Guarding the Landmarks: Immovable Truth

Deuteronomy 19:14

You shall not move your neighbor’s boundary mark, which the ancestors have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that the Lord your God gives you to possess.

Landmarks are important. They eliminate confusion and remove the possibility of chaos. When surveys are conducted on pieces of property, they provide needed information about the starting point of one person’s property line and the ending point of another person’s property line. In the house I live in right now, knowing the property line is a valuable piece of information for me and my neighbors. 

Now, I want you to use your imagination for a few minutes. Imagine that one day my neighbor sold his house and moved. And then imagine that before the new neighbors could move in, I decided, completely on my own, to put up a fence a few feet into the new neighbor's property. Maybe I should say it this way, I simply chose to steal a few feet of his property and call it my own. I would be guilty of moving the ancient landmark that someone before me had officially established. Now that may sound like a strange illustration but it helps us to understand the importance of what the Bible teaches us about landmarks. For me to put up that fence in someone else’s yard is simply an act of dishonesty and lying. 

We are facing an epidemic of falsehood and deception in our world today. For example, just think about what happened when COVID-19 arrived on the scene. I can remember hearing from people in the medical world who were in conflict with each other over the virus. And some took very strong stands. But we also saw a similar conflict among the media, government officials, and educators. In some cases, it was a simple act of disagreement, but in others, it was clearly an opportunity to promote a personal agenda. We saw the abandonment of truth, the relocation of boundary lines, and the embracing of a new agenda in order to promote a personal narrative. And we were the ones left wondering what was true and what was not true. 

Each morning take a look at various news sites. I will look at a traditionally liberal new site to see their stance on a subject. And then I will look at a conservative news site to see another perspective. Inevitably, what happens to me is frustrating, because I find myself wondering what is the truth and where truth is hiding. 

Truthfulness is becoming a lost blessing. Instead, we live in a world that exchanges truth for lies and integrity for deception. And the result is confusion and ultimately chaos. And it all started with deception in the Garden of Eden. Satan himself used deception to bring confusion to Adam and Eve, and ultimately bring chaos to this world. The result of his deception and lies was sin. Just listen to Jesus’ testimony about Satan from John 8:44, “He (Satan) was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father  of lies.” By his very own nature, Satan lies, deceives, and is continually moving the boundary and the landmark of truthfulness. 

You can clearly see the impact of this on our world today. We live in a world of confusion and chaos. 

So what is the challenge for us and Christ-followers? The challenge is for each of us to let truth stand on its own and not move the boundary of truthfulness. We are to be people who speak the truth, hold on to the truth, believe the truth, and in no way compromise the truth. Truth is clearly the landmark that the enemy is moving today. 

How? By challenging the truthfulness of the Bible. In fact, Satan does the same thing to us that he did to Adam and Eve. He takes the truths we find in God’s Word and says to us, “Is that really what God said?” And before you know it, we have compromised truth and found ourselves in chaos. 

As we end today, I want to share an example with you. When I was a seminary student back in the 1980s, I found myself in an unusual situation. A professor questioned something that was clearly found in scripture. It had to do with the human authorship of one of the books of the Old Testament. As I sat in class that day, I remember thinking to myself, “Okay, so what’s the big deal?” Clearly, the professor did not believe in what was stated so clearly in scripture. However, in my mind, it was a secondary issue and so I dismissed the whole matter. 

Another student raised his hand and graciously, but firmly, challenged the professor’s viewpoint. The student’s point was simple: if we can challenge the truthfulness of something as seemingly unimportant as who wrote a book of the Bible, then who are we to say that the virgin birth was real, or that Jesus’s sinless life was real, or that even the resurrection itself was real. The student was simply pointing out that either the Bible is truth or it is not. And that its testimony of itself is one of truthfulness. So who are we to move that landmark? 

That challenged me! And it made me once again realize that truthfulness is always under attack from the enemy. Truth is a landmark and the devil himself and all of his wicked demons will lie to distort the truth. 

So what are we to do with this?

Read, Study, Learn, and Obey

We are to read, study, learn, and obey our Bibles for what it is, God’s truth. We can trust what it says and obey what it means. 

Be People of Truth

Our yes is to be yes, our no is to be no and our word is to be trustworthy (Matthew 5:37).

Let's be people of truthfulness and integrity!