God is Truth in a Time of Idolatry – Essential Beliefs, # 27
We live in a time of rampant idolatry. I’m not talking about the worship of Hindu or Buddhist gods, although they are all for sale on Amazon. According to popular wisdom, we are encouraged to worship them or anything else if we want, since that which is said to be true is whatever is true to you as an individual.
As a result, we rub shoulders with idols every day. What do I mean? We live in a world with billions of people who idolize themselves through believing that what is true is whatever they think/choose to be true. If I think I am a woman, though biologically I am male, then I am a woman. If I think good sex is having sex with whoever I want to have sex with, then that is truth for me. Even my promises can be broken if they become inconvenient to me. I am the ultimate arbiter of truth.
Popular wisdom—moral relativism—encourages us to believe in ourselves and our choices irrespective of any moral code. It’s as if we can go into a values supermarket and pick and choose whatever beliefs or practices suit our fancy. We worship ourselves. We become our own idol.
According to moral relativism which is today’s popular religion, that what is moral hinges on where a person is situated, and the context in which the person lives. In other words, what you consider to be moral, or true, depends entirely on who you are and the cultural context in which you were raised. If you’re a Muslim or Jew, eating pork is immoral for you. If you are a Hindu, eating beef is immoral to you. If you’re an American or Canadian, since sleeping around is accepted, then it is okay for you.
As a result of this kind of relativism, logic and reason along with absolute truth is banished. Truth about the universe even struggles to raise its head in supposed scientific circles. Clearly, we need to return to sanity and true truth.
I affirm what all Jesus followers must affirm. God is truth. He is the source of all truth. “Your word [Scripture] is truth” (John 17:17). God alone defines what is morally true, as he has in the ten commandments. The first two remind us that idolatry is worshipping a lie. “You shall have no other gods before me, …nor make an idol…nor worship them” (See Exodus 20:2-6). “For all the gods of the nations are idols” (Psalm 96:5). “I am the First and I am the Last, apart from me there is no God” (Is 44:6). Isaiah lampoons idol-making as taking some wood, first to cook a meal and some to fashion an idols and some more to burn to keep warm with. He would lampoon other images today. (See Isaiah 44.) Worshipping your own view of reality is as much idolatry as worshipping a golden image.
What does God think of relativism? “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Romans 1:18). Notice how wickedness is synonymous with godlessness and suppressing the truth. To uncover this godlessness God sent his son who is “the way, the truth and the life” (John 1:12). Jesus taught truth and he died for truth on the cross as the atonement for our wicked idolatry. Those who became his followers testified; “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1,14).
It’s time for a rejection of nonsense and a revival of revealed truth. God, the creator of all things, established the law of consistency, reason, and moral holiness. Nonsense is not truth. Imagination is not truth. Saying something is true for me or a Muslim or a Hindu or an American does not make it true.
God is true, his word is true, all his promises are true; he is the faithful God. So let’s jettison idolatry and embrace God is truth.
