Spirit of Truth/The Bible on Trial

The podcast today is a presentation of The Revelation of Jesus from November 7, 2020, and is a follow on program from the podcast given yesterday, that was presented the week before the Presidential election of November 2020. Today we will listen to what Rick and company had to say about the outcome of that election, and how it fits into the concept of being in a Life Road time line, rather than a Death Road prophetic time line. We hope and pray that you will be motivatied to both listen and study these issuse, such that you will have less fear about what is to come upon the world in the next little time. Join Spirit of Truth Ministry today December 9, 2023 at 10AM PST for our program The Revelation of Jesus with Rick Sterling; on blogtalkradio.com/sot.

'Tis the Season! Christmas is a busy time for all of us, what with family commitments, Christmas concert performances (for those of us that are musicians), shopping, and all sorts of other things. This weekend, starting today Friday December 8, 2023, me and my wife and 60 of our friends (not including the orchestra) are sre performing three concerts at three different venues over a three day period. This requires a LOT of energy that has to be carefully expended such that we don't have enough to complete the concert cycle. The older we get the more difficult this is to accomplish. Also, Rick has other seasonal commitments this weekend, staring today, that make it impossible for us to do a live podcast either today or tomorrow.  Our Holiday schedule is as follows: "Best Of" programs today December 8, and tomorrow December 9, 2023. LIVE podcasts on December 15 and 16, 2023. Two more "Best Of" podcasts on December 21 and 22, 2023, because of the close proximity of these days to Christmas Day. .Our Podcasts for today and tomorrow are from October 30 and 31. 2020. Thank for your understanding. We pray you will be blest by listening again to these programs that show that there is more to the prophecies of the End than first meet the eye.

What Do You Expect, Root Beer?~ When I was a boy I was, like most boys of my era, a touch wild. Now most of the time I was what was called (in the vernacular of the time) a "Good Boy".  My parents reared me as a Christian; I was regularly taken to Sabbath School (the Sunday School of Adventism(), then church, then a family dinner or church pot luck lunch, and the a walk with my siblings and my Dad with the dogs going "Up the Road-a" into the  wilderness (truly-there were deer, cougar and bear) behind our house in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains. And as with any boy of the time (and indeed all times) I would get the occasional cut or scrape, as I tested my skills against reality. My father was a Physician, so when I got said cut or scrape I would run to dad (or mom, if dad was at the hospital) for emergency care. One day after playing "roll down the hill into the bushes", I experienced a fairly large gash in my scalp, that bled copiously, due to the vascular nature of the scalp. I'm certain this this event had nothing to do with my current follically challenged hair line. I ran inside to show my mother my wound that was bleeding all over my  hand and shirt. She called my dad to ask if she should bring me to the Emergency Room at the hosptial. In his normal country doctor voice he told her "NO", don't bring him to the hospital, just put an ice pack in a hand towel, and put pressure on the wound, and that he would be home after work to take care of it. That was in 3 hours. When he got home he camd me and I said, "Dad, I'm bleeding"!" He chuckled and said in his country doctor voice, "What do you expect, root beer?"  That day I learned about actions and penalties.  Soon the world will be experiencing this same thing in preparation for the Kingdom Coming to earth. We are preparing for that Coming, soon!

Christmas is Coming~ One of the little things I love about the Christmas season is the chocolate Advent Calendar. I buy this calendar every year at George's German Market. It is a picture calendar with numbers from 1 to 25, that are on little doors that you open starting on December 1, and eat a piece of chocolate that has shapes of Christmas themed things, such as a reindeer, Santa, Christmas tree, and such; one piece of chocolate for each day until Christmas day. Since my grandson was born I buy three of these calendars; one for each of my children and their families, and one for my wife and I to share (each of us opening a door on alternate days). Logan, my grandson LOVES chocolate. He comes over to our house on work days (after we pick him up from day care), and we entertain him until either his mom (my daughter) or his dad come to pick him up after work. Four days ago we had 'hidden' a calendar to give to them, in a place we thought would be out of the sight of Logan. However, just before they were about to leave for home Logan spotted the Advent Calendar, knew exactly what it was, picked it up and said, "chocolate".  It was all we could do to disuade him from tearing into the packaging right then. Em told us later that they let him open day day one (four days early), and would get another on to have enough days to get to Christmas. Logan was VERY excited to say the least. Where does our excitement for this season lay? In the chocolate of an Advent Calendar, or in something else? Yes, we all know Jesus was not born at Christmas, yet we can take time during this season to reflect on what Jesus came to do on earth. He came NOT to save us 'in' our sins. The True Christmas Story is that Jesus came to "Testify to the Truth" about how to enter the Kingdom of God, and thereby allow us access to the payment He made for that Kingdom. Now THAT is exciting!

Watching - Looking - Seeing~   "What you see is what you get"! This is a particularly understated euphemism with a more harsh meaning that goes right along with another more direct statement of fact, "You don't want to know the Truth". We live in a world that bombards us with copious amounts of information on a constant basis. There is so much information demanding our attention that many times during a particularly busy day we simply check out, and for a time we no longer have the capacity to understand what we have just heard or seen. We "watch" a TV show, but at the end we can sometimes don't remember what it was all about. That is because we have not been drawn sufficiently into the plot line, and we remain outside observers that don't have a stake in the outcome. Other time we "look" at a situation and only see a portion of what is going on, simply because our minds are somewhere else for that brief moment. Does anyome ever see a the cause of a car accident in real time? No. What we see is the result of that precipitating event and extrapolate backward in order to justfy what we just saw. This is why the investiaging authorities don't rely heavily on 'eyewitness' testimoy, because eyewitnesses do not give reliable testimony as to what they saw, because they weren't looking in the right direction when the accident occurred. "Seeing is Believing"! The act of seeing something means that you were looking directly at an event when it happened , and that it was so important to you that you committed the viewing and hearing of it to memory the moment that it occured. This is why we at Spirit of Truth Ministry use only the testimony of the eyewitness disciples that spent time with Jesus when He was here on earht in the flesh, as the source for the Truth as to what was said by Jesus during His time on earth. John 18:36-37.

With the world in turmoil it seems that peace is a thing of the past. This is why, here in America, we still celebrate a hoiday that has nothing to do with shopping for gifts, trying to decide how much we can afford this year in order to try to make family and friends happy. We celebrate a time of 'gathering together' to have a special (and in our family all home prepared) meal with a Heritage Turkey (not a white commercial bred tasteless birds), fresh made rolls, Oma made cranberry sauce, Opa made apple and pumpkin pies, and a host of other culinary gifts prepared by our family that shows the care and love that we have for one another. For one whole day we left the cares and concerns of the world behind, and we simply together; in the kitchen, and around the dinner table, where we laughed and talked, and each drank our chosen libation to our family and friend throughout the world that were not in attendance. This was a remarkable gift of time and love that I can see more of as we move into a much brighter future than that which we have been presented with in years past. Please let the program we re-broadcast today remind you of the good things to come, and that you can count on God to keep His/Their promises seen in prophecy that is up until now unseen and unlooked for. Happy 'day after' Thanksgiving to all of our listeners everywhere. Signed, Your Friends a Spirit of Truth Ministry

Silent Truth~ There is a beautiful choral piece that I have sung in several concerts (Music- Kim Andre Arnessen) that express the feelings of people that have suffered great sadness due to great loss. The lyrics are from a World War I prayer (Anonymous 20th C), that goes like this: I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining. I believe in love when I feel it not. I believe in God even when He (God) is silent. The world is going through a time of turmoil right now, just as it has for centuries. The upheaval can be overwhelming at ttimes, especially when we experience the direct loss of a loved one because of that upheval. This becomes personal when death touches someone close to you. Unrequited Love is when a person is unable to return to you the love you have given to them over a period of time. They are now gone, and the love which you have given them over the years has (now) no where to go, no one to recieve it, no path for it to return to the sender.  We grieve because of the painful reminder that the passing of a wife or husband, son or daughter, friend or even a beloved pet, takes away the relationship that once was so important, and becomes even more important because that loved one is gone. This brings the Big Picture of history, present and future events, and even prophecy into focus, because we all want our loved ones to be with us in the Earth Made New.  What do we do, and what to we say to those that we love that have no identity in Truth beyond their immediate future, that live life only in the present?  Uncertainty creates fear, and "perfect love casts out fear." (1John 4:18). Perfect love is the Truth. TRUTH is the opposite of uncertainty. The more we know Truth the more certain we become about outcomes, and fear of the future goes away.  So do not fear telling those you love the Truth.

Death Always Comes as a Surprise~ Last week I told you about my cousin Gordon who called to tell me that he has pancreatic cancer, and only has a short time to live. This week, I am sad to say, that he died at 3:08 AM this morning (November 16, 2023). This will be 'yesterday' if you are reading this tomorrow. My wife and I knew from his description of how he was feeling that there was not much time left for him on this earth. As it turns out, there was very little time left. His death has hit me hard, knowing him as well as I did in our younger years, and not having much direct contact in the intervening years. Cheryl, his wife of 50 years, texted us this afternoon to tell us the sad news. I am mentioning this for a reason. If the world does not change then all of us will eventually face what Gordon just faced; that is, death that comes slowly, slowly, slowly, then quickly. And as it happens, and even though I have not experience death for myself, the person dying never knows the exact moment that they have died; they simply change states. Why is this important? It seem (as a rule) that younger people that know that death is coming throughout their lives, but pay that knowledge little attention, being busy with life. Yet as they get older they thing about death with some expectation of being able to "cheat it", either through medical science, or if they are persuaded, by the expectation of Jesus coming again, to take them to heaven. But WHAT IF His coming in the clouds of Glory is not how our existence on this earth changes state? What if there is another road in prophey, a Life Road that doesn't require the death and destruction of most of the people on earth to accomplish? What will happen when the people of earth realize that everything has changed, and they DID NOT DIE? When they see the New Jerusalem coming down from Heaven to earth they will know the truth and not be surprised.

Decision Point~   Everyone, everyday, has a decision point that affects how you spend the rest of the day. For example, should I get gas now, or later? So if you get gas now you might be paying more for it than you would if you waited until you were able to get to a station with a lower price. On the other hand, if you don't get it now maybe you will run out of gas before you get to the lower price gas station, and then the problems compound.   Every decision point is a defining point in time, whether you acknowledge it openly or not. Some decisions are more important than others, yet all have the effect of either making life easier or more difficult. How you decide about WHAT you decide is critical to the pattern your life will take both today and in the future.   This is especially true for things inside of our spiritual natures. The decisions about how we believe about what we believe is more often than not not given the quality of care that we give to the more mundane aspects of our lives, like buying gasoline for the car. People have become immune to the necessity of carefully concidering these spiritual decision points as being worth the conciderable effort to process. We get so innured to the encumbrances of life in the physical that making a choice concerning our spiritual natures slips by the wayside, until it is too late to make the changes necessary to accomplish the growth and learning that is necessary for us to commit the the outcome, one way or the other.   Living by Faith is easy, because faith requires not commitment to a truth that is singular and absolute. "Faith allows a person to believe a lie AS IF it is the truth, without accountability!" (Rick Sterling).   The decision ot KNOW the God you worship, is the most critical decision point in life. Don't leave this decision until it is too late.

The Heart of the Matter~ My cousin is dying! He called the other day, and gave my wife and I the news that he is dying of pancreatic cancer and has but a little while to live. To me, this is and unmitigated disaster, because he has been a stalwart force in my life since we were children, and the thought of him dying is abhorrent to me. Yet there it is! He and his wife are facing a reality that is not at all what they imagined, when they were married more than 50 years ago. The reason that I am upset is that years ago we became estranged because in my enthusiasm for the truth I mailed him a copy of our newly published book The Spirit of the Church (Tate Pub. 2007), by Rick Sterling and Dennis Neufeld. Thinking in my innocense that this would be something he would be interested in reading it simply because I was one of the authors. It turns out I was wrong in that innocense. He called me and told me that he had only read two chapters of the book, and threw it away as a complete heresy to the Christian Church, and never wanted to talk about it again.  I was willing to let this go, even though I was disappointed that he had not read enought of the book to understand the context. We then gradually grew apart, through both physical distance, and an emotional and spiritual rift that clouded our relationship for years. His calling me to tell me his plight brought to my mind how what Jesus said about the truth being a two-edged sword is truth. Both of us could have reached out sooner, but I am glad he called, because we still have a little time to close the gap, and renew our friendship. Truth is the Heart of the Matter. Speaking truth has and will continue to separate us one from another. Yet we must still love those that reject truth, knowing that they may not be rejecting us at the same time. We won't know the ultimale outcome until all is accomplished.