Real Reality. Seek Truth. Truth Fulfills. Lies Frustrate

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

There is a tremendous volume of fakery that the world has to offer. On the other hand, the Kingdom of Heaven IS reality. This may seem to be an amazing statement, but it is true. This simple statement, "The Kingdom of Heaven IS reality," can help you to have a deeper understanding of many things.

As opposed to the Kingdom of Heaven, the political messages, movies, and much of what is on the internet are all amazingly fake. Unfortunately, the news services and much of what is taught in the schools is also untrue and full of evil worldly counsel. There are messages in print media, TV, etc. that presuppose adultery, impurity, relativism, evolution, naturalism, no miracles, and no loving Savior or need for a Savior. At our places of work, there are power struggles that are actually sickening and counter-productive. All of these are NOT reality. They are fake.

In the camp meetings this year (2010), it was stressed that the Kingdom exists wherever the King is reigning over His subjects, and we, His subjects, are submitting to His rulership. I believe that this situation of Christ ruling and us submitting is reality--it is dealing with life as it really is. Conversely, situations where Christ is NOT ruling are situations where we are not dealing with life as it really is.

That explains why no one who loves a lie will be allowed into the Kingdom. How could they. Reality and lies are mutually exclusive.

Those lies we harbor in our heart are fully against God, though we also have Christ who is truth in our hearts. We are crucified with Christ and the fleshly nature is hanging on the cross, but crucifixion seems to be a slow death and the flesh keeps trying to influence us from the cross.

Since the fall, the human heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Our ability to discern truth from lie is greatly hampered. Through obedience, that is, submission to the Spirit of God, over an extended period of time, we gain the ability to discern. This is a movement from light to light, from glory to glory. It does not come suddenly. In addition, God has restored the multiplicity of called (not self-sent) ministries as a safe-guard against errors. Errors, of course, are the same thing that lies are. We may not know that we are believing a lie, but the lie is a lie none the less.

"Reality" is another word for "truth." The opposite of truth is lie. That which is fake is a lie. That which fails to be part of reality is a lie. There is nothing between truth and lie. They are mutually exclusive and absolute. The truth sets us free. Lies bind us up and keep us in bondage. Lies become strongholds of Satan in our minds. (A little science on the human mind ) The truth pulls down those strongholds. Truth is really a person, Christ. Christ is the Head and His body, which really is the Kingdom of God here on earth.

Not too many people are even aware that God re-established the order of the church in 1948 and the years following. Many people who became aware of this have said that the order that God has re-established in the church, home, local, and universal is not important. Those who see this vision are sometimes accused of being picky. They are falsely accused of saying that they are somehow better than others. Those who follow God have always been falsely accused of this.

The problem with man-made orders is that they are not reality. God can use the many organizations and the people in those organizations that follow the precepts of men and not the precepts of God. God loves them. They are born again. And God blesses their work. A prime example is the Billy Graham association. God uses this good organization mightily to bring people to Christ. Yet, there are elements of the organization that do not follow the order that God has laid out in Scripture. Those variations are not reality. There are elements of the members of the organization and the way that they interact that are in keeping with the Kingdom of God. And God calls them, just as He calls all of us, into greater conformity to the Kingdom of Heaven.

In the same way, God has established much of the order for worship, the Scriptural order for church offices, the order for gifts and ministries, the Kingdom principles of being filled with Holy Spirit and being led by the Spirit, and many other Kingdom realities among us. These, when taken as a whole, are real. Yet, when we fail to forgive or fail to see Christ in each other, that is unreal. That is a lie. Lies bind us up. Lies are not according to truth. When we see Christ in each other, then we are seeing things as they really are.

Real Reality. Seek Truth. Truth Fulfills. Lies Frustrate

How can we know anything about anything

Growing in Christ

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