TRUTH
Have you ever wondered how important truth is to the Christian? The Scriptures have much to say about truth. By doing a word study on truth one will see that God places a high value on truth. By doing a word search on truth my Bible program listed 224 verses alone. Here are some of the things we learn about truth as we study the Scriptures.
1. The Lord Jesus is truth:
“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth , and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6
2. The Holy Spirit is truth and is called the Spirit of Truth:
“This is he that came by water and blood, [even] Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.” 1 John 5:6
“[Even] the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you.” John 14:17
3. God’s Word is truth:
“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” John 17:17
4. God seeks those that will worship Him in spirit and truth. Jesus said that God MUST be worshiped in spirit and truth:
“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God [is] a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship [him] in spirit and in truth.” John 4:23-24
5. Our sanctification is through truth (verse above John 17:17):
“And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” John 17:19
6. God’s will is for believers to walk in the truth and to speak truth one to another:
“But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, [even] Christ:” Eph. 4:15
“Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.” Eph. 4:25
“The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth; For the truth's sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever. Grace be with you, mercy, [and] peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father.” 2 John 1:1-4
7. True Christian Love rejoices in the truth:
“Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;” 1 Cor. 13:6
8. The Lord’s super is to be kept in truth:
“Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened [bread] of sincerity and truth.” 1 Cor. 5:8
The above verses are only
a small portion of what God’s Word has to say concerning truth, yet with just
this small sample one can easily see how important truth is to God. Truly God
places a high value on truth and so should we if we claim to be His children.
On
the other hand you have Satan and his followers who despise truth and love lying.
Below is one of the conversations that the Lord Jesus had with the followers
of Satan:
“Ye are of [your] father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell [you] the truth, ye believe me not.” John 8:44-45
One might wonder who these
wicked children of the devil were? Surly, they must have been the very scum
of the earth, those who practiced every vice and evil imaginable to man. Surly,
Jesus must of been speaking to those who were like Hitler and Stalin, Jeffery
Dahmer and Ted Bundy, Anton Szandor La Vey and Marlin Manson etc. Although people
like these are excellent candidates, they are not the type of people the Lord
Jesus was speaking to. Believe it or not, Jesus was speaking to the religious
leaders of His day. Those who were suppose to be defenders and champions of
the truth. Those who were charged with teaching the truth to the children of
Israel. The very ones who should have been the first to recognize that Jesus
was the Christ their long awaited Messiah. Yet according to Jesus these religious
leaders were Satan’s children.
Stop
and think about this for a minute. Satan’s most successful attacks against Jesus
came from the religious leaders of His day. From those who held sway over the
masses by their religious lies and religious rituals who all the time thought
that they were serving the true God of Israel. Those who persuaded Pilot to
kill the Lord Jesus Christ. If Satan was so effective in infiltrating Israel’s
religious leadership in those days do you think that maybe he might be doing
the same with the church today? God’s Word says that he is:
“For such [are] false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore [it is] no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.” 2 Cor. 11:13-15
Some good questions to ask
yourselves are, who are these people today? How can I recognize them? What do
they teach? How can I protect myself from their deceptive lies? How do I stand
against them seeing that they are in places of leadership? All good questions
that need to be answered.
The
Lord Jesus recognized them because they had much in common with their true spiritual
father, Satan! Satan is the father of lies, therefore his children will be those
who promote lies, not just any lie but religious lies. Lies about salvation,
lies about God, lies about the Lord Jesus, lies about religion, lies on how
to worship and please God. The lies that Satan uses to deceive Christians are
sugar coated with the truth, lies that are pleasant to the taste and appealing
to human reasoning. Satan knows that in order to get Christians off the path
of righteousness he must be clever in his lies and make them appear as good
and righteous, if he has to sprinkle his lies with truth so that Christians
will eat of his fruit he will do it. Satan will use as much truth as necessary
just so long as he can get Christians to eat his spiritual poison. He knows
it is the poison in his mix that really counts and he doesn’t care how much
healthy spiritual food one has to eat just as long as they eat the poison with
it. We need to remember that Satan is not out to help us in our walk with God,
but to kill, steal and destroy.
Makers
of rat poison do the same. They take food that appeals to the taste of rats,
food that under different circumstances would make rats healthy and strong.
They take this food and lace it with a little bit of poison, not much, just
enough to kill the rats who eat of it. The makers of rat poison use the healthy
good tasting food to lure rats into eating the poison that is laced in it. It’s
a very clever technique that gets very good results.
Satan
gets very good results with this technique also. One of the best religious lies
that Satan and his helpers use today is Christmas. Many will be shocked at this
statement, saying “Christmas! Dear brother, have you gone mad!” No! I haven’t
gone mad. If Christmas is of God it surly would past the test of truth which
it does not. Christmas involves worship and Jesus said that God MUST be worshiped
in spirit and TRUTH. Let’s take a close look at Christmas and see if it can
hold up to the test of truth.
The
term “Christmas” itself is an unholy mixture and an abomination before God when
used in reference to the real Lord Jesus Christ. Here we plainly see Satan’s
cleverness, he takes the term “Christ” which is holy and good and combines it
with the term “mass” which is an unholy religious lie. Satan mixes the holy
with the unholy knowing that it will be harder for the non-discerning
Christian to reject. The Catholic mass is a denial of the Scriptures. The Word
of God teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ suffered one time for sins and then
sat down at the right hand of God.
“For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, [which are] the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Heb.9:24-26
“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once [for all]. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” Heb. 10:10-14
The Catholic Church teaches
that the mass is a continuation of Christ sacrifice for sins. They claim that
the wafer is turned into the literal body of the Lord Jesus and that the wine
is literally turned into the blood of Christ Jesus. They call this ritual “Transubstantiation”.
Therefore according to Catholic doctrine The Lord Jesus Christ is offered
as a sacrifice over and over every time mass is held. God’s Word is crystal
clear in that Jesus suffered only one time in history for the sins of the world.
Jesus Himself cried out while on the cross “It is finished”, yet the Catholic
Church claims that it is not finished and that the Lord’s sacrifice continues
with each and every mass.
The
true Christ and the mass are opposed to each other. Christ is truth, the mass,
a religious lie, they can't be mixed. Christ affirms the Scriptures, and the
mass denies them. If Christians who use the term "Merry Christmas"
knew what they were really saying I doubt they would continue using the term.
After all what is merry about the mass of Christ, it is a religious lie of the
worst kind? It is a damnable heresy. What a shameful contradiction it is for
true believers to wish someone a "Merry Christmas" when in truth the
mass is responsible for sending souls to hell. What's so "Merry" about
that? I can understand Satan wishing someone a "Merry Christmas",
but I can't understand Christians doing the same! I wonder how many souls are
in hell right now, wailing and gnashing their teeth, because they believed the
lie of the Catholic mass instead of the true gospel of salvation? When Christmas
is used in reference to the Lord Jesus it is a lying contradiction in and of
itself? I wonder how many Christians realize that they are using God's name
in vain and profaning what is holy by using the term “Christmas in such a way?
God commands us to put away lying and to speak truth one to another (Eph. 4:25) How can one wish someone a “Merry Christmas” without violating this clear command of God? The christ of the mass is a false christ, the gospel of the mass is a false gospel and God commands us to put these lies away and speak truth one to another. I have heard the excuse “well that’s not what Christmas means to me, and when I wish someone a “Merry Christmas” I don’t mean the mass of Christ”. Dear friend, with all due respect, it doesn’t matter what it means to you, it matters what its true meaning is. We do not have the right to change the definitions of words and use them any way we like. Words are specific in there meanings and they have to be in order to properly communicate to others. How about your Catholic friends? When you wish them a “Merry Christmas” are they going to know what you mean, or are they going to be delighted that you are partaking in their religious lie? If you wish someone like me a “Merry Christmas” most likely you will hear in return that I do not partake of Catholic lies. Another lie so often heard at Christmas is “He’s the reason for the season”. It’s a catchy phrase used by those that want to put Christ back into Christmas. The problem these people have is that the true Christ was never in Christmas to begin with. The christ that is in Christmas was never the true Christ but the false christ of the Roman Catholic Church. The true “reason for the season” is the Catholic Church not the Lord Jesus. The Roman Catholic Church is “the reason for the season”. They are the ones who invented Christmas by stealing it from the pagans and they are the ones who gave it to the professing church. Just about any encyclopedia will bare this out. Even those that defend Christmas as a Christian holiday admit this much.
John 4:19 “The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. 21 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24 God [is] a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship [him] in spirit and in truth.”
Here is a case were the Lord Jesus gently rebukes a Samaritan woman over worship according to mans corrupt ways. Barnes notes on the New Testament has this to say about the above passage.
“22. (Ye worship ye know not what.) This probably refers to the comparative ignorance and corruption of the Samaritan worship. Though they received the five books of Moses, yet they rejected the prophets, and of course all that the prophets had said respecting the true God. Originally, also, they had joined the worship of idols to that of the true God. See 2 Kings xvii 26-34. They had moreover, no authority for building their temple and conducting public worship by sacrifices there. On all these accounts they were acting in an unauthorized manner. They were not worshiping the true God, nor offering the worship which He had commanded or would approve.
I find some amazing similarities between this and Christmass. Most who partake in Christmass are like the woman of Samaria whom Jesus said “Ye worship ye know not what”. Religious man took a pagan holiday that was in existence hundreds of years before Christ and adopted if for their own. They covered this pagan holiday with a veneer of Christianity and tried to force the true Christ into it by renaming pagan gods with the true God. Just like the Samaritans who had no authority to create their own form of worship, religious man does the same with Christmass. How can one even pretend to offer God true worship after the manner and traditions the pagans invented to worship their gods? “Originally, also, they had joined the worship of idols to that of the true God.” This is the very same abomination that takes place in Christmass. Jesus told the woman that God is Spirit and that He must be worshiped in Spirit and truth. Christmass fails the test of truth from its very foundation on up. One can claim they are worshiping God all they want with their Christmass traditions but if it is not according to truth God will not accept it.
Steve Barton
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