Something I have learned the hard way over the past thirty years is that no amount of argument is going to make people change their ways. And when it comes to Truth with a Capital "T", there is no way short of a miracle that they are going to see it.
Oh, each of us truly BELIEVES that we are the exception, i.e. that we can discern right from wrong, that we know Truth with a Capital "T" when we see it. But it's definitely not true. It's like each one of us has been so programmed (through "The Fall" if you want a theologically simple explanation) that we will invariably reject God when he tries to talk to us.
The exceptions are not really exceptions, but rather miracles, and they don't just happen by accident. They only come when people are willing to humble themselves before God and admit that they DON'T have all the answers, and to beg him to reveal himself to them IN SPITE OF their own prejudices, selfishness, and all the other impediments that consistently make it impossible for us to hear the truth.
Of course I am saying this from the perspective of one who believes that he HAS found Truth with a Capital "T" (and, yes, I know, you will find a lot of people who claim the same thing). The difference is that I have found it has quite a different effect on me and my friends, to what I see in the counterfeits. The counterfeits seem to be constantly bombarding people with their claims, and trying to convince the world that they are better than they really are. But my experience is that it is very humbling to discover God, to hear him speak, and to take to heart what he has said. Truth with a Capital "T" is not something that you can box up in an organisation or a doctrine. But it is something that I have found revealed through the One who said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."
You see, I have discovered Jesus. I don't mean religion or a new church, but Jesus... the one in the Bible... the one who said to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. I have discovered him and his teachings, and I have also found that He (ie. Truth with a Capital "T") is the hardest thing in the world to share with other people. They are, as I said above, spiritually programmed NOT to receive him. He came to his own people (the Jews) and they "received him not". Yet he said that it was like a "green tree" for him compared to the desert that we would face at this end of history.
So, if everyone is programmed not to receive the teachings of Jesus, what hope is there of getting them over that and into real Truth (capital T, and all that)? The answer is the Holy Spirit. I believe that, while everyone ultimately seems to reject the message of Jesus, it doesn't happen without them getting a tiny hint at some stage that what we are talking about really is the genuine article. I think it is the Holy Spirit whispering in their ears that what we are saying is coming from the source of all Truth. But the genuine article is such that it is going to cost them everything... sooner or later; and they sense that almost as quickly as they sense that we have the real thing. And it scares them.
We have found that, even with our best "friends" and "supporters", there is usually a struggle with what they are hearing. (You can see a bit of that expressed in the video, "More Than Just a Band", where supporters talk of being challenged in their own conscience, and of having to play hide and seek with us because they can only handle so much at a time.) Our enemies cannot help but point out that sooner or later, most of our friends, supporters, and even some former members, turn against us. They get some kind of a revelation that we are unspeakably evil. Why does this happen? Not, by any stretch of the imagination because we are unspeakably evil. Quite the contrary.
See, "unspeakable" is the operative word here. They (none of them) dare to speak at length about what it is that makes us so evil. They rely, instead, on the fact that there are so many of them who just "don't like us" (as Jon Ronson, the British journalist put it), and so, on that basis (and largely that basis alone) they must be right and we must be wrong. Their dislike becomes so intense that many of them wish us dead, and a few have taken steps to make that a reality. Strange, isn't it? And yet it is perfectly consistent with what Jesus promised. He said that if we teach the same things that he taught, the same world that killed him will seek to kill us. Like
I said, it's programmed into their spiritual make-up.
But back to the exceptions. If, when people start to get hints from the Holy Spirit, about this being the truth, and about it challenging them to change, they will just fall on their faces (figuratively, if not literally) before God and beg for his help to accept the truth and to help them to be conformed to it, then the miracle can happen. I have no doubt in the world about that. But for the most part, it just isn't going to happen. We are living in a stubborn age, when people do not bow down to anything except their own selfish desires.
Even the people who thought they were being pretty "kind" to have anything to do with us in the first place, usually cannot let go of their own self-image long enough to let the truth break them and change them. God, Jesus, Truth are all just so many heady topics for discussion over a cup of tea, but not the sort of things that they are going to let turn their well-ordered lives upside-down. No, they're never gonna believe what the Holy Spirit has ever so gently whispered into their ears.
And is there any good reason to believe that you will not follow them down the broad way that leads ever so gently toward destruction?
