Jesus Christ is TRUTH
(This message is from Billy Graham on Decision Magazine, July-August 1991 edition)
Some people are saying that they don’t need anything to guide them except what they think and how they feel. A popular philosophy is relativism: “There is no absolute truth.” Yet how disillusioned with life many people have become, because they don’t have solid, basic truth in their lives. Everything is relative. “Truth” is what they think, or what others think, or what their peers tell them is true.
Many voices are crying out saying, “We are the truth!” “Here is the truth!” “There is the truth!” But Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”1 He also said that Satan is the father of lies.2
Satan’s lies started in the Garden of Eden. When God created man and woman, he placed them in a beautiful and perfect environment. And God said, “All of this is for you. You can eat of every tree that is in the garden except one. If you eat of that tree, you will die.”3
Then Satan came along in the form of a serpent and said, “That is not true. You will not die. God didn’t really say that.”4 Satan phrased it in such a way as to question, “Did God say?”5
We have in our generation people who question if the Bible is the Word of God. From beginning to end, the Bible is God’s Word, inspired by the Holy Spirit. When I turn to the Bible, I know that I am reading truth. And I turn to it everyday.
“Did God really say it?”5 The devil wanted dam and Eve to doubt God’s Word. The devil said, “God doesn’t love you. God is trying to keep something good from you.” Then the devil said, “Don’t believe God! You are not going to die. God says that you will die if you eat of it, but you are not going to die.”
Man had to make a choice between God’s truth and the devil’s lie, and he chose the devil’s lie. And today our sinful nature sides with the lie instead of with the truth.
Jesus said, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”6
The moment that we are born, we have a tendency to sin, an ability to sin. Our moral universe is out of focus, and we don’t get it back into focus until we come to Christ who puts it into focus. We have to come to the cross to get the world back into focus. To many, life is all out of focus.
We accept lies as truth, and truth as lies. Many people don’t know what is right and what is wrong. No one is telling them, “This is the way,” or, “That is wrong.”
Young people today want someone to guide them. They want their elders to tell them the truth. They many not accept it, but they want to hear the truth from you; and they want to see it in your life.
It is as if we are driving down the highway of life with our eyes shut. We act as though we have no soul, that we are not accountable to anyone. And we will pay for it; we are paying for it.
We are violent society. We are a wicked society. We are a society that will be under the judgment of God unless we repent of our sins and turn to God. When we come to Christ, each person is important in society to do his part in changing society. God will use our new life in our communities.
Christ is the Truth. The devil is the lie. We see the conflict between the world of Jesus Christ and the devil’s world. We have to make a choice: in which world will we live? To whom will we give allegiance?
You see, we don’t have to be taught to sin; we inherit the disease of sin. The question is: What will we do about it? We find deception and delusion on every hand. Everywhere we look we find people who are sinful.
What is the answer to this human dilemma? Can we get out of the pit? Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”7 Yes, we can be free. Jesus said, “I am the…truth.”1 He did not say, “You shall know a truth,” but, “the truth.”8 He is the Truth. He is the embodiment of all truth.
If you don’t have Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, you will likely follow some other messiah, because there are all kinds of messiahs and false christs who are crying out, “Here is truth; I’ve got it.” The Bible says that there will be many antichrists.9 But there is only one true Christ: “It pleased the Father that in himn should all fullness dwell.”10 And Jesus said, “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”11 Jesus Christ is ultimate Truth in every realm.
Jesus told the truth about sin. He said, “From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries,…blasphemy.”12 Sin comes from the heart.
Jesus told the truth about love. He said, “God so love the world.”13 And he said that if people are to follow him, they need to love each other. 14
Jesus told the about judgment.15He warned people to flee the wrath to come. If you believe a warning and act on it, it can save your life.
One evening last year a tornado was sighted in Colorado. The tornado warning siren sounded. The tornado struck 10 minutes after the warning was given but no one was killed. Why? Because, in large part, the people believed the warning.
Now I am warning you from the Bible, from the Word of God, that judgment is coming to you personally, to your family, to our country, to the world. God has always warned about judgment, yet we will not believe the warning. Scripture teaches us that there will be a “day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.”16
On Judgment Day you will see your sins revealed to the whole world, and you will have to face them personally. We see tapes played in courtrooms to prove that people are guilty of things that they deny. God too has a recording. He is not only recording all your acts; he is recording your thoughts, your intents. Jesus said, “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.17
On the outside you are smiling, and everyone says that you are a wonderful person. On the inside it is a totally different story. You need to repent of your sins and to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior. Let him change your heart. Let him change your life. Let the Truth come in.
Jesus told the truth about repentance. He said, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”18 In other words we will suffer judgment unless we repent. The word “repentance” means change – to change our minds, to change our way of living. But we can’t do that on our own. Only God can help us to do it.
When we come to the cross where Christ died for us to forgive us of our sins, and when we accept his resurrection, Christ comes into our hearts and we are “born from above”19 He gives us new strength and new power to live lives that we did not think we could live. You may say, “I can’t give up this thing that I know is wrong; I can’t do that.” But with Christ in your heart you can.
Jesus told the truth about salvation. We cannot be born a Christian. We have to be born again. “Born from above.”19 is what that really means. Jesus said, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”20 Jesus said that to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, we have to be converted.
Have you been converted? To be converted means to be changed, to let Christ come into your heart and satisfy that longing that you have. Many of you have an empty place in your life, and you don’t know what is causing it. You have troubles in your family. You have troubles in your community. You have troubles at work. And you don’t know how to get out of these troubles. You are caught in some sort of a trap. Maybe it is a drug habit that you can’t throw off, or maybe it is some other habit. Would you like to be free? You need Christ, and he can help you.
Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth”7 – he is the Truth – and “the truth shall make you free.”7 Jesus Christ can come into your heart and forgive your sins, cleanse you and change you. Christ stands ready to give hope to everyone. Christ’s truth can make you free.
There is power in sin: “Whoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.”21 Many are obedient to what the devil wants you to do, or what someone who is working for the devil wants you to do. You need to change and get a new master, and that new Master must be Christ. He can take away that sin that has dominion over you now and free you so that you are no longer a slave to sin.
Jesus Christ will free you from the presence of sin. When you live according to the lie, you are not free. When you are slaves to your passions and your lust and your ego, you are not free. But you can be free. Whom the Son has set free is free indeed!22
Every day we live our lives on the basis of things that we believer are true. We step into airplanes that we believe will fly. We press buttons and flip switches that we believe will bring desired results. We depend on science in the kitchen and on math in the office.
Yet in Jesus Christ we have a more profound truth than anything in science or mathematics. He is the only One who can bring peace and joy and the total satisfaction that you have been searching for but haven’t yet found. You haven’t found it in sex. You haven’t found it in accumulating money. You haven’t found it in having power. But “ye shall know the truth. And the truth shall make you free.”7
Do you have doubts in your heart about your relationship to Christ? Are you uncertain that you are ready to go to heaven? Are you uncertain that your sins are forgiven? DO you want to settle it? The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is knocking at your heart’s door and wants to enter your life: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”23
I am asking you to say, “I want Christ. I want him to have all of me. I surrender my life to him.”
(1) John 14:6; KJV. (2) John 8:44. (3) Cf. Genesis 2:16-17. (4) Cf. Genesis 3:1-5. (5) Cf. Genesis 3:1. (6) John 3:19-20, NOV. (7) John 8:32, KJV. (8) Cf. John 8:32. (9) 1 John 2:18 (10) Colossians 1:19, KJV. (11) John 8:24, KJV. (12) Mark 7:21-22, KJV. (13) John 3:16, KJV. (14) John 13:35. (15) Matthew 11:20-24;24:1-51;25:31-46. (16) Romans 2:16, KJV. (17) Matthew 12:36, KJV. (18) Luke 13:3, KJV. (19) Cf. John 3:5-7. (20) Matthew 18:3, KJV. (21) John 8:34, KJV. (22) John 8:36. (23) Revelation 3:20, KJV. Bible verses marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version
