Posted in Uncategorized

Street photography and all its joys and pains

Posted on by elizabethprata

Grammarly has changed my life.

OK, that’s hyperbole, but Grammarly has given me relief in spades. It’s an extension you add to your browser, which checks for typos and grammar mistakes as you type. No matter where you’re typing, Facebook, Twitter, comment responses on Disqus, wherever you’re typing, it puts a red line underneath a typo or grammar mistake.

I’ve been surprised at how well it offers corrections, too. It is eerily correct in its offerings even when I’m writing cultural idioms or abbreviations. For example, I typed ASAIK and it knew I meant AFAIK (As Far As I Know). The corrections far outstrip even MS Word.

You can ignore any corrections you don’t want or don’t agree with. A little red circle at the bottom keeps track of how many words need fixing, and if you want, you can click it to see how many have already been corrected. I dare not look.

Grammarly is free, though that doesn’t stop its creators from frequently reminding you that you’re “missing out” on features and offers deals on upgrades. But these reminders are not intrusive. They’re contained in a correction, once in a while.

Hey, I don’t need an upgrade, I just need my typos corrected. They are getting so bad. I wrote a three-word response on Facebook this morning and mistyped two of the words. You see what I mean about how valuable this extension is.

I’ve been interested in street photography of late. I love photography. I noticed a book called The Birth of Graffiti by Jon Naar at the Second Time Around store a while back and bought it. He took his pics of graffiti in NYC in the 1970’s, a low point for the city and its denizens.

Naar is an accomplished portrait photographer, photographer of art and architecture and more. In his 90’s now, he is still active. Wikipedia says Naar has had a multifaceted career as an intelligence officer in World War II; a globe-trotting executive during the postwar years; and an environmentalist, with nine published books to date. Major publications like The New York Times, The Saturday Evening Post, Vogue, Fortune, Elle, and Schöner Wohnen have featured Naar. The NY Times Magasine’s very first use of color for an interior was commissioned by them of Naar.

I love-hate graffiti, it is a blight but it’s also art. Art blight. Blighted art. I dunno. Overall I’m just fascinated by it. I also like gritty city pictures, tattered handbills, signs, doorways, subways…Naar’s photos were all stupendous and so evocative. Yes, he takes shots of just graffiti, but he took many of his shots with people in them. Kids playing basketball against a backdrop of a heavily graffitied wall…a mom and toddler walking by a profane graffiti mural…and so on.

I didn’t know it at the time but his style of photo is called “Street Photography.” It is defined:

Street photography, also sometimes called candid photography, is photography conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places.

I’ve always loved candid photography, especially of kids. I am grateful I’ve often had the chance to legitimately take photos of kids, either through being a journalist and covering school things and sports or as a school employee asked to chronicle events on campus for the yearbook or the official Facebook page. Kids are fun to take pics of because they’re unpredictable, emotive, and a challenge to get in the frame. They’re also cute!

Kids enjoy having their picture taken, unlike adults. Adults are suspicious, guarded, and can deck you if they get mad that you’re in their face. Hence the relief in being around kids with my camera.
But I also enjoy gritty cityscapes. Or even in my rural town, gritty, industrial things. Like these pics:

Many of my photos were of the same theme with the same interest in same topics as Naar’s. Like these of his:

If I’d like to concentrate on street photography, as good as it is to be on the same track as someone like Naar in terms of interest in these kinds of scenes, it’s the execution that matters. I need to improve my composition, framing, and bravery in getting close to the moment. In Naar’s scene of the police car, what makes it good is that the cop is in the car. When you look closely, you see his arm in the window. This brings life to the scene. The handbills, not only colorful and framed well, but his decision to take it with the bold clenched fist above them gives the picture a foreign feel, and vaguely threatening. The new & used tires, the inclusion of the graffiti and the loneliness of both displays of the tires makes one ask, which are new and which are used? They all look tattered.

Where I fail is getting people in the picture. Getting people in the picture is key. People energize the photo. Their activity mystifies, perplexes, shocks, or comforts. It’s the people who bring emotion to it, mystery, and story.

So, then there are the stupendous pics of Naar’s like this one, my favorite. Click to enlarge. It’s absolutely tremendous-

It’s subway and graffiti. OK, so the grit is there. The lighting is great, the warm glow of the interior of the car contrasted with the steel of the exterior. The light, joy, and movement of the people through the window to the left and the right. The yellow strip which mirrors the rush and zoom of the car itself when it arrives and departs.

And then…there is one sole, still woman. One part of the entire photo where nothing is moving. There is no joy. Her face is stoic, devoid of the same lightheartedness the rest of the people display. The grittiness of her surroundings is contrasted with her obvious wealth. Her perfectly coiffed matronly hairdo. Her poised, ladylike feet in expensive shoes. Her fur around the collar.

Since every photo should tell a story – or begin one, we ask, why, if she is so obviously of means, does she take the subway?

Most incongruously of all, is her butler and the hatbox. Pink, no less.

It’s an amazing photo.

There are many street photographers out there. This web page explains 10 principles of street photography and then lists many good street photographers.

Candid photography is interesting and challenging, just the way I like it. I’ll keep trying. Meanwhile the link above has a wonderfully long list of good photographers and pictures to be inspired by!

Posted in Uncategorized, visual exegesis

Visual Exegesis: The Life of Every Living Thing

Posted on by elizabethprata

Chris Powers of Full of Eyes creates exegetical art, still and moving images, intended to point people to the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Son. His work can be found on Youtube, Patreon, and his website, fullofeyes.com. There are study guides to accompany the videos, tracts, and art- free to use for the edification of the global church and the exaltation of Jesus’ name.

Today’s presentation is called The Life of Every Living Thing. Below Powers’ illustration is the artist’s statement.

Job 12:10, “In His hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.”

It was tough to come up with a verse picture today. I spent most of my time reading this morning in Genesis considering some of the patterns we see in the Creation week….some wonderful stuff there, but nothing that seemed to lend itself to a picture. I also read a bit in Job and came across 12:10…..I was hesitant to make the picture that I did because it is similar to another that I did a few months ago, but–since I try to get these done early without spending TOO much time on them, I went ahead with this design.

I’m also studying the “hypostatic union” right now (the orthodox understanding of Christ as one Person–God the Son–with two natures–divine and human) for a Wednesday night class I teach at our local church….that’s got me thinking about some more of the glorious realities we see in Christ….one of which is that He–as God the Son–is sustaining the universe (“in His hand is the life of every living thing…”) even as His hands are pierced and His creaturely life ebbs away. It’s an “old” truth but one that ought always to stagger….the sovereign mingling of omnipotence and helplessness that we see at the cross is unlike anything the world can produce and a self-authenticating witness to the beauty of God’s Name.

So, I hope that this picture echoes both the idea that the God-Man upheld the life of the universe with His hands even as His flesh was pierced on the cross AND that, the piercing of His hands was also the means by which He purchased the life that He was upholding. All created life–at least all terrestrial life–would rightly have been extinguished because of sin had not the wrath a ten thousand justly-deserved Noahic floods been stored up to be poured on on the Beloved Son at Calvary.

Posted in discernment, Uncategorized

The biblical worldview is that there is the righteous and the wicked

Posted on by elizabethprata

When you read chunks of the Bible at one time, patterns and themes emerge that may not be as noticeable as when you read just a few verses more deeply. That’s why both kinds of study are valuable.

In reading the Psalms, one immediately notices David’s worldview. It’s stark, solid, and biblical. With David, there are the righteous, and the wicked. Period.

We live in times where Christians are pressured to blur those lines. We’re told to accept and tolerate all manner of sin, value any and all professions of faith even if they’re unaccompanied by fruit, and to view all people as inherently good. Failure to do the above invites catcalls of “Pharisee”, “judgmental”, or worse.

However, when we blur those lines, the loss to the church is that mission fields shrink and disappear. Doctrinal lines are dismissed. Sadly, if we don’t know who is in and who is out, who do we evangelize?

I found this article from a church in MO, called The Righteous and the Wicked. I don’t agree with their KJV-only stance, but I do agree with this article.

We believe that there is a radical and essential difference between the righteous and the wicked; that such only as through faith are justified in the name of the lord Jesus, and sanctified by the spirit of our god, are truly righteous in his esteem while all such as continue in impenitence and unbelief are in his sight wicked, and under the curse; and this distinction holds among men both in and after death. …

This article also emphasizes the fact that with God, there is no middle ground. With men, we see much middle ground or gray area. With God it is all black or white, right or wrong, for him or against him. Joshua made this very clear in Joshua 24:14,15 when he demanded that Israel make a choice to either serve God or not serve God. “Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD. 15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

The Bible makes it clear so many times, using opposites in a plethora of descriptions. This verse from Isaiah 5:20 is just one:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

The verse presents three of the stark opposites:

Evil-Good
Darkness-Light
Bitter-Sweet

We read of those who are cursed and those who are blessed.

Those who are dead and those who are living.

There are those in Christ and those who are in outer darkness.

There are those who draw near, and those who fall away.

There are those who are hot, and those who are cold. The middle ground of lukewarm is something Jesus hates!

The sad thing is that some of these unsaved, evil people are professing Christians. Others are simply true Christians who are stumbling. Without practicing biblical discernment, we are losing our ability as a global church to detect the difference. This is to our detriment. The biblical worldview is that there is either-or.

We need to be mindful of the two-path approach to Jesus. Now, we don’t have the omnipotence that God does. When I try to have these conversations with fellow believers, they quickly shut it down, saying, “Only God knows the heart.” That is true. I can’t see the heart of people to say with the same certainty as God that a person is saved or not saved. I’m not omnipotent. But discernment doesn’t require omnipotence.  “You will know them by their fruits,” Jesus said, twice in the same lesson. (Matthew 7:15-20). He gave us the ability to discern the difference between a thistle and a fig, the difference between a grape and a thorn.

He didn’t say, ‘You won’t know them.’ He didn’t say, ‘You may know them, perhaps. Try again later.’ He didn’t say, ‘Stay quiet because only God knows the heart.’

Therefore by their fruits you will know them. (Matthew 7:20)

I’m not saying to go around and make unsound declarations about people’s position in Christ. But I am saying two things that revolve around this concept – inconsistency and hypocrisy in Christian life brings reproach upon the cause of truth.

Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; (2 Peter 2:2).

So for that reason,

1. Remember that there are two roads and two roads only. Societal pressure, cultural tolerance, personal timidity add to the reluctance of people to remember that. The biblical worldview is that it’s either-or with nothing in the middle! The middle road with mushy doctrinal lines is lukewarm. Jesus hates lukewarm. Do not tolerate sinners among you who preach false doctrine! (Revelation 2:20).

2. If you see a long-term pattern of sin in a person or a long time of no fruit, it is allowed and even commanded by His word, to do something about it. Some of these verses are aimed at pastors but it is also incumbent on lay-people to both edify and rebuke in sincere concern for their restoration. (1 Cor. 5:1-13, 1 Timothy 5:20, 2 Timothy 4:2, Titus 1:13, Galatians 2:14, Ephesians 5:11…)

In an attempt to be kind, or caring, or non-judgmental, we too often allow a believer (or a non-believer “believer”) to go on their wicked path. The believer, if he is a believer, loses rewards every moment he continues on his course of sin. More importantly, professing believers who continue on a wicked path bring reproach onto the name of Jesus. (Romans 2:23-24). The professing person who is self-deluded and not a believer at all, may, in fact, be shaken out of their deluded complacency unto salvation if one confronts them about their lack of fruit.

Even if they aren’t shaken out of complacency or a sinning path, and the Lord hardens them further instead, His glory is manifested in that person as a vessel of wrath. Plus, you are giving Him glory by obeying. Just as the result of our salvation discussions is left to the Holy Spirit, sin-correcting discussion results are also left to Him. Sometimes the person will be amenable, sometimes they will become angry and then amenable, and sometimes they will get mad and stay mad. If you have prayed, if you have been diligent to follow His statutes, if you’ve removed the log from your own eye, if you’ve spoken with a sincerity for the betterment and concern for the person, then leave the results to the Spirit. You’ve done your part.

The Takeaway:

There are two roads. There are the righteous and the wicked. The two roads people travel lead to His domain, whether it is the kingdom of Light in heaven or His domain of Outer Darkness in the Lake of Fire. After death, there is a great gulf fixed, that none many travel from one to the other. Speak the truth in love to those who you have concerns for before the roads become unalterably fixed after death.

As David said in Psalm 6:5,

For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise?

Matthew Henry is concise regarding this verse, and of today’s concept, his comment on Psalm 6:5 is a good way to end it:

6:1-7 These verses speak the language of a heart truly humbled, of a broken and contrite spirit under great afflictions, sent to awaken conscience and mortify corruption. Sickness brought sin to his remembrance, and he looked upon it as a token of God’s displeasure against him. The affliction of his body will be tolerable, if he has comfort in his soul. Christ’s sorest complaint, in his sufferings, was of the trouble of his soul, and the want of his Father’s smiles. Every page of Scripture proclaims the fact, that salvation is only of the Lord.

Man is a sinner, his case can only be reached by mercy; and never is mercy more illustrious than in restoring backsliders. With good reason we may pray, that if it be the will of God, and he has any further work for us or our friends to do in this world, he will yet spare us or them to serve him. To depart and be with Christ is happiest for the saints; but for them to abide in the flesh is more profitable for the church.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Further Reading

Dealing with Sinning Christians

When Should a Christian try to correct another Christian?

In keeping with the theme of knowing there are only two roads and that there are only the righteous and the wicked, let’s look at what a Biblical worldview is, and when a Christian’s biblical worldview can become diluted:

What’s a Christian worldview anyway?

Posted in prophecy, Uncategorized

Throwback Thursday: Sin’s poison is visible in the world

Posted on by elizabethprata

A version of this was originally published on The End Time in December 2009

Jan Brueghel the Elder
THE GARDEN OF EDEN WITH THE FALL OF MAN

In these waning days of the Age, do you think about the Garden of Eden? What untainted creation must have looked like? I do. The only mirror I have of earth as originally intended is in Genesis 1, and there, the LORD called it “good.” The reverse of that is earth in today’s condition. And today it looks pretty bad.

How far and deep has the effect of sin permeated our waters, our land, our food, and our very bodies and brains? Everything seems as poison now. Creation itself is laboring under the poisonous effects of a sinful world. “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” (Romans 8:20-22)

“[T]herefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, “behold, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.” (Jer 9:15) Matthew Henry writes of that verse, “Every thing about them, till it comes to their very meat and drink, shall be a terror and torment to them. God will curse their blessings.” Malachi 2:2 is that reminder of His promise to curse even the blessings of food and water.

I am not referring to the curse of oil spills or overflowing landfills or garbage scows nor greenhouse effects. I am talking the tide of sin-pollution and its impact on a falling world. “Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets, ‘Behold, I am going to feed them wormwood And make them drink poisonous water, For from the prophets of Jerusalem pollution has gone forth into all the land.’” (Jeremiah 23:15). If we insist on wallowing in sin, then the Lord obliges by sending its visible manifestation to us and causes us to eat and drink of it.

Worse, “Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.” (Malachi 2:4). Does the dung promise to mean that if we speak refuse, live in refuse, offer Him refuse, that we will eat refuse? That just as we punish a puppy who messes in the house with rubbing his face in it, God will do the same?

How we have allowed sin’s effects to creep like a tide of polluted water to poison the world. How often we see the bitter herb ‘wormwood’ used in the bible as a visible materialization of our sin. And so it will be again: “The name of the star is called Wormwood, and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter.” (Revelation 8:11)

Sin is a terminal condition. Do not underestimate how seriously God takes it when we refuse to turn away from sin!! Do not underestimate your own sin! Do not think you will escape! The only remedy is the blessed Hope, His forgiveness, made possible because of His sacrifice of blood on the cross. If you feel burdened with guilt for your misdeeds, and believe Jesus died and rose again for your sin, then ask him with sincere heart to forgive you. Believe on His name. Only the forgiven of sin can dwell with the Most High and Holy. Those with sin in them will be given over to the poison that it truly is, now made increasingly visible and manifest in this dying world.

Posted in discernment, Uncategorized

Help! My Friend Is Reading a Dangerous Book

Posted on by elizabethprata

A question was asked at our Bible Discussion Group on how to sensitively approach someone who is in a false religion in order to open discussion as to the truth. This same question has been asked of me personally regarding how to approach a friend whom you see carrying around a book by a false teacher.

At Discussion Group, I’d offered my process of how I deal with friends involved with false teachers, false doctrine, or false religion. I’d said that first, it depends on the relationship you have with them. If you don’t know the person or are only bare acquaintances, it won’t do to walk up to them and just say something brusque or out of the blue that in effect, amounts to saying “You’re doing it wrong.”

The Bible encourages and commands discipling relationships with one another. This is so we can keep each other accountable. We can carry each other’s burdens. Ultimately, close involvement with each other means can edify and grow one another and one way we do this is by helping sisters course-correct.

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. (1 Thessalonians 5:11).

We can’t build up a sister if we let them wallow in false doctrine. (Jude 1:23). Alternately, we won’t build them up if we are tactless and brusque. (2 Timothy 2:25, Galatians 6:1).

Assuming you are close enough with the sister to have established trust and are known to each other in a friendly way, then what I do is begin by asking questions. Perhaps the person is reading the book for research purposes. Maybe someone less discerning gave it to them and they haven’t thrown it out yet. Maybe they are getting ready to give it to someone else. Maybe a lot of things. Just ask. “Are you reading that book? What do you think of it?” “Let me know when you’re done, I’d love to get your take on it…” Etc.

Finally, I always have something else to offer the person in the books’ stead. It doesn’t help the person as much to just say that their book is a dangerous book, without having something in which to substitute. If they’d lacked discernment enough in the first place to get or read that book, then offering them material written by a credible author steers them into a better direction.

I was pleased when I’d come across this short discussion from 2016 where Noël Piper, Kathleen Nielson, and Gloria Furman discuss this very question. I was even more pleased when they shared that they do the same: ask, be gentle, discuss. Phew, at least I’m not off the deep end with this.

The women also discuss two other questions. If you can’t play back videos, here is a link to just listen.

One final thing. Their title mentions ‘a dangerous book.” Undoctrinal books ARE dangerous. Books like The Shack, Love Wins, The Circle Maker, any and all non-doctrinal, unorthodox books present a danger to the Christian. Adam and Eve only had to obey one command, and within a shockingly short time, satan easily managed to twist that command into a suggestion. Paul said to Titus that false doctrine upsets whole families (Titus 1:11). Paul warned Timothy that false doctrine undermines the faith. (2 Timothy 2:18). Make no mistake, (because satan isn’t making the same mistake), the false doctrine contained in books, movies, pamphlets, and Bible studies is a very present danger to the Christian mind and heart.

Here is the blurb for the short video:

Your friend is gushing about that book she’s been reading. It’s on the Christian Living bestseller list, but for whatever reason you suspect the book is more influenced by the spirit of the age than by a biblical worldview. … Nielson cautions against the overcorrection of reading only the Bible, since reading widely can actually enhance Bible reading, and Piper warns against becoming the kind of reader who only reads books from your own “tribe.”

Help! My Friend Is Reading a Dangerous Book
Noël Piper, Kathleen Nielson, and Gloria Furman Discuss

https://player.vimeo.com/video/187825197

Posted in encouragement, Uncategorized

The Sad Story of the Wind Phone

Posted on by elizabethprata

The lost are in the night, the cold, the outside. The lost are stumbling around, leading each other into a pit. They know not what they do. They dwell in a land of darkness with no hope.

For that reason, we can have compassion and pity.

This week I read an article that pulled at my heart strings. It was one of those articles that evoked pity, but also gratitude. I say gratitude because the Lord transferred me from the Kingdom of Darkness into His kingdom of Light. I have hope for an afterlife, the assurance of His more sure word on what is going to happen.

The phone of the wind. CC BY-SA 4.0

Wind Telephone
A disconnected rotary phone for “calling” lost loved ones offered a unique way of dealing with grief in disaster-stricken Japan.

When Itaru Sasaki lost his cousin in 2010, he decided to build a glass-paneled phone booth in his hilltop garden with a disconnected rotary phone inside for communicating with his lost relative, to help him deal with his grief.

Only a year later, Japan faced the horrors of a triple disaster: an earthquake followed by a tsunami, which caused a nuclear meltdown. Sasaki’s coastal hometown of Otsuchi was hit with 30-foot waves. Ten percent of the town died in the flood.

Sasaki opened his kaze no denwa or “wind phone” to the now huge number of people in the community mourning the loss of loved ones. Eventually, word spread and others experiencing grief made the pilgrimage from around the country. It is believed that 10,000 visitors journeyed to this hilltop outside Otsuchi within three years of the disaster.

The article goes on to assure the reader that the wind phone is meant to be used as a one-way communication. In other words, the people dialing the rotary dial and speaking their grief to the wind do not expect to hear anything in return at all. It’s just a symbol, a process, and an activity to help people feel more in control during their time of grief.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Not knowing about what happens after death is a number one issue for the unsaved. They might utter it, or they might never utter it, but we know that the gaping maw that is the great, unanswered question of eternity always lurks behind their thoughts. We know this because they are children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3) and the wrath abides on them all the time. (John 3:36). As Paul said, If our hope in Christ is for this life alone, we are to be pitied more than all men. (1 Corinthians 15:19).

We Christians have the assurance of a sinless, perfect afterlife with Jesus. We also have the promise of loving attention by a God who hears our prayers. (Psalm 34:15). We do not need a wind phone, we have the ear of the Almighty God! What praise there is in that! We are encouraged to take our supplications to Him, He hears us from His mighty temple. (Psalm 18:6).

Doesn’t it just tug your heart strings to see something like a wind phone atop a lonely hill in Japan? Doesn’t it pierce you, knowing the sadness and grief of the lost will not be salved? But doesn’t it also pierce you (as it does me) to have the ability to pray to the Holy One, and not? While the lost are installing phantom phones to whisper their grief into the wind, we are assured we have the ear of the High Priest at our disposal.

Pray more. Jesus is the God who sees and hears. He knows the voices of His sheep. Our griefs, supplications, petitions, cares, burdens, praises, and joys reach Him even though He is an unutterable distance away. But He is this close, too, inside us, knowing our sinews and heartbeats. He knows what we will ask before we ask it. He knows the need to be comforted even as we clasp our hands and open our mouth. He is great, attentive, wise, and concerned. Pray more. And tell the lost before they need a wind phone, that there is One who will listen, if they repent.

——————————————-

Further Reading

The Master’s Seminary: When an Unbeliever Dies: Offering Comfort without Distorting the Truth

Desiring God: How Do You Deal with the Death of an Unsaved Loved One?

Posted in encouragement, Uncategorized

David’s brave prayer

Posted on by elizabethprata

In Matthew 16:24-26 we read,

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

We know that passage means we turn our back on the kingdom of darkness and everything it represents, including self-aggrandizement, self-absorption, selfishness, anything self, &etc. We know we are supposed to die to self. We know we are supposed to hold others in higher regard than ourselves. We know it is written that we should be willing to lay down our life for our friends.

It’s hard.

Very hard.

Oh, does the flesh rebel against this.

We read in Psalm 7:3-5, the following prayer by David.

O Lord my God, if I have done this,
if there is wrong in my hands,
if I have repaid my friend with evil
or plundered my enemy without cause,
let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it,
and let him trample my life to the ground
and lay my glory in the dust.

In that section of the Psalm, David is saying that if he has violated his Godly principles and done evil to a friend, may the Lord crush him. He is saying that if he has done evil to an enemy without cause, may him be trampled to the ground without honor.

Barnes Notes explains,

repaid friend with evil – The meaning here is simply that if he were a guilty man, in the manner charged on him, he would be willing to be treated accordingly. He did not wish to screen himself from any just treatment; and if he had been guilty he would not complain even if he were cut off from the land of the living.

plundered enemy without cause – The allusion here is to the manner in which the vanquished were often treated in battle, when they were rode over by horses, or trampled by men into the dust. The idea of David is, that if he was guilty he would be willing that his enemy should triumph over him, should subdue him, should treat him with the utmost indignity and scorn.

No wonder David was a man after God’s own heart. It is a hard thing to pray. Because, God will do it.

Sometimes I try to pray this kind of prayer. The words stick in my throat. Or, as the words come out, I soften them. I am a weakling when it comes to the battle between myself and others. ‘Lay my glory in the dust’? I am far from mastering that.

Praise God for the Psalms. They are comforting yes, but they are convicting too. Lord, help me by giving me the strength to more deeply obey Your principles. As I take up my cross today and go down the dusty road, give me the strength to truly care for others beyond myself, in spite of myself, denying myself.

EPrata photo
Posted in prophecy, Uncategorized

He is Risen!

Posted on by elizabethprata

Jesus accomplished the work God sent Him here to do. He did it perfectly, sinlessly, and died on the cross after absorbing all God’s wrath for sin. He even endured a horrific separation from the Father. Jesus had only ever known perfect harmony with God and love and sweet communion. O! To be cruelly dismissed from His presence! Jesus was not afeared of the pain of the crucifixion as much as he was dreading being separated from God. It was the loneliest moment in history forever.

He endured that separation and bore the wrath, so we would never have to. We can come into sweet communion with the Father, justified, sanctified, and someday, glorified.

God was pleased with His Son, and resurrected Him from the dead.

God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. (Acts 2:24)

Posted in 2012 prophecy, prophecy, Uncategorized

Woe and Lamentation!

Posted on by elizabethprata

For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. (Psalm 16:10)

Therefore he says also in another psalm,
‘”You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’

For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. (Acts 13:35-37).

O! It is grievous to think of our precious Lord being nailed to the cross as He was on ‘Good’ Friday. It IS a Good Friday because His life, death, and resurrection makes it possible for sins to be forgiven once and for all. Jesus’ work on the cross made permanent reconciliation with His called ones possible. It was effectual and final.

But oh! To think of his broken body being carefully lowered from the cross, quickly prepared for burial, and laid in a dark tomb…. it wounds the conscience. It darkens the heart. It grieves the flesh. Death is final, the body no more thriving with movement and color. Only limp, pale, dead tissue- a lump of nothing that came from dust and will turn to dust.

And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. (Mark 15:46).

But no! Not Christ’s body! He will not see decay. However, the grief and suffering of His disciples who did not know that at the time, is woeful to consider.

Giotto painted the lamentation over Christ’s death in the early 1300s. Grief is palpable to the viewer. The dead tree on the hillside symbolizing the tree in the garden where Adam and Eve made their fatal choice…the three women surrounding his limp body, likely Mary Magdalene gently cradling His feet and the mother Mary holding His head, the angels who long to look into these thing also shown affected by the death and burial of Christ, their God whom they had known since their own creation created in eons past.

Titian also depicted the entombment of Christ, painting the more intimate scene below in 1520. The major figures are at Christ’s death, including Mary, John, Nicodemus, Peter, and Joseph of Arimathea, displaying more restraint that Giotto’s depiction, still carefully remove the body and prepare Him for entombement. The twilight timing allowed Titian’s usual use of darkened tones to add depth to the lamentation. Christ’s upper body itself is receding into the darkness, foreshadowing the tomb. What strength they had to carry Him without staggering under unimaginable grief, and place Him behind the rock!

Bela Čikoš Sesija’s Mourning of Christ is an even more intimate portrait. Painted sometime in the late 1800s, this Croatian painter shows the undeniably lifeless Christ in shadow, but His white robe, symbolizing purity and sinlessness is highlighted by a heavenly glow, along with the crown of thorns, symbolizing His suffering. The grief of the two women is also palpable, as is their resignation to the finality of death.

Praise God, Sunday is coming! What joy they will know in one more day’s time! For all eternity, death is conquered, swallowed by His suffering and propitiation for sin, absorbing the wrath for His chosen sinners once for all. Hallelujah!