We Can Know The Truth - Brothers On A Journey - Intro Part 2 - Jason Willis

Hello there, and welcome back to Brothers on a Journey. In our last episode, we talked about whether or not the truth can actually be known. And we determined that if we are going to believe the words that came out of Jesus' mouth, we must believe that the truth can be known. Because in John 8:31-32, Jesus said, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth, it will set you free." And that brings us to the topic of this episode. How is it that you know when you've actually arrived at the truth? Is there some way or method of seeking the truth so that when you actually find it, you know that you've got it?

What if I were to tell you that I had a very special pair of glasses that when you put these glasses on, you can know the truth about everything? You can have every answer to every controversy that has ever plagued the church since the beginning of time. All you have to do is put on these glasses right here. If I told you that, would you believe me?

If you did believe me, would you have the courage to put these on? A lot of people say, "Well, yeah, of course, Jason. If I could learn the truth about everything, I would definitely put them on." If you did put them on and it turned out that what you believed simply did not correspond with reality, what would you do about it? What would you do? Would you change? And once again, this circles us all the way back to the beginning. Are you a seeker of the truth, or are you simply a defender of your own religious sect? Now, I do not actually have a pair of magical truth glasses, but I do have something that's like it.

And I want you to listen real close to this because this is so important. It's a super big deal here. And I have no doubt that when you hear what I'm about to say, you're going to be thinking, "Man, this guy is a little bit off his rocker, a little crazy, if you ask me." I do not have a pair of magical truth glasses, but what I do have is a method, a method of seeking the truth in a way that almost always leads to a true knowledge of that truth. Choose any controversy within the church today and use this method that I'm talking about right now, and you will find the truth with such a high degree of certainty that there will be almost no room left in your mind for any other view.

Now, I could be wrong about this. I don't think that I am. So how about this? How about you just let me lay it all out for you right here, and then you be the judge for yourself? But before I do, let me ask you just a couple of questions, and I want you to be honest with yourself. It's super important to be honest with yourself here. How is it right now that you arrive at the truth? Is there some method that you use? Are you even conscious about how you get to the truth today? Have you ever really thought about that? Do you just believe whatever it is that the preacher has told you?

Or are you the type of person that says, "You know what, Jason? The way I arrive at the truth is I actually read my Bible." And that is a good answer. And in fact, that is probably the answer that I would have given for about the first 36 years of my life. But as we covered in the last episode, there were some things that I was wrong about, some major things that I was wrong about. And it's not that the Bible is not sufficient. The Bible is absolutely sufficient for all truth. The point that I'm making is that I thought that I believed what I believed because I had read it in the Bible. But in reality, I was completely blind.

I was unaware of different ways that the culture and other things had affected the way that I actually understood the scriptures. So let's talk about four different things that we need to set the stage for so that you understand in order to be able to understand this method of seeking truth. Number one, the majority of us Christians do actually agree that the scripture is the final authority for us. Number two, the apostles were inspired men of God. For example, if an apostle wrote a letter or put their stamp of approval on a letter, to those first Christians, those writings were considered as inspired. They copied them, they shared them, they studied them, they memorized them, and they did everything they could to get them into the hands of other Christian brothers and sisters.

Somewhere around 100 AD, the last apostle dies, and that put an end to the creation of scriptures for the Christian religion. Number three, the vast majority, if not all, division within the church is born from different groups interpreting these New Testament scriptures in different ways. One group says, "This is what the apostles meant, and here are the scriptures that back up our position." The other group says, "No, no, no, no. This is what the apostles meant, and here's how we know that we're correct." And this brings us to number four, and again, here's where our problem lies. All groups are backing up their own positions with the exact same scriptures. And this brings us to a big fat stalemate.

Just imagine how little division there would be in today's church if every year or so God would send the apostles back to earth to clear up any rising conflict. "Hey, Paul, these guys over here are saying that now that I'm a Christian, I don't get to be a prostitute." Can you believe that? I mean, right here it says, "I can do all things through Christ." You wrote that, Paul. And right here at home, right here, everything is permissible. Tell them they're wrong, Paul. And Paul could just clear it up for us.

Listen, there's no room for the unrepentant heart in the kingdom of God. They're right. You're wrong. Have you ever thought about the fact that there was actually a time in history where men had this opportunity? Think about it. Jesus dies in 33. The final apostle, John, he dies somewhere around 100. This means there was a 67 to 70-year window of time when Christians were able to receive direct teaching from the apostles themselves. They spoke the same language as the apostles. They lived in the same culture, and they were able to ask questions. "Peter, what did you mean by that?" "John, what do you mean the word became flesh?" I'm not sure why, but for some reason or another, it never actually dawned on me that there was a time in history where there were Christian leaders who were actually the disciples of the apostles themselves.

I don't know why. There is actually a name for them. The Christian leaders that directly preceded the apostles are called the apostolic fathers. During this 67-year time, the apostles planted and established the one true church, the unified, undefiled, unbroken, single-bodied church with zero divisions.

Fast forward 2,000 years, here we are with a broken church debating things of eternal consequences and coming to opposite conclusions. Where exactly is the truth seeker to turn, the real truth seeker? When the authority of scripture is being pitted against itself as evidence for opposing views, where is the seeker of the truth to turn? Is there any other authority that we have that we can turn to to clear up these matters? Well, what about that first church? What about the apostolic fathers? What about those men who were there to receive direct teaching and revelation from the apostles themselves, studied under them for decades? I wonder if they left any records at all of what the apostles actually meant in these scriptures.

It turns out the anti-Nicene fathers did have a little bit of something to say, and it's all right here.

Follow me here. This is so important. This Bible is scripture. This is not scripture. This Bible is 100% inspired by the Holy Spirit. This is not. This Bible is direct revelation from God. This is commentary about how the early church, the historic church, understood the revelation of this Bible.

This Bible is the number one authority for the church. These writings are the number one authority for how the very first church that existed understood this Bible. Think back to that stalemate. This church is saying, "This is the truth, and this is how we know we have the truth." Over here, this church is saying, "No, no, no. This is the truth, and this is how we know we have the truth." When you hit that brick wall, that is not the end for the seeker of the truth. Because the seeker of the truth is always able to ask, "How did the historic church, how did the early church understand this message as it was delivered to the apostles?

How did they understand it and receive it as they were there with them, able to ask questions and get clarification?" And to the seeker of the truth, the apostolic fathers are a breath of fresh air. Because you will find that on every topic where there are eternal consequences, they wrote pages and pages and pages explaining in detail exactly how they understood what the apostles meant.

In all of these volumes that you see right here, you will find zero division. You will find a little difference here and there, but no division. They knew exactly what it was to be a Christian, and they were not in any way afraid to say it. The method is simple. Pick a topic.

See what the scriptures say about that topic. Then see what the anti-Nicene fathers believed about what these scriptures said, and then make your own conscious decision. And pay close attention to the words that I chose there. Make your own conscious decision.

Follow me here. You see, if what you believe or what your church believes or what your family believes is different than what this first church believed, then you must make your own conscious decision. What are you going to do with that? Are you going to abandon your old beliefs and take on a new one or not?

Now, don't forget, these anti-Nicene writings, they are not scripture. You are free to believe about them what you wish. But when an issue arises where it is crystal clear what the early church believed in a matter, but your church teaches something different, if you choose not to align your beliefs with the early church, you are, in effect, saying this: Jesus came. He died for our sins. He established a new covenant.

He brought salvation to all men. He gave us and his apostles his very own spirit. He entrusted his truths to the apostles and said, "Preserve them and take them to all of the edges of the earth." And the apostles, they did good enough to get their thoughts into the scriptures. But when it came down to actually delivering those truths to their very own disciples, they just couldn't pull it off. But thank goodness that Constantine and the popes and Calvin and Luther, thank goodness they came along and were able to clear it all up for us.

Now, in all seriousness, it is possible. I'm not going to deny that. It is possible that these apostles, these men who were so inspired that they had the authority to actually pin scripture. I can picture it now. There's the apostles delivering this truth to their very own disciples, and it's just going right over their heads.

"Uh, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Peter, we're following you, Peter. We get it. We get it, Peter. We don't get it. We don't get it at all."

I mean, that is possible. I'll give you that. But I'm not going to hang my salvation on that coat rack. Uh-uh. Not me. No, sir. That just doesn't even make sense to me. Now, as I've mentioned, I myself have been wrong about so many things. I have had to abandon so many wrong beliefs. But I can tell you wholeheartedly that there is nothing more refreshing than knowing that the truth can actually be found, and then seeking it, and then finding it, to seek the truth and say, "I want to know the truth." And then you look into these things, and there it is. And then you say, "Wow, I like that. I want more of that."

And then you look more, and there's more. I'm telling you, the truth is not complicated. The truth is not buried under 25 layers of theology. It is available for me. It is available for you. And it can be understood by the simplest of minds. I can promise you these things.

So there you have it. There's the method. Let me just bring it all in and simplify it for you. Number one, study the Bible. Number two, study what the very first church that ever existed believed about this Bible. And number three, decide for yourself if you're going to believe something different.

I love it. So what do you think about all this? Are you convinced? Are you not convinced? Are you halfway there but have some questions and kind of maybe just want to see where this all goes? Or maybe you see some huge gap in my logical process. Listen, if I'm wrong, I need to know. So it's time for us to seek the truth. Let's begin this journey. Let's open up this conversation. Get down in the comments down there and tell me what you think. Help me to see if there's any errors that I'm falling into. In our next episode, we're going to be covering some admin things. We're going to be discussing the different resources that we have at our disposal.

We want to make sure that all of you know how to get these things in our hands so that we can study them out together. After that, the episode topics will be up to you as the viewer. After all, we are here to serve you.

So where do you want to go from here? What do you want to learn about next? Let's open this conversation up. Get down there in the comments and tell us what topics you want to dive into next. I want to thank you very much for joining us in this episode today. Be sure to like this video and share it with somebody that you love. If you haven't yet, subscribe to our channel and make sure you hit that notification bell. We hope you all have a blessed and wonderful week, and we'll see you next time.