Feedback Question: Is it too late for me?

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

Question:

I'm 28 years old and I'm from the United Kingdom. I said the sinners' prayer in 2005 with some other Christians and I've been going to church ever since. I got baptized in 2006. I was drinking very excessively before I started coming to church and I continued to live in this sin of drunkenness even when I was hearing the gospel at church and after I got baptized. When I got baptized I started getting this feeling something from my throat down to my chest every time I was doing something wrong or bad. I believe this was the Holy Spirit telling me to stop doing these things, especially when I was getting drunk. I was also living in a sin of lust and I've been holding bitterness in my heart (refusing to forgive others who have hurt me in the past) ever since I've been coming to church and reading the bible. However I carried on living in this sin of drunkenness (and the other sins) up until a year ago when I was reading a book called The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. There was something in there about a man who had grieved the Holy Spirit and god had denied him repentance. This really scared me that night and started thinking to myself that maybe God has finished with me and I won't be saved no matter what I say or do. I stopped drinking alcohol altogether after this point because I was so afraid that God had finished me and there was nothing left for me except a sever judgment. I keep thinking that now that I have stopped living in drunkenness it may be too late and God has closed the door on me. My conscience started to torment me and still does sometimes. Is it possible Jesus has sworn that he will never forgive me because of my hypocrisy in the past (like God did in 1 Samuel 3:14)?. Have I committed blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? Is it too late for me? Please reply back, I really don't know where I stand with God.

Answer:

I'm so glad that you wrote. I'm so glad that your heart is broken before God and that you have a deep concern about your soul and your eternal relationship with Jesus. It proves that you are able to repent before Jesus. The word, repent, is a translation from a Greek word. That Greek word means literally to have a new mind. We all must continue to renew our minds so that we can be transformed into the likeness of Christ.

There are many strange twistings of Scripture out there. God's way is really simple. False doctrine, unscriptural doctrine, makes it complex. That is certainly true of many of the silly doctrines surrounding the sin against the Holy Spirit and sin after we are born again.

He is calling us from glory to glory to an ever closer relationship with Himself. Many Christians come to the point where they have no sense that there is any need to walk on with God. They no longer want to be closer to God. They even may try to distance themselves from God. They may want to continue to sin since they are saved and they are thinking that they are safe. They never consider that God has called them out of sin and into His own holiness. The sin against the Holy Spirit is the sin of not cooperating with the Holy Spirit. When that point is reached, even if there is no overt sin, the Holy Spirit can no longer lead the person. At any point, that person could repent and God would not reject him or her, but that person has so hardened himself or herself against the Holy Spirit that the Holy Spirit can have no effect. The Holy Spirit will not force Himself on anyone.

It is plain that you are not at that point. Some people get to that point, and they don't see a reason to repent. Then, the Holy Spirit moves on them and they turn back to God. They realize that they need a closer walk. That is where you are. You are not self righteous and self satisfied. You are humble. That proves that God is with you. Real righteousness is by grace through faith.

Now, there is another point. I'm sure that while you were willingly sinning, you probably did damage to yourself and to others. Sometimes the damage done cannot be undone no matter how much you repent. I have seen marriages that ended in divorce where everything became so mixed up that there was no fixing it. You can't unscramble eggs.

Remember Esau. He sold his birthright. There was no way that he could get it back. That is why there was no place for repentance. Yet, he reconciled to his brother. We don't know whether or not he was right with God in the end, but he certainly had that option.

Now, there will certainly be forgiveness if there is repentance, but some things cannot be undone. One man was called to a responsibility in the Church, but he was not faithful to His wife. His office in the Church was lost and could not be restored.

In 1st Corinthians, Paul tells us that we all must be careful how we build. Some works will be burned up. The meaning is this: those works that are from humanity, sin, and pride will be burned that those who do those works will suffer loss. They themselves will be saved, but only as through fire.

It is possible to slide backwards by continuous sin, but you can turn around. God is in that business. There is no one yet who does no sin. Born again people do sin sometimes. The people who teach as if they did not sin are hypocrites. Willing sin is a problem because it causes us to have less of a relationship with Jesus. It becomes harder to be led. As a warning, I can say that it is possible to come to the point where you can't hear God's leading at all. From there, it is possible to walk right away from God. So, the best thing to do is to always obey God. Of course, it is humanly impossible for us to ever obey God. For this reason, you need to know about how to allow God to do His righteousness through you. It is by grace and though faith. Go here and follow the related links until you have a complete understanding of how God is working.

God bless you. Keep walking with God. Seek to find His highest will. Keep renewing your mind right up until the manifestation of the sons of God and the redemption of our bodies as mentioned in the book of Romans.

Feedback Question: Is it too late for me?

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