Truth Matters - Appendix

Tonight a friend of mine was exposed to a lie from her husband.

Tonight another acquaintance of mine was exposed to a lie from his wife.

The friend was told by her husband that he never wanted to marry her, never wanted kids with her and was desparte at the time when he first got married.  She was told the husband was scared of her physically abusing her.

All of them lies. I can attest, I have walked with them over the last 8 years.

The acquaintance of mine was told a week ago, his wife was leaving him and heading off with another man, leaving their 3 kids.

Let me tell you: AT MOMENTS LIKE THIS, THE TRUTH ABSOLUTELY MATTERS.

We are so flimsy and reckless with truth, that we massage it, overrun it, paint it a different colour, tear strips off it and try and mould it to fit our lie, but like a bouncy ball, it always comes back to it's original shape.

Truth does not change, it just is, otherwise it would defy the law of non-contradiction - and that is illogical.

Men, it strikes within me a chord so strong that until you listen to the stricken heart of a woman who has been told by a relationship counselor, that her husband of 10 years is trying to modify the truth of the last 10 years to suit his lie, it is then, that your constitution rises up to cling to Truth.  You then appreciate the foundation of truth because you know there is no where else to go.  And Jesus says: The truth will set you free.
How can a wife find answers to questions of her marriage when the premise of those questions are based on a lie?  There are no answers to those questions, because those questions have no legitimacy in the fist place....

Gents we studied Truth several Ironmen session ago, and this is why we studied it. Hold to the pursuit of truth because the alternative is the pursuit of the father of lies - Satan.

Sense and Sensuality

Let me ask you this question?

Is is possible to pursue pleasure without an objective moral framework?

Or another way to frame it:

What are the consequences of pursuing pleasure without an objective morality?

Have a long hard think about it.

Let's see what Solomon says of the pursuit of pleasure:

2 I said to myself, “Come on, let’s try pleasure. Let’s look for the ‘good things’ in life.” But I found that this, too, was meaningless. ² So I said, “Laughter is silly. What good does it do to seek pleasure?” ³ After much thought, I decided to cheer myself with wine. And while still seeking wisdom, I clutched at foolishness. In this way, I tried to experience the only happiness most people find during their brief life in this world.

⁴ I also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself and by planting beautiful vineyards. ⁵ I made gardens and parks, filling them with all kinds of fruit trees. ⁶ I built reservoirs to collect the water to irrigate my many flourishing groves. ⁷ I bought slaves, both men and women, and others were born into my household. I also owned large herds and flocks, more than any of the kings who had lived in Jerusalem before me. ⁸ I collected great sums of silver and gold, the treasure of many kings and provinces. I hired wonderful singers, both men and women, and had many beautiful concubines. I had everything a man could desire!
⁹ So I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me, and my wisdom never failed me. ¹⁰ Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. ¹¹ But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere......

²⁴ So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God. ²⁵ For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him?^[b] 26 God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to those who please him. But if a sinner becomes wealthy, God takes the wealth away and gives it to those who please him. This, too, is meaningless—like chasing the wind.

Ecclesiastes 2

and in final conclusion:

¹³ That’s the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty. ¹⁴ God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.

Ecclesiastes 12

Here's a another question after reading this:

If pleasure is the opposite of pain, evil and suffering, then what is the purpose of both?

Pleasure is the opposite of pain/suffering. Suffering is the consequence of evil.  Evil is the breach / transgress of the original or innate true purpose of something.  For example, you bend a leg the wrong way, it hurts, it snaps by something whacking it - immense pain comes from evil.  Or you have sex with another woman while in a marriage - you hurt, your wife hurts, your children hurt and purpose of marriage has been breached.

If I am to pursue a life unbounded by a moral code in the pursuit of pleasure, then where does that road lead to? 

This might seem like a stupid and obvious question for us men, but the world is pushing very forcefully a big banner down our throats calling us to pursue pleasure without at times the slightest hint of the need to consider the morality of it. And the Christian man is at times struggling to keep up. 


"My dad is like, 'Son, you're not murdering anyone, you're not screwing anyone's wife, you're not prostituting yourself, you're maintaining your morals in the industry. So go out there, and be the best at what you do and have fun."


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/my-biggest-sin-is-creating-lustful-eyes-meet-stripper-pistol-pete-20130524-2k4r7.html

Let's just take a look at the show "OffSpring". Watch now: Older parents are divorced, they have a 20something year old son who's a bum, still lives with the mum,  and a mid 30something year old daughter who's an obstetrician and a neurotic older daughter having recently married.
Here's the subtely and not so subtely of pleasure without morality. The Father has a baby because he had a fling with a young woman, he's slept with a bunch of other women including one that died on him on a first date during sex. The Mother is having it off with real estate agents and again with her former husband. The son is trying to earn money by being a human Guinea pig for pharmaceutical trials and is having sex with random women, including a midwife where his sister works, and get's her pregnant. The obstetrician is lusting after a married man, then has a one night stand with her sister's boyfriend, then falls for another work colleague and is now pregnant with his child. Finally her older sister breaks up with her long term boyfriend, goes off and has sex with other men, finds them unfulfilling, get's back with the former boyfriend, they want to start a family, but can't because he's shooting blanks (supposedly from smoking too much pot) and so they decide to go IVF with his gay brother's sperm, and all 3 will raise the child.
Now one thing is very true about this show, accountability morality are absent, and pleasure is the highest form of truth for these lives.

Now Offspring is suppose to be a funny, light-hearted show doused with reality, but when you read it like this, it's almost an insult to the common man's sense of reason, morality and intelligence.
But the real kicker in this, is the fruit of their pleasure seeking lives - that part, the show get's partially right - their lives are a disaster! Unfortunately, the show doesn't follow through with the devastation they leave in their wake, caused by their pleasure seeking actions.

What I'm trying to do here men is raise our spiritual antenna to understanding the enemy's strategy in having you and I sucked into pursuing pleasure and walking over our morality to get there.

Ravi Zacaharias says it so well in his book Sense and Sensuality:

'In seeking pleasure you pursued the body and lost the person. You sought the sensation and sacrificed the individual. In pursuing sensuality you exalt the body and profane the person."

This was such a huge revelation for me, when I saw that the opposite of the age old question "How can God exist with so much suffering in the world" is inversely asked "How can pleasure exist without a moral framework to keep it in check?"

Because I am constantly bombarded with "pleasure" options, and to the common man, he's going to get sucked right down that rat hole if he doesn't have his spiritual moral armour on - and that armour is the Holy Spirit and person of Jesus protecting your heart mind and soul.

I would contend that as men sharpening each other, this area is worth being grated across the stone, so we can really be sharpened to the fallacy of this world view.

Pleasure without accountability is just as dangerous as evil without accountability.

If my heart, my soul is led by my emotions by my feelings, then just as devastating consequences await me and the people in my life and future lives.

Now hear me straight, I am not a wowser or the fun policeman,  by no means.  What does Jesus say: "I have come to give life and life to the full".  "If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father provide you with the things you need"

But I come back to this premise: IF I am to walk in Truth (I am the way, truth and life - JC), and that "the Truth will set you free", then this sucker of a message about pursuing pleasure without a moral framework is a dud.

The really interesting point view of this topic, is that mankind is desperately trying to create new technologies, products, services and engineer ways in which we can pursue and consume pleasure, without morality, or orchestrate it so that the consequences of that pleasure, vacant of a moral code are delayed or pushed onto someone else.

Here's some other examples:

- "Pay now with no interest for 48 months"

- "Fat free yoghurt" but with more sugar than a candy bar

- "Lose weight while you sleep"

- "I can look so long as I don't touch"

- "Let’s be honest, no matter how much you love sex with your BF, you’ve had a longer affair with yourself. Yep, we’re talking about masturbation and we know it can get boring if you don’t shake things up a bit. That’s right, solo sexcapades need a little spice thrown in from time-to-time too! Lucky for you, we have seven searing hot ways to have you coming like crazy, all by yourself."
http://www.cosmopolitan.com.au/sex/sex-advice/2013/5/the-omg-guide-to-solo-sex/

- "Why should I get a job when I have enough social benefits to get me by?"

- "Ms Allouache gave birth to a baby girl, named Alexandra, on Sunday morning at Adelaide's Women and Children's Hospital.

"She's wonderful, just wonderful," Senator Wong told News Limited.

"Sophie and I are delighted beyond words."

Alexandra was conceived using IVF and sperm from a donor known to the couple.

Senator Wong has said the biological father is a friend who will be known to the baby, but his name is not expected to be made public

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-14/penny-wong2c-partner-welcome-baby/3730418

Morality - Jesus calls it out.

Why is it that when the topic of morality or morals or even more so, Biblical morals, are brought up that our heads look to the ground, there is discomfort,  and unease, yet when we talk of "values" or better still, of "ethics" or to be more academic, we might say "an ethical framework", then the atmosphere lifts and we feel free to voice our opinion.  Words like "integrity", "trust", "transparency", "honesty" and "sustainability" are usually somewhere interwoven in those opinions.  

One only needs to look at the renaissance of corporate and government agencies in the last decade to see their missions statements, their "people, culture and branding" departments using these words to describe their ethics.  The GFC highlighted this even more so and the Financial industry is desperately trying to reclaim the "high moral ground" by re-instating these words to describe their corporate character and culture. 

The CEO of Goldman Sachs was brought before a standing senate committee in Washington during the GFC and questioned about the nature of their services, and he didn't blink an eyelid in debunking the "morality" of how they allowed immoral lending practices and selling against products they were offloading to clients ("that is one shitty deal"), to quote: “In the context of market making that is not a conflict,”  and in another statement he says words to the effect "it's what we do and the market expects it".   Hang on, I thought businesses had value statements, ethics, compliance and ethical training as per legislation?  As we'll see they have "values", which may be maintained by the company/individual, but they are useless without Biblical moral absolutes. 

Here's another example: Journalism. But before I give some examples, have a read of this observation by the Professor of Ethics Robert Fitch:  

 "Ours is an age where ethics has become obsolete, superseded by science, deleted by psychology, dismissed as emotive by philosophy, it is drowned in compassion, evaporates in aesthetics, and retreats before relativism, the usual moral distinction between good and bad is drowned in a muddle of emotion in which we feel more sympathy for the murderer than for the murdered, for the adulterer than for the betrayed,  and in which we have begun to believe that the real guilty party, the one who somehow caused it all, is the victim and not the perpetrator of the crime."

I used to be an investigative documentary/current affairs junky, 4 Corners, Dateline, 7:30 Report, 60 Minutes (I was desperate on Sunday nights okay!), Insight...... I would scourer abc iview to watch other documentaries. I still do, but have toned it down massively for reasons I won't explain here. 

For those that watch these programs, by very well researched, respected journalists, and even by run of the mill documentarians that morality, morality of the individual, self accountability and responsibility is vacant. Instead, the ouness is on the Government, the police, DOCS, the Feds, Centrelink, policy makers, the compliance and regulatory departments, the sports administration, the board of directors.... it goes on and on and on. 

" The police should have better systems in place to cope with domestic violence concerns"

"DOCS" need to better respond to children in at risk scenarios"

"The AFL and ARL need to implement more female protection programs and training"

"ASIC is under funded and needs to have better rigour in catching rogue traders "

"The company needs better processes for training staff on being ethical"

"The Australian Hotel and Clubs lobby need to implement stricter drinking controls and tighter gambling restrictions"

"If only the Processed Food lobby could see the damage their industry is doing to our kids and the government introduce banned advertising for fast food between the hours of 3-7pm weeknights"

"The government needs to do this, the government needs to do that, the government needs to protect that minority or that underprivileged or marginalised community section...."

and on it goes. 

I generally don't hear the following statements, say in response to fatherless homes or domestic violence or anything related to men: 

"Well, if the Australian men of today collectively "manned up" and took control of their anger, their addiction to pornography, their indulgence on alcohol and taking drugs, stopped gambling away their savings, grew up and stopped indulging in "grand auto theft video game parties at the tender age of 35" and did what men are morally obliged to do, then the streets would be safer, police would have more time to do positive activities than lock up drunk and violent men on Friday and Saturday nights, hospital departments would be able to do much more elective surgery than deal with consequences of amoral behaviour, DOCS and Centerlink would actually be able to administer help to more people, women and children might actually grow up with their actual father and husband without sexual, psychological, physical abuse." 

But you generally don't hear that or a subset of that statement do we? 

Either I am supposed to implicitly read into the report by the journo that the above statement is approved (highly unlikely) or the journo doesn't actually ascribe a personal morality to the perpetrator, instead he/she lays responsibility to another (usually a government department). 

As a clear example, watch 4 corners on the Drinking story several weeks ago, the journo tries to pinn responsibility on the Hotel Lobby group, we feel angry but also compassion for the perpetrator who destroyed another man's life, we are channeled to think that if only the police had more cops, then they could better manage the streets filled with drunks and the near death of a drunk man in St Vincents gives you reflection on how desperate it is for staff doing the weekend shift.  There is no mention that the drunk man, almost suffocating on his own vomit may need to be responsible for his own actions and that he is using up resources that could be spent towards giving someone a hip replacement so they can walk properly again. It sounds very harsh, of which it is not intended to, but to highlight the point about (a lack of) morality. 

Another one, Ross Kemp's "Extreme" world" documentary series, he goes to Karachi, Caracas and other dangerous places. In Karachi here are some stats he gives: 35,000 people are murdered each yr, there is only 1 policeman per 2,000 residents, 53 officers were killed last year. They are under paid and over stretched. Caracas (population 3-4M), he states, 17,000 murders each yr, in 1999 when Chavez came to power, there were only 4,000 murders. 

It's a horrible situation, yet his departing comments are about how the governments need to work together to bring about positive change, invest more into the law enforcement and hospital agencies.  He makes the comment that for the people living in the impoverished areas, there's "nothing" for them to do, hence they turn to drugs and violence and kidnappings. 

He could have been transplanted to Claymore in outer south western Sydney and made the exact same commentary. 

Funny though, morality was not mentioned, personal accountability was hauntingly left absent. To top it off, he visited a jail in Caracus, and shakes hands with a mid 20 year old British inmate. He was caught for drug trafficking and has a few years left on his 8 year sentence. You feel very sorry for the man, given the living conditions and being locked up in a foreign country.   It's as if "we have begun to believe that the real guilty party, the one who somehow caused it all, is the victim and not the perpetrator of the crime."

So where am I going with all this? Why the long "preamble". 

Because without morality grounded in an absolute, ethics and values are baseless. To hold to the value of "integrity" without adhering to "do not lie, do not steal, do not covet, love the Lord your God with ALL your heart soul, mind and strength" I would content is useless. 

For example, "Transperencey" by itself is pretty useless if it does not have the previous morals underpinning it. I could be incredibly transparent about my actions, and my actions and thoughts could be immoral - but at least I was transparent about it. 

"Openess" is another example you could use.

My ethics devoid of an absolute Biblical moral framework are about as useful as me saying that a pig has a higher right to life than a down syndrome baby because it's intelligence is almost on par with human beings (supposedly) - note Peter Singer - Ethicist at Princeton Uni. 

Men, you and I might find this uncomfortable, but morality and God's Morals are the defining absolute.  Your neighbour might say, "well which God?, who are you to say that? By what authority or right do you have to say that?", good question, but in reverse, when we exit God's moral code, the fruit is pretty self explanatory. 

You see Jesus comes to clean us from the inside out, new life, new heart, his moral code written on our hearts,. Jesus describes our problem with pinpoint accuracy: our heart is corrupted, subject to evil, full of hate, malice, jealously, adultery... and he comes to save the sick, by giving us a new heart, his moral ways infiltrating our hearts. "Out of the heart flow the issues of life". 

What I am not discussing here is being a high and righteous moral crusader, speaking holier than though judgemental statements. I am a sinner, through and through, as one song says "what would I have become, where would I be if you (Jesus) never lived in me?".  I am subjugated to hypocrisy, I readily admit that, so are you. But that does not excuse the need for morality, for absolute morals, 

"Let every man give an account for his life before God, who is the ultimate judge". 

Men let you and me not fall into the subtle thought that personal responsibility and accountability are tied to immovable morals are not part of our lives.