What is Truth? (ReEdit of Truth Or Consequences)

Real Life presents the Jack Kibb's podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. This little mini-series here in the Book of Romans can absolutely get our messages thrown off the air. The thought constantly enters my mind, or if I really say what you would have me to say God, then we could lose our YouTube audience. And God says to my heart, I don't care, I'll take care of them. Well, if I really say that, then Facebook's going to remove us. God says to me, I got this far without Facebook. I got it from here, Jack. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackibb's.com slash podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying, amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Kibb's. I want you to know today that I'm going to be giving you the pure truth of God with this hope in mind that if any of these things apply to your life, you will run like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan's Great Classic, and you'll run as it were out of and from the city of destruction. And you run to the celestial city, that is of God's salvation, of God's salvation and hope. Know this, all of this, every single one of us need salvation that comes through Jesus Christ, but we must repent of our sins and come to Christ. No one can bring their sins to Christ and say, I want to believe in you, but will you approve of this? God says no way. Why? Because He loves you too much. He loves you so much He tells you what's wrong and what needs to change and what He can set you free from, and every single one of us need to be set free from certain things that dog our lives and plague our souls. But we're talking about issues today that go right up against the great shrines of our modern world and our age right now, and that is emotion, feelings. And all around the world churches now have succumbed to an emotionally-based theology, and we will preach and we will go with what makes us feel good. In fact, I want to show you a very famous cover of Time Magazine on Good Friday, April 8, 1966. Time Magazine published its famously controversial cover story, Is God Dead? And I'm reading right from the article now. Placing that stark query in bold and red lettering against the all-black background, Time Magazine informed its readers that those three words represent a summons to reflect on the meaning of our existence written by Times Religion Editor John Elsen. The article attempted to capture quote, the nation's shifting theological mood from the complacent faith of the 1950s to the metaphysical confusion of the 1960s. The cover itself quickly became an icon of the period's social and religious transformations. John Lennon suggested that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ among contemporary youth. Elsen framed his story as a clarion of the New Atheism of the 1960s, a testimony to and I quote, a cultural crisis of faith in which the very premise of a personal God was coming undone. And that's a true statement. Our culture continued from 1966 to slide downward. And I want to remind you, the Psalmist wrote to us in Psalm 14, verse 1, the fullest said in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. There is none who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there are any who understand and who seek God. They have all turned aside. They have together become corrupt. There is none who does good. No not one. And God looked down from heaven in 1966 and he saw the cover of Time magazine. Is God dead? But the whole movement of that article in that story really was reflective upon a culture that had systematically been forgetting God. Listen, let's just take this as a bunch of skeptics. According to God's word, God's Bible tells us that there is a lie out there that results in us believing it and what is the result of that lie being believed is that we embark upon the destruction of our physical bodies. Now this seems very odd because as we grow further on in time, man has a tendency to take care of his body more, primping and preening and fixing and I'm sorry I'm going to tell you, J. Vernon McGee said, now I'm not talking about putting on makeup. J. Vernon McGee, you ever read him? You ever listen to him? Oh, it's beautiful. I got to tell you, may not fit exactly, but you got to have it. This would be worth the drive just to hear this. Dr. J. Vernon McGee said, God is not talking about you putting on makeup if you need it. He said, by all means, if the barn needs painting, paint it, but he's not talking about that. He's talking about an over-interest and throughout history when cultures go to the extreme, they become obsessed with the physical and we're living at a time like that. But the sad thing is because we are spiritual creations, it's about dishonoring the bodies according to God's definition. Remember that. To dishonor their bodies among themselves, that is that they team up with one another with the intent, listen to this, to mismanage their bodies. Who would do such a thing? To hurt their bodies, to degrade their bodies, to use their bodies, to break their bodies, to misuse, to molest or to undo their bodies, so says God. You either believe today in chance, crash, evolution, or you believe in the existence of God. But whatever you believe in, it's got to be able to explain what's going on in our world today. If you're evolutionist, then you say, eat drink and be married for tomorrow we die and it doesn't matter. There's no morality. This is what's so convenient about evolution. You'd get to do anything you want to. And we don't have to call our legislators anymore to tell them, don't pass that bill. It's ill for our community or it's wrong for our children. We don't have to call them anymore because if evolution, if an accident rolls, then what did Doris Day say, case Sarah, Sarah, whatever will be, will be. What a horribly fatalistic view. But then God says, no, you know what, I made you in my image and you have a stamp inside of your soul. If you're a believer or not, you've been stamped. My son came into the world and he's the one responsible for giving every human light that is illumination of thinking, that the existence of God is something that people have to listen, wrestle out of themselves rather than wrestle in the existence of God. Did you know that? People by God's creation has stamped you with a built-in argument regarding the existence of God. You've got to work hard at getting God out of your heart and out of your life and out of your thinking. But we read in Romans 1 that it's a destruction if you do. It's a terrible thing. And so it's this teaming up. The book of Jude, chapter 1, there's only one chapter, so you're safe with Jude. Don't ask me what chapter, it's chapter 1. Verse 22 says, and on this, on some have compassion, that is when preaching the gospel. On some have compassion, making a distinction, that word means making a judgment call. It means when the believer is sharing with somebody. Listen, when you're sharing with somebody who is absolutely already devastated, the Christians to make a judgment call on that and reach out to them with love and compassion because that's what they need. But look what Jude goes on to say, verse 23 says, but another is safe with fear. Pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment, the file by the flesh, say, what does that mean? There are some people that are brazenly stuck in their sin and they don't see anything wrong with it. And to those people, you have to say to them, listen, they give me no pleasure to tell you that you're heading on a path of absolute destruction and then comes hell and Jesus came so you don't have to do that. Stop doing this to you. That's using fear. It's not fear like, boo, or it's the fear of truth. Some say with compassion, some graphically portraying the end of their ways. And this is vitally important. Why? Because everything I say to you, friends, listen up. Everything I say to you from this moment on in me actually has been everything I've been saying to you this far. It's going to come out strong, it's going to come out direct, but you need to know something. I love you. You can hate me. I don't listen. I don't care. Sometimes I hate me. So I'll join up with you sometimes. But I'm telling you this right now because we want you to go to heaven with us. We don't want you to believe the lie. We're living a demonically energized age when good is wrong and wrong is right and black is white and evil is good and good is evil. Left is right and right is left. But there's a voice from the Word of God speaking to you about truth that will save you and rescue you. He says in this the word uncleanness. And I'm going to give you a barrage of information right now that may or may or may not mean anything to you. Uncleanness, that word means impurities tainted. It's in relation to metals, a metal that is not fully purged or purified of its impurities. In other words, contaminants. So he says there are those who have contaminants. There's impurities in their lives. And he goes on that there's less. This word lust means inflamed passions. It paints the picture of in them and I talked about this last time. Within them there's a striking of a match and there's a burning. And I mentioned I'm going to say it again in case you missed it. I don't know anything about being a woman. I don't intend ever be a woman. I will never I don't have that temptation to claim such a thing. So I'm wanting to talk about men right now and I told you this before guys listen up. And you won't know what I'm talking about. But the guys notice that lust in a man is not in some body part. It's not it's not here. But when a man lusts it's it's right here in this region. It's a strange thing. If you want to say it's in the heart, I understand what you mean. It's in the proximity of the chest of the mid abdomen area. There's a burning that's right here and that's where lust strikes. I don't know why that's the case. I don't know if anybody knows why that's the case. But it's true and it's right I think it's significant that it's right in the middle of the person. And this fire begins. So whoever we're talking about they have impurities in their lives that they have allowed to stew to be there to continue. And then they feed upon it, they stoke it and they begin to lust. Instead of resisting the temptation it's let loose to do whatever. And what does it lead to? First Corinthians 6, 18 says flee sexual immorality. I'll come back to this in a second. Every sin that a man does is outside of the body. And he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. You need to write that down. Yes, all sin is sin to God. But on our side there are certain sins that have certain ramifications. And according to the Bible, sexual immorality destroys our physical bodies. I find that fascinating. We certainly know today by the amount of prescriptions being written for sexual dysfunction issues that many of them nowadays are being written to younger generations because of pornography. And that's that word sexual immorality, pornea. And again we'll talk about this more. And then there were dishonor, it leads to dishonoring the body. Now none of this is happy talk. I know, listen church listen up, but you just stop and ask yourself, man am I sitting in a room where I'm hearing facts right now? I love the fact that you're in church hearing about facts. I would never go to a church that calls me to check my brains out at the door before I come in. I wouldn't go. I'm asking you to think. And again, remember we're coming at it as a skeptic. Does the Bible talk about a people group who at a time would begin to dishonor their bodies? With lust and the word dishonor is to devalue, to treat yourself or another in an unworthy manner? That's interesting because it assumes that there's worthiness to them. To treat another shamefully, to use someone for your own pleasure. The word means to hold in contempt or to deconstruct. I find it amazing. It's not in my notes. You won't see it there if you're following. But if my member serves me right, didn't Amnon, member David's son Amnon, he was a pervert Amnon. And Amnon saw one of his sisters, the Bible says she was really cute. And Amnon faked that he was sick so she would come and bring him soup. And it said that he was just crazy, he was crazy hot for her. And when she came to bring him soup, he disregarded the soup and grabbed her, took her clothes off and raped her. And then the Bible says, as soon as he raped her, he looked at her and he hated her. That's called a rape. And that comes from, listen, viewing that person and any person in a devalued manner as Christians. I don't care how debase a human being is. I don't care if it's some guy going to the electric chair. What breaks our heart about that is the fact that that person was created in the image of God and they went wrong. And it breaks our heart to see someone crash their lives. That alone should cause every one of us as Christians to get up and to engage our culture to try to make it honoring to God. Because you know what? Even the atheist will benefit from that, they just don't know it. They fight against us but they don't even know why. They're like parents trying to give the little ones vegetables. And here's a big word, church family, see the word exchange, they exchanged. That scripture says that he gave them up to the uncleanest of the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who, verse 25, exchanged the truth of God for a lie. The word exchange, listen carefully, this so defines our moment. It means to attempt to change one thing to another, to go about to exchange the purpose or the design or the use or the intent of something for which it was not purposefully designed to do useful, making it now useless. To deviate from what is normal or functional, does that word not describe the argument of today and our media and in our public schools? And the Bible says it's all a lie. I can't believe you said that pastor, this is my point, this is why I have to talk about this. Well, you shouldn't because the media will counsel you, listen, here's the fun part about who I get to be. For those of you who don't know, how can they cancel me? Because, listen, 63 years ago, my mother tried to cancel me and that abortion attempt failed. So if, listen, as far as I'm concerned, I was scheduled to die 63 years ago. So any day that I have now is a bonus and if you want to cancel me, if you want to cancel me, just know this, I expect you to do that. So in that, I'm canceling you. Because I have to speak the truth, because you know what, I'm going to heaven. And listen, it's this truth that rescues people. You're not stuck. You are not stuck in the world that's preaches, that you can be exchanged from one thing to the next based upon their cultural experiment. You have to listen to that. You do not have to listen to them. Listen to the God who made you. He's speaking to you. He loves you and he built you for a purpose as an intent for why you are a male and a female. There's a reason. And when you do not believe in God, then you will tamper to try to change things. And in that, you are molesting, at least seeking to molest truth. Which hallelujah, you cannot do. This Jack Hibbs podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities, are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.