Tag: Prison

WHAT IS TRUTH?

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WHAT IS TRUTH?

By Rick Mathes

You have to be real careful when you list the absolutes of your life. When you insist something is “always” someone will come up with an exception. The only yardstick we Christians stake our eternal life on is that only the Word of God holds within it 66 volumes of the only truth.

When Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” Jesus didn’t even waste His breath to tell him, “I AM the way, the truth and the life.” “Thy Word is truth.” We have the answer and anyone who disagrees is dead wrong.

So what is truth? Let me begin with original sin. When Adam and Eve believed Satan and defied God, hey knew good and learned evil. That same sin is passed on to every living soul through our DNA. You don’t teach a baby to be bad, it just comes naturally. Good comes supernaturally.

Another truth that so many people just plain hate is election. Consider just good logic. If God is all-knowing, he knows who will be saved and who won’t be before they are even born. After they are born they can’t change what God pre-knew, can they? That’s election or predestination. No one “accepts” Jesus as Lord, He “chooses” them!

When Jesus wants you, He’s going to get you because He is all powerful. Like a worm on a hook, you may squiggle and squirm but you are hooked. This is His effectual calling. A hen has a general calling to let her chicks know where she is and she has her “get under my wings” cluck for the chicks to hurry, they are in danger. Get the point?

My favorite truth is “once saved, always saved.” We just don’t quit. We keep the faith, fight the good fight and finish the course. You can’t knock us down and keep us down. We always get our back off of the canvas and press on!

The least favorite truth is that Jesus didn’t take the unbelievers punishment on that cross. He died for those who would believe. If you are without faith in Christ, you will suffer your own hell that He suffered for me. This is called “limited atonement.”

I just know I know you know the truth. You may hide in denial or your might invent a convenient religion for yourself but in your heart of hearts, you know the truth, Jesus is Lord!

WE ARE MORE

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WE ARE MORE

By Rick Mathes

Romans 8:37 (NASB77) 37  But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

Peter’s transformation from a coward, intimidated by a servant girl to a warrior for Christ, preaching the gospel of His Resurrection in the face of certain death. Countless souls have turned from cringing to steadfast champions because the Holy Spirit has transformed believers from death to life.

This new energy or essence is totally designed to help us forget sin. A dearly s we have learned to love he Lord, conversely our hate for Satan has soared to new depths. The resurrection of the dead as exploded the netherworld with destruction and rampaging plagues of sin not heard of since Jesus cried from the Cross, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” The sky turned black as the Trinity was ripped apart and the Father turned His back on the unimaginable agony of His Son. It was the beginning of exchanging the power of sin to the power of a praying child’s victory.

Jesus leads us though the Cross as through a star-gate into the wonderful spender of the heavenlies, beyond description. Our Lord chooses us form all others to be and adopted son to the Father and brother to the church and Bridegroom of glory. As heirs of heaven we share our Lord’s throne with Him and stand as equals with all those chosen the Father loves.

This is why Father God permitted us to go through this life and earth experience so that we would fully understand that death stung Jesus and died. Isaiah 53 may be the hinge of the Holy Scriptures but the resurrection is the capstone that illuminates every word of the original Logos and manuscripts with God’s signature.

The glue that holds this all together is the prayers the rush of warriors to the front lines with no regard of self. The victory is of ours is oblivious to our deeds forf Him and our destruction of the devil and his fallen angels. All we ae are ofis His pleasure and approval. We live to make His joy compete!

 

TRUTH: WHO CARES?

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TRUTH: WHO CARES?

By Rick Mathes

The true glory of any man is the man himself, the character he bears and not the material wealth he has accumulated. People should look at you and admire the person you have become. Jesus set the mold when He saved others by refusing to save Himself. He has demonstrated truth by not what He knows, not by what He teaches but by who He is. Truth is Jesus.

Facing truth in our own life as measured by Jesus can be a very difficult project, especially if we really try to be objective. Let’s give it a try.

  • We are either dead in sin or alive in the Spirit of God.
  • We are either a Holy Saint or a tarnished sinner.
  • We are either spiritually alive or shamefully dead in spirit.
  • We are either children of the promise or a bastard of the father of lies.

The question remains to hound your deep and inner conscience: are you born again or not? We are to live only for God’s glory and Christ’s purpose. This means we put behind us all self-serving, desires of worldly glory and wish to be great in man’s eyes and lust to be rich.

We are basically unfit to grasp truth. In the flesh are we able to sin: in the Spirit we are able not to sin. Our nature, second nature doggedly holds on to our unwillingness to let go and let God. Truth slips through our understanding because we are unable to do good apart from the supernatural immersion in the Triune god, a real immersion of dipping of the old into an eternal grace and a rising of the now in Jesus: the way, truth and life.

Along the way in the pursuit of truth, Satan will throw road blocks before us of suffering, sorrow, disease and death: all the consequences of sin. So I ask again, have you been born again? Do you want truth as dearly as you gasp for that next breath of oxygen? If so you have moved from spiritual death to eternal life in Him:

  1. Sin to righteousness
  2. Damning sin to saving grace
  3. Enmity with God to friendship with Him and,
  4. Darkness to light.

Look in the mirror of your soul deep down and ask yourself “How deep is your love?” Do you want to know the Truth? Think seriously and honestly about the most important question of your life.

 

 

THE CROSS

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THE CROSS

By Rick Mathes

(Author of “Allah or Jesus”)

One Christmas years ago the men at our Fort Good Shepherd Ranch wanted to decorate our “Cross on the Landing” on the Meramec River with blinking lights and tinsel garland for Christmas. I about had a stroke! “I this was an electric chair our Lord was murdered in would you do the same?” I yelled at them. I couldn’t believe that the Cross was just an icon to use for decoration while it was the turning point of the world’s future, greater than the creation!

What has happened is that current Christianity has moved away from the standards of the New Testament and Holy intentions of the founding fathers. Jesus commanded us to pick up our cross and follow Him. In fact He said that if we don’t we are not worthy to follow Him. I can think of three ways this can be interpreted, take your choice or some combination thereof.

First, when we become a Christian, make Him our Lord and change our evil ways, old friends and even some family are not going to believe us. Those who are unbelievers are going to do all they can to trip us up and mock our faith for our faults and temporary slips. They will be encouraging maybe in words but while they go about their normal daily sinning, they really wish we would fall and join them.

Secondly, we can label the cross we bear as the “consequence of our sins.” Broken marriages, fractures families, felony record, AIDS, and much more are all directly attributable to the sin we wallowed in much like a cesspool bubbling up from Hades. We can’t blame anyone but ourselves for the casualty of our sinfulness. Suicide was certainly an option many of us thought seriously about but going to Hell is so final. There isn’t a “Plan B.” in Hell. So for those of us saved by Jesus understand that we can still pick up the pieces and press on!

Lastly, I know what Jesus really intended by that statement, “Take up your cross and follow me.” He meant for us to take up that death-stake, crawl up on that cross and dies to our sins, every day. It is only in doing so that we can rise with Him to a resurrection of a new life in Him and in glory forever.

Don’t wait until you die. Die to sin and live to Him now because if you are His your eternal life has begun today! We must endure the cross and despise its shame for the joy that is set before us.

 

SO CLOSE AND YET SO FAR

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SO CLOSE AND YET SO FAR

By Rick Mathes

Did you know that if a baby was born the moment Jesus died and lived for seventy years and then a baby was born and lived seventy years and on and on; if you laid the bodies our end to end you would find the we are less than 30 bodies away from the Cross! Think about that the next time you are in a room with 30 people. It wasn’t that long ago!

Albert Einstein proved that light bends time. If that I true and you followed the curve of that time-line, it would meet itself and be a circle. That means time is constant and doesn’t change. The “I AM the I AM” is making a lot more sense to me. Time doesn’t exist for Jesus. It is one long continuum. Imagine that; I can’t.

I believe we are a hairs-breath away from the person of God. Our five senses as so dull that even an eagle can see better that we can and a dog has better ears that we have. We really are sadly inept to sense the presence of our Lord. We are so close and yet so far away.

I’ve even imagined alternate universes all occurring at the same time. Or imagined that our galaxy was just a speck of dust on the arm of the Lord’s throne. Or how about this one: that a molecule has a thousand universes in it, inhabited by a thousand Adams from many ages. Thinking out of the box is fun for me. I really enjoy asking “What if?”

However, all praise the glory be to Jesus, I keep my feet on the ground by keeping my nose in God’s Holy Word. It’ the only thing that brings any reason or sense to this world gone insane where evil is good and good is bad.

Thank you Jesus for assigning your buddy the Holy Spirit to keep o the right track to glory. I may not know all the answers to all my questions but I have learned from the Word has kept me healthy, happy, and content with my assurance of salvation.

I really believe God and what I believe to be time and space will never be understandable to me but at least I can think in concepts of infinity and laugh at a joke: the very things that separate me from the animal kingdom.

SHUT EYES

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SHUT EYES

By Rick Mathes

It is because we shut our eyes that we become so sadly blind. I once questioned a donor about his Lutheran faith. I asked him, “What do you as a Lutheran believe? What is your doctrine?” He responded, “I believe what our church believes.” I pressed further, “What does your church believe?” He fired back, “They believe what I believe.” I insisted, “What do you both believe?” He answered, “The same thing!”  This is called circular reasoning as opposed to objectivism. It is a perfect example of “shut eyes.” There can only be one 12 inch ruler. It can’t be 11 inches for the carpenter and 10 inches for the mason and 13 inches for the electrician. This would be chaos.

I was born with two questions in my mind that have hounded me to this very minute. What is truth” and Why? I need to know the root cause and effect and this pursuit has been an exciting adventure I have no regret of continuing. All my thinking is proceeded with these two questions and they have got me in a lot of trouble over the years.

So I seek the greater truths and I chase down the “Why?” to it source. It has and continues to challenge my world view and provide an apologetic for my faith. What is greater than man personified in Christ, the God-man or Son of God?

There are greater truths in His Word:

  • Greater depths of experience
  • Greater heights of fellowship
  • Greater works of usefulness
  • Greater discoveries of power
  • Greater expressions of love
  • Greater levels of wisdom

Remember my question, “What is truth?” He makes the answer crystal clear when He announced “I AM the way, the truth and the life.” My follow up question “Why” is answered:

  • We see Him in His truth without shadow and deception in His Word.
  • We bask in His unbelievable love of sinners so much so as to wash dirty feet.
  • We reach to His level of excellence to realize our level of mediocrity.
  • We drop to our knees and give all submission to His Sovereignty

So here we are, back at the beginning. Shut eyes won’t help so take a good look at reality and turn your eyes upward to His guidance, not downward to spiritual blindness..

PREACHERMAN

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PREACHERMAN

By Rick Mathes

The gates of hell have unleashed counterfeit preachers that have graduated from our finest seminaries. They have gravitated to an estimated seven out of ten pulpits, from small country churches to large mega-churches where thousands are lied to. No lies of commission, commission or permission. A mass of our earth’s population will be destroyed by the conflagration of flames St. Peter has prophesied.

How can we know the minister we learn from speaks fresh from the throne of Jesus? What test can we put them to so as to be certain we are being taught by God? We will never know until our Lord returns but I do have a few guidelines that I go by.

My minister must have holiness of character. Even a minister occasionally worldly is an indication that his integrity is soiled and what you get may be what you see. Any minister that winks at sin does not hate sin and thus does not love the Savior. Look closely for Christ-likeness!

He must have a high degree of spiritual life in his family as well as in darkness it is in light. I would be suspect if he is inclined to abuse any of the seven deadly sins or violate the Ten Commandments. I know we’re all human but this minister of yours cannot just be called he must be chosen to be the Lord’s ambassador. When you get to know your minister do you get to know Jesus? If not, tread carefully.

He must live out the faith he professes. If he doesn’t walk is he should be restrained from talking it. I would rather see the sermon than hear it. His true self should mirror Christ with his most earnest effort. We are able not to sin and he should be the highest example for you to emulate.

Now I’m not trying to make your minister some kind of super human being. I just expect that he should be fully committed to Christ in the simplicity of his heart. Look deeply into his soul and discern if he has complete surrender to God. He must example what he preached and encourage how to rise to our Lord expectation of your fleshly levels of mediocrity.

To be holy we must be wholly God’s and our minister must lead the way.

LESS THAN A MAN

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LESS THAN A MAN

By Rick Mathes

The penitentiary mess hall was tidy but colorless and institutional; that is, void of any warmth or contrasts. Barred windows and sulky workers. Inmates shuffling past counters of tasteless, stench-filled food that fell barely within government nutritional guidelines of minimum vitamins. I suffered through lunch in the Officer’s quarters and was astonished at how they managed to eat this unappetizing menu with such relish and enthusiasm. I had lost my appetite for this torture when I was informed that the green baby lima beans were really creamed corn! And a fish head was floating around and looking up at me from the sea-food soup! It was a blessing to escape from this noxious event and begin the lengthy walk to the Chapel. An unpretentious Asian guard or as they prefer to be addressed, Correctional Officer or C.O. for short, began escorting me out of the cafeteria into the dimly lit hallway, down some metal steps and then through a labyrinth of twisting and turning, often loud catwalks past bad-tempered prisoners on lock-down.

In one particular corridor, our gait has hasty but my eyes were drawn to the darkened prison cells in a blurred kaleidoscope of unshaven faces and slumped or sleeping bodies. All at once I stopped in my tracks and turned back to the cell I had just passed by. I had seen an attractive woman stretched out on the bunk in a very alluring pose!

Now wait a minute, wasn’t this an all male maximum security prison? What was a seductive woman doing here? I had turned so abruptly that the Officer did not think to respond before I looked again into this cell to ascertain that it wasn’t a female but rather a transvestite with long silky hair, a smooth shapely body and very obvious breasts. Horrified is an understatement!

Our eyes met in an uneasy brotherhood as I asked, “Would you like to receive Jesus Christ as your Saviour and be born again?” He leisurely got up and off his bunk, then glided in a seductive manner to the bars in front of which I was standing. As he drew nearer and I was able to scrutinize him more he said to me, “How can I change what I’ve done to myself.” His masculine voice startled me. I responded, “You must be born again. You need to change on the inside first and that begins with permitting Jesus to be your Lord. He is the God of miracles and you will become a walking trophy of His grace if only you will become willing and believe.” He looked me in the eyes and whispered, “I want to do that very dearly,” and began to sob uncontrollably.

We slipped to our knees right there on the cold concrete and tenderly held hands through the bars. A woman with man’s hands asking God for a spiritual healing. We prayed a heart-felt prayer and he sincerely asked that he would be delivered from homosexuality and become the man that God had created him to be. Just then the C.O. took my arm securely and said sharply, “We have to keep moving.”

I learned months later that he was severely beaten by his “husband” and repeatedly raped by homosexual “gang-bangers.” The prison administrators had learned of a contract on his life so they transferred him to a single cell in protective custody. The last word I received is that he is remaining steadfast in the Word of God and his family has raised the money for cosmetic surgery to physically reconstruct his manliness.

MEET FATHER LUCIFER

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MEET FATHER LUCIFER

By

Rick Mathes, author of “Allah or Jesus”

http://www.MissionGateMinistry.org

“Just look at me. Recognize the dignity of my office. I publicize with a pomposity of arrogant authority. My stride is purposeful and brisk. My carriage erect and stately. My apparel is fashionable and professional to perfection, as is my Rolex watch, diamond ring and bright false teeth. I’m tailored to accommodate the image of calm assurance and confidence. I’m always conscious of admiring glances and I respond in due course with heightened self-image. I always appear to be as I must in the eyes of others.

“My reassuring manner is well practiced and my handshake firm and manly. Surely, I exude warmth, intelligence and reliability. The same phony impeccable smile, the same imperial posture, the selfsame charisma. Why change a deception that works!

“My words are invariably just inside or outside the truth. Moderation is best accomplished by compromising ambiguity; ill-defined positions established in a humanizing, solicitous fashion. I give the impression that I am piously contemplative, thoughtful and unprejudiced. None of which is true.

“I never take sides so that I can keep controversy alive, especially in Biblical doctrine and apologetics. I only side with the heavy hitter contributors. This approach is shrewd, forthright and politically correct.

“The misimpression of holiness is very material to my intentions. It’s all a matter of expression and demeanor. Stoic and unobtrusive. Quiet and restrained. The appearance of reflection more than the boredom it really is, but it suits my corrupted purposes. I am held in high esteem by fake Christians. I’m appointed not anointed. Don’t look for Him, just look at me!”

GOD’S DIRTY DOZEN

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GOD’S DIRTY DOZEN

By Rick Mathes

(Author of “Allah or Jesus”)

If I were to get to know those who know you best and ask them all the questions I could think of about you, I would get to know you very well, wouldn’t I? Well, then it stands to reason that if we get to know God’s best friends really well, we will get to know a whole lot about God, won’t we? Let’s then make some observations of those that he used, each in a mighty way. I call them, “God’s Dirty Dozen.”

First, we have Abraham. His parents were idolaters and I’m sure as a young man, you could see him with his Watch Tower Magazine under one arm and the Pearl of Great Price book under the other, being chauffeured in his stretch limo to the nearest name-it claim-it, go-go cult of carnal hustlers in the name of Allah. And yet, god used him to emerge as the father of the chosen nation.

Now we know that Joseph didn’t do it. Potipher’s wife knows he didn’t do it. God knows he didn’t do it. And we all know he didn’t do it. But when Joseph filled out the application to be Prime Minister of Egypt it read, “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?” He was an ex-con with a record of being a sex offender and yet God used him in a mighty way.

Let’s also remember Moses. He looked both ways, killed the Egyptian with his bare hands and then had the audacity to dig a hole and bury him in broad daylight in front of witnesses. That is a classic, premeditated, first degree murder! If that happened today, he would be on death row awaiting execution. And yet, God used him in a mighty way.

And what about David? He didn’t have the guts to assassinate so he ordered a hit man to knock off Bathsheba’s husband so that they could keep their torrid love affair going. David should have had a jail cell next to Moses! And yet, God used him in a mighty way.

Do you really think the Priestess Rahab went around the temple genuflecting and lighting holy candles? Of course not! She was a temple prostitute that sold her body for dirty money just like any two-bit trash on the waterfront. And yet, God used her in a mighty way.

“If the children turn out bad, it must mean that the parents weren’t any good!” It ain’t necessarily so. There aren’t any fathers that raised their sons worse than Eli and Samuel and yet God used them both in a mighty way.

And have you ever heard the saying, “When the going gets tough, the touch gets going?” Some Christians have turned tail and ran when the Lord needed them the most. Just like Mark did, so quickly that he left his clothing in the clutches of a cop and escaped naked.! And yet, God used him in a mighty way.

Can you imagine saying, “No, dammit! I have never known this criminal named Jesus!” God forbid, it would never leave my lips even in the torment of torture. But with the gentle pressure of a teenage servant girl, Peter the Rock, turned into a little pebble when he denied the Lord quicker than a New York heartbeat, not once but three times within a couple of hours. His eyes met those to his Lord and he realized the shallowness of his commitment. And yet, God used him in a mighty way.

I am blessed that Paul did not divulge to us the gruesome particulars of all the atrocities he inflicted on blameless Christians or I would be less given to read and study his Epistles. I suspect that I might forgive him but I would not forget. The captivity, injustice and even annihilation of these gentle souls might possibly raise a doubt about Paul’s conversion experience. Was he beyond being saved? And yet, God used him in a mighty way.

If you have been counting, that’s just ten. Including you and I, it makes an even dozen. My life was so depraved that I cursed God, shook my fist at heaven and demanded that if He existed, to kill me to end the nightmare I was living.

He saved me that night and I have been sharing the Gospel in jails and prisons ever since.

What about you?

www.MissionGateMinistry.org