“Becoming Beacons of Truth”

Ricci Johnson Wilson

April 15, 2024

(Edited Transcript from April 12, 2024, message)

To set the stage for this message, turn with me to John 18:33-38

“So Pilate went back again into the judgment hall and called Jesus and asked Him, Are You the King of the Jews? Jesus replied, Are you saying this of yourself [on your own initiative], or have others told you about Me?

“Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Your [own] people and nation and their chief priests have delivered You to me. What have You done?

“Jesus answered, My kingdom (kingship, royal power) belongs not to this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My followers would have been fighting to keep Me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, My kingdom is not from here (this world); [it has no such origin or source].

“Pilate said to Him, Then You are a King? Jesus answered, You say it! [You speak correctly!] For I am a King. [Certainly I am a King!] This is why I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the Truth. Everyone who is of the Truth [who is a friend of the Truth, who belongs to the Truth] hears and listens to My voice.

“Pilate said to Him, What is Truth? On saying this he went out to the Jews again and told them, I find no fault in Him.”

 

The intent of this message is to address very important questions:

  1. What is Truth?
  2. How can we recognize Truth?
  3. What is challenging truth in this season?
  4. How can we change the path we are on and become a friend of the truth, and ultimately a beacon of truth?
  5. What Kingdom are we representing?

We live in a day wherein truth has become subjective. Often people believe that truth is personal or individual, we hear things such as “that’s my truth” or “you have your truth and I have mine.”

Of course, that’s not the truth, that’s an opinion that may or may not be based on facts. Unfortunately, they really believe that an individual can have “a truth” that may or may not be anchored in reality.

 

What is Truth?

John 8:31-32

“So Jesus said to those Jews who had believed in Him, If you abide in My word [hold fast to My teachings and live in accordance with them], you are truly My disciples.  And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.”

 That Greek word for “Truth” is alétheia and refers to what is true in any circumstances. True to Fact.

Usage: truth, but not merely truth as spoken; truth of idea, reality, sincerity, truth in the moral sphere, divine truth revealed to man, straightforwardness.

Alēthinós is “true to fact”) – properly, true (real), emphasizing the organic connection (authentic unity) between what is true and its source or origin

When we speak to the question of “what is truth?” We must recognize that it’s not based on our perspective, our environmental upbringing, our religious upbringing, our political leanings, it’s not filtered through man or anything man can imagine. It’s filtered through the Word of God, and it is by this standard that we must measure everything. When I say “everything” I mean EVERYTHING.

What is the organic connection between truth and its source? God, Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ they are true.  Anything of substance, can successfully be filtered through Him (and His Word John 1:1). Through His Word, He will reveal His perspective on the matter.

Today, even within Christian circles, prophetic voices, pastors, teachers… truth seems to be evolving in conversations, preaching, or “words from the Lord” and yet, and yes, even prophesy—especially prophesy—must be filtered through Scripture. It is through the Word that truth is reveled.  In order for truth to be true, it must be able to withstand God’s plumbline, His measuring rod will mete it out, and in the end, it will be possible to see truth in any and all circumstances.

We have lost sight of truth, and we need to get it back, especially in the Body of Christ.

So, with that in mind, what is challenging “truth” in this hour?

  • Media
  • Communism = Atheism. Their stated goal is to remove God. Why? Out of their own mouths they told us the answer: The only way we can take America is to remove the Church. Then and only then, can you control the Nation.
  • Cultural Marxism – I spoke at length about Cultural Marxism last year.
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Religion

I’m going to briefly address Communism and it’s roll out through Media and then Religion.

I recently listened to an FBI special agent who happens to be a Sprit-filled Christian as he expressed his concerns over the days in which we live. He said one of the things he’s come to learn while working with the people in charge of information and how it is disseminated, is that you “really can’t believe most of what you find on the internet.” In fact, he added, “there are special, targeted operations taking place on any given day, under any given subject, wherein disinformation and/or misinformation is working to relay information to the population across all social platforms with the sole intention of misleading the masses. The goal is to keep people running down rabbit holes and out of their [the government] way as they reshape and remold the nation into what they want it to be.”

That’s concerning to say the least.

So, what do they [those currently working in government] want our nation to be?

The Communist Manifesto tells us the “what.”

Cultural Marxism tells us the “how.” Along with how they are implementing it today

In between all of that, and there’s a lot that runs through that, we have a trail of “information” leading believers around the interwebs to keep us distracted, divided, fearful, tearful, and so on.  I use the term “information” loosely here because, as that FBI agent stated, much of it is misinformation or disinformation.

What is misinformation?

According to the Oxford dictionary:
“False or inaccurate information, especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive.”

What is disinformation?

According to the Oxford dictionary:
“False information, which is intended to mislead, especially propaganda issued by a government organization to a rival power or the media.”

In “The Eagle, the Flag and the Weights” vision, did the Lord not say that the Media was the First Ball to Fall? Now we understand in greater measure why it must come down.

Religion, and I know when we cover this issue, I’m sure it touches some nerves, but I feel it’s very important to address this issue head on. Why? Because, we are called to be a rock, to represent THE ROCK of our SALVATION. When a nation is changed, it’s supposed to be for the better, because we, the people of God, came through with such influence, we turned the nation upside down (Acts 17:6), exposed and shook out the idolatry and introduced the message of the One True God and His path to salvation!

The Communist agenda is to remove God from the nation. What many may or may not know is that in the 1930s, the Jesuit Order sent men into the church throughout America to water down the Gospel. That’s an agenda they are actively implementing. All the more reason for us, the Body of Christ, to not only actively pursue truth, but become beacons of truth.

A second issue we face is distractions.  Today, there are those who have become so distracted by every wind of doctrine, their focus is not on truth, salvation, or on THE ROCK. Instead, their attention rests on details or “revelations” they discovered within the vast expanse of the interwebs. I refer to the internet as interwebs because it is in fact, full of disinformation and misinformation intentionally designed to entrap the reader or listener and drag them down a path that will suck the life out of them.

I know that sounds harsh, and perhaps even condescending, and my intent is not to be condescending here, but recent events compel me to come forth with the Word and cut through the deception that’s out there because I love you, and my responsibility before God is to bring TRUTH!

Last year I shared that the enemy was going to bring great distraction and deception in the coming months. It was critical that we need guard ourselves from these distractions lest we be carried away under the lure of his deception.

Let me give you a very recent example:

Over the past month, with the approach of the eclipse, countless warnings and catastrophic doomsday style messages went out that “the end was upon us!”  So much was released predicting almost anything from the rapture of the Church to the ripping in two of the United States along the path of the eclipse. Strong warnings and admonitions went forth, some were clickbait some were full of fearful rants about the impending judgments upon America. If you do a keyword search of Eclipse + Warning + Prophesy on the internet right now, you will have 125,000 hits on the combined topics. That’s articles, images, videos, audios and so on that include all three words. That’s so unfortunate and grieves my heart.

Why?

  • That presents a very negative view of prophecy to the world, to immature believers, to our youth who are searching for something bigger than themselves to be a part of today.
  • It consumed the resources of the people of God. Time, talents, and prayer efforts.

You may note that we did not pray about any of these issues. Why? Because we knew it was fear-based distractions and our focus had to remain on the things the Lord asked us to pray over and this was not an issue that seemed to concern Him. He created the stars, the moon and the earth. He placed the sun, the moon, and the planets all in a certain alignment and knew exactly when each eclipse would occur. This event did not escape His attention, nor did it consume His time. Throughout this past month, I repeatedly encouraged those who come on our calls not to enter a place of fear.

Listen, even if every single one of those events played out, the Lord still does not want us afraid. He wants us to trust in and filter everything through His Word. There will be a day when catastrophic destruction comes, we read it in the book of Revelations, and our hope must be anchored in TRUTH.

The Lord wants to use every situation to teach and refine us. He wants us to let go of man’s perception, deception, and distractions and cling to Him instead. He wants us to trust in Him, His Word, His Truth.

Truth and deception is an issue the Lord asked me to cover today because we are living in a day and an hour when the enemy is going to ramp up his efforts to distract us from our commission and He want us to not just focus on truth but anchor ourselves in truth.

The eclipse was a successful distraction campaign because in this day and hour, people are more inclined to pursue things that feed fear over faith. God wants to change that in His people.

Why?

He wants us to be a rock of stability in times of shaking, not participants or victims in the shaking.

So, how can we recognize truth from deception?

  • Be people of the Word. The Bible is clear on this issue, God will open the eyes of our understanding if we are people of the Word and prayer, people who actively seek truth. (Ephesians 1:15-23)
  • Be people of Prayer. It’s through prayer that He unpacks the Word and brings revelation. Just keep in mind, “revelation” will never contradict His Word. It is through His revelation and understanding that we know the truth and that truth sets us free (John 8:32).
  • Learn to recognize deception. Partial truth is effective deception. The Lord warned that as time progressed, we would see increased levels of deception and He even detailed what we should be doing in the midst of this season. (Matthew 24-25, Luke 21) (I’ll be teaching on these passages this Friday if you want to read ahead.)
  • Cut away threads of deception. Why is this important? When allow yourself to feed on threads of deception, they eventually weave within you and change the fabric of who you are, and you will then be inclined toward deception. In addition, your participation in deception will strengthen the fabric of that deception. In 2022, I had a vision of the deceptive narrative the media created. I saw Christian threads throughout that fabric that kept that narrative going strong. When the Lord showed me our (the Christian) thread removed, the entire narrative fell to the ground. There’s strength and power in your presence.

I am going to focus heavily on point #1 here… be people of the Word.

Again, the best way to be protected from deception and the fears deception inevitably provokes, is to know and be anchored in His Word. It is through His Word that we come to know what TRUTH really is and recognize deception when it comes. Anything that is not TRUTH, must be cut away. How do we protect ourselves from being deceived? Cut away the open doors. How do we do that? How do we slice away that which keeps our soul distracted and entangled in the world? We need to enter into His rest. Let me explain.

Hebrews 4:11

“Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], that no one may fall or perish by the same kind of unbelief and disobedience [into which those in the wilderness fell].”

 

The writer of Hebrews tells us the formula to enter into rest.

Be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter His rest. That sentence may seem like one big oxymoron but if you sit for a moment and meditate on the Word, you will come to see what the Lord is saying.

The effort we exert to do anything good or bad is going to produce fruit. What fruit do you want to bring forth? Do you want to exude peace? You must zealously exert yourself, then strive diligently to enter into His peace. You must turn off the TV, the internet, the technology, and pick up your Bible and find out what God is saying about any situation. Again, He tells us what we need to do to enter His rest so that, in the midst of chaos (current or future), you can still enter in—or prepare to enter—His rest.

What is rest? The Greek word is Katapauo. It comes from two words: “Kata” down from a higher to a lower plane to serve a purpose, and “Pauo” to cease from sin. So, to enter His rest is to avail yourself to God’s indwelling, in working processes, that you might cease from sin. A soul free from sin is a soul at rest.

How do you find His rest amid suffering or persecution? Through prayer and the precepts found in His Word. It’s important to have those promises deeply ingrained in you prior to those times of suffering or persecution. It’s never too late but our ability to endure increases exponentially if we prepare ourselves ahead of time.

What “rest” were the Hebrews at risk of losing?

The writer of Hebrews was referring to the promises of God that were lost to those who fell in the wilderness. Those in the wilderness lost the opportunity to enter the Promise Land because they did not believe. They lost their focus, because they became distracted and discouraged by the “struggles in the wilderness” and their fear of the “giants of the land” together, they were pulled out of the promises of God.  

Are you distracted and discouraged by the struggles in the wilderness? Do the giants of the land keep you fearful?

Again, I take you to the Word:

How does the Word enable us to enter His rest regardless of what we are facing?

Hebrews 4:12 answers this for us:

“For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart”

There’s so much here…

The Word of God:

  • Is alive
  • Full of power (active, operative, energizing, effective)
  • Is sharper than any two-edged sword
  • Penetrates through the flesh — dividing asunder the soul and spirit.

What does that mean? It cuts through the tough exterior of our flesh and separates the soulish nature (the flesh) from the spiritual side of our lives so that we can walk according to the Spirit rather than the flesh.

My son-in-love works as a cutter in the meat department. When they are quickly moving through the beef in a mass production style, they process the meat one way. The greater the value in that piece of meat, the more time will be invested before it goes into the display case.

When the consumer takes the meat home, they typically pound it with a meat tenderizer or soak it in some concoction to break down the fibers of the meat.

However, when my son brings the meat home for his family, he takes it to the next level. He has these extremely sharp knives that he uses to process the beef. He painstakingly slices away the sinew, that paper thin layer of connective tissue that adheres the meat to the bone, the sharper the knife, the greater his ability to remove this sinew without any loss of the actual meat. When he successfully separates this sinew, he is left with a piece of meat that is pliable, tender, and ready to receive and absorb the seasoning. The meat needs far less pounding to tenderize because the connective tissue, the sinew, is removed. Now you have a tender, slice-it-with-a-butter-knife piece of meat because of his preparation process.

This is what the Word does to us. It transforms us so we can recognize and receive truth!

Let’s apply that principle to the kingdom we represent to those around us.

The Word analyzes our hearts and cuts away the soulish nature, that tough exterior that prevents His Spirit from penetrating and then operating through us. If we are availing ourselves to His work, we can effectively demonstrate His Kingdom. Remember, we are supposed to be His outstretched hands in the earth, demonstrating His love, His care, His passion for the lost as well as those who we call our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

When we do not allow His Word to cut away the flesh, our responses come from our soulish nature rather than the Word. If we are prone to anger, depression, fear or anxiety, these things will not only seek us out and feed on those emotions, but they will also enhance those fleshly emotions. And friends, that kingdom is what we will represent to others in our interaction with them.

The Lord Himself told us to guard our minds, our hearts, our attention, our resources to ensure we did not get ensnared by the natural or spiritual things that come our way. (Matthew 10:17, 16:6)

Paul said in Philippians 4:6-7:

“Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God.

“And God’s peace [shall be yours, that tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace] which transcends all understanding shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

The instructions here are clear and if applied to our lives, and I mean really taken in and applied, the Kingdom we will represent is the Kingdom of Heaven.

What does he say:

Do not:

  • Fret
  • Have anxiety about ANYTHING

Instead, in EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE –

  • Pray

How?

  • With specific requests
  • With thanksgiving
  • Making your wants known to God (this is not referring to material wealth)

What fruit will come from this?

  • The peace of God will be yours.

What kind of peace?

  • Peace that transcends your flesh (earthly lot), responds in the Spirit, without fear.
  • Peace that mounts a garrison up to guard your heart and mind. (Picture a soldier smacking away anything that would interfere with your peace)

In short, that’s a praying, peace-filled child of God who knows and understands the Kingdom they represent!

If we haven’t been a beacon of truth, how do we change the path we are on?

Sometimes, the answer is plain and simple even though it will take tremendous conscious effort to achieve.

There are times when we just need to change our thought life.

Philippians 4:8

“For the rest, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honorable and seemly, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there is any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things [fix your minds on them].”

What do you spend your time thinking about? The future? Family? The Election? The Economy? Wars and Rumors of Wars? Pandemics? There is no shortage of issues to consume your time.

When we see instructions in the Word, it can really benefit us to list out exactly what instructions are given to us. I cannot tell you how much this simplifies and helps us to apply God’s Word and hid it in our hearts. As such, to make this very plain and simple for us and I’m going to list out exactly what Paul says we are supposed to think about:

  • What is true.
  • What is worthy of reverence.
  • What is honorable.
  • What is seemly.
  • What is just.
  • What is pure.
  • What is lovely & loveable.
  • What is winsome.
  • What is gracious.
  • What is virtuous.
  • What is full of excellence.

So, what Kingdom do you represent?

We can look back to our opening passage at Pilate and Jesus as our examples. Pilate was known for his violent scourging, he was selfish, a people-pleaser, deceptive, manipulative, one who did not really seek truth. He was more concerned about a violent overthrow than he was about justice.

Jesus spoke truth to power. He was humble. He cut through the sinew to expose the meat and then infused His righteous flavor into the exposed and tender hearts of His hearers. He was fearless and imparted the Kingdom of Heaven into His followers. If you study the life of Christ, the writings of His Apostles, including of course, Paul, you will see the nature and character He developed within them and then apply those lessons to your life.

Where do you start? I would suggest Ephesians. Paul provides prayer guidance, instruction in spiritual warfare, and even interacting with our fellow man. Charles Spurgeon said of the book of Ephesians: “it is a complete body of Divinity. In the first chapter you have the doctrines of the Gospel; in the next, you have the experience of the Christians; and before the epistle is finished, you have the precepts of the Christian Faith. Whosoever would see Christianity in one treatise, let him ‘read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest’ the Epistle to the Ephesians.”

When we know and understand the Word, when we apply His Word to our lives, we will begin to represent the Kingdom of Heaven to all we encounter and then, truly, be the Beacon of Truth we are called to be in this hour.

Blessings in Him,

Ricci Johnson-Wilson