Posted in earthquake, end time, japan

Powerful series of quakes in Japan cause landslide, kills 11

Posted on by elizabethprata

Earthquakes: a token sign of God’s displeasure over sin. See below, John Newton’s Messiah.

Update at bottom: “Swaying every hour“

A powerful 7.3 magnitude earthquake occurred in Japan today, causing a landslide and 11 deaths. The large temblor was followed by a series of 5.7 and 5.4 magnitude quakes and other aftershocks as well.

It has been a busy week for quakes these last two weeks. After a period of several months of relative quiet, there have been 13 quakes in the 6.0-6.9 range.

A more powerful earthquake has rocked the southern Japanese city of Kumamoto in the middle of the night, a day after an earlier tremor killed nine people. The magnitude-7.3 quake hit at a depth of 10km (six miles) at 01:25 on Saturday (15:25 GMT on Friday) in Kyushu region. At least three people died and hundreds were injured. A village has been evacuated after a dam collapsed, media reports say. (Source)

Rescue crews scrambled through rubble Saturday morning in a desperate search for survivors of a magnitude-7.0 earthquake that struck Japan’s Kyushu Island, the same region rattled by a 6.2 quake two days earlier. (CNN)

Small eruption on Japan’s Mount Aso after earthquake

A small eruption occurred at Mt. Aso in southern Japan on Saturday around 8:30 a.m. local time (2330 GMT Friday) following a strong earthquake in the area, with smoke rising about 100 meters (300 feet) high, public broadcaster NHK reported. The Japanese Meteorological Agency kept its alert level at 2 on a scale of 5 for Mt. Aso, which has had eruptions in the past.
(Reporting by Chris Gallagher; Editing by Michael Perry)

Update: Japan earthquakes: Dozens killed, region ‘swaying every hour’

One can but hope and pray for the soon return of Jesus Christ. Since the fall of man into depravity and sin entered the world, life has been a terrible cycle of disasters, diseases, and death

Messiah, Vol 2, by John Newton (author of Amazing Grace hymn)

Can there be a stronger confirmation of what we read in Scripture, concerning the depravity of man? Can we conceive an employment more suited to gratify the malignity of Satan and the powers of darkness, if they were permitted to appear and act amongst us in human shapes? Could such enormities possibly obtain, if the mild and merciful spirit of the Gospel generally prevailed? But it shall prevail at last, and then the nations shall learn war no more (Isaiah 2:4). 

How transporting the thought! That a time shall yet arrive, when the love of God and man, of truth and righteousness, shall obtain [shall prevail] through the earth. The evils (and these are the greatest evils of human life) which men bring upon themselves, and upon each other, by their wickedness, shall cease; and we may believe that the evils in the natural world will be greatly abated. Sin will no longer call down the tokens of God’s displeasure, by such public calamities as hurricanes, earthquakes, pestilence, and famine.

Posted in Kay Cude, poetry

Kay Cude: The Extension of the Nature of Narcissus

Posted on by elizabethprata

Poet Kay Cude said she felt …

…compelled to write this piece after I happened upon the image and then several days later, happened upon Bud Ahleim’s  

TOGETHER AGAIN: BETH MOORE AND CHRISTINE CAINE – OUTRAGING THE SPIRIT OF GRACE (iProtest, March 28, 2016)

and 

BETH MOORE NARCIGESIS ACTS 16:14: YOU ARE THE WOMAN IN THE STORY (Jeff Maples, Psalm 12 Outreach, February 6, 2016).

Click to enlarge

Posted in bible, prophecy, prophetic interrogation, social justice

Prophetic interrogation, what it is and why to watch out for people using the term

Posted on by elizabethprata
I was reading up on an organization called Sojourners. It is an organization whose focus is fighting against social injustice with some faith thrown in. In their “About us” page they used the phrase “prophetic interrogation”. I was intrigued by that. New terms popping up that have a Christian overlay to them interest me. Like this tweet from Michelle Lesley.

Here is the Sojourners blurb where they audaciously announce they they are prophetic interrogators.

Sojourners magazine and Sojourners online publication sit at the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. Our coverage goes beyond the trending headlines to uncover and explore in depth the hidden injustices in the world around us. Our call to prophetic interrogation means we seek the truth as informed by our biblical roots.

Apparently it is not enough to address obvious injustices, one must now uncover hidden injustice, too. Designating one’s organization or the people in it prophetic interrogators is audacious because they have not been called to perform prophetic interrogation. The term is an old term used to describe a rhetorical device in the Bible whereupon the ACTUAL prophets speak words to the nation Israel (or other nations as designated by God) to question them either actually or rhetorically. Here are a couple of descriptions of what the term prophetic interrogation means.

Elements of Prophetic Interpretation. 

THE INTERROGATION — while its legitimate use is to ask a question — is also used to affirm or deny with great emphasis. Affirmative interrogations usually have no or not in connection with the verb. Example. — “Is not God in the height of the heavens?” Job 22:12. Examples of a negative. — “Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once?” Isa.66:8. “Can the rush grow up without mire?” Job 8:11.

From the book Minor Prophets Part 2, by Michael H. Floyd,

Prophets would often provoke their audience with accusatory or confrontational questions (e.g., Isaiah 7:13, 22:1b, 16; Jeremiah 4:30; Ezekiel 18:2, 25, 29; cf. Psalm 50:16, 53:3), and inferential questioning would serve as one way of pursuing this rhetorical strategy (e.g., Amos 3:8; Isaiah 50:7-9). In prophetic discourse inferential questioning usually serves to foster an assessment of some claim about the nature of Yahweh’s involvement in human affairs (—-> prophecy).

I hope the reader can see why it is audacious (brash, arrogant) to designate one’s self a prophet called by God to interrogate entire nations, systems, or organizations. First, prophetic interrogation as seen in the Bible always points back to God.

Secondly, God calls prophets, one does not designation one’s self as a prophet (in NT times, a pastor). Third, the willingness to call one’s self prophetic interrogators reveals an even more symptomatic problem. I mentioned that Sojourners is a social justice organization that ‘intersects where faith, politics and culture meet’. The church is called to share the Gospel, period, not entertain politics and culture. However, social justice organizations often lose their singular focus and dilute or even do away with Gospel proclamation. See this paper published in Britain in 2005 titled, Exploring ethos? Discourses of `charity’ in the provision of emergency services for homeless people. The author John May compared three systems of generosity, and took a particular interest in the reasons why individuals and organisations become involved in the task of caring for, or serving, homeless people.

We Christians know that loving our neighbor is our response to the saving grace Jesus bestowed on us and our desire to nurture, help, and serve as a logical and an emotional response to that grace. Sometimes this perplexes secular people, and so the thrust of the paper was to compare charity work among “Christian caritas, secular humanism, and postsecular charity.” Mr May writes of Christians engaged in social justice,

The Christian ethical impulse to charity is most clearly displayed in the reforming zeal of evangelicals in the 19th century. Underpinned by the great evangelical revival which began at the end of the 18th century, a widespread depth of religious faith became a motivating factor for the establishment of a far-reaching charitable network, three quarters of which, according to Heasman, was evangelical Christian in nature. As Owen (1965) suggests, “So unwearied in well-doing were certain groups of Bible Christians that in the public mind the word ‘philanthropist’ became all but synonymous with ‘evangelical’, and ‘philanthropy’ was applied to the good works that appeals most to evangelical tastes” (page 93). 

…These outpourings of 19th-century Christian charity relied on an overtly evangelical underpinning of action. Charitable activity was essentially entwined with an urgency to convert people to Christian ways of living. As the impacts of the evangelical revival waned, Christian theology became increasingly liberalised, undermining the link between social welfare and salvation. [emphasis mine]

…Another, related dilemma, relates to the intersection of faith and political worldview. Some Christians view their caritas through an individualist political lens – believing that social problems result from an individual’s failures, so the emphasis is on individual conversion as a means of over-coming personal failure (Steinfels, 2001). Others see poverty as caused by unjust social, economic, and political structures and life circumstances largely beyond the control of individuals. Christian charity in this context not only provides personal strength for these individuals, but also presents a ‘prophetic interrogation’ (Wallis, 2001) of social injustice more generally.

That is the problem with organizations that focus on social injustice to the exclusion of the Gospel. The historical trend went like this:

  • serving others in social welfare as a Gospel response, conversion in mind
  • crusading for social justice to rectify the symptoms that caused the person to need the welfare in the first place
  • to speak for God in interrogating entire nations or systems as to why the injustice exists.

Each step in this trend removes the Gospel from center focus and elevates the people performing the service to exalted positions they do not warrant.

My message today: watch out for the term “prophetic interrogation.” Add it to your list of terms like anointing and the others that do not mean what the speaker thinks it means.

Posted in discernment, mystery, scientology

Scientology opens new building in Atlanta, Martyn Lloyd Jones’ Mystery of God’s will

Posted on by elizabethprata

which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him. (Ephesians 1:8-9)

Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached a phenomenal series through the Book of Ephesians. His sermon on the verse from 8-9 is called The Mystery of God’s Will. It is so rich with insight and profundity I listened to it twice and then transcribed part of it so as to study more. Here is MLJ on the word mystery in Ephesians and other verses:

Mystery is a key term. If we do not understand its meaning we shall certainly go astray. … What, then, does this term mean? Well, let us have a few negatives. It does not mean the same as the manner of the cults and the mystery religions which were common in Paul’s day. A kind of mystic secret, which is only revealed to a few initiates and which is deliberately kept from and guarded from everybody else. No, that was the characteristic of the mystery religions. You went into the temples and you went through certain procedures. It was a secret that was really confined to a few philosophers and exceptional people. It was never given to the common, ordinary people.  

Oh no, it was closely guarded and kept, and there was a great ceremony and ritual and then you were initiated. There are certain cults as you are familiar with at the present time which are clearly based upon such practices and are the very antithesis of the Christian faith. Behind closed doors, the secret must be kept and never divulged, and nobody knows. It’s the opposite of Christianity which proclaims, preaches, expounds, heralds, and wants everybody to know it. It isn’t a closely guarded secret to which only initiates are admitted. No, it isn’t that. 

More important perhaps is that we should say this: that when this truth is described as a mystery, it doesn’t mean that it is something that is incomprehensible to the human mind in and of itself and therefore vague and nebulous and indefinite. Now that is the more important point to emphasize today. Because, there is a popular school of thought which says something like this: it is that the Christian faith can never be stated in propositions. Those of you who are following the journals will recognize this as part of the Barthian movement, followers of Karl Barth of Switzerland. They say that truth, salvation, cannot and must not be stated in propositional terms.

Well what is it then? They say it is essentially an encounter. It is this existential moment when God speaks to man and addresses him and then something happens. And all man’s attempts and endeavors to put it into print of necessity are wrong and false and misleading. That is why they say that ultimately all you have in the Bible is very fallible. That it is only man’s attempts to state this thing that happened at the moment of encounter. You mustn’t tell men that you must believe certain propositional truths, they say that truth can never be stated propositionally. It’s a mystery. In other words, their definition of a mystery is that it is something incomprehensible, something that men cannot state and cannot express. Any attempt to do so detracts from it.

Now, I say that it is vitally important that we should realize that that is not the meaning of mystery. That view of mystery is not confined to the Barthian movement and to its various adherents, there are others who believe the same thing. …

I suggest that those definitions of mystery are utterly erroneous.

Gill’s Exposition explains the Ephesians verse, what God’s mystery is—

the mystery—God’s purpose of redemption hidden heretofore in His counsels, but now revealed (Eph 6:19; Ro 16:25; Col 1:26, 27). This “mystery” is not like the heathen mysteries, which were imparted only to the initiated few. All Christians are the initiated. Only unbelievers are the uninitiated.

And yet, there are so many false religions around the world and on our own doorstep that take the word mystery and build an entire false religion around it. People follow a track or a hierarchy in attempting to climb toward solving the “mystery”. They will all perish if they adhere to their track on the mystery religion. So many men and women have founded religions where people fruitlessly seek to perform tasks and rituals which will eventually (they hope) reveal the mystery. In all cases, these false religions or secret societies are attempting to contact god or gods. As this page explains,

The idea of there being different levels then moves the process on and ensures that the new initiate strives to become an adherent or full member by learning the ways of the club or society – and thus the initiate becomes fully engulfed in the world of the society.

Secret societies take this membership a step further by including certain devices within the “knowledge bank” that the initiate must learn. These devices include secret handshakes and words, special days of the year known only to the few, and insights into standard texts. All this, and more, makes the initiate feel ever more important. In all instances, the ultimate enlightenment experience seems to be kept back for the very highest levels of initiation – lower levels of illumination are permitted and used for the lower degrees.

One modern secret society which proposes to unlock “mysteries” is the Scientology cult. One knows that cults attract large numbers. Cults indulge the flesh, appeal to intellect, or make a person feel exalted or special. It’s disheartening to see how many people fall for the false claims.

Cults have

excellent ways of drawing in members and utilizing a heightened state in the individual for their own ends – whatever they may be.

Scientology in particular, according to their own definition,

In one form or another, all great religions have held the hope of spiritual freedom—a condition free of material limitations and misery. The question has always been, however, how does one reach such a state, particularly while still living amidst a frantic and often overwhelming society?
Although modern life seems to pose an infinitely complex array of problems, Scientology maintains that the solutions to those problems are basically simple and within every man’s reach. Difficulties with communication and interpersonal relationships, nagging insecurities, self-doubt and despair—each man innately possesses the potential to be free of these and many other concerns.
Scientology offers a pathway to greater freedom.

No, it does not. The only pathway to freedom is through Jesus, because He forgives our sins and frees us from bondage to them.

I live within range of Atlanta. In this essay we are speaking of mystery religions, (cults) one of which is Scientology. Scientology says they offer “total freedom” but only through a veil of secret teachings. The following was news last weekend. Even at that, the information that published in the paper was not reported on by an unbiased journalist, it was from a carefully scripted press release from the organization itself. This means that the information we learn is only what the Organization wants us to know. The Church of Scientology-Atlanta held the grand opening of its new campus in Sandy Springs on Saturday and it seemed to be quite a draw.

So much wasted flesh… (photo source)

It’s quite disheartening to see so many people seek mysteries which have no resolution, when the resolution to everything is Jesus, and he is out in the open. We must address our sin, not indulge it, as the mystery religions do. Even more sad, is this article below reporting from the press release of the same event,

The Atlanta opening continues an explosive growth period for the Church in the past 12 months. And more is on the way, with openings in the coming year planned for cultural epicenters in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America. Joining the Church’s opening celebration were 1,500 Atlanta Scientologists, plus those from along the Eastern Seaboard. (source)

Many people are seeking what is false. These people seeking the false are not just in Atlanta like in the picture above, but they are all around the world. And they are seeking what is false not just through Scientology but other mystery religions too. It’s saddening to the point of mourning to see so many people in one photo applauding the mystery religion that will reveal no mystery but only send them to hell.

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)

The problem with the mis-definition of “mystery” is that non-believers seek knowledge to resolve the mystery, but never seek the resolution to our universal problem, which is sin. And sin is no mystery to anyone, even the unbeliever. (Romans 1:18).

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. (1 John 4:15)

For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy 2:5)

Posted in barnhouse, discernment, social justice

What is God doing in the world today?

Posted on by elizabethprata
The following is a sermon excerpt transcribed from Dr Donald Grey Barnhouse. The sermon “What is God Doing Today?” can be found here. Dr Barnhouse launched his long-running radio program in 1927, and he pastored from 1927 until his death in 1960. Therefore this sermon had to have been preached sometime in that time frame, yet its age, at youngest perhaps 56 years old and at oldest, perhaps 90, is fresh and relevant today. 

We so often hear the cry of the social religious liberals to that they plan to change the world with their acts, or bring about social justice through this or that organization or these millions in donations. This of course is not a new theme. Dr Barnhouse’s sermon lets us know just how off-kilter the social justice cries really are. And how stale.

I recommend the sermon in its entirety at the link above.

————————————–

What is God Doing Today?

The question I am going to ask and answer today is ‘will the church save the world?’ What is God’s purpose in our age? God has but one purpose for the church, and He is confining that purpose to this age. In the Bible, God reveals that purpose.

Now we know that all Bible revelation centers around the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in two phases. First, He came to suffer for the sins of men. And He will come the second time to rule with a rod of iron and to bring righteousness to the earth. The Old Testament reveals nothing about the period between His First and Second coming. That revelation was made after Pentecost. 

What are God’s plan and purpose for this age? We need to find out so that we may not work contrary to them. A great New England preacher was once asked why he did not cooperate with Dwight L. Moody. The minister replied that he and Mr Moody did not agree on the purpose of life and work. This minister looked upon the church as a great ship, sailing through stormy seas, perhaps, but sailing on nevertheless in triumph, sure to come into port someday, with all the world on board. He expected that all the world would be Christianized and that everyone would be brought under the domination of the Gospel.

Mr Moody, on the other hand, looked upon the world as a sinking vessel, from which the church was to save as many souls as possible before the world foundered in great catastrophe. Obviously, it’s impossible to harmonize these two points of view. Therefore we need to examine God’s word so that our plans and purpose may be in harmony with His.
…
Never in the prophetic outline of the Church Age given in the word of God do we find the Church comprising more than a fraction of the population of the earth. Never is this Church spoken of as ‘all-inclusive’. Not one verse in the Bible teaches or even allows one to infer that the world is ever to be converted through the work of the church. Rather it is definitely taught that never will all people be in the true church. The low spiritual condition of many churches today is due in large measure to the fact that leaders have failed to recognize this truth and have been seeking to accomplish purposes that are out of harmony with the plan of God. Many leaders, lay and clerical alike, are trying to change the intellectual currents of the age. They are seeking to transform the social and economic order. Their aim is to build a new civilization for children to be born into. All this is foreign to the plan of God. Such ideas cannot be found in the New Testament.

Anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ can only adopt the attitude of the Lord Jesus toward the age in which we live. Our Lord spoke in no uncertain terms about the intellectual currents of this world system…its civilization…its social and economic order… He said in John 15, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it has hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own.”

There is no word here about trying to change the attitudes of the world toward believers in Lord Jesus Christ. … Christ NEVER hinted that there was any hope for this world as it is in its present condition. There is hope for believers, salvation for those who turn to Christ, but no hope for the unbelieving world. In John 17 Christ even refused to pray for the world. In His last, great prayer, recorded in John 17, He said “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world…9I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” 

It is not God’s purpose in this age to improve the social or moral order of the world. Anybody who seeks to make this world a better place to live in has failed to understand the purpose of God today. For God’s purpose is to form His church, the Body of called-out ones.

Posted in boyfriend, discernment, romance

Jesus is not our boyfriend

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Not all girls universally desire a romantic groom to come sweeping in on a white horse to rescue them. Not every woman is a romantic.

Ladies, don’t buy into the current attitude that because all women want a romantic groom, that we can envision Jesus as that romantic groom. The romantic Jesus-boyfriend complex is an unfortunate trend that in fact diminishes the august majesty of our King. He is also Savior, Redeemer, Priest, Father, Friend, Healer, Provider, and a host of other facets to His personality that are the complete God-man whom we worship. He is not our boyfriend.

Jesus is not a Prince Charming jousting for a lady fair’s attention. Jesus is not Prince Charming trying to win a fair maiden’s attention. He is GOD! He doesn’t woo. He doesn’t plead. He doesn’t leave small favors on our doorstep so we would finally fall, smitten, at His feet. He is GOD! He decides whose name will go in His lamb’s Book of Life. He decided that before we were even formed. Then he makes it happen.

Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, (Hebrews 8:1)

And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they. (Hebrews 1:3-4)

“Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all. (1 Chronicles 29:11)

Does that sound like a man who is supposed to woo his woman and fall head over heels, weaving a daisy chain together to bestow with a kiss? No.

Bless the LORD, O my soul! O LORD my God, You are very great; You are clothed with splendor and majesty, (Psalm 104:1)

And yet we women are subjected to titles like this, depicting our majestic God as as a foppish suitor. This terrible book was actually written, actually published and is actually on sale:

The Wild Romancer: Uncovering the Romance Jesus Longs to Lavish on You, by Brenda Cobb Murphy.

Jesus longs for something? This would indicate an impotence that does not exist. It evokes a weak man who wishes, hopes, tries, but does not accomplish. But Jesus accomplished it all. He defeated death by the power of His sinless will! Yet these kind of titles are all too common. This theme is all too frequent in “women’s studies”. One ‘teacher’ urges women to “make Jesus the supreme romance of your life“, if we would “only let Him.” Ann Voskamp says that we “make love to God.” Sarah Young carries this erotic-romantic theme forward in her book, Jesus Calling Grads. That’s idolatry, projecting our own emotions onto Jesus and worshiping the image we have created.

He did not come to woo us gently to His heart. He came to shed His blood so as to exhaust God’s wrath for His elect’s sin. Even the concept of wooing toward salvation is foreign to the Bible. No one seeks for God, no not one. (Romans 3:10-11). We women are not wandering romantics looking for our Prince Charming, who whispers sweet nothings into our ear and satisfies the need for glamour and mystique in our love lives as we finally, sweetly succumb. He is the avenging Savior ransoming us from sin’s bondage in His inestimable timing. Sometimes salvation is hard, messy, and initially unwanted.

It is the romanticizing of Jesus that is one of the ways we remake God into our own image. This is idolatry. We have a human desire or need, and we make God into an image that fills that need.

Isaiah 44:15 & 17 say of idolatry,

Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it.

From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, “Save me! You are my god!”

The romantic whispery Jesus is the false God some women have made, and this is concerning because these women have a platform for publishing books or speaking to thousands of women. This is the false Jesus they urge women to fall down before.

Jesus is not our prom date. He is the creator, sustainer and destroyer of worlds. (Genesis 1:26, Colossians 1:17, 2 Peter 3;10). He decided to create man for a relationship with Him, so that man may know Him and glorify Him. (Psalm 86).

Jesus is not our boyfriend.

————————————————–

Further Resources

Critique: Why Jesus isn’t your boyfriend

Jesus did not accomplish redemption to marry us individually. He died for the church corporate, of which we are a part. His death accomplished something much greater than simply meeting our deep-seated desires for a significant other.

 

Posted in encouragement, glory, joy, praise

A Sinner’s Joy Unspeakable

Posted on by elizabethprata

Sunday, and every day, is a good time to think about our salvation. And I do. I’m forever grateful, fully knowing my sinfulness, reprobate mind, and hate toward God prior to salvation.

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)

How humbling it is to know that though I hated Him, He loved me, and in His due time, He brought me to salvation.

I’m often struck by Jonathan Edwards’ sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. the image of the gossamer thread holding us aloft while we dangle unknowingly over the open flame of hell is a potent one. I wrote this poem, and then below my poem are the excerpts from which I took inspiration from Edwards sermon and his book religious Affections.

With all Due Gratitude Toward the One Who is Able to Save
By Elizabeth Prata

Sinking in sorrow and shame
A slender thread
was enough
to keep me from the flame

The slender thread
The blood of Christ
My sin my shame
His blood sufficed

He lifted me from the muck and mire
Forever free from damning hellfire
Turning to Him who loves and saves
Fearing never the darkest graves

The slender thread pierced my cold dead soul
To worship life’s eternal flame
In one fell stroke
Sin’s power no longer my yoke

What sweet refrain can I freely sing
What joy in Jesus forevermore,
His blood it banished
My sins from east to west, O King!

~EPrata

“There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.” — By the mere pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty, any more than if nothing else but God’s mere will had in the least degree, or in any respect whatsoever, any hand in the preservation of wicked men one moment.

O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, ~Jonathan Edwards,Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

After the Bad News, comes the Good News

1 Peter 1:8: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Their joy was full of glory. Although the joy was unspeakable, and no words were sufficient to describe it, yet something might be said of it, and no words more fit to represent its excellency than these, that it was full of glory; or, as it is in the original, glorified joy. In rejoicing with this joy, their minds were filled, as it were, with a glorious brightness, and their natures exalted and perfected. It was a most worthy, noble rejoicing, that did not corrupt and debase the mind, as many carnal joys do; but did greatly beautify and dignify it; it was a prelibation of the joy of heaven, that raised their minds to a degree of heavenly blessedness; it filled their minds with the light of God’s glory, and made themselves to shine with some communication of that glory. ~Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections

Posted in bible, forgiveness, God, joseph, sovereign

Blame Game

Posted on by elizabethprata

Do you blame others? Try to dodge responsibility for your actions by blaming others? Are you full of excuses? I spent four decades on the planet as an unsaved person, I had honed blame-shifting to near perfection. I could rationalize away the worst sins. “What you did caused me to…” or “Despite what YOU did, I rose above…”

The mark of a spiritually mature person is one who not only accepts responsibility without excuses but seeks to give God glory and thinks of the other person first. Let’s look at three examples from the Bible.

The immediate blame-game that comes to mind are Adam and Eve. It’s disappointing that their first response was one of blaming each other. So much for Adam being a leader, he threw Eve under the bus at the first obstacle. God is asking Adam and Eve what they have done, since they knew they were naked and were hiding from God.

He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:11-13)

Neither of them were spiritually mature. But perhaps we can give them a slight break, neither of them had encountered sin before.

Let’s look at Cain and Abel. Cain worked the ground, and Abel was a shepherd (the first one in the Bible?). We know that God accepted Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s.

In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. (Genesis 4:4-5)

Cain killed his brother Abel. When God asked Cain about it, Cain deflected his responsibility and denied knowing anything of Abel’s whereabouts. Eve had to be talking into her sin, but Cain couldn’t be talked out of it. Not even by God. Cain remained angry and surly towards God. (Genesis 4:9).

Joseph is the third example. You remember, he was the youngest at the time of Jacob’s sons, and the firstborn of Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel. Joseph’s older brothers were jealous of Joseph, and conspired to kill Joseph, but then at the last minute decided to profit from their scheme and sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt. That was the last the brothers saw of Joseph until they were facing death in a very severe famine, and traveled to Egypt to buy grain. After a period of time and testing, Joseph revealed who he was to his brothers.

So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. (Genesis 45:4-5).

Of anyone who had reason to blame, it was Joseph. He had been an innocent party of his brother’s sins, and Joseph had suffered terribly for it. Adam, Eve, and Cain were overtly choosing wrong, and blamed others for their acts. Joseph chose right, and ever blamed anyone. Abandoned by his brothers, betrayed by them at a horrific level, (conspiracy of fratricide), falsely accused, being put in jail, attempted rape by Potiphar’s wife, Joseph had reason more than practically anyone in the Bible to blame his brothers.

He could have said,

“Look what you did, and God is repaying you, but I will forgive you!”
“You mocked me when I dreamed of you bowing down to me, and yet here you are, bowing down to me!”
“Don’t you know I hold your life in my hands?”

But Joseph didn’t. First of all Joseph praised God for His providential hand. Recognizing God’s sovereignty is always the best place to start. Then Joseph reassured the brothers, saying they should not be distressed by their act. Joseph sought their good, and removed opportunity for self-blame by emphatically showing he did not blame them. He was seeking the brothers’ good.

That’s what spiritually mature people do. They seek the good of the other person and ignore opportunities to lord it over them.

But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. 26″It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, (Matthew 20:25)

In this great text, Jesus was teaching the disciples that the style of greatness and leadership for believers is different. Gentile leaders dominate in dictatorial fashion, using carnal power and authority, Believers are to do the opposite, they lead by being servants and giving themselves away for others, as Jesus did.

A mark of spiritual authority is to accept responsibility for our sins, and if we are the innocent party, to love the sinner and seek their good without lording it over.

I pray the Lord continues His work of reforming me from the inside out, growing me in maturity and to have the strength to humbly repent when I’m wrong; and to love others with a servant attitude who may have harmed me, always pointing to Christ as the one who is sovereign over all.

Posted in beth moore, bible, false teacher, truth

In which Beth Moore says something unbiblical. Again

Posted on by elizabethprata

Do you ladies see the internal inconsistency in this? You “can’t catch the Spirit & make stay Him put” but you CAN catch Him & control Him. On the surface, false teachers’ doctrine always sounds Christian-y, but upon digging only slightly deeper, it falls apart. That’s because it’s cotton candy, all clouds and no water. (Jude 1:12).

Ladies, dig deeper. Don’t accept what teachers say at face value. Examine the Scriptures to see if these things are so. (Acts 17:11). In this particular case, John 3:8 would apply here-

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

The Bible Knowledge Commentary says of John 3:8,

“This verse contains a wordplay which cannot be adequately expressed in English. The Greek word pneuma means both wind and Spirit. The work of the Spirit (pneuma) is invisible and mysterious like the blowing of the wind (pneuma). Man controls neither.”

What is really sad to me is how many people retweeted it and ‘liked’ it within just a couple of hours of Moore having published the tweet. The bane of Twitter. Correct theology takes time and care to explain, exceeding Twitter’s 140 characters. But wrong theology can fit neatly into a 140 character limit, and they propagate like the weeds they are.