Flying by instruments – story from Grandpa Amos’ life:

• My mother’s father was named Amos, and he loved to fly airplanes. When he got drafted into the Air Force in World War 2, he entered flight training, but on his very first training flight, the instructor saw that even though Amos was just a buck private, he already knew how to fly, so he awarded Grandpa Amos his wings right away.

• Amos’ older brother Joe had gone through ROTC, so when the war started, he was a captain, and he was able to look out for his little brother. After Amos got his wings, Joe told him to do whatever it took to get flight instrument training, so Amos went to flight instrument school and learned all he could about flying using the instruments on the dashboard of a plane, including

  • the altimeter, which tells you how high you are off the ground,

  • the compass that tells you what direction you’re pointed,

  • and the attitude indicator that tells you what direction you are tilted.

• Amos learned to fly by his instruments, rather than by sight or feel, and that saved his life on multiple occasions:

  • One time he had to do a cross-country flight from California to the East Coast with three other airplanes and pilots. The fleet hit a storm over the Sierras, and one pilot crashed and died. The other two turned around rather than try to fly through the storm, but Amos made it through because he knew how to fly by his instruments.

  • Another time he was flying a C-47 cargo plane across Australia. He was carrying some soldiers to where they were supposed to go, and he also had the engines of two Japanese fighter planes loaded in the back of his plane for allied technicians to analyze for strategic weaknesses. His plane encountered a gigantic thunderhead cloud that was over 60,000 feet high and spread left-to-right as far as the eye could see. The only thing he could do to fulfill his mission was to fly through it. It made for a wild ride. There were times, he said, when he had the stick all the way back but he was still falling 2,000 feet per minute, and other times that storm would be throwing him upwards at 2,000 feet per minute, and that was with the stick all the way forward to keep the nose down. It was incredible the beating their plane took in that storm: windows popped out of the plane, and rivets on the plane’s skin burst. There was no way humanly to keep track of what was happening to the plane except to trust what the instruments were saying, because that much motion can totally disorient our brains. The soldiers in the back of the plane were saying their prayers because they thought for sure that they were going to die. But Grandpa Amos knew where he was, and knew how to control that plane because he knew how to follow what the instruments said, and he made it safely to his destination.

• We are all like pilots in this life. We are all trying to fly through life in this world, and we have the choice: Will we fly by the instruments God has provided, or will we trust ourselves or some other person to get our bearings on what is true and what is false?

• The epistemological question, “What is the truth?” is the foundational question upon which all the rest of our worldview is based. If you get this one wrong, everything else you believe will be wrong too.

  • For instance, if you believe that truth is established by the scientific method, you will never believe in the resurrection of the dead, because scientists have never duplicated the resurrection in a lab.

  • If however, you believe that God is the source of all truth and that He communicated to us in the Holy Bible truths like, “...Christ has been raised out of the dead – the firstfruit of the ones who have been sleeping. For since, on account of a man, there is death, also, on account of a man, there is resurrection of dead [men]” (1 Cor. 15:20-21), then you will assume that Jesus was raised from the dead and that you will be resurrected too in time to come; and it won’t make a lick of difference how many scientists tell you that you’re wrong.

• In the first half of this study, we looked at some of the differences between trusting man to define reality, and trusting God to define reality. Let’s review them using a chart that one of my seminary professors, the late Dr. John Robbins, shared in his apologetics classes:

Robbins Epistemology Chart

• On the left column is the Rationalists who assume that the mind of man is perfect enough to be able to determine, by means of reason and logic, what is true and what is false.

  • They would say we know something to be true because we can logically prove that it is true.

  • The rationalist position answers the question, “What is truth?” by saying that human thinking can determine truth from falsehood (which, by the way, denies the fallenness of mankind and also makes faith optional).

• The Empiricists in the next column to the right are the scientists.

  • The esoteric philosophical proofs of Rationalist thought is just mumbo-jumbo to the empiricists.

  • Thomas Aquinas actually wrote that the existence of God can be proved empirically and that God revealed Himself in the Bible simply for those who are too “stupid,” “busy,” or “lazy” to figure it out for themselves.

  • The Empiricists say that the way we can really tell whether something is true or not is to look and smell and touch and listen to it, and decide for ourselves.

  • Thus, truth is defined by sensory perception through the scientific method, and once again, truth is determined by man, this time not by his philosophical thinking but through what we see and hear and touch. (By the way, this places all spiritual realities – which cannot be seen with the human eye – into the realm of falsehood, or, at best, into the realm of un-know-ablility.)

• “Not so,” says the Scripturalist in the next column. “The purpose of the senses,” said Augustine (in effect), “is to protect the body, not to take in truth.” Our minds are too bent by sin to figure straight.

  • John Calvin once wrote, “It is foolish to attempt to prove scripture as the word of God.” What he meant is that, if God is the one who defines truth, then there is no higher authority (such as human logic or sensory perception) to which we can appeal to establish whether or not God’s claims are true, therefore, we must simply accept the Bible as true and reason forward from there.

  • That is why the reformed confessions of faith generally start with a paragraph on the Scriptures rather than starting with a paragraph on God or on Man. The Westminster Confession says, “The authority of the holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, depends not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God the author thereof, and therefore it is to be received because it is the Word of God.”

• “Oh, good grief,” say the Irrationalists, “Nothing can be proved empirically, and no authority should be trusted implicitly…

  • There is absolutely no such thing as an absolute truth, and it’s o.k. if somebody else’s truth contradicts yours.”

  • Karl Barth taught, for example, that when the ancient Hebrews emigrated from Egypt, they felt they had experienced a miracle, so they wrote in the Bible a mythical history (gesichte) about a miraculous parting of the Red Sea. As far as they were concerned, it felt true – in a religious sense, even though we know from science today that there is no such thing as miracles.

  • Similarly, we can decide that Jesus means so much to us that we can say that He died and rose from the dead to give us life, and thus it becomes true to us, even though science has proved that nobody ever actually rises from the dead.

  • Every person in this Irrational worldview must therefore decide what is true based upon his or her own feelings. How many times have you heard the phrase, “Trust your heart...”

  • Once again, this places the authority to determine truth from falsehood with a human being.

  • This radical individualism and rebellion against God’s authority to determine truth, has resulted in the millions of conflicting opinions about truth that we see today in our culture.

• Do you see how it all comes down to trusting either man or God?

• Do you also see how Christians aren’t always consistent when it comes to epistemology?
  Most Christians attempt to live with some truth from human sources and some truth from God.

What does the Bible have to say about this?

The Bible tells us that God is the source of truth.

• The book of Job teaches that man does not have ultimate knowledge; only God does. Job 38:1 “Jehovah answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, for I will make a demand of you that declare to me: Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you know. Who determined its measures, do you know? … 18) Have you comprehended the earth in its breadth? Declare, if you know it all… 32) Can you lead forth the constellations in their season? … 36) Who has put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who hath given understanding to the mind? … 40:8) And will you annul my judgment? Will you condemn me, that you may be justified? …’ 40:3) Then Job answered Jehovah, and said, ‘Behold, I am of little account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand upon my mouth.’” (ASV¹)

• The Psalmists also are emphatic that truth comes from God as revealed in His word:

• Psalm 19:7-9 “Yahweh's written-instruction has soul-returning integrity. Yahweh's testimony is trustworthy, causing the naïve to be wise. Yahweh's accountabilities are heart-rejoicing-ly right. Yahweh's command is sight-illuminating-ly pure. Yahweh's respect stands forever clean. Yahweh's judgments are altogether justly true.” (NAW)

• Psalm 119:65 “You have dealt well with your servant, O Jehovah, according to Your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge; For I have believed in your commandments. Before I was afflicted I went astray; But now I observe your word…” (ASV) Where do we learn knowledge and truth? From God’s word!

• God’s word can even make you smarter than your professors: Psalm 119:97 “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are always with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation… Through Your precepts I get understanding: Therefore I hate every false way.” (ASV)

• Proverbs also reveals God as the source of truth in wisdom and understanding:

  • Prov. 2:6 “Jehovah gives wisdom; out of His mouth comes knowledge and understanding.”

  • Prov. 3:5-6 “Trust in Jehovah with all your heart, and lean not upon your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.” (ASV)

• Isaiah and the other prophets also speak of God as the source of truth:

  • Isa. 8:19-20 “when they shall say to you, ‘Seek after the mediums and to the wizards, the ones who chirp and mutter. Should not a people seek after their God – to the living instead of to the dead? To the instruction and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, then that one has no dawn.” (NAW) In other words, don’t go to men for advice, go to God’s word!

  • What happens if you look for the light of truth from man? Isaiah 50:10-11 “Who among you fears Jehovah, listening to the voice of His Servant? Whoever walked dark places and there was no brightness for him, let him trust in the name of Jehovah and lean into his God. Look, all you kindlers of fire who are clasping firebrands, walk in the light of your fire and with the firebrands you burned. This happened to you from my hand: you will lie down for anguish.” (NAW)

  • Jer. 29:21-23 “Jehovah-God says, ‘I am the one who knows… I did not dictate false words.’” (ASV)

• When we get to the New Testament, the message is the same:

  • Acts 15:7-8 – God is the one who “knows the heart,”

  • and a new name for God is introduced: Jesus.

  • Paul calls the good news of Jesus Christ the “word of truth” (Col. 1:5),

  • and asserts that the church of Jesus Christ is “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15).

• “Truth” was especially a topic in the Apostle John’s writings²:

  • In John 8:43ff, Jesus asked, “…I tell the truth, will you not believe me?”

  • In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth the life…”

  • and John 19:35 affirmed “This witness is true.”

  • God the Father is called “the One who is True” in 1 John 5:20: “And we know that the Son of God is arriving and He has given to us insight so that we may recognize the True One, and we are in the True One – in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the True God and eternal life.” (NAW)

  • Then, in the book of Revelation , Jesus is called the One who is True: “I saw the heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He that sat on it called Faithful and True; and in righteousness He judges and makes war.” (Rev. 3:7, 19:11, ASV)

  • The words of the Bible are also called “the truth” in John 17, and the holy scriptures are called “faithful and true” in Rev. 21:5 & 22:6.

• There is an organic unity between God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Bible. This is not to say that they are all the same thing, but that they speak the truth and define reality in a unified way.

QUOTES

• “let God be found true, though every man be found a liar” ~Apostle Paul, Romans 3:4

• “All proceeds from Scripture” ~John Wycliffe

• Martin Luther “Scripture alone is the schriftprinzip – the true master of all teaching. Whoever does not consult the scripture will know nothing. Whatever is not from scripture is of the devil.”

• “The Word of God is given to us in order to enable us to see ourselves. When we examine our own hearts, there is much we cannot see. That is why introspection is not the route to self-knowledge, but to confusion. The study of God’s word is the only proper way to come to a proper understanding of ourselves.” ~Douglas Wilson, Federal Husband, p.29

Question: Will you accept God’s Word as your Authority for Truth & Reality?

• The Apostle Paul commended the Thessalonian church for doing this in 1 Thess. 2:13 “…we praise God without ceasing, because, when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you received it – not as the word of men, but – as it is, in truth, the word of God, which works effectively in you also who believe.” (ASV)

• So what does it look like to accept God’s word as your basis for truth and reality?

• For one thing, it means being led by God’s word rather than by our appetites:

• Eve judged the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden based on sensory perception and human reason rather than by God’s word: Genesis 3:6 “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of [its] fruit, and did eat…” (ASV) She followed her senses and appetites instead of God’s command, and that got her into big trouble, along with all the rest of us.

• Jesus, on the other hand, when He was tempted to turn stones into bread (to break His 40-day fast), answered Satan’s temptation by trusting God’s word and quoting it, “It has been written, 'Not upon bread alone will man live, but rather upon every word proceeding through the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4, NAW)

• Will you seek to fill your appetites – whether your appetite for food or affection or sleep – based on the appeal of the things in this world, or will you accept God’s word as your reality-defining authority?

• Accepting God’s word as the source of truth will also influence how you answer questions:

• Pontius Pilate was stumped over what to do with Jesus: he found no crime in Jesus, but his subjects still wanted Jesus killed. What to do? As he sat upon his judgment-seat, his wife relayed a command from God, “Let there be nothing between you and this righteous man...” But instead of obeying God’s command, Pilate followed the prevailing consensus of public opinion, as the demonstrators outside his palace chanted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate chose the injustice of oppression because he trusted democracy rather than God’s word.

• However, when Jesus was presented with a dilemma in Matthew 22, having been asked a stumper of a question on divorce and remarriage and the after life, He quoted scripture and answered with God’s authority, telling the Sadducees, “You are mistaken because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God…” (Matt. 22:29, NAW)

• Will you quote popular people and statistics – and abdicate your role as a discipler, or will you pray for God’s help and use scripture to answer questions?

• This also applies to what you value and what motivates you:

• In Matthew 23:16-17, Jesus upbraided the Pharisees when they said that they were not obligated to fulfill a promise if they merely swore by the temple to do something. They claimed they were only obligated if they swore by the gold in the temple. “Now, which is greater,” asked Jesus, “the gold, or the temple that makes the gold holy?” (NAW) The Pharisees were more interested in the financial value of the gold, but Jesus was more interested in the spiritual value of God’s special place.

• Would Jesus be able to point out similar inconsistencies in your values? Are you more motivated by your boss saying that you have to be at work at a certain time, than you are about meeting with God in the morning? Which boss do you value most?

• One thing’s for sure: There is always going to be competition over the control of truth and reality. The Bible speaks of three competitors in particular: the world, the flesh, and the Devil, whose alternative systems for defining truth and reality must be rejected in order to follow God as our source of truth.

Will you reject competitors against God for truth?

1. The world

• In his Passion of St. Matthew, the great composer, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the following poetry, which translates into English roughly as follows: “The crafty world would fain devise/By false reports and secret lies/ Wherewith it might ensnare me. / Lord show Your power / In danger’s hour / And sure escape prepare me.”

• The world – that is every person around us who doesn’t submit to God’s word, together with the institutions they have developed – puts pressure on us to let them define reality for us.

• Educators offer information and training concerning what they think the world needs.

• Businesses work to position their products or services as the answers to all our problems.

• Political and non-profit leaders are seeking to get people to think in a certain way about issues.

• And the news tells us what they think reality is from day to day.

• But we must recognize that the truth does not come from the world of men; therefore we must evaluate every claim made by those educators and salesmen and political leaders and news pundits by asking, “What does the Bible say about this?”

  • Perhaps you’ve seen an advertisement that a Snickers bar will “really satisfy” you. What does the Bible say?

• Isaiah 55:2 “To what [purpose] do y’all weigh out silver for non-bread, and your labor with dissatisfaction? Listen carefully to me… says Yahweh.” (NAW)

• Jer. 31:14 “…my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, says Jehovah.” (ASV)

• If you need quick energy to do God’s will, maybe a Snickers will help, but God’s word on the subject is that satisfaction comes from Him, not from candy bars.

• Say you want to watch a movie. Will it paint an accurate picture of reality? PBS published³ an interesting reality check in which it admitted that:

• while a television cop is likely to draw his or her weapon at least once per episode, and shoot it more than once per season, most real police officers will never use a gun in the line of duty.

• Furthermore, only about 3 percent of characters on TV are over 65, whereas in the U.S. population, it’s more like 12%.

• And have you noticed how over half of the characters on TV are professionals or executives? That’s way out-of-sync with the actual 25 percent.

• Movies and other shows generally present a distorted picture of reality.

• The news is not much better.

• Of the hundreds of billions of things that happen in a single day, only a dozen or so get written up as headlines. The stories that survive the cuts are going to be the ones which support the worldview of the editors, which, at this time are mostly Secular Humanists, not Christians.

• So, what you’re going to see in the mainstream news is material that promotes a godless worldview. For instance, when a natural disaster happens, the news will report on the physical damage, its effect on political power, the prospect of government funding, as well as the nice things that people are doing for each other, because that is what Secular Humanism is all about.

• But when you read the Bible, it’s the advance of the kingdom of God into the hearts of people that is the main theme, a narrative that almost never gets reported in the news. If the Bible is true, then the mainstream news is completely missing all the most-important things that are happening in this world. Completely missing it!

• What if you’re not sure about the truth of something? James 1:5 says, “…Now, if someone among y'all is lacking wisdom, let him be asking from God – the One who gives to all generously without fault-finding, and it will be given to him…” (NAW) Just pray and ask God, if you’re not sure what the truth is!

• Finally, regarding the influence of the world, realize that influence can work both ways.
  You can teach God’s truth to the world rather than looking to the world for truth!

• Will you “stand alone on the word of God” even if the world says you are misguided?

• Zecheriah 8:16 “every one of you must… speak the truth with his neighbor; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates.” (ASV) You can create in your gates – in your home or office – a culture based on God’s truth! That’s an exciting prospect!

• Ephesians 4:14 “...that we might no longer be infants, tossed back-and-forth and carried about in every wind of teaching in the cunning of men in craftiness toward the deceit of straying, but by being truthful in love we might grow all things into Him, who is the head: Christ” (NAW)

• With God’s word, we can be an influence on the world rather than letting the world define our reality!

2. The flesh (Competitor #2 against God for truth):

• We must also fight the tendency to let our flesh define reality.

• Rom. 1:25 explains that we have a natural tendency to “worship the creature rather than Creator.”

• How often do we try to make ourselves look good (so that people will think better of us) rather than trying to figure out how to get people to think about how good God is?

• How often do we think about the physical attractiveness of a member of the opposite sex rather than thinking about their eternal destiny?

• How often do we consider the entertainment value of a new technology instead of its potential for spreading the gospel?

• Simply because something appeals to your senses does not mean it is good for you. Your reality is defined by God, not by yourself, so we must appeal to the master of reality, God Himself (rather than to our senses) to determine whether or not that thing is part of His reality or whether it is part of the hollow deception that people create (out of rebellion to God) as an alternative.

• The Apostle Peter makes a strong appeal in his first letter about this very thing: 1 Peter 2:11 “Loved ones, I am offering an encouragement like [I would to] temporary residents and pilgrims, to keep yourselves away from the fleshly desires which are at war against your soul… 4:2 ...live the remainder of time in flesh no longer in the lusts of men, but rather in the will of God.” (NAW)

• What can we do to keep from being deceived by our own flesh?

• Trust in God and His word: Jeremiah 17:7-9 “Blessed is the man who trusts in Jehovah, and whose trust is Jehovah, for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, that spreads out its roots by the river… and he will not cease from yielding fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it?” (ASV) Trust God, not your heart!

• And hold yourself accountable to other Christians: Hebrews 3:13 “… encourage one another throughout each day – as long as it is called ‘today’ in order that some of y'all might not be hardened by means of the deceitfulness of his sin.” (NAW)

3. The devil (Competitor #3 for truth against God)

• In Rev. 12:9, Satan is called “the deceiver” – that is his nature.

• Jesus told us that “…the devil… was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own, for he is a liar, and the father of such.” (John 8:44, ASV)

• From the beginning, the Devil has been telling lies to mankind to get us to rebel against God. When he appeared to Eve and said, “You will not die,” he was tempting Eve to use her own judgment rather than trust God’s judgment regarding the forbidden fruit.

• Even today, Satan continues to plant untrue – usually just partially-true – ideas in our heads:

• In Matt. 16:21ff, Jesus identified some words that Peter had said as coming from Satan. He said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan…”

• The idea of suicide is also typical of Satan. He lives to “steal, kill and destroy” (John 10:10), so he plants the idea in the minds of humans to kill themselves.

• Such evil thoughts will come as long as the Devil is at large, so our response must be to “resist him.”

• 1 Peter 5:8-9 “Y'all be alert; be awake! Your opponent, an accuser, goes around like a lion, roaring, seeking for someone he might swallow down. You solid ones in the faith must stand against him…” (NAW)

• James 4:7-10 “...start standing up against the Devil, and he will flee from y'all! [HOW?] Start drawing near to God, and He will draw near to y'all. Sinners, start purifying hands, and double-minded ones, start sanctifying hearts! ...Let yourselves be humbled in the sight of the Lord, and He will exalt you.” (NAW) That’s how you resist the Devil.

• Martin Luther is quoted as saying, “You can’t stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair!”

• Respond to false ideas by remembering the truth of God’s word and obeying God.

Conclusion:

Let me close with another story about my Grandpa Amos and the importance of following the truth rather than lies. One mission that he had was to fly supplies from the U.S. over to England, but the route they had to follow was down the coast of South America then over to Ascension Island and across the Atlantic to West Africa, then up the African coast and up over France and into England.
Well, Grandpa Amos had a crack navigator named Johnny Spain, who had been a navigation trainer for PanAmerican airlines. Johnny knew his maps and how to fly by the instruments too, so after hundreds of miles he was able to chart Grandpa Amos’ course so that they hit the little four mile square island of Ascension dead-on.
When they got up to France, they had been instructed to make radio contact with Allied radio stations situated along the length of France to navigate them across the country. They had a password to give, and the radio stations in France had another password to reply, and the passwords changed every hour.
When they got over France, they gave the password over the radio and got a reply with the proper password saying that they had drifted way to the West and that they needed to adjust their course and go East. Johnny Spain couldn’t believe that he had navigated so far off-course. Grandpa Amos decided to trust Johnny and his maps instead of trusting the men at the radio station, so he kept to his original course.
An hour later, he tried again to establish radio contact. He gave the password, and the radio station answered with the right password for that hour and then repeated the message that they were too far off-course to the West. Just then, another radio station crackled onto the air. The new radio station told them that they were right on course and doing fine. Later they found out that the Germans had set up radio stations in France in order to lure Allied pilots off-course into the range of their anti-aircraft guns! How glad Grandpa was that he had trusted his navigator and the maps instead of the German radio stations that were giving him false information to lure him to his death.

• We are all like pilots in this life. We are all trying to fly through life in this world, and we have the choice: Will we fly by the instruments God has provided, or will we trust ourselves (or some other person) to decide what is true and what is false?

• Christians have the Holy Spirit inside us to help us navigate, and we have the map of God’s word, but most people around us are not flying by the instruments; they are living according to what they see and feel.

• Our crooked, sin-filled minds are so naturally rebellious to God that we would rather “fly by the seat of our pants” and make wrecks of ourselves than trust God to define reality for us. (I regret to say that my Grandpa Amos did just that; he committed suicide some time after the war was all over.)

  • But the principles of truth in the Bible are easily proved true; let us trust the God of the Bible to tell us what is true from what is false.

• Hebrews 11:1 “Now, faith is the understanding of things being hoped for; it is the making of a case concerning matters which are not being seen… 6 without faith, it's impossible to be well-pleasing, for it is necessary for the one who approaches God to have faith that He exists and that He becomes the payoff to those who are seeking Him out… 12:1-2 As for us, for this very reason, keeping company with such an extensive cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also keep running with perseverance the contest being laid out before us, starting to put away from ourselves every encumbrance and sin that hangs around closely, looking out toward Jesus, the chief leader and accomplisher of the faith…” (NAW)

1I have updated some archaic words, so this and subsequent quotations of the ASV are my modified edition of the ASV.

2One-third of the instances of the word “true” in the ESV Bible are found in the Apostle John’s writings.

3http://pbskids.org/dontbuyit

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