The Ten-minute True Church Test

A few weeks back, my wife and I had two sisters come for dinner after the Sabbath. One of them had been starting to come to the church, and the other one was visiting her. But they came from the Chilean background, so it was nice to be able to be with them. And during the course of the conversation, the subject of where is the true church came up. They wanted to know. So many people are always saying, well, this is the church that you should go, this is the right one, or this is the true one. I've never seen a church that says, welcome, this is the wrong church, right? You're never going to have that. So everyone's going to claim it. So how can we be sure? It occurred to me, and I asked them, how would you like to take a 10-minute true church test? Would you be willing to give 10 minutes, and we'll go over, just give you a little test on this subject? And they perked up and said, sure! Now, I had actually said five minutes, but it's actually, I was a little pushing it. It was actually like 10 minutes, so I wanted to correct that. But I hadn't done that before, so this is what came up. Now, how can you take a test that in 10 minutes, you can find out where the right church, the true church is?

I started, and by the way, this is all for you to be able to have that experience. You're all being trained to be teachers of God's truths. And so here you can have this handy little guide. It works for anybody that will ask you, well, how can I tell your church is the right one? You can just be reminded of this. It's not rocket science, but you do need the right scriptures. So I want you to have these scriptures. Of course, they're not the only ones, but these are the ones that, for me, are fundamental or basic to come to the right conclusion. So I mentioned to them that there are two characteristics in the Bible that describe and identify what is the true church.

And they are found in two scriptures in the Bible. Turn with me to Revelation 12. Remember, these are the two scriptures that describe the true church, and it has two conditions, two criteria to identify them. So it's important that it's not a person that is describing it. It's the Bible. It gives you here the description, and it gives you two characteristics. In Revelation 12, verse 17, it's talking about the church that would flee to the wilderness during that Great Tribulation period, three and a half years. Would you like to be there, to be protected during that period when things break up, just like COVID?

One day, nobody can go out in the highways. That was sort of a teaching moment for us, how everything got locked down from one day to the next. So it can happen that rapidly. Notice what it says in Revelation 12, verse 17. It says, And the dragon, talk about Satan, was enraged with the woman. That's the church during that time. And he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, which are the descendants of the true church, probably in this century, the 21st century.

But nonetheless, it says here, two characteristics. Who keep the commandments of God. So if you want to find the true church, they better be keeping all the commandments of God, not just some, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. The word testimony means witness. It's used in the court of law.

A person comes. Can you testify to this? Is it true? Is it genuine? So they have the support and backing of Jesus Christ. He's saying, they are correctly following and obeying me. That church has to have, first, what they're doing. And then it's the backing of Jesus Christ, his testimony, because many were going to use his name, right?

It doesn't mean they were going to say or do what he taught. The next one is just two chapters over in Revelation 14 in verse 12. Again, it's talking about the church. Here is the patience or endurance of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

So it's not only a testimony, but it's also they have the faith of Jesus in them. Christ is living in them. So if this is the criteria, I told these two sisters, let's go over those 10 commandments and see who are the ones that are keeping it properly. Now, some will say, it says they're keeping the commandments of God. How can we be sure? It's the 10 commandments. It's also the witness of Jesus Christ, his testimony that shows us which commandments they're talking about. So let's go to Matthew chapter 19.

See, you go first, you establish the premise. Here are the two characteristics. And now you've got to make sure what commandments we're talking about. Well, you use Jesus Christ as the authority. Matthew chapter 19 verse 16. Verse 16. Here is this rich young ruler. Verse 16. Now behold, one came and said to him, good teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? What are the requirements? He asked. So he said to him, why do you call me good?

No one is good, but one that is God. He's looking at God the Father and being supreme over everything. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments. Again, a person can say, well, he's not very definite about that. So then the young man said to him, which ones? Which are the ones that you need to keep to have eternal life? And then he starts enumerating the Ten Commandments.

He said, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and your mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So it's talking about the Ten Commandments. So that is the criteria that will show us who is in the true Church that are keeping it properly. The Apostle Paul also answered about which commandments are the ones that we should keep.

Notice in Romans chapter 13. And of course, if you're going through this test, I went through it pretty quickly with them. I'm taking more time now, but here's the second Scripture to prove which commandments. Romans chapter 13 in verse 8, Paul says, Oh, no one, anything except to love one another, for he who loves one another has fulfilled the law.

For the commandments, you shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not covet. And if there's any other commandment, so those are the rest that he didn't list, but they're all part of the Ten Commandments. He says they're all summed up in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does not harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. So God's laws, his commandments are the fulfillment of what love is all about.

Love toward God and love toward others. So these are the basic premises, the basic principles to establish our lives upon. And of course, we need God's Spirit. We need his grace. We need everything else because we are imperfect. But God isn't expecting perfection. He's expecting effort, dedication, faithfulness to them. So let's go over this 10-minute true church test. And when others ask about it, you can remember to go over them.

So let's go to the first one. It's found in Exodus chapter 20. There are two places in the Old Testament that mention the Ten Commandments. One is in Exodus 20, the other one is Deuteronomy 5. The first one was at the beginning of their journeys during that first year, and Deuteronomy was at the last. So he reiterated these Ten Commandments. And they express the very nature of God. This is the way God is. This is how we should worship him. Verse 1 of Exodus 20. It says, And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. So the first commandment is to worship God only and not any false gods.

So I was mentioning in Exodus chapter 20, God tells us to worship only God, no false gods at all. Now remember that when he mentioned this, this isn't the complete revelation about this first commandment. God's truth is progressive. As he continues revealing more throughout the Bible, then you get more details. So best scripture I can come up with to explain about worshiping God and no false gods is John chapter 1 verses 1 through 3. John chapter 1.

Here God guides the Apostle John to describe more about the nature of God, what consists of God. So it begins in John chapter 1 verse 1. It says, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. So just like in Genesis 1, it begins, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. That's a term, heavens and earth is a term for the universe because they didn't really have a Hebrew word just for universe, but it means the heavens and the earth. Well here, talking about God, it says that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. So here we have two beings who are God and in this same chapter 1 of John, they are identified as God the Father and the Son. Notice in verse 14, it says, and the Word who was God, who was with God the Father, became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father because He came in the flesh and was begotten in that way full of grace and truth. So here, it mentions that that first being is God the Father and the second being was the one who came to the earth, who was the Word. And notice in verse 18, it says, no one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. So here in this very short bunch of paragraphs in chapter 1, it fills in the details of who God is. Whom should we worship? God the Father and Jesus Christ. And notice that in the beginning, it doesn't talk about a third person. Where's the Holy Spirit? If it was a person, it was God, how do you exclude it? No, just two. And they both have the characteristics of God. They both share that common spirit, but they're two beings. The Son is not the Father and the Father is not the Son. And so with this first commandment, we can apply the test to it. How many churches teach this that you know of? Hardly any.

There's no Holy Spirit mentioned here. In other words, no Trinity. That's why we do not teach the doctrine of the Trinity, which was basically it came up with in the fourth century. It was in 381 AD that the Emperor Theodosius declared the Trinity to be true. And any churches that did not believe it, they would be persecuted. Their churches would be possessed by the state and they would be hounded and persecuted.

And so that's not the way to teach the Bible with force and brute violence.

When I asked the two sisters, well, how many churches teach you about God the Father and God the Son and them being God, they said, well, no, not the churches that we have known. So about about 98% of the churches teach the wrong thing about this first commandment.

Let's go to the second. Exodus 20 verses 4 through 6.

Go back to Exodus real quickly.

It says in verse 4, You shall not make for yourselves a craven or a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments. So you see here again the importance of keeping the commandments of God. And so the second one has to do with not make any images of God or bow down to any of those images. In Deuteronomy chapter 4, again here's the place where God reveals more about what he's talking about. Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 12.

God is here speaking, and the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form. You only heard a voice. So God made sure nobody saw a form to make an image of what he looks like. He says, so he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. So here we have the actual terms, Ten Commandments. God's covenant is based on that. It doesn't change from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Remember, the New Testament tells you about the new covenant where God is going to write his law in our hearts, and not in two tablets. So he's going to internalize his law. It's going to be part of us, our heart and mind. And continuing on, he says, and the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, all based on those Ten Commandments, that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess. Again, about the Second Commandment, about not making any idols, he says, take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb or Mount Sinai out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal. You're not supposed to have more idols, more you're not supposed to try to make images of God, and people, churches have them all over.

He says, verse 19, and take heed lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the hosts of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage. That's the future of mankind. One day, populating all of that. That's the heritage. He didn't make it so that people worship stars or suns or moons and those that have gone to different places, big cathedrals, if you've ever been to Rome, St. Peter's, there's all kinds of symbols of suns and stars there. And God is saying, don't do that. He says, but the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people and inheritance as you are this day.

So God says, don't try and use your imagination. And to me, that second commandment was very poignant and very important because I had an idol in the wall of my bedroom, right above the bed. One of the few things we took with us when we left Cuba was this silver cross with Christ there, and my mom had hung it there. And it was a way of trying to ward off spirits and sort of superstition. So here I had an image of God, and I didn't know it until I realized I came across the second commandment. I was worshiping God in the wrong way. So I took it, opened the window of my home. There was a forest there in the back, and I took it and I flung it as far as I could. I felt so angry that I'd been deceived. And believe me, I never had anybody. I can worship God in spirit and in truth. I don't need an idol. I don't need something there that you have this superstitious type of idea. I don't have to have a chain with a cross around me. That's an idol, too. People don't know it, but God is saying. So how many churches do you know that teach correctly the second commandment? I asked the sisters, and they said, well, 98% are not keeping it in the proper way. They all have different symbols, and of course we always are looking for a place where we don't have all kinds of symbols. It's very hard. So let's go to the third commandment. Exodus 20 and verse 7. Exodus 20 verse 7. Here's the third commandment.

It says, You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless, who takes his name in vain. Now this has to do with using God's name frivolously. It means not with respect and honor. Some people use the term God for just about everything they mention, or Jesus Christ. That is taking God's name in vain.

Shouldn't be used when you hit yourself with a hammer or something, and people will use the name of God or Jesus Christ. It's a sacred name. And so we don't teach the use of God with all of these simple idioms that people use and phrases, just to block it out. Because God's name represents his character, his holiness. Should be respected and used only when it means something, and not just some exclamation or a cuss word. That's horrible nowadays, how it's being used in vain. How many churches teach that? Very few. And then we come to the fourth. Exodus 28 through 10. So that's 28 through 10.

It says, remember the Sabbath day. Why? Because people were forgetting it. God had to wake them up. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. It's his day. Should be respected. And then it goes on to tell us about how not to do any work on that day.

In Mark chapter 2, verse 27 and 28, Whose day did Jesus keep? What day did Jesus say he was in charge of? He owned that day. Mark chapter 2 and verse 27. Jesus said to them, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. So he's saying God made the Sabbath for man. He didn't make it to be abolished. He made it to be respected. Therefore, the Son of man, talking about himself, is also the Lord or the Master of the Sabbath day. He was the one that gave it to the Israelites on Mount Sinai. And he's the one that owns that day. It should be respected. And it's not only the Sabbaths but also the annual Sabbaths. The feast days that are also part of God's laws. Notice in Zechariah chapter 14. Zechariah chapter 14, talking about Christ coming, establishing his kingdom. Is he going to have people keep his feasts? You bet. In Zechariah chapter 14, verse 16, after the great tribulation takes place and then all the survivors from among the nations come. It says verse 16, and it shall come to pass that everyone who is left, talking about left alive, of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, shall go up from year to year to worship who? The king, the Lord of hosts. That's Jesus Christ. And to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not keep or come up to Jerusalem to worship the king, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain and he will cause punishment. So nowadays people don't get punished if they don't keep the Sabbath day. One day they will. And so again, this is one of God's Ten Commandments that he wrote with his very fingers. When I asked the sisters about that, how many churches keep that? Hardly any. 98% of the churches don't keep the Sabbath day. They keep the first day of the week Sunday.

So let's go to the fifth commandment. Honor your father and mother. This means to respect the family unit, which now is being eroded horribly. The churches have lost their authorities in large part. There's not the proper respect for the father, the mother, the family unit. Now more and more accepting same-sex marriage. That doesn't honor the father and the mother. He didn't say honor your mother and mother, or your father and father. That's what's happening.

So most churches are not teaching that marriage is between a male and a female. And you see more and more compromise, more watering down this teaching. And so again, this is a commandment that most churches aren't teaching properly. So let's go to the sixth one. Exodus 20 13 says you shall not kill. Other translations, you shall not murder. The word in the Hebrew from rat-sach means to dash in pieces. That is, kill a human being, especially to murder, to put to death, to kill. And what did Christ say about killing people? People? Matthew 5 verse 43. Matthew 5, let's go there.

Verse 43. Did he give us a right to kill our enemies? This is what he taught. Verse 43. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies. The word here is a derivative of agape, which is the strongest. It means sacrificial love. And even if they're enemies, that doesn't mean you hate them. You want to do harm to them. No? You should show sacrificial love. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you. And pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. In other words, you're not to have hate in your heart. That you may be sons of your Father in heaven, for he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. So how many churches teach that? Very few. They say, well, we have a right. They're coming and let's go kill them before they kill us.

You can't really kill unless you learn to hate. And that's the problem.

So you respect life, even if it's an enemy. You trust in God to do the punishing. How many churches have the courage to teach this? It's a fact that in the first three centuries of Christianity, Christians did not kill each other. They did not have swords. They did not go to war. It was basically after Constantine wedded himself with the church that then they had they took up arms and built crusades and everything else.

Let's go to the seventh commandment. Exodus 20.14, it says, you shall not commit adultery. Adultery is between married people, but this commandment includes fornication, which is sex before marriage. You are to wait for that special person to come. And how many churches actually enforce this? Very few. There's more than 50 percent of marriages that are out of wedlock now. They are getting together. They don't even get married. That's happening more and more. But the church that Jesus Christ put his name on and that his testimony is there is going to continue teaching and reinforcing this. So we are going to insist a person respect this in the church. Exodus 20 verse 15. This is the eighth commandment. You shall not steal. In other words, you're going to respect the belongings of others. You're not going to take what isn't yours. You're going to respect the property of others. And that also is not enforced, but we do enforce it in the church. We do not allow that type of stealing to go on. And that takes us to the ninth commandment. Exodus 20 16. You shall not lie. In other words, your word given is faithful and true. You can be relied upon to tell the truth, not to lie. How many churches teach that? I see hypocrisy all over the place, where they say one thing and do another thing. And then the tenth commandment, Exodus 20 verse 17. Let's go there for a moment.

Verse 17 says, you shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's. In other words, you are not going to lust after those things and just always thinking, oh, if I just had that, oh, if I could just get that from somebody else.

No, you're gonna respect what your neighbor has. You're not going to take advantage of it. Because if you have lust in your mind, that creates the poison of envy. You start envying others that they have this and you don't. And pretty soon it changed the person's attitude. It's a type of poison that just destroys relationships. And God says that we're not to lust after. We're not supposed to envy. We're not supposed to be selfish and self-centered. So how many churches teach this? Very few. Again, some might give lip service, but in actuality, you don't see them. Again, strongly speaking about this 10th commandment. By the way, I had to go through a test myself back in 1995 or so, when the church was going through all of these changes. And I remember I had a minister who called me and he was saying, well, we don't have to keep the physical commandments anymore. And he said, well, why is it that you insist on keeping the commandments of God? They're more physical. They deal with don't do this or don't do that. And I just answered him and said, have you ever read the 10th commandment? That's not physical. That means you don't covet. That's in your mind. That's part of the 10 commandments. And he couldn't answer me. He said, oh, nice talking with you. I guess we can't trap this guy. And so we have to be wary. And this 10th commandment is as important as others. It has to do with your thoughts, what's in your heart. Envy is one of the most poisonous things. When people start looking and just saying, well, I don't have this. I don't have that. I'm not happy if my neighbor has this or others. You're comparing competing with others. I plan to talk about that someday.

So we've gone through the 10 commandments. And how many churches actually teach correctly those 10 commandments? It's part of the church, the characteristics that God has given to us there in Revelation. It says about the church that keeps the commandments of God. So here in a more lengthy and elaborate way, I've given you how this test works. The 10 minute true church test to find out. Of course, first we have to apply it to ourselves. How are we doing? Well, at least if you read all our literature, if you see what we're trying to do, we are trying to keep the 10 commandments in the letter and in the spirit. I want to be part of that church. I don't want to be one that's keeping nine or eight or seven. That's not what God said. So this is helpful if you have doubts about where you are at. If you're in the right church or not, and whether this is the true church or not. Now, we're not saying this is the only because we got the church of God community that basically is teaching these things. But from all of these millions and millions of people, you're reduced down to this church of God community that are keeping 10 commandments. And that Christ is giving testimony that they are faithfully keeping them. So, if someone asks you about it, you can also give them the 10-minute true church test. Just go over the 10 commandments with them, with these basic scriptures, and they can see for themselves as these two sisters did. At the end, they themselves were convinced where the true church was. We need to be convinced as well which church is truly keeping all of them.