Chapter # 5 Paragraph # 3 Study # 5
May 13, 2007
Lincolnton, N.C.
(Download Audio)

<344> Thesis:   Truth can only be finally known when it "fits" the requirements of love. Introduction:   In a widely publicized statement of serious cynicism, Pilate asked Jesus a crucial question: What is Truth? This question, recorded in John 18:38, was raised because Jesus had plainly told him that "everyone that is of the truth heareth My voice." Mark 15:10 tells us at least part of the reason Pilate was as jaundiced about "truth" issues as he was: the "Jews" who boldly bragged to one and all that they were the people of the only true God had delivered Jesus up to him and demanded His death for one reason; they were jealous of His popularity with the masses, a matter having been demonstrated on the preceding Sunday as He entered Jerusalem as the King of God's Kingdom. If the "people of the only true God" could act with such murderous hatred over who was "most liked", was there any "truth" to be found anywhere? At the root of Pilate's cynicism was a most basic realization: "Truth" does not exist when "Love" has been twisted into the crassest forms of self-serving brutality. This morning we are going to look into Luke's presentation of Jesus' confrontation of this perversion: loudly boasting of being "of the Truth" while being consumed by the lust to be at the top of the heap of those who have the adulation of the multitudes.