Spirit of Truth/The Bible on Trial

I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Rev. 3:18. Gold that has been refined is pure. Truth, like gold, can only be pure if it has been refined. There is no need at all to refine fatih. In fact if faith were to be refined it would disappear into thin air. Jes "Many shall purify themselves, and make themselves white, and be refined; but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand; but they that are wise shall understand." Dan. 12:10. Gold does not purity itself, or by some magic refine itself. Someone must have the where-with-all to perform (DO) the refining. That person is the person that values the truth above all earthly posession, because the Truth is not of this earth, not of this realm. Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm." John 18:36. The Kingdom of Truth is the THIS Kingdom of the Heavens. If a person is to achieve entry into the Kingdom of the Heaven they must gain that entry not through physical means, but through the Spiritual identity that comes from intimately knowing the King of that Kingdom. And there is only one way to KNOW the King of that Kigndom, and that is to DO what that King has established as the WAY, that leads to that Truth, that leads to the Life that is found in that Kingdom. Jesus himself established what it was that a person had to do to gain entry to that Kingdom of Truth; So the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. Rev. 12:17.

Earth Shaking! The last 3 days in Southern California have been uncomforable, to say the least. When the first 6.4 earthquake hit Ridgecrest Calfornia, I was at work at the Ace Hardware store in Yucaipa, and I knew it was an earthquake only because the hanging products started swinging in unison. There were no big jolts, just a gentle rolling motion that though disconserting was not frightening. I found out later the quality of damage that occurred in Ridgecrest, about 100 miles away to the north. Last night my wife and i were eating dinner, when the house literally began to 'rock and roll'. This quake lasted 20-25 seconds, and did frighten the animals, especially our big GSD Charlie. I turned the TV to the news, and we were informed that a 7.1 earthquake had hit Ridgecrest again, and this time the damage was signficant. These quakes remind me of the tenuousness of location where we live, and that we need to be as prepared as we can to ride out a signficant local earthquake with the supplies we need to live until rescue arrives. As with a physical earthquake being prepared for EARTH SHAKING information that changes everything about the way we view the world is nearly impossible to accomplish. What we believe right now we believe because it is the truth we now know, right now. And like a physical quake, when the foundations of our 'faith' are shaken we are  ALWAYS  unprepared for the result; truth has a way of blindsiding us, because truth, the real truth, is always unlooked for. Yet in the case of Salvation and Eternal Life Jesus, through the words that His eyewitness disciples wrote down for us to read, has given us the ability to ". . . know the truth, so the truth will make you free" (John 8:32). This truth, by its very nature, will be earthshaking, if all you have read in the Bible is different than those words. If you can ride this shaking out, you WILL know the Truth.

Today Sprit of Truth Ministry will be presenting a BEST OF program from October 27, 2018. We pray you will be blest by this 'blast from the past'. We will be 'on air' with the regular crew tomorrow for out program "The Revelation of Jesus with Rick Sterling.

Preparing for War~ Staying focused on the learning of things that will prepare you for spiritual combat can be exhausting. Sometimes all we really want to do is have this whole mess be over and done, one way or another, so we can just rest. 'Overcoming' and 'patient endurance' are always difficult to accomplish when all you want to do is take a nap. It is also difficult to maintain spiritual vigilance when the pressures of life beat you down. Even Jesus experience this, and often went off by Himself to recharge, in order to get back in the fight. This morning I read an article by Lt. Col. Allen West (ret.) where he spoke of an upcoming announcement he will make on July 3, 2019, as to his future in Texas politics. He quoted several Bible verses to strengthen his argument in preparation for his big 'reveal', one of which was this:   "No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; And every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, And their vindication is from Me," declares the LORD." Isa. 54:17. This is God speaking to the spiritual warrior, who is going into life or death combat against the Great Enemy of Truth. This verse speaks to the heart of the matter, in all those that 'love and practice the truth'. But doing this, and teaching this, can be exhausting, and WILL make enemies of friends and family, and even total strangers.  "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. John 15:18. We are (right now) not beginning the fight for truth and justice, we are IN IT. Now is not the time to shy away from the battle, from the conflict of souls, simply because we are tired from hearing how wrong we are in our understanding of truth. We fight not just for ourselves, but for the sake of the world that God loves. FIGHT ON!

Believe it, or not~ What is it about lies that is so attractive to most people? Really! There as a old saying; "How do you know when politicians and preachers are lying? When their mouths are moving".  An important issue when trying to decide whether someone is tellling the truth or not is that you must realize that sincerety has nothing to do whith truth. In fact, sincerety is often a hindrance to the dissenmination of truth, because the more overtly sincere a person is, the more likely they are not telling you the whole truth. When Jesus was here on earth the leadership of the Jews in Israel were VERY sincere in their telling the people of Israel just how big of a liar was this upstart teacher from Nazareth. According to their understanding of the LAW Jesus had it all wrong. The Doctors of the Law knew the Law backward and forward, and in their view, at least at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, he could not possibly be the long looked for Messiah. After all, John the Baptist said in no-uncertain-terms that he (John) was not the Elijah that was to precede the coming of the Messiah; so therefore, how could Jesus actually BE that Messiah. Yet the Sanhedrin actually knew who Jesus was, and this scared them to death. If Jesus was the Messiah then these very leaders were destined to loose their power over the people, and their substantial incomes; and THIS they just could not allow. Their sincerety in telling lies about Him changed from an honest sincerety and scepticism about who He was, to that of KNOWING the Truth, knowing He was their Messiah, and chosing to tell the people lies to maintain their religious and political positions. As it was then, so too is it today. Sincerety, as a rule, is a two-edged sword, and it can be nearly impossible to tell what is true based soley on its application in public discourse. Believe it or not-just decide by facts, not sincerity.

"I know nothing, I see nothing"~ Do you remember to old TV show Hogan's Heros? Given the climate of political correctness in America today you could not get away with a premise for a comedy that was set in a WW2 prisoner of war camp in Germany. None-the-less, this was a very funny show about American spies pretending to be US Army Air Force air crews shot down over Germany, and sent to Stalag 13. The commander of the camp was Col. Klink (Werner Klempeerr), and his First Sergeant was Master Sergeant Schultz(Jhn Banner). The good Sergeant was not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, and the Resistance fighers, lead by Col. Hogan, used Sgt. Schultz to find out all sorts of information helpful to their cause of disrupting the German war effort. Occationally Sgt. Shultz would be 'set up' to see or hear things that would have, under normal circumstances, revealed his incompitence, and caused him to get in serious trouble with Co. Klink.  When this happened Sgt. Shultz would say his most famous line, "I no nothing, I see nothing". As humorous as this was, it reflects the concept that is common with humans to not want to know anything that might hurt them. This 'ostrich syndrome' of ignoring certain facts in evidence when that information could be damaging to a personal viewpoint. is a defense against being hurt by those facts, that might reveal that their viewpoint was mistaken. In the case of misreading or ignoring the information that involves sanctification and salvation can prevent you from gaining access to eternal life, and this would be a tragedy of gigantic proportions. God has made it possible for everyone to KNOW THE TRUTH. But to know this truth you must be willing to see what others ignore, and to hear what others refuse to hear. Doing this gives you the opportunity to 'Know the Truth, so the Truth can make you free'!

I Don't Know~ Have you ever had to deal with a 'know it all'? You know, the kind of person that has to ALWAYS be right, and you better believe them just because they said something, or else. We all know what this is like. This persons has conflated their opinion with truth for such a long time that they cannot bear to believe that anyone that doesn't believe the way they do is automatically wrong. This is prevealent in many forms, and is the foundation for people withi 'righteous zeal' making life diffucult for friends, neighbors, family, and especially enemies. This attitude crosses all barriers, races, religions and national identities. So "What's a person to do?" First, recognize that your opinion is not a fact, because only facts generate truth.  Second, recognize that the opinion of a person is as sacred to them as the amount of faith it takes to believe it. Truth that is based primarily on the 'growing of faith' can never be the "God's Honest Truth". It is only conjecture. And Third, realize that in order to find truth you must "Suspend your disbelief" that what you now believe to be true may not be. Here at Spirit of Truth Ministy we strive to put our opinions aside when searching for truth, and simply go with the fact that what Jesus said to His own eyewitness disciples always overpowers everything that anyone 'says that Jesus said'. Eyewitness testimoy is the surest way to find truth, and those that 'claim' to be sent by God may not be, when you compare what they say to the what the eyewitness disciples remembered and wrote about what Jesus said and did while He was here on earth. The best way to find truth is to say, "I don't know".

A Paradigm change~ Have you ever watched a big horse race like the Kentucky Derby or the Belmont? I mean really watched it, not so much for the outcome but for the anticipation that happens before the starting bell rings. Have you ever paid attention not just to the pomp and circumstance concurrent with the ceremony and traditions of horse racing, but to the way the horses are prepared 'on that day' by their handlers to get them from the barn to the starting gate with the proper amount of energy conservation such that the horse has ot wasted energy before the race begins? One thing I have noticed that is almost ubiquitous when the horses are all in the starting gate seconds before the bell is that these equine competitors are shaking like a leaf. I wondered why. When humans shake in this way they are often 'scared to death', paralized with fear. I asked a good friend who has personally been intimately involved with horse racing as a trainer, and whos husband had been a professional jockey, why this was so. What she said surprised me a little, and changed the way I viewed these animal atheletes, and the way that they are treated by their human. She told me that they are not scared but excited; they are trained to want to race, they are anticipating being released to run, and can barely control themselves as they wait for the doors to open so they can run the race. What she said changed my perspective, my paradigm on the 'how and why' of horse racing. The indicators related to Biblical Prophecy show that those that are preparing for service to the Kingdom of Heaven by learning and practicing truth are just about to be reliease from the 'starting gate'. to run the final race that will see them win eternal life. The excitement is building, so when God releases HIS bondservants into the world they will accomplish the purpose for which they have trained.

The Pain Motivation~ The most sure motivation to go to see a Physician is pain. We all know this is true. This was true for me this week because this past weekend I was suffering abject back pain, so much so that I was not able to go with my wife, daughter, and son-in-law to the beach for a Sunday on the water. I had to stay at home because the pain that I was experiencing in my mid-back was bordering on excruciating. I was  still in pain on Monday morning, so I called my primary health care provider to see if I could get in to see my PA-C and find out what was going on. I was fortunate to be able to see him on Tuesday afternoon. I had visions of me going through another very serious bout with Osteomyelitis (an infection of the spine that came close to killing me in 2011). Zach (my PA-C) always takes me and my pain seriously, so after a thorough exam that included blood work, and exploring my spine with his finders he suggested that what I had experienced was a VERY mild form of shingles, that manifests in a very specific way in the back. I was releaved, because as bad as the pain was with shingles, the ideal of going through another treatment for Osteomyelitis would have been much worse. He said that he was very glad that he had given me a vaccine for shingles several years ago, which made what I experienced mild by comparison to what I would have suffered without it. One thing can be much worse than another. In spiritual terms we need to realize the importance of being innoculated against lies by knowing the truth through the words of Jesus. The pain of finding out we have been fooled into believing a lie as if it was the truth is no where near as bad as finding this out when it is too late to do anything about it. Going through some pain now to learn the truth of salvation is much better than not learning it in time to find the truth, embrace it, and become sanctified in the Truth, so we can experience eternal life.

Backward and Forward! I'm sure you have used an expression similar to this; "He knows his subject backward and forward". It means a person has achieved a high degree of surety and confidence in the knowing and doing of their particular field of study. All of us want to go to a medical doctor that knows medicine "backward and forward", because that level of knowledge and skill can mean the difference between life and death. When studying Scripture most people read a passage or a verse in one direction, because that is the way they have been taught, and then try to understand the meaning based upon that one-way linear method. It is our experience here at Spirit of Truth Ministry that in order to find truth we must truly look at Scripture in a non-linear way, by not only reading the verse in the usual direction (front to back), but in the other direction (back to front) as well, particularly in passages that are difficult to decypher. Example: "But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into." Matt. 24:43. This text can be confusing because of the expectation of the Christian church that Jesus will come at a time when "every eye will see Him", and NO ONE can know that time. Yet going from back to front we see that it is important for this person to NOT let his house be broken into, and to do that he must be alert. Alert for what? Jesus is saying that He will come at 'night', a time with no overt signs and wonders,  and that the 'head of the house'  must 'know 'the time of that coming as a thief. So now we see that this 'head of the house' WILL KNOW the time of His coming. This is just part of the method we use to find truth.