True Praise, by Rick Sterling

I have always had a love for music. I play the trumpet and guitar, have sung in choirs and chorales, and have written many songs. There are songs that bring to mind memories of events from long ago, as clear as if it happened only a few days ago. Other songs have brought on feelings of joy or sadness. Music has an important place in the church service, it is an opportunity to sing praises or songs of worship honoring God. I have observed people during song services, to see how they respond to the different types of music; praise, gospel, worship, and classical. Lately I have asked myself; are these songs praising God for something He has not done, or for something He would never think to do? If so, wouldn’t that be mocking Him. Songs of praise honor God only when the words express the truth in their praise. It is important for us to know the truth about God before we give Him praise with our voice for something that may not be true.
It has come to my attention that much of what Christians believe to be true about God is based on teachings that are at variance with the testimony of the Son of Man. Therefore some of their worship is based on a teaching that the Son of God never spoke, and their praise is in response to this same unsupported belief. These songs of praise are all based upon the lies they have been taught to believe and worship. Most Christians think that God will accept well-intended praise, even if it isn’t truth; its the thought that counts, right? My understanding of what God accepts and expects is that praise springs forth from the root of truth, therefore you must know the truth before you are able to offer true praise. Praise that is not built upon truth is not praise to God at all, it is praise to the father of fables and lies. These kind of songs praise the evil one and extol his gospel message. I am sure the evil one revels in this praise, and taunts God with this fact, the fact that his gospel has replaced the true gospel of the kingdom, because it is the desire of every Christian heart.

Isaiah 29:13 Yahweh has said; Because this people approaches me only in words, honors me only with lip-service while its heart is far from me, and my religion, as far as it is concerned, is nothing but human commandment, a lesson memorized very well, I shall have to go on being prodigal of prodigious prodigies with this people.

Matthew records that the Son of God applied this prophecy to the religious leaders at the time of His ministry, as well as those in the days of Isaiah (see Matthew 15:7-9). The evil one cares not who you believe you are worshiping or praising, he knows that if you are a believer of his lies, you are praising him, alleluia amen! God has not purposed that you remain under a deception. He will not leave you in darkness to practice the deeds of darkness; but you must wake-up to the fact that you are practicing a lie, this is extremely difficult for most to do, the fact is, it borders on the impossible.

I am puzzled by the description of the attitude of some of the disciples toward their Master. They spent a whole year with Him, rarely if ever leaving His company, and yet they never really came to believe in Him, let alone accept what He was teaching.
John 7:59-65 He taught this doctrine at Capernaum in the synagogue. After hearing it, many of his followers said, ‘This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it? Jesus was aware that his followers were complaining about it and said, ‘Does this upset you? What if you should see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before? ‘It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. ‘But there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew form the outset those who did not believe, and who it was that would betray him.

And:

Matthew 28:26-27 Meanwhile the eleven disciples set out for Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated.

These are just a couple of texts that describe a reluctance on the part of some of the disciples to “believe in their Master”.

It is of utmost importance to learn the truth from God, and God alone; the testimony of the word of truth that God the Father gave to His Son. The words are the seeds He planted and those words are found only in the writings of His disciples, Matthew and John (Mark was not a disciple but associated with the disciples. I believe that Mark’s writing is trustworthy, except for the last part of the last chapter[verses 9-20] they were added later). We must eat the testimony of the Son of Man before we will be able to worship and praise God in spirit and in truth. True worship is the fountain of true praise, the heart springs forth with words and songs of praise that originate from the well of truth and a full knowledge of the true God. We must humble ourselves and acknowledge that we are living in darkness, a darkness that has kept us from knowing and understanding the truth. We must learn from the Spirit of Truth through the words of testimony given by Her Son. We must humble ourselves and learn the testimony of the Son of Man, from the Master teacher, the Spirit of Truth, and She will lead us into all truth.

Matthew 11:28-30 ‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentile and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls! Yes my yoke is easy and my burden light.’

Jeremiah 9:22-24 Thus says Yahweh, ‘Let the sage boast no more of his wisdom, nor the valiant of his valour, not the rich man of his riches! But if anyone wants to boast let him boast of this; of understanding and knowing me. For I am Yahweh, I rule with kindness, justice and integrity on earth; yes these are what please me -it is Yahweh who speaks.

Find truth and you will find peace, a peace that passes understanding, and you will find rest for your soul. It is only then that you will be able to declare with truth, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow”! Amen.

Rick Sterling

The Testimony of Truth, by Rick Sterling

The Testimony of Truth, by Rick Sterling

Imagine a sower going out to sow… The kingdom of the heavens may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field… As he sowed, some seeds fell on the edge of the path… Others fell on patches of rock… Others fell among thorns… Others fell on rich soil… The sower went away; while everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off.
Then, leaving the crowds, he went to the house; and his disciples came to him and said, ‘Explain the parable about the darnel in the field to us’. Then the disciples went up to him and asked, ‘Why do you talk to them in parables?’ ‘Because’ he replied ‘the mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens are revealed to you, but they are not revealed to them. For anyone who has will be given more and he will have more than enough; but from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away. The reason I talk to them in parables is that they look without seeing and listen without hearing or understanding.
‘It (the kingdom) is like a man on his way abroad who summoned his servants and entrusted his property to them… “Sir,” said he “ I had heard you were a hard man, reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered; so I was afraid… For to everyone who has will be given more and he will have more than enough; but from the man who has not, even what he has will be taken away…
The above are excerpts taken from Matthew chapters 13 and 25. The reader is strongly encouraged to read these in their entirety and in their context. May God bless you and give you enlightenment as you read.

The Son of God came to this earth for one specific purpose, to sow seed; the seed He sowed were His words, His testimony. The Son of God plainly stated that the words were not His alone, they were given to Him by His Father. His Father is God, the creator of heaven and earth. When the Son of God returns to this earth it won’t be for the purpose of sowing more seed, but to reap the harvest of the seed He sowed almost two-thousand years ago.

John 18:37 Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

The Son of God is a king; He is the king of the kingdom of God; the kingdom of truth; all who are of the truth hear His voice/words.

John 8:43 “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. 44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 “But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.

The Son of God was speaking to the religious leaders/theologians when He made this statement, shouldn’t they have been the ones who would recognize Him; indeed, if they had known the truth, they would have recognized Him. They had been mastered by a lie, a lie of their own creation, passed down from their fathers, generation after generation. Who was the originator, the instigator of this knowledge; the one responsible for this was none other than the devil, the great deceiver. The devil gives you what you want to believe, and helps you support it through lies and deceptions. The reason and purpose for the life and ministry of the Son of God was to testify to the truth. His words are the standard of truth; all other teachers/apostles teachings are to be compared to. Any person making claims for themselves, saying they have been “called or commissioned” to deliver a message from God the Almighty, must be held up to the standard of truth, the testimony of the Son of God; if their teaching differs, in even the minutest detail, it must be totally disregarded and thrown out completely. If you do this you will find that everyone who has come after the Son of God, claiming to be an apostle or prophet/prophetess, is a lying fraud. If you want to know the truth that leads to salvation and eternal life go no further than the words from His own disciples Matthew, Mark (writing for Peter), and John. Anyone else claiming God given authority to proclaim the good news of salvation is lying.
By eating the words of the Son of God you will become like Him, full of light and truth. By eating the words of the father of lies you will become like him and will receive his judgment; his judgment is the lake of fire, the second death. The words of the great deceiver are the darnel, they look like wheat, but they are not. When consumed, darnel gives a feeling of drunkenness, a false euphoria that numbs the senses and makes one feel that everything is alright; if it makes you feel good, it must be so!

When considering the parables of sowing seed together, we see a clear picture, that of the “sower” the “Son of Man”, who came from heaven, sowed the good seed; the testimony He received from His Father, then He went away for an extended period of time. He entrusted the care of the seed He planted to His disciples.

Matthew 28:18-20 All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes to the end of time.

John 17:20 I pray not only for these, but for those also who through their words will believe in me.

One thing I find absent from the commission recorded in Matthew, and the prayer in John, is the revelation of another message that was to be giving to another apostle; a message specifically designed for the pagans, who would be saved through a dialectic that had the appearance of authority, but lacked substance. The one who would deliver this message would claim it’s foundation was from long ago, as testified in the Law and Prophets. However, when this message is fully investigated it would be shown that it was only cleverly spun together, dissected threads of verses. When the parable of the sowing of seeds and darnel is examined it is clearly revealed that the devil moved in to sow the seeds among the wheat after the seeds of truth had been scattered. The last words written by John, the disciple of the Son of Man, are words of deep concern, concern that the testimony of his Master was in danger of being lost forever.

2 John 7-9 There are many deceivers about in the world refusing to admit that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. They are the Deceiver; they are the Antichrist. Watch yourselves, or all our work will be lost and not get the reword it deserves. If anybody does not keep within the teaching of Christ but goes beyond it, he cannot have God with him; only those who keep to what he taught can have the Father and the Son with them.

John was concerned that the testimony of his Master would be lost, swept away by the plethora of lies gaining wide acceptance throughout the nations. The words of his Master must have been ringing in his ears; teach them to obey all the commands I have given you. John saw that these words of truth were in grave danger of being lost, forgotten forever.

The wheat and darnel were sown together in the same field, first the wheat than later the darnel, making it impossible to differentiate one from the other until the wheat would be ready for harvest. When the teaching of the Son of God is finally recognized as separate, unique, and the truth; which reveals the way to the kingdom of God and eternal life, than it is the time for the harvest. The words of the Sower clearly reveal the words of the enemy because the words of death are never the words of life, and will never be.

God has given us many wonderful qualities, but two of these qualities stand above all the others; the ability to learn, and the ability to choose. The ability to learn is clearly the most important of these two, because what we know affects the choices that we make. The choices we make determine the course of our lives; therefore it is most important to make sure that what we learn is the truth. What we learn is the foundation of our expectation. Our ability to recognize an event is greatly influenced by what we are expecting. God not only gives us reliable instruction, but gives us accurate revelation of future outcomes. The parables were not clever analogies or spiritual tales, they were revelations of future outcomes. The sower sowed seed, and went away with instruction to His servants care for His field until He returned. Two servants acted constructively on His instructions, one did not. When the Master returned it was harvest time and the darnel was harvested first, and put in piles to be burned. The wheat was placed in the barns (kingdom).

God is loving and just, His commands are righteous and just. God loves those who love Him and keep His commands. God’s love does not make Him impotent when it comes to obeying His commands. There is only one way to enter the kingdom of God, it is through the testimony of His only begotten Son.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. 24 “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.

You determine what you learn, what you learn determines what you know. If what you know is a lie then it is worthless. You are what you have learned. If what you have learned is a lie then that is what you are. We have been given the opportunity to learn the truth, and it is up to us to take that opportunity and act on it. All of mankind is born into a world of lies. Every organized religious practice is full of lies and deceptions. It was because of lies that the Jewish religious leaders rejected the testimony of the Son of God, and with bold confidence pursued a course that would put an end to His testimony. It is most difficult to acknowledge the fact that we have been participating in a cleverly constructed matrix of lies made to appear as truth. This matrix has existed for many millenniums, it has existed for so long no one thinks to question it. The Son of God exposed it and only a handful of people believed Him. In order to see this, one must be honest with themselves. It is curious to me as why people can be honest with others, but not with themselves. An honest person never knowingly lies to others. A person who is honest with themselves would never knowingly believe a lie, nor would they lie to themselves. The great deceiver knows this, and has cunningly crafted a fraud which has enjoyed wide acceptance throughout Christianity; this fraud is faith. To pull off this slight-of-hand trick the devil took the words that God uses to convey what He expects from His people and shortened it in order to change its meaning; that word is faithfulness. The Devil removed the ‘fullness’ part from “Faithfulness”, which left ‘faith’. Satan has convinced those who profess a belief in God and His Son Jesus Christ that ‘faith’ is the key to the kingdom of God. They believe that Christ died for their personal sins, thereby granting them entrance into the kingdom through circumventing the Law of Ten Commands in favor of salvation by ‘faith’ through grace. The stronger their faith the more certain they are of their salvation. By this type of ‘faith’ one can believe that they can enter the kingdom without keeping the Ten Commandments. What they fail to understand is that by faith it is possible to believe a lie without knowing it. The really powerful part of this fraud is that the devil has convinced “Christians” that faith is the key to their salvation, and nothing else is needed. Therefore, it is only those with an abundance of faith who will enter the kingdom of God. In this way the Devil has convinced these “people of faith” , these ‘born-again’ Christians, that knowing the truth only serves to weaken their faith, and this is anathema to salvation in modern Christianity. Yet as we have seen, it is by faith that one can believe a lie as though it is truth, without accountability. Faith is the darnel, that deadly seed planted by the Devil in the same field sown by the Sower of Truth. Satan accomplished this great deception through his popular and much loved apostle, Paul. Paul is the apostle of faith. Before planting his darnel Satan waited patiently until the Sower of Truth had gone home to His Father. Satan, realizing that the original disciples of Jesus who were the leadership of the Jerusalem church (The Way) were slightly confused and uncertain about what they were to do next, and capitalizing on this uncertainty and sized control of the early church. He put James the brother of Jesus in charge of the Jewish side of the church, and put his own apostle Paul/Saul in charge of the pagan (Gentile)side of the church. He then put these two men in direct doctrinal conflict one with the other, knowing that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand; the net result of which was that the Law abiding portion of the church in Jerusalem faded into history, while the pagan/orthodox church experienced tremendous growth. Faith and lawlessness won out, and the truth went into the wilderness.

Revelation 12:5,6 The woman brought a male child into the world, the son who was to rule all the nations with an iron sceptre, and the child was taken straight up to God and to his throne, while the woman escaped into the desert/wilderness, where God had made a place of safety ready, for her to be looked after in the twelve hundred and sixty-days.

The sower, Son of Man, sowed the words of truth; the devil sowed lying words; words that could only be understood through faith. Faith brings on a false sense that the believer has nothing to fear or dread as long as they maintain their faith. They become intoxicated by faith and have no idea that they are on the road that leads to death. The only way for them to have a chance to enter the kingdom of God is to stop eating the darnel/lies, and eat the words of truth.

The French word for darnel is ivraie (from Latin ebriacus, intoxicated), which expresses that weed’s characteristic of making one feel poisoned with drunkenness, and can cause death. This characteristic is also alluded to in the scientific name (Latin temulentus = drunk). (Taken from wikipedia)

Revelation 2:2 I know all about you, how hard you work and how much you put up with. I know you cannot stand wicked men, and how you tested the impostors who called themselves apostles and proved they were liars.

God requires that His people know and practice the truth. God has given us the truth through the testimony of His Son. He has preserved the truth over the last two-thousand plus years, so that those who come at the end of time would be able to accomplish His plan of restoration. God has been waiting for a long time for someone, anyone, to wake-up in the darkness, and to make a commitment to Him and to themselves to search for the truth. When they find it they will see the light of dawn on the horizon, and they will walk toward it. They will learn more about truth along this pathway until they are in the full light of the day. Then they will become sons of the light and sons of the day; sons of the living God.

Rick Sterling


Covenant, by Rick Sterling

Covenant

A covenant is a binding agreement between two or more parties/persons. A covenant requires specific performance or actions by those who are included in the covenant. There are two types of covenant that will be addressed in this article; one is the blood covenant; the other is a written document that requires a promise of performance. The blood covenant is best described as a birth, or new birth, this covenant involves the end of what you were and the start of what you have become. What this represents is passing through the blood of your mother in the birth canal; an example of this was when, on the night of passover, the Hebrews “passed through” the blood on the lintel and doorposts of the houses they were in on that night. The Hebrews were “born through blood”. On that night they ceased being slaves and became the people of the only true God. The expectation was that they would act in accordance with the will of God.

The Hebrews knew nothing about God; and there was nothing written down (no ‘Scripture‘) for them from which to learn about God. The only word they had was the promise made to their father Abram/Abraham, that they would receive and inhabit the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates; and I doubt that they were even aware of this promise. So the blood covenant represents a new beginning/birth.

The written covenant is entered through an agreement between those who want to be joined together in a consonant relationship; an example of this is the covenant of marriage. The marriage covenant is not a blood covenant, it is based upon a promise of performance. The blood covenant that God made with Abram (see Genesis 15) was indicative that God has now become the God of Abram; and God confirmed this Covenant by changing Abram’s name to Abraham. This Covenant now applied to Abraham and to his offspring after him-the Children of Abraham.
This promise contained conditions of performance (was not unconditional), in that it required the performance of obedience to the specified commands (commandments) of God. God entered into this blood covenant by passing through the carcasses of the animals Abram had killed and cut in half. The oven and torch were representative of God passing through the blood and becoming the God of Abraham. The covenant of circumcision, which came later, was a blood covenant and served as a sign of the blood covenant made with Abraham.

On the night of the Passover the Hebrews had a new beginning, in that they were about to realize the fulfillment of the promise made to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel. Their God had revealed the fact that they were more powerful than the gods of Egypt, through the demonstration of the ten plagues. In the wilderness God would give Israel the opportunity to agree to abide by all the requirements of the covenant which would join this people to their God. God would give them the truth concerning their God, and the expectation/demand that they would faithfully obey all of the requirements of the Covenant.

God does not keep His people in the dark. By that I am saying that all people on this earth live in the darkness, because the existing reality of living in this world is that we live in this world that is ruled by the originator of sin/darkness. God’s plan starts when He shines the light of truth into this world. This light is expected to grow and increase through the revelation of the truth, until it fills the whole earth (Num. 14:21).

The agents through whom God works are known as messengers/prophets. God gives a message/testimony to a person of His own choosing, and instructs this messenger to deliver His words to His intended recipients. The intended recipients, with rare exception, are the people of His kingdom. But there have been times when God has warned that destruction is coming unless the population repents of their evil deeds, such as with Jonah to Nineveh. The Evil One, for obvious reasons, does not want God to successfully accomplish His plan, so he distorts the light (as through a prism) in order to keep it from exposing his finely crafted illusions. The evil one knows that when God has accomplished His plan of restoration his days are numbered and few (see Revelation 12:12). You may try to comfort yourself by saying that God has placed special protection on His testimony-He would never allow the evil one to distort them; He would never allow lies to penetrate His own Holy Scriptures. Yet the evil one wants you to believe this, making his insidious work all the more believable and easier to swallow, and gives his illusion far more power than they deserve.

Jeremiah 8:8 (JB) “How dare you say; We are wise and we possess the Law of Yahweh? But look how it has been falsified by the lying pen of the scribes!

God testifies to Jeremiah the fact that His words, the words He gave to Moses and were written down in the books of the Law, have been falsified (turned into lies) by the “lying pen of the scribes”. I am saying this because there is a widespread and certain belief that God has put special protection on ALL the words in the Bible (from cover to cover), and we must understand that all the words contained in the Bible are the very words of God. This conviction is a powerful tool of the evil one, and deadly to those who hold to it. Just as the evil one controlled the pens of the scribes in Israel he also controlled the decisions of the canonical council that determined which books and letters would be included in the Bible. The Bible contains the words of God; but it is not the word of God from cover to cover; there are lies in the “New Testament” letters of Saul/Paul and his protege Luke.

The only way you will ever receive eternal life is to keep the commandments of God and learn the truth. When you learn the truth you naturally want to share what you are learning with others. The truth is the testimony of the Son of God (Jesus). These two qualities are specifically named as the distinct characteristics of the last of the offspring of the Woman of Revelation 12. These offspring are righteous in fact (de facto) and not in faith. The agreement between God and His people requires (demands) obedience to His commandments, the same ten commandments that Paul teaches were, are, and will always be, impossible for human flesh to obey. Do you see the distortion? Paul teaches that salvation is accomplished apart from the law (Romans 7:6), not through it. He says that the law is good, but could never save a sinner. The Son of God testifies to the TRUTH. And when asked by a rich young man about entrance into eternal life, Jesus said this:

Matthew 19:17 … But if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ …
Matthew 18:8-10 If your hand or your foot should cause you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter into life crippled or lace, than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire…
Matthew 5:17-19 ‘ Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill them. I tell you solemnly, till heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, not one little stroke, shall disappear from the Law until its purpose is achieved…

The strong, sometimes difficult and even gruesome statements made by the Son of God concerning obedience to the Ten Commandments are clear; you would be better off to go through life half blind or crippled and obey the commandments, than to be whole and burn in the fire which is the second death. God has always, does now, and will always require uncompromising obedience to His specific commands. He does not give requirements and then provide a way “around” those requirements. It is the desire of the evil one that mankind not obey God, because he realizes that only through obedience comes salvation from eternal death. The evil one has created a ‘Great Deception’ whereby mankind continues to believe that they will receive salvation as a ‘free gift’ by ‘grace through faith’.

The Ten Commands of the Covenant/testimony of the Kingdom of God are the tie that binds, the glue that joins and holds the people of the Kingdom of God and God together. Break that connection and the only recourse for God is divorce. In order to enter the Kingdom of God one must be righteous in fact. NO sin or sinner will ever be allowed to live in God’s holy and righteous Kingdom.

You may wonder that if we are saved by our own righteousness then why was the Son of God put to death? The Son was put to death so He would make/have the required payment of redemption; this is the debt that every human being owes for sin/disobedience. Adam and Eve incurred this debt on the day of their disobedience-this debt was eternal death. God’s specific statement to Adam was, “. . .never eat from the tree in the midst of the garden, for on the day you eat of it you will be put to death”. When God told Adam that he would be put to death this did not mean that Adam and Eve would begin to die. God created Adam as a mortal, flesh and blood being. It was because he was mortal that God gave him access to the tree of life. God did not put Adam and the woman to death on that awful day; therefore the payment for disobedience became a debt owed by Adam and the woman and their offspring. This death debt was owed by their offspring because if God had put Adam and Eve to death “On that very day” there would not have been any offspring to whom to pass along the debt. What the Son of God did was to obey the commands of His Father:

John 15:10 If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.
John 4:34 But Jesus said; ‘My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to complete his work.

From that first act of disobedience in the garden of the paradise of God to the first coming of the Son of God, the people of the Kingdom of God were continually unfaithful to the very Covenant which offered them the possibility of LIFE. They were disobedient as a corporate body; what this means is that there were righteous people among God’s people, but the nation of Israel as a whole never accomplished the requirement of obedience to God.

There was a plan for Israel (at one time but no longer the Kingdom of Heaven) that had been revealed by God to His prophets. It revealed what would take place if Israel were to learn and practice righteousness; but this way to life was rejected by Israel. The Son of God came to earth and demonstrated that flesh and blood is not only fully capable of obedience to the commands of the Father, but showed us by His actions what those who wish to follow Him into the Kingdom must do to gain salvation. We must learn and live in righteousness in order to enter the kingdom of God. But in order to go through the gates into the City of God we must not be indebted to the one who holds the certificate of debt given him by Adam and Eve; the Evil One who is the ruler of the dead-the dragon/Satan. The Son of God paid with His blood the full the price of redemption for the righteous; therefore the payment for the debt that the righteous inherited from their disobedient parents, Adam and Eve, has been placed in a trust fund, and can be used to pay for the redemption of ONLY those who are righteous and holy.

Revelation 5:9,10 “You are worthy to take the scroll and break the seals of it, because you were sacrificed, and with your blood you bought men for God . . .”

Contrary to popular belief the Son of God did not come to save sinners; He came to deliver a message that He received from His Father. This message is the standard of truth by which every other message is to be compared. Any message that is not completely true to the testimony of the Son of God is a complete lie. This is not my assumption, this is the statement of one of His eyewitness disciples:

2 John 9 If anybody does not keep within the teaching of Christ but goes beyond it, he cannot have God with him; only those who keep to what he taught can have the Father and the Son with them.

God continues to wait for those who wish to enter into His kingdom and eternal life, those who want to learn the truth and be obedient to His covenant. The focus of those who wish to learn the truth, and then through their practice of that truth become righteous and holy, must be the testimony of the Son of God, as recorded by those who were His disciples, specifically Matthew, Mark(who wrote down Peter’s account), and John. Luke was not a disciple of the Son of God, he was a disciple of Paul. Paul was not a disciple of the Son of God, and was therefore not an eyewitness. Therefore, any and all writings of anyone else in the New testament must be compared to the testimony of the Son of God as given by His own eyewitness disciples. If there is any discrepancy, contradiction or distortion of His words we must disregard that person’s teaching altogether. I have found that in the New Testament these are the only writings of truth: Matthew, Mark, and all of John’s writings; the rest are not in agreement with the testimony of Jesus. The letters of first and second Peter are pseudonymous by investigation and content, they were “discovered” long after Peter’s death and the context in which they are written was not extant at the time of Peter’s life and ministry. The first and second century were rife with pseudonymous writings; because the writers felt that they would not have been accepted under their own name.

If this understanding seems harsh then ask yourself these questions; What is your eternal life worth to you? Is it worth you while to investigate for yourself exactly what it is that Jesus said and compare it HONESTLY with what others say about salvation? Do you really want to trust your salvation to the words of anyone OTHER THAN the Words and Teachings of the source for ALL Truth, Jesus Christ? Or are you willing to trust the words of mere human beings, who SAY they are OF GOD, but may not be in reality? Are you willing to ‘bet your life’ on the words of those that contradict the teachings of the Son of God, and of His own eyewitness disciples?

These are important questions that deserve honest answers. I pray that God will lead you into ALL truth, just as He said.

Rick Sterling