Revelation 6:1-17 - Know it or Not, We'll All Have to Handle It

    Col. Jessep: You want answers?

    Kaffee: I think I'm entitled.

    Col. Jessep: You want answers?

    Kaffee: I want the truth!

    Col. Jessep: You can't handle the truth!

What a memorable stand-off between Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson in the film, "A Few Good Men." Where do YOU stand on truth? Do you want to know the truth? Do you believe you could handle the truth if it were given to you? Do you believe that the truth can be known? Post-modern philosophies state that truth cannot be known for sure; our senses are too unreliable, our minds are too limited, and so truth is something we can never hope to capture completely.
 
Perhaps the post-modern dilemma stems from the assumption that truth is a set of data; some stagnant pool of information that can be probed to a degree but never comprehended. What if we change our approach and start from Scripture's assertion that Truth is a Person? Then Truth is not a lifeless list of digits, but the sum of reality which can actively, wisely and clearly make itself known, in ways that CAN be absorbed by us in its self-distributed doses and comprehended in its refined revelations.
 
What our text for today reminds us of is that the One who is True will allow all that exists to play itself out. Conquest, war, greed, death, persecution and cataclysm are realities, and their true consequences will be allowed to unwind. But what is also true is that the True One is still on the throne, stilll in control. Truth IS, Truth is about destroying destruction and letting life live. Truth stands against evil and is greater than all evil. So even though evil spins itself all the way out as A truth that becomes fully, awfully known, it cannot triumph over THE Truth. In this way, we come to understand judgment not as some arbitrary despotic punishment, but a discerning sorting out of all things truly valuable and worthless. Death will be brought to death, hunger will be starved, war will be conquered, evil will be eliminated! Goodness will reign victorious.
 
The take home is, don't wait until later to align yourselves with Truth as the person of God. If there is anything at all in us like violence, domination, avarice, hatred - anything evil or destructive - its time now to distance ourselves from it. Judge it now yourself and ask the Good and True to help you purge it from your character.
 
Cling to Christ, the Lamb on the throne. He is the Way of Truth unto Life.
 
 
 Pray: Lord, help me to understand that I can know truth, and also The Truth, in spite of my limited ability to comprehend the universe. You ARE the Truth and You can make yourself known to me. I want to know you. I want to be like you. When all things become truly revealed and judged in truth, let me be found aligned with You and not with evil. By the grace of your gift of Jesus, may I escape your judgment and live in the glory of your truth forever.