A friend recently forwarded me a report in the news about a man, Emile Ratelband, a Netherlands media personality, who wants to change his age legally from 69 to 49, because he “identifies as a 49 year old”, and because it will make him better able to attract younger women on an online dating site and more hirable for certain jobs. So, he wants his birth certificate changed to reflect how he identifies. We’ve all been told in recent years that we need to allow and accept those who “identify” as another gender, let them change their gender on their birth certificate, compete athletically against those of their opposite birth gender, go to the restroom or locker room of their choice, etc. It would appear more and more that truth and facts in this world really have become completely a matter of how we feel. Instead of delusions being a psychologically abnormal state, there is a deliberate effort being made to make delusion the norm. Facts and truth are becoming so fluid as to be pretty much nonexistent. The absurdity of it would be hilarious, if it weren’t so shockingly frightening.

But as many of us might recognize, this has been going on a long time in the world a long time now. 

In spite of the proofs for the existence of God — nothing comes from nothing, design, and the moral proofs — some refuse to believe what they cannot see. Yet, they’ll accept the “big bang” or the eternality of the universe without any (ANY!) proof that can be seen — and in spite of the scientific facts and laws mentioned just above. 

The Bible’s teaching about creation is rejected often not on the basis of any fact, but on the basis of what “everyone else” says it must be. Indeed, in spite of the fact that there has never been a single true transition between species discovered (the missing link is still missing after over 200 years of looking for it), many are “just certain” that evolution must be true. But the facts don’t support the evolutionary claim.

As people read that Jesus is the way, the truth, and life, and that no man comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6); some would almost immediately respond that it simply couldn’t be true. “There are many ways to the same Heaven (just by different names).” But the facts don’t support this religious claim.

As people read what the book of Acts has to say about how to become a Christian (including Acts 2:38 and Acts 22:16), there is often a quick rejoinder that salvation is by faith alone; because that is what a prior minister told them one time. “I accepted Jesus into my heart and said the sinner’s prayer and now I feel in my heart that I am saved.” But the facts don’t support this religious claim either.

Despite reading passages like Revelation 20:15 as it speaks of the condemnation of the lost in Hell, it’s not unusual to hear, “I just can’t believe that a loving compassionate God could possibly send anyone to a place like Hell. I feel that the part about Hell must not really be true.” But the biblical facts don’t support the wishful thinking.

Spiritual truth after spiritual truth is often rejected by men on the basis of how they feel. So men feel their way to the “right” church, feel their way to worship that is in spirit and in truth, feel their way to unity, feel their way to morality, feel their way to doctrinal truth and more. Constantly groping for but never arriving at the truth, because they don’t read or believe the Bible (the one absolutely true source of spiritual knowledge). 

God made man and woman in His image, including our emotions; but emotions are not what determine truth. No one can simply wish something to be true and have it become true. That’s magical thinking — and no Harry Potter isn’t true either. Anyone interested in getting to Heaven must realize this and operate in the spiritual world with the same rational approach as we do in the physical one.

In early television there was a police drama entitled Dragnet in which the lead detective, Sergeant Friday, frequently encouraged his witnesses with “Just the Facts, Ma’am”. Maybe we’d all do a little better in this world — but especially in the spiritual world — if we just stuck to factual truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth — the Bible.