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Street preaching today

Posted on March 22, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

On Twitter, Chuck O’Neal ‏@ChuckONeal_ said this morning,

While preaching the Gospel to the crowd in front..this man slipped in behind to listen. #SneakyGospelListenersWelcome

What a beautiful photo. A man the Lord has raised up, preaching the Good News fearlessly to a hostile and dying world. But one man is drawn by God to hear His words of everlasting life. Again, a praise. Will the seeds planted by the word fall on hard ground? Thorny ground? Soft ground?

Meanwhile we don’t know where the wind blow. So we preach His Good News everywhere.
The Spirit knows.

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. (John 3:8)

Is street preaching an effective evangelism method?

Street preaching, or preaching openly in a public area, has been a method used throughout the history of Christianity for the purpose of evangelizing people who would not typically enter a church. Ever since the apostle Peter preached in the streets of Jerusalem in Acts 2, Christians have used this method to lead many to faith in Christ. Despite the long-standing tradition of street preaching throughout church history, some believe that the practice should no longer be used. They have a variety of reasons for their opinion…

And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. (Luke 14:23)

Harken An engraving, ca. 1740, of George Whitefield
preaching in the Americas. Photo: Granger, NYC / The Granger Collection. Source

George Whitefield:

In 1739, Whitefield set out for a preaching tour of the American colonies. Whitefield selected Philadelphia—the most cosmopolitan city in the New World—as his first American stop. But even the largest churches could not hold the 8,000 who came to see him, so he took them outdoors. Every stop along Whitefield’s trip was marked by record audiences, often exceeding the population of the towns in which he preached. Whitefield was often surprised at how crowds “so scattered abroad, can be gathered at so short a warning.”

The crowds were also aggressive in spirit. As one account tells it, crowds “elbowed, shoved, and trampled over themselves to hear of ‘divine things’ from the famed Whitefield.”

Once Whitefield started speaking, however, the frenzied mobs were spellbound. “Even in London,” Whitefield remarked, “I never observed so profound a silence.”

When he returned to London, he found many churches closed to his unconventional methods. He then experimented with outdoor, extemporaneous preaching, where no document or wooden pulpit stood between him and his audience.

The Gospel is always unwelcome, sometimes by those inside churches hearing it from pulpits, usually outside in the world by passersby to whom the message of Life is the aroma of death. No matter. For the one person who is later converted by the words, it will be eternally welcome.

scripture photo

Scripture photos: Proverbs & Psalms

Posted on March 21, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

I’m striving to live by this first Proverb, especially.

All EPrata photos

blood moons, hagee, prophecy, science

A Christian Astronomer debunks the blood moon theory from both a scientific and a biblical perspective

Posted on March 21, 2015 by elizabethprata

An internet friend named James sent me an excellent article regarding the hoopla surrounding several astronomical events due to occur this week. The article debunks any credibility whatsoever regarding blood moons related to prophecy. It is reasoned, biblical, AND scientific. The author of the article is Dr. Hugh Ross, a Christian Astronomer. Dr Ross was asked by John Hagee Ministries to participate in Hagee’s movie regarding the blood moons, knowing Ross is a skeptic, to Hagee’s credit. Thus, we have a credible insider’s view on every level to explain to us why the blood moons are not ushering in a new era. Here is the beginning of the article and I urge one and all to read it.

Blood Moons: An End-Times Sign? (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.reasons.org/articles/blood-moons-an-end-times-sign-part-1-of-2 http://www.reasons.org/articles/blood-moons-an-end-times-sign-part-1-of-2

Four Blood Moons, a theatrical one-night event scheduled for March 23, 2015, and based on Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee’s New York Times bestseller of the same name, has garnered attention. I’m featured briefly in the film as a skeptic of Hagee’s central claim that a sequence of four total lunar eclipses signifies that “world history is about to change,” bringing about the rapid fulfillment of a biblical end-times prophecy. I’m also included in a 20-minute panel discussion on the movie that was recorded at Hagee’s San Antonio headquarters.

Hagee knew in advance my views on his claims and I’m impressed that he would allow a “skeptic” of his view to participate. For that, he is to be commended.

The biblical basis for the four blood moons claim as an eschatological event appears in Joel 2:31, which states, “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” The scientific basis rests on the fact that often during a total lunar eclipse, the Moon, as seen from Earth’s surface, takes on an orange or red hue (see figures 1 and 2).

My greater concern centers on biblical, rather than scientific, misinterpretations of the blood-moon sign, and I will address those in part 2. First I will address the science and history of lunar eclipses.

And to get caught up on the biblical reasons debunking the blood moon theory, go here

discernment, encouragement, God, prophecy, sovereign, spring

3 Bad Reasons to Leave your Church, How cults begin, Spring has sprung

Posted on March 20, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

At the Millennial Evangelical blog, Chris Martin wrote a piece on 3 Bad Reasons to Leave Your Church. Chris is 24 years old, feels called to be a pastor and currently works as a Social Media Facilitator at LifeWay Christian Resources and is pursuing his M.Div. at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

I have not read a great quantity of articles at his site, but I did enjoy this piece. At the bottom of it, he has a link to a companion piece called 3 Good Reasons to Leave Your Church. Here is 3 Bad Reasons’ opening paragraph:

Stop treating your local church like your high school girlfriend, and start treating it like the bride of Christ.

You don’t leave the church when it doesn’t share the same musical interests, when it hurts your feelings, or when a newer, more popular one catches your eye.

The people of God, the Church around the world, is the bride of Christ, and the bride of Christ deserves the faithfulness of a bride, not the summer crush you bailed on when you were a jerk in college.

Your church is broken because it’s made up of broken people, including yourself. Abandoning the local church is only acceptable under a few extreme circumstances we’ll address on Friday. Other than in certain circumstances, the people of God have the responsibility to sacrificially love their local churches as Jesus has.

If anyone has the right to abandon the adulterous, idolatrous bride called “Church,” it’s God, and he hasn’t, so we need to be careful how quick we are to bail when the going gets tough.

Here are three bad reasons to leave the local church:

Do I have to be uncomfortable to be a real Christian?

Posted on March 20, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

The Prosperity Gospel

I agree that the American church has a lot to answer for when we all meet Jesus. The prosperity gospel has sunk in deep and permeated every corner of the US. Now it’s exported abroad, and polluting churches in India and Africa and elsewhere. The prosperity gospel is no gospel. It teaches congregants to indulge their flesh, seek worldly things, and keep their eyes focused laterally instead of vertically. Joel Osteen is a master of this kind of gospel.

Joel Osteen flatly laid out the main precepts of Prosperity gospel out in a 2005 letter to his flock. “God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us,” Osteen wrote.

No, that’s not what God wants us to do. God wants us to live holy lives, pick up our cross, obey Him, be witnesses for His name, worship Him, be wise, and share the true Gospel all over the world, among other things. (1 Peter 1:15, John 4:24, Matthew 16:24, 1 John 5:2-3, Matthew 10:16, Matthew 28:19). The destiny he laid out for us includes trouble, persecution, hatred, and hardships, (John 16:33, John 15:18, Acts 14:22, 2 Corinthians 6:4).

The “prosperity gospel,” an insipid heresy whose popularity among American Christians has boomed in recent years, teaches that God blesses those God favors most with material wealth.
Cathleen Falsani
Wikipedia gives a quick overview of how this insidious gospel came to the fore:

It was during the Healing Revivals of the 1950s that prosperity theology first came to prominence in the United States, although commentators have linked the origins of its theology to the New Thought movement which began in the 1800s. The prosperity teaching later figured prominently in the Word of Faith movement and 1980s televangelism. In the 1990s and 2000s, it was adopted by influential leaders in the Charismatic Movement and promoted by Christian missionaries throughout the world, sometimes leading to the establishment of mega-churches. Prominent leaders in the development of prosperity theology include E. W. Kenyon, Oral Roberts, A. A. Allen, Robert Tilton, T. L. Osborn, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, David O. Oyedepo and Kenneth Hagin.

The Prosperity gospel was preached so heavily on televangelist tv channels throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, that the 2010 David Platt book “Radical” touched a nerve and swept the pendulum rapidly in the other direction.

The Uncomfortable Gospel

The book blurb for Radical states:

It’s easy for American Christians to forget how Jesus said his followers would actually live, what their new lifestyle would actually look like. They would, he said, leave behind security, money, convenience, even family for him. They would abandon everything for the gospel. They would take up their crosses daily…But who do you know who lives like that? Do you?

The book challenged Americans to reassess their commitment to the Gospel and make changes if necessary. Making sure that we are living biblically in submissive commitment to Christ is a worthy reassessment, but many people feel (me included) that the book made it sound like if you were living a normal life that happened to include comforts, you were somehow less committed Christian. Tim Challies reviewed Radical in 2011, saying,

First, I think our attempts to live radically can ignore the Bible’s concern that we be radically godly in character. There is no doubt that I am called by God to live sacrificially and generously. My first calling, though, is to know God, to be shaped by him and on that basis to preach the gospel and to live as if it is true. I am called to do all of this right where the Lord has placed me. This means that there is great dignity and great value in doing whatever it is that I want to do, like to do, and can honor God doing. We do not all need to be foreign missionaries and evangelists; we do not all need to move to faraway lands. We can (and must!) primarily honor God in whatever it is he has given us to do. I am concerned that it is difficult to read this book and believe its message and not feel that normal life is dishonoring to God.

However despite book reviews of Radical stating these same concerns, and a subtle rebuttal by John MacArthur titled An Unremarkable Faith, the pendulum swung hard toward ditching everything and running off to Bali barefoot to evangelize whoever happened to be in the way. The collateral damage of this pendulum swing included a backlash against Suburban Christians and suburbia in general. This is where it gets personal.

I agree with Challies. I have not been called to be a missionary in Tonga. I am not called to be a preacher’s wife in the 10/40 belt. I am not a bible smuggler living dangerously in China or North Korea. I am a white, middle aged Christian woman living in rural/suburban Georgia. I go to a boring ole Baptist church with regular people who have a variety of blue collar jobs, or are farmers, or work in professional settings. I drive the 7 miles to school every day, assist children in Kindergarten, and drive home. I enjoy covered dish suppers, grocery shopping at the same place where I know all the checkout ladies, and banking at a small town bank where they know my name when I come in.

I live where there are rural farms all around including my own rental property where the lambs are about to be born any day! But horror of horrors, there are also ‘suburban’ subdivisions nearby, malls a half hour away, and a McDonald’s within a few minutes.

I don’t make a lot of money and in fact have to watch every penny, but I know by global standards I’m rich. I am comfortable in every aspect of my life, from what I drive, to what I wear, to where I worship, to where I work. Suburbia has gotten a very bad rep. I live in suburban-ish America, and according to many liberal and hipster Christians, I’m doing Christianity wrong.

Hipsters: It’s cool to Hate the ‘Burbs

Like this:

I asked Mr NickDon the following:

“Is there something sinful about living in a house in suburbia that will bring woe?” and of course I never received a straight answer.

In his piece “Why Do We Hate The Suburbs?” author Keith Miller pointed out the flaw in ‘burb-hate.

Here are a few of the most prominent Christian objections to living in the suburbs. How many of them hold up to even a slight bit of scrutiny?

Suburbs are inauthentic: I confess to not quite understanding what this means. Yes, suburban things are often newer and feature less exposed brick, but how is that a moral argument?
Suburbs are consumeristic: No more than large cities.
Suburbs are morally repressive: Wait, overt exhibition of immorality is a good thing?
Suburbs lack diversity: The most diverse places in the country are suburbs.
Suburbs are full of a lot of Evangelicals who vote Republican: Oh, wait, now we are getting somewhere…

Obviously, each of these charges deserves a post of its own to address these issues with the requisite nuance, but even the one-liner responses should cause us to think. Why are we down on suburbs? Do we have a biblically grounded objection rooted in our personal experiences, or have we merely baptized a secular prejudice and called it Christian ethics?

Why do Christians hate the suburbs? Or if hate is too strong a word, why do so many disparage it? The question was asked by Matthew Lee Anderson in his 2013 article “Is Radical Christianity Radical Enough?“

David Platt, Francis Chan, Shane Claiborne, and now Kyle Idleman are dominating the Christian best-seller lists by attacking our comfortable Christianity. But is ‘radical faith’ enough? … Really. If there’s a word that sums up the radical movement, that’s it. Platt’s Radical opens with it, by describing what “radical abandonment to Jesus really means.” Idleman says he’s going to tell us “what it really means to follow Jesus.” Furtick says that “if we really believe God is an abundant God … we ought to be digging all kinds of ditches [for when he sends the rain, as Elisha did in 2 Kings 3:16-20].” Do those who lead mediocre, nonradical lives for Jesus really believe at all?

And there is exposed the subtle two-tiered system that books like Radical instituted. Therein lay the insidious mindset by these holier than thous, that the millions of people living and worshiping and witnessing in suburbia are ‘lesser-than.’

I reject that notion because of one important factor. This is where God put me.

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, (Acts 17:26)

God made the nations and all the peoples in the nations. He placed each one of us where He wants us, whether it be India or Canada, suburban Ohio or metropolitan Paris. He is sovereign and in His will and plan it pleased Him to give me this life. Who am I to speak back to God? Or worse, who am I to disparage His plan for me and many others He has set forth?

Yes- it would be sin if I lived in a comfortable environment and felt the call to become a missionary in Burma and refused Him because I was comfortable. Yes, I understand the original intent of the book Radical was to get us to reject sinking into a mealy mouthed Christianity because we’re surrounded by comfort.

The true fact is, no matter where a person lives, if they are doing Christianity ‘right’, it is not comfortable. It takes commitment, energy, a proactive stance, and diligence. Matthew Lee Anderson concluded his piece this way-

The Good Samaritan wasn’t a good neighbor because he moved to a poor part of town or put a pile of trash in his living room. He came across the helpless victim “as he traveled.” We begin to fulfill the command not when we do something radical, extreme, over the top, not when we’re really spiritual or really committed or really faithful, but when in the daily ebb and flow of life, in our corporate jobs, in our middle-class neighborhoods, on our trips to Yellowstone and Disney World—and yes, even short-term mission trips—we stop to help those whom we meet in everyday life, reaching out in quiet, practical, and loving ways.

The essence of Christianity is loving your neighbor. Suburbia needs loving neighbors ‘reaching out in quiet ways’ just as much as the poor need help in Calcutta or the lost need help in Afghanistan. The daily grind of being a faithful witness for Jesus occurs all over the world, in jungles, mountain villages, cities, farming communities, and suburban plats. I reject the Prosperity gospel, and I also reject the Uncomfortable gospel. I accept and live by the only Gospel.

The Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia summarizes the gospel message this way: The central truth of the gospel is that God has provided a way of salvation for men through the gift of His son to the world. He suffered as a sacrifice for sin, overcame death, and now offers a share in His triumph to all who will accept it. The gospel is good news because it is a gift of God, not something that must be earned by penance or by self-improvement (Jn 3:16; Rom 5:8–11; II Cor 5:14–19; Titus 2:11–14).

Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel that I preached to you, that you received and on which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received—that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, 15:4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve…( 1 Corinthians 15:1-5)

discernment, false teachers

Marks of False Teachers, a discerment lesson

Posted on March 19, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Scripture gives us many warnings about false teachers. False teachers of any era (and they have existed since the beginning) all have the same markers. They can be identified. And, they should be identified.

They bring hate for Christ, destruction of the sheep, pollution of the church, and grieving of the Spirit. They need to be marked and avoided, and warned about. (Romans 16:17).

Tim Challies published a list of 7 Marks of a False Teacher, and the Gospel Coalition published 7 Traits of False Teachers.

I intend to quote various markers from one or the other of the lists, and then quote a false teacher exhibiting that exact marker. I intend to name the false teacher.

The Gospel Coalition’s piece begins this way:

How would you recognize counterfeit Christianity? In 2 Peter 1 we read about genuine believers. And in 2 Peter 2 we read about counterfeit believers. If you put these chapters side by side you will see the difference between authentic and counterfeit believers.

Different Source—Where does the message come from? Peter says, “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:16). And then he says the false teachers exploit you “with stories they have made up” (2:3). So the true teacher sources what he says from the Bible. The false teacher relies on his own creativity. He makes up his own message.

Challies says,

“False teachers teach their own wisdom and vision.”

We have a prime example of this trait, or mark. Beth Moore often departs from the bible, she sometimes unfortunately doesn’t even get there at all. In this quote from a video that is now taken down, Moore teaches the entire segment from a vision she claimed “Jesus” gave her. As The Gospel Coalition said, ‘the false teacher relies on her own creativity.’

I see God doing something huge in the body of Christ. I do not know why I have had the privilege to get to travel around and see one church after another, one group of believers after another, interdenominationally all over this country but I have gotten to see something that I think is huge. And I’ll also suggest to you that I am not the only one. And tonight I am gonna do my absolute best to illustrate to you something that God showed me sitting out on the back porch. He put a picture I’ve explained to you before I’m a very visual person. So he speaks to me very often in putting a picture in my head and it was as if I was raised up, looking down on a community as I saw the church in that particular dimension. Certainly not all dimensions, not even many, but in what we will discuss tonight the church as Jesus sees it in a particular dimension.” Beth Moore

False teacher Beth Moore had swapped scripture for a picture from her own mind. Moore then taught from that picture. In the video from which the quote was taken, now taken down, Moore went on to teach that ‘Jesus’ taught her that Catholics are part of the Christian church. She taught that the Catholics were part of Christianity by being just another denomination on a par with Methodist or Baptist. Since the Catholic Church is not a Christian religion nor a denomination, we know for a fact that whoever ‘showed Moore that picture sitting out on the back porch,’ it was NOT God. Worse, by teaching that Catholics are part of Christianity, they therefore need no evangelizing.

In this second trait of false teachers, The Gospel Coalition (TGC) writes,

Different Message—What is the substance of the message?
For the true teacher, Jesus Christ is central. “We have everything we need for life and godliness in Him” (1:3). For the false teacher, Jesus is at the margins: “They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them” (2:1).
Notice the word secretly. It’s rare for someone in church to openly deny Jesus. Movement away from the centrality of Christ is subtle. The false teacher will speak about how other people can help change your life, but if you listen carefully to what he is saying, you will see that Jesus Christ is not essential to his message.

It’s very difficult to notice the absence of something, even the absence of Jesus. False teachers speak flatteringly, smoothly, sincerely, even passionately. But over time, you’ll notice a false teacher’s lessons are absent that very present teaching about Jesus. Joel Osteen rarely speaks of Jesus at all. He exemplifies the trait.

In the quote below, false teacher Billy Graham exemplifies the trait also, by his teaching the following from an interview with Richard Schuller in 1997. Graham has always believed this, having written about it in 1960 in his Decision Magazine. Here, he responds to a question about the future of Christianity and how people come to be saved.

Well, Christianity and being a true believer–you know, I think there’s the Body of Christ. This comes from all the Christian groups around the world, outside the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves Christ, or knows Christ, whether they’re conscious of it or not, they’re members of the Body of Christ. And I don’t think that we’re going to see a great sweeping revival, that will turn the whole world to Christ at any time. I think James answered that, the Apostle James in the first council in Jerusalem, when he said that God’s purpose for this age is to call out a people for His name. And that’s what God is doing today, He’s calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they’ve been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don’t have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think that they are saved, and that they’re going to be with us in heaven.

Schuller: What, what I hear you saying that it’s possible for Jesus Christ to come into human hearts and soul and life, even if they’ve been born in darkness and have never had exposure to the Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you’re saying?

Graham: Yes, it is, because I believe that. I’ve met people in various parts of the world in tribal situations, that they have never seen a Bible or heard about a Bible, and never heard of Jesus, but they’ve believed in their hearts that there was a God, and they’ve tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they lived.

Challies gives us another mark:

False teachers save their harshest criticism for God’s most faithful servants. False teachers criticize those who teach the truth, and save their sharpest criticism for those who hold most steadfastly to what is true.

Beth Moore says that the brethren who challenge her false vision of a phony unity are bullies, mean spirited, scoffers, a threat, and demoralizing. How charming to call the people standing on the same blood-soaked ground as she claims to stand on, are mean and bullies because they differ from her view. This quote from Moore perfectly exemplifies the trait of a false teacher.

Challies’ seventh trait of false teachers is False teachers exploit their followers.

Peter would warn of this danger, saying: “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. … And in their greed they will exploit you with false words” (1 Peter 2:1-3). The false teachers exploit those who follow them because they are greedy and desire the riches of this world.

There are so many examples of this, both subtle and unsubtle. Here is one that is unsubtle but occurred a few days ago.

Televangelist asks his congregation for $65M to buy a jet

Televangelist Creflo Dollar asked his congregation to donate $300 each to raise money for a $65M luxury jet. The website was taken down after online criticism but the World Changers Church International is still accepting donations

In the way that things on the internet may go away but never die, an enterprising person has grabbed the video and uploaded it independently of Dollar’s church website. You can see the video where Dollar is pleading for cash to buy his jet at the link above or below. The enterprising person’s youtube channel is Andy Moore and he says, “## NOTE: I have posted this video to show just how deplorable and exploitative Creflo Dollar and his organization are. This is NOT an endorsement. ##”

I hope you can find the time to go to both the Gospel Coalition’s piece and Challies’ article on false teachers. Also, here is Jeff Grapnell’s piece at Entreating Favor’s site to read Five Marks of a False Convert

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Study Guide: How to Treat False Teachers

When Wolves lead the Flock, part 1 of a series

Speaking out against False Teachers

BibleGateway: Exposing False Teachers

earthquake, israel, sbc

Netanyahu appears to have won a victory in the Israel Election, Baptist college elects openly gay president, SBC-affiliated churches with women clergy

Posted on March 18, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Some news roundups:

A major election was held in Israel today. Unlike in the US where we vote for a person from a party, in Israel, they vote for a party and then select the front person of that party to be Prime Minister. In the election today, current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party stunningly pulled ahead and appears to have won a very close match against the Zionist Union Party. Interesting,y at the eve of the election, Netanyahu reversed his stand on whether he supports a Palestinian State alongside a Jewish State, and said he did not. The Zionist Union supports two states and wanted to work with the Palestinians.

The opposition and its front man, Isaac Herzog, have refused to concede, and indeed, the election is still very close. However it seems that at the last moment, Netanyahu and his party may have won. In any case, it seems, as the NY Times puts it, the closeness of the race “promising a protracted and messy process of forming the next governing coalition.”

Current PM Netanyahu giving election day victory speech to supporters

Meanwhile, a 6.6 quake has just occurred in Indonesia at the Molucca Sea. The blue dot is the quake. It had initially been rated as a 7.3, which is why the editor of Breaking News referred to it that way. Here is the Editor’s note:

Editor’s note: According to data we are monitoring from the USGS, Indonesia is still experiencing several aftershocks dozens of miles off the coast of Kota Ternate after a 7.3 quake earlier. None of these have reached an intensity to trigger a tsunami warning, but we will continue to watch data from the area. – Aaron

Apostasy is running apace, at a shocking level. In this example, once considered the most conservative denomination, the Baptists of the Southern Baptist Convention have recently been giving evidence of internal rot leading to collapse. The denomination’s acceptance of the different gospels of Rick Warren, Beth Moore, the non-remarking of President of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission Russell Moore’s visit to the Vatican in a partnership in an ecumenical pursuit of social justice (marriage issues), the Convention’s demonstrable divisiveness against its Reformed brothers, and more, it seems that the issues in the once-conservative Baptist denomination are percolating to the top.

What makes all this so interesting is that the Baptists, especially the Southern Baptists (16 million Americans enrolled) are thought to be the most conservative, sticking closest to living out the principles in the Word, which they state to be the unerring word of God. Richard Dudley wrote in Baptist Why and Why Not:

The fundamental principle of the Baptists is their belief in the supreme authority and absolute sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures; and their separate existence is the practical and logical result of their attempt to apply this principle in all matters of religion. (source)

Witness the recent news from the Baptist News of the Harrisonburg Baptist Church of VA, a Southern Baptist Convention affiliated church, in this article from several days ago discussing the acceptance of pregnant pastors in the pulpit.

Stacy Nowell

Baptist women say faith deepened as pregnant ministers

The first time around as a pregnant Baptist minister, Stacy Cochran Nowell harbored worries few other moms-to-be are likely to share. Chief among them was that older church members might object to the sight of an expectant mother in the pulpit. It never happened, said Nowell, the associate pastor at Harrisonburg Baptist Church in Virginia. “I just never received any negative feedback,” she said of the pregnancy that produced her now 3-year-old daughter. “I anticipated them, but they never materialized.”

Note that the opposition they expected was the fact that the female pastors were working while pregnant, NOT that the church had installed a woman minister. Yet the bible says,

But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet, 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.” (1 Tim. 2:12-13).

Pr. Nowell of Harrisonburg Baptist Church

Interestingly, the SBC states that it does not support female clergy. In 1998, Richard Melick wrote in the SBC Life, the Journal of the Southern Baptist Convention, “Summary: Should Women Be Pastors? We have seen that the explicit texts of Scripture forbid women to serve as pastors.” Their current FAQ still states the same.

Six months ago, the SBC cut ties with a SBC-affilated church that voted to retain a pastor who declared that same-sex unions can be blessed by God, and had performed a “marriage” of his own gay son in the church. To my knowledge, no disciplinary action has been lodged against Harrisonburg Baptist Church for its installation of female pastor, pregnant or not.

Here is news from a few days ago, from Baptist News again.

Historically Baptist college elects gay president

Though not Indiana’s first openly gay college president, Thomas Minar is the first for Franklin College, a small-town college 20 minutes from Indianapolis historically rooted in the American Baptist Churches USA. While one Baptist college in Tennessee defended inviting a lesbian to speak on campus, another in Indiana with little fanfare recently elected a president who is openly gay. Franklin College, a small liberal-arts college in “voluntary association” with the American Baptist Churches USA, announced Jan. 23 the selection of American University administrator Thomas Minar as the school’s 16th president effective July 1.

I am sure that the homosexual lobby will hail this as a “victory”, but we know what true victory is. It is as Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 15:57,

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus gives us victory OVER sin, sins such as homosexuality, not victory in submitting TO sin.

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The Queen of Sheba and King Solomon

Posted on March 16, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

The Queen of Sheba

Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions. 2 She came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices and very much gold and precious stones. And when she came to Solomon, she told him all that was on her mind. 3 And Solomon answered all her questions; there was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her. 4 And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, 5 the food of his table, the seating of his officials, and the attendance of his servants, their clothing, his cupbearers, and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the Lord, there was no more breath in her.

6 And she said to the king, “The report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and of your wisdom, 7 but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard. 8 Happy are your men! Happy are your servants, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! 9 Blessed be the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel! Because the Lord loved Israel forever, he has made you king, that you may execute justice and righteousness.” (1 Kings 10:1-9)

Solomon and The Queen of Sheba, Giovanni De Min 1789–1859

It was quite an undertaking for the Queen to gather such riches, assemble slaves and servants, and leave her kingdom in what could be mischievous hands, for a lengthy and dangerous journey for many months…to see Solomon and hear his wisdom.

King Solomon is acknowledged to be the person with the most wisdom who ever lived. (2 Chronicles 1:11-12). If the fame of Solomon’s wisdom and right judgements caused the Queen of Sheba to journey for many hundreds of miles to see for herself, learn from him, and test him with hard questions, what will it be like for us when we see Jesus ruling and reigning with perfect wisdom and justice from His temple in the Millennial Kingdom (Ezekiel 43:7, Revelation 20:4)?.

How much are we willing to travel and sacrifice to hear the wisdom of Jesus?

In verse 5 it says that Sheba’s very breath was taken away, so amazed was she at Solomon’s wisdom and his house and possessions. Yet how breathless will we be in seeing our perfect and holy Jesus render justice, and how beautifully adorned His house will be!

Go out of your way to seek Jesus and His statutes. There’s nothing else like them on earth.

jonathan edwards

Jonathan Edwards on heaven

Posted on March 15, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

The “Jonathan Edwards” entry in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that Edwards “is widely acknowledged to be America’s most important and original philosophical theologian.” He is also considered to be one of America’s greatest intellectuals.

Johnathan Edwards is known for his great sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. I quoted part of that sermon earlier today in a separate essay.

What many people do not know is that Edwards wrote and preached frequently on heaven, too. One of his most famous Heaven sermons is titled Heaven, A World of Love. It is a 16-part series based on the text from 1 Corinthians 13:8-10,

“Charity never fails: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.“

I printed the sermon out last night and it is 19 pages. It is well worth the read. The words flow over the soul as a balm and enlivens the mind., The heart expands as we read of the tremendous love that awaits. I want to quote it but it is difficult to decide which words to quote, they are all equally wonderful. If you need encouragement or want a glimpse of the complexity yet purity that awaits us ‘over yonder’ please click on the link and read the sermon. You will be glad you did.

Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest heavens;
from Gustave Doré’s illustrations to the Divine Comedy

Meanwhile, here are a few tidbits.

Heaven, a World of Love

by Jonathan Edwards

(1703-1758)

There, even in heaven, dwells the God from whom every stream of holy love, yea, every drop that is, or ever was, proceeds. There dwells God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, united as one, in infinitely dear, and incomprehensible, and mutual, and eternal love. There dwells God the Father, who is the father of mercies, and so the father of love, who so loved the world as to give his only-begotten Son to die for it. There dwells Christ, the Lamb of God, the prince of peace and of love, who so loved the world that he shed his blood, and poured out his soul unto death for men.

There dwells the great Mediator, through whom all the divine love is expressed toward men, and by whom the fruits of that love have been purchased, and through whom they are communicated, and through whom love is imparted to the hearts of all God’s people. There dwells Christ in both his natures, the human and the divine, sitting on the same throne with the Father. And there dwells the Holy Spirit — the Spirit of divine love, in whom the very essence of God, as it were, flows out, and is breathed forth in love, and by whose immediate influence all holy love is shed abroad in the hearts of all the saints on earth and in heaven.

There, in heaven, this infinite fountain of love — this eternal Three in One — is set open without any obstacle to hinder access to it, as it flows forever. There this glorious God is manifested, and shines forth, in full glory, in beams of love. And there this glorious fountain forever flows forth in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight, and these rivers swell, as it were, to an ocean of love, in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment, and their hearts, as it were, be deluged with love!

EPrata photo

II. To the OBJECTS of love that it contains. — And here I would observe three things: —

1. There are none but lovely objects in heaven. — No. odious, or unlovely, or polluted person or thing is to be seen there. There is nothing there that is wicked or unholy. “There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination” (Rev. 21:27). And there is nothing that is deformed with any natural or moral deformity; but everything is beauteous to behold, and amiable and excellent in itself. The God that dwells and gloriously manifests himself there, is infinitely lovely; gloriously lovely as a heavenly Father, as a divine Redeemer, and as a holy Sanctifier.

All the persons that belong to the blessed society of heaven are lovely. The Father of the family is lovely, and so are all his children; the head of the body lovely, and so are all the members. Among the angels there are none that are unlovely — for they are all holy; and no evil angels are suffered to infest heaven as they do this world, but they are kept forever at a distance by that great gulf which is between them and the glorious world of love. And among all the company of the saints, there are no unlovely persons. There are no false professors or hypocrites there; none that pretend to be saints, and yet are of an unchristian and hateful spirit or behavior, as is often the case in this world; none whose gold has not been purified from its dross; none who are not lovely in themselves and to others. There is no one object there to give offense, or at any time to give occasion for any passion or emotion of hatred or dislike, but every object there shall forever draw forth love.

hell, jonathan edwards, judgment, wrath

The holiness of the everlasting wrath: Jonathan Edwards

Posted on March 15, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

You spurn all who go astray from your statutes,

for their cunning is in vain.

All the wicked of the earth you discard like dross,

therefore I love your testimonies.

My flesh trembles for fear of you,

and I am afraid of your judgments.

My eyes shed streams of tears,
because people do not keep your law.

(Psalm 119: 118-120, 136)

EPrata photo

Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock.

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

Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

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Further Reading:

Jonathan Edwards on Heaven, part of a 16-sermon series, Heaven, A World of Love