Our era and time is witnessing a sad phenomenon: the triumph of the sovereignty of man over the sovereignty of truth.

There was a time when truth was regarded as sovereign. What God said was the final, absolute rule. Man knew this, and either rejected the truth or accepted it. During the so-called Enlightenment, man began to question the idea of truth. He began to say, “There is no such thing as absolute truth. All truth is relative. Something may be truth for you, and not true for me”. This led to the higher criticism of the Bible in the late 19th century, where liberal scholars cast doubt upon the Bible. Entire Christian denominations were just about overwhelmed with this teaching, and only those calling themselves fundamentalists weathered the attack.

Well, today, though that battle still goes on, on some fronts, the church faces a much more subtle enemy. The modern evangelical church is no longer battling people within its walls who claim that there is no truth; it is battling people within its walls who, in practice, deny that truth is sovereign. I’ll explain what I mean.

‘Sovereign’ refers to the fact of absolute or final control. A sovereign ruler is the one in final control of the situation. All delegated authority finds its source in the sovereign authority. The sovereignty of truth means that truth, God’s truth, is the final authority for all of life. Everything else must bow and submit itself to that truth. All forms of communicating the truth must submit to the needs and demands of truth. Truth is the ultimate ruler. Now, while many Christians pay lip service to that idea, they deny it by the way they treat the truth. By their ministries, by their methods, they betray the fact that they ultimately do not regard truth as sovereign; they regard man as sovereign. They will tell you, ‘Yes, I believe in absolute truth. I believe that the Bible is the final authority for life and practice.’ But when you observe how they communicate that truth, it is clear they do not believe in the sovereignty of truth.

Let’s go to the Bible to make it a little clearer.

The Bible makes it very clear that God’s truth is sovereign. We see it firstly showing us that truth is in fact a Person. Jesus said in John 14:6:

“…I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by Me.”

Christ Himself is the truth. All truth comes back to and consummates in Christ, the image of the invisible God. Truth is simply reality. Truth is what is. And the fundamental reality is God Himself. His very name, Jehovah, means ‘I AM’. He is; He is what is. He is the final and ultimate reality. The created universe is made by Him and for Him. As Romans 11:36 says:

“For from him and through him and to him are all things.”

Seeing that truth relates to God Himself, seeing that it relates to God describing reality as it is, it must necessarily be infinitely more important than the opinion of man, man’s speculations, man’s logical deductions, man’s ideas. It is more important than even man’s needs and desires. It outstrips them as far as importance goes. God and His Word on His universe are more important than man’s ideas.

The Bible has always made this clear. Jesus said:

“For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Matt 5:18)

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Matt 24:35)

The clear implication there is God’s Word; His truth will supersede even the creation itself. What God says takes priority over even creation.

The Bible also shows that God’s truth is sovereign when it warns man against tampering with it. We read in Deuteronomy 4:2:

“You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.” (Deut 4:2)

“All the things I command you, be careful to do it. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it.” (Deut 12:32)

“Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.” (Prov 30:5-6)

“For I testify together to everyone who hears the Words of the prophecy of this Book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add on him the plagues that have been written in this Book. And if anyone takes away from the Words of the Book of this prophecy, God will take away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which have been written in this Book.” (Rev 22:18-19)

Clearly the idea expressed in these verses is that God’s Word is sovereign over man. Man is not authorised to edit God’s Word. He is not allowed to add, subtract or modify what God has said. The truth must change man, man must not change it. Truth has the right to make demands on man; man does not have the right to demand truth to change so as to suit him. We see this also clearly emerging in the writings of the apostles. Again and again, they make it clear that they bowed to the sovereignty of truth.

Listen to Paul:

“But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Cor 4:2)

Notice Paul insists he would not tamper with God’s Word. He would only state the truth openly. He was not creating messages, he was delivering them. The truth had sovereignty over him. It controlled what he said and how he said it.

In chapter 2:17:

“For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.”

God’s Word was not something to be peddled, sold or hawked. It meant Paul spoke God’s message with God watching Him. In the sight of God he delivered the truth.

“For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed–God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ.” (1 Thess 2:3-6)

Paul even predicts the time when the sovereignty of man would loom larger than the sovereignty of truth:

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” (2 Tim 4:3-4)

Paul says, Timothy, a time is coming when what people want will govern what is preached. They will gather around them teachers who tell them what they want to hear. They will make the truth bow to their desires; they will not submit to it. Peter writes the following:

“knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Pet 1:20-21)

Man was an agent in God delivering His Word, not an author. It is God’s Word, to show the Bible’s view of itself. It is not something man made. It is not something man can add to, edit or change. It will be here when human history is over. The ministry of the Word is to be a sincere, clear delivering of the truth to other men. Truth is sovereign over man. Man must submit to truth.

So, with the Bible teaching the Sovereignty of Truth, allow me to now prove that many Christians do not believe in the sovereignty of truth. They believe in the sovereignty of man.

The Sovereignty of Truth looks like this:

• It believes the objective truth revealed in the Word of God is the final authority for life; such that it will control the content of the message, and even the format of the content.
• While it will be sensitive to the needs of the group it is speaking to, it will never allow the format to contradict, dilute or distract from the truth.
• Truth will control what is said, and how it is said. It will control the message, and the medium.
• Everything will be a servant to delivering the truth as purely, accurately and powerfully as possible.
• When Truth is sovereign, it summons men to change. Man must change as a result of truth. Truth does not have to change as a result of changing circumstances or man.
• The sovereignty of truth believes it has what people need; therefore, it knows it is always relevant.

The Sovereignty of Man looks like this:

• While truth is paid lip-service, the man’s desires, habits, lifestyles are the ultimate governing and guiding force.
• In other words, to win the person, to gain the one listening, to convince mankind is the final motive.
• Truth is morphed and re-modelled to ‘gain’ interest, to ‘win’ approval.
• The truth is re-packaged, re-formatted and renovated to appeal to the nature of the listeners.
• In many cases, the sovereignty of the listener betrays itself by how it compromises the truth in its presentation or format.

Sometimes the way the truth is delivered contradicts the truth itself. Imagine, for example, having a Christian strip-joint. Now as crude an example as that is, I believe the sovereignty of man is gaining such ground in the church, I do not think we are far off from it. The argument will be, “But people addicted to strip-shows don’t come to church. This way, we can get them into a strip-joint, and then preach the Gospel to them”. The desires and needs of man, even if those needs or desires are sinful, are catered for, indulged – all in the hopes of giving the truth an audience. But in so doing, the truth itself no longer has any bite. By using a place and format that is the kind of thing the Gospel seeks to save you from, you have sacrificed the truth on the altar of the needs of man. Truth has been compromised. The needs of man triumphed, and truth took a back-seat.

That extreme example is actually paralleled by many real-life examples. What about the use of music that is universally used to promote immoral sex, rebellion, drugs, despair – and then using that music to sing of God’s glory? See, when music is debated today, what is always said are statements like the following, ‘But this is what the youth are listening to’ or ‘But this is how you take the Gospel to the people’ or ‘This is giving people the good news to music they enjoy’ or ‘but this is how we will reach rockers and rappers for Christ’. Notice all those arguments are all about man. This is what man wants. This is what man needs. This is what man desires. What you seemingly never hear is, “Is this form of music compatible with the truth? Does it help and support the truth? Is it an accurate reflection of the truth it carries? Does it help or harm the truth? Does it meet truth’s desires, truth’s needs, truth’s requirements?” Those questions are hardly ever asked or even considered, because the sovereignty of man is winning victory after victory over the sovereignty of truth.

Or, as another example, we could look at certain ministry techniques. In seeker-friendly churches, the following things have been and are being practised to bring people into church: staged wrestling matches, pie-fights, special-effects systems that can produce smoke, fire, sparks, and laser lights in the auditorium, punk-rockers, ventriloquists’ dummies, dancers, weight-lifters, professional wrestlers, knife-throwers, body-builders, comedians, clowns, jugglers, rap masters, show-business celebrities, reduced length of sermons, restaurants, ballrooms, roller-skating rinks, and more. Once again, the sovereignty of man reigns supreme. Whatever it takes to get people in church, we’ll do it. No thought for the truth. The truth takes second place. First priority is to hook the people.

You see this in so many ministries directed toward the youth. Are young people going to nightclubs? Well, then let’s have a Christian nightclub! No one even stops to ask, “Does a nightclub environment damage the truth?” No one asks, “Can a nightclub helpfully communicate God’s truth?” The sovereignty of man says, ‘Wherever man is, whatever he is doing, we will meet them there and hopefully give them some truth.’ Whereas the sovereignty of truth believes it has what people need, the sovereignty of man, in practice, believes it must become what people are. It secretly, and sometimes overtly, shows that it believes truth is boring, irrelevant and out of touch with man. Therefore, it tries to dress the truth up to be more interesting or attractive than truth itself. I grow tired of ministries devoted to showing how cool Jesus is, as if he is a new soft drink or some brand of clothing.

The sovereignty of man does not seek to change people; it seeks to reflect what they already are back to them. It wrong-headedly thinks that if it, like a chameleon, becomes exactly what its audience is, then it will somehow make the truth more attractive and palatable, and somehow it will win more people. It lives on the idea of ‘bait-and-switch’. Basically, bait the hook with whatever someone likes (apparently even if that bait is sinful) and then once they are biting, then switch the bait with some Gospel.

Now while we saw the Bible has many clear verses that teach the sovereignty of truth, those who practise the sovereignty of man have one so-called ‘proof-text’.

“For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” (1 Cor 9:19-22)

Now it is sad how this beautiful statement of Paul’s adaptability in ministry has been twisted to become supposed support for the pragmatic, man-centred ministry philosophies of so many. What was Paul saying here? Was he saying that he became whatever his audience was? So if Paul has come across a gang, he would have become a gang-member so as to win them? If he had met a gangsta rapper, he would have preached the Gospel in the form of gangsta rap? Is this what Paul was saying? Not at all.

Let us read it closely. Paul mentions three groups here – unsaved Jews, unsaved Gentiles, and Christians (whom he calls ‘the weak’). He says when preaching to Jews, he observed certain Jewish laws and customs so as not to offend them. For example, he had Timothy circumcised, simply because they were going to be in the presence of some Jews who expected that. When preaching to Gentiles, he did not have to observe these customs. He could associate with a Gentile the way another Gentile would. But please notice the phrase Paul puts it “To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ.” Paul mentions – though I was dealing with Gentiles outside of the law, I did not become lawless to win them. I simply dealt with them on their terms. When dealing with Christians, he could treat them in a way which unsaved Jews and Gentiles would not have understood.

What is Paul talking about? He is talking about adapting his presentation insofar as it would aid him in presenting the message accurately to his audience. This is what we do when we speak to children. We do not change the message. We change what words we use, we change the length of the presentation.

When missionaries go to China, they learn Chinese. They learn the culture. Where they find the culture is not violating Biblical principles, they embrace the culture to create acceptance and understanding. What is adapted is the presentation, so long as the presentation enables an accurate presentation of truth. But all of us understand that Paul believed in the sovereignty of truth. Can you imagine Paul attending the pagan immoral orgies at the Temple of Diana so as to ‘be all things to all men’? No, I’m sure the most ardent supporter of the sovereignty of man would draw the line there. We understand that Paul could not violate the truth just to give it an audience. What Paul did is a model for all of us: engage people. Love them. Find out about them. Find out what interests them. But do not imitate practises that are hostile to the Gospel message just to gain respect or friendship.

Our Lord Jesus had this perfect balance as well. People often point out that Jesus ate and drank with tax-collectors and sinners. They try to use this as an example of doing whatever necessary to reach people. The fact is that is warping what Jesus did. Jesus ate and drank with sinners, he didn’t become one. He loved people, but he did not imitate their lifestyles. What is certainly true of Jesus and of Paul was that there were no doubt places and situations they avoided, because in those situations the possibility of preaching a clear Gospel would have been compromised. I do not believe Paul would have entered the immoral taverns of the Roman world. Jesus certainly could have gone into questionable places in Nazareth or in Galilee, but there is no record of him doing so.

Becoming all things to all men means loving people as they are, not reflecting back to them what they are. It means learning about people, and engaging them, not indiscriminately imitating all they are to try and show them that Jesus is on their level.

The unintended side-effect of the sovereignty of man is that the Gospel message loses authority. Since those who minister like this are so desperate to convince the world that they are just like them, the world ends up disregarding them as an alternative. Their acts do not speak of a different life, a changed life, a holy alternative. So they dismiss such Christians as weak imitations of the real thing. In trying to win the audience, they lose the message.

Now someone will object and say, “Well, what good is the message if you lose the audience? What good is truth if no one listens? What’s the point of the sovereignty of truth if we lose our audience?” The answer is: It’s God’s Word. God’s message is to be delivered in a way which best expresses its content. The results are to be left up to God. Any attempt to do God’s work for Him dishonours Him. Many Christians act like God has written this archaic, boring book, and they are divinely appointed advertising agents, who are going to spruce up and liven up what God wrote in rather dull black and white. We need to stay away from this proud attitude. While desiring to be relevant; while desiring to be interesting; while desiring that man would come and hear – our first allegiance must be to the truth.

God promised His Word would ultimately do what He set out for it to do:

“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from the heavens, and does not return there, but waters the earth, and makes it bring out and bud, and give seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall My Word be, which goes out of My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall certainly do what I sent it to do.” (Isa 55:10-11)

God told Ezekiel not to secure positive results, but to preach His exact words to them:

“And you shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house.” (Ezek 2:7)

Our goal, certainly, is to love mankind but it is not to secure results. The Bible makes it very plain that the preaching of the Gospel is going to produce the twin reactions of rejection and acceptance, or happiness and heckling, or delight and disgust.

“For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor 2:15-16)

If we believe in the sovereignty of man, we will argue with Paul and say, “No Paul, it will only be like the aroma of death if we don’t present the message in a way that is fresh, relevant and meets people where they are. If we make it cool, then everyone will accept it.” To that, the Bible says – the Gospel, correctly preached will produce both reactions.

Presenting God’s Word purely and powerfully is the noblest motive possible. If we preachers do that, people will come. I believe that with all my heart. No, not the thousands that follow the prosperity Gospel teachers. But the hungry sheep will come.

God blesses purity over pragmatism. Now I certainly believe that the truth can and must be preached with passion. Nothing is more deadly than a boring preacher, because the truth itself is not boring. I do believe in learning about your audience and seeking to engage them. But does the fact that we can adapt our presentation mean that there cannot be forms and formats where the truth is being diluted? It is obvious – there are situations, contexts, places, activities, music genres, and other mediums that are hostile, contradictory, or at the very least, confusing to the Gospel message.

My point is this: the needs of the truth – what is necessary to present it purely, powerfully and practically, must always take precedence over the needs of the listener. That is Biblical. Do whatever you can to present the truth in a way that the audience you are dealing with understands it. But do not try to so influence their positive response to the truth that you end up diluting the truth in your presentation thereof.

The sovereignty of man is interested in results. It so wants to win man, it is sometimes even embarrassed about the truth. It focuses on trying to win man above all things. The sovereignty of truth is interested in reality. It knows truth is for man, but sees truth as being the authority over man. Therefore it focuses on trying to deliver that message as purely, powerfully and accurately as possible. It is sensitive to its listener’s needs, but not submissive to them. It submits to the needs of truth, ultimately.

Oh, for a generation of leaders in the church who love the truth more than the praise of man, who treasure reality as God states it – above results, who love people but do not seek to please them above God, who see the truth as sovereign over man.