View RSS Feed

everstill

  1. Overcoming the Accuser

    Overcoming the Accuser

    In view of what we have said we can now turn to face the enemy, for there is a further aspect of the Blood which is Satan-ward. Satan’s most strategic activity in this day is as the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12.10) and it is as this that our Lord confronts him with His special ministry as High Priest “through his own blood” (Heb. 9.12).

    How then does the Blood operate against Satan? It does so by putting God on the side of man against him. The Fall brought about a state of affairs in man which gave Satan a footing within him, with the result that God was compelled to withdraw himself. Man is now outside the Garden—beyond reach of the glory of God (Rom. 3.23)—because he is inwardly estranged from God. Because of what man has done, there is that in him now which, until it is removed, renders God morally unable to defend him. But the Blood removes that barrier, and restores man to God and God to man. Man is in favor now, and because God is on his side he can face Satan without fear.

    You remember that verse in John’s first Epistle—and this is the translation of it I like best: “The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from every sin.”∗ It is not exactly “all sin” in the general sense, but every sin, every item. What does it mean? Oh, it is a marvelous thing! God is in the light, and as we walk in the light with Him everything is exposed and open to that light, so that God can see it all —and yet the Blood is able to cleanse from every sin. What a cleansing! It is not that I have not a profound knowledge of myself, nor that God has not a perfect knowledge of me. It is not that I try to hide something, nor that God tries to overlook something. No, it is that He is in the light and I too am in the light, and that there the precious Blood cleanses me from every sin. The Blood is enough for that! . . .

    ∗1 John 1-7: Marginal reading of New Translation by J. N. Darby.

    Since God, seeing all our sins in the light, can forgive them on the basis of the Blood, what ground of accusation has Satan? Satan may accuse us before Him, but, “If God is for us, who is against us?” (Rom. 8.31) God points him to the Blood of His dear Son. It is the sufficient answer against which Satan has no appeal. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, ...
  2. Simple Proof for the First Rapture being According to Readiness

    This is a simple proof for the first rapture being according to readiness.

    Initial Outline
    The Tribulation is comprised of 7 trumpets from Rev. 7 to 11, and Rev. 12 to 19 give the details of those major points outlined by the Trumpets. The Seals are the past 20 centuries. The 7th Seal opens up the 7 Trumpets of the Tribulation. The 7 bowls of wrath make up the 7th Trumpet. Rev. 5 is the risen Lord recounting the cross as is the 1st Seal. Rev. 4 is the picture of the universe from heaven. Rev. 2 & 3 is the church age. Rev. 20 is the millennial kingdom. Rev. 21 is after that in the New City and New Earth.

    First Rapture Readiness
    The first time we see saints in heaven in Revelation is "before the throne" in 3rd heaven in 7.9. This occurs before the first trumpet of the Tribulation is blown (8.7).

    So who is taken at that time?

    "Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left" (Matt. 24.40). "Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come" (v.42).

    Who is being spoken to? Believers since it says "your Lord". What are they told to do? "Watch..." So if you don't watch you won't be taken. It's always better to be taken to be with the Lord.

    What other passages say the same thing?

    "Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man" (Luke 21.36).

    What are "these things"? The Tribulation. Where will those stand who watch and pray always? Rev. 7.9 said "before the throne" in 3rd heaven. Whereas those believers alive and left at the 7th trumpet of the Tribulation will "meet the Lord in the air" (not the throne) according to 1 Thess. 4.14-18 since it is according to completion, not according to reward. This "trump of God" (1 Thess. 4.16) is the last trumpet" (1 Cor. 15.52). Saints go to meet the Lord in the air at the start of the 7th trumpet where there "were great voices in heaven" (Rev. 11.15) then at the end of the 7th trumpet Jesus completely "shall descend from heaven" (1 Thess. 4.16), stepping down on the mount of olives (Zech. 14.4, Acts 1.11, Rev. 1.7).

    If "thou didst keep the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of trial, that hour which ...
  3. What are the Rules of Something from Nothing?

    An atheist once said to me that since nothingness does not exist it has no rules, so there are no rules preventing non-existence from creating or causing something to happen. The flaw in that thinking is that though it is true nothingness has no rules, there is nothing for it to prevent since there is just nothing, so remains non-existence always non-existent. You can be confident in saying nothing always leaves nothing from nothing.

    Another way you can respond to this is to say since nothingness has no rules it has no rule to cause something, so nothingness can't cause anything. It likewise has no rules to prevent something, but since there is not anything then there is nothing to prevent. If theoretically there was something to prevent then 'no rule to cause something' and 'no rule to prevent something' are contradicting each other. That which is self-contradictory is flawed in its reasoning. Either way you approach this problem, something still can't come from nothing.

    The reason why a billion pound gorilla can't stomp NYC is because it doesn't exist. The reason why there are no square circles that can cause other shapes (assuming they could) is because square circles don't exist. Does a square circle have no rules to prevent the creation of rectangles? It has no such rules but since there is only nothing (no rectangles or triangles for that matter), there is nothing to prevent. A square circle has no rule to cause something either so it can't cause something. If there was something 'it has no rule to prevent,' again, that would be self-contradictory to 'having no rule to cause things.' That which is self-contradictory is inherently flawed in its approach; so that false approach is to play with nothingness as though it could have rules or no rules.

    Nothingness is simply non-existence, and giving rules or no rules to it is a false approach because it has neither rule nor no rules. Having no rules is itself a rule. So you can't have nothingness with a rule of no rules since non-existence has no rules. We only have evidence for cause and effect from something, no hard evidence of something from nothing. We observe trillions of cause and effects and not one iota of evidence of something from nothing. Let us rest on the evidence and the evidence alone without having to be cute about rules or no rules. I am satisfied with that fact.

    The same atheist also said to me that the mechanics of nothingness need to ...
  4. Why Do Some People Have Such a Hard Time Reading and Understanding the Bible?

    Why Do Some People Have Such a Hard Time
    Reading and Understanding the Bible?


    One who does the Lord’s work must speak accurately. He should not be careless in his words. Only thus can he become a mouthpiece of the Lord and avoid many difficulties. We are deeply distressed by the fact that many times God’s workman lacks restraint in speech, with the result that brothers and sisters relish his storytelling and his judgmental words but despise his preaching of God’s word. Do not think that it does not matter if we speak wittily with our brothers and sisters today. Indeed, our speech may be very amusing. But wait until we stand up to preach the word of God, and then shall we see how
    they take it to be as amusing as was our storytelling. People will fail to respect what we say anymore.

    One brother may speak and people listen, while another may speak and nobody listens. Why this difference? Do they not speak the same words? The word is of God all right, but one of them has spoken differently from the other in ordinary days on other matters. Let us recognize the fact that if two of us speak differently concerning other matters, and even though we both may speak forth the same word of God, the power of God’s word will be different one from the other. For a person who speaks carelessly and without restraint in his daily speech will witness the same effect upon his hearers when he later preaches God’s word. It will be as loose and powerless as before.

    Let us not easily forget what we have learned from Scripture that a fountain does not send forth from the same opening both sweet water and bitter. It cannot yield up sweet fluid on one occasion and bitter fluid on another. Bitter water is always bitter. Though its bitterness may be somewhat diluted, it still remains bitter nonetheless. Note, too, that in mixing together clean and dirty water, the latter does not turn clean; instead, the former becomes dirty. Many brethren find that their power has been sapped not because they have done wrong in preaching God’s word but because they have spoken wrongly in daily matters; so that no one will listen to them when they stand up to preach. Please be well advised that words uttered on the platform follow the words spoken off the platform. If you speak unwisely away from the podium, your speaking from the podium will be totally diluted, and the sweet water will have been turned bitter by you. We need not daily
    ...
  5. Why Am I a Christian?

    The reason I am a Christian is because I don’t know how to disprove the proof for God and who God is.

    I see trillions of cause and effects in nature, and no hard evidence of something from nothing, so this evidence is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to know that the first event of the universe like all the events of the universe has a cause and can’t come from nothing (i.e. non-existence). Non-existence can't produce anything as it does not exist. Claiming non-existence caused existence belongs in the loony bin!

    And there can’t be an infinite regress of cause and effects in nature either, because if there had been, you would have, by that very definition, an eternity to come into being before now, so you should have already happened. And you should never have existed because a past eternity of nature would go on forever never reaching this point of your existence. So a past eternity of nature is inherently contradictory and a man-made superstition.

    Therefore, nature needs a cause outside of itself, outside of time and space, being uncreated whom we call God. But God can’t have morals below our own so He must have perfect morality. He can't be inaccessible (an absentee landlord, i.e. deistic) for that is beneath us, contrary to our own way of being, for we entreat our fellow man in need or at least we should. He is not impersonal for we are personal beings. He must have a mind because a mind is needed to create a mind: the lesser can't produce the greater: a mind can't originate from lesser non-consciousness. He has self-consciousness, because consciousness is needed to create consciousness in creatures. Life has a soul, that divine spark of life when spirit makes contact with the body, which can't be explained solely by the dust of the ground by itself.

    There are only 3 religions or faiths on the planet that are accessible and pervasive enough worth taking a gander at for a personal God: Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. We know Islam is false because you can’t come along six centuries later without anything to support your claim that Jesus never died on the cross or even went to the cross. Otherwise, you could spout off anything as being the truth. But we are evidentialists not suppositionalists.

    Hinduism fails because its god is said to be amoral which is below our own morality. And reincarnation, coming back as a chicken if you are overly sinful, ...
  6. Do You Have a Spirit of Rapture?

    A Spirit of Rapture

    One other facet of the normal spirit needs to be discussed besides those features mentioned already. This one we would term the spirit of rapture. Christians ought to have a spirit which is perpetually in an out-of-this-world and ascending-into-heaven state. Such a spirit as this is deeper than one of ascension, for those who possess the former not only live on earth as though in heaven but also are truly led of the Lord to wait for His return and their own rapture. When a believer’s spirit is united to the Lord’s and they become one spirit, he commences to live in the world as a sojourner, experiencing the life of a heavenly citizen. Following that, the Holy Spirit will call him to take one further step and will give him the spirit of rapture. Formerly his impetus was “Go forward!”—now it becomes “Ascend up!” Everything about him rises heavenward. The spirit of rapture is that spirit which has tasted the powers of the age to come (Heb. 6.5).

    Not all who accept the truth of the Second Coming possess this spirit of rapture. Men may believe in the Lord’s return, preach His Second Coming, and pray for His return and yet not have this spirit. Even mature ones do not necessarily possess it. The spirit of rapture is the gift of God. It is sometimes dispensed by God as He pleases and sometimes granted by Him in response to prayers of faith. When possessed of this spirit the believer’s inner being seems always to be in a state of rapture. He believes not only in the return of the Lord but also in his being transported. Rapture is more than an article of faith; it is to him a fact. Just as Simeon, through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, trusted that he would not taste death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ (Luke 2. 26), so believers should have the assurance in their spirit that they will be transported to the Lord before they die. Such faith is the faith of an Enoch. Now we are not being stubbornly superstitious here; but if we live in the time of rapture, how can we be lacking in such faith? Such belief will help us to understand more of what God is doing in this age as well as obtain heavenly power for our work.

    In other words, if the spirit of a Christian is in a state of rapture he will be more heavenly and will not think his way to heaven must necessarily traverse the valley of death.

    How frequently God’s child, when engaged in spiritual labor, entertains ...
  7. What is Mortal Sin?

    Mortal Sin

    The Bible mentions a kind of mortal sin or “sin unto death” which believers may commit (1 John 5.16). The death here does not point to spiritual death, for the eternal life of God can never be extinguished; nor can it be an allusion to “the second death” since the Lord’s sheep cannot perish. It necessarily signifies the death of the body.

    Now let us especially notice what the essence of mortal sin is. To do so will enable us to know how to keep ourselves away from it so that (1) our flesh may not be corrupted, (2) we may not forfeit the blessing of being raptured before death, or (3) we may still finish the Lord’s appointed work before our days are fulfilled and we die, if He should tarry and we must pass through the grave. May we say that because of their negligence in this matter quite a few of God’s children have had their years shortened and their crowns lost. Many of God’s workers, had they given attention to this, might yet be serving the Lord.

    The Word has not spelled out concretely what this sin is. It only assures us that such a sin is possible. From the Scripture records we understand that this sin varies according to people. A particular sin for some is mortal, yet to another person it may not be a sin unto death, and vice versa. This is because of differences in grace received, light accepted, and position attained among different believers.

    While the Bible never identifies this sin, we can nevertheless observe that any sin which results in death constitutes a mortal one. The people of Israel committed such a sin at Kadesh (Num. 13.25-14.12). Although they had tempted the Lord many times before (14.22), He always simply forgave them. But this time, though He still forgave them after they refused to enter Canaan, He additional caused their bodies to fall in death in the wilderness (14.32).

    At the waters of Meribah Moses was provoked to speak “words that were rash” (Ps. 106.33) : this was his “mortal sin”: he died outside Canaan. Aaron committed the same offense as Moses and he likewise was forbidden to enter the holy land (Num. 20.24). The man of God who journeyed from Judah to Bethel disobeyed the commandment of the Lord with regard to eating and drinking; in so doing he committed his mortal sin (1 Kings 13.21-22). In the New Testament we learn how Ananias and Sapphira were punished with death because they committed what for them was their mortal ...
Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast