Several years ago, Barney The Purple Dinosaur, beloved friend to millions of children, was hurt. During filming of the Barney & Friends show, a cooling fan inside the sixty-pound dinosaur suit short-circuited and started to smoke. The actor playing Barney quickly got out of the suit but suffered smoke inhalation. He was taken to the hospital and soon released.
The story of the accident was carried on the news, and many children were scared and worried. Scores of parents called the television station to say their children were afraid that Barney had been burned, or worse, that he was a fake.
A spokeswoman for the producers of the program said, “It can be really devastating to a three-year-old. They love Barney and they think that something terrible has happened to him, or that he’s not real.” Fantasies like Barney can bring a person good feelings and we want to cling to it, as if it were real. But a fantasy is a fantasy, and sooner or later the truth comes out.
A teacher was once asked what is truth? The old teacher was silent as he walked across the room. He picked up a tuning fork and struck it. He said, “This sound represented an A. It is an A today; it was an A five thousand years ago, and it will be an A ten thousand years from now. The soprano upstairs sings off-key, the tenor across the hall is flat on his high notes, and the piano downstairs is out of tune. But the tuning fork is always an A.” Truth never needs to be updated.
We are often quick to say that Jesus “is the way the truth and the life” (John 14:6). Yet when we deny any Biblical principle that directs the decisions of our lives, we are denying Christ and choosing to live a lie. So, for example, if God says in His Word that we are not to fornicate or live together without marriage and we are currently cohabitating, we are not in obedience to God. The end result therefore is not life. Life is empowered by the Spirit, based on truth, who produces love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. However, a lie is about nothing. It is based on something that does not exist and has no foundation. Now consider the truth. The truth is “the body of real events or facts”.
The purple dinosaur named Barney never existed but the truth always did. The man inside the suit, along with his cooling system, inside represents more truth than the costumed character ever could or would. Christ lives forever and is the only truth. It does not matter how life looks He is the only way to experience truth and enjoy life.
