A fascinating look at a simple prerequisite for salvation – and what it means for us today. Listen to powerful stories of real men and women whose lives demonstrated the priorities and commitment that a love of the truth will bring.

<p>A fascinating look at a simple prerequisite for salvation – and what it means for us today. Listen to powerful stories of real men and women whose lives demonstrated the priorities and commitment that a love of the truth will bring.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dalton SDA Church

Chester Clark

A Love of the Truth

I'm reminded of a story that took place long ago in ancient Greece.

A young man went to a wise philosopher and he said to this philosopher, how can I find truth?

The philosopher said, well, let me show you.

And so he led this young man through the streets of their little town down to the coast, down to the beach of the Adriatic Sea.

And he led this boy across the beach and the little boy is wondering, I was just looking for truth.

He led him down into the water until they were somewhere between their waist and their shoulders deep in the sea and without warning the old man took the boy and pushed his head under the water.

He held him there until he began flailing and trying to struggle for breath.

He let his head up and he put it back down.

The boy was trying to struggle and the man kept holding his head down, letting him up for a breath, holding his head down.

And finally the little boy broke free and he said, I just wanted to know how to find truth.

And the old philosopher said, when you look for truth, when you want truth, just as much as you wanted that breath of air, you will find it.

I thought of that story many times as I read this passage in 2 Thessalonians.

Because Paul here, and I believe under the inspiration of God, Paul here describes a pivotal determining factor in our salvation.

And that is whether or not you and I have what he calls a love of the truth.

He doesn't talk about having a knowledge of the truth, as important as that might be.

He doesn't talk about knowing facts or doctrines or creeds.

When he talks about a love of the truth, it brings us back to that fundamental issue, and that's the issue of the heart, isn't it?

When Paul says, he's talking of course about the great deception, particularly at the end of time, and he says, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them who perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.

And for this cause, verse 11, God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned to believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

So some people, when they read this verse, they think, what is this?

Is God trying to hide the truth from people so that He can eventually damn them to being lost forever?

You remember that as we interpret scripture, we must do so in light of other scripture, right?

And we know elsewhere in the Bible that God is not willing that how many should perish?

He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

So clearly, however we're going to understand this verse, it's not saying that God is trying to deceive people, trying to put a whole bunch of confusing things out there in front of them.

In fact, what it's saying is that God wants to give them a love of the truth, because notice the verb there is to receive a love of the truth.

Where does the love of the truth come from?

Only God can give us a love of the truth.

So God wants to give us a love of the truth.

The question is whether or not our hearts are willing to receive it.

Whether or not we are willing to receive it.

Whether or not we will put the proper value upon spiritual things.

You know, we live in an age where spiritual things are sort of a sideshow in many of our lives.

We even call ourselves Seventh-Day Adventists.

Sometimes I think we ought to be called Seventh-Day Adventists.

Because a seventh-day Adventist too often means someone who goes to church on Saturday, but it's just like everyone else the rest of the 6 days, right?

Because too often our religious life, we're accustomed in our busy, hectic lives that we live, we're accustomed to being able to compartmentalize our lives, to being able to divide our lives into different spheres, and we leave different spheres alone, and in certain situations, and we bring them out of the forefront in other situations.

We compartmentalize to the point where religion is So, well, sociologists say that in the Western world it's somewhere around the 20th or so priority.

And I think what God is trying to tell us in 2 Thessalonians is that if we want to be saved, It has to be elevated to, oh, say, about the first priority.

Now, notice with me, we're going to look at a couple of different ways that we could illustrate this, but I want you to turn with me now to the book of Genesis.

I want us to look in Genesis, the story of Esau and Jacob.

Because here I find the story of Esau and Jacob illustrates for us nicely how these 2 people had different priorities on their involvement in spiritual things.

This is Genesis chapter 25, And we'll begin reading with verse 27.

And the boys grew, and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field, and Jacob was a plain man dwelling in tents.

And Esau loved, And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his venison, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

And the story is here in verse 29, 1 day Jacob was cooking, and evidently Jacob, who was his mother's favorite and maybe hung around the kitchen a little more, Jacob must have been a pretty good cook.

Because the story says Jacob was cooking and Esau came in from the field and he was faint, he was hungry.

Esau, verse 30, said to Jacob, feed me I pray thee with the same red pottage for I am faint.

You see, Jacob knew now that he had something that he could use as a leverage on his brother, his big, tough brother, twin brother.

Jacob knew that Esau was very hungry and Jacob knew that there wasn't much that would stand between Esau and food.

And so Jacob says, I'll tell you what, I'll give you the food that you want right now if you will sell me, if you'll trade it for your birthright.

In today's world, a birthright doesn't mean too much.

But in Jacob's time, in Esau's time, this was a different story.

A birthright was something that in the time of the patriarchs, where God's people was defined, God's group of faithful believers on earth was defined by a familial line of patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and now it would go down to Esau.

That birthright involved, first of all, it involved the continued line of patriarchal expression.

In other words, this would be the family, particularly, in which both God's people would be found and the Messiah would eventually be born.

The birthright also included the responsibility of spiritual leadership.

So just like we have in our church family and on our home families, we have God has designed that there should be spiritual leadership.

In the time of the patriarchs, in the time of Esau and Jacob, the birthright conveyed a spiritual leadership in which the person who received the birthright would be responsible to represent his family before God.

The third component of a birthright would be a double portion of inheritance.

So if, let's say the father had 2 sons, if the, instead of the inheritance being divided through, 2 ways, instead the person who received the birthright would receive two-thirds of the estate, you might say, while the person who did not receive the birthright would only receive 1 third.

And of course, if it was divided among more sons, it would still be just double of whatever the portion the other sons received was.

So There were material components to the birthright, but they were primarily spiritual.

The person who had the birthright received the promised Messiah in his lineage, and the person who received the birthright would be called to be the spiritual leader of the family, the spiritual leader of the family.

And here we see that Esau didn't care too much about the spiritual things.

I suppose it's not a sin to not care too much about the material things, right?

I, maybe he was self-sufficient enough, maybe he was already successful enough.

He didn't need to worry about, about a double portion of the, the earthly goods that his father would give him, but we can see that he didn't value the spiritual inheritance.

You know, sometimes I feel like when we grow up in the faith, it's easier for us not to value our spiritual heritage.

I speak as someone who grew up in the church.

And sometimes I think that, you know, Abraham, obviously, you know, your seed shall be as the stars of the sky, the sand of the seashore.

Abraham appreciated that spiritual heritage that he was given.

Your, in your family, your descendants will bless all nations through, of course, the promised seed of the capital S.

Isaac, I think, also appreciated birthright.

We see him having a very submissive spiritual heart, right?

A Love of the Truth

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