Category Archives: Truth

The Fountain of Truth

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by Mike Ratliff

13 For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, to dig them pits, even broken pits that can hold no water. Jeremiah 2:13 (1599 Geneva Bible) 

In John Bunyan’s classic The Pilgrim’s Progress, we learn of the vast difference between worldly wisdom and the truth through a character named Mr. Worldly Wisdom. Pilgrim is on his way to the little wicket gate as instructed by Evangelist when he meets up with this character. He tells Pilgrim that the truth that the Evangelist told him would only bring sorrow and grief to his life. If he would follow his advice instead then he would find that his life would go much easier. In our time, the Church has believed this lie and focused on the temporal more than the eternal. This has come from drinking from broken cisterns instead of the fountain of living waters. Continue reading →

What is Truth?

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by Mike Ratliff

38 Pilate *said to Him, “What is truth?”
And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and *said to them, “I find no guilt in Him. John 18:38 (LSB) 

I just did a quick inventory of the number of books in my personal library that were from Dr. John MacArthur. I counted 13 books which included two John MacArthur NASB Study Bibles. One is much older than the other. A few of these books were gifts, but most were ones I bought myself. One of those was his book The Truth War. Al Mohler wrote a short review of this book that is on the back cover, which I have transcribed below.

“[The postmodern age] is the age of no truth, an age that has reached a point of deadly fatigue when it comes to facing the truth-a generation that no longer believes truth can be known. Dr. John MacArthur knows better, and he is armed with the courage to confront this age with a bold defense of truth….His argument is compelling, his defense of truth is brilliant, and his concern for the church is evident on every page. The evangelical church desperately needs this book, and it arrives just in time.” – R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

I mourned when Dr. MacArthur died last summer. Look back at those months.We lost Voddie Bacham and not long after that Charlie Kirk was assassinated and  Dr. R.C. Sproul died in 2017. I remember watching a video of John MacArthur reflecting on R.C. Sproul and how his death had affected him I was very surprised. I knew they had been working together more and more,  but I was not really aware that they had become close friends. However, to me, it just seemed like I was losing all my mentors one by one. Charlie Kirk was a tremendous example for those of us who contend for the faith using discernment. Voddie Bacham was always one of those preachers I went to on Youtube when I needed encouragement. I went to R.C. Sproul for doctrinal direction. His ministry is still very much alive and I still use it. What’s my point? Our enemy is working overtime  to discoraage those who do this type of work because we are all about showing the Body of Christ how vital it is to stay totally focused on the Word of God as His revealed truth to us and the enemy has his workers pretending to be on our side who are doing everything they can to deny that and get believers to be self-focused rather than spirit-led and that means to become focused on the here and now rather than the eternal. That is why he works so hard to get believers to not be so dependent on the Word of God and to sit under that teaching and preaching that is fully immersed in the truth of God’s Word rather than the secular.

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What are Wheat and Tares?

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by Mike Ratliff

 9 But the Lord God called to the man, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10 Who said, I heard thy voice in the garden and was afraid: because I was naked, therefore I hid myself.
11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
12 Then the man said, The woman which thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13 And the Lord God said to the woman, Why hast thou done this? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
14 ¶ Then the Lord God said to the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field: upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.
15 I will also put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. He shall break thine head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Genesis 3:9-15 (1599 Geneva Bible)

24 ¶ Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man which sowed good seed in his field.
25 But while men slept, there came his enemy and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
26 And when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
27 Then came the servants of the householder, and said unto him, Master, sowest thou not good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?
28 And he said unto them, Some envious man hath done this. Then the servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
29 But he said, Nay, lest while ye go about to gather the tares, ye pluck up also with them the wheat.
30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and in time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye first the tares, and bind them in sheaves to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. Matthew 13:24-30 (1599 Geneva Bible) 

36 Then sent Jesus the multitude away, and went into the house. And his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of that field.
37 Then answered he, and said to them, He that soweth the good seed, is the son of man,
38 And the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom, and the tares are the children of that wicked one.
39 And the enemy that soweth them, is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers be the Angels.
40 As then the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world.
41 The Son of man shall send forth his Angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity,
42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
43 Then shall the just men shine as the sun in the kingdom of their father. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Matthew 13:36-43 (1599 Geneva Bible) 

When I lived in the Kansas City area, I had a preacher ask me what a tare was. He knew that I was from Oklahoma and he thought I would know. I am no country boy, but when I was a young man, I worked in a grain elevator. Actually, most wheat farmers I knew complained about a weed, which grew in their fields, they called “Cheat.” I may not be spelling it correctly. I have seen the weed though. Wheat looks like a thick-bladed grass when it is young and green. “Cheat” is a native rye grass whose species name is Lolium Temulentum. When it is young, it looks just like the Wheat. However, when it matures, it has a head on it as Wheat does, but you can tell them apart. Wheat has value, but “Cheat” is a nuisance. We offered a Wheat cleaning service to farmers just prior to planting. To clean Wheat seed we ran it through a screening process to remove any other seeds that were not Wheat. We would drop the grain down a chute into a cleaning machine that had several well-placed screens that allowed only the Wheat grains to make it through the process. The rest of the chaff and weed seeds were waste, which we bagged . Some of the farmers took that bagged waste and fed it to their chickens. Continue reading →

By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error

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by Mike Ratliff

5 They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world hears them. 6 We are from God. The one who knows God hears us; the one who is not from God does not hear us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. 1 John 4:5-6 (LSB) 

Several years ago when I still worked in an office I had a fellow with whom I worked, when he found out that I was a Christian, demand that I listen to his “reasoning” why “everything is relative.” I told him I would listen to him if he could refute the following statement, “Aren’t you making an ‘absolute statement’ when you say, ‘there are no absolutes’?” He chuckled nervously and left my cubicle. I still pray that God will save him. My brethren, the scourge of relativism is a blight within the visible Church. It causes people to flee from the absolute. When truth is seen as relative then in what or whom can anyone have faith and trust? Do we read the words of our Lord in Sacred Scripture ever saying, “Well, it depends?” Continue reading →

What Does It Mean To Rightly Handle The Word Of Truth?

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by Mike Ratliff

14 Of these things put them in remembrance, and protest before the Lord, that they strive not about words, which is to no profit, but to the perverting of the hearers.
15 Study to show thyself approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, dividing the word of truth aright. 2 Timothy 2:14-15 (1599 Geneva Bible) 

In our post What Does It Mean to Walk In The Light, we looked at what true worship is and what is isn’t. Sadly, the prevalence of false worship and “churchianity” has taken over the “visible church” in our time. However, God has not abandoned the True Church and there are those God is calling to take up the slack left by “Christian” leaders who have left their proper calling of genuine ministry and “Rightly Handling the Word of Truth” to pursue a form of “Church” that is more of a business venture than a genuine Church. One of the lynchpins of whatever it is that God calls us to do to take up that slack is that we must be those who do indeed present ourselves to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. What does it mean to “rightly handle the Word of Truth?”

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What Does It Mean To Walk In The Light

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by Mike Ratliff

1 Behold, ,what love the Father hath given to us, that we should be called the sons of God: For this cause this world knoweth you not, because it knoweth not him.
2 Dearly beloved, now are we the sons of God, but yet it is not made manifest what we shall be: and we know that when he shall be made manifest: we shall be like him: for we shall see him as he is.
3 And every man that hath this hope in him purgeth himself, even as he is pure. 1 John 3:1-3 (1599 Geneva Bible) 

The Church, the True Church, has always taken the stance that God’s truth is knowable. However, in these “post-modern” times this “stance” has come under considerable attack causing many to question it’s veracity. Also, His truth is as His attributes and character. He is immutable. His truth is never changing. He is Holy. His truth is Holy, separate from the corruption of the world. His truth, the Word of God, is precise. It supernaturally divides man’s “truth” and understanding from God’s genuine truth. It is sharper than a two edged sword.

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Wielding The Sword Of The Lord Correctly

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by Mike Ratliff

12 Ζῶν γὰρ ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἐνεργὴς καὶ τομώτερος ὑπὲρ πᾶσαν μάχαιραν δίστομον καὶ διϊκνούμενος ἄχρι μερισμοῦ ψυχῆς καὶ πνεύματος, ἁρμῶν τε καὶ μυελῶν, καὶ κριτικὸς ἐνθυμήσεων καὶ ἐννοιῶν καρδίας· Hebrews 4:12 (NA28)

12 For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than every doubled-edged-sword and penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to discern the thoughts and insights of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12 translated from the NA28 Greek text to English)

In this day in which the truth is said to be unknowable, Christians must rely on the only source of pure truth we have. There is no truth that we can say is the complete truth unless we take it from God’s Word. The Bible is pure truth and it is the authority we rely on in order to have a firm foundation in this lost and dying world that is consuming itself in rebellion against God.

What can we learn from Hebrews 4:12 about this?

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I have not come to bring peace, but a sword

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by Mike Ratliff

34 ,Think not that I am come to send peace into the earth, but the sword. Matthew 10:34 (1599 Geneva Bible) 

The character and the mission of our Lord Jesus Christ is not well understood by the majority of people on planet Earth. In fact, many professing “Christians” have an image of Him in their understanding that is based upon fleshly reasoning. This “other” Jesus is not Biblical for the most part. They have given their Jesus a whole new set of values and traits that conflict sharply with the Jesus presented in the Gospels in His own words. In fact, many of their attributes of “their Jesus” come directly from how he is portrayed in pop culture.  Continue reading →

For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth

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C. H. Spurgeon from his Morning by Morning devotional for November 28th.
3 For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth. 3 John 1:3 (KJV)
THE truth was in Gaius, and Gaius walked in the truth. If the first had not been the case, the second could never have occurred; and if the second could not be said of him the first would have been a mere pretense. Truth must enter into the soul, penetrate and saturate it, or else it is of no value. Doctrines held as a matter of creed are like bread in the hand, which ministers no nourishment to the frame; but doctrine accepted by the heart, is as food digested, which, by assimilation, sustains and builds up the body. In us truth must be a living force, an active energy, an indwelling reality, a part of the woof and warp of our being. If it be in us, we cannot henceforth part with it. A man may lose his garments or his limbs, but his inward parts are vital, and cannot be torn away without absolute loss of life. A Christian can die, but he cannot deny the truth. Now it is a rule of nature that the inward affects the outward, as light shines from the centre of the lantern through the glass: when, therefore, the truth is kindled within, its brightness soon beams forth in the outward life and conversation. It is said that the food of certain worms colours the cocoons of silk which they spin: and just so the nutriment upon which a man’s inward nature lives gives a tinge to every word and deed proceeding from him. To walk in the truth, imports a life of integrity, holiness, faithfulness, and simplicity—the natural product of those principles of truth which the gospel teaches, and which the Spirit of God enables us to receive. We may judge of the secrets of the soul by their manifestation in the man’s conversation. Be it ours to-day, O gracious Spirit, to be ruled and governed by Thy divine authority, so that nothing false or sinful may reign in our hearts, lest it extend its malignant influence to our daily walk among men.

The Counterfeit Church

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by Mike Ratliff

4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; 5 for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Revelation 18:4-5 (LSB) 

The world system, for the most part, is extremely tolerant of religion as long as it is not evangelical Christianity. However, it has no problem with that version of Christianity that is politically correct. Many countries in this world have imposed anti-hatred and anti-conversion laws specifically directed against Christianity. Liberalism, ideology, or cultural religions protecting their turf dominate those governments. Even in the United States, a preacher can get in a great deal of hot water with the FBI if someone in his audience becomes offended by the preaching of the truth from scripture about sin and depravity. It appears the deck is stacked against evangelical Christianity. Continue reading →

What is the Curse of Mediocrity?

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by Mike Ratliff

28 Also we know that all things work together for the best unto them that love God, even to them that are called of his purpose.
29 For those which he knew before, he also predestinated to be made like to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30 Moreover, whom he predestinated, them also he called, and whom he called, them also he justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be on our side, who can be against us?
32 Who spared not his own Son, but gave him for us all to death, how shall he not with him give us all things also?
33 Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s chosen? it is God that justifieth.
34 Who shall condemn? it is Christ which is dead: yea, or rather, which is risen again, who is also at the right hand of God, and maketh request also for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written, For thy sake are we killed all day long: we are counted as sheep for the slaughter:
37 Nevertheless, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38 For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:28-39 (1599 Geneva Bible) 

Relativism has enslaved this post-modern 21st Century. The push to equalize everything continues unabated even though it has become apparent to continue down this path is bordering on insanity. Unfortunately, evangelical Christianity has succumbed to the madness as well. Continue reading →

The Enduring Word A Living Stone and A Holy People

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by Mike Ratliff

1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 5:1 (LSB) 

Not everyone who claims the name of “Christian” is truly part of the genuine Church. Many of those claimants see Christianity as simply a religion and their religiosity within it as that which assuages their guilty consciences that condemn them for their fleshly lifestyles. Others strive with their entire being to do good and not sin while being very active in their churches. In this they believe that they are in the “group” that God will accept and proclaim righteous. There are others who believe that they are Christians because at some point in the past they “asked Jesus to come into their life or heart.” However, they were taught that that “act of faith” is all that Jesus requires of them. They are now “saved” and should not doubt their salvation. In the late 15th and early 16th Centuries Martin Luther was a very well educated monk in an Augustinian order in Germany. He deeply desired to have assurance of his salvation, but all that he was taught told him to be religious, to be obedient to the demands of the Church in Rome, to obey the Pope and that was all he needed. However, he had a problem. Continue reading →

Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him

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C. H. Spurgeon from his Morning by Morning devotional for June 29th.

“Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.”—1 Thessalonians 4:14.
LET us not imagine that the soul sleeps in insensibility. “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise,” is the whisper of Christ to every dying saint. They “sleep in Jesus,” but their souls are before the throne of God, praising Him day and night in His temple, singing hallelujahs to Him who washed them from their sins in His blood. The body sleeps in its lonely bed of earth, beneath the coverlet of grass. But what is this sleep? The idea connected with sleep is “rest,” and that is the thought which the Spirit of God would convey to us. Sleep makes each night a Sabbath for the day. Sleep shuts fast the door of the soul, and bids all intruders tarry for a while, that the life within may enter its summer garden of ease. The toil-worn believer quietly sleeps, as does the weary child when it slumbers on its mother’s breast. Oh! happy they who die in the Lord; they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them. Their quiet repose shall never be broken until God shall rouse them to give them their full reward. Guarded by angel watchers, curtained by eternal mysteries, they sleep on, the heritors of glory, till the fulness of time shall bring the fulness of redemption. What an awaking shall be theirs! They were laid in their last resting place, weary and worn, but such they shall not rise. They went to their rest with the furrowed brow, and the wasted features, but they wake up in beauty and glory. The shrivelled seed, so destitute of form and comeliness, rises from the dust a beauteous flower. The winter of the grave gives way to the spring of redemption and the summer of glory. Blessed is death, since it, through the divine power, disrobes us of this work-day garment, to clothe us with the wedding garment of incorruption. Blessed are those who “sleep in Jesus.”

What is the Spirit of the Antichrist?

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by Mike Ratliff

15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away, and also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God abides forever.
18 Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared. From this we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they were of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be manifested that they all are not of us. 1 John 2:15-19 (LSB) 

If you are at all familiar with Eschatology and the many different views on the end times then you have undoubtedly read or heard of a man who is referred to as the antichrist. However, you may be surprised to learn that the word “antichrist” is found in the Bible only in John’s epistles of 1st John and 2nd John. The study of this person or persons is not the intent of this article. I have no doubt that in God’s timing the final Antichrist will be revealed, but for now I would like to look at the attributes that we should understand are of the spirit of the antichrist.

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