confusion and hedonism.  With no moral absolutes to guide them and no God to answer to, youth attempted to fill the void in their godless hearts with sex, drugs (LSD) and psychedelic music.

The barbarians were at the gates.  They had no god and they had no restraints.  They had come to liberate society.  They failed to realize that by eliminating the restraints they would introduce chaos.  A life with no parameters will eventually find itself wrecked in a ditch to nowhere.  Bad thinking will always lead to the development of warped values.  When we embrace warped values it leads to poor behavior.  Thus, poor thinking leads to bad behavior.  The consequences are as obvious as the nose on our faces.  If God is dead than life has no value. 

Evolution was not so much about explaining where we came from, it was about eliminating the very idea that God exists.  When a generation bought into the idea that we were not created in the image of God, then life lost its sanctity.   History does repeat itself.  Stalin’s belief that there was no God led to the murder of tens of millions of people.  When Hitler believed there was no God it resulted in the murder of six million Jews and ten million Christians.  When Americans began to question the existence of God they slipped down the slippery death culture slope.  Fifty million unborn babies have been slaughtered in the last forty years.  No society has ever survived without a set of absolute moral values. 

Forty years ago the barbarians were at the gates of American culture.  Today, they run the country.  Bad thinking has led us to financial ruin.  It has polarized us as never before.  We have replaced the Ten Commandments with government mandates.  Society cannot function without a set of absolute morals.  Our inner most consciousness, that which continues to shout at us that there is, indeed, a God, calls constantly for the elimination of murder and lies and abuse in our society.  Without a God and a scriptural standard to enforce those values and to transform the minds and hearts of evil men, the barbarians at the helm have devised their own way to seek to control the horde of cultural peasants.   Political correctness is an attempt to control our speech, our thoughts, indeed, the very way in which we live our lives.  The great irony is that the Cultural Revolution was supposed to bring liberty and freedom but instead it has made us slaves to a cultural change induced by criticism and ridicule and severe consequences for those who refuse to conform.  While many Americans tremble in fear of Islamic terrorism, they fall victim to the social terrorism promulgated by the ruling barbarians.  The God of Creation has been replaced by the gods of tolerance and philosophical relativism.  Failure to bow to these gods will earn you the title of social bigot and expose you to the wrath of the social elite.

The punishments for failure to conform to the group-think of relativism and the refusal to jump aboard the politically correct bandwagon are varied.  At the least, you will be castigated from society.  Your speech is free and protected by the first amendment only so long as it resonates with the message of the barbarian bullies.  Should you stray from their ‘truth’ you could find yourself in the unemployment line, grieving over how you will save your home and family. 

So what keeps the peasant masses from picking up pitch forks and rushing the castle?  The barbarians exercise the same ploy used by the rulers of ancient Rome.  It is the ‘bread and circus’ approach of controlling the potential malcontents.  Make sure everyone has been fed and open the coliseum to provide entertainment, especially feeding a few Christians to some hungry lions.  The American masses are fed well through a socialist welfare system and instead of a car in every garage there is a big screen television on every living room wall.  Lyndon Johnson wasn’t thinking well when he told the millions who lived in the inner city that they were not responsible for their behavior (absolute truth), instead, their behavior was caused by the poverty they lived in (relativism). This way of thinking creates an illusion that God and his moral standard are unnecessary to affect man’s behavior.  Men, especially white men, the oppressor turned savior, would ride into the ghetto on his white horse and offer salvation to the suffering. The pumping of massive amounts of money into the slums would eliminate poverty which, in turn, would eliminate crime.  Sadly, an entire generation bought into the utopian lie and the Puritan work ethic demonstrated by our founding fathers evaporated into thin air.  This was poor thinking.

The hope of America is to start thinking well again.  That can be accomplished by a return to biblical principles.  The Bible supports the ownership of private property.  The Bible teaches absolute truths and rewards concepts such as self-control and self-sacrifice.  Jesus emphasized the importance of good stewardship, taking care of the property we own.  Jesus said to treat others as you would want them to treat you.  He promoted the idea of a strong work ethic and then enjoying and sharing the fruit of our labor.  The free enterprise system set up by our founding fathers works well but only if there are moral restraints to govern the actions of men who struggle with depraved human natures.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom…” (Proverbs 9:10)  The seed from which wisdom springs is a reverential fear of God.  When we fail to pay him homage, when we set up our humanistic, materialistic idols, we lose the influence of the only omniscient One and we think poorly, we lose our sense of what is valuable and important in life and then we behave poorly.  If only we would call upon our Creator and our Savior.  He has promised, “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.” (Isaiah 65:24) 

Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.