The Truth in a Fake World

July 7, 2025

What is the internet’s favorite motto? Answer: If it’s online, it’s divine! How do you know if a cat video is authentic? Answer: Easy! It’s on the internet, so it’s 100% true. That is because everything on the internet is true, right??? The fact is there are millions of fake accounts on the social media platforms, most created to spread lies.

In 2024 studies found that there were 968 fake accounts generated by one Russian Bot Farm on X and thousands more on TikTok. FBI Director Chris Wray (2017-2025) noted that, Russia will identify divisive issues inside America and then use fake news and propaganda to “spin people up on both sides of the issue and then watch us go at each other.” The Russians don’t care about sharing the truth, or who gets elected, they just want us to hate each other.

Jesus teaches us a lot about the truth. I want to highlight three things he says about truth today. The first is from John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Jesus is saying that truth is more than a series of true statements, that truth is a person, who is Jesus Christ. To know what truth is, you must know Jesus, the Son of God. This means, that truth has a divine and transcendent aspect to it. It is universal and absolute; it is unchanging and complete; it is exclusive; and it is ultimate reality because God is perfect truth, and everything we know about what is true is defined by who God is.

This means that truth cannot be man-made or finite. It cannot be driven by the whims of your heart or by the edicts of the State. It cannot be this today and that tomorrow. It cannot be contradictory, as in the common “your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth.” When Jesus says that He is the Truth, then we can’t go out and craft truth for our self.

Secondly, in the Gospel of John, Jesus uses the phrase, “I tell you the truth…”, or “Truly, truly, I say to you…” twenty-five times. Jesus is letting us know that truth can be known, and it can be stated. Truth is also objective; and can be expressed. Jesus has placed truth into the realm of reality and not in the realm of emotional whims or philosophical musings. There is something concrete about truth. It can be expressed and heard and known. It isn’t a “sense” or a “feeling” or a “force”. It is not a “burning in the bosom” or the “leading of your heart.”

The third teaching I lift up from Jesus today comes from what He says in Matthew 7:24, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Jesus was speaking about those who hear His words and either act upon them or do not act upon them. He then used the illustration of one building his house upon the rock and another building upon the sand, and when the storm and floods came, the house built on rock stood, and the house built on sand fell.

Jesus is teaching that it is critical for us to know what truth is, because it becomes the foundation of our lives. If we build our lives on half-truths and lies it is like building our house on sand, ready to be washed away with every flood of life.

These three teachings about truth are completely rejected by our culture. The culture has embraced the lie that truth is relative, and rejects the transcendent and divine nature of truth. Truth has become relative based on feelings of the heart or the whims of the courts, and we have become ignorant of the consequences that come to those who ignore or reject the truth of God. The culture is challenging the Biblical worldview every day because it teaches that truth is defined by each person and the culture itself.

Do you trust the Bible to be the ultimate source of truth in your life? If not, then what is your source of truth? We are finite creatures, and therefore greatly limited in how much knowledge we can accumulate and process correctly. We will have to have a source(s) of truth or we will be easily deceived. Choose your source of truth wisely, and if it is the Bible, then you need to know what the Bible actually teaches. “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). (To learn more about Al Earley or read previous articles, see www.lagrangepres.org. You can purchase my book, My Faith Journal, at Amazon.com, a compilation of 366 articles as a daily devotional).