SANCTIFY THEM BY YOUR TRUTH, YOUR WORD IS TRUTH (John 17:17)  

Introduction

 

Does it not seem that truth has indeed fallen in the streets in our time? Thus, as the prophet Isaiah said in the 59th Chapter of Isaiah in verse 14 “and judgment is turned away backward, and justice stands afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter." We have entered a period of time in this country where for nearly an entire political party “TRUTH" means nothing. Truth has fallen in the street! For most of the last 8 years, there was little if any attempt to tell the truth. From the politics of the Affordable Healthcare Act, through the various lying machinations of the Internal Revenue Service "going after conservatives",  the escapades of the Secret Service, and the willful and large number of violations by those in positions of authority over us charged with preventing illegal immigration; to the many who have refused their constitutional duty to “provide for the common defense"  as well as those who have negligently or intentionally negotiated deals with our enemies that made us less secure and did not provide for the common defense, truth has fallen in the street. Even now, while there are many proclaiming that their city is a “sanctuary city", they have violated their oaths of office and refused to enforce the law of the land and failed to tell the truth! These who have seemingly turned away from truth are in positions of authority as mayors, governors, and judges all over the country. Does it matter? Is it important to tell the truth?

 

The Lord Jesus Christ tells us in the Gospel of John in the 14th Chapter that He is TRUTH itself. As He prays what is referred to as His “high priestly prayer" in John Chapter 17, He prays that the Father would sanctify His disciples in HIS Word and His Word is Truth! Clearly truth is a matter that is important to God. 

The Word of God is truth. The Word of God is the most up-to-date and relevant word in the universe today. How do we know that? From the Holy Spirit of God, the true author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, we see the following:

 

“For the Word of God is alive and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of joint and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12)

 

Thus, we see that the Word of God is alive! The Word of God is powerful! From the Apostle Peter, we see that it is by the Word of God, “… Who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a living hope to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."        (1 Peter 1:3b)  So, it is through this living and abiding Word that we have been born again, as Jesus says, “without which no man will see the Kingdom of Heaven. 

“Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible through the Word of God which lives and abides forever. Because, all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of grass, the grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the Word of the Lord endures forever." (1 Peter:22-24)

 

It is this living and abiding Word that is the most relevant word in the universe today. It is the Word of God ! It is the Word of God that gives life everlasting to those who will receive it. Every other word in the universe is merely the word of men, who at their best, according to Dr. Martyn Lloyd -Jones, are still men, many of whom are in positions of authority in this nation today and who have caused truth to have fallen in the street!

 

I.    God's Word is True

There are many places where we see confirmed to us in the Bible that God's Word is true. Moreover, many secular sources exist that affirm and confirm that God's prophecies and Word throughout the ages are indeed true. God said that He would “bring Abraham out of the land of Ur of the Caldeas and make of him a great nation”. He has! God said that his “descendants would be greater in number than the stars in the sky”. They are! God sent the Angel Gabriel to speak to the prophet Daniel which is recorded in the 9th Chapter of the Book of Daniel to tell Daniel the following: 

 

“Oh Daniel, I have come forth to give you skill to understand. At the beginning of your supplications the command went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved; therefore consider the matter, and understand the vision: ‘70 weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the prince there shall be 7 weeks and 62 weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. And after 62 weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, and until the end of the war desolations are determined’”.(Daniel 9:22B – 26)

 

In the foregoing prophecy, the term weeks is understood to mean periods of 7 years. Thus, the prophecy refers to a period of 483 years from the commandment to rebuild and restore Jerusalem to the coming of Messiah. Calculations by many have determined that period to have concluded with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. What a fantastic prophecy. It would have been amazing enough had Gabriel said to Daniel, “in approximately 500 years Messiah will enter Jerusalem". But we understand that this prophecy is true. In Numbers Chapter 23 in the 19th verse, we find that “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the Son of Man, that He should repent: has He said and shall He not do it? Or have you spoken, and shall He not make it good?" (Numbers 23:19 KJV)

 

God's Word is true and righteous altogether. “It is more to be desired than gold, yea, than “much fine gold”. (Psalms 19) At a time and in an age where truth seems to have fallen in the street, God's Word is truth indeed. It is like water in the desert on a dry and thirsty day. It is alive and powerful and the most relevant up-to-date word in the universe today. Desire it! Read it! Live by it!

 

 

 

II.    God's Word Sanctifies God's people

Not only are we saved from the wrath to come by the Word of God, indeed, by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which according to the Apostle Paul as he has written in his letter to the Church of Rome, “I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." (Romans 1:16)  Actually, the sentence means that the Apostle Paul was very proud of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is through the proclamation of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ that men and women and young people are saved. They receive the Lord Jesus Christ by faith alone and they surrender their will to the Lord's will in true repentance toward God. The Apostle Paul writes in his first letter to the church at Corinth the following:

 

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the Kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." (First Corinthians 6:9 – 11)

 

God's Holy Word tells us without equivocation that “there are none righteous,no not one".  ( Romans 3:10) His word tells us that all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God. We sin because we have a sin nature. In his letter to the church at Ephesus, the Apostle Paul tells us in the second Chapter that “all are dead in their trespasses and sins”. But as we see here from 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, we are sanctified by God's Holy Word.

 

Because all are sinners and in fact spiritually dead, no one can save themselves. It is in receiving the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ by faith alone, in the Lord Jesus Christ, as a sheer gift from God, and surrendering our wills to Him in true repentance, that we are made alive, or as the Apostle Peter says, “born-again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the Word of God”. It is being born-again and sanctified by God's Holy Truth that is necessary to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. In Paul's letter to the Church of Rome, in the very first chapter in the 18th verse he says, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them." (Romans 1:18 and 19) It is God's Word, through the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ that causes us to be born-again and to be sanctified and justified in the Lord Jesus Christ in order to escape the wrath to come. 

 

III.    The Implication of the Truthfulness of God's Word

    If God's Word is true, and it is, and, further, if God cannot lie, and He cannot, then all that is contained in His Holy Book is true, including that God made the heavens and the earth and all that is therein in six days! On the seventh day He rested! We are living on an earth that is approximately 6500 years old, not 5 billion years old or 14 billion years old! Adam and Eve were real. Jesus said so! The first Adam disobeyed God and killed us all, for we were all “in his loins" and are therefore descendants and born with a sin nature. So what we inherited from Adam was death! The last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, was born and lived a perfect life. He is described as the Passover Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. He had to be a lamb without spot or blemish. He lived that perfect life and the Bible describes that “He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him”.( 2 Corinthians 5:21)

 

Unlike the first  Adam, who was on probation in the garden and fell, and gave us death as his inheritance, the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, obeyed all God’s law perfectly and He gives us life in Him as His inheritance. We become a joint heir with Christ, an heir of God. We will inherit eternal life in Him.

 

We should remember and not forget that God's Word is true. God cannot lie. He wants us to speak the truth in love and walk in truth. Are you doing that? If you are swallowing the lie that the earth is somewhere between 5 billion years old and 14 billion years old and that life “evolved" according to the Darwinian theory of evolution, you are not walking in truth. Stand fast! As the writer of Hebrews says, “therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all his house.… And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, but Christ as a son over his own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing in the hope firm unto the end." (Hebrews 3:1 – 6) Hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing in the hope that we have in Christ Jesus firm unto the end. Do not accept the lie postulated by many that the earth is billions of years old. It is the same attack on the Word of God that the evil one did in the garden when he said “hath God said". Stand firm on the fact that God has said that the heavens and the earth were created in six days and all that is therein and on the seventh day He rested. Stand firm on the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ says that God's Word is true, indeed, that He Himself is truth itself. Stand firm on God's Holy Truth wherein you were washed; wherein you are sanctified; wherein you are justified. Stand firm on the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Do not be partakers with those who have caused truth to have fallen in the street. 

 

Conclusion

    “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20-21)

 

 

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