Spirit of Truth/The Bible on Trial

We will be continuing our program from yesterday on today's program.

Supreme Court~ Today RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsburg) lies in state in the Capitol building rotunda, ther first woman to do so in the history of our country. It is certain that RBG had a huge impact on the American consciousness regarding equal rights and opportunities for women in the profession of the Law. Few women were allowed to attend law school when RBG did, and certainly fewer women were allowed to enter service as a BAR certified lawyer. Today, more women attend law school that do men, and women hold positions in the courts of our country at the highest levels, including the SCOTUS. And although her contribution was mostly in Dissent as a Supreme Court Associate Justice, she provided the opinions of the 'loyal opposition' that had a great impact of how our country gives opportunity to the 'minority', no matter how you feel about her politics. RBG was considered and 'activist' jurist; that is, she often tried to use the High Court as a means of making law rather than simply defining law. She felt this was itself 'legal' because LAWS are often confusing because they are so complicated, and it was easy to slip an alternative interpretation into a law by edict in an 'opinion of the court'. She wanted to use the court to create law, rather than simply rule on an existing law. The Supreme Court of the Kingdom of the Heavens does not allow beings subject to the Law of God to try to 'interpret' the LAW in a way that would change any part of it. This is exactly what Satan tried to do when he went before the Court in the Heavens and tried to convince the Jurists these that he needed to be allowed to be the 'god of evil' in order balance out the activity of the God of Good. This is described in Revelation 12:7-9. Obedience to the Law of God as stated is the only justice that counts in Heaven's court. Evil has no interpretaton in God's Kingdom of Heaven.

Distraction~ We all have been distracted from time to time. Personally, it seems the older I get the more easily distracted I get. Being easily distracted, however, does lead one to contemplate the meaning of life; I will walk into a room, stop and say to myself - "Why am I here?" If we separate out the two components of the word we get 'dis-' and 'traction'; that is, the loss of mental traction. If we loose traction in an automobile we can have an accident. If we loose traction in the mind we can have a mental train wreck that can darken an otherwise good day. In the effort to prevent Distracion when trying to learn anything new we must establish a solid and viable epistemology. We need to establish a methodology that allows us to distinguish between reality and fiction, truth and lies, fact and opinion, preference and conviction. The ability to do this separates those that are lost, who don't know where they are, and don't know where they need to go, from those that know where they are, where they are going and why, and have a map that shows them how to get there.  Jesus came to earth to show people EXACTLY how to get from being in the kingdom of the world into being inside the Kingdom of the Heavens. "For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost". Matt. 18:11. Yet even the disiples of Jesus said they didn't know the way. Thomas *said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?" John14:5. Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me". John:14:6 The epistemology of the Kingdom of God is straight forward and simple, and involves two things; "Keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus". Rev. 12:17. Do not be distracted by deciet.

Frustration~ It is apparent by the language used by both sides in the debate of ideas in public discourse in media and social media that there is a great deal of frustration in that one side does not 'see' what the other sees as the truth as to which directon the country or the world shoud take in dealing with our common societal problems. This frustration is being dramatically expressed in violent protests and riots by one side, that has led to violence to persons, looting of businesses and destruction of property, both public and private, all in the name of 'equality' of outcome, or punishment for perceived racism. As if we don't have enough to worry about with the huge fires in the West. There are also those that are taking advantage of this frustration by paying for people to pretend to be interested in outcomes, but are only doing this violence for the money, which makes the other side frustrated because they have not apparent recource in dealing with these mercenaries.  This situation today is similar to what occurred in our Revolutionary War period where the British paid to have German Hessian mercenaries to come to the Colonies to strike fear in the hearts of the people that would have otherwise join in the rebellion, but stayed on the sidelines and let others do the hard work, because of the fear of these violent and well trained soldiers. Then Trenton happened and the war changed course. General Washington showed the people that the Hessians could be beaten, and recruitment to the Continental army soared. We are at a point in our history where this is about to happen again. It will happen because the good people of the world LOVE the truth, and will rise up and demonstrate that love by actions that counter the violence of the Left with Facts, Knowledge, Understanding, and LOVE. The peopel will choose Life and Prosperity instead of Death, Adversity and poverty. The Choice is here!

Liar, Liar~ What do you do when someone claims that you are lying in a situation, but they are lying about exactly the same thing and blaming you? Most people would call this a 'double standard'. but it is really called 'projection'! Projection is being blamed for doing something bad that someone else is doing in order to get people to look at you, in order to keep them from looking at them. This sounds convoluted, and it is-on purpose. Most people are not able to initially see or acknowledge that there is 'Projection' without help, because they don't have the emotional and psychological filters to be able to discern the implied connections. The type of person that uses Projection will rely on the fact that most people are good, and simply see Projected evil as a directed device, rather than a subte betrayal of confidence.  Jesus was plagued by the 'Projection' of the leadership of the Jews, who accused Him of doing the very same things they were doing in secret, in order to try to justify their behavior, in order to keep the esteem of the people and their high value positions of authority. Jesus was asked many questions designed to trap Him into speaking a lie, but Jesus responded with questions that they could not answer without showing that they were the liars.  Projection is happening today, and it is easy to get caught up in the projection of a lie about someone or something, and believe that it is the truth. The underlaying system is that just as the Jewish leadership hated Jesus and tried everything they could to get the people to reject Him, so too today will people hate you because of your love for the Truth, and they will to anything to get you to "believe a lie as if it is the truth." "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you". John 15:18.

Patriot~ Today is Patriots Day - a day upon which we remember the lives and innocence lost on this date 19 years ago, when the Twin Towers and building #7 in New York were destroyed by the actions of "Enemies of the State". The bravery and heroism demonstrated by the people that were directly affected by these events have gone down into the history of the United States of America as some of the most selfless and courageous acts of bravery, worthy of honor in the panoply of American Patriots. A Patriot is a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion (Dictionary.com). The firefighters, police, military and civilians that ran INTO those buidings and toward danger, demonstrated a love and devotion to their fellow Americans that in truth IS NOT unusual as a function of the American spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion to the ideals that our Founders codified in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.  They died so others might live, and there is no higher calling in our society than this. There are also founding documents of the Kingdom of Heaven that codify the ideals and actions of those that "Keep the Commandments of God, and hold to the testimony of Jesus". Those documents define the Gospel of the Kingdom, and contain the WORDS of God in the Old Testament, and the words of Jesus in the New Testament, that define the brave and selfless behavior of those that are devoted to  those words, and love them more than life itself, such that those people of that Kingdom would rather die than go against them. They are the Patriots of the Kingdom of God, that just as those that ran into the buildings 19 years ago, will run toward the sound of the war between Good and Evil, and will triumph in the Truth. Jesus set the standard of courage when He faced down death to give us life, and brought the words of Truth to the world.

Benign Evil~ It is a fact of life that when we get into a routine we tend to ignore things that are outside of our routine. The protests and riots, for example. It has become a daily occurance that we hear about another protest, or worse another riot on the news. After a while this becomes normalized in our consciousness. We see it, but we don't. It's there, but it isn't. Another example; we hear from time to time about an Amber Alert, where our phones tell us that a child has been abducted or lost, and 'please keep a look our for them'. We get the notice but we never hear the result. We almost never hear what happened to the child. At that point we simply say to ourselves, "That's too bad", and go on with our lives. This is similar to 'fudging' on our taxes, or telling a 'white lie' in order to cover our butts at work. These is 'benign evil'. It is below our consciousness, but rises up every once in a while, and then disappears again like the thought you get at the market when you forgot what you came for, because you didn't write it down, and you say "I'll get it next time.. This kind of evil doesn't impact your life so it isn't really noticed.However, there is going to come a time when there is no "Next Time". There is evil manifesting in the world today that is anything but benign. Evil that is so heinous that you would throw up if you saw the result of it's presence. Our lifestyles, and indeed our religions have put us in a state where we don't react to the presence of evil as God will soon require. We are not prepared for battle on an enormous scale simply because we have ignored the training that the words of God in the Old Testament and the words of jesus in the New Testament can give us.  Those that claim that they are in the army of God need to awaken to the fact that evil is never benign!

Metamorphosis~  In perusing Facebook this morning I was accosted by a meme that was stunning in its implications: "The metamorphosis of Jesus from a humble servant of the abject poor to a symbol that stands for gun rights, prosperity theology, anti-science, limited government (that neglect the destitute), and fierce nationalism is truly the strangest tranformation in human history." There is so much wrong with this statement, beginning with the initial premis that Jesus came to be a servant of the abject poor. The initial statement that Jesus came to be a servant of the abject poor does not fit with His own words seen in John 18:37. Jesus never inserted Himself or His message into the government or it's function. Jesus never insisted that the Roman government take care of the poor and needy. Jesus DID say that His servants were to do that. Jesus never conflated the role of government with what He said or did, or insisted that governments should function as an arm of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of the Heavens is a kingdom of the Spirit (John 3) NOT a kingdom of this world. Not yet! And this is where those that consider themselves in the Kingdom of God today have a problem of identity that prevents them from seeing the truth.  Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." John 3:5. One person in responce to this meme said categorically declared that if Jesus was alive today on earth He would be a Democratic Socialist. But everything Jesus taught shows that this is not only not true but it borders on blaspheme. This is how far down the spiritual identity of the world has fallen that there are those that insist that if Jesus was here right now He would be just like them, instead of them becoming just like Him. Spirit os everything, the physical means nothing.

The Checklist for Truth~ Truth can be amorphous, sometimes indistinct and slippery. You might hear a political candidate say something and claiming it is true, but it just doesn't feel right. A friend posts something on social media that piques your curiosity, and you know this person would never purposely lie to you, but you just aren't sure of his source, so you check it and find that it cannot be verified. So how do you KNOW what is true, or not? There is a checklist for truth, a proceedure and process that allows you to know for certain that what you believe is the truth. Information-Knowledge-Wisdom-Truth!  Truth is Singular and Absoliute! Truth contains NO lies, falsehoods, obfuscations, or deceptions. God says this about the people that have truth in them, "And no lie was found in their mouth; they are blameless." (Rev.14:5). To find and define truth a person needs wisdom. Wisdom is the assessment of knowledge. Wisdom comes through the understanding and colating of the disparate elements of a topic and finding the underlaying connections. Wisdom is the gatekeeper of Truth! Knowledge comes through the learning of and sifting of copious amounts of data and deciding what is verifiable and what is unreliable.  Information is the data from which the basis of all knowledge is formed. GIGO-garbage IN, garbage OUT is the term that is used to describe the idea that poor quality input will always produce faulty output. If the source of the information that you use to develope your knowledge of a subject is faulty the knowledge itself will be useless. At every stage of the development and discovery of truth there must be basic elements that are wholly reliable and uncorrupted by lies. Only Jesus speaks these words. He IS Truth!

Life and Prosperity~ "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live." Deut. 30:19. The distinction between the  political Left and the Right has never been more clear than it has become in the past few months. It truly seems that "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (Comedy/Adventure movie-1963), when mayors and Governors have given their cities and states over to the wild mob, who are rioting and looting under the guise of 'peaceful protest'. And when the President of the United States say that he would be happy to send officers into these places to quell the situation he is rejected out of hand and called a racist by these same leaders who will not stop the protests on their own. The founding principles of the Republic of the USA are being erroded by people that do not believe that they should be held accountable for their actions in breaking the laws of the land in order to get their way. Since the beginning of this year over 5 million people in the United States have become NEW gun owners, because they are scared that these riots my come to their towns, and they want to be prepared.  "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth;" John 4:23. This distinction between the Left and Right also is shown in end time prophecy as well, in that there are both Life Road and Death Road prophecies that will affect what happens at the end of time based upon what the people of the world choose. If the world follows the rioters and looters, we will head into the abyss of death and destructon where the prophecies of Revelation 13 and the 7 Trumpets and 7 Bowls of Wrath will play out. BUT IF we choose LIFE we will see a time on earth of prosperity and peace. That Choice is near, even at the door.