Category: Uncategorized

Posted in encouragement, Uncategorized

Faith of a child

Posted on by elizabethprata

I was in a non-church setting with some 7-year-olds recently. They were drawing a picture to go along with the story about pizza they had just read. When one boy finished his drawing he still had room on the page. He asked if he could draw a cross. I said sure.

Of course then the others wanted to draw a cross too. Most or all of them have been exposed to Jesus. As they drew their crosses they began to talk about Jesus. The original boy said, ‘Jesus died on the cross’. Another said, ‘isn’t He living now’? I chimed in and said His is living now, that He walked around on earth for 40 days after His death and resurrection and talked with His friends.
Continue reading “Faith of a child” →

Posted in prophecy, Uncategorized

The coming darkness

Posted on by elizabethprata

This was first published in October 2009 on this blog.
“In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:5)

“Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.” (1 Thessalonians 5:3-5)

I traveled across country in a VW van when I was 32 years old. Off the beaten trail in Arizona is a border town called Bisbee. It is a wealthy town, having been the seat of the most lucrative copper mine in American history. The mine closed after a hundred years in 1975 but almost immediately re-opened as a tour attraction. Retired miners give the tours, which start in the changing room. You must don a hard hat, a raincoat and a miner’s light.

The miner’s light is key. Continue reading “The coming darkness” →

Posted in prophecy, Uncategorized

The Drumbeat Warning of Divine Judgment on the USA

Posted on by elizabethprata

I’ve been warning of coming judgment for a while. When believers look out over soft pastures, busy and productive streets, viable farms, and thriving factories, they have a hard time seeing a nation under judgment. They think everything is OK if brimstone and 100 lb hailstones aren’t falling. But it’s not all right. We are crumbling from the inside and rot has set in, permanently.

There are different kinds of judgments. Judgment can be eschatological and very visible, as the coming prophecies and past histories show us. Judgment can be invisible, secret, and deadly, as God said in Hosea 5:12, I am like a moth to Ephraim, like rot to the people of Judah. Judgment can be an abandonment, as when God simply releases a nation to itself to pursue its sin. (Romans 1:24).

The discerners have been warning, and warning, and warning. We warned judgment would come, we warned it was about to come, and we warn that it is here.
Continue reading “The Drumbeat Warning of Divine Judgment on the USA” →

Posted in discernment, Uncategorized

No, Target didn’t stop selling Bibles. Why Christians should stop sharing hoaxes

Posted on by elizabethprata

4 reasons Christians Need to Quit Sharing Hoaxes

“I’ve seen a trend that’s both interesting and troubling: If I find a hoax in my news feed, chances are it will have been shared by an evangelical Christian. I know that sounds like a terrible thing to say, but it’s true. In fact, it’s so typical and intriguing, that I’ve been keeping track of the phenomenon for quite a while.” … 

The Christian message to the world isn’t, “Hey, look how bad things are!” It’s “take heart, He has overcome the world!” We don’t have to share every sensational and scary story—especially when their truth is suspect.

The author above gives 4 good reasons to stop sharing those false stories, especially when checking them out takes only one second. One reason he didn’t mention but Sunny Shell did, is that we should promote holiness. Holiness is marginalized to a great degree these days, yet is the primary function of Christians in the world. Our sanctification is the very pursuit of holiness, so that we can be more like Jesus every day.

Why should we be holy? Sunny Shell explains in this essay, The Way of Holiness

“Just as the honor of being assigned as an ambassador of an earthly country should not be taken lightly, so we also, who are in Christ, should not take our high calling as children of the Most High God lightly. An earthly ambassador is chosen to live in a foreign land to represent their country, while maintaining every attribute and character of their homeland. An ambassador does not lose or forget who he/she is merely because they live in another country for a time, rather, they honorably and proudly represent their country and their people.”

People have been tricked since the beginning. Hoaxes, forgeries, and spoofs are part of life. Think early last century circuses. Think: archeology. Archeology hoaxes have been fooling people for a long time. The Petrified Man in 1862 and the Cardiff Man in 1869 were especially blush-inducing hoaxes many people fell for. There’s the Piltdown Man, (1912) War of the Worlds, (1938), and Paul McCartney is Dead hoax, (1969). Hoaxes have tricked the best of us. In some ways, the Facebook Hoaxes are a bit of a let-down in their clumsy way they try to fool us, compared to the ingenious hoaxes of the past. The Turk Chess Game fooled people for over 100 years and the Surgeon’s Photo of the Loch Ness Monster fooled people for 60. At least those lies hoaxes had some elegance to them. Facebook hoaxes are just inelegant and easily proven lies.

We’re all gullible. Christians, however, have the Holy Spirit is us, and so should be wiser and more careful when sharing information. Gossip is a sin, it is impugning someone’s reputation. It’s the same with hoaxes. They turn out to be untrue but the Company, Organization, or person they focus on has been maligned by your act of hastily sharing unvetted information.

Christians, please do your diligence. If you’re not sure if something is a hoax and can’t verify it one way or another, please do not press Enter.

Piltdown_gang_(dark)

Group portrait of the Piltdown skull being examined.
Back row (from left): F. O. Barlow, G. Elliot Smith, Charles Dawson,
Arthur Smith Woodward. Front row: A S Underwood, Arthur Keith, W. P. Pycraft,
and Ray Lankester. Note the portrait ofCharles Darwin on the wall.
Painting by John Cooke, 1915. Wikipedia

 

Further Reading

Best Historical Hoaxes

15 Internet Hoaxes that Fooled All of Us

Why Hoaxes fool us, according to science

Posted in potpourri, Uncategorized

Prata Potpourri: The Oculus, free theology lectures, hilarious lunch duty, advice for pastor’s wives, more

Posted on by elizabethprata

Though school has started and it’s tiring herding kittens teaching kindergarteners all day, I am getting a steady infusion of sweetness, cuteness, knock knock jokes, and random offbeat kid comments to keep me in laughter all day long.

Gerry Brooks is a Principal of an elementary school in Lexington KY and he is hilarious. He is famous for putting up short clips remarking on the ins and outs of school life. He is always funny, but this short video had me literally doubled over and tears coming out of my eyes. Even if you have no clue what Kindergarten Lunch Duty entails, you will laugh along with the rest of us who agree, the first week of duty with the little ones presents certain, ahem, challenges.

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There seems to be a cottage industry these days promoting a how-to series of lessons on how to hear God’s voice. How to be SURE you’re hearing God’s voice. How to ignite/prompt/activate God’s voice. And so on. A google search on “how to hear God’s voice” yields the following-

It can be confusing to try and learn how to hear God’s voice. This is because you can’t. Therefore the ‘teachings’ on it contradict each other. Of course, these ‘methods’ also contradict the Bible. Here are two essays explaining the issues with trying to hear God’s voice.

Spirit of Error asks, What could be wrong with learning to “hear God’s voice?”

Tim Challies asks How Does God Speak to Me Today?

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The economic crash of 2007-08 crushed the dreams of many parents, who in live, hope, and work for their children to exceed their own achievements. That and a host of other reasons, has birthed a generation that unfortunately has come to depend on mom and dad to survive. Here is some advice on how to close that bank, compassionately.

How to Close the Bank of Mom and Dad

The phone rings and you cringe. You feel guilty, but you almost don’t want to answer the call from your own kid. He or she probably isn’t calling just to say hello. Your adult child needs money again. Does your child even realize how much these constant requests upset you emotionally and financially?

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I’m a sucker for anything about the sovereignty of God…

Summary and Outline of J. I. Packer’s “Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God”

Packer’s popular paperback is a succinct, non-technical explanation of how God’s sovereignty and human responsibility affect evangelism. It is not a blueprint for modern evangelistic action (7). The aim is to dispel the suspicion that belief in the absolute sovereignty of God hinders evangelism and to show that it actually strengthens evangelism (8, 10). The book divides logically into four chapters. (See the outline of the book below.)

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Study the Gospel of John with Dallas Theological Seminary – for free.

It’s a ten week non-credit course, but you do earn a certificate at the end. I was put off by the introductory video touting ‘famous’ “theologians” who have graduated from the Institution, including David Jeremiah, Tony Evans, Priscilla Shirer and Jennie Allen. The DTS can’t help what students do or say after they graduate, but they can’t help touting them when they are obviously in error. The Seminary should have more discernment than that. I took the first unit, it was solid. But my antennae are up.

If you’re hankerin’ for some learnin’, there’s always the free theology lectures on Youtube from The Master’s Seminary.

I know I’m biased but my own pastor teaches incredibly insightful and theologically packed sermons. He is like Spurgeon on steroids. Every week. We are going through Genesis chapter by chapter, and the sermons are on podcast. Pastor Mark just finished a Men’s Conference today with three lectures on Jesus in the Old Testament, and they are all fantastic too. Find them here-

(1) Jesus In The Old Testament: Genesis
Here we are introduced to the idea that Jesus read the Old Testament and saw it as primarily being about Himself (John 5:39-40). What is it like to read the Old Testament with Jesus at the center? Here we get a sense of the whole story of the Bible starting with Genesis.

(2) Jesus In The Old Testament: Exodus & Leviticus
Here we discover how Jesus fulfills the roles of Moses, the Passover Lamb, Israel and the priesthood. Even Leviticus is about Jesus!

(3) Jesus In The Old Testament: The Prophets to Revelation
Here we look at the nation of Israel, Kings David and Solomon, along with the failures of the Old Testament people of God. The Old Testament ends as a cliff hanger. How does the story of Israel reach its climax in the person of Jesus? How does the whole Bible hold together?

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To pastor’s wives… you have special combat duty. It’s often silent, unforgiving, constant, demanding, and here as Mrs Spurgeon explains, hugely important.

Three pieces of advice from Charles Spurgeon’s Mother-in-Law

Charles Spurgeon abandoned his fiancée on a Sunday afternoon. After lunch, a carriage took the betrothed couple from Susannah’s house in St. Ann’s Terrace to Kennington where Charles would preach. Susannah recounted the event… Susannah left the service and fumed all the way home. Her mother gently “tried to soothe [her] ruffled spirit” and offered some motherly advice about marriage:

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I love travel and all places odd and out of the way. Atlas Obscura is a website that offers lots of odd, quirky, and fun articles about our blue earth. Here are a few of their recent stories

Found: A 300-Year Old Shoe Meant To Ward Off Evil Spirits
It was a men’s size 6, and they put it right back where they found it.

Found: Football-Sized Goldfish in an Australian River
Please stop putting pets in the river.

Nobuo Fujita’s Sword
As a show of peace, a Japanese naval pilot gifted his 400-year-old Samurai sword to the Oregon town he bombed.

The New York Public Library is Moving 1.5 Million Books to an Underground Lair
The books will live highly organized lives underneath Bryant Park.

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Don’t forget the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood! An oldie but a goodie. Here are a couple of articles to get you started-

Fatherhood and the worlds it creates

The New Household in Christ: How Wives and Husbands are to “Put on the New Self” in Colossians 3:18-19

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And for fun, the always amusing Bad Real Estate Photos

For interest, Inside the Beautiful New Oculus at the World Trade Center Transportation Hub
It is beautiful. But it reminds me of the Contemporary Resort at Disney’s EPCOT. Everything old is new again!

Posted in discernment, Uncategorized

What the devil cannot do

Posted on by elizabethprata

martyn lloyd jonesHere is Martyn Lloyd Jones with a few thoughts on something the devil cannot do.

Putting God first…herein lies the stifling of the passions that defeat us. Herein lies the quietness that calms our tumults. Herein lies the peace of knowing that our sins are forgiven and forgotten by God and so they can be forgotten by us.

When men seek things before they seek God, they throw themselves into what has come to be known as the ‘rat race’. An earlier phrase described it as ‘the pace that kills’. But it was never the pace that killed, it was the fear of tomorrow that made the pace necessary.

The devil has never praised God. He can make people happy. But whisky can make people happy. The fact that a thing can make you happy doesn’t prove it’s right. There are drugs that can make you happy. You see, the devil can come, and he can counterfeit all these things. If a man says “I am happy”, it doesn’t prove he is a Christian. It can be counterfeited. There is only one thing I know of that the devil cannot counterfeit: praising God. The devil never does that. Never. The devil has made anybody praise God.

He can counterfeit a belief in God. But that’s a very different thing. The Apostle James tells us in his epistle, ‘the devils also believe, and tremble.’ The devil has never praised God. He can persuade people that they believe in God. If it suits his purpose he can transform himself into an angel of light, and encourage people to believe in God and to be religious. He is doing that to large numbers today. But there’s one thing he’s never done and he can’t do it, and that is to make people praise God. He can give you a counterfeit intellectual interest. He can give you a counterfeit interest in God’s people. A counterfeit interest in communion service. A counterfeit interest in prayer, a counterfeit joy and gladness. He has never made anybody praise God. Why? Because he hates God.

But these people [in Acts 2] were praising God. That is why I say in many senses it is the ultimate test of the profession of the Christian faith – praising God! My friends, are you praising God? I’m not asking if you believe in Him, or if you try to worship Him. I’m not asking if you make requests of Him. I’m asking one thing only. Do you praise God?

Sermon- Praising God, Acts 2:46-47.

It occurred to me that this test would apply to a false teacher. Someone who teaches about God but is not saved, (2 Timothy 3:5) and who is the son of the devil will never praise God. Sons of the devil, those who are energized by satan and are in bondage to satan, cannot praise God because the devil cannot praise God. His minions can’t either. Use it as a test, as MLJ noted. Not that a false teacher can’t say the words, though oftentimes they can’t, they choke on them. They might say off-handedly, “Praise God it rained!” but a life lived in praise to Him, sincere, thorough, zealous praise, will never pass their lips. Look for it…or in this case, the absence of it.

Posted in discernment, Uncategorized

Why fearing the Lord is a good thing; cultivate it

Posted on by elizabethprata

How would you react if you were suddenly face-to-face with God?

That is the question John MacArthur asked in his blog series adapted from his book Worship: The Ultimate Priority. If one relied solely on the anecdotes of the many false teachers who claim to have personally been in in His presence, one would think that coming face-to-face with God was either as normal an occurrence as running into your neighbor at the grocery store, or as casual as a backyard BBQ.

Whatever happened to the fear of God? is the title of MacArthur’s blog essay and it is a great question. In the Bible, even those men who were in right standing with God were terrified, cowed, and humbled at meeting Him in person. For example, MacArthur wrote,

in Genesis 18 Abraham confessed in the presence of God that he was dust and ashes. Similarly, Job said after his pilgrimage, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You; therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5–6). Ezra 9 records the high priest’s profound sense of shame as he came before the Lord to worship. Habakkuk had a vision of God’s power and majesty, and his knees began to knock: “I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me” (Habakkuk 3:16 ESV).

Isaiah said he was “undone”, or “I am ruined”. The Hebrew word in that verse is damah and it means to cease, cause to cease, cut off, destroy. The flesh of sinful man, even a justified man declared righteous, is immediately reduced to a metaphorical pile of ashes when contrasted in person to the august glory of the Ancient of Days. The Fear of God article gives many more examples of this contrast between man and God, and expands the verses to illustrate the spiritual importance of the fear of God.

Yet in our day, according to so many false teachers who claim direct revelation, we have the sweet and sensitive voice coming out of the celestial realms to envelop women with a warm, misty romance. Moore says He calls her “honey” and “babe”, and they go on a play date together to the zoo. They “have a blast”. Joanna Gaines said she talked with Jesus in a garden, and she recalls, “I remember hearing God say, ‘Joanna, there’s going to come a time when I’m going to say for you to go, and I’m going to need for you to step out and go.'” Jesus has needs? In the Bible He commanded. Gaines’ 21st century language is a giveaway the entity she walked and talked in a garden with was not the Jesus of the Bible. According to Kim Walker-Smith, she was personally visited by a Jesus that flailed His arms and ran yelling Woo-hoo! because He is so happy to be in HER presence. Smith said she fell into His lap, and she was so self-absorbed her two questions she asked the LORD OF THE UNIVERSE that were about herself.

Whatever happened to the fear of God? Let MacArthur’s question echo in your ears, mind, and heart.

The book by Jerry Bridges called The Joy of Fearing God is a good one for people to read today. The book’s synopsis says,

For most of us, fear is something we try to avoid. And fearing God hardly sounds like an occasion for joy. But Jerry Bridges shows how the fear of the Lord is actually the key that opens the door to a life of true knowledge, wisdom, blessing, and joy.

None of the visions of God presented in His own Word present a relaxed disciple sipping lattes at the zoo together or El Elyon running around yelling woo-hoo. Those visions and claims are irreverent in the extreme. The true visions in His word show the majesty, holiness, and power of a God who chooses to love us despite our depraved state. Bridges says,

There are more than 150 references to the fear of God in the Bible. While the majority of these occur in the Old Testament, there are a sufficient number in the New Testament to convince us that fearing God is indeed an attitude of heart we should cultivate today.” ― Jerry Bridges, The Joy of Fearing God

That worshipful cultivation is urged in MacArthur’s essay as well. He ended his essay by saying,

Peter “fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, ‘Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!'” (Luke 5:8). All he could see was his own sinfulness when confronted with the power and presence of our holy God. We need to cultivate that same attitude, remembering that we not only live our lives before the eyes of a holy God, but that His Holy Spirit dwells within us. Being ever mindful of God’s presence is vital if we’re going to live worshipful lives that glorify Him.

The life of the true disciple who worships in reverent fear is one that is drenched with joy. The irreverent false teachers’ attitudes of being relaxed and unconcerned in His ‘presence’ is a dead giveaway that the personage they are ‘meeting’ is not our Holy God. MacArthur tells the story of a man who told him that Jesus comes into the bathroom while he is shaving and puts His arm around him, which helps the man’s bursitis.

I thought, “Do you keep shaving? If you can keep shaving, then it isn’t Jesus. If holy God came into the bathroom while you were shaving, you would fall to the floor so hard that you would kill yourself!” It is an awesome thing to confront an infinitely holy God!

It is an awesome thing to be confronted by an infinitely holy God, even though we believers are His children! Live worshipful lives that glorify Him, and it begins with a reverential fear of who He is.

Posted in ebook, Uncategorized

Announcing my new eBook: Encouragement In Grace

Posted on by elizabethprata

I am happy to announce that I have written an eBook which is now for sale at Amazon! It’s titled “Encouragement In Grace: Devotions & Inspirations for Christian Women” by Elizabeth Prata. The book is the first in a series of three I’ve written. The second two, Prophecy In Grace and Discernment In Grace will be published later.

Jesus saved me, in grace. His grace is sufficient, His grace sustains me, and it’s His grace that is so amazing. So I named the series In Grace as a tribute to Him who is grace personified.

I pray the essays in the eBook shine His glory back onto Him.

Thanks!

Cover photo by EPrata, cover design by Liliana McAndrew

Posted in encouragement, Uncategorized

Children are a reward not just for parents

Posted on by elizabethprata

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. (Psalm 127:3)

Children are a blessing and the verse above refers to children born to biological parents.

Many verses speak about children. The Bible makes it equally clear that all children (especially orphans) are to be regarded as vulnerable and to treat them kindly. Jesus holds them in high regard. They are to be trained up in the way they should go. They should not be provoked. They should be unhindered in their approach to God and His laws. They are to be protected else a millstone hung around the neck of one who causes them to stumble. They are a crown to the aged and streets full of happy children playing are a sign of God’s favor. They are an answer to prayer. Orphans (“the fatherless”) are objects of care and concern.

With all the attention given children, we know that the Lord cares for them. In thinking of kids, we often restrict ourselves to thinking of the family. I propose that anyone who works with children has a God-given privilege to adhere to the Bible’s verses regarding them, as well. The children are a heritage for the parents, but also for the teacher, the foster mother, the nanny, the social worker, the nursery school administrator, the playground monitor. Each and every child is a gift from the Lord, to each person the Lord has assigned to watch over them.

Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children. “Who are these with you?” he asked. Jacob answered, “They are the children God has graciously given your servant.” (Genesis 33:5).

Children are a gracious gift, If you work with children in any way, you are blessed.