YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

I am sure you’ve seen the scene or heard the famous tag-line “You can’t handle the truth” that Col. Jessup yells back at Lt. Kaffee in the movie “A Few Good Men,” of a while back. It is very memorable and illustrates a situation where someone is telling others that what is going on is something they would be better off not knowing.

Jesus has several “you can’t handle the truth” episodes with His disciples as well

Luke 12: 49-56: Jesus said, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!

Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:

father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, `It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, `There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"

This passage reminded me of another time Jesus told his disciples they couldn’t handle what He was doing: Matthew 20: 20-23:

Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Him with her sons, kneeling down and asking something from Him. And He said to her, "What do you wish?" She said to Him, "Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom." But Jesus answered and said, "You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" They said to Him, "We are able."

So He said to them, "You will indeed drink My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by My Father."

Col. Jessup admits that what he did was done for a higher purpose than self-preservation or centeredness, but rather directed at the greater good of Human Society who need someone such as him to act outside of common rules to serve and protect, for their own good.

Jesus tells us that He was sent here to serve a purpose beyond our ability to discern or even understand the absolute truth of creation. In fact Jesus tells us, that truth will destroy the very nature of human bonds, relationships, and trust. He has been sent to accomplish a new thing that will destroy the very nature of what it means to be human.

He tells us there is a new definition of “human” coming that will not be made by human hands or deeds, but God’s Will and Work.

Jesus told Nicodemus in the Gospel of John “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."  Nicodemus could not understand what Jesus meant even after Jesus spoke more, “Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”

Jesus is speaking of spiritual things, things that humanity must take on faith.

On June 1, 2008 a panel of scientists gathered at the World Science Festival to discuss what it means to be human according to science:

Marvin Minsky, artificial intelligence pioneer: We do something other species can’t: We remember. We have cultures, ways of transmitting information.

Daniel Dennett, cognitive scientist: We are the first species that represents our reasons, and can reason with each other. "The planet has grown a nervous system," he said.

Renee Reijo Pera, embryologist: We’re uniquely human from the moment that egg and sperm fuse. A "human program" begins before the brain even begins to form.

Jim Gates, physicist: We are blessed with the ability to know our mother. We are conscious of more than our selves. And just as a child sees a mother, the species’ vision clears and sees mother universe. We are getting glimmers of how we are related to space and time. We can ask, what am I? What is this place? And how am I related to it?

Nikolas Rose, sociologist: Language and representation. We are the kind of creatures that ask those questions of ourselves. And we believe science can help answer. We’ve become creatures that think of ourselves as essentially biological — and I think we’re more than biological creatures. I’m not sure biology has answers.

Ian Tattersall, anthropologist: It’s not "what is human," but what is unique: our extraordinary form of symbolic cognition. 

Francis Collins, geneticist: What does the genome tell us? There’s surprisingly little genetic difference between human and chimpanzee.

Now all of these definitions are fine in human terms, and show a remarkable repository of human intelligence and wisdom. They are heavily dependent on the deeds and accumulation of human knowledge.

But what they don’t tell us is the “why” of life each of us so desperately wants to know because they can’t scientifically categorize the spiritual.

Only one source of intelligence, wisdom, and history has the answer: the Holy Bible.

In this source document God tells us that we humans were created in His Image with both free will and a soul (an eternal aspect of being/personality/ humanness) that no scientist can measure or define but makes us human and different from the animals around us.

Because we lack the ability to see all elements of truth (physical/spiritual/physical) we lack the capability to understand the truth and must take those elements we can’t perceive on faith.

It is this lack of ability to perceive the absolute “truth” of God that means Jesus becoming man and God, dying, accepting the sins of the world, and then being resurrected and bridging the gap between the spiritual and physical world was made necessary as part of the plan to restore God’s creation and His relationship to His people.

This brings us to faith. We know there is theoretical faith (a faith that could move mountains as cited in 1 Corinthians 13) and operational faith from 1 John 5 1-5:

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His command-ments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

The thing that we can’t handle is that in order to overcome the world our faith must be stronger than the snares, deceptions, and temptations of the physical world around us.

A world that will taunt us, label us, and destroy us for that faith that must overcome and a world where even our families and closest friends will come to despise and forsake us because they feel we are caught up in foolishness.

Listen to 1 Corinthians 2: 13-14: “These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

We also know that there will come a time when the physical and the spiritual will pass away to the eternal and despite the advanced scientific and human wisdom some will be ignorant of the signs signifying the end coming.

The truth we must understand and overcome: The just will live by faith. Jesus tells a truth the world, as it is during His time rejects, for they think that actions, works, are the keys to salvation. Their belief was works=faith=salvation.

Romans 1: 17 says, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith." Galatians 3: 11says, “But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for "the just shall live by faith." Hebrews 10: 38 says, “Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him."

Jesus’ new truth is faith+works (showing the evidence of faith)=salvation.

What really is faith? One little boy in Sunday School was asked that question and quick as a flash he replied, "Believing something you know isn't true." And I don't know what you feel about it. I often thought that that's what faith was.

Actually it’s believing what the world says isn’t true!

The faith we are asked to believe may be unseen, but that doesn’t make it untrue.

The faith we are asked to believe may represent things hoped for but that doesn’t make it untrue.

Scientists may not be able to define and measure it but that doesn’t make it untrue.

My final thought for you today comes again from John’s Gospel, Chapter 14, verses 1-6:

"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know."

Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

Amen.