Loyalty to truth can be one of the noblest qualities a person possesses, yet it can also lead us down the rabbit hole of inherited beliefs that we cling to without question. Today, we take a moment to explore the critical distinction between being loyal to our personal interpretations of truth and being genuinely loyal to truth itself. You see, while sincerity and conviction are admirable traits, they don’t automatically guarantee that what we believe is correct. In fact, many of us may be sincerely wrong, defending notions that have been handed down through generations without ever examining their validity. Join me as we dive into this nuanced discussion, examining how our loyalties can sometimes obscure the path to actual truth, and why a willingness to question our inherited beliefs might just be the key to spiritual growth. Loyalty to the truth is a topic that ignites a fire in the heart of many, and today, I dive into the essence of this vital principle. We often admire those who stand firm in their convictions, especially when society around them falters. However, the crux of our discussion revolves around a critical distinction: Are we loyal to the truth itself, or simply to our inherited beliefs that we have always accepted as true? This contemplation leads us down a rabbit hole of introspection, where we must face the uncomfortable notion that our loyalty may sometimes overshadow our pursuit of genuine truth. It’s an exploration of moral value, where loyalty must be anchored to something truly worthy. Sincere loyalty, while admirable, can still lead us astray if it is directed toward the wrong ends. We must ask ourselves, are we willing to challenge our cherished beliefs for the sake of uncovering deeper truths? This episode urges us to reflect on the potential dangers of being too closely tied to our inherited conclusions, and encourages an open-hearted examination of our beliefs, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. As I delve deeper into the nuances of loyalty, I highlight the two types of loyalty that often present themselves in our lives. On one hand, we have those who cling tightly to the beliefs instilled in them by their upbringing, often viewing any challenge to these beliefs as a personal affront. This can create a barrier to genuine understanding and growth. On the other hand, there are those who cultivate a love for truth, willing to examine and re-examine their beliefs in the light of new evidence or perspectives. This willingness can be a challenging path, requiring courage to stand apart from the majority and to confront the discomfort of potential change. Herein lies the heart of our conversation: our loyalty to truth must be a commitment to continually seek and embrace what is right, even when it means letting go of long-held convictions. We also touch upon the historical context of these themes, drawing parallels to the lives of figures like the Apostle Paul and Peter, whose journeys illustrate the complex interplay between belief and truth. Their experiences serve as cautionary tales, reminding us that even the most sincere intentions can lead to misguided actions when loyalty to a system overshadows loyalty to truth itself. Ultimately, this episode challenges us to embrace a love for truth that transcends tradition and personal identity, pushing us to engage in self-reflection and to remain open to the possibility of being wrong. As we navigate our own beliefs, may we strive not only for knowledge but also for wisdom, seeking the truth that lies beneath our convictions and allowing it to shape our understanding of the world around us.

Takeaways:

• The essence of loyalty lies not merely in devotion but in a commitment to truth itself, prompting us to examine what we truly believe.
• A sincere adherence to inherited beliefs can lead to a dangerous blind spot, where questioning those beliefs feels like a betrayal.
• True loyalty should inspire us to welcome uncomfortable truths that challenge our preconceived notions, rather than just defending our existing beliefs.
• The heart's disposition towards truth significantly influences our willingness to embrace or reject new ideas, even when they contradict our traditions.

Good day to you and thank you so much for joining us in the study.

We're going to take a little bit of a break from our series.

We've been dealing with the husband and wife mainly that primarily focuses on the husband and the home.

Today I want to take a little bit of a break and talk to you about something that's very important to me personally and sort of identifies my push, my.

My persuasion, my encouragement to you in our search for truth.

And so today I want to talk to you about loyalty to the truth and love for the truth.

The question beneath all of our convictions is this one here.

There are few qualities more admirable than being loyal to the truth.

We respect the person who remains faithful.

Even when it comes to relationships.

We respect people who remain faithful to others.

When it seems that others abandon their commitments.

We admire the individual that refuses to compromise merely to gain approval of others.

And when that loyalty is directed toward God and truth, it appears to be one of the most noble qualities that a person can possess.

Loyalty, though, has moral value only when it's attached to something worthy of it.

A person can be sincerely loyal and still be very wrong.

He can defend an era with courage and sacrifice for it with conviction.

He can remain faithful to it till the day he dies.

But his sincerity can only tell us something honorable about his character.

Not sincerity.

I mean, not transform error into truth.

I mean, it has nothing to do with his position and his acceptance of the truth.

Sincere but sincerely wrong.

And that brings us to a difficult and deeply personal question.

Are we loyal to truth itself or are we merely loyal to what we have always believed to be true?

You know, a person can be deeply loyal to what they believe to be right without being loyal to truth itself.

And that's what I want us to talk about and to distinguish in our discussion today.

Those are loyalties.

Those are two kinds of loyalties.

And they look alike from the outside, but they're very different from the inside.

This is not just an attack on sincerity and devotion.

I'm not really addressing that.

I'm assuming that people are sincere until I know differently.

And that's very difficult to know.

I'm not God and can't judge hearts, but we, we see people and give their attendance.

And they.

They certainly have some appearance of being moral, respectable.

They respect their parents and a lot of people who resist considering their beliefs or reconsidering their thoughts.

They're respectable people.

They're very honest and generous, deeply concerned about pleasing God.

But the danger that I want to address today arises when loyalty to God becomes inseparably tied to the religious system that they've inherited.

At that point, reconsidering the system feels like betraying God and betraying their parents or their congregation and their entire spiritual history.

And that's a cost they can't afford to make.

I have observed two general ways in which people approach truth.

And these are not meant as labels so that we can condemn everybody around us.

That's not the point.

But they're mirrors in which each of us begin to, or rather should be willing to examine themselves at different moments.

We recognize something of both men within us.

And I want to talk about those two men.

The most important question is which attitude will we cultivate when some cherished belief that is brought under examination?

A cherished belief of ours?

The first man that I want to talk about, and there's only two that I want to discuss, is the man that's loyal to his inherited conclusions.

This man was often raised in a home where God was placed first from childhood.

He was taught to worship, respect scriptures, live honestly, help others, and avoid the corrupting influence of the world.

Those are good qualities, and we should never belittle them.

Such a person can grow into an honorable and dependable and very deeply religious adult.

But along with those virtues, he was taught a particular understanding of Scripture, certain doctrines, interpretations of the Bible, religious practices.

All of them were placed before him as settled truth.

And because those teachings came from his parents or his grandparents or preachers and other trusted influencers, he accepts them long before he has any opportunity to possess the maturity of or the knowledge to investigate them personally.

In time, those teachings become inseparable from the people who taught them.

To question those teachings may feel like questioning the faithfulness of his parents.

Or to reconsider some teaching may feel like dishonoring his preacher or those who taught him the gospel.

To admit that the religious system might be mistaken may appear to invalidate all those generations of sincere men of faith and sacrifice.

And so what began as received instruction gradually becomes an unquestionable certainty.

He just knows it's true.

Such a man would seldom describe his understanding as an opinion.

I've even heard one of our beloved leaders in this county say that, you know, really belittling the idea of using the term opinion.

Well, the very idea was.

Well, it was just unmistakably wrong in his mind.

To him, it's just one thing, and that's the truth.

Those who agree with him stand for the truth, and those who disagree have departed from it.

Pretty simple, right?

The System becomes a box that confines every conclusion before the evidence is ever examined.

It doesn't merely give him answers.

It decides in advance which questions may safely be asked.

And so he can defend that system.

It's something that he has accepted.

He can debate it.

He can sacrifice for it.

He can remain loyal to it until he dies.

And yet he may never seriously consider that his neighbor down the road is a person equally sincere, equally religious, equally devoted to the Scriptures, and just as convinced that he's right.

And he's followed the same process and arrived at a very different conclusion than yours.

Both inherited beliefs from people they trusted.

Both of them were taught that those beliefs constituted the truth.

Both interpret Scripture, though through a framework that they have received.

Both of them reject conclusions from others as being false teaching.

Both may be aligned with a certain denomination or a movement that reinforces their certainty.

Both of them are convinced that loyalty to their system is really loyalty to God.

But they cannot both be right friends.

And they're not right just because they're sincere.

Truth, you see, is not relative.

And I think a majority of us listening to this program would agree with that.

In other words, there's no Protestant truth, Catholic truth, Baptist truth, Methodist truth, Church of Christ truth.

There's truth.

And our understanding of it may be incomplete.

Certainly our consciences may stand at different stages of growth.

We may require patience as we learn and mature.

But the fact is, truth itself doesn't move with us.

It doesn't change according to our upbringing or our geography or the denominational affiliation that we have.

It doesn't change with our sincerity or our present level of understanding.

Please understand that my conscience may require me to act according to what I presently understand.

I must not knowingly violate it.

And yet my conscience does not make me understand or make my understanding any more.

True conscience governs my responsibility.

It doesn't determine the reality.

And so a sincere conscience may still be misinformed.

The Apostle Paul's own life certainly demonstrates that, doesn't it?

Before Paul's conversion, you.

You would say, and Paul could say, as he rehearses his past, that he had lived in all good conscience before God.

And yet that sincere conscience accompanied a campaign that was designed to kill and bring to justice the followers of Jesus.

Bind them in prison.

He entered houses, committed men and women to prison, and consented.

When believers were put to death.

He later explained that he had thought he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

But, my friend, listen to it clearly.

That sincerity, which is just as sincere as you are today didn't make his course right.

His zeal did not protect him from error.

His conscience required more enlightenment by truth.

And this is where religious loyalty becomes a very dangerous thing.

A person can become so committed to defending what he calls the truth that he loses his willingness to hear what actually may be true.

Every different conclusion is immediately ignored, rejected, or labeled as being false.

Of course, when you label it as false, it tells everybody else, gives notice to them not to pay attention.

The evidence is never permitted a fair hearing because the verdict was reached before the discussion ever began.

The issue here is not whether such a person possesses conviction.

That's.

That's altogether outside of our purview here.

I mean, cause he may possess tremendous conviction.

The issue is whether his convictions are governed by truth or whether truth is being filtered through conclusions that he's already decided can never be wrong.

There's a profound difference between saying, I know this is true and therefore I will never question it, and saying, I love truth so deeply that I'm willing to examine everything I believe.

You see, the first statement expresses loyalty to a conclusion that you've reached.

But the second one expresses loyalty to truth.

Whether you have it or not, it's your fervent desire.

One thought governs the first man that I want to talk about a thought.

Even though he may never consciously put it in words, he's never differentiated between loyalty to God and loyalty to the religious system through which he's learned about God.

To him, they're identical.

Because he's received his beliefs from sincere and respected people, defending those beliefs feels like defending the very people who taught him.

And because those people taught him to love God and defend their system, he feels like defending that system is defending God himself.

Any challenge then to the system is therefore perceived as a challenge to God, maybe a challenge to scriptures or his family and everything else sacred in his life.

He's not willing to do that.

But loyalty to a system, and when I call a system, I'm talking about a religious system that's commonly seen in various denominations across this land.

When you look at these systems taught by tradition, it's not necessarily the same as loyalty to truth revealed by God.

Jesus confronted that.

There's confusion among people in his own generation about what is truth.

They possessed the scriptures in the sense that they had access to truth, but they valued their religious heritage, their tradition.

They honored their prophets, they revered Moses and defended the law, while they considered themselves custodians of God's truth.

And yet devotion to their inherited understanding became so strong that the very one revealed in those Scriptures stood before them.

They didn't even recognize him.

Jesus didn't fit their expectations.

He didn't fit their concept of the Messiah, of their understanding of the kingdom.

And, and so while he challenged traditions that they had placed alongside the commandments of God, he really caused them to question the basis, the foundation he associated with people they considered unworthy.

He exposed the difference between outward righteousness and inward purity.

I mean, he spoke of a kingdom that did not conform to their idea, their political and national and religious expectations.

And so Jesus was rejected.

Christ became to them a stumbling block at a stone of offense.

What's the problem here?

The problem wasn't in lack of religious conviction and loyalty.

Why?

Many who rejected Jesus believed they were defending the truth.

They were defending Moses.

They were preserving the law.

They were very advocates of the law, preserving it, and were conservative by nature.

They protected their nation and remained faithful to God.

They believed they were so certain that they possessed the truth that anything contradicting their system had to be wrong.

Jesus contradicted their system and therefore they concluded that Jesus had to be false.

You see, their confidence in their interpretation became so complete that they rejected the evidence of Christ and his works.

They silenced his teaching, condemned him as a blasphemer, and participated in the very death of the Son of God, all the while believing they were protecting the honor of God.

Now, Jesus warned his disciples that a time would come when those who killed them would think they were offering service to God.

That is a terrifying power of religious prejudice.

A person can become so loyal to what he believes about God that he'll close his heart to what God is revealing to him.

He can defend Scripture while resisting the very meaning the Scriptures give.

Well, I've witnessed it my life.

I've witnessed individuals, especially preachers, that will calmly turn to Scripture in response to as a proof of honoring the source of truth and yet fail to see the very passage they're using condemns them.

If the Jews.

Now listen to this.

I want you to think about this very seriously.

If the Jews could honor the prophets and reject the very one to whom the prophets spoke, don't you think we can proudly quote Scripture while rejecting the very truth those Scriptures teach?

You see, Jesus told his opponents that they searched the Scriptures because they believed in them.

They had eternal life.

And yet he said those Scriptures are the very ones that testify of me.

And yet they were unwilling to come to him that they might have life.

Their problem was not that they didn't know the Scriptures.

Their problem was not that they were devoted to Scriptures.

Their problem was that they had an inherited interpretation of the Scriptures that had become a barrier between them and the one whom the Scripture revealed, the Son of God.

Well, we shouldn't tell that story merely to condemn people.

That's not what I'm after here.

I'm not trying to condemn those people who lived thousands of years ago.

I'm trying to point out, friends, that their danger becomes ours.

The very scriptures that expose their blindness, they're able to expose ours.

If sincere Bible reading, morally religious, serious people could mistake defense of tradition for defense of God, then none of us are immune.

The question here is not whether we have a tradition.

We have one.

Every one of us has received one.

The question is whether we love Christ enough to permit his truth to correct it.

I want to share with you a passage of Scripture from Paul's warning in second Thessalonians 2, beginning in verse 10.

Let's bring this issue into sharp focus.

From this passage here, Paul describes people who perish because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

And then he warned that delusion would follow so that they would believe a lie and be damned because they didn't believe the truth.

Now, notice Paul didn't merely say they lacked access to the truth.

The deepest.

Their.

Their deepest problem was that they didn't receive the love of the truth.

This has nothing to do with possessing it.

As if that's really a. Technically, that's really a impossibility.

You don't possess it and you never do have it in the sense of having it totally.

You love the truth, you're seeking it, you're searching for it, you're looking to apply it and never compromise it, but looking to conform yourself to its teachings.

And so after warning them that delusion would follow, the deepest problem was in this case is that they didn't love it.

Truth was available.

Their hearts was the problem.

Their hearts were not disposed to welcoming it, and something else was loved more.

In other words, there's something else that pulls our attention away from accepting the truth.

There are a lot of influences there, and intelligence alone can't protect us from deception.

You think that?

Well, we know the Scriptures well enough and can tell whether someone is deceiving us or not, but not necessarily so.

Education cannot protect us, and familiarity with the Bible can't protect us.

I've spent years preaching for congregations, but years spent in a congregation can't protect us.

The ability to debate cannot protect us.

A person can know a lot of passages and Quote them and you still use them to defend what he's already determined to believe.

They're just used as proof text for a conclusion that he's already reached.

That's religious bias.

So what protects us is not merely possessing statements that are true, not being able to quote scripture, but we must receive the love of the truth.

To love the truth is to want it.

To love the truth is to want it when it confirms, affirms us, and when it corrects us, it is to welcome it.

When it comforts us and when it wounds our pride and calls us to repent.

It is to prefer an uncomfortable truth over a comforting error.

Paul's warning also reveals a very strong moral connection between refusing truth and becoming vulnerable to deception.

Because when people repeatedly reject evidence because it threatens something they love more, they don't remain in a neutral position.

The mind learns to explain away what the heart refuses to receive.

You know, we can construct a lot of arguments and gather some authorities to support our views, and communities can be accepted to reinforce those chosen conclusions.

But eventually the lie feels safer, more familiar, more sacred than the truth really is.

You see, religious deception can be the most powerful form of deception.

And the reason is because it does not announce itself as rebellion against God.

It presents itself as being loyal to God.

It quotes Scripture.

You can't get any better than that, right?

Why?

It appeals to respectable teachers.

I've heard people saying and commending some church they've attended, oh, that's a fine church over there.

They, they open the Bible and preach from it.

I guess they've seen where some churches don't do that.

But the very fact that they quote scripture means that that's a good church.

It surrounds itself with people that are worshipful and service, and they appear to be moral and sacrificing.

And so the person caught within it doesn't believe he's resisting Christ.

He believes he's defending Christ against all the errors out there on the outside.

And that's why this subject can't be reduced to winning some argument.

The central issue here is the disposition of one's heart.

Do I love truth?

Do I love it enough to let it overturn a conclusion that has given me identity, comfort, and security?

Do I love the truth enough to disappoint people whose approval of me matters?

Do I love truth enough to admit that I once taught something wrong?

Do I love it enough to follow Christ when doing so leaves me standing outside the system in which I once felt at home?

Now, the opposite of loving the truth is not always Openly hating it.

You're not saying that at all.

Often it's simply loving something else more.

A man may say that he loves truth while protecting his reputation from it.

Oh, I can't think of a better example of this than the Apostle Peter.

Follow me for a while.

As we think about Peter in Acts chapter Galatians, Chapter two is what I'm appealing to.

You know, he apparently knew the truth about the Gentiles, but he compromised his conduct to protect his standing with influential men, Jewish Christians.

Peter's problem was not a lack of revelation.

He's an apostle of Christ.

God had already taught him through the vision and experience, the household of Cornelius.

You remember that he shouldn't call any person common or unclean.

Acts 10, starting at about verse 9 and following, Peter had also defended the Gentiles when he went back to Jerusalem.

In Acts 11, he presented the evidence before the Jewish believers in Jerusalem, and they all agree.

Well, then unto God also has he given salvation to the Gentiles.

And so they knew the truth.

There was no problem with that.

And possibly Peter was attending the meeting in Jerusalem as recorded in Acts 15.

If we understand Acts 15 to have taken place before Galatians 2, the event of Galatians 2, there's some conflict over what which comes first.

But there he was in Antioch in Galatians 2, he was freely eating with Gentile Christians.

But when certain men came from James, Peter withdrew.

He separated himself because he feared those of the circumcision.

His conduct no longer reflected what he knew to be right.

What he knew was the truth.

His concern for the approval of respected Jewish believers became stronger than his public loyalty to the truth of the Gospel.

And that illustrates, my friend, that a man may say that he loves truth while protecting his reputation from it.

Peter's conduct here in Antioch provides a very powerful example.

He knew the Gentiles had been accepted by God, and through that household of Cornelius and his experience there, God had already taught him that.

But According to Galatians 2, when he withdrew and separated himself from the Gentiles because he feared these people from the circumcision, in other words, he feared what they might say or do.

Truth hadn't changed.

Peter's knowledge had not changed.

It certainly hadn't disappeared.

What changed exactly?

Well, what changed was the social cost of.

Of acting consistently with what he knew to be true.

He feared what Jewish brethren would say or how they might treat him.

These were not irreligious men whose opinions Peter feared.

They were respected Jewish believers, and they were associated with the Brethren in Jerusalem and with James, their standing gave their presence unusual influence.

And even though Peter knew the truth, he protected his own reputation among influential men from the consequences of living by it.

And the cost appeared too high to give.

And yet his behavior didn't just impact himself.

Why, his behavior influenced others, so much so that even Barnabas, it says, was carried away with the dissimulation.

The Jews remained in his hypocrisy.

And that demonstrates, I think, that compromising truth to preserve our standing before other men is never entirely private.

You see, a person's fear, a respected person's fear, can become another person's permission to compromise.

Paul opposed Peter to the face.

He stood condemned.

He did so publicly because his conduct affected the truth of the gospel.

Peter was not merely violating some social custom by withdrawing from a Gentile table.

He acted as though Jews had a superior standing and as though Gentile believers still remained acceptable only when they conformed to Jewish expectations.

And so his behavior had an effect of rebuilding the very distinction that the gospel had removed.

That event reveals that knowing truth is certainly not the same as loving it, not the same as loving it enough to bear its cost.

Peter knew the truth.

He defended it verbally, he had practiced it.

And when doing so well, when it was socially comfortable, he did.

But when obedience threatened his reputation among influential religious men, fear overcame that consistency.

Religious tradition exerts a lot of powerful influence.

People may privately recognize that an interpretation has merit, but refusing to acknowledge it publicly because they know it costs them too heavily.

And if this could happen to Peter, my friend, an apostle who had received direct revelation from God, witnessed the work of Christ, and personally seen God accept the Gentiles, then it could certainly imagine.

It could certainly happen to us, couldn't it?

We're certainly not immune to it.

If it can impact Peter's life and influence him, then what does that say about my life?

You see, we can understand a truth.

We can teach it.

We can defend it and retreat from it when it threatens our standing with family or with friends or preachers or elders or some religious community or denomination.

A love for truth is proven not by what we confess when surrounded by agreement, but by whether we remain faithful when truth places our reputation at risk, like the Jewish system of the first century, today's churches defend against this threat.

It defends it against their threat because it does something to their identity.

When their tradition is under fire, then their whole system is under fire, and they'll never praise the Scriptures and their adherence to it, while shielding their tradition from its examination.

My friend, the prayer of the truth seeker is not, lord, help me prove what I believe.

It's Lord, expose whatever I believe that is not of you.

Give me the courage to see it, the humility to confess it, the faith to leave it.

Well, our time is up and I thank you for your kind attention.

I trust that you will return with me as we continue our thoughts and talk.

Talk about the institutional assumption that for many years people have come to accept without ever studying it.

Thanks for listening.

Have a good day and a pleasant week ahead.