don't believe everything you hear

If there's anything that's frustrating to me as a pastor, it's that the voice of God's word is being drowned out by the myriad of voices in our culture. This is not surprising since the Bible said it would be this way. Right after Paul encourages Timothy to "Preach the Word" he says that a "time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths" (II timothy 4:3-4). Well, I'm going to keep preaching the truth of the Word of God...but myths and stuff the culture wants to hear abound...Here are a few myths that many (especially a younger generation) have bought as truth...because it sounds like what we want to hear: 1. Myth - people are born homosexual or not. This is not in fact a scientific conclusion, but our culture wants to believe it so that they don't have to listen to God. God calls homosexuality a sin...we must deal with that. 2. Myth - the most important thing is to protect the children of the world from physical harm, be it gun violence, abuse, poverty, or being orphaned. In fact, as Christians we must care for those who are most vulnerable and our belief demands we have an active response to love and protect these innocents..but it's not the most important thing. Protecting these children spiritually is what matters most. Bringing them up in The Lord is more important than any safety or rescue measure we could take. 3. Myth - it is our duty to reverse global climate change. I'm not going to debate whether we have sufficient data to conclude what is going on (interesting that scientists want to make this world billions of years old, but think we will destroy it in two generations), but is it our main job to save our environment. Again, the proper Christian response is to be good stewards of what God has given us (ie. don't litter, control waste, nurture growth, etc...), but it is complete arrogance to believe that we can change the decay of the world since our Sovereign God has promised it is ending and decaying and that He will end it when He determines...In other words, we can't destroy what He wants to maintain, and we can't preserve what He is going to destroy. God's footprint is bigger than our carbon footprint. 4. Myth - to live together we must totally agree on everything. In fact, my favorite person in the world is my wife Sara and we don't agree on everything. It would be a very boring relationship if we did. Christians should be the most loving and accepting people of others in the world, but I don't have to change what I believe to be true in order to love someone! I can love a sinner without saying their sin is okay...and I do. As you can see there are some really significant untruths out there,but we must listen with discerning ears. What is your source for absolute truth? For me it's the Word of God and anything that conflicts with that is something I should be suspicious of.