Speaking the Truth
Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. (John 7:24)
JESUS HAD JUST HEALED A MAN on the Sabbath day and was immediately attacked as a lawbreaker. His answer to them was our text for today. God want us to engage in “righteous judgment.” It is impossible to live in a world that does not require us to make judgments. A judgment is our best, honest estimate of truth. God knows if we are being honest and giving our best judgment. Jesus demanded that we go beyond shallow, surface judgments.
JJESUS' ENEMIES WERE DESPERATELY LOOKING FOR A WAY to get rid of Jesus. Any way! Whatever it took, they must get rid of Him. He was a threat to their polished system of religion and the political machinery that operated it. The Jewish Temple and its system of worship was big for its time and place. A lot of money changed hands at the Temple and Jesus was a threat to it. The Bible Knowledge Commentary from Dallas Seminary makes this comment:
“THEIR PROBLEM WAS THAT THEY UNDERSTOOD the Scriptures only superficially. They majored in minors and missed the intents of many passages (cf. Matthew 23:23; John 5:39-40). They were judging by mere appearances. Their superficial understanding was caused by their hostility against God’s Representative. In their darkness they erred. Jesus called them to make a right judgment; ultimately this was a call for them to repent.” (Bible Knowledge Commentary)
SINCE ANCIENT TIMES THERE HAVE BEEN COURT ROOMS in every nation that were dedicated to weighing claims and counter-claims pertaining to discovery of truth. Court rooms are not perfect dispensers of truth and justice but they’re the best we’ve been able to come up with. And they’re a thousand times better than mobs going around killing people because they don’t like them. We assume people are innocent until proven guilty. Do you want to get rid of that? Suppose it happens to you?
AMERICA HAS BEEN WAITING FOR THE MUELLER REPORT to see if our president was guilty of collusion with the Russians. The answer is, “No.” As to “Obstruction of Justice,” they would not say. (Should have been “yes” or “no.”) In the link below you can access the PDF copies of letters to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees from Attorney General William Barr. The investigation ran from May 2017 until March 2019, at a cost of $17+million. https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=5779683-AG-March-24-2019-Letter-to-House-and-Senate Some interesting facts are in the following paragraph.
“IN THE REPORT, THE SPECIAL COUNSEL NOTED that, in completing his investigation, he employed 19 lawyers who were assisted by a team of approximately 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants, and other professional staff. The Special Counsel issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records, issued almost 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers, made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses.”
I ACCEPT THE SUMMARY REPORT BY U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, William Barr (link above). I also understand that some will not be satisfied with the Report because their interest is not in “truth per se.” Their interest is in pulling down a president by any method they can think of simply because they don’t like him. It’s the mentality of a lynch mob. I thought America had decided that we don’t believe in lynch mobs, that we believe in the rule of law. I thought we believed in honest elections. If we don’t, then, down the road, we can expect a lot of bloodshed and the calling out of the National Guard and the declaring of Marshall Law.
IT'S IN THE SAME PATTERN AS THOSE WHO WENT AFTER JESUS in His day and finally succeeded in nailing Him to a cross. It doesn’t take any brains or bravery to kill people that get in your way. But America has killed over 61 million people who got in their way and we’re sort of getting used to living without rules and killing anybody who gets in our way.
SINCE I GOT SAVED WHEN i WAS A NINE-YEAR OLD BOY, I have prayed for whoever happened to be president at the time, including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. When the presidential races were finished, I understood the due process of law that must prevail for our nation to function. I understood when I was nine years old that if you didn’t like a president or any other elected official, you had a chance of getting rid of him at the next election. Is that so hard to understood? But raw hate does not understand much of anything. Hatred blinds people. Your prayers are needed for the current president and his administrative helpers.
AMERICA IS AT A CROSSROADS. All God must do to judge us is to remove His hand of blessing and we will destroy ourselves. I believe that 100%. In 1860 when America decided to kill itself, young men went off to war with great gusto. It wouldn’t take long to mop the floor with their enemies. Both sides said that. But the war dragged on until 600,000 men lay dead and cities, farms and factories lay in smoldering heaps of ashes. It’s easier to imagine what you will do to your enemies than to pull it off.
DO WE THINK WE CAN CONTINUE TO KILL 1,000 babies a day, (we’ve murdered 61 million babies since 1973), and God will not notice? Do we think that although God burned Sodom and Gomorrah to the ground for their rabid sexual practices that God will overlook the gross sins of America? Do we think we can push God aside and do any wicked thing we want to, and we will get by with it? We’ve lost our Bible.
And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; (2Peter 2:5-6)
Read Through the Bible in a Year
MARCH 25, 2019 - MONDAY
A.M Joshua 14-15 P.M Luke 4:33-44
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)
Good Verse to Memorize:
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. (Psalm 100:4)
Song for Today:
No One Ever Cared for Me… (5:49 Piano Solo, Laura Francis-Calv.Mem.))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5I2GQQExpY
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Health Tip:
Short Recipe: In small desert dish, spoon in two heaping tbsp. miller’s raw wheat bran. Spoon in four heaping tbsp. unsweetened apple sauce. Stir, let set 5-10 minutes. Serve as side dish or as between-meals snack. (10 grams fiber of your daily total 24-30 grams fiber).