Posted: 03/19/07

"That's just what you believe, Darlin"

The earnestness of your belief will not change Blarney into the truth. We must trust in what is true to be rescued.

I got a ticket. My registration was overdue for renewal by more than 30 days.

An Officer of the Law found this out when he ran my plates as I was meandering my way through a hotel parking lot, trying to figure out where the exit was.

I was busted for an out of date registration, and I had known about it. I knew I needed to get it done, but I believed it wasn't important. I had made a serious error in judgment: What I had believed was not what was true.

I was without excuse when the Officer wrote me a $56 fine. I was grateful it was not more.

As I was heading back with my family from eating our St. Paddy's Day dinner at our favorite Irish establishment, I drove up to a coffee shop to drop off a booklet for the owner whom I knew. The booklet was "How to live forever ...without being religious" by Ray Comfort of LivingWaters.com. So when I tried to leave it on the sill of the drive-up window and an old man opened the window saying, "He doesn't really like all this religious stuff", I was puzzled. I later realized he had called it that because he didn't believe it: it wasn't his "belief."

He missed the point:

Your opinion makes no difference to what is true.

I know it's quite the rage to shy away from people who say they are of "another faith", and some professing Christians have even been saying that to attempt evangelizing someone who has "another faith" is wrong. But truth is not relative: their faith is a lie if it is not in Jesus. And to say what you believe is "as true" as what someone else says, when it is not, is also a lie.

Only Jesus Saves: Not Mohammed's false god (no matter how many you murder for Islam); not in saying a prayer and really meaning it (only fruit is evidence); not because you are a descendent of Abraham by blood (yell all you want); and certainly not because you really really want what you believe to be true. Only the blood of Jesus shed for you, received by you through a repentant and complete surrender to Jesus as LORD, God, and Messiah, will save you – PERIOD. The earnestness of your belief in something else will not change the truth.

I heard this same lie of relativistic truth from a young Catholic who listened attentively to the whole Gospel. She heard how sin is violating the Law of God. She admitted she was a liar, a blasphemer, and an adulterer at heart through lusting. "I sin all the time", she said. But she just doesn't worry about it "because that's not what I believe." If she had said, "That's just what you believe, Darlin" I would not have been more surprised

I did manage to remind Mary that "All liars will have their place in the lake of fire" (1) and I know God's words will have their desired affect of waking up her conscience. I had the clarity of thought to explain that confession isn't enough as Jesus had said, "Unless you repent you will perish" (2) explaining that to repent is to forsake all known sin and sinfulness. And I had explained to Mary that sorrow will not make her acceptable because she should be sorry, but that she must be born all over again; must become a new creation; that "all things must become new" (3) for her to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (4). Her reply had been, consistently, "that's just what you believe. I don't." She believed, just like the old man at the coffee shop, that her opinion, her belief, was more important than knowing what is true and acting on it. She was very cordial about her lies. And she will be just as cordially led to Hell should she die in her sin, still believing them.

I had ignored my conscience and the Law and had to pay the fine for my crime. But, to my eternal gratitude to Jesus, I had listened to God's Law and repented of my crimes against Him, trusting in Jesus to save me. And I don't just believe it I KNOW it because Jesus is The Truth, regardless of my belief.

I have Mary's number (she is a car insurance salesman) and I will tell her, the next time we speak, that Truth isn't relative to her desires; that she must determine what is TRUE and then obey that Truth.
You, Christian, tell others to do the same.

Speak the truth in love, but don't let your love let lies be told as true, for them or for you.

Patrick Burwell
OnlyJesusSaves.com

Footnotes:

(1)   Revelation 21:8

(2)   Luke 13:3

(3)   2 Corinthians 5:17

(4)   John 3:3

.If you do not desire .to deliver the lost from Hell, then whose are you?.
.For Evangelism Resources, please visit LivingWaters.com.
To learn how to share your faith biblically, simply and effectively begin here.
All WayoftheMaster.com and Livingwaters.com materials and media are under copyright protection.

By Patrick Burwell Click here for bio and archived articles