Recent events demand question — What is truth?

Last week I talked to you a bit about the debate between those who believe in evolution versus those who believe in the Scriptures and creation. We talked about the fact that there are some people who believe that their own brains and their own thoughts and feelings can be held as equal with God. We talked about the fact that our sinful human nature is, by nature, opposed to God's word. Therefore, even among Christians, the devil works to get us to think that we can become equal with God. That, of course, was the first temptation of Adam and Eve, and it has not stopped since.

Today, I would like to bring up a few modern heresies that have popped up in recent months and years. One is "The DaVinci Code" and the other is "The Gospel of Judas".

I call them heresies simply because they go directly against what the Scriptures teach, and because those who have written these things have put their philosophies and their own minds on par with God.

The first one, "The DaVinci Code" is about some sort of "relationship" between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. This relationship is unbiblical and is only supported by a speculation of Mary Magdalene being in the famous DaVinci picture of the Lord's Supper. Although the book is purported as fiction, the author supposedly states at the beginning of his book that all places, documents and events are factual.

The second one is a supposedly "lost gospel." It is about Judas, although Judas didn't write it, because he had been dead before it was written. It is a story that someone made up. It states, among other things, that Jesus took Judas aside and told him that he would be doing God's will by handing his friend Jesus over to be crucified. There is also a promise from Jesus to Judas that Judas would become scorned on earth but be revealed as great in heaven.

Unfortunately these types of things are not something new. These false teachings and being held as true and real have been around as long as Christianity has been around.

Certain heretics like Arius and others tried to teach that Jesus was not fully God or that he was not fully man. Certain people throughout the ages have written other "gospels" or other "testaments" with the intent of turning people away from the true word of God and faith in Jesus Christ.

It is important here that we realize criteria for including something into the Canon of Holy Scripture. They didn't just accept everything that came along that talked about Jesus or God. There were some very strict rules they followed for a book to be included in the Christian Scriptures.

For the Old Testament there were two things to which they held. One was that Jesus quoted from every book of the Old Testament except for two and the other was that the Jewish scribes were meticulous in their preservation of God's word. Therefore the Old Testament has not been in question even from the very beginning. There were several books called "The Apocrypha" that didn't stand up to the tests and scrutiny and that is why these books are still not fully accepted as true and real.

For the New Testament there was quite a bit more scrutiny. There were four very strict questions that needed to be asked. Was the author an apostle or someone very closely connected with an apostle? Was the book accepted by the body of Christ at large? Did the book contain consistency of doctrine and orthodox teaching? Did the book bear evidence of clear high moral and spiritual values consistent with the Old Testament? A good book to read about all this is called "The Canon of Scripture", by Bible scholar F.F. Bruce.

The apostles approved of books that already existed. Peter talked of Paul's writings as inspired. Paul talked of Luke's Gospel as equal with the Scriptures of the Old Testament. Several of the early church fathers, such as Clement, Ignatius, Ireneaus, Polycarp and Hyppolytus, accepted certain books. Only Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John and 3 John had any real question as to their authenticity, and only that by a few people because of their origin.

Today, unfortunately, the world's philosophy is, "Whatever you believe about something makes it true for you." Or "If it makes you happy it must be right." It is a theory of relativism.That is why, you can have someone like Dan Brown write a purely fictional book and have hundreds of thousands of people take it as true. Or you can have an old writing found by archeologists, calling itself the Gospel of Judas, and right away, without question, people come to believe it as a true and real gospel because it is old or because one or two people say it must be true and real.

As I said last week, it is your choice. Are you going to believe in someone or something that is here today and gone tomorrow? Or are you going to believe in something that has withstood the test of time over centuries of debate, ridicule, whole countries and groups of people trying to destroy it, and even the punishment of death for those who were caught with these writings in their possession?

At the time of the acceptance of the Canon, these men were risking their lives for these books. They were willing to die for them. That is how precious the Scriptures were to them. Are they that precious to you?