By Elizabeth Prata
Isn’t it comforting to know that God ordains every single thing that happens, even every droplet in the fog bank rolling over the beach roses at the easternmost point of a nation.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1
By Elizabeth Prata
Add
The preaching of the true word of God always pierces hearts.
“So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” (Acts 2:41)
Subtract
However, taking away from that word will bring condemnation to those who subtract from it:
“and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.” (Revelation 22:19)
Multiply
We love God’s word so much we share it, not sparingly but liberally. To His own glory, the Lord multiplies what is needed in the sower so they can return and multiply their doing good again and again–
“He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” (2 Corinthians 9:10)
Barnes Notes explains, “Multiply your seed sown – Greatly increase your means of doing good; make the result of all your benefactions so to abound that you may have the means of doing good again, and on a larger scale, as the seed sown in the earth is so increased that the farmer may have the means of sowing more abundantly again.”
Divide
But make no mistake, proclamation of, living by, and protecting the word will bring division. Doctrine DOES divide.
“Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” (Luke 12:51)
In efforts not to have “division” but a (false) unity based on a watered down version of the Gospel, you really have nothing. Nothing from nothing leaves nothing, said Billy Preston.
John MacArthur on doctrine dividing, from his sermon A Call for Discernment: “When you don’t even lay down clear doctrine at the level of the Gospel, where are you going to go from there? And the cry is, as one man said to me when my book on The Gospel According to Jesus came out, he said, “Your book is divisive!” You want to know something? He’s right. He’s right. Want to know something else? Doctrine divides. People say, “Oh doctrine divides … doctrine divides.” I say, “Amen, preach it, doctrine divides.” You know what it does? It confronts error. It separates true from false. It makes judgments. Today’s climate, however, of unity in the priority of relationships, that’s not tolerable.”
Yes, but many are tolerating it. And this is what he said will happen–
“You know, I believe…I believe that when evangelicals are willing to depreciate doctrine and when they’re willing to set aside unpopular convictions, and when they’re willing to stay silent on biblical teaching that offends people in error and sin, opposition will disappear and we could all get together. I believe that. I could start a unity movement…eliminate doctrine, set aside unpopular convictions, don’t say anything that offends and we’ll all get together. That isn’t any surprise. But you know some other things are going to disappear too along with doctrine, like truth, conviction, discernment, righteousness, holiness, discipline, true love and spiritual maturity. They’re all gone too and then God will disappear, Ichabod. That price is too high. That will produce a church victimized by hell’s deceptions.” Source: John MacArthur, A Call for Discernment, Part 1, May 26, 1991
He preached that 32 years ago and it has come to pass. People too afraid of division fail to add to and multiply God’s love.
I pray you are not in a church victimized by hell’s deceptions, but are in a church that adds to its numbers because of faithful hearts multiplying His love in fellowship.
But here is the new math of God’s kingdom: His infinitely extravagant grace! There is no counting it and no end to it. Praise the Lord that His grace and mercies fall on us every day. I can’t add the number of times I’ve been a grateful recipient of it.
“Our Lord is great, vast in power; His understanding is infinite.” (Psalm 147:5)
“Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” (Philippians 3:8)
By Elizabeth Prata
I was thinking of how wonderful God is. The Trinity, Three-In-One, Father, Son, Spirit are intimately involved in our lives. The Father’s Providence, bringing all things to pass at the good will and pleasure of Himself. The Spirit, dwelling inside us as a deposit of the guarantee to come. The Son, Priest, interceding for us on our behalf in heaven. Each Person of the Godhead intimately knowledgeable of each one of us and loving us and leading us and providing for us. It is amazing.
The Bible’s treasures are limitless. Each time we open it to read more of what God will reveal to us about Himself is a journey into love, wonder, and awe.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” (John 14:18).
The word orphan here means fatherless, bereft, desolate. In the context of the entire passage, Jesus is comforting the disciples, because He is going to leave them. They are lost, confused, heartbroken. They don’t quite understand but they sense something bad is about to happen and they are upset. Jesus is reassuring them. He is explaining that He is going to prepare a place for them and will return. He says He will not leave them as orphans, He will come to them.
Alexander McLaren’s commentary is excellent in explaining this beautiful moment. Imagine, the God of the Universe, softly and reassuringly comforting His little children. That was how Jesus began the conversation in chapter 13:33- “Little children.” He IS our Father, and He will not leave us Fatherless as orphans. See McLaren on the unification of the Christ and the Spirit. One says He is leaving, but One is actually present.
Then, note, further, that this coming of our Lord is identified with that of His divine Spirit. He has been speaking of sending that ‘other Comforter,’ but though He be Another, He is yet so indissolubly united with Him who sends as that the coming of the Spirit is the coming of Jesus. He is no gift wafted to us as from the other side of a gulf, but by reason of the unity of the Godhead and the divinity of the sent Spirit, Jesus Christ and the Spirit whom He sends are inseparable though separate, and so indissolubly united that where the Spirit is, there is Christ, and where Christ is, there is the Spirit. These are amongst the deep things which the disciples were ‘not able to carry’ at that stage of their development, and which waited for a further explanation. Enough for them and enough for us, to know that we have Christ in the Spirit and the Spirit in Christ; and to remember ‘that if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.’
“Christ is the only Remedy for the orphanhood of the world” ~McLaren
What a mystery the Trinity is! How tremendous His care of us in sending the Spirit! I can hardly contain myself. McLaren again-
Then, note, further, that this present Christ is the only Remedy for the orphanhood of the world. The words had a tender and pathetic reference to that little, bewildered group of followers, deprived of their Guide, their Teacher, and their Companion. He who had been as eyes to their weak vision, and Counsellor and Inspirer and everything for three blessed years, was going away to leave them unsheltered to the storm, and we can understand how forlorn and terrified they were, when they looked forward to fronting the things that must come to them, without His presence. Therefore He cheers them with the assurance that they will not be left without Him, but that, present still, just because He is absent, He will be all that He ever had been to them.
Wonder of wonders! He is good. He is so good!
And the promise was fulfilled. How did that dis-spirited group of cowardly men ever pluck up courage to hold together at all after the Crucifixion? Why was it that they did not follow the example of John’s disciples, and dissolve and disappear; and say, ‘The game is up. It is no use holding together any longer’? The process of separation began on the very day of the Crucifixion. Only one thing could have stopped it, and that is the Resurrection and the presence with His Church of the risen Christ in His power and in all the fullness of His gifts. If it had not been that He came to them, they would have disappeared, and Christianity would have been one more of the abortive sects forgotten in Judaism. But, as it is, the whole of the New Testament after Pentecost is aflame with the consciousness of a present Christ, working amongst His people. And although it be true that, in one aspect, we are absent from the Lord when we are present with the body, in another aspect, and an infinitely higher one, it is true that the strength of the Christian life of Apostles and martyrs was this, the assurance that Christ Himself-no mere rhetorical metaphor for His influence or His example, or His memory lingering in their imaginations, but the veritable Christ Himself-was present with them, to strengthen and to bless.
Please know, no matter what you are going through, no matter how trying the hardship, no matter how difficult the circumstances, your Comforter is here. He has not left us as orphans.
By Elizabeth Prata
The section in 1 Peter 1 titled “Called to be holy,” especially verses 10, & 13-21. This blog entry is about sharing my thoughts of the parallels between 1 Peter 1:1-21 and Zechariah 3. Chapter 3 in Zechariah is a tremendous passage in a tremendous book.
Perhaps the reference Peter makes to the prophets of old prophesying about the grace of God can be seen in view here in Zech 3:1-5. Let’s see.
“Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. 2The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?” 3Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. 4The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.” Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you.” 5Then I said, “Put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him, while the angel of the Lord stood by.”
My understanding is that Joshua the High Priest here is a picture of all Israel, called to be a holy (priestly) people before God and a light to the Gentiles. Now, I don’t want to spiritualize this passage or make it be about the Church.
In this vision, God was giving direct comfort and an explicit message to Israel, but there is a wider view that I think I as a NT believer after the cross can safely take in seeing the character of satan in this scenes and the character of God, because those things don’t change.
In looking at the nature of the uncleanliness of Israel in their sin … the words used here refer to their uncleanness as human waste of the filthiest kind. That is what “Joshua”/Israel was covered in. That is how God looks at sin. This is always instructive to see. Sin is not just ugly, but it is the worst sort of pollution. It’s absolute corruption.
The thought of standing before God in my own waste is a jarring enough picture. Satan is right to accuse Israel, they were filthy. They were idolatrous, blasphemous, and sinning upon sin. How does that old adage go? ‘When satan talks to us he lies but when he talks to God he tells the truth’. He is truthfully pointing out the sin that was staining Israel.
Satan accuses us New Testament believers also, including me. (Rev 12:10). I can imagine him standing next to Jesus saying, “Did you see that? She is filthy with sin!” Ow!
But the wondrous part is when I read in Zechariah that the LORD rebuked satan for pointing it out and making the accusation!! He reminds satan that He has pulled Israel out of the fire (and us too, after the cross, 1 John 2:1). How great is His mercy that despite our filth, He loves His chosen people (and by extension, us)! It is a tremendous, tremendous scene.
And then His mercy deepens by His decision to place clean garments on Israel. They truly are a people close to His heart aren’t they! And His Holy, Merciful nature is that He also put clean garments on us when we become justified. Perhaps I can say that as Peter says in verse 7, the faith that is “more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire” is this garment of salvation! The clean garments he places on us, and it is an amazing thing. Faith in His word He’ll cleanse us of our sin and have it remain so, forever, despite satan’s accusations.
As Zechariah closes out the section saying that the LORD ordered that a clean turban be put on the High Priest’s head, we read in Exodus 28:36 that the turban had an engraving on it that said “HOLY TO THE LORD”.
Replacing Israel’s filth stained garments, and after the cross, replacing the Church age believer’s filth stained garments, is to me the most incredible act in the entire universe. Is this what the angels think also, and is why they long to look into such things? (1 Peter 1:12). I dare to speculate perhaps so.
As we read further in the 1 Peter 1 chapter, the upcoming verses 13-15, the call of Peter for us to be holy is contrasted by this scene in Zechariah of the grace and mercy of God, who cleans His children of our own excrement, calls us holy, and gives us the garments to prove it so. Though the scene in Zechariah is discrete to Israel, I can use that picture to extend it through the cross to understand that He rebukes my accuser, cleans me of my filth, places on my head His name, and ordains over me the call to be Holy. We are to be holy because He is holy (Lev 11:44).
Understanding where I came from and what God has done for me through Jesus, and seeing the scene described so graphically in Zechariah helps me want to adhere fervently to the call of Peter to be holy for His sake- and not mine.
God is so great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By Elizabeth Prata
A friend of mine said that she loves sunsets. She and her gal friends, when they have an annual get-together at the beach, chase sunsets. They love the beauty and color and vibrancy and uniqueness of each one.
I do too!
That got me thinking about sunsets. Some time ago I had put up a few of my favorite sunset photos. I used to travel quite a bit, and enjoyed sunsets in many places and in many climes. One place we used to enjoy sunsets was Naples Florida. Naples is on the west coast of FL and almost as far south as far as you can go on the west side of the peninsula. The city overlooks the Gulf of Mexico.
When you have a city on a west coast overlooking the water, it provides a great view for seeing sunsets (and the green flash). People used to gather at the beach just before sunset. As the day waned and sunset drew near, the atmosphere at the beach changed from boisterous family fun, wheels of gulls, and screeches of children, to a quiet slapping of shutting folding chairs, towels snapping as they’re shook out, and slow crunch footprints in the sand as folks drift slowly away from the beach and back to the car.
Then the sunset chasers arrived. Clusters of folks would stand around, or sometimes sit, and watch the changing colors in the sky. The place would become quiet. Eyes would gravitate to the shore, and voices would become whispers, almost reverential, so as not to break the spell. The sun bedecked itself in glorious colors as it neared the horizon, and the hues became almost otherworldly. Voices were all silent now with eyes full of wonder tracking the orb’s descent. As the sun sank below the blue gulf, and the skies turned blue and purple itself, sunset watchers would sigh, and slowly fold their chairs and drift to their cars.
What is it about a sunset that evokes such reverence and attention from seekers, many of whom don’t even believe in God? It wasn’t a movie or a show or a musical or a circus…it was a sunset. What is it about sunsets?
so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs. You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy. ~Psalm 65:8
An old-time pastor named Charles E. Jefferson pondered the meaning of the sunset in his sermon with that title.
“How many sunsets have you seen during this last week, this last month, this last year? How many have you seen in the last ten years, the last twenty, the last thirty? I do not ask how many have you glanced at, but how many have you gazed upon, paid attention to, pondered? On how many have you held your mind long enough for it to become impressed, for an influence to be diffused through your heart, for a discipline to be exercised upon your spirit? How many sunsets stand out vivid and glorious on the walls of your memory? How many of you can say, that the glory of setting suns is an appreciable factor in the development of your emotional and spiritual life?” ~Charles E. Jefferson (1860-1937)
“The purpose of my sermon is to awaken in you the sense of condemnation, the consciousness of sin because of your neglect of this great feast of the Lord. I would have you think of the sunset as a means of grace. Have you ever counted up the means of grace? How long is your list? What have you included? Public worship? Yes. Bible reading? Yes. Prayer? Yes. Is that all? Have you not put down the sunset? That is a means of grace. By all means, put that down. It is a sacrament. It is the visible sign of an invisible grace. It is a symbol for mediating God’s grace to your heart. Put it down in the list of the means of grace; include it, also, in your list of sacraments. Reckon it a page in -your Bible. It is certainly a word ‘of the Lord.’ It is not a word of man. Man cannot speak after that fashion. There are some things- which God allows man to assist Him in making. If God wants a potato or a turnip, a cucumber or a squash, He allows man to help Him in producing it. If God wants a flower-bed or a lawn He allows man to collaborate with Him. But there are some things in which man can have no part. When God makes a sunset He says to man: “Now, please step aside; I want to do all this by Myself. You cannot in any way assist Me. This work is completely beyond you. I, alone, can produce a work like this.” Charles E. Jefferson (1860-1937)
The Bible says that all peoples from all nations, tribes, and tongues, have been made plainly aware of the attributes of our God the Holy Creator.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:19-20).
The sunset is a miracle, a sign, and a wonder. Pastor Jefferson continues,
“What a mystery it is that a thing so resplendently beautiful should be made of vibrations, and dust-particles and the movements of vapour. By reflection and refraction, and radiation and absorption, every dust particle obeying one law, and every vibration obeying another law, and every air-current obeying still another law, this stupendous miracle comes to pass.”
Consider the sunset. Consider the God who ordained it. Exult in the daily joy we have to worship His works and His creative power.
By Elizabeth Prata
I wrote the essay below in 2014. Eight years ago is a lifetime on the internet, and many people do not know this about Beth Moore. I publish it again now after a short conversation with a few people on Twitter brought it back to mind. I hope to show:
1. Publicly available information on the internet consistently shows Moore as an unbeliever in what she says and does,
2. Moore talks a lot and writes a lot, but is an expert at obfuscating even the largest and most obvious details about her life. You come away after reading 153 pages of this book more confused about it when you started. See section below about true Christian transparency,
3. As always, my refrain is, though 2.8 million people follow Beth Moore on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, don’t you be one of them. Beth Moore is a false teacher who seeks to disqualify you from the prize.
Continue reading “Book Review: "Things Pondered," Beth Moore’s story of adopting a boy and giving him back”By Elizabeth Prata
There’s a meme going around where people post photos of the men who have been part of your spiritual journey. It’s interesting. Of course the moment I posted mine, a person came on and commented “How about following Christ, not men?” Sigh. There’s always one.
Anyway, mine went like this:
Joel Osteen, Adrian Rogers, John MacArthur. Some didn’t know who Adrian was, I posted part of his bio that he was three time President of the Southern Baptist Convention, was conservative and stood for those theological principles, his ministry was Love Worth Finding and you can still tune in and hear his sermons today, and was a four point Calvinist or sometimes confused Arminian. He had his own theological journey, lol.
Of course someone immediately came on and started crabbing about Calvinism. I replied a few times then just deleted her comments. There’s always one. Sigh.
But they represent a journey that’s apt for me. I was new to the faith. Osteen was at the height of popularity. I listened to Osteen because I loved the arc of his rhetoric, because I thought with such a large church he must be THE guy, and because his man-pleasing speeches touched me. But as I grew and opened my Bible more and more along with what he was saying I saw pretty quickly thanks to the Holy Spirit that he was far from it. I ditched Osteen.
I loved Rogers’ clear delivery and deeper theological concepts. His focus on the sovereignty of God was a balm to my increasingly sanctified soul.
Yet as I studied it became clear that God was sovereign also in salvation, that He pre-ordained whom He would choose for salvation, and once I heard MacArthur confirm what I’d been learning from my study of the Word, that was it for me. I’d found my guy.
Not to say that I wasn’t also influenced by my own pastor, or by other men. There’s Sproul and the men at Ligonier. There’s The Master’s Seminary and the men under JMac. In the discussion on my Facebook page of who we enjoy listening to, someone mentioned Martyn Lloyd-Jones. The Doctor, the man of Logic on Fire. I agreed he was a good one also. Aren’t we blessed in this day and age to have such opportunities to hear such men of God expound the word?!
When the commenter mentioned Lloyd-Jones, it reminded me of a blog post I’d published a few years ago on MLJ’s sermon series on the Eternal Decrees of God. It’s the best sermon I’ve ever heard on the “Eternal Decrees of God”, and one of the best sermons I’ve heard on any topic, ever. It is by UK preacher from the last century, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and it’s 50 minutes long. This is the first sermon in his wonderful series, Great Biblical Doctrines. Please take a listen, I know you will be edified.
Blurb: “Scripture: The character of God’s activities; antinomy explained; the importance of understanding the harmony of the Biblical doctrines; God’s unchanging plan; the decrees of God are unconditional and sovereign; problems in understanding this doctrine; God is not unjust.“
MLJ’s other sermons are at the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Trust, here. I recommend him. Who do you enjoy listening to?
By Elizabeth Prata
Picture Peter and friends on the boat, in the middle of Lake Galilee.
Suddenly one of the men in the boat looked out and said, “Someone is walking on the water!” Sure enough, with robes flowing in the wind, here comes Jesus walking across the whitecaps.
Peter cried out, “Is that You, Lord?”
The Lord answered, “It is I”
Peter said, “Can I come?”
By Elizabeth Prata
Earthquake, tornado, sinkhole, flood, tsunami, ice/snow storm…People are unsettled after a natural disaster and they go looking for answers. The views here at the blog spike after a disaster but they rise the most after an earthquake more than any other natural disaster.
Personally I think quakes unsettle people because this is the very ground we walk on that is moving, splitting, and otherwise kicking up. If solidity isn’t solid, than maybe invisible God is real…The subconscious thought or fear is likely, “If the earth isn’t solid, then what is?”
God of course.
Continue reading “God the creator and God the UNcreator”By Elizabeth Prata
We’re familiar with infinity, even if we can’t really comprehend it. We know the Realtor selling point “There’s an infinity pool!” or the Toy Story motto “To Infinity and beyond!” which is pretty funny actually.
In the second grade classroom in which I am stationed as teacher aide, there is a number line above the Smart board. (AKA chalkboard for us old timers). To the left of zero are a host of negative numbers and to the right of zero is a host of increasing whole numbers. The teacher occasionally mentions to the kids that the numbers go on and on, to infinity.
When I was a schoolchild I learned about the number googol. I used to think that a googol was the largest number. It isn’t. But here is a Wikipedia definition of a googol:
A googol is the large number 10 to the 100. In decimal notation, it is written as the digit 1 followed by one hundred 0s. The term was coined in 1920 by 9-year-old Milton Sirotta (1911–1981), nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner. A googol has no special significance in mathematics. However, it is useful when comparing with other very large quantities such as the number of subatomic particles in the visible universe or the number of hypothetical possibilities in a chess game. Kasner used it to illustrate the difference between an unimaginably large number and infinity, and in this role it is sometimes used in teaching mathematics.
Wikipedia
The ancients had a difficult time expressing just large numbers. For centuries, the standard way to describe any number over 10,000 was “myriad.” A really, REALLY big number would be ‘myriad myriads’. Here in Deuteronomy 32:30 ISV the rhetorical question is asked how could one of the the thinly populated Jews have put ten thousand soldiers to flight, or two of the Jews put “a myriad to flight”. Other translations say ten thousand.
How can one person chase a thousand of them and two put a myriad to flight, unless their Rock delivers them and the LORD gives them up?
Of course a verse that comes immediately to mind is Revelation 5:11-
Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands,
One day, the famous mathematician Archimedes (287BC-212BC) wanted to sort of count the number of grains of sand, Or rather, he wondered how many grains of sand would be the upper limit of grains of sand that could fit into the universe. Archimedes definitely had big thoughts.Yet he knew that ‘myriad upon myriad’ was not going to suffice as a reckoning for this large number experiment he desired to perform. Wikipedia says,
In order to do this, he had to estimate the size of the universe according to the contemporary model, and invent a way to talk about extremely large numbers. … Archimedes had to invent a system of naming large numbers. The number system in use at that time could express numbers up to a myriad (μυριάς — 10,000), and by utilizing the word “myriad” itself, one can immediately extend this to naming all numbers up to a myriad myriads (10 to the 8th power.)
Wikipedia
And Archimedes went from there.
Anyway, the ancients had a hard time naming large numbers, and infinity is just beyond us all. It means endless, and comprehending endless numbers, or endless anything, is impossible.
Here’s another brain buster. The only reason we can even have numbers to infinity is because of God. God is infinite. He is beyond everything that there is.
Even though in our own crude, puny human way, we can only express the majestic God as myriad upon myriad big, the fact that we have an infinite relationship with Him is enough. Our time with Him is endless, boundless, impossible to calculate. We will worship Him in infinite glory endlessly.
—————————
Further Reading
the-end-time.org 