“The first to speak is believed to be right, until another states his case” (Prov. 18:17). Under the heading of “God works in mysterious ways,” the above quote came home to me as I was thinking about what to place at the top of this website’s home page several years ago when the Lord, through a total stranger, gave the website to me, set it up, paid for it, bought equipment, etc. The answer to the website statement question came to me upon being called to jury duty. On the day the jury pool came to the selection meeting approximately three dozen of us met at the local courthouse to be either selected for jury duty or dismissed. Before being individually interviewed, we heard the prosecution and the defense present their cases. The prosecution spoke first. By the time the D.A. finished I “knew” the defendant was guilty. In my mind, no trial was needed. Case closed. Lock him up. I did not need to hear defense counsel’s case. The man was GUILTY. PERIOD. No one could doubt it.

But then the defendant’s lawyer spoke. By the time he was finished, I “knew” that the defendant was innocent. Needless to say, I was hoping that I would not be picked as a juror. I was not. I was relieved, for I would have been hard-pressed to render a verdict.

Why had I been so sure of the truth upon hearing the first person? (A) because it was so real, so sure and so convincing, and (B), and most importantly, BECAUSE I HAD NOT HEARD “ANOTHER STATE HIS CASE.” Having heard the second man’s evidence I had been given information not made available by the first speaker. Not knowing which was true and which was false would have made a verdict extremely hard to determine.

This brings me back to the title of this series. Why do people become who and what they are initially when things of the spirit first become real to them? And more importantly, why, fifty years later, are they who and what they were 50 years earlier? which is true in the vast majority of cases. Why do the belong to the same denomination, hear the same messages, read the same religious publications, “know” the same “truths” and “facts?” After 82 years of life, I still find that 99% of my friends and relatives with whom I grew up are spiritually identical to who and what they were when we were children. Some of them still attend the same church in the same building as we all did then.

Why? BECAUSE 99% OF US NEVER HEARD “ANOTHER STATE HIS CASE.” Or if the 99% happened to hear or read it they automatically rejected it because, “THAT’S NOT HOW I WAS ALWAYS TAUGHT.” Of all of my lifelong friends and relatives, only my granddaughter and I have heard that other voice–THE “VOICE” OF THE AUTHOR OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES AS SPOKEN TO US BY HIS HOLY SPIRIT. Why is there such a resistance to change on the spiritual level?

The truth relative to why we are who and what we are spiritually is that, early on we trusted those who told us the “truth” about God, Jesus, the Bible, etc. and, over the ensuing years, discouraged us from hearing or reading about anything outside of those “truths” that we heard every Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, during Christmas and Easter services, revivals, “brush arbor meetings,” etc. What, you are asking, is a “brush arbor meeting.” Each spring our church, wanting to return to the “Old Time Religion” of our ancestors, would build a “ceiling” out of wire mesh and lay on it limbs cut off of trees in order to form a “roof.” People would bring chairs from home and set them under the brush arbor roof. A pulpit would be erected at the front of the rows of chairs from whence some high-powered, Bible-thumping evangelist from somewhere else would rain down scriptural “hellfire and brimstone” on us every night for two weeks. Feeling the “heat,” many people got “saved” during these annual meetings. Others, already being “saved” but feeling the need to “rededicate their lives to the Lord,” would “walk the isle” to the front and do so, including yours truly. Unfortunately, the fire would quickly go out and would need to be rekindled during the next “revival.” The word “revival” simply means to raise someone from the dead, as in reviving someone who has drowned or been electrocuted.

Why do people, both then and now, need to be “revived” periodically? Because they do not hear the “still, small voice” of the Lord coming from the “fine print” of His Holy Bible as spoken by His Holy Spirit. Hearing and reading only the Lord’s “headlines,” there is a deadly lack of the Holy Spirit power necessary for warding off Satan’s “fiery darts” of temptation that are continuously attacking everyone who calls himself by God’s name. The Holy Spirit is also necessary in order to determine why God curses those whom He calls “My people who are called by My name, and then to have the power to “turn from their evil ways” and obey Him so that He can help them. Read 2 Chronicles 7:13-15. Note that it is God who curses His people and their land. Notice also that HIS PEOPLE must turn away from their sins and walk in holiness in order to receive help in the present and to receive salvation upon Christ’s return. Read about church sheep and goats. Key word–Goats. Nothing has changed. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. His rules are the same now as in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. God’s rule has always been: OBEY HIM AND BE BLESSED; DISOBEY HIM AND BE CURSED. We must obey His Word, not someone’s wishful thinking about His Word, called church doctrine upon which the counterfeit church is built.

The solution to the problems facing the churched and the nonchurched is to study, learn, believe and obey GOD’S WORD AS IT IS WRITTEN–ALL OF IT. Failure to do so will result in a failure to meet Christ in the clouds during the first resurrection. Read the Three Resurrections. Key word–Three.

Relative to leaving behind (“putting off the old man”) what one has always been and becoming (“putting on the new man”) what one must become (2 Cor. 5:17/ Col. 3:9/ Eph. 4:24) in order to receive salvation, one must do what is commanded in Isaiah 28:9-13. Doing so makes one wise and able hear God’s voice, check it against His Word and walk as His Word and His Spirit instruct us to walk (1 Jn. 2:6). Only they who are led by His Spirit are the true sons of God (Rom. 8:24). His Sons are those who search for, find and obey the “voice” of God recorded in His Holy Bible. The Holy Bible is “another stating His case.”

Why did God proclaim the Bible to be His source of eternal Truth? Because “Holy men of old spoke (and wrote) as they were moved upon by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21). Jesus and the apostles also spoke and wrote under the power and direction of the same Spirit. God preserved the Old Testament in a cave in Israel from the third century BC. until 1947 when a shepherd boy found them in a cave in the Qumran area of Israel where the dry desert air had preserved them in remarkably good condition all those centuries. The Lord kept the Apostle John alive so that He could join the so-called Old Testament together with the writings of the 12 apostles to form one holy book (Heb.–bible) which comprises the history of God’s dealings with man from his (man’s) creation in Eden as recorded in Genesis until His (Christ’s) return as prophesied in Revelation. Read The God of the Old Testament. Key word–Old.

There is no curse without a cause” (Prov. 26:2). Today, after many warnings (curses) in the form of wars, epidemics, depressions, floods, freezes, droughts, “natural” disasters, etc., God’s wrath is once again being poured out on the world’s “Christian nations. Why? “Same song, second verse.” Because, though they possess the “oracles of God,” they do not know them and therefore do not believe and obey them. What they “know” is what hundreds of others like themselves have spoken and written ABOUT GOD’S WORD. Known as church doctrine, these church “truths” bear little or no resemblance to God’s Spirit-spoken Truth (Word–Jn. 17:17). His pure Word as recorded by the prophets and apostles form the foundation upon which the New Covenant Church was built and still exists (Eph. 2:20). It is that Word that comprises the “case” which “another” has “stated” which is routinely avoided, rejected and dismissed by the salvation-seeking masses. This is why we are watching the so-called Christian nations decay in every way possible. Man, led by his religious establishments, has sown the wind of rebellion and is now experiencing “the beginning of sorrows” (Mat. 24:1-8). What we are experiencing is merely the warm-up act before the main event.

This ministry was founded by the Lord for the purpose of exposing the deadly errors by which Satan has lured the salvation-seeking masses into his Catholic/Protestant Religious System. As the “first to speak” relative to spiritual matters, Satan’s false prophets have deceived billions of salvation seekers into believing that what they are hearing is God’s “voice” being spoken by men, that what they are being told “the Gospel.” In reality, it is god’s gospel. However, it is the wrong god and the wrong gospel (Gal. 1:6-9/ 2 Cor. 11:4). God commands those still trapped within Satan’s church system to “come out of her and be ye separate; do not touch that unclean thing” (2 Cor. 6:14-7:1). Then, and only then, He says, He will be one’s God and one will be His child, IF, that is, the escapee embraces His pure word of Truth. L.J.