11.1 The Present Accusation
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Each of the three great verses that shows us what God means when He says that we will be just like Jesus have both an inner element and an outer element. These two relate in this way: to the extent that we know the inner we are able to know the outer.
To the extent that we know that we are rooted and grounded in love, we are able to know that we are filled with all of God. To the extent that we drink of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are able to know and to see the rivers of living water flowing out of us. And to the extent that we eliminate the voice of accusation inside of us, to that same extent kingdoms of darkness fall.
Romans 8 and Revelation 12
Romans Chapter 8 and Revelation Chapter 12 are companion chapters, reflecting each other, and thus must be read and received into ourselves as one word. John’s entire vision on Patmos is the gospel of Jesus Christ in a third form: gospel – epistles – vision. We do not do as most, finding everything except the revelation of Jesus Christ inside John’s revelation of Jesus Christ.
We find Jesus only, everywhere we look. And we receive every word God speaks into our hearts, not as knowledge, but as the life of Christ made personal in us. The Word brings forth its life inside of us.
The Fourth Most Important Verse
Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death (Revelation 12:10-11).
But more than kingdoms of darkness crashing into ruin, we see also that to the extent that we eliminate accusation from our hearts and minds, to that same extent we see the kingdom of God coming upon the earth. Eliminating accusation inside of us and removing it from our mouth is more important than we have ever understood.
Overcome
We begin with the obvious implication of this verse. When God designed us and formed us in the beginning, He created us with the capacity to fight and to win final and total VICTORY over all that opposes the Word God speaks. You and I are created to overcome; we are created for victory.
The context for understanding the fourth most important verse in the Bible is much larger, however, than the prior three. At the center of this verse is the action verb to overcome. This verb is the central action of God, the central action of the universe, and the central action of story.
Before every hero is set one primary task: nike – overcome.
Eliminate the Crusher
First, the action of overcoming is directly related to the action of the ministry of Jesus, the visible expression of rivers of Spirit. The power to heal works hand in hand with the authority to cast down. We cannot heal those who are crushed without eliminating the one who crushes, who steals and kills and destroys, so that those healed will not be crushed again.
And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly (Romans 16:20). (Crushing the crusher.)
And casting down all accusation also corresponds with the great task of the sons of God, the ninth most important verse in the Bible, setting creation free.
The Context
To grasp, just a little bit, the full meaning of Revelation 12:10-11, we must know what story is and means. We must go back to the garden to see the great contest established by God that would be the conflict of His great story. We must see how the false human self is created in the imagination of the mind and how it works psychosis all through the human race. We must see how we overcome, through the eyes of story, of a fictional little girl who is very Much-Afraid and who walks long with Sorrow and with Suffering.
But we can see none of these things unless we first cast all shadow of accusation from our own minds and hearts.
The Lie
The original lie has ruled your life until now, every single moment of your life. That original lie is nothing more and nothing less than accusation.
These are the words that have defined you and crippled you. “I have fallen short.” – “I have sinned; I have displeased God; I am bad; there is something terribly wrong with me.” But we are humans, with hearts as bold as God’s, and so these words change form in the minds and hearts of most. “I am right; I am superior; I will climb to the top. I will do what God tells me to do.”
Accusation
“I am right” is accusation, the other side of, “I am bad.” “I will climb to the top” is accusation, the other face of, “I have fallen short.” “I am superior” is accusation, the other voice of, “I hate the way God made me.” And “I will do” is just a lie, offensive to God. Overweening, egotistical pride and cringing, self-abasing self-pity are two faces of the exact same thing; Accusation. Accusation against God and accusation against self are the same thing.
While general human accusation, accusing self – accusing others, is terrible, however, Christian accusation is far worse.
Christian Accusation
The longer form of Christian accusation says this: “There are two ‘lives’ in you. One of those lives is Christ Jesus, yes, but the other life is your fallen and sinful human nature. And you, this third little guy, running back and forth, frightened and confused, you must force your fallen and sinful human nature to ‘obey’ what this ‘Christ Jesus’ (now, suddenly, far away from you) tells you to do, otherwise you don’t love Jesus.”
The shorter form puts it this way. Christ is NOT your life; you have a life NOT His.
The lie and the curse.
Cast Down the Accuser
All of your life you have believed the lie, the accusation, that Christ is not your life. And all of your life you have lived under the curse, the accusation, that you have an evil life that is not His.
Here is the difficult part of teaching anything step by step. The HOW, the means of God by which we are able to eliminate all accusation from our hearts and minds, is found in the fifth most important verse in the Bible, coming up next. I want to engage you, however, with casting down the accuser before we explore the depths of the first How. And we do that by knowing that God created us for this very task, casting down all accusation.
What Do You Want?
For the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him.
KNOW that you are they; KNOW that you cast down all accusation.
How do you know that you are one of these? What do you want? Those who do not want to be are not. Those who want to be are. The decision is yours.
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors (nike – overcomers) through Him who loved us (Romans 8:37).
God Likes His Likeness
We know that we cast down the accuser because we are rooted and grounded in love. We know that we are more than conquerors because we are filled with all the fullness of God. But you will never cast down accusation unless you know that you are exactly what God wants you to be, unless you are satisfied with being the likeness of God.
God will change your outer appearance, but He has no intentions of changing you, ever. God likes you just the way you are, the way He made you. God wants to fill the you He created with Himself.
Your ONLY Lack
Here is the worst, the most rebellious, the most insidiously evil form of Christian accusation. “God will make me a better person.”
God has no flaws in His handiwork. He likes you exactly the way He made you. Your ONLY lack is that you do not yet know the full reality of what is, of the God who fills you with all of Himself and who desires to reveal Himself through you just as He made you, just as you are, just as you find yourself to be. Jesus bought you for Himself with His Blood. He got all of His “money’s” worth. You are more valuable to Jesus, just as you are, than the universe.
The Treasure
And they overcame accusation by the Blood of the Lamb.
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field (Matthew 13:44).
The field is your outward appearance; the treasure is you. God will change our outward appearance in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, no big deal. But the treasure is what Jesus sold His life for, that He might obtain Blood, the highest value in the universe, that He might buy for Himself you, His greatest treasure. You, just as you are.
Blood
Blood, rooted and grounded in Blood. The Blood of the Lamb, the Blood shed for you. Blood. Blood. Blood. Love poured out and life laid down.
Oh, if I could, somehow, cover your eyes with Blood, that you would see all things only by and out through Blood, Blood always flowing over you. We do not “plead the blood.” “Pleading the blood” is just one more form of gross Christian unbelief. We see all things, starting with ourselves, only through Blood.
If I could, somehow, with tears streaming down my face, exalt the Blood of Jesus in your mind and heart, greater than the universe, greater than all, I would surely do so.
See Through the Blood
If you want to see your victory, see through the Blood. If you want to see all accusation removed from your mind and heart, see only through the Blood. If you want to see kingdoms of darkness falling into ruin, see all things through the Blood. If you want to see, then the only eye salve Jesus gives is Blood.
Let Blood cover your eyes. Let Blood cover your heart. Let Blood be the foundation of every step you take, of every breath you breathe, of every thought you think.
You were . . . redeemed . . . with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot (1 Peter 1:18-19).
Christ First
They overcame accusation by the word of their testimony.
The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19). – Calling those things that be not as though they are (Rom. 4).
Here is an absolute principle of life inside of God. Christ is always all before anything not-Christ could ever vanish away. When you enter a dark room, do you “get rid of the darkness?” No. You turn on the lights, and the darkness flees.
You cannot cast down accusation; there is no such thing. You can flail your arms, weep and cry, pray and pray, and you will never ever “cast down accusation.”
Speak Christ
Accusation is a word, the voice of the accuser. God does not ask you to “get rid of that voice.” God places another voice, another Word into your heart first and into your mouth second.
“Christ is my life.” – And the lie vanishes.
“I have no other life but Christ.” – And the curse is no more.
Speak Christ your only life. Christ is the only writing upon your heart, the only voice that you hear, the only words that you speak. Speak Christ your only life.
Horrific Accusation
When I first heard the words, “Speak what God says you are,” with great excitement over the next several weeks, I wrote out the core of what became The Jesus Secret: Who I Am. What glory I knew, the very thing I had longed for all my life.
Then the most horrific accusation ever raised against me entered my home in the form of an evil woman and threatened to steal from me my family, my very heart and soul. It was my dear and precious wife who refused and drove out the accusation. Afterwards I gathered my children to me and held them close. I did not sleep that night. Christ Jesus, for the first time in my life, had entered my mouth and the accuser was blindingly furious, but without teeth.
Wailing Accusation
Then, in the spring of 2008, as I was hiding in Jesus from a brother pounding the law into little children, “I” vanished. Jesus was, in that moment, all that I am. For nine months I spoke “Christ is my life; I have no other life. Christ is all there is in me.” I spoke that word in every form, day and night, as accusation wailed against me in unending fury and crying shrieks of despair. “Who do you think you are?” I refused to listen; what did I have to lose? I spoke Christ and spoke Christ, closing my ears against the false fury of the liar.
After nine months the accusation vanished, and I began to write the present river: Jesus IS all that I am.
Jesus IS Your Only Life
You alone must speak Christ your only life; you alone must refuse to hear the words of accusation. There is no shame in you. Christ lives in your heart by faith; shame has no place there. Every voice that suggests that you are falling short is evil.
Christ Jesus Himself in Person, filling your heart full with ALL of His glory, fulfills all that the Father speaks, all that the Father requires. We are saved by His life (Romans 5:10b).
Jesus alone is all that you are. Jesus is your only life.
Speak Christ your only life until you know Him alone.