Introduction
It’s time to start our service today
And I am so glad to have you here with us.
Today, as we are starting off a new series, I am going to be dealing with topics that people have asked me about over the past couple of years. I have kept a running list, and these are topics that people are just curious about how to deal with on this side of The Message. I have about fifteen to twenty different topics I am going to tackle in this series, just one lesson at a time, and all related to things we were taught in The Message. Some of these lessons might be pretty short, but Lord willing, we will work our way through this list.
I want to also let you know that I still have some engagements I am seeing to over the next few months as well, which may not permit me to put out a lesson every week. But I will do my best to let you know ahead of time when I am going to be away.
If this is your first time joining us today and you wonder who we are and what we are up to, my name is Charles Paisley. I and most of our listeners here are formerly members of the cult following of William Branham known as The Message.
The Message is a global doomsday cult with millions of members. It started here in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and spread all over the world. I am a former associate pastor of the second-oldest Message church in the world, right here in the Jeffersonville area. This is a little mission we operate to offer encouragement to those leaving The Message and to take a look at the plain reading of scripture as we seek to wash out of our minds what, for most of us, has been a lifetime of indoctrination.
Today, we are going to be looking into 2 Peter. I invite you to turn your Bibles there with me. The title of our lesson today is actually a question, and the question is: What is the present truth?
To answer that question, we are going to look at what the apostle Peter has to say here in 2 Peter. I am going to read from verse 1 all the way down to verse 15, and I will be using the King James Version today since this is what we used in The Message when we examined these same passages. So follow along with me from verse 1.
2 Peter 1 (King James Version)
1 Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:
2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:
11 For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.
13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
14 Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.
15 Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.
Let us pray
Lord God, we approach the scripture with an honest heart today. And we are coming with a very simple question: What is the present truth? Lord, speak to us by your Spirit that we might learn the answer to that question.
In Jesus’ name, we ask, amen.
Introduction
Well, brothers and sisters, if you ever spent much time in The Message, I am sure you have heard all about the present truth.
The present truth was a phrase that is used a whole lot by Message preachers. In our former system of religion, we thought The Message itself was the present truth. That is what our leaders taught us. There was truth in the days of Moses, and then there was truth in the days of Jesus. Then there was truth in the days of Peter and Paul. And then there is truth today. You need the present truth—the latest truth.
A lot of times we would call it the “message of your hour,” and a whole lot of emphasis was placed on the present truth. The present truth was something that was always changing, and you needed the latest and greatest from the ministers of today in order to have the present truth. I think that is a very accurate summary of what we believed the present truth was.
There were a lot of different ways in which our leaders justified that belief. For the most part, they used symbolism in scripture to convince us that those symbols meant there would be a last-day message. There would be a last-day shout. There would be a last-day midnight cry. There would be a last-day voice.
Those things are all symbols, and they told us those symbols were a last-day message. And that last-day message was the present truth.
I have pointed out to you quite a few times—and I want to do so again—that the Bible does not actually plainly say any of that. The Bible does not plainly say there will be a last-day message that will be the present truth you need to escape the wrath to come. The Bible does not say that.
We only ever arrived at that idea by interpreting symbols and by saying those symbols mean there will be a last-day message that will be the present truth you need to escape the wrath to come. That is very important to recognize. It is important to recognize that those ideas come from interpreting symbols and not from the plain reading of the Bible.
Because when you realize those ideas came from interpreting symbols, then we have to ask the question: Who was the person who interpreted those symbols to us?
And did he have any special authority to do that? The answer to that question is that it was William Branham who interpreted those symbols to us. At this stage, we can say conclusively he had no special authority to do that. He had no more authority to do that than any other person. You and I have the exact
He deceived us. And he had no special authority to interpret these symbols.
When we come to that understanding, we have to realize that a lot of our former system of religion just crumbles apart. There is no message. There was no shout. There was no voice. There was no midnight cry. All of that was a hoax. William Branham tricked us. He sinned against us mightily. William Branham did us all great harm by tricking us. And today, we are trying to pick up the pieces and find our way through all of his false indoctrination.
Those things are just symbols—the voice, the shout, the midnight cry. I have already tackled those three subjects in some earlier lessons. You can go listen to the William Branham series if you would like to hear when we tackled those symbols.
But the present truth—we see here—the present truth is not a symbol. The present truth is in the plain reading of the Bible. And so, we can wonder—what is this present truth?
Because, as Peter says here, it’s pretty important. We really need it. Peter does say there that you need the present truth to make it.
So, that is a pretty big deal. And naturally, as Christians, we want to know: What is this present truth?
Reading Peter
And so, since the present truth is in the plain reading of the scripture, let’s look at it here at what is written in scripture. Let’s not dream up our idea of what the present truth is. Let’s actually see what Peter says it is. And whatever Peter says it is—that is what it is. Peter knew what the present truth was, so we can trust his answer.
I am going to pick up and read again from verse 8. Before verse 8, Peter has been talking about the fruit of the spirit. He has been telling his readers about how important it is for the fruit of the spirit to grow in their lives. And in verse 8, he says:
2 Peter 1 (King James Version)
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:
11 For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
This is some really wonderful stuff, isn’t it? Peter is talking about the way to heaven. He is talking about the way to life eternal.
If I might just summarize it, Peter is telling his readers that if they are living a life full of the fruit of the spirit, they can have an assurance in their hearts that they are going to make it. There will be a big, wide, abundant entrance into heaven for people who are full of the fruit of the spirit.
Not because their works saved them, but because the fruit of the spirit is evidence of the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. And Peter here is really dealing with assurance as much as anything else. People who have the fruit of the spirit in abundance are going to have an abundant entrance into heaven.
It’s really that simple. If you have love, faith, brotherly kindness, patience, and self-control—all these different things which constitute good, godly character—when you are in Christ, and your life is defined by those things, they are evidence to you that God is at work in your life and that you are going to make it.
We could talk a whole lot about that, but I hope I have said enough for you to see that is what Peter is talking about here.
Let’s continue reading verse 12
Peter writes:
12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things,
So here Peter says something really important. Catch the way he says it. He says these things. He is putting them in remembrance of these things.
So we ask the question: What are these things? When he says “these things,” what does he mean?
It’s pretty obvious—these things are the things he has been talking about. He has been talking about how to make it to heaven. He has been talking about assurance. He has been talking about the fruit of the spirit as a witness of our salvation.
Those are the things he has been talking about. Let me read verse 12 again:
12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them
“Though ye know them”—that is another important thing to catch. These things are what Peter is talking about, and the people already know these things. Peter is not telling them something new that day they had never heard of before.
These things are already known.
So, let’s read verse 12 again:
12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.
So, there is that present truth. Now, as we read that, it is plain as the nose on your face that the present truth Peter is talking about is these things—the things his readers already know about.
The present truth is not something new Peter is telling his readers for the first time that day. And we can say, whatever it is, they already knew it. Whatever this present truth is, Peter already knew what it was. His readers already knew what it was. And it is the things Peter is writing down in this letter.
Let me read it again:
12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.
13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
In remembrance of what? Of the present truth. Peter is putting them in remembrance of the present truth. He is reminding them of what the present truth is, even though they have heard it before.
And he is reminding them of the present truth because he is going to die, and he wants them to hold onto it.
Read verse 13 again:
13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
14 Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.
15 Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.
I hope you are catching all of this. And I will point out verse 15 to you. Peter said he was telling this to them so that they could remember it after he was dead—so that they could always remember it.
Peter wanted to make sure that they would remember the present truth forever, even after he was gone.
What is the present truth?
So, when we read all that together, there are some things we can ask about what we read.
The first thing we could ask is this:
Did Peter know what the present truth was?
And the answer is yes.
We could also ask, Did his readers know what the present truth was?
And the answer is yes.
So, we can say that the present truth—whatever it was—is something Peter and his readers already knew about, back 2,000 years ago when he wrote this letter.
The next question we might ask ourselves is this:
Is there anything here, even the slightest thing, that would make us think that Peter’s present truth would be updated?
Is there anything here to make us think there will ever be an updated version of the present truth?
Is there anything here to make us think that the present truth Peter is talking about would ever stop being the present truth?
And the answer is no. There is nothing here to suggest that to us at all.
In fact, just the opposite. The way Peter writes verse 15, it really sounds like the present truth will be the present truth forever—even after he is dead.
There is nothing here to give us an expectation that we should look for a new present truth. The present truth, in the days of Peter, is still the present truth today.
And why should it ever change?
If we read what Peter is saying here, he is telling people about how they can have assurance they are going to heaven. And if it was good enough to give people assurance about going to heaven 2,000 years ago, it is still good today.
You and I can read what Peter wrote here, apply it to our lives, and guess what? We can have the same assurance that Peter is talking about. And we can make it to heaven on the exact same terms that Peter was offering to his readers all those many years ago, because what he is saying is still the truth.
I don’t need a new present truth to make it. Peter’s present truth—from 2,000 years ago—is still good enough. It’s still good enough to save me. It’s still good enough to give me assurance I am going to make it to heaven. And it’s still good enough to grant me an abundant entrance.
We are not going to have to beg, scrape, and borrow to make it. We are going to have an abundant entrance.
And brothers and sisters—you and I—here today, following Jesus as our Savior, trusting in Him, we are following the present truth. We are following Peter’s present truth.
And you can read this Bible backwards and forwards, and this is the only present truth in the whole book. And the present truth, we might say it as simple as this: the present truth is the gospel message. And it has been that way for 2,000 years, and there is no expectation set for that to ever change.
And it’s you and I who are in the present truth. The people in The Message abandoned the present truth a long time ago. They abandoned the present truth to follow William Branham. They stopped believing the plain reading of these verses decades ago.
They don’t believe a person with the fruit of the Spirit in their life will have an abundant entrance into heaven. They think people like that—their best case is to burn up in the tribulation. They don’t believe the fruit of the Spirit is enough to give someone assurance. They say the evidence of the Holy Spirit is believing their false message.
It’s totally backwards from what this passage of Scripture actually is telling us.
And people can twist themselves into knots. They can add all kinds of words that are not here on the page. And they can use symbols from other parts of the Bible to try and override the plain reading of Scripture.
But the sad truth is—when they do that—they are proving that they do not have the present truth.
We have the present truth today, right here. You and I, and everyone who trusts in Christ as our Savior. And the people who reject that have accepted another gospel, which isn’t a gospel at all. Which isn’t truth at all.
Their false religion is built on denying the gospel. It is built on convincing you that faith in Christ Jesus is not enough to fully save you. Their religion is built on convincing you that having what Peter describes is not enough to give you assurance of an abundant entrance into heaven.
The present truth is Jesus Christ the same, yesterday, today, and forever. It’s not a new message every hour on the hour. It’s not a new present truth every other week.
Jesus said, Whoso believes on me has passed from death unto life.
Paul said, Being justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath.
Peter said, Yea, I think it is good to stir you up, and put you in remembrance of this present truth, so that even after I am gone, you can still remember it.
Amen.
Brothers and sisters, I pray you have a good week. Let me close here in prayer.
Thank you, Lord God, that You have established us in the present truth. Lord, anchor that truth way down deep in our souls. Break the bonds that hold people captive. Set them free to walk in the liberty of the truth.
This we ask, in Jesus’ name, amen.