1916AFC041919 – Return to The Truth
Μετάνοια εἰς Την Αλήθεια – Metánoia eis Tin Alítheia ~~ Repent toward The Truth.
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John 18:37-38a – 37 Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit.
During this season of Lent we have been exploring applications of the word μετάνοια – metanoia. We have seen that it means a “turning around” or “turning back to” God. It is a mental, visceral, actionable decision to reform one’s life so as to live in a way that honors and glorifies God in thought, word, and deed. All of us are sinners, so all of us have sinned. That means all of us need to repent – turn around – and go back to being what God created us to be – Holy, like him. We pretty much understand that we probably will never be wholly holy until the Day of Resurrection, but we really should be headed in that direction – toward God rather than away from God. What happens, though, if we don’t turn back to God, if we don’t reform our lives, and instead we keep moving away from God? What is out there if we just ignore the warnings – internal and external – to turn back, to repent, to reintegrate into Truth?
Returning to God, to Truth, is returning to holiness, to good, to Light. Fleeing from God, from Truth, is leaving holiness, good, and Light behind so as to be immersed in Darkness. Who would choose that, any of it?
The answer is heartbreaking. Millions and millions – indeed billions with a B – intentionally and deliberately move farther and farther from God in every moment of their lives. How is this possible? What enables any earthling to ignore all the clues, and hints, and communiqués that God has given us, all of which testify to the Truth? The only answer I can see is that we choose to believe the primordial lie that somehow we can do it ourselves – we don’t need God’s help to find God and Truth. We’re perfectly capable of figuring that out ourselves, thank you very much. That’s what our First Parents, thought, too; how’s that working out for you and me today? Not so hot, is it? And yet, each of us obstinately clings to the idea that it is our own effort that causes Grace to be part of our lives. What utter rubbish that is! There’s an adage I coined (at least I think it was me) about 25 years ago when facilitating the Zenger-Miller Toward Excellence training program that applies to this line of reasoning: “If you really knew as much as you think you know, you’d know it’s not enough.” The result of assuming we are sufficiently wise to figure out God on our own is that we completely miss the Truth: God is God and I am not. When this basic Truth is corrupted by Satan’s favorite tool – lies – we carom off away from God and create our own Fantasy Land where we call the shots, we make the tough decisions, and we set the rules. Regrettably, many of those BILLIONS of souls who have followed this course without wavering will have little recourse on The Day of Reward. They will share the fate of those described in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 – 9 Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, 10 thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.
I entreat you with all sincerity to read the following passages ( with emphasis added) with your utmost attention so that you may gain a clear discernment about the battle we are in:
Isaiah 53:1 – 1 Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
Jeremiah 2:19 – 19 Your wickedness will punish you, and your apostasies* will convict you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God; the fear of me is not in you, says the Lord God of hosts.
*Apostasies from Apostasy – the total rejection of Christianity by a baptized person who, having at one time professed the Christian faith, publicly rejects it. It is distinguished from heresy, which is limited to the rejection of one or more Christian doctrines by one who maintains an overall adherence to Jesus Christ.
Jude 1:3-5 – 3 Beloved, while eagerly preparing to write to you about the salvation we share, I find it necessary to write and appeal to you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. 4 For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. 5 Now I desire to remind you, though you are fully informed, that the Lord, who once for all saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed those who did not believe.
1 Timothy 4:1-2 – 1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.
2 Peter 2:1-3 – 1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions. They will even deny the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Even so, many will follow their licentious ways, and because of these teachers the way of truth will be maligned. 3 And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 – 3 For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.
2 Corinthians 11:13-15 – 13 For such boasters are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 So it is not strange if his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness. Their end will match their deeds.
2 Timothy 3:1-7 – 1 You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come. 2 For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them! 6 For among them are those who make their way into households and captivate silly women, overwhelmed by their sins and swayed by all kinds of desires, 7 who are always being instructed and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
Titus 1:15-16 –15 To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure. Their very minds and consciences are corrupted. 16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by their actions. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.
This awareness informs the ministry of the Moon Beam Network – that all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved, but how can they call if they have not heard (See Romans 10-13-18, please.) Yet we know that even many of those who have heard have not believed and instead made their own foolish constructs to disseminate their apostasy. One such organization has the boldness to proclaim that the Church – the entirety of Christendom – was in a state of apostasy until Charles Taze Russell “discovered” that apostasy and set up an offshoot of the Bible Study movement in 1879. His goal was to find biblical evidence that God would never send any anyone to Hell because there is no such place. This organization’s ironic claim is that they – who are in fact apostates – are in the World to correct the previous apostasy of the preceding 18 centuries! In 1931, the group adopted the moniker “Jehovah’s Witnesses” and decreed that God alone should be worshipped by his correct and proper name which they claimed to have ample evidence to prove was supposed to be pronounced jeh-ho-vah. While this concept was “already out there” as popularized by William Tyndale, the KJV, and the Geneva Bible, the temerity of Russell’s group was that its discovery of this revelation disqualified all other believers. As they regressed farther and farther from Truth – and Jehovah – they even reinvented Holy Scripture by publishing, in 1950, The New World Testament (NWT), a thoroughly bad and deceptive mistranslation of Judaeo-Christian Scripture. One quick example: At the institution of the Eucharist we read in Matthew 26:26 – 26 While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is* my body.” (See also Mark 14:22, Luke 22:19, and 1 Corinthians 11:24)
* ἐστιν (estin) from εἰμί (eimi) {i-mee’} – I am, I exist, ergo, is. In the NWT, this passage reads as follows: “26 As they continued eating, Jesus took a loaf, and after saying a blessing, he broke it, and giving it to the disciples, he said: “Take, eat. This means my body.” (See in context here.) I’ll put this as plainly as possible: Claiming that “this is my body” is properly understood as “this means my body” IS A LIE.
Recall now Jesus’ words in John 8:44 – 44 You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Belovéd, this is but one of thousands of misconstruances of Truth circulated today as the “one true religion” – but a clever and well-worked-out scheme of deception worthy of Old Scratch himself. He would have us believe, as he himself believes, that Truth is mine only if I create it. God’s Truth is merely another version of what in our hearts and minds is the explanation for everything. As that famous author Anonymous has said, “There is an explanation for everything that happens in the Universe. Unfortunately many of them make no sense whatsoever!” Satan’s assertion that Truth is allocated to 144,000 who are part of a “heavenly class” – which persons deny the Holy Trinity as being “unbiblical” (the word “Trinity is not in any Judaeo-Christian Scripture) – and who are “the little flock of 144,000 (another term which does not appear in any Judaeo-Christian Scripture) simply makes no sense whatsoever. What does make sense is returning to The Truth.
Let the reader beware! What is Truth?
GOD ≡ LIGHT ≡ LOVE ≡ TRUTH ≡ WAY ≡ LIFE ≡ ETERNAL ≡ MERCY ≡ GOD
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
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