What is the Truth?
"All scripture is given by
inspiration of god, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness" #2Ti 3:16
BOOK OF BOOKS
JESUS promises: "Blessed are they
which do hunger and thirst after righteousness
[that which is right, good and true]:for they [and no others] shall be
filled"; "ask, and it shall
be given you; seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you"; "and ye shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free [from sin, error, ignorance, superstition and the conflicting and
confusing man-made theories, creeds and
religions]" (#Mt 5:6;
7:7, 8; #Lu 11:9, 10; #Joh 8:32).
WHERE WILL WE FIND THE TRUTH?
There is an intelligent Creator, who gave
man the capacity to understand a
Truth-revelation. To find the Truth, the pure "wisdom that is from
above," we must seek to God,
"
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS," who gives liberally to all, and upbraids not (#Jas 1:5, 17; 3:17) —and not believe "THE FATHER OF LIES," "that old serpent, called the Devil,
and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world
[and is worshiped more and more, even openly]," who "as a
roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom
he may devour," "the god of this world," who "is
transformed into an angel of
light," who "hath blinded the minds of them which believe not [the Word of God]," who "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" (#Re 12:9; #1Pe 5:8; #2Co
4:4; 11:14; #Joh 8:44; 14:30; 16:11). Therefore in seeking Divine Truth, none
should turn to Satan-inspired and human
theories, creeds and traditions-no matter how popular-which claim to be
Truth but are not, but to the Bible
(much internal and external evidence proves that it is God’s Word, the Truth), of which Jesus said, "Sanctify
them through thy truth; thy word is
truth" (#Joh 17:17; 6:63). The Holy Scriptures can make us
"wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ"; for "all scripture is given by inspiration of
God, and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of
God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" ( # 2Ti 3:15-17). To gain the Truth from the Bible, one
needs honesty, humility and meekness,
including willingness to discard preconceived ideas; one must "let
God be true," though it make
"every man a liar"; "if they speak not according to this word,
it is because there is no light in
them"; thus one’s faith will stand, not in man’s wisdom, but in God’s power (#Ro 3:4; #Isa 8:20; #1Co
2:5).
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS VS. THE FATHER OF
LIES
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS told Adam: "In the day [’one day is
with the Lord as a thousand years’-#2Pe 3:8; #Ps
90:4-Adam died at 930] that
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die [margin, dying thou shalt die]" (#Ge 2:17)—but THE FATHER OF LIES openly contradicted God
by telling Eve his first great,
monumental lie, "Ye shall not surely die" (#Ge 3:4).
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS in sentencing Adam told him that at death
he would "return unto the ground
for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (#Ge 3:19)—but THE FATHER OF LIES claims that Adam at death did not "return" at all to
any former condition, but, still alive, went
into an entirely new condition.
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS has executed His death sentence upon
mankind everywhere, as history
proves-but THE FATHER OF LIES "deceived" Eve into believing that
she, Adam and his race would live on
and be "as gods [angels]" (#Ge 3:5; 1 Tim.
2: 14).
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS gave this truth plainly, and in its light
told Christians through the Apostle
Paul: "I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds
should be corrupted from the simplicity
that is in Christ" (#2Co 11:3)—but
THE FATHER OF LIES deceives many into
believing that Adam, a human creature, never begotten of the Spirit,
somehow died a spiritual death, and
that he and all his race at death live on (in
heaven, eternal torture, or some intermediate conscious state) and so
need not wait for the resurrection day.
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS Says:"that which befalleth the sons
of men befalleth beasts; even one thing
befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence
above a beast . .. all go unto one place [neither to heaven, nor to eternal
torment]; all are of the dust, and all
turn to dust again" (#Ec
3:19, 20; #Ps 49:14, margin)—but THE
FATHER OF LIES claims that after death most men are worse off than the beast-that at death the beast
ceases to live and is therefore free from
suffering, whereas mankind do not really die but live on-nearly all of
them in eternal torment.
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS says that "man became a living soul
[Heb., nephesh, sentient being],"
that "the soul that sinneth, it shall die," that "none can keep alive his own soul" (#Ge 2:7; #Eze 18:4, 20; #Ps 22:29; 30:3;
78: 50)—but THE FATHER OF LIES teaches that the human soul is inherently
immortal, and it cannot die, that it is
something infinitesimal, indivisible and invisible inside of him, which of necessity must exist forever.
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS says: "The wages of sin is death;
but the gift of God is eternal life
[death’s antithesis] through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6: 23)—but THE
FATHER OF LIES teaches the very opposite, claiming that the wages of sin is not death, but eternal life in
torment, and that the wicked do not get
their eternal life as a gift from God through Christ, but because of an
immortal soul inside of them that God
Himself cannot destroy; thus he contradicts also Jesus’ statement that God "is able to destroy both soul and
body in hell [not hades but gehenna is
the Greek word used here, which refers to the Second Death-utter, complete and eternal annihilation]" (# Mt 10:28) .
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS says that "the dead know not any
thing"; "his sons come to
honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he
perceiveth it not of them", "his
breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish"; "for in
death there is no remembrance of thee:in the
grave who shall give thee thanks?" (#Ec 9:5, 10;
#Job 14:21; #Ps 146:4; 6:5; 115:17)—but THE FATHER OF LIES teaches the very opposite, and-often through able teachers and artists-portrays
dead parents still alive in the spirit
world, guiding their little children on earth.
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS referred to Jesus as the One "who
[aside from Himself] only hath
immortality" (#1Ti 6:16), and He exhorted the Church to
"seek for glory, honour and
immortality," which He would "render" to them in the First Resurrection (and not before), in "the
day of wrath and revelation of the
righteous judgment of God," here in the great Time of Trouble in
the end of the Gospel Age, when as
Christ’s Bride they are made "like him" and "put on immortality" (#Ro 2:5-7; #Re
20:6; #Da 12:1-3; #1Jo
3:2; #1Co 15:53, 54)—but THE
FATHER OF LIES claims that the human soul is inherently immortal, that it is foolish to seek for and put on
that which you already possess and have
had ever since you came into existence.
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS says that Jesus was "the firstborn
from the dead" (Col. 1: 18; #Re 1:5); that
only those begotten of the Spirit by His Word (#Joh 3:5;
1 Cor. 4:15; #Jas 1:18; #1Pe
1:3, 23, 25) and later born
of the Spirit from the
dead—resurrected-as Jesus was, could enter the heavenly, spiritual, invisible phase of God’s Kingdom; and
therefore before Jesus’ First Advent "no
man" had ascended "up to heaven" (#Joh 3:13); that at Pentecost, David had "not ascended into the heavens" (#Ac 2:29-34); and that even the Apostles were to wait to be crowned with immortal life, their
heavenly reward, until Jesus’ Second
Advent (#Re 2:10; #1Co 15:48-54; #Col 3:4; #1Th
4:13-17; #2Ti 4:8; #1Pe
1:4, 5, 13; 5:4; #Joh 14:2, 3; #1Jo
3:2), when, "at the
resurrection of the just," in the Thousand-year Judgment Day (#Ac 17:31; #2Pe
3:7, 8), Christ rewards all
His people, including the prophets of old
(#Mt 16:27; #Lu 14:14; #Re 11:18; 20:12; 22:12)—but THE FATHER OF LIES teaches that none have to wait, but that at
death all are judged and obtain life
eternal either in heaven or in eternal torment in the fiery creedal hell
adapted from heathen religions by Papacy
and adopted by most Protestants.
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS says that-in view of the
resurrection-those who die in Adam are
not extinct, "for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in
the graves shall hear his voice, and shall
come forth"; for Christ "gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time"; and therefore
God "will have all men to be saved
[from Adamic condemnation and death] and to come unto the knowledge of the truth," and then to
have one full and complete opportunity to
gain everlasting life as a gift from Him (comparatively few have had
an opportunity yet); accordingly,
"concerning them which are asleep" in the unconscious sleep of death, "in the dust of the earth,"
we "sorrow not, even as others
which have no hope"; for they "shall awake"-"for as in Adam
all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive" (#Joh 5:28,
29; #1Ti 2:4-6; 1 Thes. 4: 13-17; #Da 12:2; #1Co 15:22)—but THE FATHER OF LIES teaches that "ye shall not surely die"-you may appear to die,
but it is only your body that goes to
sleep in death and you (the soul) are quite awake, more alive than
before, and the resurrection means only
that your fleshly body, which you have not really needed at all, will be reunited with and fettered to you.
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS promises that-after mankind by experience
has learned the terrible results of
sin-He in His wisdom, justice, love and power will purge the universe of all the incorrigibly wicked-"all
the wicked will he destroy"; "they
shall be as though they had not been"; "the wicked shall not
be," "shall perish ...
consume away" (#Ps
145:20; 37:10, 20; #Ob 16); they "go away into
everlasting punishment [Greek, kolasin, cutting off: not eternal
torture, but everlasting cutting off
from life, namely, everlasting death-utter, complete and eternal annihilation-’the second death,’ for
‘the wages of sin is death’-#Ro
6:23]:but [by contrast] the
righteous into life eternal" (#Mt 25:46)—but
THE FATHER OF LIES denies and discounts God’s holy character attributes
and blasphemes Him, portraying Him as
vengeful and diabolical, fiendishly torturing
eternally billions of His human creatures; and Satan has mistranslated, misapplied and misinterpreted the Hebrew
word sheol and the Greek words hades
and gehenna, giving them a false meaning, namely, a place where the
majority of mankind are in torment.
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS uses fire to symbolize
destruction-"even as Sodom and
Gomorrha [in their total destruction] ... are set forth for an
example, suffering the vengeance of
eternal fire" (Jude 7)-not that the fire burns eternally, but that it destroyed them forever (the cities, not
the people, who have a future chance
for salvation-#Eze 16:46-63; #Mt 10:15; #Lu 10:11, 12) and so represents destruction, even as
it, the worm and hell do in #Isa
66:24 and #Mr 9:43-48 (hell here is not hades, the unconscious sleep in
Adamic death, but gehenna, the valley
of Hinnom, a refuse-destroying place) and as the lake of fire and brimstone does in #Re 20:14, 15; 21:8 (for it "is
[represents] the second death"-not life!)—but THE FATHER OF LIES,
to support his original lie, teaches
that fire symbolizes-not destruction but-preservation, and that the lake of fire is not the second
death, but the second life, eternal
existence in unspeakable torture by fireproof devils, etc.
THE FATHER OF LIGHTS declares that "everlasting
fire" (destruction) is "prepared
for the devil and his angels" (# Mt 25:41);
that he will be "cast into the
lake of fire [’the second death’-utter, complete and eternal
annihilation] ... and shall be
tormented day and night for ever and ever [basanizo, the Greek word here for ‘tormented,’ means primarily to
test; compare #Isa 14:16;
66:24, which show that the righteous will eternally
‘consider,’ ‘go forth’ and ‘look upon,’
that is, mentally consider, test, examine, the course of the incorrigibly wicked, and as a result of that testing or
examination conclude that because they
were linked so inseparably with evil, they rightly deserved
annihilation]" (#Re 20:10); that Christ will "destroy him that had the power of
death, that is, the devil" (#Heb 2:14); that Satan, who as Lucifer (light-bearer) was
"in Eden the garden of
God"-"perfect ... till iniquity was found in thee," will be totally and eternally
annihilated—"never shalt thou be any more" (Isa. 14:12-20; #Eze 28:11-19)—but THE FATHER OF LIES obviously dislikes prophecies of his eventual destruction, so he deceives
(1) some (Christian Scientists, etc.) into denying his personality (claiming
he is merely an evil principle),
(2) others (Universalists, etc.) into
believing that "the lake of fire"
represents purgation and preservation-that all will finally be saved to
eternal life, and (3) still others into
denying God’s existence and/or the Bible’s
reliability and Divine inspiration.
Thus eventually God, THE FATHER OF LIGHTS who "is love" (#1Jo 4:8), will have a
clean universe. With all the wicked annihilated, evil will forever become inactive-"all iniquity shall stop her
mouth" (#Ps 107:42). Then every creature in heaven and on earth will join in the
great eternal anthem of praise to God
and Christ, saying, "Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be
unto him that sitteth upon the throne,
and unto the Lamb for ever and ever" (#Re 5:13, 14).
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