salvation – Page 5

Father, grace, holy spirit, irresistible grace, salvation

The Irresistible Grace of the Father and its role in Salvation

Posted on May 8, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

I had resisted the pull from the Father toward the cross and His moment of justification. (John 6:44). I was not successful, obviously. But I vividly remember the feeling that I was OK about the concept of God but not OK with the sin and the blood of Jesus. It was just too weird. Of course we know the bible teaches that Jesus’ general call to the world (Matthew 22:14) was not an effectual call for each person upon it. (Romans 8:28). My thoughts and opinions of the matter didn’t figure into His process of salvation for me one iota.

I remember feeling like I was being drawn somewhere, (John 6:65) but kicking and screaming. I used to liken it (mentally) to the science fiction use of the famous “tractor beam.”

The 1960s show Star Trek used the tractor beam a lot, with ship engineer Scotty always yelling they were caught in it and they couldn’t get out no matter how many shields they put up or how much force they turned the engined up to. Star Wars too.

“We’re caught in a tractor beam! It’s pulling us in!” ―Han Solo, Star Wars

In “Star Trek,” tractor beams were often used to pull spaceships and other objects closer to the focal point of the light source attached to another ship. The term came from a 1931 science fiction story where the author had used the term “attractor beam”.

I used to call this palpable draw ‘the invisible tractor beam’ and now I know it was the Father drawing me to Jesus. I resisted it forcibly.

I was unsuccessful. Thank God!

After I was saved, I was talking with another Christian and I was laughing about my foolishness to resist the Holy Spirit. I said, “I was dragged kicking and screaming to the cross.” They looked at me disdainfully and said “You were not!” I knew I was. The notion that person had, and so many others have, is that we all come to the cross gently and walking on cotton candy rainbows, placidly and willingly. It is such a false view. We resist salvation every step of the way and it is the Father drawing us that gets us there. (So none may boast- Ephesians 2:9)

We resist the grace of Jesus in salvation, we are in a spiritual war in which we are the enemy combatants, and we never, ever seek after righteousness or holiness, in fact we resist it.

I picture Justification as a courtroom where the guilty criminal is hustled by burly bailiffs to stand before the judge in handcuffs for his own safety, the accused yelling he’s innocent, but made to look at the judge and receive his sentence while he writhes against the process. (Sentence: PARDON!). It is all spiritual warfare and none of it is easy or gentle. But Scripture reveals a truth about a call, a summons that cannot be ignored and it cannot be resisted. It is the unyielding summons from God. It is a subpoena to appear before Him in His court for the purpose of being declared righteous… ~John MacArthur

We’re all dragged in the ‘invisible tractor beam’ toward the point of Light, and we all resist – some more than others but resistance is 100% for each person. However just like the science fiction stories say, “Resistance is futile!” lol. Wouldn’t you like to see a behind the scenes view of the process of our own justification, the angels around us, both holy and unholy, and the Spirit doing His work?

My own experience notwithstanding, as I learned by studying the Doctrines of Grace, His grace is irresistible. That is a very good thing, because if we had the strength to resist Him fully we would be sovereign over God. In addition, He would not be God if His will could be thwarted. And finally, none of us would be saved. (Romans 3:11)

Here are three good essays on the Irresistible Grace of the Savior. I’ve included an excerpt from each.

John Piper: Irresistible Grace
“The doctrine of irresistible grace means that God is sovereign and can overcome all resistance when he wills. “He does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand!” (Daniel 4:35). “Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases” (Psalm 115:3). When God undertakes to fulfill his sovereign purpose, no one can successfully resist him.This is what Paul taught in Romans 9:14-18, which caused his opponent to say, “Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”

“Irresistible Grace – is it biblical?”
“Simply put, the doctrine of irresistible grace refers to the biblical truth that whatever God decrees to happen will inevitably come to pass, even in the salvation of individuals. The Holy Spirit will work in the lives of the elect so that they inevitably will come to faith in Christ. The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit never fails to bring to salvation those sinners whom He personally calls to Christ (John 6:37-40).”

John Murray: Irresistible Grace
“When we speak of irresistible grace, therefore, it is not to assert that all grace is irresistible, nor is it to deny the numberless respects in which grace is resisted and resisted to the culmination of resistance in everlasting doom.”

The Doctrine of God’s Effectual Call
Paul understood that he was just grabbed by the neck by God and awakened to the glory of Christ and saved and made an Apostle.

jesus, righteousness, salvation

A plea for your salvation

Posted on March 7, 2014 by elizabethprata

This is me, one woman’s plain-language plea for those who read this blog who are unsaved to believe in the Gospel.

We can see God plainly because He has made Himself plain in creation. (Romans 1:19). He has set eternity in our hearts. (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We know it, but we suppress it. Why? We’re sinners.

Because we’re all born sinners and do wrong from even in the womb, (Psalm 51:5), we can’t go to heaven after we die. There IS a heaven, and after-life that lasts forever. So heaven exists but what would make it heaven if we’re all there acting like we are here? It would not be heaven.

Only God is holy, that is, without sin. He does no wrong, He does not lie. He is perfect in righteousness…and we’re not. (1 John 1:18, Ecclesiastes 7:20, Romans 3:10).

Therefore humans have a problem, don’t we? We can’t do right, having a sin nature, and God is righteous and the bridge is so wide. A great gulf is fixed between us and Him…except that Jesus came to be that bridge. He lived a sinless life as a man, in the days of His flesh He was tempted as we are but overcame it all. He died on the cross as a criminal who had done no wrong, and took on all of God’s wrath and punishment for our sins.

It is true, God is angry with you for sinning. God hates sin. Hates it. (Psalm 5:4). He has wrath about it. He was pleased to crush His son (again are you shocked at this language? It came straight from the bible, Isaiah 53:10). Then, pleased with His Son, God raised Jesus from the dead, and brought Him to glory. Now Jesus is not only the bridge, but the door we can go through to get to heaven.

Picture a car wash. The car is put on the tracks and goes through the building with powerful washing, and emerges the other side sparkling clean. Scrubbed from top to bottom. We don’t get out and scrub the car, it is automatically scrubbed while we do not contribute to the work. Jesus’s blood washes our sins away and if we go through Him we emerge clean by His works and we can go on to heaven.

But how do we get to the car wash? How do we get clean?

Repent.

That means hating your sins and asking Jesus to forgive them. He can and He does. He lived the life on earth and resisted performing even one sin, even one thought of sin. He is qualified to forgive us because He has triumphed over sin, and He took your punishment for them.

If you do not seek Jesus and repent of sins, believing He is qualified to forgive you because He is the resurrected Son of God, then God will reject you when you die and come asking to get into heaven. Those who reject Jesus will be rejected in turn. If God was pleased to crush His sinless Son, (Isaiah 53:10) do YOU think you’d fare any better standing before Him pleading your own sinful case?

It might sound shocking to hear of things like God hates sin or being rejected or crushing His Son. The world certainly teaches that God is [only] love and that heaven is open to all. But I go back to the original, if you go to heaven like you are now, and so does everybody, what makes it heaven? Earth is a terrible place, full of murderers and liars and child molesters. Even if you are not those things, you’re a greedy, coveting, lying, cretin who doesn’t do good and has poison in your heart. If you have ever even had one malicious thought, you’re a sinner. So again, what makes heaven, heaven, if YOU’RE there?

I was a sinner too. I still am, but I asked Jesus to forgive me (Romans 10:9) and in His mercy, He did. He sent the Holy Spirit to indwell me so as to help me resist sin. I still have that sin nature but I am a new creation in Christ. I am IN Christ. You see, once we emerge from that car wash, the track leads straight to Jesus’s arms and He enfolds us to Himself and He is in us and we are in Him. There is no better place to be, than in the One who is righteous, sinless, holy, living and perfect. He will never forsake me nor let me go. No one or nothing can snatch me from his hand.

He will give you the desires of your heart. Your desire is to sin. If you reject Him and won’t repent, He will allow you to fulfill your desire to sin, but that disqualifies you from entering heaven. When you die, you will get your wish to be apart from Jesus forever. You will got to hell. Hell is real and at this very second it is full of people who thought they were saved because they were good. Thought they had the right religion. Thought there was no God, or hell, or heaven.

So repent while it is the day and not the night. Your foot shall slide in due time. Jonathan Edwards described the enormity of an eternal hell:

It is everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see a long for ever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. So that your punishment will indeed be infinite. Oh, who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it, gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it; it is inexpressible and inconceivable: For “who knows the power of God’s anger?”

This is the Gospel from the bible:

The Resurrection of Christ

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” (1 Corinthians 15:1-8)

america, mark of the beast, repentance, salvation, tribulation

US company wants to bring free wi-fi to 100% of world: mark of the beast technology?

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

I enjoyed Rapture Ready editor Terry James’s essay this week called Tribulation Technologies Tightening. The title is evocative, isn’t it? Mr James said, “Things are progressing so quickly in the area of people-control technologies that I must admit I simply can’t keep up.“

What he is referring to is the fact that during the prophesied 7-year tribulation period at the end of the end of days, certain technologies will have been developed which will aid certain events to come to pass. For example, this verse:

“He required everyone—small and great, rich and poor, free and slave—to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. And no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name.” (Revelation 13:16-17)

For it to come to fruition, first, there must exist some sort of tracking and identification technology that the antichrist and false prophet can even begin to catch up to and track each person, “everyone”, in order to force them to take the mark. Second, there must be some sort of technology in place that tracks financial purchases at every point of sale so that people without the mark will be banned at that point of sale from buying anything.

Here is another verse where some sort of technology will exist that will become part of the verse’s fulfillment:

“For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb. and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.” (Revelation 11:9-10)

This was an ancient way of saying ‘the whole world.’

And how will the whole world gaze at their bodies for three and a half days, the mews getting around so fast that people have time to go out and buy and exchange gifts? Television. Satellite. Cell phones. But even then, there are many places in the world where people don’t have electricity, or tv’s or cell phones or cell phone coverage. Additionally, countries like China and North Korea have censored online activity, denying their citizenry the opportunity to view and participate in world news.

But now there’s the following interesting news:
“There’s really nothing that is technically impossible to this.”
Company plans to beam free Wi-fi to every person on Earth from space
“[O]ne ambitious organisation called the Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF) is planning to turn the age of online computing on its head by giving free web access to every person on Earth. Known as Outernet, MDIF plans to launch hundreds of satellites into orbit by 2015. And they say the project could provide unrestricted Internet access to countries where their web access is censored, including China and North Korea. Using something known as datacasting technology, which involves sending data over wide radio waves, the New York-based company says they’ll be able to broadcast the Internet around the world. The Outernet team claim that only 60% of the world’s population currently have access to the wealth of knowledge that can be found on the Internet. This is because, despite a wide spread of Wi-FI devices across the globe, many countries are unable or unwilling to provide people with the infrastructure needed to access the web.“

Well, the so-called outernet would certainly take care of the problem of 40% of the world not having access to instantaneous news, wouldn’t it.

In other news I’ve been amazed at the speed with which America has declined. I was born in 1960, at a time when there was the gold standard, US astronauts zooming to the moon and back, winning the cold war, beating the Russians at Olympic Hockey, and being the world’s sole superpower. Nothing was impossible and it seemed like the US could and would go on forever.

That was an illusion, as the 2007-2008 economic crash showed us. The National Review has a good article on the US decline.

The United States of Decline
America unravels at an increasingly dizzying pace. America is unraveling at a stunning speed and to a staggering degree. This decline is breathtaking, and the prognosis is dim. For starters, Obama now rules by decree. Reportedly for the 27th time, he has changed the rules of Obamacare singlehandedly, with neither congressional approval nor even ceremonial resolutions to limit his actions. Obama needs no such frivolities. “That’s the good thing about being president,” Obama joked on February 10. “I can do whatever I want.” In an especially bitter irony, Obama uttered these despicable words while guiding French president François Hollande through Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson — a key architect of America’s foundation of limited government.
…
Earth’s sole superpower is sagging where it should be No. 1. America has slouched to No. 12 on the 2014 Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom. “Now considered only a ‘mostly free’ economy, the U.S. has earned the dubious distinction of having recorded one of the longest sustained declines in economic freedom, second only to Argentina, of any country in the [20-year] history of the Index,” the report states. “The U.S. is the only country to have recorded a loss of economic freedom each of the past seven years.”

In my personal opinion, having been an active and acute observer of American life and cultural mores for 50 years, the end is near. I am daily amazed at the implosion of just about every aspect of both American and global life. The decline of morals, the persecution of the Christian religion (higher now than ever in history), declining economy, craven entertainment, unscrupulous personal and governmental finances, rising lack of conscience, the emergence of technologies, church tares over-running the pews, extreme weather, geo-political collapses (Kiev anyone?), natural disasters, all occurring at once and so constantly, and with ever increasing extremity, all serve to show me and perhaps you too that truly the end is near.

The Lord has given his world 2000 years to heed the words of Messiah. What a gracious and long-suffering Savior we have. He said that He would build His church and that when it is complete the rapture would come and He would then turn His attention to finish the transgression of Israel. (Matthew 16:18, Romans 11:25, Daniel 9:24).

I believe the time is short to repent and become folded in to the beauty and certainty of the Lord’s church. He will whisk His bride home and then unleash the worst wrath and times upon the earth that ever was or will be. (Matthew 24:21). Please heed these things. Please, please repent.

What is repentance and is it necessary for salvation?

Is repentance required for salvation?

Repentance

The Doctrine of Repentance

Action Jones, encouragement, salvation

Salvation: an illustration by Action Jones

Posted on February 15, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Action Jones made his illustrations freely available for ministry. Here is one titled Salvation

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” – Jesus Christ, from the Gospel of John 6:63

Only the Holy Spirit of God can bring a dead sinful soul to cry out to Jesus for eternal life – and if we are to be saved, this is exactly the miracle that must happen.

If you’re reading this and do not love Jesus and trust Him as your Master and Savior – this can happen to you right now if you’d just recognize your desperation and call out to Him.”

More Action Jones on:

Deviantart
Tumblr blog: Full of Eyes
Youtube

charles manson, evil, father of lies, pope, salvation, timothy mcveigh

What do Joel Osteen and the Timothy McVeigh have in common? Mother Teresa and Hitler?

Posted on February 8, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Pastor Don Green of Truth Community Fellowship preached an excellent sermon on February 2, 2014 titled Who is Satan?

He posed a question at the beginning of the sermon, asking, “Have we underestimated satan?” It is a question that I believe has a resounding ‘yes’ for an answer. I recommend the sermon, which is unvarnished truth about satan, satanic schemes, and the demonic horde, combined with a look at the grace of Jesus. Meanwhile, here are some transcribed excerpts,

Paul wrote, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,” (1 Timothy 4:1)

These doctrines of demons, Pastor Green said, are “not necessarily going to be fiery displays of evil, it will be things cloaked in things that sound palatable to the human ear, things that sound plausible. Things that give you the sense that you can work your way into heaven, or that ultimately God is going forgive everyone and no one will go to hell. Or perhaps that God isn’t as holy, or that you’re not as bad as the scripture says you to be. The vast diversity of evil that the devil propagates through so many different systems shouldn’t confuse us to the ultimate fact that there is a common root.“

Pastor Green made the point that there are only two sides. There is the Spirit of truth, and the father of lies. There is no in between. He said, “Satan is the father of every lie that opposes the Gospel. He is a liar and the father of lies.“

You know that if someone is not from God, they are of the devil. Truth is not relative. Biblical truth is either/or. (Mark 9:40).

Pastor Green explained,

When we see false doctrine being taught, we need to understand there is more going on than a man who is mistaken. There is a spiritual force at work whether the man is aware of it or not. Men become the mouthpiece of the deceiver of souls. What should frighten us is that satan has the supernatural capacity to make himself look like, to present himself as one who is bringing light, not darkness.

In my never-ending quest to starkly illustrate the truth of the bible’s words, and that it is the same evil behind all that opposes God, no matter how ‘gentle’ it first appears, here are a series of paired photographs.

The same evil that spurred Charles Manson to become a cult leader and a murderer is behind the Pope, too, who is also a cult leader and a murderer of truth and souls, creating sons of hell. (Matthew 23:15)

The same evil that whispered to Hitler to roast Jews in ovens

is behind the Catholic Mother Teresa, whose refusal to share the Gospel sent many to roasting in hell forever, and who said, “There are so many religions and each one has its different ways of following God. I follow Christ”.

The same evil that is behind Timothy McVeigh and his bombing of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City, killing children in the daycare there along with many others,

is behind Joel Osteen, whose doctrines of demons delude millions every week. Many wither on his vine and die weekly

Too awful to contemplate? Yes, it is. The murderous, unsaved men such as Manson, Hitler and McVeigh are children of the father of lies and it is the same spirit that popes, preachers, and religious workers in false religions serve, too. When they die, unless they repent, they all will go to the place where the father of lies is prepared for, hell. Popes, “Mother” Teresa, and Joel Osteen all present themselves as workers of light, but they are in fact all darkness and their evil deeds are the same as the aforementioned men in the murderous category. They all have a common root. Satan.

Here is another either/or:
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” (Galatians 6:7-8)

The good news is that satan has been vanquished by our holy and wonderful Jesus. Jesus came to live as a man for 33 years, teaching and preaching for the last three. He was unjustly killed, shedding His blood for sinners, and exhausted God’s wrath for us. Pleased with His Son’s sacrifice, Jesus was raised from the dead by the power of God on the third day, and has ascended to the Father. Jesus will return in glory to judge the living and the dead.

I’ll paraphrase what Pastor Green said about the urgency of the message. I don’t know if you will be here tomorrow to read these things on this blog or any other blog. I don’t know if I’ll be here tomorrow to repeat them. Your eternal soul is at stake. Please take this seriously. Satan is real, he is a devourer of souls, and if you’re not in Christ at this moment, you’re blinded to the fact that you’re standing on a gossamer web hanging over hell. Your foot shall slide in due time, and your fate will be sealed. Come to Christ now,

“And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain– for He says, “AT THE ACCEPTABLE TIME I LISTENED TO YOU, AND ON THE DAY OF SALVATION I HELPED YOU.” Behold, now is “THE ACCEPTABLE TIME,” behold, now is “THE DAY OF SALVATION.” (2 Corinthians 6:1-2)

christmas hymns, eternity, salvation

Favorite Christmas Hymns: O Come All Ye Faithful

Posted on December 13, 2013 by elizabethprata

We all have our favorite religious Christmas hymns. I mean the ones about the true meaning of Christmas and not the ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ kind.

I’ve always loved O Come All Ye Faithful. It moves me, and the words just seem to lift my spirit. Here is the first verse.

O come all ye faithful joyful and triumphant
Oh come ye O come ye to Bethlehem;
come and behold him born the King of angels;
O come let us adore him Christ the Lord.

When it would come on the radio, I’d sing with feeling and fervor. The song just gave me a good feeling and I would always perk up when that seasonal song came on.

Now for the funny part: I felt this before I was saved.

I wonder now, post-salvation, who I thought I was singing about, back then. Why the good feelings of joy and peace when singing it? I was a depraved enemy of God, apart from Him and unreconciled. Strange.

Here is the second verse.

O Sing, choirs of angels, Sing in exultation,
Sing all that hear in heaven God’s holy word.
Give to our Father glory in the Highest;
O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.

How was I singing about the Lord? Why were they adoring Him so much? I didn’t know, but I sang it with feeling. Normally in everyday life if I came across someone who was talking about the Lord I’d become angry and shut down the conversation. I mocked the notion of a virgin birth. In everyday life I’d reject every aspect of Jesus and the whole Gospel, every element of it. Especially the part about me being a sinner.

Yet every 12th month, Christmas would come around and I’d sing “O come let us adore Him” with the best of them.

I always thought that strange.

After a person is saved, if they look back over the landscape of their lives, they can see little markers of salvation future. Bread crumbs in the dark evil forest showing the way. I remember being fascinated when a long-lost aunt told me about the rapture when I was ten years old. I didn’t see her again much but the one time I stayed there she took advantage and told me. I remember bursting into tears when reading “Footprints in the sand” a sappy poem about Jesus carrying a person during their times of trouble. I wondered, even through my tears, why I’d been moved so much when I didn’t even believe in Jesus.

Romans 1:18-32 describes the fact that all humans have knowledge of God, no matter when they lived and no matter where they lived. Romans 1:19-20 explains,

“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.”

Then the verses go on to say what happens. Though His eternal attributes can plainly be seen in in creation, they deliberately suppress this truth (Romans 1:18) and they choose not to honor Him (Romans 1:21). The rest of the verses show what happens to a person the longer they deliberately suppress the truth.

I am an example of salvation by this method. Though I was raised in an atheist home, I traveled a lot and plainly saw the complexity and beauty of the earth, the precision of the tides, the movement of the planets and the change of seasons. It was all so orderly, eventually I decided there must be a God. It seemed pretty clear.

Salvation does not come until one repents and believed the Gospel, but the key here is that I did not deliberately suppress the truth, I saw plainly that through creation God existed. Also, I felt deeply that there must be an eternity (Ecc 3:11) and since there is an eternity, someone must run it. The door was kept open in my mind, I never suppressed nor rejected, and at the right time the Spirit worked on my soul and then I claimed the name of Jesus and was saved.

Though I don’t like to write about myself, I share this to offer any person reading this…hope. Don’t give up! I spent years in the wilderness, yet the eternity set in every person’s heart, in my heart, flickered weakly. The conscience, the creation, the Spirit, all working on me until the moment of salvation. Your brother, sister, friend, mother, child may also be feeling these perplexing spiritual feelings and not know why. By God’s grace, someday, they will.

salvation

Ruinous distress crushed in an instant

Posted on August 21, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

In making an “altered book”, you take an abandoned book and tear out some pages and glue the rest together in chunks. Cover the page with paper or glue, and leave exposed the words that you want to appear. Collage around the rest. In this page of a book I did some years ago, I left the words “ruinous distress crushed in an instant.” The ruinous distress is living life without Jesus. It is ruinous because the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). The terrible bird looking thing, I think just matched the distress we feel, whether we admit it or not, when we are outside of the life of Jesus pre-justification.

Our distress is crushed in an instant when He saves us from death! He is so much more powerful than any of our sins, any of our distress, any of our lives, no matter how long we have lived apart from Him. He crushes our sin because He has already crushed our sin, at the cross! He stomped on the serpent’s head and thereby took the power satan has over us. Once inside Jesus, we are victorious because HE is victorious! His power is such that all it takes is an instant, the instant of salvation snatches us from the god of this world and delivers us to His kingdom forever. Repentance is the key. His sovereign will is the key.

Not that we aren’t tormented by sin any more, we are still living on this planet and it is drenched in sin. Satan still tries to get us to sin, but the power of its chains over us has been broken.

O LORD, I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds. (Psalm 116:16)

creation, God, sailing, salvation, testimony

A Testimony

Posted on July 22, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Yah, here’s some personal stuff, which you know I hate to talk about. Someone had asked me in a comment if I have a testimony on the blog. I don’t, so here it is. Jesus is great.

As an 18 year old, I’d decided I wanted a traditional life. It felt right and good to pursue that. I’d grown up in a time which normalized everything that was contrary to God: open marriage, adultery, feminism, gender roles were reversed, experimentation was encouraged, drugs & alcohol were everywhere, etc. It was the 60s. None of that seemed right or good to me. I decided I wanted a marriage, home, and a career as a teacher. I wanted a solid, grounded, traditional life.

When I went to college I found the man. We hooked up when I was a freshman, and moved in together by sophomore year. We married when we graduated. We saved for a house, those were the days when you saved up, and put 20% down on a home. It was new, and we saved up for the furniture, and by then I’d gotten a teaching job. My husband was an engineer. Normal!

By the time I was age 26 he had found another woman, had an affair, and left. I was against the divorce. He left anyway. What happened to the traditional life I’d worked for? I did everything right, but it hadn’t worked out. I was perplexed. Where had it all gone wrong?

I was left with a mortgage to pay on a beginning teacher’s salary. Hard. I got a second job working 4 nights a week at the local movie theater, and still not making it, I got a third, weekend job at a local bookstore. It was still obvious to me that it was better to go through life two by two, a married man and woman, but no man was on the horizon. Alone, I had to deal with the chimney sweep who wouldn’t leave the house when he’d finished cleaning the woodstove, the tax preparer making crude and inappropriate comments as he looked over my W2s, the car salesman who said we had to finalize the car deal at the local bar, the rapist stalker I worked with the police to catch… It is clear that it was much better for a woman be married to and under the protection of the husband, emotionally, financially, and safety-wise. This is a philosophy many women today reject.

By the time I was 29 I was wrung out, tired, and frustrated with life. I pondered the following questions constantly:

–Is this all there is to life? It seemed that life was so short compared to whatever else was out there. What was it all for? To work 50 years, retire and die? It seemed all pointless. Humans had obviously not evolved but there had to be another purpose to man, since biological human complexity far outweighed the vaporousness of what seemed like a relatively short life.

This was the 80s and consumerism was at its height. I had a house, a new car, a 27 inch tv, a VCR (expensive item in those days) yet none of the ‘stuff’ fulfilled me either. I had friends and literary and cultural pursuits and dinner parties and jaunts to the beach but those didn’t satisfy for very long either. I was totally confused as to what life was about. I knew deep in my heart, though, that something else was out there. I kept looking.

That was the Ecclesiastes portion of my life.

By the time I was 29 I’d had it with traditional living. It was not cutting it for me. Maybe the 60s were right, a NON-traditional life was the way to go, except that people picked the wrong experiences to have and I’d pick better ones. I decided to dump my life and find a new one. My version of a non-traditional life was to not work a 9-5 job but instead to travel. I joined an Earthwatch Archaeological expedition and went to Italy for a month, the first two weeks traveling by myself and the second two in Tuscany digging up a castle.

At this exact time my friends set me up with a date with a man. We went out a few times but didn’t really connect, until he asked the $64,000 question. “If money was no object and you could live any way you wanted to, what would you do?” I answered right away that I’d get on a boat and sail to Bora Bora. He dropped his slice of pizza and said that he was in the middle of buying a yacht and he planned to sail to The Bahamas. We discussed our philosophies of non-traditional living, and by the time I came back from my August in Italy, he’d bought the boat and we went sailing away by October.

And so began the Romans 1 portion of my life- God revealed in creation.

We sailed about 11,000 nautical miles, we delivered a 22 foot motor boat from Naples Fl to RI adding another 1100 miles under our keel, we went across country in the VW van, we went in an ice breaker ship in Labrador, we drove around Ecuador, train traveled around Europe a bunch of times etc. I was still looking for that ever elusive something, and indeed my heart connected with God by seeing His creation, but not Jesus and my sin.

It was not until the third portion of salvation road that got me over the salvation threshold, something from the book of Mark (a story for another day).

Sailing was interesting. I saw the entire US coastline at a 3mph rate. We docked in every port. We passed every type of marine conveyance from kayak to aircraft carrier. We learned about canals and locks. The Dismal Swamp, Intracoastal Waterway, barges, fishermen, Chesapeake watermen, bridge tenders, smugglers. In the photo below, we had decided to make an overnight passage sailing from Charleston SC to St Augustine FL. The photo was snapped by my husband at about 6AM, it was sunrise and I’d had the dogwatch- 4-6 am. It’s the coldest, darkest part of the night and you are never so happy as when you see that sunrise. Everyone hates the dogwatch. I’m dressed in three sweatshirts and two pairs of sweatpants, and gripping a cup of hot, black coffee my husband had just passed me as it it was a life preserver!

Ocean sailing at night is disorienting. You look and look for the Lighthouse and when you see that light you sigh with a deep relief because now you know where you are and where you are going.

The famous diamond pattern on Cape Hatteras, NC lighthouse.

In the ocean, there are things to hit. Buoys. Whales. Even containers. When a container ship is in a storm, some of the containers fall off the deck, did you know? They float just a few feet below the surface for a few hours or so on their way to the bottom. If you’re sailing at night, there’s no way you’d see it in the dark. During the day you might notice a strange wave pattern- if you happen to be looking that way. Sometimes you read in the paper that a container washed up, once a container full of Nikes spilled out onto a WA beach. This is a snippet of a news article from 1999 Nat Geo:

“The sneakers were lost at sea when the container ship P&O Nedlloyd Auckland encountered a hurricane mid-Pacific. Heavy rolling threw a dozen 40-foot-long (12-meter) containers overboard, two filled with Nike shoes.”

Hopetown Harbor, Bahamas lighthouse

Anyway, until the container is either picked up or washes ashore or sinks completely, it presents a hazard to mariners. Sometimes you hit one and you sink. Or you could hit a whale. Steve Callahan’s story was made famous in the 80s with the publication of his book, Adrift: 76 Days Lost At Sea. He “hit an unknown object” and his badly damaged boat sank, he later said he thought it was a whale. He made a sextant with three pencils and an elastic he had in his pocket and navigated himself in the lifeboat that way. Cool.

Coastal overnight sailing is more hazardous than mid-ocean overnight sailing. Objects in the mid-ocean are there but the chances of hitting them are reduced dramatically. Sailing at night along the coast means you have to be ever vigilant that the wind doesn’t push you toward shore- and hidden reefs- or that the current doesn’t push you, or that you don’t hit other boats out there fishing or smuggling (illegal fishermen and smugglers don’t use running lights). The biblical metaphor here is that in coastal sailing you have to constantly check course. Even being a half a degree off for any length of time could wash you up on the rocks pronto. That’s why I don’t give an inch on doctrine. None of the Apostles did, warning us severely.

Below is a photo of our vessel. A Tayana 37, Taiwanese made 37′ boat with wooden mast, wooden bowsprit, full keel, faux-lapstrake, beamy, lots of beautiful teak, and 24,000 pounds of solid, if not immediately responsive, live-aboard sailing yacht. I used to joke that we had to make a reservation to get her to come about. She was a good boat.

Anyway, she was my home for two years, along with my husband and the myriad of motley non-traditionalist fellow sailors out there who became friends. We were all looking for that certain something. I know I found it and it turns out that I didn’t even have to sail 11,000 miles to find it. Or maybe I did.

The sailing ended at age 34, the world traveling ended at age 40. Then I got saved at age 43. Ah! So THIS is what life is all about!

When Jesus talks of Him being the Lighthouse, I can relate. When Paul says do not make a shipwreck of your faith, I can understand. When Hebrews writer says do not drift away, I get it. When Jude warns of hidden reefs and wild waves of the sea swept along by winds, I know what he means.

Shakespeare was right, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Hamlet) I knew it, I just knew it.

“For the invisible things of him, that is, his eternal power and Godhead, are seen by the creation of the world, being considered in his works, to the intent that they should be without excuse” (Romans 1:20)

The LORD made a wondrous world, set me adrift in it, watched me from the beginning, gradually shortened the leash, and in His timing, brought me to His bosom. I traded the leash of sin for the chains of glorious servitude to my master. More to the metaphor, my anchor holds, He is Jesus, and the chain will never break. As beautiful as this world is, I know that the next one will defy comprehension and exceed in beauty anything we can conceive. “No man has seen…” I think we will all be there soon.

different gospel, salvation, this same Jesus

Open Letter to Rachel Held Evans

Posted on July 10, 2013April 29, 2019 by elizabethprata

Note: I posted this on Mrs Evans’s website, Facebook and Twitter stream, which were the methods she stated people can contact her.

Dear Mrs Evans,

I am the Elizabeth Prata of the blog “The End Time” who wrote about you this week and to whom you responded. I am writing in heartfelt concern and in Christian tender pleading.

I am a 53 year old woman, born and bred in New England and transplanted to Georgia later in life. My salvation in Jesus Christ came later in life also. By this short biography perhaps you can accept this missive as an elder woman teaching a younger as in Titus 2:4.

I can see that you are a bright, accomplished, intelligent woman yourself, as much as we can discern these things via the computer screen and internet.

The Holy Spirit has laid you on my heart and it is on that basis I write to you. If we were standing face to face, you would see that my hands are extended and my eyes are full of tears.

On Twitter you shared with me that you long for the truth. It is because of that longing which you expressed that I write to share the truth with you.

The truth is that there is “this same Jesus” (Acts 1:11) and there is “another Jesus”. (2 Cor 11:4). This same Jesus of the Old Testament and the New is going to return to judge the living and the dead. He will line up the sheep and the goats and He will tell them to account for their lives.

Some in the goats line will be shocked they are not in the sheep line. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ “ (Matthew 7:21-23).

This is a serious passage of scripture and it behooves every person who claims Jesus to examine themselves frequently to ensure they are not among the ones who have claimed a different Jesus. (2 Corinthians 13:5).

“I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ to another gospel:” (Galatians 1:6)

Do you claim a different Gospel? I think so, if I may say so tenderly. In your book, Evolving in Monkey Town you wrote,

“I’m an evolutionist because I believe that the best way to reclaim the gospel in times of change is not to cling more tightly to our convictions but to hold them with an open hand.”

To claim ‘this same Jesus” is to claim the same Jesus who was with God when the world was made. (Acts 17:24). To claim this same Jesus is to claim that He is the Word and He speaks truth. (John 1:1, John 14:6). To claim this same Jesus is to claim the Jesus who said ‘Let there be man, Adam, and it is good’. (Genesis 1:26, 27, 31).

If you believe in evolution you claim a different Jesus.

As for ‘changing our convictions to meld’ with the times, I ask you, how often? Did the Chinese of the year 200AD need to change what they believe, or the Icelanders of the year 1500, or the Bolivians of 1999 or the Rachel Held Evans’s of 2013? When does one change? How often? Every millennium? Every year? Every week? Change to which culture? Or do we claim this same Jesus who said to us via His Spirit, cling to what is Good! (Romans 12:9, 1 Thess 5:21). And we know that the only Good is the Father! (Matthew 19:17). And we know that the Father revealed Himself in the Word by His Son! (Hebrews 1:1-2)

We do not need to “reclaim the Gospel” because the Gospel never went anywhere. The Gospel are words unto life, and has the power of God behind it. This is the Gospel of Jesus you go away from when you say we need to loosen our convictions, despite the Word who is Jesus telling us to cling to them:

“Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

I want to ask you and then pray that the Spirit convicts you, to examine yourself to see that, if Jesus were to return in the next few moments, would you be in the group that says “Lord, Lord, did we not…?” I believe you are in that group. I mourn for you, in seeing the fruits from your different gospel, and beg you to come to Jesus, and believe the Bible as He has given it to us. For what a person thinks of the Bible reveals what they believe about Him. He IS the Word (John 1:1)

You said you seek the truth. The truth is that Jesus said via His word “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15).

Do you believe it is impossible for you to have fallen under the sway of a false notion of a different Gospel, and further, that there is no need to examine yourself? If so then THAT is arrogance. Do you believe that one must change and adapt their convictions in order to stay current with man’s culture on this world which is run by satan? If so then you believe in a different gospel that does not save!

“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4)

Please, Mrs Evans, for the sake of your eternal soul, heed these things. Fall to the cross and plead for forgiveness and ask for grace and mercy. The glory of the universe is that this same Jesus who will come one day to judge the living and the dead, this same Jesus, if you repent, will claim you for His daughter. He will send mercy-

For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” (Romans 9:15.)

I pray He says to you, Rachel, “I will have mercy.”

In His name,

Elizabeth Prata
July 10, 2013

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The Gadarene demoniac’s friend

Posted on June 28, 2013 by elizabethprata

I’m reading through the New Testament this summer. In addition to studying one passage deeply, I wanted to get an overview of the NT by simply reading it through without stopping to look at the notes or the parallel verses. I’ve never just read it like a book. I know that by doing this it will give me an overview that reading slowly won’t. It is just a new angle by which to approach the word of God. During summers when I’m home and not working, I have an opportunity and a responsibility to consume as much as I possibly can. There are so many wonderful truths I want to stop and savor, or side trails I want to pursue. I keep a notebook so I can return to those later. I’ve read Matthew, Mark, and half of Luke so far.

I keep a box of tissues next to my reading area also, because the word of God is unbelievably moving and I never can read it without tears. It’s just so touching, so amazing, so piercing, that my soul crumbles and quakes as I take in His truths.

I’m in Luke 8. I want to take a pause for a minute and ponder something. I’ve always been fascinated by the man possessed by a legion of demons. The Gadarene demoniac was well known to all people around. Luke recorded something I don’t think the others did: he had been that way “for a long time.”

So after Jesus exorcised him, the man was healed. He was sitting at the feet of Jesus- and he was clothed.

It’s the clothing that gets me. Where did he get the clothes from? If he had been running around in a demonic state “for a long time” and not having lived in a house (Luke 8:27), the likelihood is that the clothes were not his own.

Who gave clothes to the man? Maybe Jesus did. But for sure, someone came alongside the man and clothed him. Can you picture the scene? They weren’t scared of the man any more. Someone brought him a tunic and helped him on with it. Whoever it was obviously loved Jesus, but also loved his fellow man and saw to his needs. He had the clothes on by the time all the people came running back. (Luke 8:35-36). What a picture of love and discipling. It’s like the first responders at a flood helping the people they rescue out of the water and covering them with a blanket. So beautiful.

We often celebrate that a new believer has been converted from death to life. But then what? Don’t pat them on the back at the altar and then leave them hanging as you go to Cracker Barrel. Blanket them with love, include them, and bring them alongside a teacher. See to their needs.

It is such a kick to see the energy with which a new believer operates. Jesus said to the ex-demoniac, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.” (Luke 8:39). LOL, being in a relationship with a person who is so fervent for the Lord would be energizing for you too.