Saturday, December 28, 2013
At 94, he must let go of his piece of paradise
As night begins to fall and the lighting in the cabin grows dim, Jack English takes the Coleman lanterns outside to fill them with camp fuel. More photos
Jack English came upon a backcountry retreat when he was 17. Many years later, the violin bow maker and his wife built a fairy-tale life there. But she is gone, and he's too fragile to stay.
By Thomas Curwen
Photography and video by Barbara Davidson
Reporting from The Ventana Wilderness
December 27, 2013
Frost glistens on the meadow grass. The sun has yet to crest Church Creek Divide, and on his last day in the cabin, Jack English isn't about to break from routine. He swings his legs out of the bunk.
"Good morning," he says quietly to Mary. Her ashes are in a small box on the narrow shelf at the head of the bed.
She's been gone 12 years. He takes her wherever he goes, but in this far-away valley they shared and in this home they built, he feels closest to her.
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He tries to pull on his boots. The swelling in his feet from the gout has gone down, but his fingers have a hard time keeping a grip. Old age-itis, he calls it, as if being 94 is a condition in and of itself.
"Dennis, I'm getting old," he calls out to his son. "Can you help me?"
Jack knows he has a reputation. It's nothing he ever sought. But not too many old men would choose to live in a cabin five miles from any road — and that, a winding mountain track far removed from the nearest city, Carmel.
Visitors have called him the last of the mountain men, a local treasure, a friendly beacon in the middle of the forest.
He lived here by himself for 10 years after Mary died. But since his heart attack last December, he's not quite been the same, and whenever he talks about returning to the cabin to live, his family says no. It would be too dangerous: One fall and that could be it.
You like progress, I like to go backward."
— Jack English
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He tries to be content with day trips and this, his second long weekend of the year. He's grateful to a friend who helicopters him in and to his son for making it possible. But it will never be the same.
Dennis climbs out of his sleeping bag and tugs on the boots. Jack stands, his droopy jeans cinched so tightly around his narrow waist that the belt seems to almost double on itself.
He's a little wobbly, but then he gets his momentum, plying the wood stove with scraps of paper, pine cones and pieces of kindling that he split last year with a wedge and maul. He'll need to cut more; the stack on the front porch is shrinking, but he wonders if he has the strength. He wonders when he'll be back.
"My old brain isn't coagulating as well as it used to," he says.
Jack starts whipping up the sourdough pancake dough. He cracks two eggs in the iron skillet. They hiss and sputter in the oil. A pot of water is soon boiling on a Coleman burner.
"Well, you'll have something real quick," he says as he shuffles between the sink and the stove, attentive to the routine he's followed for more than 30 years.
"You like progress," he is fond of saying. "I like to go backward."
Raising this cabin, they used what they could from the land: stones dug from the creek for the foundation and chimney, fire-scarred pine for the walls, oak for the floor, sycamore for the cabinets. This was back in the 1970s. It took them almost five years to finish it.
An 8x10 photograph of Mary English sits on the left side of the mantel above the fireplace. The picture, which was taken by Jack in the 1950s, shows young Mary holding up an impromptu bouquet of wild iris, harebells and shooting stars. More photos
He and Mary came out here whenever they could. It was their fairy-tale life in this valley sheltered by a broad succession of ridges and canyons stretching between Big Sur to the west and the Salinas Valley to the east.
After she died, Jack's family didn't try to talk him out of living here alone. They knew he needed to heal his memories and try and put the doctors, the hospital, the rounds of chemotherapy behind him.
So he set up here for more than a decade. He would return to Soquel — the town near Santa Cruz where he grew up and where he and Mary said goodbye — only when he needed and then for only a few days.
"I think he likes to be out here so much because this is where Mary's spirit would be," says Jacob, Jack's 11-year-old grandson, who's come along this weekend, along with an old family friend, Karin Cumming.
Jack was about the same age when he first saw Pine Valley. Ever since, he's watched the changing seasons and seen himself and his family grow old, experiencing the fugitive nature of life more intimately than most poets. He's watched; he's pondered and never blinked.
"It gets pretty lonesome, but I make out all right," he told a filmmaker who visited him last year to document his life in the valley.
Of course, living by himself presented a few setbacks. Once he fell trying to retrieve a chainsaw from the attic and lay for at least two days with a broken pelvis before friends — Karin was one — got him airlifted out. Later, a pine nearly 30 inches across took deadly aim on the cabin, smashing through the roof and barely missing him as he slept.
But he persevered, even hiking out last summer, three hours, 10 minutes.
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A valley, a cabin and a dream
At 94, Jack no longer has Mary, and he must face saying goodbye to his beloved valley.
When day hikers and backpackers stopped by the cabin on their way through the valley, he was happy to oblige them with something to eat, a story or two, and if they asked, his philosophy of life. He never claimed to be wise. He dropped out of school after eighth grade, but people seem to take his words to heart.
"Happiness is making other people happy. It's a darn sight better than making them feel bad."
"Life is a bunch of problems. It's how well you accept them and how well you can live with them."
"What is life?" — perhaps his favorite question lately — "It's intangible. You can have the organs — the hair, the eyesight, the hearing, the appetite — but without life, there is nothing. You tell me what it is."
Some say he saved them, or at least the cabin did, on wet wintry days when they set out unprepared, and if he wasn't here and they had to break in, they'd leave a note and some money for the damage.
"Dear Mr. English," wrote one couple in a letter. "We often feel like we don't fit in the crazy, busy, upside-down world that madmen have created, and we get out into the trees as often as possible. We think that you have it figured out, living like you do, a sane and smart man."
They assumed that he didn't like people, but that was wrong. He just didn't like swarms of them. What visitors didn't seem to understand was that living alone made him more appreciative of their company.
More often than not, though, the conversation would turn to Mary, whom he had taken to calling Scrumptious.
"Did you ever see an old man cry?" he asks. "Well, that's me. Life is just not the same. It's a pretty lonely place if you don't have someone."
Breakfast done, Jack heads outside. The sun has melted the frost. Quail call across the valley, and jays are scavenging among the pines.
The planter where Mary's Dutch iris once bloomed needs tending, but her memorial plaque gleams.
In memory of Mary English
Her cabin, her garden, her valley
1922-2001
Love forever Jack
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English mounted a plaque in honor of his wife, Mary, on a rock between his workshop and the cabin. More photos
Mary Adeline Lincoln was a wisp of a girl in her late teens when he first met her. Five-foot-two, 105 pounds, a brunette with hazel eyes, she had an impish manner, and Jack was smitten the moment he saw her. He had just come back from three years in the Northwest, working the gold mines outside of Fairbanks and construction near Anchorage.
"Oh, boy," he thought. "That's the prettiest girl I've ever seen."
She had joined her mother on a visit to the English family ranch in Soquel's Rodeo Gulch. The two families raised canaries and shared breeders. Jack asked his brother's wife for advice on getting a date.
"Well," she told him, "if you don't ask, you'll never know."
He remembers stammering and stuttering as he invited her to the movies in Santa Cruz, and not long after, he proposed. He was 22 and she was 19 when they drove to Reno to get married.
She was the first one to hear that this land was for sale, back in 1975. They had come camping here and met some "young hippie people," as Jack calls them, who had a copy of a classified ad calling for an auction to be held for the parcel.
They wanted to know where the old homestead was. Mary showed them the chimney, all that remained of a cabin that burned down in 1931, and Jack knew his life-long dream was about to be realized.
Twilight comes early to the valley in the fall, and the small cabin is lit by the fire and few Coleman lanterns. Jack English's son, Dennis, wanders in front of the open back door. Over the years, English has become something of a legend in the Ventana Wilderness. More photos
As a kid, he'd escape Soquel — and his bickering parents, 30 years between them, and chores made more urgent by the Depression — by hitchhiking down the Big Sur coast with just a backpack and his .22. When he was 17, he asked the owner of the property if she would sell, but she set the price too high for him.
Forty years later, he wasn't going to let it slip away. He and Mary pooled their money with his brother and his wife and bid nearly $11,000 to win these 5 acres, surrounded on all sides by national forest. With water rights to a spring to the north, they knew they could build and create the perfect getaway.
They packed in on foot and by horse whatever they needed: cement, the redwood-framed sash windows, the toilet, a shower stall, hot-water heater. The wood stove was brought in by helicopter. Gasoline would fuel a generator; propane would heat the water.
They survived three fires, conflagrations that brought smoke jumpers into the valley. "We have currently set up a hose lay & pump system around the area and feel confident we can defend the structure," one wrote during the Kirk Complex Fire in 1999. "Hope this note is found intact and you can continue to enjoy this beautiful place."
Yes, it was their paradise. Jack put up his Charles Russell cowboy prints above the mantle. Mary started a garden. Their entertainments were simple: growing strawberries and corn, fishing and hunting, listening to the radio or, as Mary loved to do, cataloging in the cabin journal the spring bloom, when baby blue eyes, lupines, poppies, monkey flowers, columbines and delphiniums flooded the meadow.
They started that journal in 1985. Jack posted his first entry on April 11: "Lupine in bloom and the smell was very strong and heady. … Weather just beautiful. Wish I could live here."
Twenty years and one month later, he wrote: "One of Mary's Dutch Iris bloomed today. It is just beautiful. If only she could see it. Maybe she can. She would love it. It looks like there will be possibly 3 doz more blooms. Yesterday was Dad's birthday. He would be 141 years old. I love you Dad. I love you Mom. I love you Mary."
Jack's legs barely lift him up the steps of the workshop where he keeps a clutter of saws, hammers, electrical cords, grinders, clamps, drill bits and dyes. The helicopter arrives at 3:30, and he has no time to waste.
Using a bow that his father made, Dennis English plays "My Mother's Waltz," a song that he wrote after Mary English died in 2001. Dennis, 51, is an accomplished fiddle player. His father's bows are prized among violin, viola, cello and bass players in the Santa Cruz area. More photos
Jack started making violin bows after retiring as a union carpenter almost 30 years ago. He holds one, made of snakewood, smoothly polished, a mottled chocolate brown. He needs to complete its frog, the mechanism that holds taut the ribbons of horse hair, and he's looking for his special inlays, abalone, ebony, fossilized walrus ivory.
He took up the trade so he'd have something to share with Dennis, who from an early age was on his way to becoming an accomplished fiddle player.
Jack is proud of his boy, now in his early 50s. He brought light to a great heartache: When Jack was away during the war — three years as a Seabee in the Pacific, not knowing if he'd live or die — Mary had a miscarriage, and the doctors performed a hysterectomy. Sterilized her is how Jack came to see it. They adopted Dennis in 1962.
As the sun starts to slide into the west, Jack takes a break to warm himself on the steps of the workshop. Gazing into his yard, he sees three hikers and their dogs heading his way.
"Let's go down and make a cup of tea," Jack says.
Inside the cabin, he pulls out cups and a box of the Lipton's. He lights the Coleman for water and offers a bag of stale Fig Newtons.
Amy Wells has been hiking into the valley for a little more than 10 years and knows the cabin well. She used to bring Jack banana bread when he lived here by himself.
"People want to believe that someone like Jack can live out here," she says.
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Jack leans against the kitchen counter and gazes out the south-facing window beyond the wisteria vine clinging to the railing. His expression is dreamy, as if for a moment past and present have merged and he can see all the friends and family who have made their way through the valley from that direction, the cabin their destination.
As the visit winds down, the hikers say goodbye.
"Hopefully we'll see you out here again," Amy says.
For lunch Jack reheats the baked beans from last night's dinner, and Dennis plays "My Mother's Waltz" on his violin. He wrote the song after Mary died — its long vibratos changing from the mournful minor keys to the majors — in an attempt to bring solace to their loss.
Sunlight filters through the orange and red willows, the tall pines and the distant alders with their heart-shaped leaves. The helicopter is an hour and half out, time to start closing up.
"I'm sad to be leaving," he says. "I've enjoyed this visit."
As the days grow shorter and winter approaches, Jack doesn't know when he'll return. But he knows that one day he'll be back for good, when Dennis mixes his ashes with Mary's and scatters them just south of the meadow where they once counted deer at twilight.
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Thursday, December 26, 2013
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Supreme Court justice unloads on Satan, demons
Supreme Court justice unloads on Satan, demons
Tells interviewer devil's 'getting people not to believe in him or in God'
Published: 10/14/2013 at 8:18 PM
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evil_eyes
By Scott Greer
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made headlines recently when he declared his belief that the devil is a real being who has a presence in the world today.
His interviewer, Jennifer Senior of New York Magazine, was shocked by Scalia’s statements.
But Karl Payne, author of “Spiritual Warfare: Christians, Demonization, and Deliverance,” says the reaction is a sign of how secularized certain segments of American society have become. He believes Scalia is right on the mark.
The exchange:
Senior: You believe in heaven and hell?
Scalia: Oh, of course I do. Don’t you believe in heaven and hell?
Senior: No.
Scalia: Oh, my.
Senior: Does that mean I’m not going?
Scalia: [Laughing.] Unfortunately not!
Senior: Wait, to heaven or hell?
Scalia: It doesn’t mean you’re not going to hell, just because you don’t believe in it. That’s Catholic doctrine! Everyone is going one place or the other.
Senior: But you don’t have to be a Catholic to get into heaven? Or believe in it?
Scalia: Of course not!
Senior: Oh. So you don’t know where I’m going. Thank God.
Scalia: I don’t know where you’re going. I don’t even know whether Judas Iscariot is in hell. I mean, that’s what the pope meant when he said, ‘Who am I to judge?’ He may have recanted and had severe penance just before he died. Who knows?
Senior: Can we talk about your drafting process –
Scalia: [Leans in, stage-whispers.] I even believe in the devil.
Senior: You do?
Scalia: Of course! Yeah, he’s a real person. Hey, c’mon, that’s standard Catholic doctrine! Every Catholic believes that.
Senior: Every Catholic believes this? There’s a wide variety of Catholics out there …
Scalia: If you are faithful to Catholic dogma, that is certainly a large part of it.
Senior: Have you seen evidence of the devil lately?
Scalia: You know, it is curious. In the Gospels, the devil is doing all sorts of things. He’s making pigs run off cliffs, he’s possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn’t happen very much anymore.
Senior: No.
Scalia: It’s because he’s smart.
Senior: So what’s he doing now?
Scalia: What he’s doing now is getting people not to believe in him or in God. He’s much more successful that way.
Senior: That has really painful implications for atheists. Are you sure that’s the – devil’s work?
Scalia: I didn’t say atheists are the devil’s work.
Senior: Well, you’re saying the devil is persuading people to not believe in God. Couldn’t there be other reasons to not believe?
Scalia: Well, there certainly can be other reasons. But it certainly favors the devil’s desires. I mean, c’mon, that’s the explanation for why there’s not demonic possession all over the place. That always puzzled me. What happened to the devil, you know? He used to be all over the place. He used to be all over the New Testament.
Senior: Right.
Scalia: What happened to him?
Senior: He just got wilier.
Scalia: He got wilier.
Senior: Isn’t it terribly frightening to believe in the devil?
Scalia: You’re looking at me as though I’m weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the devil! It’s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the devil! Most of mankind has believed in the devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the devil.
Senior: I hope you weren’t sensing contempt from me. It wasn’t your belief that surprised me so much as how boldly you expressed it.
Scalia: I was offended by that. I really was.
Commenting on the interview, “Spiritual Warfare” author Payne noted Scalia rejects the tendency in modern society to “compartmentalize” religious beliefs as a personal matter that has no bearing on public life.
“If it makes you feel good, that’s fine as far as your personal life goes, but as far as your professional life, it’s seen as hokey,” he said. “But Scalia had the core conviction to declare that he doesn’t ‘compartmentalize’ his religious beliefs from the rest of his life.”
Payne said America “has been thoroughly secularized” through its educational system, beginning with kindergarten.
“The assumption is that the supernatural is not real, so not only is the devil not real, God isn’t real, demons aren’t real, angels aren’t real, they are all thought to be silly,” Payne said.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/10/supreme-court-justice-unloads-on-satan-demons/#Y2ils0YlOhRQXoiU.99
He thought it was especially surprising that the reporter would be shocked that a devout Catholic would embrace fundamental teachings of his church.
“As a Catholic, you would believe in that stuff, but as an academic, you can’t. But I thought Scalia’s response was consistent with Catholic teachings,” Payne said.
Payne agreed with Scalia’s assertion that the devil now works covertly in the world, rather than placing himself in situations in which his presence is obvious.
“The devil is not stupid. Why would you, if you were a demon, throw something in somebody’s face if all they’re going to do is ridicule it? It wouldn’t be effective, but what if you could redefine the terms and convince people that the ones who believe in this are silly?” Payne asked.
His views on demonization don’t come largely from books but from 25 years of helping hundreds of people tormented by spiritual oppression.
“I personally believe that demonic deception is increasing, even within the Christian church, and that the worst of this deception is still to come,” he said.
But he said that if God “allows demonic activity to increase until His return, I believe He will also train up and equip a growing number of His children to faithfully and effectively contend with the powers of darkness who oppose His plans and people.”
“Too many North American churches are well on their way to becoming the same spiritually dead museums as Western European churches,” he warned.
Payne serves as pastor of leadership development at Antioch Bible College, near Seattle. He is the founder of Transferable Cross Training Foundation and the chaplain for the Seattle Seahawks NFL team. He received his Masters of Divinity and Doctorate of Ministry from Western Seminary in Portland, Ore.
Here’s what readers are saying about his book “Spiritual Warfare”:
•“Dr. Payne’s ‘Spiritual Warfare: Christians, Demonization and Deliverance’ will help anybody who doubts that they are under a spiritual attack. I always knew there was spiritual warfare but did not understand it. He put it all in perspective and helped me defeat it!”
•“I have read a number of books on spiritual warfare that fall short on relevance and application, but I am pleased to say this one is on the mark, a must buy. It is an easy but engaging read that rings true with life. This book will turn on some lights and vital insights or how get out of being beat up but to fight the good fight. Dr. Payne not only knows what he writes and speaks about but he lives it out every day.”
•“Dr. Karl Payne’ book, ‘Spiritual Warfare: Christians, Demonization and Deliverance,’ is one of the most powerful, truthful and effective tools a Christian needs within his/her personal library. I purchased this book hoping to learn from Dr. Payne, about the concept and reality of spiritual warfare. I have faced much of what others describe within the book and now, I feel I have an in-depth grasp of how to combat the battles of the world, the flesh and the devil. Upon first receiving the book in the mail, I meant to start slow and progress through the book in pieces, yet the next thing I knew I was past page 50, engrossed by the reality of spiritual warfare and excited for the lessons described by Dr. Payne, who is quick to remind readers, Jesus Christ has won the war and has given Christians the necessary tools to live a life of victory while here on earth. Dr. Payne deserves to be more than commended for sharing his voluminous insight with readers about this very overlooked topic. Do yourself and those you love a favor, purchase this book and some for loved ones, to become better equipped for the unseen warfare that hinders Christians from living the life Jesus has called us to live.”
•“I was given this very helpful biblically based book after a confusing experience I had with a friend who I knew to be a true believer in Christ. I had always been told that believers can only be oppressed by evil, but never possessed. Yet this friend was experiencing something beyond oppression. She was being tormented by evil that would not permit her to read her Bible, nor even hear other believers when we would pray with her. She was crying out for help as she was slowly being destroyed, but I didn’t know how to help her. Some would say she was crazy and needed mental health care, but I knew this friend very well and that was not the case. Others would say she must not be a true believer, but again I knew from years of close friendship as prayer partners that also was not true. Karl Payne explains very clearly exactly what this friend was experiencing, a level of demonic attack that he calls ‘demonization’. He explains that demonization is different than oppression and possession. From his many encounters with true believers that have suffered from demonization, Dr. Payne exposes the tactics that demons use to try to destroy Christians. He goes beyond describing to explaining step by step how we can help those who are experiencing this kind of attack. His approach is biblical and supported every step of the way by scripture. I believe that every Christian needs to be wise regarding the schemes of our enemy, and I am encouraging every believer I know to read this book. Thank you Karl Payne for your willingness to speak out on this often unpopular and usually misunderstood topic with sound Biblical wisdom.”
The title is published by WND Books.
Joseph Farah, the founder and chief executive officer of WND and WND Books, said he gives copies away to people all the time when he hears about cases of spiritual oppression and demonization.
“I can’t tell you how many people have told me it has helped them immensely in understanding the reality of spiritual warfare,” Farah said. “And that’s exactly why we believed this book is what is needed in our world at this unique time in history.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/10/supreme-court-justice-unloads-on-satan-demons/#Y2ils0YlOhRQXoiU.99
'Miracles happen':
jamesalbright
• 11 minutes ago
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One of the major false teachings found in many churches is that the heavenly gifts have ceased. They claim that the gifts ceased after the Bible was written.
However, I would like to point out that Jesus is not the author of confusion and would not tell one part of His church that the heavenly gifts would be present until He returns and then tell another part of the same church that the heavenly gifts have ceased before His return. In Mat 10:8 after Jesus commanded His disciples to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, He told them in Mat 10:23 that they would not finish going through the cities of Israel until He returns.
Mat 10:8 states “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give. 9 “Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts,
Matt. 10:23 states “But whenever they persecute you in one city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes.
The claim that the gifts have ceased contradicts Acts 2:17-18, which tells us that in the last days, which everyone knows we are presently in, Jesus will pour out His Spirit on all mankind, including on His bondservants, the believers, and they will prophesy, see visions and dream dreams.
Acts 2:17-18 states ‘AND IT SHALL BE IN THE LAST DAYS,’ God says, ‘THAT I WILL POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT UPON ALL MANKIND; AND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY, AND YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS; 18 EVEN UPON MY BONDSLAVES, BOTH MEN AND WOMEN, I WILL IN THOSE DAYS POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT And they shall prophesy.
One of the early mistakes that those who say that the heavenly gifts have ceased made is that they claimed that the perfect, found in 1Cor 13:9-10 occurred when Jesus became flesh. However, when they realized that this caused a problem because the heavenly gifts that Jesus imparted to the disciples continued to be manifested through them; as well as through Paul, whom they greatly admire, after Jesus ascended to heaven; they changed their story and began telling everyone that the gifts ceased after the Bible was written and that tongues, visions and prophecies that occur today add to the Bible and are from the Devil. However, these explanations contradict 1Cor 13:12, which explains that the perfect found in 1Cor 13:10 is when will be face to face with Jesus and know in full, which means that the heavenly gifts will not cease until Jesus returns.
1 Cor 13:9-12 state For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; {10} but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. {11} When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. {12} For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known.
Eph 4:7-8 further reveals their error when it explains that after Jesus ascended to heaven He gave heavenly gifts to men.
Eph 4:7-8 states But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. {8} Therefore it says, "WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED
CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES, AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN."
Since the end of the age has not yet come and the gospel of salvation is still available, common sense tells you that there still is a need for Jesus to demonstrate that He has the power to forgive sins, which He stated was His purpose for healing the paralytic in Mark 2:9-10.
Mark 2:9-10 states “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’; or to say, ‘Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk’? 10 “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—He *said to the paralytic, 11 “I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.”
Another reason that this teaching has to be corrected is so that God’s people accept the heavenly gifts that will be manifested through the two witnesses who will prophesy and do many signs and wonders, for 1260 days after the Antichrist captures Jerusalem.
Rev 11:3-6 states “And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.” 4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. 5 And if anyone wants to harm them, fire flows out of their mouth and devours their enemies; so if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way. 6 These have the power to shut up the sky, so that rain will not fall during the days of their prophesying; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire.
If the scriptures above do not turn those believers that this concerns away from the false teaching that the gifts have ceased, Mat 12:24-33 should, because they explain that when a person calls the Holy Spirit Satan, which they do when they talk about those that have the gift of healing, this is blaspheming the Holy Spirit, which is not forgiven in this age or in the age to come.
Matthew 12:24-33 states "But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, "This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons. "25 And knowing their thoughts He said to them, "Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself shall not stand. 26 "And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then shall his kingdom stand? 27 "And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? Consequently they shall be your judges. 28 "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29 "Or how can anyone enter the strong man's house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. 30 "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters. 31 "Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 32 "And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come. 33 "Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit."
1Cor 12:4-11 provides a list of the heavenly gifts.
1Cor. 12:4-11 states Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 And there
are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. 6 There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. 7 But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.
As you can see from the scriptures the heavenly gifts will not cease until we are face to face with Jesus, which takes place when He returns.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/nicolebailey/2013/12/20/illegal-immigrants-prioritize-deportation-relief-n1766632
Illegal Immigrants Prioritize Deportation Relief
Friday, December 20, 2013
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/D4/20131214/OPINION/312140014/Threats-US-What-you-re-saying
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/D4/20131214/OPINION/312140014/Threats-US-What-you-re-saying
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