Thank you. [Applause] Good evening everybody. I must say it's an
absolute delight to be here. It's a delight to see such an incredibly full room. When we launched
these events we had no idea what we were getting ourselves in for. I think the first venue for
Brisbane that was booked had a capacity of 300 and I think we had about 500 people signed up
in one day, so, we have been hitting capacity time and again. But I raised that because
particularly here on the Sunshine Coast, one thing that we have seen is that, in
terms of a population to audience ratio, I think you guys are well and truly knocking
it out of the park. So, congratulations! And with that in mind, this jacket
used to fit me, I'm sorry about that, that's what happens when you're on the road, too
many chocolate bars. With that in mind, I'm Martyn Iles and this is ‘The Truth of It’ and tonight
I want to talk to you firstly about truth, lies, harm and hate speech and I want to show
you how these things are connected and first and foremost to explain, I want to
start with this notion of "cancel culture". This is something that comes up more and more, the
list of cancel culture examples continues to rise and continues to expand and a recent one caught
my eye because it was an unlikely candidate. It was Richard Dawkins the famous atheist and
Richard Dawkins tweeted something and this is what he tweeted. In 2015 he says, Rachel Dolezal
a white chapter president of NAACP, which is the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People - and she was supposed to be black of course, but she wasn't - she was
vilified for identifying as black, says Richard Dawkins. Then he says, some men choose to identify
as women and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that
they literally are what they claim to be. Discuss. And for his efforts, Mr Dawkins was
stripped of his humanist of the year prize which was issued in 1996 by the American Humanist
Association and his situation adds to the likes of JK Rowling, Germaine Greer, unlikely candidates
to be cancelled. But there are far more serious cases and many of us know about them. I started
to encounter this, first, of course, through my work with the Human Rights Law Alliance which is
the law firm that takes up religious freedom and free speech matters on behalf of the Australian
Christian Lobby and there's so many cases. At the moment, we're working on the story of a doctor
from Sydney who lost an accreditation with a professional body and was threatened with the
loss of her academic status at a major university because she gave a talk, in her area
of expertise, which is human sexuality, with a Christian foundation. Or, HRLA is currently
working with a GP from - HRLA's the Human Rights Law Alliance - working with a GP from Melbourne
who was investigated by the Medical Board without his knowledge on 14 years of his conservative
opinions that he had posted on the internet about things like abortion and transgenderism
and marriage and all this kind of stuff and then they called him up and they said that his medical
licence had been suspended because he was not safe for his patients, despite having no complaints
against him from a patient or a colleague. One of the first clients that called me when I
was in that role was the general manager of a web design agency and he had been fired almost on
the spot because he had said at a staff meeting that he disagreed with the content of the
Safe Schools Coalition program that was then running in Victorian schools because he had been
challenged for his opinion by a staff member. Or at the moment, HRLA is working with a couple from
Perth - Byron and Keira. Byron and Keira have been excluded from the foster parenting system on the
basis of the faith that they uphold in their home. They failed the assessment criteria of the agency
which was creating a safe environment for children because of their religious beliefs. Or there's
a story that I was involved with as well of a student who prayed for a friend of his, at
university, with her permission, a friend because she had divulged to him that she was struggling
with some mental health concerns. He prayed for her, with her permission, she thought better of
it afterwards, reported him to the university and he was suspended amongst various other very
serious sanctions that were taken against him. Or there is the very obvious example - and I
could keep you by the way with story after story, after story, this evening, I’m not gonna do
that, don't worry, we're gonna say something else - but there is the obvious example,
the one that's very close to my experience, close to our experience, as well as Australians
and that, is Israel Folau. His Instagram post was characterised by the media as homophobic and he
lost his ability to earn a living in Australia. Now, that is fairly comprehensive cancelling and I mention Izzy in this context because
it's a very clear example of something. Notice the justification for the actions that were
taken against him and you probably heard this in the media coverage. You hear what Peter V’landys
said just recently, he said, he's wasting his time trying to come back to the NRL because
he has repeatedly failed to acknowledge the harm that his comments caused. What
he did, it was said time and again, was harmful. The narrative is
that the graphic was harmful, the graphic is a cause of mental anguish
and vulnerable people and it will cause suicide. That is a very, very powerful way to
make people shut up. It's a very compelling thing. Nobody wants to be responsible for that
kind of harm. This was also the justification given for stripping Richard Dawkins of his prize.
He was, it said, attacking marginalised groups under the guise of scientific discourse and
his comments were harmful. You show me a dozen examples of cancel culture, including all the
ones I just talked about, and I will show you a justification for what happened that is based in
the harm narrative. In those legal cases, one of the things consistently raised is the notion that
these people were unsafe. Now if you're unsafe it means you're imminently going to cause harm to
somebody if someone's unsafe in your presence. Like the home of the foster parents was unsafe,
the general manager that got fired he was told that he'd made an unsafe workplace, the doctor
who was investigated, he was told that he was not a safe pair of hands to be dealing with his
patients. Imminently at risk of causing harm. You know, this marks a change. It used to be
that something called free speech was the norm and the way that played out, of course,
was that speech was fought with speech. For example, you look at Israel Folau,
out what could have happened? Well there's really two answers, he posts what he posts,
and to be honest, I mean, we don't usually worry too much about what footballers are saying
about theology. It's not it's not really something the media bang on about very often but for some
reason, this was made into the huge thing that it really ought not to have been. I mean, social
media, so what, it's what people are doing, he's got his followers they follow him
if they want to, move on with your life. And there's one or two things that they could
have done if they wanted to take this further. Rugby Australia could have put out a statement
to distance themselves from what Folau did and say, he's wrong, we hate what he said, this
is terrible, this does not represent Rugby. That would be fighting speech with speech,
they could have said whatever they wanted. Or, there's the other side of the coin which is
actually, no, you could fire him and ban him for life. You could fight speech with more devastating
weapons than speech and that is what we are seeing more and more often. And do you know, we often
hear the narrative, and the ABC tweeted this the other day, that Israel Folau was discriminating
against people. I want to make a really important distinction, whenever you hear that speaking
is not discriminating, speaking is speaking. Discrimination has a meaning, it is causing
someone some detriment on the basis of a protected attribute which is what they did
to him. They fired him and locked him out, on the basis of what? His expressed
religious beliefs. So they discriminated. But here's the interesting thing, what
they did, apparently, is justified. It is justified in every case of cancel
culture and this legal warfare that's going on, it's justified to prevent harm. And this is
a change because we all know the old saying, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words
will never hurt me". There was a number of times I'd go to my parents with some awful
thing that someone had said to me as a kid and mum would just say to me well, sticks and
stones may break your bones, in other words, hey son, you're going to go through life and hear
a lot of things that you don't like. You're going to hear a lot of words that are not very nice and
you're going to have to learn to deal with it now, otherwise, you're not going to cope. Now, if
there is one idea that we have done away with, more than just about any other, over the
last twenty odd years, it's got to be that one. Words will never harm me? You've got
to be joking. Words are the ultimate harm, words must be cancelled, ideas must be regulated,
this is where we're going. The concept of harm has been expanded. It didn't use to include
simple comments, simple speech, simple statements but it has been expanded and so now it is ever
more in danger of restricting liberty, in fact, it is. And it's been expanded to
include words that could have an effect of possibly preventing someone from feeling
happy about themselves. Or any idea that could question somebody's self-expression. This
is what happens when we turn self into God. Self must have its own little
anti-blasphemy measures. So you can't confront, or question, or
harm my sense of self, for it is sacred. I often say it used to be the case, in Western
societies, that we did have blasphemy laws - you couldn't insult God - they've been done away
with and I’m not saying whether or not they should come back, but what have we done instead?
I think we've reinvented the blasphemy law, we call it a vilification law and we say
you can't offend people because people's sense of their own selves is sacred. But, you
will know, it's the self-expression of some and not others and we're going to get back to that
in just a moment. And I want to make this point, this is not just a cancel culture sideshow, this
is something that is changing and shaping culture and it's creeping more and more into our
institutions, our legislation, our parliament and all this kind of thing. For example, it
affects our laws and politics more and more, i.e. Victoria, recently, passed this
so-called ‘Change and Suppression Bill’ and what the result is regardless of the PR spin
the government wants to put on this, the result is, that a conversation which articulates
a Christian view of sexuality and gender whether by a pastor, a parent, a doctor, a
person in the street, it is now legally risky. It doesn't matter whether it's being taught
in the home, from a parent to a child, it doesn't matter whether it's being expounded
in the pulpit by a pastor or a faith leader, it doesn't even matter whether it's being
practised in the office of a medical practitioner who is seeking the patient's best interests, it
is legally fraught. The legislation in question, specifically lists prayer, as an
example of a potentially criminal act and the sanctions imposed by the legislation
are up to 10 years in jail and a $250 000 fine. Now this is affecting our laws,
as you can see, and the people who push for that law, in the report that they wrote
to the Victorian government, they were very clear, they said well you know, it's not just
conversion therapy that we're trying to do away with because of course conversion - can I
just say this, conversion therapy isn't happening, no one's getting electric shocked in this
country, no one's going to anti-gay boot camp, no one's getting revulsion therapies,
no one. All this awful, awful stuff is condemned to the dustbin of history. It
has been for years and years and years. So that's not what they're going after and they
said it in their report, it was written by the Latrobe University and the Human Rights Law Centre
and they said, no, we must address the ideas that lie behind harmful conversion practices.
Now, what do you suppose those ideas might be? I think they've got a name, I think it might be
Christianity because Christianity is the religion of conversion. And no, it's not conversion
therapy, those two words don't belong together. Therapy is what we do to each other,
conversion's an act of God - completely different. That's their word, not ours but God
does convert people, He does change people, He does give people new life and He
transforms us all including our desires, including our desires. That's the Christian
testimony, that is what these laws are targeting. Let's bring this home to Queensland. Victoria's
done something else, which is now coming to Queensland, which is they have revised
what they call their anti-vilification laws and these statutes always have names that makes
it you know, it's like are you seriously defending vilification? Are you seriously defending
conversion therapy? No, of course not! That's not what this is about, the
devil's in the detail. And in Victoria, they're trying to change their vilification
laws, to change it from saying that that conduct which incites hatred, ridicule,
contempt, revulsion or disgust is unlawful, okay. They're changing
it to, conduct, which is likely to, incite hatred, ridicule, contempt, revulsion or
disgust and who gets to decide what's likely? Do you know, here's a really interesting
point, when it comes to these laws usually, usually you will find that, if you go
to court for some matter and you're up for some criminal or civil liability, usually
they have to prove that you did the thing, obviously, then usually they have to prove
that you caused harm. They have to say, well here's the harm that was done, here's the
measure of the harm and here is the connection between what the person did and the harm that
was caused. It's very unusual not to have those features in a legal case and these laws are
written so that you no longer need any causal link and you no longer even need any harm at all. It
simply must be deemed that what you said or did might have caused some kind of harm, somewhere,
somehow to someone whether or not it actually did or didn't happen and whether or not
it can be proved or demonstrated at all. In other words, the opinion is legally
sanctioned before it's out of your mouth because they will say well it could have, it
might have, it probably did, maybe should have, oh it's changing culture, it's hurting people.
These laws don't bear any of the hallmarks that laws usually bear and this is why you get
things like Lyle Shelton - my old boss - he's currently before one of these tribunals because
of one of these laws because he blogged about drag queen storytime. Or you get Katrina Tait, who's
a mother from Brisbane and she shared a petition against drag queen storytime in the Brisbane City
Council Library - really didn't do anything other than that - and of course, she got a letter from
one of these tribunals telling her that she was going to be in trouble and the person who lodged
the complaint did all sorts of terrible things, exposed her business and all sorts
of stuff like that on the internet, very nasty stuff. That's why a young
man, a business owner from Perth, Jason, he had to go to one of these tribunals,
not because he denied anyone service, he's a photographer but because he just sat down and
explained to somebody as a matter of witnessing, a client of his, his Christian beliefs. And they
tried to sue him at one of these tribunals because he had put some condition on his services which
was that she had to listen to him say this stuff. You see how this is being weaponised. The idea
is sanctioned before it's out of your mouth and I could keep you for ages with stories but
I won't. What I want to actually do, is address a really important question and it's this: do
Christian ideas and speech, in fact, cause harm? Because that is the argument that is
central to all of this cancel culture stuff. That is the argument that is central to
all the law reform stuff that's going on in the areas that I have described this
evening. Liberal freedoms are ignored, they're diminished, they're overturned because
harm, harm. Are the things I say harmful? Because I kind of think that matters to me if they
are harmful because I’m not here to harm people. Are the beliefs that I stand for, harmful? Are
the beliefs that we all stand for harmful? And I want to answer this question in two ways, number
one, from research, number two, from Scripture. From research, let me quickly summarise and
then point you to a resource where you can get more detail. First of all, this is what the
research does not say, it does not say that Christian speech and ideas harm minorities,
there is no such decent research out there. There's no evidence that Christian speech causes,
for example, LGBT suicides. However, it does say a few things. There is research which has done this,
several studies, particularly one out of New York, which shows - they actually studied a number
of same-sex attracted people in New York in this particular study, quite a large number
and they tracked those that went to Church, particularly non-affirming Churches those that
taught traditional views about sexuality and marriage and they tracked those
who didn't go to such Churches. And this was not run by Christians or
anything, this is in a peer-reviewed journal and they said at the end of that study,
that they found that those who went to the traditional Churches had what they called higher
rates of internalised homophobia. In other words, they weren't so pleased about the fact that
they experienced same-sex attraction. But, the study concluded, there was no actual impact,
negative impact, on their overall mental health. Or indeed, there's another thing that we know
and I'm focussing on the connection between Christian ideas and LGBT harm because that's where
the research is and it's a cardinal example of what people claim, especially with Israel Folau.
The second thing known to research is the Dutch paradox. Now, that means, basically, that if
these ideas that are in culture and that are spoken by Christians and that are embedded in
laws are harmful to this minority community, then you will find that, in countries that
are the most affirming, in countries that are the most accepting, in countries that
have the most rights for LGBT individuals, you will find a commensurate improvement in
the mental health condition of that population. The Dutch paradox is a term that researchers have
used for the reality that, that is not the case. You do not find that in the Netherlands which is
the most LGBT affirming country on the face of the planet. You know, anyone who goes on a holiday to
Amsterdam is immediately under question. I mean, we know it's all libertine, it's all cast off
the shackles, it's all... that's the Netherlands. It's the same in Sweden, the same in France,
the same... you don't see that commensurate improvement. Now that kind of matters. Or what
else do we know from the research? I said it's hard to find evidence that Christian ideas
cause the harm but what about the evidence that Christianity, in fact, is brilliant for mental
health. What about the evidence that Christianity is a huge benefit to a person's psychological
stability, mental state and physical health. I’ll tell you what, there is mountains and
mountains and mountains of research across disciplines, across institutions, across decades,
that says you bet you, that is exactly correct. So, do we know that Christian ideas and living by
Christian principles is good for people? Yes, we do, yes we do. In fact, it's one of those things
that's known to the literature without question, without question. Now, if you want more on this
- because I want to get to the Scriptural point because that's my favourite part - but if you want
more on this, look at our YouTube channel, there's a talk by Dr Stephen Chavura (c-h-a-v-u-r-a),
great guy, you look for a talk by him called ‘Is Christianity Harmful? You get the footnotes,
you get all the information, all the studies. He goes through all this stuff. And so, the
researchers can't show us this evidence of harm, so, what we are left with is strong assertions
and activism. That is what we are left with. But I want to turn to a Scriptural
understanding of what's going on here. And to that end, I want to point
something out, I want to ask a question. What exactly is going on here? Many people
attempted to say, well freedoms are being eroded, freedom of speech is being undermined, freedom
of religion and so forth and I want to say yes, that is true but I want to contend that that is
not the most accurate assessment of what is going on. I want to contend that, actually, if we could
sit down and compile these cases and we could run through each one, we would quickly find that
a common thread exists in nearly all of them. Namely, someone was cancelled, someone lost
their freedoms because they told the truth. It's the gender binary, it's the male and
female, it's sexuality, it's pro-life, it's God's judgment, in fact, I think
that might have been a bigger part of Israel Folau's problem - he spoke of
God's judgment and there were many more conservative commentators that would be pro-free
speech, that highlighted that, as a problem. One of the greatest examples of this was from New
South Wales. It was the New South Wales Transport Minister, he banned the billboard that was on
the side of New South Wales transport buses which were by a pro-life organisation called
Emily's Voice. And they simply bore the slogan, this is it: "A heart beats at four weeks" and they
had a woman's hands in the shape of a love heart in front of a pregnant stomach - "A heart beats at
four weeks". And he said, that he found those ads reprehensible and he moved as quickly as possible
to get rid of them and they were banned and the activist actually said, well, this is going to
induce guilt in people and so it must be stopped. Now do you think a pro-choice ad is going to be
banned? Do you think a person who writes a book about gender fluidity is going to be cancelled? Of
course not, that's not the way it works, it's one way and they are cancelled for telling the truth.
Because if I say that harm is hurt feelings, that harm is anything that detracts from my
subjective experience of my happiness from day to day, if harm is anything that contradicts
my desire to live out my authentic self, if that is what we are saying, then the truth
is harmful because the truth is not you! That's an astonishing belief of narcissism and
yet, we're almost there. It's my truth. I am good. I am beautiful. I am the one who needs to be
protected. I will live out my authentic self. You know, here's the reality,
the truth is outside of you and you're not always consistent with the truth.
Sometimes it contradicts you, it challenges you and yes, shock horror, it even upsets you.
It even offends you, from time to time, and here's the reality, and this
is something for us all to think, the truth is very often at its most offensive
where it is most relevant. This is a really good discipline to learn if you're in a conversation
and someone makes an assertion and you fly off the handle and you get angry and you reject it and you
storm out or you walk away or afterwards you're throwing up your hands and you're calling them
all sorts of names - wait until you calm down and when you've calmed down,
ask yourself the question, were they right? Is that why you got angry?
Did you get angry because you were insecure about something that they said which actually
might have even had a hint of truth in it? That is the sort of people we need to be and
that is a reality we need to accept because, as I said, and it seems so trite
to say, but you are not the truth. If people were the truth we'd have no way of
improving them. You know, Hitler would have just been living out his truth, what can you
do about it? You know, I say this in schools don't follow your dreams, that's what Hitler
did [laughter] and I know that the person... There is an assumption in this, that what
is coming from my desires is right and good. I tell you what, the Christian message,
the Gospel of Jesus Christ comes at you from a completely different angle and
says no, no, it's not right and good, quite the opposite. In fact, you're a person
who is living in a state of desperate need. The truth stops us in our tracks,
it tells us that we are not right and we can do one of two things, we can ignore
it and we can fight it and we can resent it, or we can submit to it and we can change. And
that latter option has another name, it's called character. That is how we grow in
character. Do you know, James, in James 1, he talks about the word of God being like a
mirror, how it... you know, you can imagine somebody looking in the mirror in the morning
or imagine the closing of that clip just before, what am I doing? Looking at the screen and
adjusting my hair, okay. This is what people do. They look in the mirror and they go, I've got food
in my teeth. You don't walk away and leave it be. You look in the mirror and you realise
your jacket's too tight, you go, oh okay, I need to either need to go on a diet or buy
a bigger jacket, preferably the first option. You don't go away from that situation unmoved
and the Word of God shows up the imperfections. It shows you up for what you are and you go
away and you change. It's called character. But you know, there is a more specific
answer to this question still. There is a more specific area that is up
for attack and I want to tell you firstly, by just looking quickly at these attributes
themselves, gender expression, gender identity, sex, sexual identity, these sorts of things, let's
focus on those sorts of things just for a minute, they're most straightforward. What's
the answer to gender identity? Genesis 1:27, 'In the image of God He created
them male and female He created them'. You know go directly to jail, do not pass to go, do not
collect $200, you're cancelled, you can't say that. Or what about the answer on sexual identity
- I mean on gender expression - and you find that yeah, there are differences between men and
women, there are different callings on the lives of men and women in certain ways. Scripture
just bears that out from start to finish. Well, you can't say that either. Or sexual identity,
well again, cancelled, you can't go there either. There is a legislative expression here in these
attributes of intersectionality, critical theory, cultural Marxism, all that stuff and
someone asked me a while ago, in fact, I was asked at the Brisbane event in the Q+A,
why do they choose these attributes? Why not other attributes like looks
or height or BMI or... why these ones? It's interesting, each one of those attributes
actually is an attack on the truth of God Creator. Each one of those attributes undermines something
of the truth of how God made things very good. I mean it undermines the truth of Genesis 1:27,
male and female He created them in His image, undermined. It undermines the truth
that man was not complete by himself and woman was made so that they would be complete
and they were told be joined in marriage - it undermines that truth. Or indeed the life mandate,
be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And you see in Genesis, a little bit later on,
in Genesis Chapter 8, I mean Genesis Chapter 5, you see the contrast between shedding blood and
that command. God says you are people of life, not people who take life. Or indeed, and
I mentioned this in Brisbane as well, the providential care of a God who
rules all things including His planet, including His world until He is done with it,
Genesis 8, 'Seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, shall not cease
as long as the earth remains'. All these things are under attack
and these attributes are a big part of it, they undermine creation ordinances.
If someone wants to deny those truths and live and you want to live different to them,
then it's said that you're being harmful. The real target is truth, yes, but
here's the particular kind of truth, it's not just creation truth, it's something
else. Actually, it is truth that exposes sin. Romans 1 tells us that, ‘By nature, people suppress the truth in unrighteousness’.
In other words, they would prefer, by nature, to persist in doing what is wrong so they
don't have to confront what is right. They would prefer by nature to suppress that
truth and go on in an alternative path. And it's, therefore, these moral claims which seek to expose
what is actually wrong that are so often cancelled and the question arises, well,
what ought you to do about it? And I want to rely here, for my answer,
on the words of Jesus in John's Gospel Chapter 8. He begins with that very famous
verse, He says, ‘If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples and you will know
the truth and the truth will set you free’. And here we find a culture clash. Jesus says,
actually, true freedom is found in His Word and it is found in our submission to His
Word and in that, is liberty. And even if you want to define the words of Jesus very
narrowly, not to embrace the whole Word of God, but merely limit it to the words in red ink on the
pages of the Gospels, here's the thing, He quoted all these creation ordinances in the Gospels. And
it is in submission to that Word, it is by abiding in that Word, by placing yourself and your life
within its parameters and its wisdom, it is there that the human being finds liberty and finds
freedom. That is the paradox that's going on here. And the world in which we are living is
telling a lie, that these words are oppression, these words are harmful, these
words could be killing people and dare I say it, even amongst Christians,
these words ought not to be spoken very much. And there's the statement, oh no, it's the
truth that shall set you free. And that is anathema in our day but it was the same in Jesus
time, you know. They refused to comprehend Him, they'd say, we've never been enslaved to anyone,
how is it that you say you will become free? That's their response. We're not slaves, we
are free. I mean is that not how people feel today? I mean that's the Marxist belief that if
you struggle against these truths, the struggle is for the freedom that lies on the other side
of them. Cast them off and then you will be free after they've been smashed apart. Roz Ward, the
founder of Safe Schools, is on record saying this, she says, 'Young people without those shackles
of being straight and living according to their biological sex will flourish in new and amazing
ways that we can only try and imagine today'. Smash these truths, and you will
be free, says the Marxist gospel and the Gospel of Jesus Christ comes along
and says, the truth will make you free. And here's the thing, I’ve talked to a
lot of people in the grip of this ideology and my heart goes out to them because one
of the things you realise very quickly, and you don't need to talk to them face to
face to discover this, one of the things you realise in so many cases, is that they do
live with a lingering sense of oppression. A person may be free to do all that they
please, in all the areas of life and they may cast off everything that amounts to
the words of Jesus or the word of God. They may want to live as a lesbian and a trans
woman and a feminist and all these things and they might, they might do that, but here's the
thing, these movements, they don't scream freedom, they scream oppression. It consumes
them, they don't feel free at all. They are dominated by a sense of oppression
though they can live as they please. Why is that? Well, hear the reply of Jesus to
His audience, who claimed that they were free, they said, we're free, we've never been a
slave, and He says, 'Truly I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin'.
And I tell you this and we must recover this truth for ourselves if nothing else. There is no
greater misery than the misery produced by sin. It looks delightful, it enchants the senses, it tempts us with its sirens song, like the
fruit in the garden - that always captures me you know - as they looked at it and they contemplated
it, they thought wow, this looks good, this will feel good, this will be nice.
It's a lie it's a cheat, it lets us down, it's a slavery, actually, that plagues the
human condition and affects us all. You know, much is made of this modern notion, it's not a
modern notion, but I think lately we've become more interested in it, in the last few decades and
it's the notion of free will and we always say, you know, God gave us free will and that is true
but also this is true, a slave on a galley ship has quite a bit of free will, they can think as
they please, they can do all sorts of things, but they cannot get free of the
oar to which they are chained. And I will say this, by nature, we are as
a human being, chained to the oar of sin and you may have great freedom
and God has given us great freedom but there is something you
cannot do, you cannot, not sin. You can never live a life that struggles
free from sin, you can't do it. It's interesting, the contrast in this
passage is between truth and lies and freedom and it's interesting even if you take the lies -
Jesus says lies is where it all starts - Satan's the father of lies and you're in slavery and all
the rest of it, we cannot live a life of truth, none of us seem to be able, to tell the truth, all
the time. Oh, there's serious limits on freedom. The Apostle John says, 'The one who says he has
no sin, is a liar and the truth is not in him'. But it is those who say things
which speak to this condition, that highlight human sinfulness, that expose
sin, they produce the hottest reactions. Not just in the world but also amongst those who
call themselves Christians, as well. Words that expose sin in people are met with resentment,
anger, rebellion and hardness of heart and it was no different for Jesus because when He
started telling this truth, they got angry. His audience, He says to an audience,
He says, 'You seek to kill Me because My words find no place in you'. He's
just told them they're slaves to sin and He says why do you not understand what
I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. People won't bear it, they won't stand
for it. And do you, know in light of that, when you have weak leadership in a society, we
fail to resist a culture that says, we won't bear it. A culture that won't bear it to such a
degree that they don't quite want to kill those who say these things - or I wonder in a different
cultural context how that would go - but they want to cancel them in every way possible and it makes
people angry and we too, I think, have succumbed, I think, we too, compromise, on some of this
stuff. We've forgotten this, all truth is good truth. All truth produces freedom and yet
we've given up on sin because it's not attractive, we've given up on judgment because
it makes God seem like He's not nice, as if nice is an attribute of God, it's not
I’m afraid. We've given up on the Jesus of the Bible because He says things that make us feel
uncomfortable, like the passage I’m reading now. I recently walked through the
gift section in a religious shop and you know, I’m not really having a go at this
too much but I want to make a point about it. I noticed that really all the gifts, they
were very soppy, they were very feel good, they were very much along the line of,
you know, God has a purpose for your life, lots of grace, lots of mercy, all this
kind of stuff and I thought, you know, where's the, you know, the desk ornament
that says, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord'. You know, where's the wall
hanging, you know, that says, 'You are of your father the devil and your will is to do your
father's desires'. Where's the stationery that's got printed on it 'All have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God'. It doesn't exist, does it? Or the Scripture that Israel Folau paraphrased 1
Corinthians 6:11. Indeed, not only did the public flee from him but so much in the religious
world fled from him because it wasn't nice. Are you not glad, are you not so glad for the day
that you found out that you were a sinner going to hell? Was that not the truth you needed to hear?
Was that not a truth that set your gaze in a right direction? The awesome truth of eternity,
the awesome truth of the judgment of God. Was that not something that pricked you where you
needed to be pricked, was it not? Are we not glad that God reveals to us the sin that enslaves
us? Are we not praising God this evening that He will judge the world in righteousness?
That's not our job but it's God's job. I had a bunch of kids come up to me at a camp
a while ago and they said, 'How can you believe in a God, a loving God who judges?' I said well
how can I not? Can you imagine if there was no justice? Can you imagine if all the stuff that
happens in this world never got put right? Can you imagine, let's go to Hitler again, just to
lose the argument once more, but can you imagine a world in which Hitler is just a mistake that means
nothing? Oh no, none of that's true, all things will be put right because the judgment
and the justice of God is real. Of course, the trouble is, that the judgment and the
justice of God doesn't stop at my front door, right, it's not just all of them, it's me
too, so let's not forget that and I never want to say these messages without bringing
it back to ourselves because really it is ourselves over which we primarily have the
greatest control, not necessarily the world. You know, I think I’m right in
saying that there's a lot of silence on about half of the revelation of God. And yet,
in the context of the passage I’ve just read, Jesus is saying, He is trying, anxiously,
to highlight the truth about sin, first. That's what He's doing to these Pharisees
that He's talking to. And it's interesting, it was his pattern, you know, when He spoke
to the Samaritan woman, what did He say? 'Go and get your husband.' Are you serious?
Why would He say that? Why touch on that issue? Because the truth would set her free
and it did. Why did He sit down with Nicodemus, you know, the starchy, righteous man who had
lived a life of uprightness and he truly had. Who had worked so hard to keep the laws of God,
why did He say well, 'You need to be born again', you need a fresh start, you need total
renewal, you can't work like that and expect to be righteous before God, it takes a
greater power than that, it takes the power of the Spirit. Why would He do that? Again, that
was the truth that would set Nicodemus free and it probably did. He appears later in the
Gospels, he's one of those that buries the body of Christ - incredible stuff. Or indeed,
our passage here in John's Gospel, Chapter 8. Why did He tell this group
that they were slaves to sin? Why did He indeed go much further to describe the
fact that they are sinners and their slaves to sin and also that they're doing the deeds
of their father who is, He says, Satan, and you say well, that's pretty strong, well
it is, very strong, but clearly, it was what He thought they needed to hear. Clearly, He wanted to
break apart their self-righteousness and say no, no you need to understand something, if you're a
slave to sin, if you can't stop sinning, you've got someone's DNA in you and it's not God's. I
remember going to China a while ago with my sister and we're walking around and a lady came up to us
and she couldn't speak much English but she said, 'same mask, same mask', pointing at our faces
because she's saying there's a genetic likeness, I can see that your brother and
sister, is what she was trying to say. And here's the thing, sometimes we bear our
family likeness and Jesus is saying well, by nature, unfortunately, you bear a little
bit too much of the likeness of Satan and not enough of the likeness of Christ. And
of course, then, we become children of God and there's transformation and all the rest of
it. That was the truth that would set them free and that is why when I was on Q+A the
other night I was very happy to tease out a conversation on repentance. I wanted it to
go there, it was actually delightful to see, it was incredible to see them wrestling with the
concept of repentance and what it would mean. And even Trent Zimmerman sat there and said,
'Well, does that mean I have to repent?' And I was saying, 'God commands all people
everywhere to repent', that's a quote from the Book of Acts. What a great thing. Is
that not the truth that can set people free? You know, we have forgotten a little, I think,
that even the hard truths are good truths. But these are the stakes, it's good and evil,
it's light and darkness, it's truth and lies, and it's Christ and the Devil as He says here in
John's Gospel, Chapter 8. And Jesus is declaring something, He's saying we must be transformed by
the power of God out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and that begins with
the truth and it can begin with the truth about the darkness because people won't abide it
but it might just be the truth that they need. He knew the stakes, He knew because
He was going to die for sin, He knew what it would cost, He knew what sin
was doing to people. I wonder sometimes if we've forgotten that people basically are souls
to be saved and that really, ultimately, matters. That's what Christ knew. What did he
do? Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - never forget that. There's a lot
of conjecture about who Jesus was, what Jesus did, what He would have been like, most of what He did
was tailored to that ultimate end, the salvation of sinners. Because He knew more than anyone,
what sin was, He knew all about eternity and He knew why He was here which was to suffer and die
for the sin of people, that salvation, indeed, that freedom, liberty in Christ, might be offered
to every human being who has been for too long under the shackles of sin. What a tremendous
message that is. What a tremendous liberty for this world and Jesus could say
here in John 8, ‘Whom the Son sets free, he is free indeed’. And I want to finish
tonight by saying, let us not underestimate, let us not lose faith in the value of the truth
we are carrying, simply because people say, what you say isn't nice, what you say is harming
people, what you say is not good. I’m not saying be unwise, be reckless, but I am saying this,
let us be like Jesus who didn't compromise, who didn't compromise, who didn't
compromise. And yes, people got mad, it's a feature, not a bug, it happens but do
you know, people got mad and people got saved, and people got mad and people got saved and so
it went on and then He wasn't just... they didn't just get angry, they didn't just pick up stones
to stone Him but He went to the cross and they incited the mob against Him and He died. He was
the first and ultimate victim of cancel culture, for speaking the truth. And as Christians would we
walk in His footsteps, to be brave, to speak truth that sets people free? And here's the thing,
we've got something extraordinary on our side, we actually have Him on our side. He's alive, He
is with us and He walks through all the hardships, He walks through all the challenges, He
walks through everything that we face right there because He did it first. I love
what an old preacher I know says so often, he says, ‘Doesn't matter how far down
you go, Christ has been deeper down’. Let us rejoice in that and let us walk in the
footsteps of Christ and not lose faith in the truth that we carry. Well, ladies and gentlemen,
I’m Martyn Iles and that was ‘The Truth of It’. [Applause]
