We best judge our standards against absolute truth

I had practiced the scale on my trombone for several days and could play it with impressive speed. Surely I would be declared the best brass player in the elementary school band when our instructor came to test us.

Or so I thought.

When test day arrived, I smugly waited my turn and then played with pride. There was brief silence, followed by robust applause from my fellow band members when I had finished. Oh, how I soaked in their accolades.

Then my instructor smiled at me, calmly walked up to my chair, and with a pencil scribbled a grade on my music book: C-plus.

I laughed at first. It had to be a joke.

Then he slowly and patiently helped me understand the truth.

Yes, I had played each note deliberately, clearly and with confidence — important criteria for a top grade. But I had also played in the wrong key.

So every single note that came from my horn that day was the wrong note. In truth, the C-plus was an act of charity; I had failed miserably.

You see, I sincerely believed I had played that scale correctly. I intended to be correct. It even sounded perfect to my classmates, provoking applause.

But I had failed to double-check the absolute standard by which my playing would be measured: the sheet music!

Today, we’re often tempted to use faulty standards when it comes to deciding what is right and wrong. If it sounds good, or wins the applause of others, it must be right. Right?

Well, frankly, no. Those measures fail us when they don’t square with the absolute standard of truth: the word of God.

It saddens me that in the church today there are those who purport to teach truth based on feelings, or whether their arguments resonate with popular culture, or whether they win the applause of others. Happily, Christians need not be led astray by false teachers, because their falsehood is readily proven by the word of God.

The 19th-century evangelist D.L. Moody once said: “The best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside it.”

The straight stick Moody referred to, of course, is God’s word. It is the final and unbending measure of truth.

Our culture presents us with some pretty weighty moral challenges these days: gay marriage, euthanasia, the blurring of gender roles, abortion, moral relativism.

The Bible tells Christians to beware of gauging truth by feelings, or popular opinion, or what seems right to us. Feelings can be misleading, popular opinion is fickle, and the gut instincts of even the most well-meaning people can be terribly wrong.

Proverbs 16:25 tells us: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” When we base our beliefs on anything other than the absolute standard of truth — God’s word — we do so at our own peril.

As Christians, we must be leery of those who are awaiting new truth, or point us toward supposed truth that is beyond the inspired word of God.

In the early church, such “extrabiblical” views were openly referred to as heresy. Today, we know them by much gentler terms: moral tolerance and compromise.

Moody was right. The best way to show false teachers are crooked is to simply place their teaching alongside the sure, straight, unchanging word of God. The solution to moral arguments tearing at the church today — and tearing apart American politics — is not found by pursuing some fuller truth or reaching some new level of education or enlightenment. We simply need to be refreshed by the plain, simple truth of God’s word.

The Apostle Paul’s warning to Timothy is especially poignant. It gives a clear message to all of us, but particularly ministers and others responsible for preaching and teaching God’s word: “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16 NIV).

It should never be a Christian’s goal to win the popularity contests of our time. In the Scriptures, we see great men and women of God rejected by their culture for standing firmly on God’s timeless truths.

In fact, the Bible tells us that to follow Christ is to join a fellowship of suffering. We should expect to be disregarded by those who reject the truth of God’s word.

I learned some lasting life lessons in that band class so many years ago.

We must be leery of embracing that which merely feels good, sounds right and wins widespread applause. Unless our beliefs and actions square with the absolute standard of what is right, we may be surprised by the final grade.