Truth Cries Out

By Clinton Bezan

How do we make sense of mankind’s failure to maintain an honorable and constructive response to its self-created problems through science and secular reasoning and humanity’s need for God? God is real. He has asked me to substantiate this reality, the infallibility of his word and demonstrate his plan for mankind. By encapsulating the beauty and complexity of scripture through illustrations of hidden meanings, underlying contexts of cultural and historical significance of the nation of Israel, the church as the bride of Christ and the fulfillment of covenants and prophecy, it is my desire to bring the Bible to life in a unique and special way.

Like John the Baptist, as one crying out in the wilderness, I want to issue a wake-up call to people everywhere. The time is short! Don’t delay! Whether you are a believer who has struggled with faith issues or a non-believer wanting answers to existential questions, I encourage you to take the time to reach the conclusion that you are willing to bet your life on. Your decision has eternal ramifications!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781973683858

Clinton Bezan

Clinton Bezan is a compelling and authentic Christian voice who has established himself as an effective apologist and defender of the faith. His unique appreciation and passion for Christ are evident in his answer to God's call to write. The Gospel Truth is his fourth book.

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Copyright © 2020 Clinton Bezan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®

Copyright © 1973 1978 1984 2011 by Biblica, Inc. TM. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-8384-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-8386-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-8385-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020901265

WestBow Press rev. date: 01/31/2020

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Acknowledgements

1)     The Ultimate Moral Dilemma

2)     A Spirit of Unbelief

3)     Of Heaven and Hell

4)     Universal Truth

5)     The Science of Creation

6)     Biblical Brilliance

7)     Cups and Covenants

8)     Changed Hearts and Changed Lives

9)     God’s Hand in Our World

10)   Signs of the Harvest

11)   What about the Rapture?

12)   Crying Out in the Wilderness

Endnotes

Preface

When God put it upon my heart to write, I yielded in obedience to the Holy Spirit despite not being an ordained graduate of a seminary college or having letters behind my name that establish an implied credibility to my knowledge and message. Every morning I pray that it is God’s wisdom and God’s words that I write and not mine. I am simply a vessel that God fills with his Spirit which I in turn empty onto the page and then subsequently seek to be filled once again. There have been times when I’ve opened my word document not knowing what to write and as fast as I could type, the words flowed from my fingertips, through the keyboard and onto the screen in front of me.

I have humbly accepted this gift of writing to glorify God, to pour his Spirit out into the hearts of readers as an encouragement to those who are troubled or seek affirmation of their beliefs about God. To challenge and provoke thought among those who are searching for answers to life’s existential questions or their own unsettled efforts to interpret what meaning their lives have and to supply a convincing burden of proof for those who may be locked into a paradigm imposed upon them by the education system, popular worldviews or as a default setting due to skepticism. I could never claim to love my fellow human beings if I knowingly failed to share my certainty of life after death and the prospect of eternal salvation through Christ.

How do we make sense of mankind’s failure to maintain an honorable and constructive response to its self-created problems through science, secular reasoning and humanity’s need for God? God is real. He has asked me to substantiate this reality, the infallibility of his word and demonstrate his plan for mankind. By encapsulating the beauty and complexity of scripture through illustrations of hidden meanings, underlying contexts of cultural and historical significance of the nation of Israel, the church as the bride of Christ and the fulfillment of covenants and prophecy, it is my desire to bring the Bible to life in a unique and special way.

I will share with you examples of the dramatic changes in people’s lives through their encounters with Jesus in both biblical and non-biblical circumstances and provide inspiring proclamations of God’s desire for his children in a petition for repentance. Like John the Baptist, crying out in the wilderness to make straight the paths for the Lord, I hope to encourage readers in a way that appeals to their unique sensitivities and plant seeds of faith into hearts that will grow into genuine conviction and confidence that Jesus loves you and wants to save you from this broken and fallen world.

If I were to ignore God’s tugging at my heart as I have done so many times in my past, how could I call myself a defender of the faith? How could I step through the gates of heaven at the completion of my earthly life and look God in the eye? Yes, God has called me in the same way that Jesus told his disciples, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. When the Pharisees told Jesus to rebuke his disciples for proclaiming him as King and praising God, he responded with, If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out. Luke 19:40. May the words contained in these pages bless you and encourage you to earnestly seek God as you never have before, to pursue him with everything you’ve got.

As the lyrics by Brenton Brown and Glenn Robertson aptly convey: All who are thirsty, all who are weak, come to the fountain, dip your heart in the stream of life. Let the pain and the sorrow, be washed away, in the waves of his mercy….

Introduction

Is civilization on the verge of collapse? Are we destined to destroy the world? Can our sense of moral responsibility override our ideologies before it is too late? All of creation is groaning and the signs are everywhere that something unprecedented is about to happen.

Like John the Baptist, as one crying out in the wilderness, I want to issue a wake-up call to people everywhere. The time is short! Don’t delay! Whether you are a believer who has struggled with faith issues or a non-believer wanting answers to existential questions, I encourage you to take the time to reach the conclusion that you are willing to bet your life on. Your decision has eternal ramifications!

We live in perilous times. The Middle East is a hotbed of divergent nations bent upon a collision course in the near future, with Israel at center stage. Europe is rioting, Russia, China and the U.S.A. are posturing for military supremacy, and the entire world is on edge. The middle class is shrinking, as the most-wealthy get richer and the average citizen becomes squeezed between rising costs and stagnant income. The poor are getting poorer. The balance of power seems to be in the hands of a precious few as the top 1% now hold over 50% of the world’s wealth. As uncertainty and perplexity increase, the stage is being set for globalization to succeed in establishing a one world government. Anyone with the magic formula for world peace will emerge as an instant hero and hold the very life of the planet in their hands.

World societal values have become flashpoints of dissent as subjective morality and opposing worldviews vie for validation on social media, in the news and in the streets. The climate change debacle threatens to upset world economies as national perspectives vary, and science has demonstrated its partisan bias to the sources of its funding.

With the population of the planet projected to be 8.6 billion by 2030 and 9.8 billion by the year 2050, our food supply is of critical importance and our production capabilities are about to be pushed to the extreme while our innovation in agriculture will face its biggest challenge in history. ¹ There are more people alive at this moment than have lived in the history of the world up until the last 100 years in all the previous centuries put together.

Where do the solutions lie? The debate over the fate of humanity is growing louder and louder and underlying the rhetoric, the insidious thirst for power and wealth undermines the desire for a sustainable earth and humanity’s well-being. While the principalities and powers that gain from their financial investment in leading the world to believe their short-sighted narrative, most of civilization has been living a great big lie. Scientists have told us that all life has evolved from primordial bacteria, margarine is better for our bodies than butter and the world’s climate is changing at a pace that is about to end in catastrophe. Post modernism has left our society dazed and confused over gender, homosexuality, morality and purpose.

We are inundated by 24/7 news with stories of war, terrorism, child abuse, homicide, drug abuse, climate change, environmental collapse and a plethora of other subjects that leave us bewildered and wondering what is to become of civilization. How can the human race be increasing in knowledge so quickly and declining in our understanding of each other and our world, equally as fast? Aren’t we supposed to be improving the human experience with each succeeding generation? Is there an underlying evil sabotaging the very fabric of civilization?

Mankind is in serious trouble and the reality is, we seem to be collectively satisfied to ignore the consequences of our actions rather than admit that we ourselves are the root of the problem. Our relationships, from the household level to internationally and everywhere in between, reflect our inability to get along using our intellect and the either inherent or adopted ethics we choose to employ. Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, man’s choices have resulted in imperfect reasoning, flawed rationale and less than satisfactory results. We have mined the earth, decimated the environment and lost sixty percent of the world’s wildlife since 1970.² There is apprehension that time is running out.

Humans are capable of great things. History provides us with philosophy, inquisition and invention that has propelled us to explain complex interactions between atomic particles, technological breakthroughs that have changed almost everything about the way we live and the identification of galaxies in the distant reaches of the universe. We’ve conquered many diseases, walked on the moon and yet we still wrestle with our origins and the definition of our purpose. In our quest to explain life and our environment we have drifted from theory to theory and promoted the concepts considered to be the most logical in a strictly natural context, not willing to consider the supernatural. In doing so, this process has become biased against thinking that is not perceived as mainstream and has become counter-productive. We have reached a point of diminishing return in science, socioeconomics and culture. To put it simply, we are in a rut of our own making. We have rejected the idea of God as our creator, even though there is ample proof to demonstrate that not only were we created by God, he desires to have a personal relationship with us.

The theory of evolution has been taught in our schools as if it were fact and as a result, we have entire generations that have trouble wrapping their minds around a 6-day creation or a 6,000 year-old earth and most reject creation outright. Seeds of doubt have been allowed to sprout and flourish by a population that either accepts what is presented to it without question or is in total denial that it will be held responsible for its actions one day. Christianity itself is guilty of unforced errors that have tarnished the reputation of the Church and even many Christians try to explain creation using millions and billions of years. Our skeptical minds have problems envisioning a God who has no beginning or end, is capable of miracles, and that we inhabit our bodies rather than we are our bodies. Eternity is hard for us to grasp. The thought that there is a spiritual realm is often dismissed as make believe, a fairy tale or a primitive myth.

The promise of eternal life in heaven is something humans are incapable of fully appreciating. Heaven is beyond our three-dimensional life experience and language has no words to describe it. It exists in a dimension we cannot see, yet it is interactive with our dimension. Perhaps because of its abstract nature, the concept of heaven is difficult to grasp, and many people reject it since it is not tangible. Just as believing in God, angels and miracles is often dismissed as superstition or myths by a great percentage of the population, heaven and hell are not accepted by most people as literal places.

Many people dismiss the Bible as mythical and fictional based upon what they consider to be a lack of evidence for its authenticity or historicity, however when it is held to the same standard as other ancient documents of similar age, it can easily be considered authentic. There are thousands upon thousands of manuscripts with only minor variations in spelling and grammar that testify to the accuracy of the hand copied specimens of the 66 books of the Bible. Yet the Bible is continually challenged and criticized because unlike other literary compilations, it demands a response from the reader and lays claim to absolute truth.

Sitting on the fence is not an option when considering the Bible, either you believe it and accept it as truth and therefore, follow it, or you reject it and attempt to discredit it in order to justify your unbelief. People will go to great lengths to portray the Bible as false, including imposing unrealistic standards upon it that historians would never apply to other documents, denying other historical, secular records that support Biblical narratives and lashing out at Christians by labeling them as unintelligent, human hating bigots. Christians are often accused of judging non-believers, while it is the non-believers themselves who are judgmental in an attempt to deny God, who ultimately holds them accountable for their actions.

Some students of epistemology debate whether the Bible is the infallible word of God while others maintain it is the work of human hands and errant to some extent based upon the writers’ perspectives and writing styles or whether it can be viewed as historical or allegorical or metaphorical in nature.

Christians are often ridiculed for believing that Christ will come again soon. Scripture says we should not be surprised by this and in fact it is a sign that Christ’s return is imminent. Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, ‘Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’ But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgement and destruction of the ungodly. 2 Peter 3:3-7.

It is no wonder that people are perplexed and fear for the future. From a secular perspective, things look rather bleak. The Bible talks about our time in history as the last days and describes our world today. There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. Luke 21:25-26.

World events are playing out just as the Bible predicted long ago, right before our very eyes. It should come as no surprise to followers of Christ that we are living in the last days or end times and Jesus will return soon. Yet many Christians today aren’t aware of the signs of the times. Complacency can become the enemy of salvation and there are many, many people who identify as Christians who are at risk of not receiving eternal life on the coming day of the Lord. The New Testament is filled with many warnings to the body of believers to be ready for Christ’s imminent return since no one knows the day or the hour. Furthermore, our personal day of reckoning is only a dying breath away as any one of us can be met with tragedy at any time. We are, after all, only mere mortals and accidents happen.

Jesus said, But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must also be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. Mathew 24:36-44.

In this book, I will endeavor to expose the lie that Satan has been deceiving humanity with ever since the beginning. Perhaps it is fitting to use the famous quote, misattributed to Joseph Goebbels, that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself. If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.³ According to Wikipedia, "The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so ‘colossal’ that no one would believe that someone ‘could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously’. Hitler believed the technique was used by the Jews to blame Germany’s loss in World War I on German general Erich Ludendorff, who was a prominent nationalist and anti-Semitic political leader in the Weimar Republic." ⁴

Evolution is a case in point. Although this theory has never been proven in science, it has been taught as fact in schools and universities, promoted as fact in media and is accepted as truth by the masses. Any scientist willing to stand up against the popular view endangers his/her career and risks being ridiculed by the establishment. Therefore, scientists continue to perpetuate what they know to be wrong in favor of continuing their status and funding. The same goes for the so called science behind climate change. Gus Speth, an environmental scientist tired of the way the system is failing society puts it this way, I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address these problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy…. And to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. Twisting the truth doesn’t stop there, as corrupted churches proclaim that God and Allah are the same, which muddies the waters of baptism and removes any clarity in their warped theology.

In his second letter to the Thessalonian church, Paul wrote about the last days and the deception that will keep the truth hidden from the majority of the population. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance to how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12. The lie is very obvious to those who are spiritually alive in the world today and this in and of itself is a huge red flag for believers everywhere to sit up and take notice of their surroundings.

Things that are good are called bad by society today and truth that should be cherished is considered deplorable. Abortion is at the top of this list as those who advocate women’s rights refer to the unborn as nothing more than a blob of cells and advocates of babies’ rights to life are condemned as intolerant and narrow minded, even racist and extreme religious zealots pushing their agenda down people’s throats. This ideology was painfully front and center in a discussion I had with a couple of young ladies recently who considered an unwanted pregnancy worse than unwanted fingernails or hair. How can love for an unborn child be considered evil and abortion be considered a woman’s right? This mystifying phenomenon is another deception the Bible condemns through the prophet Isaiah. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Isaiah 5:20.

Now, more than ever, it is integral to have our wits about us and be aware of the signs of the times. All of creation is groaning as if in labor in anticipation of the coming of the Lord. Satan knows his time is short and as humanity drifts further and further from the truth, he is solidifying his stranglehold on those who cannot see the truth of the Bible. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. Romans 8:22-23.

The moral dilemma we face today requires that we draw a line in the sand, in the face of confusion and political correctness. Philosophical secularism and subjective moral reasoning only serve to pacify minds that are in denial that the universe is finite, and we are all guilty of sinning against God. The Bible says For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths, 2 Timothy 4:3-4. Our only hope, in a world on the brink of disaster, is through the life altering love of Christ. Our actions will never change unless our hearts are changed.

Each year, global conditions become more and more identifiable as pieces of the prophetic puzzle drop into place. The trend line of world events seems to be falling into chaos as wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and severe weather threaten humanity. There is a thick darkness cloaking the world, trying to smother the light that is Jesus. A darkness that knows its time is coming to an end and the light is about to pierce into the night and bring forth a new day. Now, more than ever, it is critical to be aware of our surroundings and be solid in our convictions about eternity.

I intend to demonstrate how it is only God’s perfect plan, expressed though Jesus, that can redeem us and save us from ourselves. This includes showing the authenticity of the Bible as God’s Holy word, including proof that Jesus Christ was who he said he was, evidence in science supporting his creation of the universe, earth and mankind, the interaction between God and people that has resulted in the profound changing of lives and that we are surrounded by signs that indicate God is about to gather his people. Romans 1:20 reads For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

In the last century there have been many, many predictions of the end of the world, the second coming of Christ and the Rapture. The resulting ridicule of bible prophecy and down-play by Christian leaders has led to complacency regarding end times discussions much like the boy who cried wolf. The Bible predicted this crux two thousand years ago (2 Peter 3:3-7) and it is becoming crystal clear that the events we are witnessing in our world today are indeed prophetic fulfillment. Never before in the history of civilization have all of these signs been present, and now they are all present at the same time. This generation is the one who is witnessing Israel as a nation once more with the Jews back in Jerusalem, the gospel being preached to the furthest corners of the world, increased travel and an explosion of knowledge over a very short period of time, the Arab nations aligning themselves against Israel, the Russian, Turkey, Iran alliance (Gog and Magog), European unification and