Wednesday, September 20, 2017

THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH


            In the world of 2017, one must make certain assumptions when it comes to knowing what to believe is truth and what not to believe.  In making those assumptions, one must have a point of reference which is believed to be absolutely infallible.  Otherwise, we place our decision making about truth on questionable foundations. 


The truth is our world today is full of lies.  Politicians lie virtually every time they open their mouths.  Children lie for fear of punishment.  Criminals lie in hopes of getting away with a crime and not going to jail.  Professors lie because they want to influence their students to believe according to their belief system.  But the worst liar of all is SATAN.  He lies to us because he wants us to believe that God is a liar so we will all end up not trusting God’s word and, because of that mistrust, refuse to accept Jesus as His son, and therefore spend all eternity in hell after we die because of that refusal.  


I KNOW the Bible is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  I know that sounds like an awfully strong and questionably declarative statement, but let me explain why I say that, and then maybe others can understand why I make such a strong position.


In 1972, I was in Southeast Asia, flying combat missions.  I was scared.  On many of the missions I flew, bullets literally flew over my head and over the wings of my aircraft by what looked like inches.  I was looking for truth in my faith, because I wanted to be absolutely sure that if I was killed over there, that I would go to Heaven.  I had several wonderful friends that were of the Mormon faith (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), and I admired them because they lived a life that seemed to me to be what Christians should live.  They were kind, soft-spoken, gentle people who loved their families and others with what I would call the love of Christ. 


I asked one of my friends, a pilot named Steve, to tell me why the Mormons seemed to live a more Christian lifestyle that most of my other friends who were Christians, and as he explained it to me, he told me things that started making me question whether or not that was really the church I should belong to or not.  I liked what I heard, so they invited me to go through a process where I was taught about their church and could eventually become a member of that church. 


While many of their beliefs were totally foreign to me, their story about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith at first seemed questionable, they presented historical facts to me which gave me reason to keep an open mind.  I did, until they told me I would have to be re-baptized by someone in their church that had hands laid on them with a lineage that traced all the way back to Joseph Smith.  At that, I got a disturbing feeling in my spirit and told them I had to pray about that, because I had already been baptized twice; sprinkled in the Methodist Church, and dunked when I converted to the Baptist denomination at the request of my first wife (at that point, I believed what the preachers told me that baptism was not a requirement of salvation, but an outward expression of trust and obedience to Christ’s instructions). 


I was very uncomfortable in my spirit then, and when I later heard about our next day’s mission, I became even more uncomfortable.  We were going to fly our first mission deep into North Vietnam and attack a base which was the only North Vietnamese anti-aircraft training school.  It was a rather small base geographically, which made a fairly concentrated target, and around that base were, if my memory serves me correctly, fifty-seven anti-aircraft gun sites.


I got very scared at that point.  In my fear, I became convinced that I was going to die the next day.  I had taken anti-aircraft fire before from a few gun sites down in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and they got close enough to make me question how we did not get hit, but we never did.  Now, we were going to bomb a concentrated area where they were fifty-seven guns firing on us.  In my mind, I saw no way for us to get through that much firepower without getting hit and I just accepted in my mind that I would probably die the next day.  But with that acceptance, the question of whether or not what the Mormons were telling me about baptism became an even more pressing matter, because when I died I wanted to be sure I would go to Heaven.  The Mormons believe that all other faiths will not go to Heaven; they were telling me that only those who were Mormons would go to heaven.


I started praying harder than I had ever prayed before about what to believe.  I actually fell asleep praying, but at roughly two o’clock in the morning, I woke up and sat straight up in my bed when I heard these words “Stick with what you know to be the truth” as clearly as if the person were in the room with me.  But my other three roommates were still sound asleep. 


I climbed out of my upper bunk bed and went down the hall to where Steve and his Mormon friend whose name I cannot remember were sleeping and woke them up.  I explained to them what had happened, and asked them what they thought about it.  They were very patient with me, and were obviously trying to wake up and gain some comprehension of what I had said, so they asked several questions of me getting me to explain again what had happened, and I explained as best I could what I had been going through all that day after they told me about the baptism requirement and how I had been praying hard, even falling asleep while praying.


Steve and his friend really seemed a little befuddled, but finally Steve’s friend said to me in so many words “sometimes, the devil will put thoughts in our heads in order to lead us astray, and maybe that is what is happening here.”  He had no more finished his statement when I said to him “Well why would the devil tell me to stick to the Bible?”  They had no response.  At that point, I simply excused myself and went back to my room and started praying again.


My thoughts became pretty clear to me at that point.  I had not even thought about what I would say to Steve’s friends statement; it just popped out of my mouth without my thinking about it.  In my prayers, I had not thought about the question in exactly those terms, but I had prayed hard asking God to clarify to me whether my prior teaching from the Bible about baptism were true, or whether what Steve was telling me about the Mormon faith’s beliefs about baptism were true or not.  I had not, to my recollection ever put it into context about whether the Book of Mormon was true or not because frankly, I had come to believe it was true until the baptism issue came up.


In the nine words that I heard that night, I believe that God answered my prayers.  I can state unequivocally that from that time on, I did not fear dying.  I was still afraid on every combat mission, but not of being killed, but of possibly being maimed or taken prisoner and being tortured.  But death had no hold on me any more.  I also realized two very important things that night:


1.       God confirmed in my heart and mind that the Bible was truthful and to be trusted.


2.       God answers prayers when we question Him about theological issues with a pure heart searching for truth. 


Since that time, God has revealed to me that He is giving people proof of His existence, and proof that the Bible is true.  Numerous books are available from people who have had near-death experiences and gone to Heaven and met Jesus.  The most obvious and undeniable proof to me is given in the example of two children, one a then-three-year-old from a Midwestern state, and a young Russian child from the Chicago area.  Both had experiences where they went to Heaven and met Jesus.  Neither knew of the other, but the father of the young boy, a pastor of a church in that Midwestern state, kept asking his son what Jesus looked like, showed him every picture he could find depicting Jesus, and the boy kept saying no, that wasn’t him.  Then, one day a story of the young girl was being shown on TV.  In that story, it was showing some of the beautiful paintings that this less-than-10-year-old girl from Chicago had painted, and one of them was a large painting of the Christ.  About that time, the young boy, who at that time was less than five years old, walked by the TV, and matter-of-factly told his father “That’s Him”, meaning that is what Jesus looked like.


So, a boy from the Midwest sees a picture of Jesus painted by a girl just a few years older than him from Chicago, a girl the boy had never met, and confirms that the picture is of Jesus as the boy saw Him in heaven in his near-death experience.  Coincidence?  No, I don’t think so.  When one becomes a Christian, one soon learns that in the life of a Christian, there is no such thing as coincidence when it comes to spiritual truths.


To learn more about the young boy and girl mentioned in the example above, read the following books:  To relieve the concerns of the skeptical, I do not know any of these people, and am not receiving any kind of financial or any other compensation for recommending these books.  I found them compelling reading, and the interactions between them, though thousands of miles apart, is hard to discount as anything but truthful.


1.       Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven,


2.       Akiane: Her Life, Her Art, Her Poetry


 I know all the arguments against the Bible being absolutely truthful.  I listen to my skeptical friends with the typical arguing points (shell-fish versus no-shell-fish, women cutting their hair, conflicts between the Old Testament and the New Testament, the earth being billions of years old versus thousands of years old, etc).  Do I know the answers? No.  Does that bother me?  NO!


Any religion is a belief based on one thing:  Faith.  Faith is believing and trusting in something or someone that cannot be seen or proven by empirical evidence.  However, there is another type of proof that overcomes all the issues of empirical evidence requirements.  In the Christian faith, there is the proof of the Holy Spirit.  For those of us who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit, and that Holy Spirit is as real as your next breath.  The Holy Spirit is our interpreter when we pray but do not know how to express ourselves to our Father.  The Holy Spirit is our conscience, guiding us on our quest for truth as we face the lying society in which we live.  It is our source of the ability to believe and trust in God.  We Christians know that the Holy Spirit is real and trustworthy because it is part of the Trinity. 


Can I prove what I have told today? No.  If Steve and his friend are still alive, I hope they would confirm at least factually what I have said is true, whether or not they believe what I have said spiritually is true or not.  But in my own heart and mind I am convinced without doubt that on a hot July night before my first combat mission into deep North Vietnam I heard the voice of God speak to me as audibly as I hear anything while awake and tell me “Stick with what you know to be the truth”.  And while I am a confessed sinner, undeserving of anything but condemnation, through the undeserved grace and mercy of God, when I close my eyes in death, I will spend eternity in Heaven in the presence of the one and only God, His son Jesus Christ.   I pray others will read this and if there are any doubts as to whether I speak the truth or not, do not trust me, but go in earnest, heartfelt prayer to God and ask for His guidance, and I believe that God is faithful and will reveal His truth to you.


May God bless and keep each of you. 

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