How to Know the Truth: by Pastor Steven Rowitt, Th.M. Ph,D. After Yeshua’s arrest, the Sanhedrin brought Him before the Roman prefect (governor) of Judea, Pontius Pilate. The reason that they did this was twofold. First, for a public execution, the Jewish authorities were required by the laws of Rome to ask their occupier’s to pass judgment and carry out the death sentence. Secondly, a messianic prophecy in Gen. 49:10 declares that the scepter (or power of sovereign rule over God’s people) would have departed from Judah (the patriarch of the kings of Israel) by the time the Messiah would come. By the end of the Messiah’s three year public ministry, His fame made it impossible for the Jewish leaders to put Him to death. They did not have such concerns when their victims were women of ill repute, John 8:1-11, but they believed Him to be a false messiah; therefore, wanted to make an example out of Him. That would require a public execution. The night before Yeshua’s crucifixion we find Caiaphas, the High Priest of Israel and the Sanhedrin, questioning Yeshua, John 18:19-24. When they cannot prevail in their interrogation, they send him to the Pontius Pilate, John 18:28-38. Their conversation ends with Pilate asking Yeshua, “What is Truth?” What is Truth? Unwittingly, Pilate’s sarcastic question really goes to the heart of the matter. People pay lip service to the concept of truth. They seek to be educated on many different subjects. Look at any college curriculum and you will find a plethora of degree programs in a wide variety of fields. When you study the subject of “truth,” you begin to realize just how many versions of the truth there can be. Humanists believe that man is the measure of all things. They believe truth is relative. My truth may or may not be the same as your truth. One excellent example of this is the way society sees race. Many people see social issues through the lens of race. Multiculturalism, with a heavy emphasis on exalting one’s ethnicity and cultural identity, has caused the United States of America to fragment into different groups. Politicians do whatever they can to gain the allegiance of these groups by pandering to them. Our Vice President, Joe Biden, when speaking to a group of blacks suddenly develops a deep southern drawl. Other politicians have exhibit similar transformations. Our great country, once seen as a melting pot of different cultures and ethnicities, is not longer a confederation of Americans. Now we are African Americans, Italian Americans, Chicanos, and a never ending bowel of alphabet soup such as the LGBT community. I am not saying that cultural identity is wrong or undesirable. I am saying that it is wrong to see someone as a color, ethnicity, or any other artificial designation if it lends itself to pride and the fragmenting of our society. The Bible confirms that a house divided against itself cannot stand, Mark 3:25. When we see things through a biblical lens, the truth is plainly known. What is more important, our petty prejudices or the truth. God is no respecter of persons, Job 34:18-19; Matt. 5:45; Acts 10:34. God is colorblind when it comes to race or ethnicity. We are all created in His image, Gen. 1:27, and He instructs His children to love others. In his last letter, written just prior to his martyrdom the Apostle Paul wrote to his son in the faith, Timothy the following instruction. 1But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! 6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, II Tim. 3:1-7. So, we should ask ourselves, why were the religious leaders of the Jews so blinded that they could not recognize the truth that was in Yeshua? God’s ancient chosen people had every advantage, Rom. 9:1-5. Sin or unbelief has a blinding effect. When you think you know it all, you become unteachable by biblical standards. It is a very dark judgment, but human pride prevents us from hearing the truth. Even in God’s Kingdom, many resist the truth. In secular psychology, we call this phenomena “denial.” It is a false reality that prevents us from facing the truth about our own shortcomings. Today, many in Christianity are willing to entertain the doctrines of demons rather than just taking God at His Word. They promote the concept that the Genesis account is not trustworthy, because they desire to compromise with the pseudoscience of Darwinian Evolution. They perfectly willing to lean to their (someone else’s) understanding, rather than believe what simple logic tell them. Cause and effect tells us that in order to have an effect (the universe and everything contained therein) you must have a greater cause. This great First Cause is clearly identified in the first verse of the Bible; In the beginning God (Elohim) created the heavens and the earth, Gen. 1:1. The Law of Biogenesis (proven by a dedicated creationist in 1864, Louis Pasteur, finally announced the results of his scientific experiments. Pasteur demonstrated that life does not arise in areas that have not been contaminated by existing life. Pasteur’s empirical results were summarized in the phrase Omne vivum ex vivo, Latin for “all life [is] from life.” But the educated fools refuse to believe this so they put forward the concept of Abiogenesis, e.g. that life arose from non-living matter. The life of the flesh is in the blood More evidence of the insanity of refusing to take God at His Word can be found in the history of medicine. One of the oldest medical procedures spanning two thousand years is the practice of bloodletting. While bloodletting can sometimes be beneficial (therapeutic phlebotomy for polycythemia vera in conjunction with Cytoreductive therapy), it was more often a contributor to the demise of the patient undergoing this procedure. If these physicians had taken God as His Word, Lev. 17:11, they would have understood the importance of a person’s blood supply. While the primary meaning of Lev. 17:11 has to do with the fact that God, speaking the in first Person, was telling the children of Israel (and all who would come to the place of faith in the God of Israel) that God would Personally shed His blood on a wooden altar for the forgiveness of the people’s sins. Still, the implication of not heeding God’s Word is never a good outcome. There are dozens of examples of the futility of ignoring God’s Word such as the dietary laws in the Torah that kept the Israelites free from trichinosis, a parasite found in pigs, paralytic, neurotoxic and amnesic toxins found in shellfish, and several other diseases states associated with prohibited foods. Ultimate Truth, Messiah Yeshua, John 14:6. The real reason that men and women fail to believe God’s truth has to do with the fallen nature of man. Ever since the Fall, Gen.3:1-10, mankind has become so fear-based that he will not come to the light. Yeshua is not only the way, the truth, and the life, John 14:6; He is the light of the World, John 8:12. The problem is summed up in the opening chapter of the Gospel of John. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light that all through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world, John 1:4-9. The Messiah is ready, willing and able to transform men and women of darkness into children of truth and life. The only way to be transformed from a sinner into a saint is to place your faith in the risen Savior, Jesus of Nazareth. It is God’s expressed will that you be saved, II Peter 3:9 and the only good deed you can do for yourself is to trust in the One whom God has sent. Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent,” John 6:28-29. biblicalalternatives.org/index.html
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 03:14:20 +0000
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