You are entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own truth. This week, Pastor Lutzer discusses God’s universal truth found in John 14:6.
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”
- John 14:6
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Transcript: Welcome to Five Minutes With Pastor Lutzer. I’m so glad that you have joined us today as we continue our study on the attributes of God. And today, we come to another one of those mysterious attributes—one that we intend to grasp—and that is the attribute of God’s truthfulness. Remember, Jesus prayed in John 17; He said, “That they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” And I think that, as we spend this time together, we’re gonna be not only encouraged and instructed; but also, I think that we will be helped in our witnessing regarding the truth of Jesus Christ.
Well, today’s verse is one of the most familiar in all the Bible. John 14, verse six: “Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.’” Let’s take a look at that word “truth.” The best way to illustrate truth, I think, is mathematics. Two plus two is equal to four. That is the truth. As a matter of fact, truth always has universality. Two plus two is equal to four. That, of course, is also true in the Middle East, in the Far East, and around the world. Keep that in your mind as you think about the concept of truth.
Now, I need to say that today’s world wants to make two different kinds of quote “truth.” So on the one hand, they have the category of mathematics. They have the category of science. And they say, “Now, that is true!” But what they want to do when they come to religion is to say that you can have multiple truths. Well, you can’t. There’s just no way that Christianity and Hinduism can both be right. Both, theoretically, could be wrong; but both couldn’t be right. You can’t have a religion with 300,000 or three million gods, and then a religion with one God—that is, the Trinity—and say that we are talking about two different truths. You can’t say that.
You know what you need to say to people who tell you that? We need to emphasize to this generation: You are entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own truth. If you have found truth, that applies to me. Truth has universality. That’s one of the characteristics. Now next time, we’re gonna be discussing another characteristic, but let us remember universality. And when we counter truth, we know that we have something for us and for others.
You know, you can emphasize this when you are witnessing; because wherever you have truth, you have error. I should have pointed out, two plus two is equal to four, but there are a myriad—almost an infinite number of wrong answers. And that’s the way it is also when it comes to religion. But here’s the way in which we can emphasize Jesus Christ as the truth.
Here’s a story that actually happened. I witnessed to many people on a plane, and I remember asking a man what he intended to do to get to heaven. And he said, “Well, I think if you are sincere and you do the best you can, you’ll enter.” So I was kind of in a good playful mood. I said, “Well, you know, if that’s true, we have to get that word out to people.” I said, “I write books. I’m on the radio, and we can advertise it. But before we do, I have a question to ask you.” I said, “How do you know?” He said, “That’s my opinion.’ I said, “Your opinion? You get 10 men together or 10 women together, and you get 12 or 15 opinions.” I said, “We need somebody to speak with authority, because I thought that you received a revelation from God. Because after all, only God could know who enters heaven!” Well, he said, “Why is your opinion better than mine?” I said, “It’s not.” I said, “We are all like ants on a Rembrandt painting. We noticed the change of color beneath our feet, the roughness of the canvas, but we can’t see the whole picture. You know what we really need? We need someone who can adjudicate this; who can speak with authority and tell us how to get to God.”
And he agreed, it would be wonderful to have someone like that. And then I reminded him that there is actually a person with credentials who could tell us, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father, but by me.” In our witnessing, we always have to get people to Jesus, Who not only said He spoke the truth, but actually WAS the Truth. It’s been said—and said very correctly—without that way, there is no going; without that truth, there is no knowing; and without that life, there is no living. The way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Him.
So glad that you have joined us today. And next time, I’m going to give you another characteristic of truth. Today, we’ve learned about universality. And I hope to see you right here next time.