Truth and The Remnant

I am blessed by many things in my life. I have a beautiful wife who loves me and loves God. I have a job, and I enjoy what I do. I am healthy and so is most of my family. I could go on and on.

Another of the many blessings in my life is that my pastor shares and reinforces many of the beliefs and opinions that I have. In fact, I believe that all of the ministers at my church are fantastic and I appreciate the fact the God has placed each of them where they are.

The pastor that I speak of and I both believe that there is a right and a wrong. Apparently, according to a recent Gallup poll that Pastor Fleming cited, he and I are in the minority. In the poll, over 70% of Americans agreed with the statement that, "there is no such thing as objective truth; different people can define truth in conflicting ways and still be correct." Pastor Fleming went on to say in his sermon the following four points which are the backbone for this post:

I. It matters what we believe.
I remember speaking the same idea 11 years ago when I was a graduating senior in high school. I encouraged my fellow students in the church to take the time to know what they believed.

II. It matters that what we believe is the truth.
I could reiterate Pastor Fleming's words here, but I suspect that this blog will be long enough.

III. There is such a thing as truth.
As Pastor Fleming says, God has revealed to us that we can know Jesus Christ, and he, and only he, can save us, and that is truth. There are some things that God has not clearly revealed and in these matters we must not be rigid. However, on the things in which God has clearly made himself known, we must not waiver.

IV. Truth is unchanging.
God's truth is the same today as it was 6000 years ago, and before the world began. It will be the same for all eternity. Likewise, it is the same here in Georgia as it is across the country or across the world.

In II Timothy chapter 4, Paul tells us that there will be many false prophets and those false prophets will be welcomed because they will tell the people what the people want to hear. The prophet Amos was scolded by King Jeroboam and his false prophet. Jeroboam was close to this false prophet because this false prophet told the king what he wanted to hear. Amos, contrarily, spoke God's call for Israel to repent and return to God. The king and the people did not want to listen.

Amos is not the only prophet like this. There have been many. Jeremiah spoke out to Judah, but he too was outcast. Judah's sins were so great that God told Jeremiah to not intercede for them because he (God) would not listen. He also instructed Jeremiah to be celibate, and not to attend funerals or mourn the deceased as a statement against the evil in Judah.

I discovered Jay Albert Noch while reading an issue of National Review magazine. Noch has an essay called, "Isaiah's Job." That is a job like a chore, not Job, the man that God was so proud of 5000 years ago in the time of Genesis. Noch points out that when God called Isaiah, he warned him that the people would not listen. Isaiah wondered why God was sending him, if the people would not listen. God's response was that Isaiah was being sent for the benefit of the remnant, those that didn't drink the mainstream Kool-Aid. This lesson is important today just as much as it was then. There are going to be times when we need to speak the truth. There is truth. Many, likely most, will not listen. Speak the truth for the remnant.

Credit to Rev. Terry Fleming for his sermon titled, "The Importance of Good Doctorin'[sic]"
and to Mr. Jay Albert Noch for his essay, "Isaiah's Job"