atheism

atheism, end time, falling away, prophecy

There’s no such thing as an ex-Christian

Posted on June 5, 2023June 5, 2023 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

There’s no such thing as an ex-Christian. Look at 1 John-

“They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” (1 John 2:19)

John is saying here that people who ‘backslide’ and then fall away from the faith entirely, a symptom of the end times by the way, never really were saved to begin with. “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him,” (Titus 1:15).

So what do we say to the verse in 1 Timothy 4:1-3 which states that many will fall away?

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. (1 Tim 4:1-3)

Again those who fell away were never really one of Jesus’ elect to begin with.

And before the person started falling away, in came sneaky heresies they began listening to. They enjoyed these false teachings and heresies because their darkened heart had never experienced the light.

But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. (2 Peter 2:1)

For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. (Jude 1:4)

So the progression is: profess Christ by mouth… but since there was no visible fruit to show the state of grace they were claiming on the inside, they were never really saved & regeneration never occurred; fail to walk closely with Jesus by procrastinating in discipleship, Bible study, prayer, and/or worship, furthering the distance between themselves and Jesus; (OR, faithfully attending church and Bible study but due to hard heart always were learning but never able to come to knowledge of the truth); listen to or promote destructive heresies that either they knowingly or unknowingly begin to believe, start doubting Christ’s sufficiency; doubt more, and then slide into apostasy’s full blown renunciation and end up in a state of atheism.

Peter says “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.” (2 Peter 2:20)

No, they come sneakily, secretly, subtly. And no wonder, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made…” (Genesis 3:1) so satan isn’t going to capture hearts with bellicose attitudes or flagrantly detectable bad doctrine. Many of the preachers and teachers will not even openly pronounce their heresies, they will be secret within their heart and only after a while, introduced slyly. Jude’s words “crept in” also indicate something that also isn’t readily detectable and is subtle at the start.

Others will tell you that we are all one universal consciousness, we are our own gods, and then, they will give you a car. They will tell you that if you believe in Jesus, He will make your life better, while you are seeking Him from comfy ampitheatre watching a techno-sermon with a cappuccino in your hand. Seeker-sensitive churches are false on its premise because in Romans we learn that no one seeks God.

The end result of a Christian in name only – that is, one who claimed Jesus but never really believed – and is one who is at risk of being tempted by destructive heresies, and ultimately of apostasy. What comes next is atheism.

Atheism is a natural cul-de-sac in the road away from the cross. Gotquestions.org writes:

“At the same time, it takes just as much faith to believe in atheism. To make the absolute statement “God does not exist” is to make a claim of knowing absolutely everything there is to know about everything and of having been everywhere in the universe and having witnessed everything there is to be seen. [I]t cannot be proven that God does not exist. It takes just as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a theist.”

Which, I suspect, could be one of the reasons Peter said it makes a person worse off from what they were before. After apostasy settles in and atheism rears its head, a person is well and truly now in the dangerous pits of despair, misplacing their burgeoning faith in Something for a faith in Nothing that will last forever.

An interesting article appeared in Maine Family Policy Council’s online publication, The Record:

“While there may be a diversity of opinion about the nature of God, no one in state government has stepped forward to doubt His existence. Atheism remains a strong taboo in political circles, in part because of the widely-held belief that faith in God is the mainstay of civil society. Eight state constitutions explicitly forbid atheists from holding public office. Tennessee’s state constitution gives the clearest statement in this regard:”

“No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.” –end article

What today’s Christian needs is larger doses of the above, not smaller. As times get tougher and stress makes a person weary, as work loads increase and family strife abounds, people fall away from the paving stones of a faith that lead from the cross to glory. This process separates the Christians In Name Only from the true believers. Are you worried about your salvation? Are you unsure? Has there been no visible fruit in your life for a while? You are at risk. Repent. Take it to the cross, and make sure you are saved. Apostasy is a ‘subtil’ thing, as subtle as satan. Has he crept into your heart?

atheism, discernment, encouragement, Perry Noble, prophecy

A few good links: ‘One True God’ free download workbook; Meaning of Pastor, Atheism, CT quake swarm, more

Posted on January 17, 2015 by elizabethprata

Here are a few good links.

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One True God

Justin Peters wrote on Facebook this week,

If you are looking for something to do this weekend, download this free Bible study and tear into the Book. For your edification:

One True God – workbook PDF

Written by Paul Washer. I haven’t looked at the content, but I trust Peters and Washer to know good material. Take a look and see it if suits you.

Thank you Pastor, for developing good materials for us. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. (Romans 12:11)

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What does Pastor mean anymore?

A Pastor friend of mine from Maine posted this. I read it and I thought it was excellent. I don’t know the pastor who wrote it nor his church, but this particular article was very good.

Disembodied Bodies, Mark Driscoll, and How “Pastor” Has Lost All Meaning

With one simple click of the mouse, Christians can be pastored by their favorite pastor. Regardless of the miles between them, open your web browser and in just a few keystrokes, your preferred preacher is pastoring your soul…except, not really.

This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. (1 Corinthians 4:1)

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Hail Satan

Tory MP comes out as atheist.
A Minister of Parliament (MP) of the Tory Party ‘came out’ as an atheist. He said that there is much pressure to at least pretend to believe in God. He said he can ‘come out’ now because his term is ending and he will not run again.

The MP was speaking at a debate on a private members bill which calls for prayers to be read at the start of council meetings. At the start of his speech, he noted that,

At a meeting of Lake Worth City Commission last month, the invocation was given by an atheist called Preston Smith. And he began his invocation with the words, ‘May the efforts of this Council blend the righteousness of Allah with the all-knowing wisdom of satan.’ The fact that the effect of the public sector equality duty on this bill is at local authority’s choosing to hold religious observance in their meetings will not then be able lawfully to discriminate against the observances of the religion of Satanism.

What the MP does not realize is that he is in exactly the same camp as the people who worship Allah and satan.

Therefore you are great, O LORD God. For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears. (2 Samuel 2:22)

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Earthquakes in Diverse places!

4th straight day of earthquakes in Conn.

A 2.2-magnitude earthquake has rattled eastern Connecticut again. In what’s becoming a daily seismic event, the Weston Observatory of Boston College said the earthquake occurred at about 4:40 a.m. Thursday near Plainfield, where previous earthquakes were recorded. It says two minor earthquakes were recorded on Wednesday and another on Tuesday. Several were recorded on Monday and last week, too.

Connecticut officials coordinate earthquake preparation

After daily earthquakes in eastern Connecticut over the past week, officials have met to discuss ways the state can respond and residents can prepare.

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. (Matthew 24:7-8)

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SBC in full-on meltdown?

SBC-affiliated Beth Moore is allowed to speak God’s alleged prophetic word with no rebuke from the allegedly most conservative denomination. Perry Noble of the Southern Baptist Convention’s NewSpring church in SC re-wrote the ten commandments in a Christmas Eve sermon he delivered. As James Duncan at The Pajama Pages wrote,

On Christmas Eve, Perry Noble gifted the world a rewritten Ten Commandments. In so doing, he contradicted Scripture, celebrated his ignorance of the Bible, and ultimately rejected the gospel.

And LifeWay engages in fraud by trading on God’s word in heaven tourism for filthy lucre, causing an outcry and forced to pull one of the heaven tourism books, The Onion weighs in with a (deservedly) mocking opinion:

Publisher Pulls Book after Boy Admits He didn’t Go To Heaven

And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. (2 Peter 2:2)

PS: Phil Johnson has published further statements from Tyndale related to the Heaven book which show demonstrably the publishing house knew the boy had repeatedly said he not gone to heaven and are lying about not knowing.

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And just in case you ever need it,

How to Give a Pill to a Cat

as I lay dying, atheism, contemporary christian music, discernment

"Christian" Metal Band As I Lay Dying admits they are atheists but said they were Christians for the money

Posted on June 19, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

This article has is textbook sin in it. Textbook. (The textbook being the bible of course)

Convicted Heavy Metal ‘Christian’ Singer Admits Being Atheist, Duped Fans to Sell Music

A so-called Christian heavy metal band whose frontman was convicted of attempting to hire a hitman to murder his estranged wife has admitted that it duped fans into believing that they were Christian in order to sell their music. “Truthfully, I was an atheist,” Tim Lambesis, the lead singer and founder of As I Lay Dying told the Alternative Press in a recent interview. “I actually wasn’t the first guy in As I Lay Dying to stop being a Christian. In fact, I think I was the third.

The band got together in 2000-1 at the end of the height of Contemporary Christian Music’s most lucrative year. They smelled money. The bible says,

“And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.” (2 Peter 2:3 KJV)

“And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.” (2 Peter 2:3 ESV)

The publication noted that his wife, Meggan, had likewise divulged in divorce papers that Lambesis had become an atheist. Lambesis, in admitting his atheism, outlined that he turned away from Christianity as he majored in religious studies while attending college through a long distance program. “In the process of trying to defend my faith, I started thinking the other point of view was the stronger one,” he said.

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good. (Psalm 14:1)

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. (Colossians 2:8)

Their CD covers. A clue maybe they weren’t Christian

And one sin led to another, turning his renunciation of Christ into justification for his actions. “The first time I cheated on my wife, my interpretation of morality was now convenient for me,” Lambesis explained. “I felt less guilty if I decided, “Well, marriage isn’t a real thing, because Christianity isn’t real. God isn’t real. Therefore, marriage is just a stupid piece of paper with the government.”

And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. (Luke 16:15)

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29)

But he continued to profess to be a Christian, as did others in the band, in order to sell records to Christian music fans.

And we’re back to the beginning:

And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. (2 Peter 2:3 ESV)

Wikipedia describes the band’s sound as “Heavy metal writer Garry Sharpe-Young described the band as a “Christian Hardcore act employing the Grind edged vocals of singer Tim Lambesis and a distinct hint of Scandinavian guitar chug” and parents, youths, the words ‘Christian’ and ‘hardcore’ do not mix. Ever. That should have been a clue. Here is the second clue

They are described “as being in the metalcore genre, not Christian metal. This is largely because the band’s lyrics do not directly focus on pro-Christian themes the way many praise music bands do nor do they treat their music as a direct extension of their private Christian worship or proselytizing efforts. For example, not once do the names God or Jesus appear in any As I Lay Dying song, nor do any of their songs explicitly invoke Christian doctrine or quote the Bible.”

Lambesis said in an interview, “I believe that change should start with me first, and as a result, our lyrics do not come across very ‘preachy.’ Many of our songs are about life, struggles, mistakes, relationships and other issues that don’t fit entirely in the spiritual category.” Jesus is not a category in your life, He IS life. If Jesus is not at the center of our lives, every aspect of it, we are not Christian. A person who has the Holy Spirit in them cannot compartmentalize Him into segments and then marginalize Him to the side. He is the very lifespring from which our entire new being, the new creature, flows.

The band members state that they lost their faith, or that they departed from the Christianity they’d once professed. People, this is not possible. One does not fall away. That is the third clue-

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. (1 John 2:19)

Always pray for discernment, stay in the word, and guard your children.

atheism, end time, end time. prophecy, mockers and scoffers

The Tragedy of Atheism

Posted on August 28, 2010May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

“Beulah! Peel me a grape!” Who could forget Mae West’s famous quip in her second film, “I’m No Angel”? Her ribald lines, superficially innocuous, were delivered in a lazy, mocking elocution that had audiences either loving her bawdiness or up in arms over propriety. The line itself was hilarious because of the visual of Mae telling her black maid to peel the tiny fruit, an effort that was ridiculous but perfect in highlighting her character’s gross self-centeredness.

“Bring me evidence, Beulah! And while you’re at it, peel me a grape!”

‘God! Peel me a grape!’ Is the same attitude atheists exhibit today. Their mental laziness, mocking tone, and orders to bring them some evidence of God and then they’ll think about it, only serve to highlight their gross self-centeredness in which they proudly luxuriate.

Imagine if you had a loving husband, your groom, who daily gave you beautiful gifts. Who served you, ministered to you when you were sick. Who told you that could trust completely and said he never would leave you. Where his loving effects on others around him were obvious. And one day, He came up to you and said, “I love you!” and you answered, “PROVE IT! BRING ME EVIDENCE!”

First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. (2 Peter 3:3)

Worse, what if your 14-year-old son responded that way? If, there he was, in his well-appointed American bedroom, stuffed with laptop, digital camera, games, comfy bed, with his bank account passbook noting his growing college fund, and the key to the deposit box containing his inheritance. And you walked in one day, bringing him his supper that he wanted to eat in his room, and you lay it down and said, “Honey, I love you!” What if he answered, “PROVE IT! BRING ME EVIDENCE!”

I would think there would be punishments all around. I’d think he would receive a stern talking-to, and a grounding from his fun activities. And yet, our Lord, who has all power, does not respond this way. He patiently accepts mocking, self-centeredness, and constant demands for evidence that He has already provided (in His love and mercy). He has given us the world and we demand more.

Jesus, Lord of the Universe, Who has the worlds as a footstool for His feet, as your loving groom served us. He healed, ministered, told us in a thousand ways that He loves us and wants to be with us forever. He even dispensed with His own glory, and poured Himself into the form of a man, and washed feet, served food, and died for us whom He loves. Jesus still loves His children, all of them. And when you relate this eternal fact to unbelievers, they scream, “PROVE IT! PRODUCE SOME EVIDENCE!”

This selfish attitude should not surprise us. We are told by Paul in 2 Timothy 3:1-5 that “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.” This is an age of unrestrained revelry and self-indulgence. Humility, diligent searching, and submission are anathema to culture today.

The tragedy of atheism is the hopelessness of the self. People who refuse to believe put their entire stock into their own strength, brain, abilities, and they say that any day now, the world will be better because of their own strength, brain, and abilities. It never will be, because we are sinners. But the proud refuse to accept their own sin as the stain that it is and humble themselves to Him who heals, loves, and saves.

The tragedy is that a whole class of people deliberately shrink their world to the provable and seen. Their world is of the brain, but not the mind. It is of the natural and not the supernatural, of the drearily provable and not the awe-inspiring mysterious. Their world is littered with decaying peeled grapes, while the believer’s world is endless, eternal, and perfect. The tragedy is in thinking that peeled grapeskins is all there is to life, when they could have so much more. Even in Apostle Paul’s day this attitude of ‘serve me’ was prevalent: “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (1 Corinthians 22-23)

Is this you? “Bring me evidence! But let me finish indulging in my debaucheries first…”

The tragedy is in the non-believer passively lying on a reclining Roman couch, demanding evidence when the bible says “Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always. (Psalm 105:4). This is an active command, not a passively receptive one. He even told us how to do it:

“My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” (Proverbs 2:1-5). Again, this verse is full of active verbs, not passive tenses indicating a lolling receptivity.

Atheist, get off your lazy duff and seek His face! He is right in front of you!

How do we accept Jesus? Admit your sin. Yes, we all do wrong things, and we should be sorry for those. Apologize to Jesus and ask Him to be your Savior (saving you from eternal separation from Him) and also your Lord, (humbling yourself and admitting you need Him to lead you in life). Immediately you begin to understand how low you really are in your sin, and how permanently you deserve to be low forever compared to His holiness and glory. However, immediately begins His gifts. Far from your worst fears realized, that this is a permanent abasement, (as it should be) instead in His mercy He will lift you up! He will give you good work! A plan for your life that spiritually you intuit as better than the one you created for yourself! Talents and abilities to accomplish this work! A guarantee of your place in heaven and an inheritance of eternal life! It is within your reach, non-believer. But first, you have to get off the couch.

atheism, end time, falling away, prophecy

Apostasy = Atheism Lite

Posted on June 19, 2010May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

There’s no such thing as an ex-Christian. Look at 1 John-

“They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” (1 John 2:19)

John is saying here that people who ‘backslide’ and then fall away from the faith entirely, a symptom of the end times by the way, never really were saved to begin with. “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him,” (Titus 1:15).

For many professing “ex-Christians”, it starts with apostasy, something Paul said there would be plenty of in the last days.

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. (1 Tim 4:1-3)

And before the person started falling away, in came sneaky heresies they began listening to:

But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. (2 Peter 2:1)

For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. (Jude 1:4)

So the progression is: profess Christ by mouth… but since there was no visible fruit to show the state of grace they were claiming on the inside, they were never really saved; fail to walk closely with Jesus by procrastinating in discipleship, bible study, prayer, and/or worship, furthering the distance between themselves and Jesus; listen to or promote destructive heresies that either they knowingly or unknowingly begin to believe, start doubting Christ’s sufficiency; doubt more, and then slide to full blown renunciation and end up in a state of atheism. Peter says “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.” (2 Peter 2:20)

Notice the words that both Jude and Peter use to describe the heresies what will infiltrate the church in the last days; “secretly” and “crept in”. The heresies don’t come into the church by way of aggressive men bellowing a ‘new doctrine’ to the delight of followers who joyfully jump their pews and run out the door to his new church. They come sneakily, secretly, subtly. And no wonder, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made…” (Genesis 3:1) so satan isn’t going to capture hearts with bellicose attitudes or flagrantly detectable bad doctrine. Many of the preachers and teachers will not even openly pronounce their heresies, they will be secret within their heart and only after a while, introduced slyly. Jude’s words “crept in” also indicate something that also isn’t readily detectable and is subtle at the start.

These teachers will have a big, white smile, open their lecture with a warm joke, and tell you that Jesus was a good, moral teacher and that you deserve the best life now. They will never tell you that your best life is later and that Jesus didn’t come to be a moral leader but to seek and save the lost- And that you are lost. Others will tell you that we are all one universal consciousness, we are our own gods, and then, they will give you a car. They will tell you that if you believe in Jesus, He will make your life better, while you are seeking Him from comfy ampitheatre watching a techno-sermon with a cappuccino in your hand. Seeker-sensitive churches are false on its premise because in Romans we learn that no one seeks God.

Atheism is a natural cul-de-sac in the road away from the cross. Gotquestions.org writes:

Which, I suspect, could be one of the reasons Peter said it makes a person worse off from what they were before. Whereas a person before was a perhaps being drawn by the Spirit, after apostasy settles in and atheism rears its head, a person is well and truly now in the dangerous pits of despair, misplacing their burgeoning faith in Something for a faith in Nothing that will last forever.

An interesting article appeared in Maine Family Policy Council’s online publication, The Record:

“No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.”

“The controversial belief that atheists are untrustworthy has ancient roots. Plato wrote that disbelief arises from either sensuality, or from a conceited belief in one’s own wisdom. He warned that those who do evil deeds think one of three things: First, that god does not exist; second, that if god does exist, He does not care what people do; and third, that god can be otherwise appeased by good deeds.”

“The opinion of John Locke was also severe with regard to non-believers in public office. Locke wrote that atheism undermines the foundations of civil society. “They are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.” “

“For centuries, Christian doctrine held that not only atheists, but irreligious people in general, could not be morally good. To quote one expert in Christian ethics: “Therefore, the irreligious man is not a morally good man since he neglects to perform his essential duties to God. Besides, a man who shuns his duties to God will be prone likewise to shun his duties to his fellow man.” “

It all starts with destructive heresies, ungodly men creeping in unnoticed. And why aren’t they noticed? Because Christians today all too often fail to be familiar with the real thing, foregoing bible study, quiet time, prayers, and worship, so that when the counterfeit shows up, being only subtly different from the Truth, it goes unnoticed. What today’s Christian needs is larger doses of the above, not smaller. As times get tougher and stress makes a person weary, as work loads increase and family strife abounds, people fall away from the paving stones of a faith that lead toward the cross. This process separates the Christians In Name Only from the true believers. Are you worried about your salvation? Are you unsure? Has there been no visible fruit in your life for a while? You are at risk. Repent. Take it to the cross, and make sure you are saved. Apostasy is a ‘subtil’ thing, as subtle as satan. Has he crept into your heart?