When I was a little boy, I was a connoisseur
of opera music. I had some cultural tastes and a somewhat
precociously advanced ear for that sort of music. I learned it by listening carefully to the
radio. This of course was the days before television. And I remember the first piece of opera music
that I learned to love was the William Tell Overture because it introduced my favorite
radio program, The Lone Ranger. Ha, ha…do you remember that? (intoning) That was my initiation into opera
music. Although I heard some on Our Gal Sunday and
some of the soap operas that were on in the afternoon, but I used to love The Lone Ranger. And in the cold winter nights back in Pittsburgh,
we had these heat registers at various places around the house, and one of them was on the
step between the living room and the den. And I used to curl up in a ball in front of
that heat register while it was cold outside and sort of cuddle with my dog that was a
fat, overgrown dachshund, named Soldier, because I got him in the middle of World War II. And soldier and I used to listen to the adventures
of the, of the Lone Ranger and Jack Armstrong and Hop Harrigan and Captain Midnight and
all the rest. And the thing that was so neat about those
radio programs was that you couldn't see anything but the radio dial, but you could only listen
to the story with your ears. But as I would listen to these adventures,
I would imagine in my mind's eye what all of these characters would look like and what
the action scenes would be like if I could really see them with my eyes. Because I grew up in an era where our entertainment
was through audio and not video. And I'll never forget the first time I watched
an actual broadcast television program when I was a teenager and saw the magic mirror. The DuMont Television Network, WDTV, Channel
2 in Pittsburgh showed people that were miles and miles away that I could actually see by
looking at that magic screen. And I didn't understand at that moment that
all of civilization was going through a profound change that would affect life in ways that
I could never anticipate with the advent of television. Right now, I'm standing before this group
and we are doing this lecture in the confines of a broadcast television studio in Orlando,
Florida, channel 6. And in the room perhaps right over here next
to me, they're getting ready for the six o'clock news. And there's a control booth in the next hall
down this…down the way a little piece, and there are all kinds of monitors and sophisticated
equipment. And I'm standing now in what looks like a
lovely warm room, but it's all fake. These walls here aren't real walls, I could
just push them hard and it'd fall over. The clock over here, we had to make all kinds
of gyrations to…to give you the image of reality. And before I came in here a few moments ago,
I had to go through the onerous process of having some very beautiful woman sit there
and apply makeup to my face to hide the blemishes, the warts, the moles, the creases that come
with age. And so that the R.C. Sproul that you're looking at now on television
is someone who's been created by all of these technicians. And after every lecture they come in here
and tell me, "Straighten out your sleeve. Straighten out your tie." See, they hide the wires, they tape them in
my coat, because with the advent of television people are now responding to impressions. And philosophers have said about this that
we're now living in an age of impressions where accurate perception of reality is not
what is important, it's the impression that is communicated. It is the image that is presented that matters. And what this has done, ladies and gentlemen,
has provoked a crisis of unprecedented magnitude regarding probably the most fundamental of
all human intellectual questions, the question of the nature of truth itself. We remember the book that shook the academic
world by Alan Bloom called The Closing of the American Mind. And as an analyst of culture, professor Bloom
opened this book by making the statement that ninety-some percent of people who come into
college as entering freshmen today, that it is safe to assume that when they arrive on
the campus they come to this initiation to higher education already convinced of and
committed to the relativity of truth. Ninety-some percent of students who graduate
from high school, who enter the halls of learning come to the university already persuaded that
truth is relative, that there is no such thing as objective reality. Now, I would've hoped that Dr. Bloom would've
gone on from there to say that the task of higher education, critical thinking, equipping
students with the tools of analysis, philosophical inquiry, scientific investigation, would have
opened their minds and directed them apart from this relativism, which makes science
ultimately impossible, which makes truth ultimately meaningless, that the tools of higher education
would deliver these poor, misguided freshmen from this naïve assumption of relativism. Instead, what Dr. Bloom announced was that
four years of higher education today simply confirms in the minds of the freshmen that
there's no such thing as objective truth, only impressions, only images, only preferences,
no objective reality. And so then he articulates the meaning of
the book, The Closing of the American Mind, that to which the American mind has become
closed, ladies and gentlemen, is truth, truth in any objective sense. I remember during the life and ministry of
Francis Schaeffer that Schaeffer made popular a phrase that he used frequently when he referred
to what he called "true truth." Now, isn't that that the silliest thing you've
ever heard of? What is true truth? True truth, when someone speaks of true truth
it sounds like somebody talking about beautiful beauty or lovely loveliness or ugly ugliness. True truth or false falsehood, that's what
we call in language a redundancy, a tautology, where there's nothing added, no synthesis,
no new knowledge added to the original terms by the modifiers or the qualifiers. True truth? Did the man stutter? No. What he was trying to do with that odd way
of speaking was to say in our culture today we have a war going on between two different
views of truth. The majority view is that truth is what I
want it to be. Truth is relative. Truth is again a matter of image or a perception
as opposed to those who believe, "No, something is either real or it isn't." Schaeffer meant by true truth, objective truth,
objective reality. He was trying to resurrect, if you will, a
classic concept of truth called the correspondence theory of truth. John Locke made this famous, of course, in
the rise of British empiricism, but it has had as its roots far earlier than Locke and
his ideas. The correspondence theory of truth, in its
simplest expression, simply says this, and we can all understand it, that "truth is that
which corresponds to reality." Therefore, to tell the truth would be to tell
it like what? It is. That there is an isness, not just a seemness
but an isness. And to tell it like it is, is to tell it as
reality determines it. In the correspondence theory, truth is that
which corresponds to reality. But the problem with that theory is this,
not everybody agrees what reality is. I once saw a program where F. Lee Bailey had
a television show, and he was demonstrating some of the problems that courtroom lawyers
have in determining the truth of one's guilt or innocence in a trial. And he talked about the way evidence is presented
in the courtroom and how important in American jurisprudence has been eyewitness testimony. And F. Lee Bailey was standing in the middle
of a stage giving a lecture about the value of eyewitness testimony, when in the midst
of his lecture some guy ran across the stage, interrupted his speech, yelled at him, flailed
his arms and then ran off the stage as suddenly as he had come on the stage. And F. Lee Bailey was startled and he stepped
back from the podium and he stopped and then he said, "Let me forget my speech for a moment,"
took a microphone and began to interview people in the audience and said, "Did you see what
happened?" "Well, yeah, we were watching the whole thing." And he began to interview, and he interviewed
like five people and all five of them said that this man came in and hit F. Lee Bailey
and ran off. And then to make his point, F. Lee Bailey
had the programmers show the video tape and rerun of what actually had happened. And the man never came within two feet of
slapping F. Lee Bailey. He waved his arms, but he didn't hit him. But eyewitnesses right there at the very moment,
not after their memories were dimmed or influenced by the passing of time, at that very moment,
all five of the eyewitness testimonies were wrong. What they perceived did not really happen. So, their testimony did not correspond to
reality. And so, the crisis of the correspondence theory
became truth is that which corresponds to reality as perceived by whom? From your viewpoint? From your viewpoint? From your viewpoint? We don't always have the same perspective. We don't always look at things from the same
angle. So ultimately from a Christian perspective,
the correspondence theory of truth was modified to say this. "That truth is that which corresponds to reality
as it is perceived by God because God sees reality in its fullest measure, from the perfect
perspective, the depth dimension, as well as the surface. All things are known to Him." But the point I come to is this. That from the perspective of one who is omniscient,
there is such a thing as objective reality, and in fact our eternal destinies will be
determined by God's perception of reality, the reality and the truth about me and the
reality and the truth about you. I can do everything I want to to hide my blemishes
when I stand before Almighty God. But there's nothing that I can do to present
an image that will stop the penetrating glance of His analysis. He will see past the image. He will see past the impression and get to
the truth of the matter of me as a person and also of you. That's why Jesus warns that in the final analysis,
all truth, reality, that which is hidden, that which is done in secret, that which is
distorted, everything that is now hidden and concealed will be made manifest. That's frightening, isn't it? I talked to a student a few years ago on a
college campus. We were speaking about the character of God
and the student said to me, "Well, I don't believe in the existence of God." She said, "For me, the idea of God is meaningless. I don't get any excitement out of thinking
about God. I don't go to church. I don't read the Bible. I don't pray. I don't to do any of those things. So for me, there is no God, but I don't have
any quarrel with you, Dr. Sproul. If you believe in God, and if it's meaningful
to you, if you enjoy praying and singing hymns and going to church while I'm playing golf
on Sunday morning, if you enjoy those things and it means something to your personal life,
then for you God is real. For me, God is not real. It's all relative. If the idea of God turns you on, then for
you God is true. If it's meaningless to me, then God is not
true." I said, "I don't think you understand what
I'm talking about." She says, "Why?" I said, "I'm not talking about a God who passes
in and out of being according to my pleasure or according to your whim. I'm talking about a God who exists objectively. I'm talking about a God who exists whether
I believe in Him or not. I'm talking about a God who exists whether
you believe in Him or not. Don't you see what I'm talking about? I'm trying to get at the question of reality. I'm not interested in impressions here. I'm not interested in preferences. I want to get to the truth. Is there a God or isn't there? God cannot be and not be at the same time
and at the same relationship." I said, "I'm talking about a God who if He
exists and you don't believe that He exists, and you don't pray to Him and you don't read
the Bible and you're not interested at all. I'm talking about a God that if He exists,
all of your unbelief and all of your disinterest in the matter does not have the power to destroy
Him. And in like manner, I'm talking about a God
who, if He does not exist, I can pray until I'm blue in the face, I can sing hymns until
I'm exhausted, I can preach sermons every Sunday for the rest of my life and none of
those things has the power to conjure such a being up if the One does not exist. I'm talking about truth, not preference. I'm talking about reality." Now does that sound strange to you if you're
one of those ninety-some percent who are already convinced that truth is relative, let me say
to you, "You don't believe that!" Bloom's wrong. Bloom, what…Bloom's dealing with an impression
here. Bloom is saying, "When I quiz these students
and when I examine these students, they're telling me that they believe in the relativity
of truth." No, no, no, no, no, Dr. Bloom. They're saying that they believe in the relatively
of truth when it suits them to believe in the relativity of truth. A person can't survive on this planet and
believe in the relativity of truth. A person can't live for 15 minutes on this
planet and believe in the relativity of truth. That kind of a person is a person we'd lock
up for their own safety in an insane asylum because they've lost their mind! They're not just confused in their mind. They've lost their mind. They're stark, raving mad. You believe in the correspondence theory of
truth every time you drive up to a traffic light and you look at the intersection. And you see this great big semi coming down
the highway at 75 miles an hour. And you're saying, "I'm having an impression
of a fast-moving car that if I pull out of track, if I pull out in front of it, I'm going
to be obliterated and knocked to smithereens. But I prefer, now that it's all relative,
I'll just proceed." Oh no! All of a sudden, you're committed to objective
truth because your life depends on it. No, no, no, no. We only embrace relativism when objective
truth is a threat to us. And there is no objective truth more threatening
to us than the truth of the holiness of God. Because if that truth is real, we are in trouble,
deep trouble, and we know that. I think one of the most important and fascinating
discussions of truth ever happened took place in a trial in a courtroom where the question
of truth was the order of the day, where a Jewish rabbi was on trial for his life before
a Roman provincial governor. And this Jewish rabbi had been teaching concepts,
truths, as it were, that some people didn't like. And they accused this man of teaching things
that were seditious and could ultimately be destructive to the Roman Empire itself. And so, this teacher was arrested and placed
on trial for his life. And the record of that is found in the Gospel
according to St. John. In verse 33 of the 18th chapter of John's
Gospel, we read this summation of matters during the trial, "Pilate, therefore, entered
again into the praetorium, and he summoned Jesus, and he said to him, 'You are the King
of the Jews?'" Now let's stop right there. Pilate, as it were, saying, "I'm getting this
impression from the charges that are brought against you and the scuttlebutt I'm picking
up from the multitudes and the crowds here that have been screaming your name for a week
that you're some kind of king. You're some kind of monarch. You know how we Romans, who are occupying
this land, take a dim view of you self-appointed kings here." He said, "There's no ruler over you, you understand,
except Caesar. Are you the king of the Jews?" It's a question. Jesus is Jewish. He knew from the time he was a child the Jewish
people answered questions with questions. And so he answered, "Are you saying this on
your own initiative or did others tell you about me?" As if to say, Jesus said, "Who wants to know? Is this an honest question you're asking me?" Let me just make a parenthetic statement here. Ladies and gentlemen, all of us succumb from
time to time to asking insincere questions as a tactic of evasion, of avoiding a penetrating
question that makes us uncomfortable. I remember once being engaged in a discussion
with a man on matters of theology and philosophy. And he said, "You know, I have…I would like
to be a Christian," he said, "but I really have some honest questions that I need to
have answered. Can you help me?" And I said, "Well, that's my job. I, you know, teach apologetics. That's part of my vocation is to try to give
intelligible answers to people that are genuinely puzzled by things." I said, "I'll see if I can help you." And he asked me a question and I answered
it, and I said, "Are you satisfied with that answer?" And he said, "Yes, I am." He said, "But I have another question." And he asked me the next question, and he
was satisfied with the answer to that one, and then another one, and another one. And after about forty questions, I said, "Hold
it." I said, "I'll continue to try to answer your
questions if you want to, but now I'm beginning to get the sense that you're not really honest. I think you, you are trying to find a way
to escape the claim of God on your life. Now if your questions are serious, I will
try and engage a discussion with you seriously, but I have to be upfront with you. I have to be honest with you. I don't trust you right now." And the guy broke down right in front of me
and admitted that that's exactly what he was doing. I've done that. Haven't you done that? You just keep asking questions forever when
they've lost their sincerity. Pilate answered, "I'm not a Jew, am I? It's your own nation, the chief priests who
delivered you up to me. What have you done?" Jesus ignores that question and goes back
to the original question, this question about kingship. And He said to him, "My kingdom is not of
this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my
servants would be fighting that I might not be delivered up to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm." Boy, what a provocative thing to say to the
emissary of the Roman Emperor. "Hey Governor." It's like Jesus says to him, "My kingdom is
not of this world, and boy are you lucky! Because if it were of this world, you know,
it'd be the end you, Jack, and the end of the Roman Empire because I got enough strength
in my kingdom that's of another world. I could call on angels. I can call on the heavenly host, and you guys
would be history in no time." Can you imagine a prisoner standing there
in chains, talking like that to the power of Rome, of imperial Rome? But Jesus obviously doesn't say that in an
arrogant fashion. He's speaking the truth, the unvarnished truth. He says, "My kingdom." He acknowledges that he has a kingdom. But he said, "Take it easy, Pilate. My kingdom's not like ordinary kingdoms. My kingdom's not involved with the political
machinations and the Machiavellian power plays and the coup d'états that are such a normal
part of the politics of this world. No, no, no. My kingdom's not like that. If my kingdom were like that, I'd take over. My servants would've been fighting, and I
wouldn't even have been delivered up to the Jews, let alone to you." So Pilate picks up on this and says back to
Jesus, "Oh, so you are a king?" They haven't established where this kingdom
is. It's not of this world. It's not of Palestine. Maybe it's east of the sun and west of the
moon, but at least I can understand what you're saying, Jesus. You're saying that you're a king, eh? Don't try to trick me. You may say that it's a different world, but
you've just admitted to being a king. So you are a king." Jesus answered, "You say correctly that I
am a king." Do you hear what Jesus is saying? Did you hear what Jesus is saying? Jesus is saying in this trial for His life,
under oath, this man who would be the last person in human history to commit perjury,
He is saying to Rome, "I am a king." That's the truth. "I am a king." That's the watershed truth of human history,
ladies and gentlemen. That is the reality upon which the entire
Christian faith is established. The affirmation that Jesus Christ is King. And He's not just king for a day, and He's
not just made up to look like a king, to give the impression of the King, to have an image
of kingship. He's not just a king that reigns in people's
hearts. He's not a king simply for those who prefer
to believe that he is a king. He is the King, the cosmic King, the King
of the universe, the King of the kingdom! And that's the objective truth upon which
my life stands or falls and upon which your life will stand or fall. "You say correctly that I am a king." Now listen to what Jesus says to the man. He says, "For this I have been born, and for
this I have I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth." You know, have you ever been engaged in any
activity and somebody comes up to you and taps you on the shoulder and says, "What are
you doing? What are you all about? What are you up to?" We can leave it to people to guess what we're
all about. But if they really want to know what's motivating
us and what's driving us, the best source that they can learn that from is ourselves. You know, I can remember when I was in junior
high school we had a guest speaker come to our youth group, and it was a black woman. And this woman came and she gave a speech
to us. And the whole group to whom she was speaking
were…was white, everybody was white. And this woman who was a woman of great dignity
and obviously highly intelligent, educated, and sophisticated, and in a gentle way she
admonished us. She said, "Friends," she said, "I want to
explain something to you about my people. My people are usually referred to by your
people as 'colored people,' and that hurts us. We're not colored. You know, it's not like we're a group of people
that are painted orange or red or chartreuse or purple or anything like that. We are not colored people, and it is an insult
to us to be called colored people." Then she said, "How do you like it when somebody
forgets your name? How do you like it when somebody mispronounces
your name?" And I thought, "Ooah!" When somebody calls me "Sprowl," it's like
somebody taking their taking their fingernails on a chalkboard, you know "crrk…" it goes
up and down my spine, and I say to people, "Call me Sprowl, I growl. My name is Sproul. It rhymes with soul. Is that hard to remember?" I hate to have my name mispronounced, and
I said, "Man, this must really be an indictment of my pride that I get bent out of shape when
somebody so overlooks my significance that they don't have the decent courtesy to find
out how to say my name." She said, "Nobody likes that." And she said, "Every human being should be
called what they want to be called." And she then went on to say, "We prefer to
be called 'Negroes.'" And so I said, "Okay, from this day forth,
I'm never going to refer to Negroes as colored people. They're not colored people. They don't want to be called colored people. I'm not going to be insulting to them." And so I disciplined myself to say "Negro,"
and then the next thing I knew that was not the preferred thing. It then became "black" or "Afro-American"
or whatever. And I don't care if it changes again next
week. The principle doesn't change that people should
be called by what they want to be called, you see, lest we insult their dignity and
just simply let our own prejudice determine these things. Now, Jesus said, "I want to tell you how you
should understand Me." I can say, "Well, I think Jesus came into
this world for this reason or for that reason." But if we want to get at the truth and if
we want to respect Him just as I wanted to respect that woman and listen to what she
wanted to hear, you say, "Okay Jesus, You tell me what You're all about. What do You want to be called? How do You want to be known? What is the understanding You have of Your
mission and Your vocation? What are You all about?" And how did He answer the question? "Here's why I came to the world," Jesus said. "I came to the world to bear witness to the
truth. That's what I'm about." And then He adds to that something unbelievable. Listen to what Jesus said, please listen to
this. "And everyone who is of the truth hears my
voice." If you don't believe in Jesus, if you don't
follow Jesus, then according to Jesus, you are not of the truth. And you may say, "Hey, wait a minute. Don't play games like that. I don't believe that Jesus is true. I don't believe that He is the truth." I understand that, but be careful here. Jesus has the evidence of history on His side
in terms of His truthfulness more than any mortal that has ever walked this planet. Be careful before you call Him a liar. And I just want you to understand this much
at this point. According to His judgment that if you are
of the truth you will hear Him because He bears witness to the truth. You know what He said earlier about this. He said to His disciples when they were confused
and wanted to know the way. In fact, He said, "I am the way." They said, "What is the way? How can we know the way?" And Jesus said, "I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life." I'm sometimes amused, although it's a, it's
a shallow humor, when I hear people say things like this to me. They'll say, "Well, you know I don't believe
in Jesus is the Son of God, and I don't believe in all that stuff, but I think He was a wonderful
teacher and I think He was a great prophet and I certainly admire Him and respect Him." And I want, I want to say, "How in the world? What are you thinking about? How can you possibly admire and respect a
man if you don't believe the central message that He teaches?" Would you…you know, I listen to people all
the time who are non-Christians and they come to me and they laugh at me when they find
out I'm a preacher or a teacher, a Christian. They say, "Oh, are you like those guys on
television?" And they have this view of televangelism that's
scandalous, that's cheap, that's superficial and all of those things that everybody's reacting
to in the culture. And I said, "Wait a minute. I'm a teacher, but what would you think if
I came on my program on television as a teacher and I said this, 'Now look, ladies and gentlemen. Today I'm going to teach you the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth because I never say anything that's not the truth. Every word that comes out of my mouth is the
truth. In fact, I am so closely connected with the
truth that it would be true to say, "I am the truth."'" Now, no televangelist has gone that far. I've seen guys make claims that were so outrageous
on television, "You reach across the airwaves, you touch the front of your television screen
and we'll touch hands and the Holy Spirit, you know…and give all this stuff, or you
send in a donation to me and I promise you God's going to bless it ten times over," and
all this magic that they promise you on television. No wonder the world is laughing. But I've yet to see one of them stand up there
and say, "I am the truth." And if some teacher or preacher on television
stood up there and said that to the world, "I am the truth," I can't think of any intelligent
person walking away from that saying, "Well, I certainly don't believe that he's the truth,
but he's a great teacher. He's a great prophet." And yet, that's what we say about Jesus. If Jesus is not the Son of God, then He is
the worst of all possible false prophets, isn't He? Because He claimed to be the incarnation of
truth itself. And here before the authorities of Rome, He
is saying, "Pilate, here's what my kingdom's about. Here's what I am about. I came to bear witness to the truth, and anyone
who is of the truth hears my voice," and the implication is, "Pilate, are you concerned? Are you really concerned about truth?" Well, what's the next question out of Pilate's
mouth? "What is truth?" Pilate says. One of the limitations of any information
that comes to us on the written page, sort of like the limitation I mentioned earlier
on in this lecture about radio, I couldn't see what I was imagining. When I read an account of something that takes
place in history, I can't hear it. I can't see it. I'm just responding to words about it. And in this case, in this narrative, John
has recorded the statement that Pilate makes, but he doesn't give me any visual description
of the contours of Pilate's face, the modulation of Pilate's voice. How did he say this? How did he say, "What is truth?" Was this one moment in Pilate's life where
he was brought to cold sobriety. We know that his wife had been troubled by
a dream. This man who was simply concerned about politics,
who would sell his mother to quiet the mob, we know what kind of character Pontius Pilate
was. But did he have one tiny moment of morality
when he was stopped in his tracks by Christ, and he looked at Him and he said, "I've spent
my whole life as a relativist. I've spent my whole life dealing with images
and impressions and fakery in politics and all that kind of stuff, and I don't even know
what truth is anymore. Tell me, what is the truth?" Maybe that's how he said it. Or maybe it was ridicule. "Truth? Ha, ha…what's that? What's truth?" You know, the braggadocio of the pseudo-intellectual
who tries to be recognized as being intelligent because he's cynical. It's the cheapest form of pseudo-intellectualism
in the world, cynicism. Anybody can be a cynic. Anybody can go "Ha! Ha! Ha! What is truth?" and not really care about
what is truth. The irony is that when Pilate was asking the
question, "What is truth?" the very incarnation of truth was standing right in front of his
eyes and he missed it, completely missed it. Well, no! He didn't completely miss it because of what
he said, "And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and he said to them,
'I find no guilt in him.'" The judge has delivered his verdict, "I can
find no fault in him." Truer words were never spoken. For once in his life, Pontius Pilate spoke
the truth. Pontius Pilate bore witness to the truth. This was not a political judgment of expediency. Pilot had desperately tried to find some fault
in Jesus so that he could salve his own conscience by feeding Jesus to this hungry mob. But after the interrogation, he couldn't find
anything wrong. Maybe he
didn't look hard enough. But the reason why he couldn't find any fault
in Jesus is because there wasn't any fault in Jesus. There wasn't any guilt to be found because,
for the first time in his life, the governor had in front of him a prisoner in chains on
trial for his life who was sinless. "I find no guilt in him." One of the most powerful statements of truth
Pontius Pilate ever made was the words that he allegedly said in Latin, ecce homo, "Behold
the man." "Behold the man!" He was saying more than he intended to say,
because the ultimate meaning of that statement is that "Here is true man. Here is real humanity. Truth as perceived by God Himself. I find no fault in him." And Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged
Him. How's that for a just judge? "I find no fault in him, but I'll whip him. I'll beat him. I'll punish him. I'll kill him." Because the crowd didn't care about the truth,
and Pilate wanted to make the right impression on the crowd. Ladies and gentlemen, most people live their
whole lives without spending five minutes in sincere pursuit of truth. And if I can plead with any human being I
ever meet, I would plead with them for that one thing that they would just stop for five
minutes and just lay aside the impressions, lay aside the images, lay aside the preferences
and ask that question honestly, "What is the truth?" What's the truth about you? What is the truth about you, and what is the
truth about God? If you can handle either one of those or both
of those, then you will be of the truth and you will hear His voice, and you will run
to learn from Him who is the truth, who speaks the truth and who will redeem you.
