By Elizabeth Prata

We’ve all heard this phrase. We may have even used it in Vacation Bible School with the kids, or youth camp after a poignant testimony or a lengthy musical interlude. It’s religious shorthand for the Gospel, asking someone to respond to what they have heard and to come into the kingdom of Jesus. But is it legitimate? Has the shorthand gotten TOO short?

“Asking Jesus into your heart” is a phrase that reverses the proper order of salvation. Jesus initiates salvation, not us. We don’t ask Him, He enters. We remember how He entered Saul/Paul’s heart on the Road to Damascus? It was without Paul ever ‘asking’.

In the Old Testament, too, we see that the LORD is captain of the soul, and does with a soul as He wishes. And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God, (Haggai 1:14).

We see the initiation of the Lord in Lydia’s conversion, One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. (Acts 16:14)

We see the Lord active in the understanding of the scriptures in the two from Emmaus, They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).

Paul Washer is a preacher that has much to say about the ‘asking Jesus into your heart’ mode of salvation. It’s also called ‘easy believism or The Sinner’s Prayer. Here is Washer on how to lead someone to Christ rightly, 3:14 min. Wretched: Paul Washer: How to lead someone to the Lord.

Here is Todd Friel on this topic: the specific phrase ‘Asking Jesus Into Your Heart’ is dealt with starting at 1:04
Should we lead someone in “the sinner’s prayer?”

Though the phrase is used earnestly by most people, and it started with good intentions, perhaps after a solid Gospel presentation, it has become a cliche that dilutes the meaning and power of the Gospel. The Gospel should include confession of sin, repentance, awareness of our due wrath, and the power of God alone to change our heart of stone to one of flesh.

Until the days of Charles Finney in the 1800s, such phraseology and such easy salvation was unheard of. It has led to the simplistic actions of walking an aisle and reciting a formulaic prayer, whereupon the preacher declares one saved. No one can declare one saved, except Jesus in heaven. Salvation is seen after time passes, by the life and the fruit one observes in the person. But remember there are tares mixed with the wheat, and ultimately, despite a preacher’s best sermons, right doctrine, stern Gospel presentation and eagle-eyed observation of a life of holiness, only Jesus knows if someone is actually saved.

‘Asking Jesus into your heart’ has sadly led to premature declarations of salvation and assurances of heaven, though the person was falsely converted. In this way, many people have not been truly saved, but are deceived into thinking they are.

Picture this. Lazarus is dead and in the tomb. Jesus is weeping outside. The crowd is gaping. Let’s say that Mary or Martha or one of the pharisees and teachers of Israel shouted, ‘Lazarus, ask Jesus into your heart! Ask Him’. Jesus is still outside the tomb, weeping, standing by. Can Lazarus ask Jesus? No. Lazarus is dead. He can’t do anything. (John 15:5b).

It is the same with all of us. We are dead in sin. We are unaware of our sin and our need for salvation because we are dead and blind to sin. Jesus is the Light, and when He turns on the light in our soul, then we see our sin. We go, ‘Ick! That’s gross! I AM depraved, and I DO deserve wrath and punishment!’ We then confess our sins and throw ourselves upon the mercy of the One on the Mercy Seat.

If you walked an aisle, or believed half the Gospel, that ‘Jesus has a great plan for your life and you just need him’, without the parts about sin, wrath and confession, here is an essay titled Is It Real? 11 Tests of Genuine Salvation Is It Real?

Jesus forgives sin and in no way will cast anyone out who confesses. But if you don’t think you have dealt with your sin properly, then I urge you to click on the Paul Washer link, the Todd Friel link, or the Genuine Salvation link.

By Elizabeth Prata

I’ve been watching the legal wrangling in LA County from Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, their departments, Supervisory Board, and legal team, against John MacArthur and Grace Community Church. The wrangling began late in July when pastor-teacher John MacArthur called for his congregants to return to church and worship together.

Gov. Newsom had said that there was too much COVID-19 virus circulating for people to gather in churches, or anywhere, despite the fact that many protesters had been gathering unimpeded in many other locations throughout California. And despite the fact that COVID has not proved to be as deadly as first thought. Also despite the fact that the First Amendment protects freedoms to worship. After heeding the restrictions for many months, finally on July 24, Grace Church met for indoor worship.

Subsequently, the church received vague threats that their water or air conditioning would be turned off in Grace Church should people turn up to worship. It wasn’t, but an official Cease and Desist letter was sent to the church leaders. The letter contained a threat of a $1,000 a day fine and possible arrest. The church retained legal counsel.

The church’s legal counsel replied of the Cease & Desist Letter: “It is unconstitutional for Governor Newsom and the State of California to discriminate against churches by treating them less favorably than other organizations and activities that are not protected by the First Amendment.”

The church took the issue to court and won. The Judge agreed they should be able to hold in-person, indoor services, but also asked that the congregants be willing to wear masks and try to remain socially distant until the matter could be fully heard at a scheduled time, September 4. Dr. MacArthur said yes, replying,

This vindicates our desire to stay open and serve our people. This also gives us an opportunity to show that we are not trying to be rebellious or unreasonable, but that we will stand firm to protect our church against unreasonable, unconstitutional restrictions.”

LA Times

However, the court decision and the respondent’s good faith promise was not satisfactory enough for the State or City government, and the LA Board of Supervisors took the matter to court again and again, once in an ’emergency session’ late on a Saturday night. But the Supervisors lost again and again. At one point they tried to put into place a contempt of court order with attached thousands of dollars of fines, AND a restraining order, but the judge hearing the case said that there was no court order currently in place for the church to be in contempt OF! It was dismissed. The City has not been successful in any of their varied legal attempts against Grace Community Church.

Now, the Los Angeles Department of Public Works has suddenly broken the parking lot lease the Church has held with the city for the past 45 years. The City is demanding they be evicted. In 1975, the Church leased the adjacent parking lot to the church, paying over $8,000 per month, $24,000 quarterly, almost $100,000 per year to the Department of Public Works, but this week the Department of Public Works suddenly and without cause voided the lease. You see from the Google map below that the parking lot’s size and how it is an absolute necessity.

It has been noticed that as each Government attempt to stop worship at GCC fails, the next attempt seems more and more like petty retribution and harassment of a powerful government agency against a single organization.

Legal Counsel for the Church, Jenna Ellis, replied of the eviction notice,

“In America, we have a judicial system to ensure that the executive branch does not abuse its power, and Grace Community Church has every right to be heard without fear of reprisal. The Democrats’ message to Americans is clear—if you don’t bow to every whim of tyranny, the government will come after you. The Church has peacefully held this lease for 45 years and the only reason the County is attempting eviction is because John MacArthur stood up to their unconstitutional power grab. This is harassment, abusive, and unconscionable,” Ellis added.

The Federalist

As I wrote yesterday of this COVID issue, satan is god of this world for a time, and he is allowed to put forth the deceptions as he will. In his opening to the August 30, 2020 sermon, Dr. MacArthur said, “There is no pandemic.” He was referring to the issuance of the actual numbers regarding COVID-19 by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) that only about 9300 people have died from the virus from COVID alone. Six percent of deaths from the virus were healthy people with no underlying conditions. 94% of covid deaths were people in the upper age brackets (at or exceeding U.S. life span) with two OR MORE comorbidities, that could not be explicltly traced to COVID.

This was astounding news, and it rightly circulated widely this past weekend on social media. It trended Late Saturday and early Sunday on Twitter. It was eventually picked up by NBC late Sunday.

I mentioned the 6% issue yesterday in my essay, and received a harsh reaction from people who are deceived and want to maintain the fiction that death has been lurking for one and all since March when the COVID virus was first called an ’emergency’.

Nevertheless, despite the growing obviousness that COVID isn’t a widespread threat, the Governor of California has recently made more restrictions and tightened ones already in existence, including forbidding gathering for worship. Churches had attendance caps placed on them, restrictions for indoor worship such as distancing and a singing ban.

The pastors, elders and worshipers at Grace Community Church on July 24 made their decision to stand for Jesus. When Government said, do not teach in this name, (cf Acts 5:28), the people answered, “We must obey God rather than men.” (cf Acts 5:29).

If you think Caesar’s harassment, legal battle, and overt punishment and retribution against grace Church in CA won’t happen to you and your church, wherever you are in the U.S., you are dead wrong. It is already happening. It’s happening most visibly to Grace Church in CA but also in many other places in the United States.

Dr. MacArthur said that among the fabrication of numbers and deception going in with COVID, it’s obvious that part of satan’s deception is to shut down churches that preach the Gospel. “It does not surprise me that they want to shut down those who preach the Gospel, because the architects of this level of deception are not part of the kingdom of heaven. They are part of the kingdom of darkness,” he said last Sunday (Video linked below).

Get ready to make your decision. Get ready to make your stand. What will you do when they come and say, ‘You may not worship. You may not teach in the name of Jesus. You may not enter the church. You may not sing. You may not buy a Bible.’

If you believe that last threat is outlandish, please know that several authors have already remarked that their books on the biblical stance on homosexuality and homosexual conversion have been pulled from Amazon and banned from being sold as the claim of hate speech wins out over biblical truth. There is a current push in Scotland to name the Bible itself hate speech, so the notion that Bibles may become difficult to obtain here in America, and soon, is not as outlandish as previously thought, despite the Constitution’s protection of the practice of religion.

What will you do? If you have been feeding on the word of God, and are filled with Gospel truth, you will stand. If you haven’t, you won’t. Don’t think it won’t happen to you. King Saul fell. Samson fell. Even Peter denied Jesus, whom he loved and had been close to for three years! The only strength is the strength of the Holy Spirit, apart from Christ we can do nothing. We inflame that strength by feeding that fire, the fire of truth!

Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? (Jeremiah 23:29)

By Elizabeth Prata

I copied and pasted a screen shot of the Center for Disease Control data on deaths from covid alone, without comorbidities. I restated the facts in the page and linked to the source. This is good journalism. There was no interpretation, no hyperbole, no opinion. Just the facts.

Initially, friendly people were shocked at what the data showed. It challenged the narrative that covid is a huge killer and the narrative that it’s a threat around every corner. They thanked me and simply retweeted the post. Some people went ahead and investigated further, going to the link. I loved that. It’s what journalism is for, to present unvarnished information so people can make good decisions, and cite the source in case they want to delve further.

Then after about an hour or so, the naysayers got a-hold of the tweet and the onslaught began.

I’ve been used to push-back, but the things that were tweeted or emailed to me represented an entirely different level of vile. I will not repeat them, just trust me when I say the indecent replies were on a cruelty level akin to the tenth circle of hell.

I received thousands and thousands of replies, many of which were abhorrent. I mean vile beyond imagining. Remember, the tweet was simply a screen shot and some facts.

The statistics on that one tweet are astounding, within 8 hours it had gotten almost 300,000 engagements.

That’s a lot.

The onslaught continued but I tuned out, saving my sanity and for more edifying things. I’d forgotten that Twitter now has a mechanism to filter replies. If I’d remembered before tweeting it I could have clicked on the button that said only people I follow can reply, but it was too little too late. I kept the Tweet up because it is important information and it should be in the public square.

The episode was also instructive in a larger sense. So what’s instructive about tsunamis of despicable behavior and speech?

I write essays here at my blog The End Time on prophecy, discernment, and encouragement. Two-thirds of my ministry often sparks onslaughts. Prophecy triggers people. Discernment triggers people. Especially discernment. In discernment, whenever I post that so-and-so teacher is false, there is inevitably a tsunami of push-back refuting the plain, biblical facts.

I’ve developed a thick skin, having been an investigative journalist in a small town owned by the Democrats. I cut my teeth on controversy. So it doesn’t faze me when it happens, and I want to learn from every experience, including adverse reactions to facts. Inevitably, I ask, “Why?”

What I have learned through riding these occasional but always surprising waves of aggressive reactions to biblical things, is that the harder and faster and fiercer the push-back, the deeper that satan has his claws into that person or into that philosophy. The worse the aggressive reaction, the more that satan is protecting his own.

It might sound weird to speak of satan in these science-y days, but never forget that for a God-allowed period, satan is the god of this world. Three times in the Gospel of John Jesus refers to satan as the “ruler of this world” (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11) and in 2 Corinthians 4:4 Paul refers to satan as the god of this age. He has his own philosophies and strongholds and he doesn’t like them to be challenged.

Here’s a metaphor. In the days before laws were made about picking up doggie poo, when you walked along the sidewalk and saw a fresh steamy pile, you’d also see a horde of flies crawling all over it. If you poked the pile, the flies would arise and fly chaotically around.

Vivid scene, but that is what happens when you poke one of satan’s dearly held fortresses. The higher the activity of the flies indicates the depth of satan’s devotion to it.

the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2)

Every tweet, every email represents a soul behind the words. Our fight is not against these poor, anguished, deluded souls spewing vile things or perpetrating vile deeds in public. They need Jesus, as I once did. Hate hidden in the heart isn’t even suppressed any more these days but allowed to foam and increase and flood the public square. They do these things because they are under satan’s clutches, clinging to strongholds and deceiving philosophies and empty promises. They need release.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. (2 Corinthians 10:4).

The worldview war is mounting- fast! I feel for the unsaved, as the satanic worldview is being fiercely protected, the unsaved are being well used, thus, their spiritual anguish is high. But as difficult as it is, as righteous as it is to hate satan, we need to stay salt and light for the deceived souls. We need to pump out truth, grace, and Bible, Bible, Bible.

The darker the world gets, and it IS getting very dark here in America, the lighter we need to be. It’s hard, but fortunately we have the strength of His Holy Spirit to aid us in this important work. Keep going, sisters, keep going. One step after another.

and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. (Luke 24:47)

By Elizabeth Prata

I’ve always been amazed by kindness.

Christian people are kind.

Unsaved people can be kind but Christian kindness is a different species of kindness altogether. People hold the door for you, or ask about your day and seem genuinely interested in the answer. Or send a surprise gift from your wish list. Donate to your ministry. Send a card with an encouraging verse. All sorts of kindnesses, large and small. Unsaved people do those things too but it’s different.

Continue reading “Gratitude, generosity, and the tie of Jesus that binds” →