60 Seconds (22)

“TRUTH HAS FALLEN IN THE STREET”

Chuck Swindoll wrote, “In a world where everything has turned gray and become a blur, the Scriptures still mark the lines between right and wrong, between good and evil, between blessed and cursed.”

In Isaiah 59:14 – 15, the prophet, writing of the conditions of his day, stated, “For truth has fallen in the street.” He personifies truth as a victim of violence, like a man who has been beaten and stabbed, and he lies in the street fighting for his life. He gives five consequences:

JUSTICE, the ability to make right decisions is seen as one who has been driven out of the city, for “justice is turned back.” Previously, in verse 10, he says in looking for solutions to their problems, they resemble a person without eyes, stumbling in darkness. Jeremiah asked, “They have rejected the Word of the Lord, so what wisdom do they have?” (8:9). Dio Chrysostom said, “Like men with sore eyes, they find the light painful, while the darkness, which permits them to see nothing, is restful and agreeable.”

RIGHTEOUSNESS, living according to moral principles, is pictured as one who stands at a great distance from the city, “And righteousness stands afar off.” Humanism teaches, “There are no absolutes, no right or wrong, all morals are situational.” George Orwell showed in his novel 1984, when objective truth is denied, anything can mean almost anything else.

EQUITY, integrity and honesty, are seen as trying to enter the city, but cannot because of the corruption, “And equity cannot enter.” Philip K. Hitti, author of The Temperament of the Arabs wrote, “What a people believes, even if untrue, has the same influence over their lives as if it were true.”

TRUTH is disappearing, “So truth fails.” Jeremiah spoke of the people’s preference for religious leaders who said politically correct things rather than the truth (5: 30 – 31). Knowing that their way of life would ultimately bring God’s judgment, asked them, “What will you do in the end?”

THE RIGHTEOUS are mocked, “And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.” A. W. Tozer stated, “To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men.”

The Pennsylvania State Highway Department once set out to build a bridge, working from both sides. When the two crews met halfway, they were 13 feet to one side of each other. Alfred Steinberg, writing some time ago in the Saturday Evening Post, went on to explain that each crew had used its own reference point, stating, “Location by approximation can be costly and dangerous.”

A small bronze disc at Meades Ranch Triangulation Station in Osborne, Kansas, marks where the 39th parallel crosses the 98th meridian. The National Geodetic Survey, a federal agency whose purpose is to locate the exact position of every point in the United States, used this scientifically recognized reference point until the more precise reference system, the global positioning system (GPS). All ships and planes rely on the Survey. The government can build no dams, nor shoot off a missile, without this agency to tell it exact locations – to the very inch!

The reference point (or GPS) for life is the truth of the Word of God!

Proverbs 23:23, “Buy the truth, and do not sell it.”

Dave Arnold, Pastor, Gulf Coast Worship Center, New Port Richey, Florida
www.davidarnoldonline.org

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©