Spirit of Truth/The Bible on Trial

We will be having our ususal dynamic study into finding Truth.

The Deception Conception~ This morning I checked my messages (as usual) and saw one the source of which I did not recognize. Now sometime I recieve a secondary billing message that is meant for my wife, but also appears in my message box; things like 'Your Mortagage payment is due on . . .', that kind of thing. Those I recognize, even if they are not mean for me. This morning I recieved one from Wells Fargo saying that they have locked an account due to suspicious activity, and in order to reinstate the account go to the following link. I was now suspicious, so I waited until my wife was awake and asked her about it (she does have a Wells Fargo account). She told me she had been getting these phising messages for a while, and to 'delete without opening'. This I did. The message 'looked' official, but it was not; it was someone or some thing attempting to get privilaged account information in order to raid the account. This is happening all the time, now, and we all must be careful not to fall for the deception. Because of this kind of thing we are all becoming more careful with our money accounts, and who has access to our ID's and Passwords. We do this for our money, but for some reason we don't do this with our spiritual intellects, our hearts and minds. We allow anyone that declares they are 'from God' access to implanting information into our intellects, and hardly give it a second thought as to whether what is going in is the real "God's Honest Truth". We seem to be more careful with our money than we are of our eternal life. This is why that when we hear something of Truth that is different than what we already know we reject it out of hand, simply because we believe it to be a spiritual phishing expedition, and we don't want to be caught believing a lie. But what if it isn't a lie, but the Truth, and we reject it?

Cover Story~ An Agent Provocature (inciting agent) is a spy that lives among his/her enemies, and using subtrefuge and enticements gets another person or community to commit an illegal or rash act, or falsely implicate them into partaking in an illegal act that would damage reputation, or to intice a person or group to lose confidence in another person or ideas of another person or group to which they belong. This agent must have a believable 'cover story' to accomplish this deception. We clearly see this today in the political world, but be can also see this in the religious and spiritual world as well. The goal of an agent provocature is to get a person or society to 'believe a lie as if it is the truth', and do this so well that a person will fight anyone that points out this fact to such an extent that they are willing to go to war to defend their false beliefs. The 'Apostle Paul' is an agent provocature of the highest order, because through his words the world (particualarly the Christian world) has come to believe that his words come directly from God, and must never be challenged 'in court'. Paul has created a world in which sincere believers will believe his words over the words of the person that he claims called him to ministry on the road to Damascus. With subterfuge and the enticements of 'salvation by faith through grace.' Paul has made the words of Jesus that He gave to His own disciples of none effect, which guarantees that the people that believe Paul's words over the words of jesus will be lost. When this is pointed out to the Christian society they respond by fighting back with all their might in claiming that the words of Paul are, in fact the very words of Jesus.  Paul has a wonderful 'cover story', but do NOT BE FOOLED. Take Jesus at HIS WORD.

The Rules for Winning~ One of the most agregious identities in modern society is the idea of the 'Participation Award'. This is where children recieve a trophy or a certificate for simply showing up to an event and participating, so that no child has to go through the 'trauma' and 'stigma' of losing. There is a generation of young people today that have lived their entire lives not knowing that it is possible for them to lose, because they have been told that simply by 'being' they are all winners. This has given society a generation of people that not only do not know how to lose, but also don't know how to win. As a function of this situation there is now an identity crisis in this young population, and more importantly in the population that promotes this 'no win no lose' concept, wherein these people do not feel that they have to 'play by the rules', because where there are no rules there are no losers. The sad thing is that because there are no losers there are also no winners. This concept has spilled over into the spiritual world as well. This in not a new concept from a spiritual point of view. The concept that there are no rules for salvation has been around since Jesus went back to heaven. Jesus came to the earth to "Testify to the Truth" (John 18:37), the testimony that defined the rules of the 'game' (the Law); the rules for 'winning' salvation. Yet the Christian church was founded on the principal that "Where there is no law, there is no violation" (Rom. 4:15). Paul essentially says that everyone is a winner of salvation because there are no losers, because there are no rules (law) for salvation. Yes, there are winners and losers in this world, and in the world to come. Learn the rules, be obedient, and WIN!

When a person comes down with a cold or illness, the presenting issues have specific symptoms that will lead a medical practitioner to form a hypothesis as to what the type of cold or condition the patient has contracted. Certain symptoms indicted certain conditions that can be confirmed by analytic testing. For example, if you have high blood pressure, muscle cramps, sugar craving, constipation, increase in insulin, muscle weakness, and abnormal heat beat this can be a condition caused by low blood potassium. If you get your potassium levels back up to a normal most if not all of those symptoms will go away. Physical symptoms reveal potential illnesses that can lead to a diagnosis and treatment of a disease. This is the same for symptoms involving psychological and emotional disorders, relational issues, and even issues involving mechanical devices such as household appliances and automobiles. A good repair person in what ever field you choose can tell what is wrong with any of these situations by isolating the presenting symptoms and finding a way of dealing with them. Are there also symptoms of deficiency in the spiritual world, especially in the area of discovering and learning the truth? Do you balk at listening to someone present an idea that goes against something you already believe to be true? Do you find ways of avoiding looking at issues in the spiritual realm that make you uncomfortable? Do you feel threatened by provocative ideas and concepts that take you out of your spiritual comfort zone? These are symptoms of unresolved and incomplete levels of learning things that would lead you away from where you are to a place where you just don't want to go - to a truth that is totally different from what you know. Proof of Truth is proof of Life Eternal. If you want THAT life then you will allow for a new form of truth tthat will change your mind and heart, whence comes peace.

Join us for our discussion.

Continuing today's show

This is the day after the Thankgiving holiday, and we will be presenting a BEST OF program from November 14, 2009. We hope you will enjoy this past program. Join us Sabbath, November 24, 2018, for another live program of The Revelation of Jesus with Rick Sterling.

The whole town of Paradise California is now gone, burned (for the most part) to the ground. And this includes the home in which my son's fiance grew up, and the town in which, up until a week ago, lived in. They are now homeless, along with everyone else in town. In addition, due to the intense smoke from the fire, and the stress from losing their home, Erica's father had a severe stroke the day before yesterday, and is now in the hospital in Chico, where he will be until further notice. It is hard to imagine how people cope with such tragedy, but they do. All of this because of a massive fire that might have been avoided, or at least mitigated with better planning and forest maintainance by the state. The people of Paradise did not expect a fire to destroy their town, nor did they anticipate the intensity with which the fire burned, and the speed at which the fire traveled in destroying their homes and businesses. Most Christians today are in a spiritual condition where they are feeling comfortable and cozy in the 'town' of their church, believing that God will not allow them to suffer the fires of the judgement because they have been saved by grace through faith. They believe this because that is a lot easier and more comfortable to believe than the idea of having to go through the process of being sanctified through the words of Jesus; words that require obedience to the Law of the Covenant of the Kingdom. Little to they realize that they will have to go through a fire cleansing one way or another, either through the fire of the Holy Spirit and the words of God which they will cleansed from ALL unrighteousness by doing the truth, or the fire that will destroy the unrighteousness still in them, along with their very being, in the second death. Both of these cleansings are permanent and irrevocable; one leading to eternal death, the other leading to eternal life.

Join Spirit of Truth Ministry for another challenging study in our search for the Truth about how salvation is achieved.