Apostles and Elders Organizing the Church

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, doesn’t tackle sin expediently in this life since you always get another chance as though you might change your mind later. But, really, would you? Surely, you have already made up your mind and don't need another life to decide let alone a billion years to decide. And who dare hold a chicken responsible for man's eternal well being? Silly nonsense! Who do you know over the age of 40 who ever gave their life to Christ? They have had more than enough time in this life alone.

That leaves only Christianity which, therefore, must be true. And it is proves itself to be true, because there is no naturalistic explanation to account for the eyewitness testimony of the Apostles in various group settings. Group hallucinations are impossible. The swoon theory wouldn’t make Jesus look like a risen Messiah to convince anyone He is God. The original eyewitness Apostles are human beings, and human beings don’t willingly die for what they know is a lie so they truly believed it. They were not liars. So their position must be accounted for and not blithely discounted. Since there is no mental problem and they did not lie, it must be true! Legends theory breaks down because there was not enough time to develop. Jesus had more sources written about Him within 150 years of His death than any 10 figures in antiquity combined. The highest standard of evidence is applied in the 66 books of the Bible! And the earliest still surviving papyri are closer to the events of Scripture than for any other person in antiquity. There are at least 15 papyri from the late first century and from the second century of the NT. If Jesus didn’t do what He did then nobody did anything in antiquity and human beings would not exist. Christ Jesus was a liar, lunatic or God. Since He was not a liar nor a lunatic, He has to be God. No other option avails itself.

This is how we know Jesus is God the Son and Jesus entered His creation to atone for the sins of the world to save people; ergo, whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but receive everlasting life. It is everyone's free choice to want to be eternally separated from the love of God and God Himself or to accept His saving grace. This is God's redemptive design. At the center of the New City will be Jesus (in person) with God the Father (in spirit) and no more need of the throne for they will be the center thereof. All those who reject His love and mercy go to Hell -- a perfectly designed domain or dwelling place for people that need to be locked up in jail forever.

A choice that is not for Jesus is a choice against Him. Shutting your mind down in God's eyes is not a valid excuse. He requires you active participation for He did not make you zombies.

The Spiritual Man, 700 pages, by Watchman Nee does something to you that no other book does, except for the Bible of course though the Bible takes longer to work in you because it is far more than 700 pages.

Why does this happen? Because it is the foremost book ever written on the dividing of spirit, soul and body. Nobody else has even come close. Nee considered it a perfect work. I concur. Watchman Nee had the highest IQ of anyone in the history of the Church that we know of. TSM extracts from the Bible the best and most applicable material to show you how the dividing of spirit, soul and body takes place and shortens it up to get right at the heart of the matter.

So what happens is you read say 20 to 50 pages in one sitting. You're deeply touched, but nothing major happens. Wait for later that day or the next morning. You will sense a change in you, and you can directly correlate it to appreciating what was said from what you read.

You've just experience a taste of the dividing of your spirit, soul and body to walk by your spirit more than you did the day before.

Now, realize, this is just a taste of what can be realized. If you were to spend 5 hours that day continuing to read and let it sink into your innerman, the change in your spirit increases exponentially in correlation to your consecration, that is, the amount of time you are willing to delve into it.

You should not need to go to Jessie Penn-Lewis' War on the Saints unless you are contending greatly with evil supernatural spirits that are attacking you incessantly.

After reading TSM do read The Latent Power of the Soul that belongs at the end of the TSM.

If you do all this, you will experience such a change in your being, you will be left in awe and read the Bible like you have never read it before, because the spiritual world will have opened up to you.

Revelation 3.10 says "Because thou didst keep the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of trial, that hour which is to come upon the whole world, to try them that dwell upon the earth."

Who is on the earth before the Tribulation? Both Christians and non-Christians.

Christians can't receive initial salvation by works so 3.10 is referring to those already saved who receive a blessing and other believers lose this reward. It is a conditional statement because it says "Because..." so if "thou keeps the word of my patience" that person will escape not just trial as Christians have always faced but the hour of the trial of the Tribulation itself, and the only way one can be assured of this is by rapture, for many Christians will be martyred during the Tribulation. The Tribulation last seven years. It is the 70th seven in Dan. 9.27, and all Daniel's 69 sevens are 2,520 days each (360 x 7) that pointed to when Christ would be cut off.

Luke 21.36 confirms this condition for Christians, "But watch ye at every season, making supplication, that ye may prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man."

What is to come to pass to stand before the Son of man? The Tribulation -- Daniel's final seven.

And again in Matt. 24, "Then shall two man be in the field; one is taken, and one is left: two women shall be grinding at the mill; one is taken, and one is left. Watch therefore: for ye know not on what day your Lord cometh."

So the believer is told to watch. If you don't want, there are consequences. It is better to be taken by the Lord than left. If you watch you will be taken. Taken when? Taken before the important events that unfold in the Tribulation as described in the 7 Trumpets of the Tribulation. The 7th Seal opens up the 7 trumpets and the 7th trumpet pours out the 7 bowls of wrath like a lock tumbler combination to understanding Revelation.

When will this take place? Immediately after the 3 events in Rev. 6.12: "And I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became as blood." Then that first rapture according to readiness takes place "before the throne" (7.9) before the 1st trumpet is blown in 8.7.

The great earthquake already happened. 320,000 died in Haiti in 2010 and the 4th greatest earthquake recorded in human history by magnitude was in Japan 2011. Never in human history have two earthquakes with such impact occurred back to back, year over year. The second item, in order, occurred Nov. 3, 2013 the long H3 Hybrid solar eclipse which is the rarest of all solar eclipses was the 4th since Christ and won't happen again till 2172. There are 4 kinds of solar eclipses, the rarest which is the hybrid occurring about 5% of the time. Of the hybrids there are 3 types in which the H3 is the rarest. And it is a long version which lasts for more than a minute and a half.

The 3rd item is the feast Total Lunar Tetrad 2014/15 which will be the 8th since Christ and doesn't happen again till 2582/83.

I for one am saved and can never lose salvation because the Bible says those who are born-again "they shall never perish" (John 10.28), but I can lose the reward of being raptured before the Tribulation and not be included in the 5 wise virgins to enter the marriage feast of the millennial reign over the nations for 1000 years (Matt. 25.1-13; Rev. 2,26,27, 20.4-6) before the New City and New Earth commence.

So daily I read the word of God and prepare myself that if I meet God's standards, keeping the conduct of Matthew 5-7, that I pray along with Paul that I may be accounted worthy. Paul did not pray to be saved or to be kept saved, for he knew his salvation was assured and had eternal life which could never be lost, but what he did pray for was this reward.

Thank you Jesus.

You know what is more amazing than anything else right now? That virtually everyone even Christians are oblivious to the 3 items in Re. 6.12 that take place in specific order just before the Tribulation starts in which the first two have already taken place.

The Nov. 3, 2013 H3 Hybrid long Solar Eclipse (rarest of all solar eclipses) just occurred in Rev. 6.12 (4th since Christ) before the Tribulation starts. Just before that 320,000 died in the great earthquake in Haiti in 2010 and the 4th greatest in magnitude in recorded history was in Japan 2011. If you search for the Internet virtually nobody is making this connection. What do you have to do to wake people up? They love the world so much or are busy wondering how they can make money off of Christianity somehow. Someone donated this site Biblocality.com $15 to me once several years ago anonymously and that's it. I am sure I come in last place in receiving donations.

That leaves the 2014/15 feast Tetrad, 8th since Christ (won't happen again till 2582/83), which would mark the beginning of the Tribulation in 2015 or with a 7 year preparatory period would begin in 2022.

There are 2,520 days from Feast of Trumpets Sept. 14, 2015 to Tisha B'Av Aug. 7, 2022 the day the 1st and 2nd Temples were destroyed. All Daniel's sixty-nine sevens are 2,520 days each which were prophesied as to when Jesus would die on the cross from the declaration to rebuild the Temple, leaving one last seven to take place after Rev. 6.12 occurs with its 3 signs.

And there are 2,550 days (1260 + 1290) from Feast of Trumpets Sept. 26, 2022 to Day of Atonement Sept. 19, 2029. Check it out!

I am not sure which is the 7 year Tribulation, but I am favoring the latter because the 3rd Temple must be completed with 2300 days to the end of the Tribulation (Dan. 8.14), and the implant under the skin to buy and sell must be pervasive enough during the latter half called the Great Tribulation. We are not there yet. But things are progressing rapidly.

Unfortunately, mankind has fallen. By this plunge man’s unfettered volition suffered prodigious damage. We may say that there are two massive contradictory wills throughout the universe. On the one side stands the holy and perfect will of God; on the other is arrayed the defiled, defiling and opposing will of Satan. In between subsists the sovereign, independent, free will of man. When man listens to the devil and rebels against God he seems to render an eternal "no" to God’s will and an abiding "yes" to Satan’s. Since man employs his volition to choose the will of the devil, his volition falls captive to the devil. Therefore all his acts are governed by Satan’s will. Until he overturns his early subjection, man's will remains unquestionably oppressed by the enemy power.

In this fallen position and condition man is fleshly. This flesh—by which his will, together with his other organs, is ruled—is thoroughly corrupted. How can anything pleasing to God ever result from such a darkened will? Even his questing after God springs from the realm of the flesh and therefore lacks any spiritual value. He may invent many ways of worshiping God at this time, yet all are his own ideas, all are "will-worship" (Col. 2.23 ASV), totally unacceptable to Him.

Let us realize, then, that except a man receive God’s new life and serve Him therein, every bit of service for God is but the work of the flesh. His intention to serve and even to suffer for Him is vain. Before he is regenerated, his will, even though it may be inclined towards good and God, is futile. For it is not what fallen man intends to do for God but how He Himself wishes man to do for Him that really counts in God’s eyes. Man may devise and initiate countless notable works for God; nonetheless, if they do not originate with God they are nothing more than will-worship.

This is true with respect to salvation. When man lives carnally even his desire to be saved is not acceptable to God. We read in the Gospel of John that "to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (1.12-13). Man is not regenerated because he wills it so. He must be born of God. Nowadays Christians entertain the incorrect concept that if anyone wishes to be saved and seeks the way of life he undoubtedly will be a good disciple of Christ, for nothing can be better than this desire. God nonetheless affirms that in this matter of regeneration as well as in all other matters related to Him, the will of man is totally nonefficacious.

Many children of God cannot understand why John 1 asserts the will of man to be noneffective whereas Revelation concludes by saying, "Let him who desires take the water of life without price" (22.17), as though man himself is entirely responsible for his salvation. And does not the Lord Jesus Himself give as explanation for the Jews not being saved the following declaration: "You refuse to come to me that you may have life" (John 5.40) ? Here again, the responsibility for perdition apparently rests on man’s will. Can the Bible be contradicting itself? Is there any special meaning behind these apparent inconsistencies? A comprehension of this matter will help us to appreciate what God requires of us in our Christian life.

We will recall that God wishes no one to "perish but that all should reach repentance" because He "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Peter 3.9; 1 Tim. 2.4). No problem arises concerning whom God wants to save or whom He will let perish. The problem before us is, rather, what is the sinner’s attitude towards God’s will? If he decides to be a Christian because he is naturally inclined towards "religion," naturally contemptuous of the world or naturally influenced by his heredity, environment or family, he is as far from God and His life as are other sinners. If the sinner chooses to be a Christian at the moment of excitement or enthusiasm, he may not fare better than the rest. It all reduces itself to this: what is his attitude towards God’s will? God loves him, but will he accept this love? Christ calls him, but will he come? The Holy Spirit wants to give him life, but is he willing to be born? His will is useful only in choosing God’s will. The question now is, and solely is, how does his volition react towards God’s will?

Have we noticed the difference here? If man himself commences the search for salvation, he is yet perishing. Various founders of religions belong to this category. But if man, upon hearing the gospel, is willing to accept what God offers to him, he shall be saved. In the one case, man originates; in the other, he receives. The one does the willing himself while the other accepts God’s will. John 1 speaks of man himself willing, whereas John 5 and Revelation 22 refer to man’s accepting God’s will. Hence no contradiction exists between these two; rather is there a very crucial lesson for us to learn.

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 many expectations and plans. He is full of the Holy Spirit, wisdom and power; he believes God will greatly use him; and he looks forward with anticipation that before long his labor shall produce much fruit. However, in the very midst of prosperity the hand of the Lord suddenly sweeps down upon him, suggesting to him that he must conclude all his undertaking and be ready to take another course. This comes as a genuine surprise to man. He naturally asks why it must be so. Is not my power for working? Is not the profound knowledge I have for helping people? Need everything be closed in and cold? Nonetheless, under guidance of this kind the believer learns that the purpose of God for him is an alteration in his course. Previously everything was going forward; henceforth it is to ascend. It does not signify there is no more work; what it does mean is that that work can be concluded at any time.

God continually has employed such circumstances as persecution, opposition, plunder, etc., to cause saints to comprehend that He wishes them to have the spirit of rapture rather than to make progress in the work on earth. The Lord desires to change the course of His children, many of whom do not realize there is this far better spirit of rapture.

This spirit has its definite effect on life. Before one secures. it his experience is bound to be changing constantly; after he receives the witness and assurance of rapture in his spirit, however, his life and labor will be sustained on a level worthy of this kind of spirit, thus preparing him for the Lord’s return. Such preparation includes more than outward correction: it is making the spirit, the soul, and the body of the believer wholly ready to meet the Lord.

Hence we should pray and petition the Holy Spirit to show us how to obtain this spirit of rapture and how to retain it. We should believe and then be willing to eliminate all obstacles to the realization of such a spirit. And once we have appropriated it we should habitually check our life and work against it. In case we lose this spirit we should determine at once how it was lost and how it can be restored. Such a spirit once obtained can be easily forfeited. This may be due chiefly to our ignorance (at this stage of life) of how to preserve such a heavenly position through special prayer and effort. We must therefore ask the Holy Spirit to teach us the way to retain this spirit. Such prayer usually leads us to seek “the things that are above” (Col. 3.2), and this is one of the requisites for preservation.

Since he now stands at the door of heaven and can be transported at any moment, the Christian should choose to wear the heavenly white garment and perform heavenly work. Such a hope separates him from earthly matters while joining him to the heavenly.

The fact that God wishes a believer to look for rapture does not suggest that he should be concerned only with his rapture and forget the remainder of the work God has appointed him. What God actually designs to convey to him is that he should not permit God-given labor to hinder his rapture. In both his walk and work, heavenly attraction should always be greater than earthly gravitation. The child of God should learn to live for the Lord’s service, but even more so for the Lord’s receiving him. May our spirit be uplifted daily, looking for the return of the Lord. May the things of this world so lose their power over us that we do not in the slightest wish to be “worldly”; nay, we even delight in not remaining “in the world.” May our spirit daily ascend, asking to be with the Lord earlier. May we so seek the things above that not even the best work on earth can distract our hearts. May we henceforth pray in spirit and with understanding, “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22.20)