4/13/06 – More on Discernment

Hi all,

This week I have continued to think on a subject related to a Weekly Thoughts from a couple weeks ago, and that is the nature of truth, wisdom, and how to discern truth in a society.

In John 18:37-38 Pilate and Jesus had the following conversation (in part):

"Are you a king? "I came into the world that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone that is of the truth hears my voice." Pilate responded: "What is truth?"

Nearly 2,000 years later man is still searching for the answer to Pilate's question, what is truth?

I've been thinking along a different slant about truth and society. In our modern world we are raised to accept scientific discoveries that have been verified as absolute truth. Gravity is accepted absolutely. The fact that the earth revolves around the sun is true, and it is understood all over the world to be so. It is absolute truth.

Scientists are discovering new facts, new truths nearly every day concerning everything from the universe to human DNA, and when properly verified we accept these discoveries as truth into our lives and consciousness. I recently read that by 2012 it is expected that man's total knowledge is expected to double every year. That means one truth will be built upon previous truths, all quickly assimilated into our minds and lives.

The scientific viewpoint agrees with scripture in that we understand that the invisible created the visible...invisible forces created the visible universe, and those forces, like gravity, continue to shape our world.

Therefore it is logical that because the unseen realm that created the universe has absolute laws/truths that govern it, so too should anything that proceeds from those forces be ruled by absolute truths.

That is why Romans 1:20 says: "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead."

If we accept that the scientific (physical) world has absolute truths, then why is it so hard to understand that the spiritual, mental, and moral realms also have absolute truths?

How is it we live in a society that can confidently predict through known physical laws precisely when a spacecraft launched from earth will, several years later, rendezvous with one of Saturn's moons, yet deny spiritual, emotional and moral truths related to a person's and society's well being?

Why do we not understand that the invisible realm that created the visible has absolute truth/laws, and because absolute laws govern that realm to keep it in working order, there are also absolute truths/laws which govern the visible realm (which if followed would keep it in perfect working order)?

Why is it that we can readily accept scientific 'discoveries' as absolute and communicate the same in conversation, but when we try to state absolute truth in the spiritual or moral arena an uproar ensues? Who are you to say what is right for me? Who are you to say what you are saying is true?

Vine defines Biblical truth as: "The reality lying at the basis of an appearance."

Jesus said something similar: "Wisdom is known by her children."

Wisdom is a proper decision (unseen) while the children are the results of proper decisions.

You make a decision based on wisdom, some unseen absolute truth; but it may be years before the rightness of that decision is revealed...the offspring of wisdom reveal it as wisdom, though it may take years for the reality lying at the base of that decision to be revealed as truth.

I heard a woman testify that she had been raised as a Christian, but when she got to college age she rejected her faith and went her own way. Now, years later and back with the Lord she commented about those college years: "There was one thing I noticed immediately when I rejected my faith, and that was that I no longer had purpose in life. I had no direction. When I walked in my faith I had purpose, because I knew God loved me and had a plan for my life. When I rejected my faith I lost that, and it was immediately apparent."

When a person walks away from their faith--remember that faith in Christ is absolute truth and that truth is governed by a series of unseen spiritual truths that they've just walked away from-- they launch out into a sort of free orbit, like a rock just sailing through space.

They think they are living by their own set of rules (unseen laws/truths), but like the rock flying through space, they are affected by other unseen laws of the universe whether they like it, or planned on it or not, and sometimes those laws direct that person into danger, as a rock flying through space might collide with a planet or get burned up in the earth's atmosphere.

The blindness of the world Paul talks about causes a person to forget both natural and spiritual absolutes, thinking they are immune to these forces sailing through life as an independent being. The truth is however that whether they be destructive forces trying to grab hold of a person trying to bring them into 'orbit' around that realm, or God trying to woo a person back to his truths and wisdom, everyone is affected by the unseen realm...from the laws of gravity in the physical world to the spiritual atmosphere in a store (or party or...fill in the blank), no man is an island immune from these unseen laws.

As Paul said in Romans 8:2, "...the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death."

Sin and death are lower laws, subject to the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.

No person can escape the absolutes because we are off-springs of absolutes, spirit, soul and body--products of absolute unseen truths.

Truths never change. Truth is the spiritual equivalent of a physical law. Other, lesser things revolve around truth. As Paul said in II Cor 4:18: "The things which are seen are temporary; but the things which are not seen are eternal."

Therefore when a person makes through purposeful determination, their life to revolve around absolute truths, the rest of their world will pivot around to come into eternal order.

The pattern in nature is that God gave us the intelligence and powers of observation to be able to discern the physical laws of the universe. By study and eye witness observation a consensus is gained, and knowledge is spread.

In the Spirit realm who is our eye witness to the laws of that realm? This is the realm everything in the universe came from, yet who is our eye witness that he may report these unseen truths to us? We need someone like the great scientists who report unseen physical laws to report to us the unseen spiritual laws.

The answer is the Father and Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in John 16:13: "When the Spirit of Truth is come, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak of Himself, but whatever he hears, that is what he will speak, and he will show you things to come."

The Holy Spirit then is the One who reveals the spiritual absolutes. He is the Truth Teller and Revealer. One of the main roles of the Holy Spirit is to testify what he has seen and heard from the Father and Jesus.

The Father doesn't want people to get saved without an eyewitness account of Jesus' life, death, resurrection and ascension.

Peter said in Acts 5:32 of the life of Jesus: "...and we are witnesses of these things; and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God gives to those who obey Him."

Peter was an eyewitness, but so also was the Holy Spirit.

When someone was witnessing to you about the Lord they could not call Peter up on the phone to tell you what he saw and heard, for Peter died long ago. But the words of Absolute Truth of what they were saying about Jesus were grabbed by the Holy Spirit and He bore witness down deep inside you that what you were hearing was the truth.

Though man was telling you about the life of Jesus, the Father provided you an eye witness account of His life through the Holy Spirit who was there...thus calling you up to live in the higher Law of the Spirit of Life which is (only) found in Christ Jesus.

You were touched by an eyewitness account of something that happened nearly 2,000 years ago through the Holy Spirit, who was there to see it all.

In Peter's Day of Pentecost message he makes this statement:

"David speaks concerning him...you will not leave my soul in hell, nor will you let your Holy One see corruption...He seeing this before spoke of the resurrection of Christ..." (Acts 2:25-31)

Peter said David "seeing this before spoke of the resurrection of Christ". David, who lived in about 1000 BC, saw the resurrection day. How? Through the Holy Spirit, the revealer of spiritual truths.  

This is why the Lord can show you something way in the future about your own life...the Holy Spirit is telling the truth of what He's heard from the Father and Jesus about your future activities just as he told David 1,000 years ahead of time that Jesus would be raised from the dead.

One day I had been thinking on the role of the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1:2, where it says "the Spirit of God hovered/moved on the face of the waters.

I asked the Father what the Holy Spirit was doing there and this is what he said:

"He was there as a witness to creation." I asked, "Why?", and his response was, "Because Moses needed an eye witness account so he could write the book of Genesis."

You see, there are many truths out there in the eternal realm just as there are many truths in the natural realm. The laws/truths of aerodynamics allow an airplane to get off the ground, but a higher law, gravity, pulls it right back.

In the spirit realm there are the laws of sin and death, but the greatest law is the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, who (therefore) has set me free from the law of sin and death.

Other spiritual leaders may perceive spiritual truths and absolutes and not be Christian, but they are still bound in the greatest law in their realm, the law of sin and death. Only Christ Jesus possesses and rules over and has within Himself the Law of the Spirit of Life, and only the Holy Spirit is given to reveal the many facets of the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.

Our lives were intended to revolve around the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, which being the highest spiritual law, makes all other unseen laws inferior and subordinate.

Yet people want to deny the Highest of Absolutes and live their own lives.

Paul lived according to truth; the Jewish Law. He thought he was serving that truth when he went around arresting Christians. He didn't realize that Jesus was/is the embodiment of those truths and in fact possesses those truths in the Spirit of Life.

When Paul met the Truth on the road to Damascus he rearranged his life immediately around Jesus and his ways. Some people didn't believe him at first, but he diligently rearranged his life to reflect his new priority. He would later say that everything else he had previously gained in life was like a manure pile in relation to the excellency of knowing Christ.

When a person has a Biblical, spiritual truth revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, that person should understand that it is absolute and is therefore worthy of being the point at which other things revolve. And the only way to receive this wisdom is through the Holy Spirit. He is the only One given to us that we might know these truths.

Over and over we are told in the Word not to turn to the right or left, for these unseen laws are wisdom that will cause our lives to be as full and beautiful as God intended. Violate these laws and we drop down into the lower laws.

The Lord said in Isaiah 55:6-13, in an often misunderstood passage: "Seek the Lord while he may be found...let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man (forsake) his thoughts and let him return to the Lord...For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways and thoughts higher than your thoughts...and then you will go out with joy and be led forth in peace..."

The Lord is saying to come up to his ways, leaving behind the lower ways and thoughts. God is NOT stating he is so lofty above us, rather he is inviting us to forsake our ways and thoughts and partake in HIS ways and thoughts...then, when flowing in the higher nature, the trees will clap for us, instead of the thorns good things will be produced, and so on.

So as I think on our society running blindly through life without wisdom and even denying that there are absolutes in the spiritual, mental and moral realms, while standing emphatically on the reality of physical truths, I think again about the Greatest Law in the universe, the Law of the Spirit of Life which is only found in Christ Jesus.

That is what we are celebrating this Sunday, the day the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus became the Absolute Law of the universe, setting us free from the (now dethroned) law of sin and death.

I want to walk in that higher realm, according to those higher laws. I know that if I live by them, and align my priorities by them, with guidance through the Spirit of Truth, my life will have a positive eternal effect on my world. 

Those are my thoughts for this week...

Blessings,
John Fenn
cwowi.org