Who determines right and wrong? Is there any absolute truth? Pollster George Barna discovered that nearly threequarters of all Americans reject the concept of absolute truth. To the vast majority of Americans truth is relative. 'You do what's right for you. I'll do what's right for me. But just don't try to impose your values on me.'
Anyone who suggests the Bible is an absolute standard for right and wrong is immediately labeled as intolerant, unenlightened, and judgmental. Like Pontius Pilate, the world sneers, 'What is truth? There is no such thing!'
The result of each person doing what is right in his own eyes is moral chaos. Teenage pregnancy, crime, drugs, divorce, abortion, pornography, dishonesty, and greed are undermining our nation's foundations. When there are no recognized standards of right and wrong and no belief in the authority of God, there is nothing left to restrain our most sinful desires. In his recent book, Judge Robert Bork suggests we are SLOUCHING TOWARD GOMORRAH.
Can you imagine what would have happened if the NACC finals would have been played without any rulebook? Picture the play-by-play announcer saying, “The Kentucky Wildcats are playing all ten players at once. The Utah Utes are countering by using a trampoline to propel its players over the defense.' The game would be so chaotic that it would lose any significance and entertainment value. For a contest to have order, there must be an acknowledged set of regulations.
Will Durrant once said that no society ever survived without a moral consensus. In America's beginning that consensus was the Bible. In President George Washington's first inaugural address he stated, 'The propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which heaven itself has ordained.'
In his book, BURDEN OF TRUTH, Charles Colson points out that Christians have been contending for Christian values in order to knit together some thread of civility in a rapidly unraveling society. But the most important question is not whether moral standards are useful in propping up society, but whether they are true.
David Klinghoffer stated in a Wall Street Journal article, 'A person doesn't accept a new rigorous system of moral action because it might in the long run prop up civilized society, but because he believes the system is, in a fundamental sense, true--very likely because it is the will of God.'
As Christians we look to Jesus Christ as the source of truth. He is the standard, by which the world will be judged, for He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:31).
'What is truth?' The world may reject the answer, but Jesus' words are as valid today as when they were spoken to Pontius Pilate two thousand years ago. FOR THIS REASON I WAS BORN, AND FOR THIS I CAME INTO THE WORLD, TO TESTIFY TO THE TRUTH. EVERYONE ON THE SIDE OF TRUTH LISTENS TO ME' ( John 18:37). Jesus also said, 'I AM THE WAY AND THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE' (John 14:6).