Name of the Book: Outrageous Truth . . . 7 Absolutes You Can Still Believe
Author: Robert Jeffress
Publisher: Water Brook Press
Place of publication: Colorado Springs
Year of publication: 2008
Reviewed by: J.N. Manokaran
The author Robert Jeffress is a Pastor, writer and speaker. He has listed seven outrageous truth in as many chapters and convincingly argues for absolute truths. It is a timely book for Christians to read as there is a vicious attempt to tarnish Christianity for standing for truth. The author is clear that no society can afford to condone what God has condemned. Even Christians are swayed by the concept of relative truth which is well said in this dictum: ‘Everything is right sometime, and nothing is right every time.” The author rightly says about postmodern: “Being good is now defined as feeling good.”
Relativism encourages immorality, discourages evangelism and promotes persecution. One man’s pornography becomes another person art. “In a society that rejects absolute truth, the only vice that cannot be tolerated is the sin of intolerance.” Christians will have to face social, academic and legal persecution for the sake of truth. Christians did not agree with the content of the truth with the modernists but, were in agreement in the concept of the truth. Postmodern are no longer trying to determine whether Christianity is ‘right’ but whether ‘it is right for me’. “Again, the greatest sin to a postmodernist is claiming to be right about anything.”
Three premises concerning the absolute truth: They are universal, revealed and exclusive. You cannot say that the ‘law of gravity’ is applicable only to those who believe in law of gravity. Man’ responsibility is not to develop truth, but to discover it.
First: Every Other Religion Is Wrong
“Most major religions attempt to answer the question: ‘How can a person have a right relationship with God?’ But our culture is attempting to move the answer to that question from the arena of objective truth (such as State Capital) to the arena of opinion (such as comfortable temperature).” Christians are blamed as practicing Spiritual Racism. The quest for tolerance replaced the quest for truth as the highest ideal. When Christians claim Lord Jesus as the only way, people say: You are being intolerant; Exclusivity promotes hatred; How can so many people be wrong?; All religions teach basically the same thing; and It is unfair for God to send so many people to hell just because they haven’t believed in Jesus
Second: God Is Ultimately Responsible For Suffering
“Suffering is the price we continue paying for the freedom to choose between right and wrong.” God’s disciplines his children, with love but doesn’t eliminate the pain. “One writer has said that God will always seem unfair to a person trapped in time.”
Three insights from the Scripture that gives us perspective for suffering: God purpose for our lives is good; God’s purpose for our lives requires discomfort and God’s purpose for our lives will be ultimately realized. Suffering is often beyond comprehension, but there are three truths: God is in control of every circumstance in my life; God understands my suffering; and God has not yet revealed the final chapter in my story. “Only from the vantage point of any empty tomb are we now able to label ‘good’ what seemed so evil just a few days earlier.”
Three: God Sends Good People To Hell
“Thirteen percent of the 1850 verses in the New Testament that record the words of Jesus deal with the subject of external judgment and hell.” Three important truths about hell: Jesus taught that hell is an actual place; Jesus described hell as a place of horrendous suffering and Jesus taught that hell is a place of suffering forever. People object to hell because: they think God is just tolerant of sin as we are. But our willingness to tolerate evil is due not to our righteousness, but to our unrighteousness. Cross reminds us that God has zero tolerance for sin. Second, We assume that we are not that bad. “Ultimately, every occupant of hell will be there by his own choice.”
Four: Homosexuality Is A Perversion
Six myths promoted by the advocates of homosexuality: Homosexuality is Homosexuality Is A Perversion condemned only in Old Testament; Jesus never condemned homosexuality; The Bible’s condemnation of homosexual is misunderstanding of the text (Sodom was not destroyed for homosexuality); Science has proved that some people are born gay; Homosexual have healthy relationships like heterosexuals; Ten percent of population is homosexual; and Homosexual is fixed desire and cannot be changed. The author refutes all the arguments. We have to remember that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.
Five: Husband Are To Be The Leaders Of Their Families
“Wives have to put their husband’s needs above their own, just as husbands are to elevate their wife’s needs above their own desires.” The author writes; God designed women to be a helper for men to compensate for our deficiencies. The Bible teaches that men are just as helpless without woman as they are without God.” Anything in nature with two heads is a freak, and anything with no head is dead.
Social psychologists identify five types of power that human beings exercise over one another. Information power: gives or withholds information; Referent power: Positive example of the authority figure motivates the subordinate; Coercive-reward power: Offer punishment or reward; Expert power: Authority figure is more gifted or skilled and Positional power: Subordinate obeys solely because the superior holds the position. The first four powers are equally available to both husband and wife, while the fifth is possessed by husband.
Never is a wife obligated to do anything that violates the clear teaching of God’s Word, such as engaging in immorality, forsaking worship with other believers, or allowing herself or her children to be physically abused. “A wife is never to be treated as a child or a slave but as an equal partner in the marriage who submits to her husband’s leadership, not because she is inferior, but because she voluntarily accepts God’s design for marriage.” Wife refuse to obey men, because they do not see men submit to God’s authority. “Submission is encouraged not only by a husband’s example but by his sacrifice as well.”
Six: Evolution Is A Myth
“Evolution is more than a scientific theory; it is an alternative religious philosophy regarding the origin of life.” The author has provided all arguments against evolution. Scientists say that A single fertilized egg of a human being, which is no larger than a pinhead, contains enough DNA information to fill 500000 printed pages.
Seven: America is a Christian Nation
The constitution of USA is based on Isaiah 33:22: For the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king.” He has documented from history, how America was and is a Christian nation. The author concludes in his final chapter: “The goal is not winning the argument, but winning over the other person.” “A debater’s goal is to win the argument. A disciple’s goal is to win the person.”
This book is a good book that provides tool for Christians to face a hostile postmodern world. All Christians could be benefitted by reading this book.
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