Unstoppable
Jesus stopped the funeral procession and touched the open coffin…He said, "Young man, I say to you, arise." So he who was dead sat up and began to speak. And He presented him to his mother. Luke 7:15. It is hard to stay dead, demonised or deceived when the Truth shows up. The truth is not hard to find; it is a Person. Jesus Christ, and no devil, philosophy, empire, or modern trend has ever dimmed His light. The enemy’s battle against the truth follows a pattern: he begins by trying to destroy it. He tried to kill the Truth Himself, Jesus, but Jesus rose again. He locked the apostles in prison, but an angel opened doors. Caesars tried to wipe out Christians, yet the church only grew stronger. When he could not eliminate the people, he tried to burn their Book. In the twentieth century, communism in Russia, China, Korea, and Islamic states attempted to remove the truth from the earth; church buildings were seized, believers imprisoned, and thousands of ministers were martyred.
When he can’t destroy it, he deceives people from believing the Truth. When Jesus revealed God in the flesh, He showed all people the only way of salvation. John had words to say about unbelieving Jews in his day. “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. 1Jn 2:22. Nothing has changed. Many Jews and Gentiles are sadly still antichrist.
If deception fails, Satan moves people to deride the truth. After the Second World War, rationalism and modernism insisted that only what can be seen or touched is real, yet blind to the fact that eternal truth must lie beyond our limited vision and puny knowledge. Mankind can only see .05% of existing light and power. Belief in the God who lives in the realm of the 99.5% is reasonable and necessary. Faith means the Bible is never outdated; it is always relevant whether a man rides a horse or flies a jetpack.
And when derision fails, he works to declare truth dangerous. In recent times, objective truth is treated as unloving, and Christianity is rejected not because it has been examined and found wanting, but simply because it claims to be true. Modernism insists everyone has “their truth,” and so objective truth becomes something to fear. Of course, Christians are tolerant, but tolerating people cannot mean that every person’s belief is equally valid. Three girls may identify as a bird, a horse or a girl, but only one view is grounded in reality.
In the end, the enemy’s battle against the truth always collapses under its own weight. He has tried to destroy, deceive, deride, and declare it dangerous, yet the Truth stays risen, keeps shining, keeps calling people home. The world may shout for “your truth” and “my truth,” but there is only the truth — the One who walked on water, healed the sick, rose from the dead, and still breaks chains today. And when His truth confronts us, it is never to shame us but to save us. And He always leads us into life and freedom.