About Life-Everlasting

Our mission is to ensure the Word of God is accurately preached and taught; for precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little (Isa 28:10).

Bible teaching is the essence of any assembly, congregation or church. The Bible, so we are told by the Apostle Paul, is useful for "doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (KJV) or put another way for "teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" (NIV) (2 Timothy 3:16).

Over the years I have produced a number of sermons, devotions, messages, articles, notes and studies. These range from an outline of dot points through to fully formed notes plus a few Microsoft Power Point presentations. Some have been produced by Stephen Simon and these can be found under "messages" as well. Other types of works by various authors including Frederick A Blair, various scripturally truthful hymns along with works of significance for the Christian are also housed on this website. Resources, including basis Koine Greek of the Bible) and links to other useful material are also included.

As with all human (as opposed to the Holy Spirit) written material, it is not infallible but I hope it is a pointer to the truth, which is found in Scripture. Hence, the author humbly beseeches the reader of these web pages to use the articles and messages etc. as a guide only, and use Scripture to find the truth, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This must be done in all prayer and supplication, for it is the Holy Spirit that will reveal the truth to you.

The most recent material can be found under "sermons" or "articles' which should include the most recent sermon notes. I also have included relevant articles by others, who have been referenced - mainly as articles.

We believe:

1. There is one God, the Lord God Jehovah also called the Lord God Most High, and the God of Heaven, who is triune, being God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit (the trinity). The name of God is “I Am”. God is holy. God is righteous (always right) and holy (perfect).
2. God is revealed in Scripture (called the Bible, Cannon or Word), both Old and New Testaments.
3. The Bible was divinely (supernaturally) inspired, God breathed, and is inerrant, infallible and plenary (contains everything that is needed for all people). The Bible is complete, and was provided to all people for our learning, instruction and correction, that we might have hope, for it gives understanding of God’s plan of salvation; that is, the Bible contains all that is needed to be saved from judgement and punishment.
4. Interpretation of Scripture is not a private affair, but by Scripture only, enlightened by the Holy Spirit only.
5. The Lord Jesus Christ is the son of God. He is deity, existing before the foundation of the world, and is He is one with God
6. The Holy Spirit is a person; He was sent to the world after the Son returned to heaven in order to convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. 
7. God created all things, including the world in six days and He rested on the seventh as taught in Scripture.
8. God created humans in His image. He created all people with an everlasting spirit which is located in the soul (only humans have a spirit, and can be indwelt by the Holy Spirit). A person’s soul will be saved and live with God if they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; else they will be cast into hell, after they die.
9. The purpose of all people is to glorify God. God delights in our prayers and He delights in our obedience and dependence upon Him.
10. Sin entered the world by one man, Adam, and so did death. Adam’s sin corrupted all of creation. This means that all people born from that day are separated from God because all inherit a sinful nature, therefore all require a means to be saved. The Bible says that the heart of each person is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; this means all people are sinners.
11. The Holiness of God demands perfection. As a consequence, sin must be punished by death, which is eternal separation from God; it is not annihilation. The Bible says the wages of sin is death.
12. Following death, the body will be resurrected – either to judgement and everlasting punishment in hell or to everlasting life with God the Father.
13. Salvation from death (and eventually hell) can only be obtained by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ (Yeshua), who is the Messiah, the Son of God. This is because humans cannot pay or work for the sins they have committed – they are too sinful.
14. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, incarnate, is a man born of a virgin, was killed by crucifixion on a cross (all his blood was drained from him, ensuring death); he was buried, then after three days he rose bodily from the grave (resurrection). For a period of 40 days after his resurrection he was seen by many as a witness of his resurrection after which he rose bodily to heaven and is now seated on the right hand of the Father, the Lord God Most High.
15. Salvation is by the grace of God alone. God can offer this because the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross offers a means of eternal redemption, which is underserved and cannot be paid for, therefore is called grace.
16. God can do this because the Lord Jesus Christ died in our place as punishment for our sins. This is the only acceptable substitutionary atonement which is entirely propitiatory, and thus blots out God’s view of our sin forever.
17. All people have a choice of accepting this atoning sacrifice of Christ.
18. It is only by faith in Jesus Christ can a person be saved. Salvation comes from believing on Jesus Christ; Christians are called ‘believers’ for this reason.
19. A person believing on the Lord Jesus Christ is born again, or in other terms, regenerated, which is imparts new life. A person ‘born again’ cannot lose his or her salvation because the Holy Spirit from that time forth dwells within the born-again person and seals them against judgement. Furthermore, such a person is adopted as a child into God’s family – for this reason Christians refer to God as ‘Father’.
20. As a consequence of believing in the Lord Jesus Christ a person will repent of their sins through confession to him. Only the Holy Spirit provides the means to do this. Forgiveness of sins only comes from the Lord Jesus Christ – no man can do this.
21. Faith is demonstrated in our works - what we do and say. This is called the fruit of a Christian; therefore a Christian earnestly seeks to do God’s bidding and carry out his work.
22. The duty of a Christian – one that is saved by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ – is to be holy, for we all are to be holy as God is holy. In doing so Christians will love the Lord our God, and will love those in our community and beyond (our neighbour). In all things the Christian desires to do the pleasure of God the Father, and it follows that a Christian sees the needs of the community and responds.
23. God predestines born-again people to be conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ, all of whom He knows in His foreknowledge (or full knowledge). The process of growing in the likeness of Christ is call sanctification – this is not complete until a Christian is with Christ Jesus in heaven. Predestination guarantees glorification of saved people – a person’s salvation is eternally secure in Christ – nothing can prevent this from occurring.
24. Adam was deceived by the Devil, also called Satan, a fallen angel. Satan exists and with his angels he continues to plague the world.
25. Hell was prepared for Satan and his angels, but will be used for those that do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Until that time the souls of those who have died, having rejected Jesus Christ, are in Hades; those who were born-again (i.e. saved by faith) are in Paradise.
26. The Church is the Bride of Christ, redeemed by the blood of Christ, as a people to be gathered unto Himself. The Church comprises only those that personally believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God. These will subsequently (after salvation) confess his name (baptism is a means to do this) and repent of their sin; this takes a life-time.
27. Christ is the head of the Church – no person can substitute this.
28. Of ordinances, the Lord’s Supper is to be taken regularly by believers only, until the Lord himself comes for His Church. Baptism taken in obedience is a symbol of a believer’s death and resurrection to new life; it proclaims Christ the Saviour.
29. Christ is coming soon to gather the Church unto himself – which the world will not see; the Church waits for this day called the rapture. This occurs at the fullness of the time, which is the time when all that are to be saved into the Church (believe in Jesus Christ), have been saved.
30. Jesus Christ’s current role in heaven is as high priest, advocating for Christians before the Father. Jesus Christ is also a king, but currently does not exercise this role – but rather he sits at the right hand of God the Father in heaven, being the mediator of the new covenant as High Priest. In due course after he comes to take his Church to heaven he will rule as King, first in Heaven then in Jerusalem, seated the Throne of David.
31. Dispensations describe well the counsels of the Almighty God in his dealings with mankind. We are currently governed under the dispensation of Grace.
32. Israel has not ceased to exist but in the days of the tribulation, after the Church is taken to heaven, a remnant (small number) will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ (Yeshua) as their Messiah, and will arise and go and evangelise the nations (as Jesus has commanded). The re-birth of Israel after its destruction and dispersal, as prophesied by Jesus, has taken place – she is yet to accept her Messiah.
33. The righteous God will judge the world during a period called the Great Tribulation over a period of seven years, commencing when Israel signs a peace deal with the Antichrist, which occurs sometime (unknown number of years) after the rapture of the Church (pre-tribulation). In this period God judges, in particular Israel, but also the Nations because they rejected the Messiah.
34. Christ Jesus as Messiah will reign for 1000 years (called the Messianic Kingdom) following the tribulation (pre-millennialism, which is “waiting for the Son”) during which time Satan will be locked-up. After this time Satan will be let loose, for a short time, to test the hearts of all people. Following the time of testing those that fail, along with Satan, will be cast into Hell for ever.

Over the years my brother (Stephen) and I have produced a number of sermons, lectures and messages. These range from headings through to fully formed notes. I initially prepared the web site to allow members of the congregations I spoke to, to check the Bible verses used, and to allow them to properly verify what was presented. Any preacher who does not encourage the congregation to verify and challenge errors (or potential errors including omissions) in sermons is in grave danger of falsifying the word of God, and this certainly neither honours God nor glorifies Him, but rather glorifies self. Nothing can be more arrogant than supposing that the preacher knows it all, however, sadly too often this happens. The Bible gives an example for all congregations to follow.

And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so (Acts 17:10).

also

Test [prove] all things; hold fast what is good. 1 Thessalonians 5:22

The Author, a sinner, who by the grace of God has been saved, is currently on a sojourn through life. He was brought up in a Christian home, whose parents, also by the grace of God, were saved. Having parents who taught from the Bible helped with his Christian walk and with the strong support of his wife, the author has grown spiritually slowly over the years. Lapses due to complete laziness, unfortunately often occur, delaying any growth. Droughts seem to occur in climate as well as the one's spiritual life.

For a while he undertook a number of formal Bible study courses at the Adelaide College of Miniseries (now closed). He attempted to master the basics of Greek of the New Testament, in order to dust the cobwebs out of his brain; rote-learning at 50 years of age is not something that comes easy! However, William (Bill) Mounce's method is interesting, and appears to work. Currently, he undertakes subjects from the Ariel College of the Bible and Messianic Jewish Studies, along with weekly lectures from Ariel Australia.

David's wife grew up near Bega and they met in Canberra (which is obviously in Australia). The Author grew up in Cudlee Creek but has lived in Adelaide, Darwin, Canberra – where he met his wife – Broken Hill and Wagga Wagga. In the mid-nineties the family left Wagga and moved interstate, settled down, which allowed the children to have a stable school & university life.

The author is married with three adult children and lives on one and a quarter acres of land (5400 square metres square) along with small dog. They baby sit their grandchild and their children's (dogs). The author loves gardening, and grows vegetables all year round. He enjoys bush walking and in 2017 did the three passes trek (three passes along with two mountains and Everest Base Camp) in Nepal with his eldest son and a few others from a local church.

The author has attended a number of assemblies or churches. His background is clearly fundamental, bible based, pre-millennial, pre-tribulation, interpreting Scripture in a grammatico-historical exegesis (literally where appropriate including the first 11 chapters of the Bible) and is therefore called a conservative (liking classical music may put him this category as well, along with a complete disdain for contemporary "church" music, which he believes is basically anathema), believing the modern church has slid into a state of utter mediocrity and apostasy and is well characterised by the attributes of the church at Laodicea (Revelation chapter 3).

In 2013 he and his wife were seriously hurt and tested by a local church when they were excomunicated along with a number of others for daring to follow the Word of God. Much could be said, little would be gained. It was indeed a very traumatic time in the church's history, when time after time, those that raise complaints are abused by the church; in this case, fairly trivial issues when compared with those that have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Australian clergy and church leaders. The author's wife, with a sense of humour, says that at least this was 2013 and not 1400 when we would have been burnt at the stake. The author was assured there was nothing wrong with his preaching, devotions or leading – his doctrine was sound as is his walk with the Lord. He and his wife now attends a local (and very close) church and continues with a very long running bible study.

The author believes (helped by CHM Spurgeon) that untested faith is a weak faith. Dealing with those that lie and falsely accuse from within the church is indeed a challenge, but nothing compared with what Our Lord suffered, or indeed the great prophets, apostles and patriarchs. David not only suffered from hatred from his father–in–law, the King of Israel, but was hounded from his own land for a while and certainly would have been killed if were not for the grace of God. All this was extremely character–building for him – and our situation, I am sure, will also strengthen our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Great comfort are found in one of the author's favourite verse:

For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day (1 Timothy 1:12).

Stephen Simon is the brother of David Simon!

Frederick Alexander Blair (30 Apr 1891, Melbourne Victoria, died 22 May 1974, Adelaide) the grandfather of David & Stephen who wrote a series of books covering the prophets of the Old Testament. Most were not published, but are a wonderful resource. I intend to digitalize these and publish them a little at the time. I have only completed a number.

Many articles are also posted authored by various people which hopefully focus our minds on the work of Christ and our aim to bear fruit.

The title "Life-Everlasting.net" comes from John 3:16, perhaps the most famous verse to non-Jews in the Bible. It indicates that salvation is by faith and not by works. That is, one cannot achieve rightness before God by one's own effort. What one cannot forget is the rest of the text - John 3:16 does not stand alone:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

And this is the condemnation, that light [Jesus Christ] is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

KJV = King James Version of the Bible
NIV = New International Version of the Bible original work copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
NKJV = New King James Version original work copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc
ESV = The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles

Others used

JND = New Translation by John Nelson Darby (1890)
Interlinear Greek-English New Testament (Literal, Textus Receptus, King James Version), Baker Books, Michigan, 1980
Strong's = Strong's Concordance, Hebrew and Greek Lexicon (either Riverside Book and Bible House, or an on-line version)

Bible version used

The King James Version is the most often quoted on this website because it is freely available and not encumbered with copyright problems. Also, coming from a household of Christians who were around well before many of the modern translations of today, I was brought up with the King James Version.

However, I am no King James–only fanatic. To those who think the King James Version is the inspired version, you need only ask two questions:

1. What language did the authors of the bible speak and write? For instance, Moses spoke and wrote in Hebew, and Apostal Paul wrote in Koine Greek (and given his training could speak and write Hebrew), and
2. What did the translators of the King James version say about their work?

To the first question, the language of the day – Hebrew or Greek (or Aramaic if reading say parts of Daniel etc.) – hence the most appropriate language to read Old Testament Scripture is in Hebrew or Aramaic and the New Testament in Koine Greek. Those that have not reached this level of learning then need to chose the best translation they can understand. English is not the language of angels, hence is not the be–all and end–all. French or German etc. may be better for you. A more pertinant answer can be gained be asking; what language did God say His word would be preserved? There is no verse that says the English is God's perfered language of presevation!

And to the second – the English translators never claimed divine inspiration for the KJV – they were inspired to present an easy to read version of Scripture, in English, by translating the inspired Word. They themselves never wrote one inspired word. It is also illustrative to read the 15 rules or instructions the King James translators were given, along with their own notes they made during the translation process.[1] It debunks many of the myths surrounding the KJV.

Incidentally, no–one reads the original King James, although KJV–only folk claim they do. There are two simple tests to see if you have an original translation – that of 1611.

(1) Does your KJV Bible contain the Apocrypha (books added to the Bible by the Roman Catholic Church), and

(2) read Matthew chapter one and observe whether there is a preponderance of words ending in "e", for instance "begate", "feare", "daye", "fishe" etc or with the "J" is rendered "I" as in "Iesse" for "Jesse". If your Bible does not render words in this fashion or does not contain the Apocrypha you do not have a 1611 KJV Bible! Your bible may contain the original preface but this does not make it the original translation. Furthermore, too many mistakes were made in the early editions to be useful, hence debunking the "inspired" theory – God does not make mistakes.

Of English speakers that deliberately revile non–KJ versions because of the Americanisation of the English in more modern translation: even I find it distracting to find common words such as neighbour and saviour "misspelled" in the American translations, but this we live with.

Enough said: See The Bible for more information

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I continuously find grammar & syntax issues and many spelling errors – these I apologise for, and will work through each page and fix, but will take some time.

There are a number of broken links, which I am finding slowly and am fixing

If you find any grammatical errors, spelling errors, broken hyperlinks or some other error on these pages please contact me mentioning the page title and location. I love hearing from you, the reader.

Webmaster

The greatest challenge of building a web site is dealing with the multiplicity of web browsers, especially older browsers and Internet Explorer™ in particular, which has somewhat eased with Microsoft's Edge browser. The author built the entire site using PHP and JavaScript and has changed it substantially since its inception in 2007, and typically uses Chrome™ and Firefox™ on screen devices and Safari™ on an iPhone to test each page.

This site was first mounted on 24th April 2007 written in plain HTML produced using mainly Dreamweaver (Adobe™), although I prefer to manual coding. Documents, including transcripts or sermon notes were produced mainly in Microsoft Word and converted to HTML. These were later hand edited as MS Word inserts very large amounts of redundant code in the page. To make the site more assessable each page is indexed in alphabetical order, topic order or book order. This requires some thought and a new header for each.

In some cases audio has been added, where the sermon has been recorded.

On 5 July 2009, the site was relaunched as a dynamic web site with both standalone webpages and material stored in a database (SQL) which was served into a template. The later allows easy editing and better consistency across all pages and prevents me from losing material! The entire site is mounted at A2Hosting (since 2021). It was translated into HTML 5/CSS 3 in 2012 and a mobile version was also provided using a separate subdomain initially, but since November 2021 the entire framework LE website was revamped with a single domain for both mobile and screen devices using Bootstrap.

The greatest challenge of building a web site is dealing with the multiplicity of web browsers, especially older browsers and Internet Explorer in particular, which has somewhat eased with Microsoft's Edge browser. The author built the entire site using PHP and JavaScript and has changed it substantially since its inception in 2007, and tylically uses Chrome(TM) and Firefox(TM) on screen devices and an Safari on an iPhone to test

Future:

• Allow comment to be made about any material published.
• Place all of Frederick Blair's expositories of the prophets on line. This requires digitalising the booklets. This process had begun.