Truth
I first heard the term, ‘useful idiot,’ on the radio
the other day, and it intrigued me because it fit so well with our current
study.
The first term, ‘useful idiot,’ was supposedly coined
by Lenin in the early 1900’s. He used it
to refer to people in the western world who gave moral or material support to
totalitarian ideologies. In an odd twist
against those who supported his views, he criticized them for being naïve,
ignorant of the facts, detached from reality, and advancing a cause, his cause,
which an informed person would not otherwise support.
In other words they were idiots, promoting something
that they really did not understand.
In the 1930’s, this same term was used to describe
those who opposed getting involved in the war in Europe. They were called appeasers, liberals,
anti-war advocates and so forth. In
opposing the call for patriotism here at home, they became spokesmen for the
German advances through Europe, and unknowing
advocates for the atrocities that were to occur during World War II.
Chamberlain, back in the late 1930’s opposed getting
involved in war, and ultimately failed in his views, but he later apologized
for his error in judgment and later supported the war. Typically when folks get involved deeply in
their views, they refuse to change.
Later in the 1960’s, these anti-war folks became more
vocal and violent as they became known as activists. Not only opposed to the war in Vietnam, they
opposed establishment and authority in general, and government policies in
particular. They instead adopted free
love and free drugs concepts, living a life free from responsibility and
obligations. Or so they thought.
Now we turn to our present day and we have yet another
type of ‘useful idiot,’ the political liberal and the suicide bomber.
Political liberals are folks who promote their own
agenda regardless of the facts of reality.
Their interests are for their own advancement and benefit, rather than
those from whom they seek to gain their support. They use deceptive rhetoric, speaking all of
the right things, expressing their concerns for the welfare of the masses, but
prefer that the masses remain perpetually dependent, which in turn keeps them
in their positions of power and authority.
Their lust for power, authority, influence, wealth and
approbation are their genuine goals, not their public appeals to ‘serve’ the
masses.
The suicide bomber represents a category of folks who
are manipulated
by religious or political movements, terrorist groups, or hostile governments. They are brainwashed, as it were, into
believing that they serve a greater purpose, with the promise of greater rewards
not from this life, but in the next.
To that
end they will gladly give up their life in the taking of other lives, such that
they will promote their faith and qualify for their eternal reward. They blatantly reject the concepts that
separate right from wrong, and embrace violence over more socially acceptable
behavior.
Then
there are the folks that are caught in the middle of all of these
ideologies. The masses as we generally
call them. The are not folks who will
strap bombs to their chests, nor are they running for office, but they will, by
their vote of support or by their attitude of indifference, promote and help
sustain those evils out there in the world whose purpose is to destroy
everything that is good and right, for their own selfish gain.
That
brings us to truth. What exactly is it? Not telling a lie? Being honest and living a life of
integrity? Well actually these ideas are
not in themselves ‘truth,’ but they are the product of truth.
Truth,
in its short definition, is the perfect matching up of facts with reality.
Any
modification of facts, any compromise with facts, any attempt to manipulate
facts, any policy which excludes facts, are all forms of lies. When facts are manufactured, then they cannot
match up with reality, therefore they become lies. Whether little white lies or gross
misrepresentations, makes no difference.
A lie is a lie regardless of its intent.
Of
course this is a Bible study so now we introduce the scriptures to the
subject. But truth is not simply a blind
application of faith, where fools go around saying ‘hallelujah’ and ‘Praise the
Lord.’
Reality
is a very broad concept, and therefore truth has to be broad in order to match
up all of the facts.
For
example, the Scriptures start out with truth, ‘In the beginning, God,’ is the
introduction to the source of truth.
God
created the heavens and the earth. This
universe covers a whole lot of things, which include gravity, physics, biology,
mathematics, and so forth. God also
created humanity and along with humanity, He created rules designed for the
preservation of the human race.
These
rules we call the Divine Laws of Establishment.
In an unnatural and undisciplined world, the jungle rules apply. But in order to preserve life, God has
invented His establishment laws to work parallel with and in opposition to the
laws of the jungle.
Establishment
laws include the law of volition, or the right to make ones own mind up. Satan interfered initially with that right by
deceiving Eve. Of course Eve would not
have been deceived, had she been paying attention to the teachings of Christ in
the Garden, and alert to the fact that she was carrying on a two way
conversation with an animal.
Slavery
is a form of violation of this principle.
Then
there is the concept of marriage between a man and a woman. This is a natural and obvious law which lots
of folks these days, choose to ignore, replacing it with alternate life styles
of various types.
Other
laws of establishment include, family, nationalism, free enterprise, freedom,
liberty, justice by means of due process, responsibility and accountability, charity,
and so forth.
These laws
of establishment combined with the true laws of nature, all serve to maintain
and preserve the human race.
Unfortunately
lies come along to distort truth, and to present a whole other set of views as
to just what is and what is not truth.
The
objective to these alternatives to truth?
Satan wishes to destroy God and preserve his chosen way of life, which
is simply, to be better than God.
And so,
history, beginning in the Garden, has been filled with religions, cults,
philosophies, and ideas designed to confuse and thwart Gods truth. These ideas run the gamut from evolution, to
homosexuality, to big bang theories, to what is or is not proper to eat on
Sunday.
The
ultimate truth being that first, man is lost.
Second, man needs help in finding himself. Third, man can’t get himself out of his own
problems. Fourth, man needs a
savior. Fifth, Christ is that
savior. Sixth, man needs a relationship
with God. And seventh, learning Bible
doctrine is the means of mans gaining the maximum relationship, after
salvation, with God.
Without
God, there is no truth, no life, no future which is good.
But to
make things even more confusing, the philosophies of the world have discounted
the scriptures and have replaced them with mans own definitions of self
importance. This gives rise to the
politics and philosophies of the day.
Concepts which state simply that man is in control of his own destiny,
man is the one who determines his own destiny, if anything is acceptable and
causes no harm to others, then it should be accepted in society as normal and
right.
This
kind of attitude gives rise again to relative and reflexive beliefs. Relative simply means that everything is
measured and compared with everything else, and that there are many degrees of
truth, rather than just one standard. Homosexuality
is a perfect example of this kind of compromising attitude.
Reflexive
is a reference to automatic, self-serving, or unthinking attitudes. This applies to the masses when they vote for
a candidate who makes then promises, even when they know that the promises are
not reasonable. This applies to
politicians who make the promises in order to get the votes, even knowing that
what they are promising cannot be accomplished.
This also applies to celebrities who make public statements in order to
get free publicity.
All the while ‘truth’ is under attack, while deceit
and selfishness are being embraced in order to serve ones own interests.
Truth provides the foundation and basis for freedom,
liberty, opportunity, prosperity, security and happiness. Those who oppose truth are in effect tearing
down the very support structure for their own lives.
Why
people, who enjoy the freedoms, liberties, and prosperity that we have in our nation
and world today, work so obsessively to destroy everything that is legitimate
and worthwhile, is due to their own rejection of truth, and to their embracing of
the lies of this world.
Often
time’s people want to hear only those things in which they are interested. Things which promote their wants and desires.
Would-be leaders or tyrants capitalize
on this flaw, and promote those very false concepts which people want to hear.
At the
same time, the would-be leaders, tyrants, news media types, learned professors,
and celebrities of the day, define their own success in terms of the successful
promotion of the lies of the world. All
of this ends up with fools leading fools toward a destiny of doom.
God has
defined His objective for each one of us as the attainment of happiness and
completeness in life. This comes to us
through salvation, which provides us with spiritual freedom. Freedom is the foundation all things
good. Freedom leads us to liberty, which
leads us to opportunity, which leads us to success, which leads us to
prosperity, which leads us to security, which leads us to happiness.
As we fight the various fights around the world today,
our goal is freedom. Nothing good can
occur in life until there is first freedom, and the forces of evil have to be
eliminated or at the very least brought under some type of manageable control, before
that freedom can exist.
It is the same in the spiritual life. We first need freedom, which comes with
believing in Jesus Christ. Then comes
opportunity. Opportunity
comes with making the right decisions. More right decisions bring more opportunities
in life. Our fundamental decision in the
spiritual life comes with our daily decision to study the Word of God. This brings us spiritual growth.
Spiritual growth brings clarity of thought, clarity of
discernment, and ultimately the avoidance of being scooped up by the trickery
of the world. In addition, spiritual
growth brings the blessings of God into our daily lives, and the fulfillment of
Gods objectives for each one of us.
Without doctrine, which is the foundation of truth,
and the understanding of truth, there is no fulfillment, no completion, no
purpose in life, other than to just fill time and space in history.
And that brings us to historical filler. A person lacking Bible doctrine in their soul
will have no purpose and they’ll make no meaningful contribution to history. They will at best be historical filler.
Self serving interests and delusional views of reality,
lead to things like, the personal preferences of homosexuality, the emotional
beliefs of either pro or anti-abortionists, they lead to the fanaticism of
terrorists, or the selfishness or indifferences of society in general. Self serving interests and delusional views
lead to the misrepresentations made by teachers in the classrooms, and to the
misrepresentations made by the press in news stories.
All of this boils down to fools becoming idiots,
serving the purposes of others, and thus relegating their life to a category of
meaningless filler.
Satan is of course the original ‘other’ to whom all
fools of this life serve, by means of their lack of knowledge and understanding
which Bible doctrine provides.
How dumb can anyone be, to fall into a trap like this
one?
There is only one way out of the trap of useful idiocy
and historical filler, and that escape is through the daily study of Bible
doctrine.
Bible doctrine is the only source of truth, and more
important, it is the only door through which you can pass and discover greater
truth’s, which affect our daily lives and truths which ultimately determine the
success of our personal legacy and destiny.
By: DailyBibleStudy.Org |
