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Movie Review: Finding Normal

Posted on December 16, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Opening scene. A busy city emergency room. An attractive emergency room doctor is hustling down the hallway clutching a clipboard while talking with a female doctor friend. The friend comments that the doctor only has a few more hours to go in her shift and then she’s off to the Hamptons for her new life with fiance. Just then a sick woman pops her head into the hallway, saying “I’ve been waiting 6 hours…please…” The doctor doesn’t give her a second glance, replying, “Let us know when it’s been 8.” Both doctors laugh, walk away, and resume talking about her upcoming cushy life in the Hamptons.

By this we know that the main character is a physician who lacks compassion and has a high opinion of herself.

Finding Normal is a Christian movie and a very well done movie on all levels. Here is the official synopsis from Internet Movie Database.

The only thing standing between Dr. Lisa Leland (Candace Cameron Bure) and the wedding of her dreams in the Hamptons is a 2600-mile drive from Los Angeles to Long Island. However, a run in with the law in the country town of Normal, Louisiana leaves Dr. Leland with a choice–Jail or community service. Sentenced to serve three days as the town’s doctor, Lisa has her world turned upside down by a man she would never expect. Quickly, Lisa finds that there’s a lot more to Normal than she could have ever imagined.

Candace Cameron Bure is little DJ from the 1980s television show Full House. She has grown up to be a stunning young woman, and she is Christian. Lou Beatty Jr as the judge is tremendous and steals nearly every scene he’s in.

The premise for keeping the Doctor in Normal, Louisiana may be far-fetched, but after all, it’s a movie. The rest of the movie moves along beautifully in illustrating that Christian love can melt even the most compassionless, or selfish heart. Dr. Lisa sees people who have different priorities than she does, which are prayer, church, love to neighbor, and a simple lifestyle where the community comes together and shares with those in need, or just to have fun. It doesn’t involve high pay, glitzy parties, or fancy cars. It involves pastures, children, God, fireflies, and genuine care for people- including patients.

The Doctor begins to re-examine what it means to be a Doctor and soon understands that without compassion and love, the medical care she had been dispensing definitely has a missing element to it. Now that this missing element had been made apparent to her, she becomes less than satisfied with the promise of her future practice as an expensive concierge doctor in the Hamptons or as she realizes, simply an expensive billing asset for her fiance who started the business.

And of course, Dr Lisa Leland has a love interest in Normal…

There is a subplot that takes little screen time but is important nonetheless. The ACLU wants a white cross standing on public property just outside town to be removed. One telling and well done scene occurs when the Doctor and her potential love interest are in his truck. He had been taking her on rounds to make home visits with some patients on the main road into town. Here is how the conversation went, to my memory-

As they pass the cross, she asks, “What’s that?”
He replies, “It’s a cross. You passed it when you came to town.”
“What’s that?”
“You mean you don’t know what a cross is?”
“Well I guess so, but what’s it doing there?”
“I think it’s supposed to help people stop and pause for a moment, think about Jesus.”
“I guess I never noticed it before this…”

John 6:44 says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.”

The movie does a good job of subtly showing how the Lord draws a person to Himself and in the process, changes hearts and minds. That scene spoke to me personally. I had written before about visiting the Colosseum in Rome and spending a great deal of time there and admiring the architecture, history, and scenery. However, it was not until many years later when I was a Christian, that reminiscing one day, I looked at the photo of the Colosseum interior and immediately noticed the simple wooden cross sunk in the center of the underflooring. I had never noticed it before. When the Lord draws a person to Himself, suddenly the mind and the heart begins to be transformed and prepared for the important step of repentance.

What I liked about the movie:

The women are modestly dressed.
Church is held, and people attend and it is seen to be a positive thing.
Neighbors care for each other in demonstrable ways. In one example, the Deputy shares with the Doctor at the church breakfast that if anyone is having a hard time, they make sure to give that person the leftovers.
A sermon is given (it’s movie-short); the scriptures are handled correctly. As a matter of fact, the preacher (who is also the judge and also the town’s doctor) not only refers to “the bible” as many Christian movies do, but he reads the verse and refers to it by chapter and number, something that you will notice is rare in Christian movies. Hardly ever in a Christian movie does the preacher or a character say “In 1st Corinthians, the Apostle Paul says…” as the preacher does in this movie.
There is a lot of prayer seen, and prayer is spoken of and the doctor is even taught how to pray. Most happily, the notion of God’s sovereignty and providence is strongly inferred and even overtly mentioned. Prayer is not done to “get” something (unlike the miracle asked for, or else, in another Christian movie I’d reviewed, Raising Izzie), but as a way to have a relationship with God and to discern His will.
Jesus is also overtly mentioned. Many Christian movies will give a nod to God but fail to mention the Son.
Christians are portrayed as loving and sincere

Here is what one reviewer on Internet Movie Database wrote, and I could not have said it better:

something amazing happens which is eye-opening in that that you come to realize that something so ordinary is basically never seen in this genre of movie. The characters of this middle-America town are revealed to contain large numbers of practicing Christians who seem to actually take their faith seriously as a part of their life, and are nevertheless portrayed as, well, normal folks.

They go to church on Sunday, they attend pancake breakfasts where they actually socialize like normal folks, and they seem like genuinely nice people. They’re not a secret glassy-eyed cult; they’re not simpletons or hateful bigots who treat outsiders with disgust; they’re not covert hypocrites living out endless perversions in private while breathing fire and brimstone at the pulpit… or any of the countless tropes that have been beaten into the ground for decades by Hollywood.

Perhaps most shocking, they also don’t express the sort of lukewarm, formalistic faith which is the only sort that Hollywood seems to allow Christians to possess on film–the kind that makes mealy-mouthed reference to “some greater power” while never actually saying the “G” word. Instead, the characters in this town are regular folks who believe in God, and are just fine with that. They’re open, non-self-conscious, and frankly, a lot like the actual people of faith in the real world.

But perhaps the most subversive thing that Finding Normal manages is to actually incorporate Christians into a romantic comedy without turning it into a religious film.

Exactly. It’s a movie with Christians in it, not a “Christian” movie. Watch, and you will see the difference.

What I didn’t like about it:

Nothing. It’s all good. I wish Director Brian Herzlinger and Writers Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon would write and direct more films like this. In addition to Lou Beatty Jr and Candace Cameron Bure, Finding Normal also stars Andrew Bongiorno, Valerie Boucvalt, Mark Irvingsen.

Finding Normal is on Netflix, Google Play, and Amazon for pay. The trailer is on Youtube for free.

Candace’s testimony is here.

christmas, concert, grace church

Grace Community Church Christmas Concert is this week

Posted on December 15, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

One of my favorite events of the year will occur this week- the Grace Community Church Christmas Concert. Held at John MacArthur’s Church in Sun Valley CA., this concert has grown to be one of the most beloved among of the Christmas Season.

With a mixture of solos, classical music and stirring hymns, it is well worth listening to.

More information here. From the Grace Community Church website:

“We just received confirmation that the Sunday, December 21 concert will be live-streamed at 6:00 p.m. PST from the this page: www.gracechurch.org/live.”

“Also, beginning the week after, the concert will be looped every two hours through New Year’s Day for your enjoyment. The link will be this page (www.gracechurch.org/concert).”

Please be sure to tune in and you will be blessed by this wonderful ministry of music.

Amy Carmichael, India, missionary, Tamil

"Missionary life is simply a chance to die" – Amy Carmichael

Posted on December 15, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Amy Carmichael (1867-1951) was a missionary to India, and was one of the most respected missionaries of the first half of the twentieth century.

She was born in Ireland to a well-to-do family, who raised her as a Christian (Presbyterian). In her Methodist boarding school as a young teenager she accepted Christ as savior. Shortly after, her family’s circumstances changed when her father died and the family’s finances were severely reduced.

Amy Carmichael As a young women.
From AmyCarmichael.org

She and her mother moved to Belfast, and Amy began visiting in the slums and saw the women there who worked in the factories…or who didn’t work at all. Women who worked in the factories wore shawls instead of hats, and were pejoratively called ‘shawlies.’ Amy’s heart went out to them, and she began a ministry for them in care and love, and fully dependent on the Lord to provide. The church crowd looked down on Amy’s ministry to the slum women and the shawlies and in fact were rather shocked.

A few years later she moved to Manchester from Belfast and formed another ministry to the young women in the factories and the slums. Amy received a call to be a missionary in Japan. However, Amy was not a well women, suffering from neuralgia. She went anyway, but the language was difficult for her. After a period of disappointment in the behavior of the missionaries there and more illness, 15 months later, Amy sailed for Ceylon and then for home, convinced that Japan was a mistake. After a lengthy recuperation, at age 28, she sailed for India.

Once again, Amy became ill, this time with dengue fever, and again, the missionary ladies’ meetings were simply tea-drinking gossip-fests. She felt not just disappointment this time, but despair. However, her early convictions of the Lord’s provision, sovereignty, and love sustained her, and falling to her knees in submission, Amy trusted that the Lord would not leave her desolate.

He didn’t.

Amy Carmichael with Indian children. From “Things As They Are”

Feeling led to move to the very south of India, Amy lived with a Christian missionary family and began an itinerant mission among the people of the slums, just as she had in Belfast and Manchester. Hinduism was very strong there, and with it, temple prostitution of children. Many, many girls were sold to the temples for the ritual perverted prostitution. In 1901, Amy met her destiny.

A young temple prostitute, 7 years of age, had been sold to the temple priests but repeatedly ran away. On this particular time, an older Indian woman brought the runaway to Amy, by then, known as a loving and understanding woman. The girl’s name was Preena, and as she sat in Amy’s lap and talked of the perverted rituals done to her by using the rag doll Amy had given her to demonstrate, Amy became shocked. Upset beyond words, she resolved to love these children sacrificially, and Amy’s mission became clear. She had found her place of service. It was 1901.

For the next 55 years, without furlough, Amy Carmichael rescued young children and women from temple prostitution or from being sold to the gods and goddesses. A few years later, she began rescuing boys, many of them born to the girls who had been prostituted. Once again, as in Manchester, Belfast, and Japan, some of the other missionaries looked down on Amy for loving the unlovable.

Old India, from Carmichael’s “Things As They Are”

Influenced and inspired by George Muller, Amy opened an orphanage, the Dohnavur Mission Orphanage which still ministers today. Many children were thus rescued, taught the Gospel, and loved by Amy and the staff. Soon, Amy was called Amma, which means mother in the native language. She loved sacrificially and constantly.

In addition to her mission work among the children of India, Amy was also known as a poet and a writer. In one of her books, she was so realistic about mission work that her manuscript was rejected. The editor’s note requested a rosier picture. Instead, she didn’t change a thing, but simply re-titled the manuscript, “Things As They Are” and pursued publication with renewed vigor. Of course, the book was eventually published. (You can read it here on Project Gutenberg or order through Amazon).

Even at that, within a few weeks of the publication of Things as They Are, some in England doubted its truth, and notes were sent from different parts of India conforming the truths that Amy was sharing about life in the slums, the caste system, ritual temple prostitution, and more.

Here is one such confirmatory note, proclaiming the truths of the ‘more pessimistic’ side of missionary work.

From Rev. T. Stewart, M.A., Secretary, United Free Church Mission, Madras.

This book, Things as They Are, meets a real need—it depicts a phase of mission work of which, as a rule, very little is heard. Every missionary can tell of cases where people have been won for Christ, and mention incidents of more than passing interest. Miss Carmichael is no exception, and could tell of not a few trophies of grace. The danger is, lest in describing such incidents the impression should be given that they represent the normal state of things, the reverse being the case. The people of India are not thirsting for the Gospel, nor “calling us to deliver their land from error’s chain.” The night is still one in which the “spiritual hosts of wickedness” have to be overcome before the captive can be set free. The writer has laid all interested in the extension of the Kingdom of God under a deep debt of obligation by such a graphic and accurate picture of the difficulties that have to be faced and the obstacles to be overcome. Counterparts of the incidents recorded can be found in other parts of South India, and there are probably few missionaries engaged in vernacular work who could not illustrate some of them from their own experience.

Missionary Elisabeth Elliot and her husband Jim were greatly inspired by Carmichael. I wrote of the Elliots and their missionary work in the jungle of Papua New Guinea last week. In an Elisabeth Elliot newsletter from 2002, Elisabeth quoted Amy Carmichael’s realistic challenges of missionary work. She wrote,

“I would never urge one to come to the heathen unless he felt the burden for souls and the Master’s call, but oh! I wonder so few do. It does cost something. Satan is tenfold more of a reality to me today than he was in England, and very keenly that awful home-longing cuts through and through one sometimes—but there is a strange deep joy in being here with Jesus. “Praising helps more than anything. Sometimes the temptation is to give way and go in for a regular spell of homesickness and be of no good to anybody. Then you feel the home prayers, and they help you to begin straight off and sing, ‘Glory, glory, Hallelujah,’ and you find your cup is ready to overflow again after all.”

From her own eye-opening experience of personally reduced circumstances, to further eye-opening first-hand visits to the slums of Belfast, to the disappointments of fellow missionaries and church goers too well-to-do to help the poorest or most downtrodden, to Japan to Ceylon to England to India, which eventually brought her to Tamil region of south India, Amy Carmichael is a picture of sacrificial love and strength through God’s grace and provision. At the end of her life, Amy was bedridden for a period of years. It was at this time she flourished in writing her devotionals and poems and books. There are so many publishers have lost count even as the originals have disappeared. A standard number is that Amy wrote 35 books.

In a letter from a prospective missionary, one young woman asked Amy what it was like to be a missionary. Amy wrote back, “Missionary life is simply a chance to die.”

Source

Amy never returned to England. She remained in India and it was there where she died in 1951. She did not want an elaborate grave nor a tombstone. Her place of bodily rest is marked simply with a birdbath the children erected, and a single word. Amma.

Of Amy Carmichael’s struggles, a very few recounted here. This short essay of a remarkable life does not include the illnesses, riots, rumors, prison threats, arsons against her, and much more. Amy better than anyone knew that missionary life many times meant death, threat of death, or near-death. The Tamils were NOT hungry for the Gospel and in fact called Amy a “soul-stealing woman.” She endured the earthly worst.

However, Amy also exemplified the spiritual best. Every day in India, Amy died to self and sacrificially cared for the country’s cast-offs, abused, neglected and poor. She endured with God’s strength and provision, and she left a legacy that inspired a new generation of missionaries. God always raises up a banner for His name, and for half a century in India, His banner was named Amy Carmichael.

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

Logos 6, Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), plus tons of other resources!

Posted on December 13, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Pastor, Blogger and Christian Book Reviewer Tim Challies has been reviewing the bible software Logos since version 3, I believe. I’ve been reading his reviews with interest because I like to study. I’ve been wondering if it is time to move from my hard copy library (all 10 books) to a software library. However, it takes me a long time to pay out money for what I can get for free. I use biblehub, a free online resource featuring an online bible, commentaries, parallel verses, various translations, maps, the original languages, dictionaries, pictures, and more.

However, it also takes me a long time to study a passage while groping around by myself, cobbling together the various things I want so study. I copy and paste, scribble notes, forget where I was going, and start over again.

I also really enjoy studying the maps and the natural history of the context of the bible passage I am reading. You might have noticed this in the various essays I’ve posted on the actual wheat and weeds mentioned in the NT, onions, the process of making linen, cedar trees, and more. If a passage says an army marched here or there, I want to see it on a map. I study the topography, too. For example, in Phil Johnson’s sermons on the Psalms, there is a reason many of them are called a Psalm of Ascent. The geographical or topographical references in a passage are there for a reason, and I enjoy studying the cultural background in addition to the actual verse. It brings depth to my study.

Particularly time consuming is going outside biblehub to find more commentaries and histories on Old Testament texts and having to spend time to discern whether a particular site is credible.

So, like Pastor Challies and many others, I’ve been wondering if now is the time to cough up some money and take the plunge.

By happenstance, a friend posted on her Facebook page that there is an Old Testament online course offered by Crown College for free. I love the Old Testament and have felt for some time that I’ve reached a plateau in my study of it. These kinds of classes are periodically offered by many institutions. They are quality classes, but they are like the display at the front of the grocery store as you go in “where a product is sold at a price below its market cost to stimulate other sales of more profitable goods or services,” or so explains Wikipedia of the concept of loss leader. In the education realm, these classes are called ‘Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)’. For the Crown College MOOC, I will receive a certificate of completion at the end of the 7-week class, and if I want to pursue additional courses by enrolling, I will receive a discount toward future credits.

I don’t anticipate wanting to go through a formal seminary course, but a free, short-term higher education online class in a survey of the OT sounds great. I won’t lose anything if the Professor suddenly starts teaching evolution or miracles as allegory- I can just drop out with no funds lost. Even the course textbook is low-cost and I’ll always have that on my bookshelf at the end of the course. Best of all, my Facebook friend (who I know in real life but who lives over 1000 miles away) said she enrolled too. Even if she and I do not end up in the same small-group, it’s nice to know she and I are sharing this experience together.

So when an email came announcing 20% off Logos 6, accompanied by a tutorial video, I decided to finally check it out. I can’t recommend the software myself yet, it’s still downloading and I have not used it. But the testimonials from credible bible teachers and pastors, and the staying power of the company, seem to indicate that at this stage, investing in it would make sense.

Here are some other resources that may interest you. Online bible reading and studying might not be your preference. It wasn’t mine for these last 7 years. You may not have the finances to afford Logos. It took me a long time to save up for it, lol. Most of these listed below are free, and the ones that cost are low-cost.

I mentioned BibleHub. This website has massive amounts on it. All free.

Online bibles in most translations
Atlas
Greek or Hebrew/Concordance]
Commentaries (many of them!)
Lexicon, using Strong’s Word
Dictionary
Maps
Parallel translations, cross references

Biblegateway.com has online bible but I like biblehub better for that. What I really like at biblegateway is their other resources such as “All the women of the bible”. They list all the women by name and you can read a synopsis of their lives with verses. I looked up Michal recently because I’m reading 1 Samuel. “All the men of the bible” are there too. I can never figure out how to get to the list through the biblegateway site so I just google “all the women of the bible…biblegateway” and the search result brings me there.

Biblegateway also has a better search function than biblehub, where you can limit the search for a verse to a specific book, or series of books, like OT or NT or Prophetic Books, or Gospels. Biblegateway also gives a search result that has a few verses where biblehub’s search is one verse only or else the whole chapter. It saves a bit of time over the search at biblehub

As you know I listen to a lot of sermons. I like many preachers but the ones who have the sermons transcribed I find especially helpful

I listen to —

Lloyd-Jones

Martyn Lloyd Jones at http://www.mljtrust.org (no transcription)

Don Green (www.truthcommunitychurch.org/) no transcribed sermons, audio only

S Lewis Johnson sljinstitute.net. Sermons are transcribed. He does a lot of OT sermons so that is helpful for reading or listening to a text.

John MacArthur at gty.org, all sermons transcribed, except the most recent one.

Phil Johnson (MacArthur’s executive director of GTY.org) sermons are transcribed, Phil does great with the psalms, very helpful.

Mark Dever’s 9Marks site has a wealth of resources for living church life. http://9marks.org/

COMMENTARIES

http://www.studylight.org/commentaries/

Studylight has a lot of commentaries. The James Burton Coffman commentary is at studylight, and his commentary is one of the best of the 20th century. Some commentaries stand out. Certain men are known for digging into this book or that book.

I have a hard time finding good commentaries or texts on the Old Testament, especially the Prophets. here are a few resources.

David Baron is known for his work on Zechariah’s prophecies/visions. This link gos to a .pdf. http://servantsplace.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Zechariah-by-David-Baron.pdf

Puritan John Owen is known for his work on Hebrews. http://theessentialowen.com/owens-hebrews-commentary/

George Adam Smith (1893) is known for his work on Isaiah. https://archive.org/details/bookisaiah00smitgoog

From Kay Arthur’s Precept Austin site, a variety of works on Jeremiah. http://preceptaustin.org/jeremiah_commentaries.htm

Oliver B Greene (1963) on Revelation, A Verse-By-Verse study. I have this book in hard copy. It’s good. Here is the online version- http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/NTStudies/RevelationofJESUSCHRISTbyOliverBGreene.aspx

SEMINARY

The Master’s Seminary has a free The Master’s Journal online and also on youtube, seminary lectures

The Master’s Seminary Journal http://www.tms.edu/journal.asp
Joshua Crooch’s youtube channel has the Master’s Seminary lectures https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-deZ7ubmEzKxch1zqAwN6g

OTHER

Kevin Halloran has a site where you can access 250+ additional resources, articles, commentaries, book recommendations etc. here is just one paragraph of his page, (at his page they’re all hyperlinks)

Audio lectures are one facet of a complete education involving personal instruction and reading relevant books. For each of the disciplines listed below, I have assembled a list of recommended books from my own personal study or various recommendations. For more recommendations, see: 9 Marks’ Ministries book recommendations, The Gospel Coalition’s Recommended books, Westminster Theological Seminary’s Recommended Reading, Alistair Begg’s Recommended Books for Pastors, or Reformed Theological Seminary’s reading list, or Wayne Grudem’s Seminary Book List. For recommended lists of the best Bible Commentaries, I’d suggest BestCommentaries.com, and for a Reformed perspective, Ligonier Ministries and Tim Challies have great recommendations.

http://www.kevinhalloran.net/online-seminary-resources/

PURCHASE

Though these are not free, these resources have been so great I can’t help but mention them. Todd Friel’s ‘Drive By’ series. There are many more than these two, but I bought these two and went through them. I am almost done with “Drive By Pneumatology” and I finished Drive By Discernment. There’s Drive By Marriage, Drive By Parenting, Drive By Theology, etc. There are many lectures on each, DBD has 72. DBP has about 50. It is called “drive by” because they are short lectures. Short enough to listen to on even the shortest commute.

At the Wretched Store: http://www.wretchedradio.com/store/

They’re short, 15 min or less lectures on the topic. Todd Friel has many different men speak on the topic, like Phil Johnson, Justin Peters, Trevin Wax, and the short lectures are very clear and helpful. You can buy CD or do an immediate download. For 72 or more lectures it only costs 19.99.

I hope this suggested list has been helpful. No matter what the tools, the premier Helper is the Holy Spirit. He has taken me from a babe in Christ to where I am now, embarking on a more organized and rigorous study plan, over the last 7 years. He is more than able to teach you, with or without additional study tools. Hopefully your entire interest in any of these tools is to study the word so as to know more about the savior who reigns. We worship a risen Savior whose attributes are revealed in God’s word. Knowing Him and worshiping Him is the highest goal and a full meal of spiritually satisfying food. In using these tools they help us in this pursuit- but don’t let the search for tools distract you from personal and persistent study.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:14-17)

Thanks and God bless.

discernment, false teachers, jesus, spiritual armor

The most dangerous people in the world

Posted on December 13, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

There are dangerous people in the world. We know that some are more dangerous than others. Some people are extremely dangerous. Dictators can be considered among the world’s most dangerous people. Pol Pot, Hitler, Lenin, Idi Amin, Muammar Gaddafi among many others through time go down into the history books as heinous criminals committing mass murder.

World Trade Center on 9/11

Terrorists are certainly dangerous. The 9/11 terrorists who killed 3,000 people by suicide bombing via airplane were shockingly absent of any sense of conscience whatsoever. The 9/11 terrorist leader who organized the US terror attack Osama Bin Laden was supremely dangerous.

The ISIS militants are a dangerous group, beheading with impunity and terrorizing populations all throughout the Middle East.

Sociopaths/serial killers are among the most dangerous people on the planet, also. We shudder at the very thought that we might be captured and tortured all for the corrupt whims of a conscience-less, evil mastermind.

Throughout history, the names of Ted Bundy, Adolph Hitler, bin Laden, Jack the Ripper, Al Capone, Charles Manson remain shudder-worthy because their crimes of evil were so shocking.

But none of those are the most dangerous people on the planet. It seems crazy to even think that there is a more dangerous class of person more devastating than a war-starter, dictator Hitler. That there is a more sinister evil among a community than serial killer Ted Bundy. There truly is is a more dangerous person in the world.

Who could it be? Who is worse than the man known for burning millions of people alive in a gas oven? Worse than the serial killer’s evil at the end of a sharp knife? Worse than a terrorist whose very name indicates their putrid heart filled with terror and crime? Who??

Beth Moore.
Pope Francis.
Rick Warren.
Billy Graham.
Ellen G. White.
Creflo Dollar.
Aimee Semple McPherson.
Joel Osteen.

False teachers within Christianity. No dictator, serial killer or terrorist can hold a candle to the evil that false teachers do. Why?

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28).

All a dictator can do is oppress you or kill your body. Jesus is life giver and eternal Judge, and it is He who determines where your immortal soul and resurrected body will go when your short life on earth is over. Fear THAT. What false teachers do is nudge you, compel you, jostle you down the eternally broad road to hell. They appear as pleasant sheep but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. They’re soul killers, and that is eternally worse than anything any dictator or terrorist can do.

Some of the harshest language in the New Testament is reserved for false teachers. The damage they do to your soul is likened to gangrene, a stealthy and putrid killer of the body. Except, what false teachers bring is death to the soul. False teachers are a serious problem.

Was Jesus polite to false teachers? No. See video- 2 min.

How can we spot false teachers? The bible mentions them frequently (as false prophets, wolves, sons of hell, spies, hypocrites etc) The bible condemns them frequently. So let’s take a look.

First as mentioned above, they come in disguise. They look like sheep but they are actually preying on you as a vicious wolf. (Mt 7:15). They won’t look like a false teacher and they won’t sound like a false teacher. Galatians 2:4 reminds us that false teachers come in as spies, stealthily. (2 Peter 2:1).

False teachers substitute the call of God with their own made-up call, whether it is to self- esteem, or pride, or earthly gain, false teachers always shift your gaze from Christ as the central point of life. They can speak well, mesmerizingly sometimes. If we take the most extreme example of a false prophet, the antichrist, he appears at first to give everything to everyone what they want, and insinuates himself into a solid position of influence by smooth speech and flattery. (Daniel 11:32). False teachers are good at what they do.

Another way false teachers shift your gaze from the Holy One is to substitute empty rituals for the simplicity of the grace of Jesus. Walk a labyrinth. Meditate contemplatively. Pray in a circle. Fast in this way and this often. Light a candle, confess to a priest, speak the rosary. John MacArthur said in his sermon “How to Evangelize Religious People“, that the more a religion has symbols, (and by extension, rituals) the more false it is.

And this is how it is, my friend, with false religion. They love the symbols. When we were in Moscow a few months ago, slipped into a Greek Orthodox church–literally repulsed by extravagant symbolism. You stand in one spot and this parade goes on of people with all these elaborate dressings and head dresses and waving censors, and icons all over everywhere. It literally blasts your senses; it’s so garish, bizarre, and people walking in endless circles and mumbling incomprehensible drivel and waving things in the air–and these poor, sad souls trying somehow to connect with the external. But religion that has nothing inside proliferates the symbolic. Look at the Roman Catholic Church, just full of it…full of it. False religion loves symbols.

False teachers bring false rituals along with the eventual religious symbolism as their doctrines mature.

The nursery for false religion is false teachers infiltrating the real religion, Christianity. If it comes to your church, stop it before it gets to that point.
“Suppress the heretics while they are young, that is, when they begin to show their malice and destroy the vine of the Lord.” Geneva Bible, on Song of Solomon 2:15

Third, their teachings spread like gangrene. (2 Timothy 2:17). Gangrene develops when the blood supply to an affected part is cut off. Gangrene is caused by interruption of blood supply to an area which causes tissue death. Left unchecked, gangrene kills all the living tissue it touches. In Galatians 5:9 Paul wrote of false teachers again, saying, “a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” In both the yeast and the gangrene examples we understand that the negative influence of false teachers and their doctrines will leave no part of the body untouched if not dealt with swiftly.

Source

Next, think about this- if faith brings joy, then its opposite, doctrines of demons, bring confusion, fear, discouragement. (Galatians 1:7, Acts 15:24). Pastor Justin Peters often shares during his discernment conferences how discouraging it was to follow the false faith healers. He did so as a youth, hoping for a healing from his Cerebral Palsy. Others who follow Joyce Meyer and her ilk eventually become despondent when their abundant life doesn’t show up, or those who follow Joel Osteen find that no matter how hard they try, nothing they’ve declared has come true and every day is not a Friday. Then they either redouble their efforts at trying pointlessly to find peace through false teachings or they become angry and leave the faith, blaspheming it. (2 Peter 2:2).

In Matthew 23:15 Jesus remarked to the false teachers of the law that they made sons of hell twice as bad as they were. The next generation of disciples learning at the feet of the false teachers are always worse than the generation before. (also, Revelation 2:21-23).

One extremely telling indicator of a false teacher is that they diminish the offense of the cross. Their message will increasingly speak of anything else except that. Oh, they’ll mention Jesus, they’ll fling around some bible verses (out of context and incorrectly) but they cannot bear to dwell on the cross. (Galatians 5:11, Galatians 3:1). The cross is an offense to a false teacher, because false teachers are not saved.

There are other ways to detect the false ones who creep in among us, but suffice to say, they are there. They are dangerous, extremely so. False Christian teachers are the most dangerous people on the planet.

False teachers are not committed to Scripture. They may speak of Jesus and the Father, but the heart of their ministry will not be the Word of God. They will either add to it, take away from it, interpret it in some heretical fashion, add other “revelations” to it, or deny it altogether.

Let’s compare Hitler to Pope Francis. Or Muammar Gaddafi to Benny Hinn. It is an unutterable tragedy what Hitler did, its reverberations are still like an open wound on the world’s conscience and heart. He killed 6 million Jews, and others too, including the mentally retarded, gypsies, and homosexuals. Yet Pope Francis is enslaving 1.2 Billion people. And that’s just the Catholics right now, not even mentioning all the previous generations of people unfortunately deluded by empty ritual and false teaching. Billions upon billions have gone to hell under the false teaching of the Catholic church.

Or how about Benny Hinn and his charismatic gospel of healing and wealth. It is sweeping Africa and India right now, not to mention America. There are over 500 million people in the world at this moment who self-identify as Charismatic.

There was an independently produced documentary about middle school students in Tennessee who appealed to the world to send in 6 million paper clips to their classroom. They were doing a project on the Holocaust, and one student asked, ‘How much is 6 million? I can’t picture it.’ So the paper clip project began. They eventually gathered over 6 million clips. The stark reality of seeing with their own eyes the representation of that many people lost to the gas chambers was shocking and brought the reality of all those lost souls to the fore.

But what if you gathered 500 million clips representing the Charismatics under the influence of that false ‘Christian’ doctrine? And then gathered 1.2 billion clips representing the Catholics? And 3 billion more, the estimates of how many lives and souls of people in the world right now are influenced by Joyce Meyer’s doctrines of demons. Plus Joel Osteen, whose message reaches 28 million people a month. This number doesn’t even count his books, podcasts, and conferences. Add to that total the 30 million copies of Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life, a book that was named several years ago as one of the top 100 Christian books that changed the 20th century. Add some more, the 215 million people in over 185 countries who have heard Billy Graham’s messages, and those who ‘came forward’ only to be assigned to a Catholic counselor, or a rabbi.

All the teachers I listed above claim themselves to be part of Christianity. You see the magnitude of the problem.

False teachers are the most dangerous people on the planet. The spirit of antichrist is alive and well and working its way as leaven through the bread. But there is manna from heaven, bread from heaven that is gloriously more potent than any piddling false teacher. Jesus Christ and His truth.

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (John 14:26).

The safeguard against false teachers is the Word. All truth is there, all joy, all faith, all hope and all peace. Read His word and pray to have it applied to your mind and heart. The Spirit will teach you and in so doing you will be able to withstand the detect the false doctrines when they appear. Wear your spiritual armor.

Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, (Ephesians 6:14-18).

Wearing your armor even the most dangerous person on the planet cannot harm you. There is One who is more dangerous than any and He is your defender and your avenger:

and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. (Revelation 1:13-16).

The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? (Psalm 27:1)

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

Can we be good without God?

Posted on December 12, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

It is an age-old question. If you ask someone, “Do you think you will go to heaven when you die?” Most often they will reply, “I think so. I’ve been a good person.”

The question arising after that is “What is good?” Even then, most people will answer with a list of attributes that include do’s and don’ts. They’ll say that they would be qualified for heaven because they don’t steal, they don’t murder, they don’t cheat. They’ll say that they are nice, kind, charitable, loving, and so on.

But let’s back up to a moment even just before the person’s answer about being good. Why is there a universal acknowledgement in the first place that one must be good to get to heaven? Why can’t we just go there after we die? Why is that even in the mix at all?

Because God put in us the desire to be good. Most people acknowledge that we need to be ‘good.’ But where false religions come in is their acknowledgement of their definitions of good, and from whence the qualifying benchmarks come. Christians know that the external source of all Good is God, (Matthew 19:17) and the benchmark for attaining heaven is written in the bible. Yet non-Christians still feel the pull of conscience, conviction of sin, and therefore they intrinsically understand there is a bad, or evil. They express the intuitive understanding that we cannot go to heaven as we are. We must be ‘good.’

For ages, people have tried to go their own way with being good, attaining a morality of their own making that would be pleasing (to whomever, to their own self, to society, or to a made-up false god, etc. Let’s take a case-study of this attitude in a famous American: Benjamin Franklin.

They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them. (Romans 2:15)

Franklin is a good one to study because he was obsessed with self-improvement, he acknowledged a deity, he proclaimed a need for a moral code, and he was a prolific writer.

It should be said at the outset, that Benjamin Franklin was not saved. He was not a Christian. As a matter of fact, from the beginning of his life to the end, though he acknowledged the likelihood of the existence of ‘a deity’, he repudiated the personal need for one.

In fact, Franklin wrote in 1757 of his pity for-

“weak and ignorant men and women, and of inexperienced, inconsiderate youth of both sexes, who have need of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice, to support their virtue, and retain them in the practice of it till it becomes habitual…”

So we need that though Franklin knew that man needed to be good, he denied needing any help in attaining it. He would do it himself. To wit, exhibit A.

In his autobiography, a young Franklin wrote,

It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other.

Pride is at the root of all sins, it is the first sin, it is the universal sin. Here we see the result of Franklin’s unsancitifed mind: he would conquer all his faults and become perfect.

Then he wrote,

But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined.

I’m shocked. Shocked.

While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping, and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method.

Franklin was surprised by how often different “faults,” as he put them, popped up in his daily life. What he needed was to be organized. Then he’d be on his way to moral perfection.

What Franklin did was create a little booklet containing lines and columns, like a ledger. He’d mark one spot for his failures for each day of the week and one line for each of his virtues he was trying to perfect. Though there hundreds of virtues a person can display, selected 12 in particular Franklin thought he needed improvement on. He added the 13th, ‘Humility” because a Quaker friend said that Franklin was well-known to be difficult to converse with because of his tendency to dominate the conversation and telling everyone they were wrong. After the Quaker friend gave Franklin some examples, Franklin decided to add the 13th and work on humility.

Though in the list below, the Christian can see the roots of these virtues in certain portions of scripture, Franklin did not ascribe their source to the bible. How or why he self-selected these thirteen and not another thirteen, is also part of man’s delusion that he can become good. One needs perfection in ALL in order to be considered good on the same level that Jesus is Good. Franklin decided that he would ‘fix’ one at a time, turning an opposing vice into the stated virtue. Incredibly, he estimated that it would take one week to fix each one, and that he could conclude his project in 13 weeks.

Franklin’s list of virtues he planned to pursue to perfection,

Temperance
Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

Silence
Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

Order
Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

Resolution
Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

Frugality
Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself, i.e., waste nothing.

Industry
Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

Sincerity.
Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

Justice
Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

Moderation
Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

Cleanliness
Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.

Tranquillity
Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

Chastity
Rarely use venery (sexual intercourse) but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the
injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

Humility
Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Did you ever read anything more proud? Anyway, for example, he chose to work on “Cleanliness” but did not include patience. Perhaps he thought he or his floor, could be better scrubbed, but had already achieved moral perfection in displaying patience? Or maybe there as a bit of the old craftiness in his selection, because cleanliness is a quantifiable virtue, an external virtue that others can see, and one that is easier to attain than, say, tranquility (especially when his wife would do most of the cleaning).

In his pride, Franklin surmised that all it would take would be thirteen weeks dedication to the project and then moral perfection would be attained. He did write in the future he planned to write a book on how to attain moral perfection using his method, and all people would be able to benefit from it. To that end, he purposely avoided mention of any one religion saying,

I had purposely avoided them [religious sects]; for, being fully persuaded of the utility and excellency of my method, and that it might be serviceable to people in all religions…” [emphasis mine]

It wasn’t long before Franklin understood that the project of attaining moral perfection would take longer than 13 weeks. As a matter of fact, he kept his book, with few intermissions, for 50 years. Of all the virtues, he found humility the hardest to overcome. After a while Franklin simply used less dogmatic and inflammatory language. He’d say, “I perceive” instead of “Undoubtedly,” and “I apprehend” instead of “Certainly.” The most he could do was fake humility. Side note: if all you’re doing is faking humility, doesn’t that also destroy ‘Sincerity’?

At the end of his life, Franklin wryly wrote that despite his best efforts to disguise his pride with cloaking language that he thought would be less dogmatical,

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.

Preacher Charles Spurgeon said in sermon #2591, “Pride the Destroyer”

This sin of pride is often forgotten and many persons do not even think it is a sin at all. Here is a man who says that he is absolutely perfect. Does he know what the sin of pride really is? What prouder being can there be than one who talks like that? “Oh, but,” he says, “I am humble.” Is there any soul living that is so proud as he is who says he is humble? Is not that the acme and climax of pride?

The older Franklin got, the more he acknowledged that perhaps the Deity was indeed involved in the affairs of men, and perhaps Jesus of Nazareth was a good man delivering the best “system of morals” the world ever saw, but refused to believe in Jesus’ divinity. Sorrowfully, at the end of his life, Franklin wrote,

“I have … some doubts as to his divinity; tho’ it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble.”

Franklin couldn’t be troubled to discover his eternal destiny? It was Franklin’s eternal mistake.

As for our Lord, isn’t a relief we do not have to spend 50 years trying to perfect humility only to fail every time? Isn’t is a wonderful thing that we don’t have to look at an eternity of pride blotting our heart to the detriment of all our relationships? Because we cannot attain moral perfection. We can’t even go a day and not fail to display some grievous display of moral corruption.

Only Jesus is Good, and that (Luke 18:19). This is why only He could be the sacrificial Lamb, slain so He could shed His blood to cover our sins.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, (Ephesians 2:8)

We cannot be good without God. But by grace, we have God.

egypt, exodus, manna, onions

All about onions in the bible. Is it interesting? Read to find out!

Posted on December 10, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

At church study, I mentioned the biblical linen references that I had studied. Someone near me said, “Onions?” I said, “No, linens.” She said that probably onions would not be that interesting of a study.

I didn’t know if they would be or not, they might not be. So I undertook to study onions. Below is what I found out. I’ll leave it to you as to whether you think it is interesting or not. 😉

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

The People had been wandering in the desert, eating the manna God had provided.

Numbers 11:4-6. The People Complain
The rabble who were among them had greedy desires; and also the sons of Israel wept again and said, “Who will give us meat to eat? 5″We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, 6but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna.

I’ll summarize and reference Pulpit Commentary for this next section:

We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely, i.e., gratis. Classical writers attested that fish swarmed in the Nile waters, and cost next to nothing.

The Cucumbers mentioned were of peculiar softness and flavour are spoken of by Egyptian travelers.

Melons. Or Water-melons, still called battieh, grow in Egypt, as in all hot, moist lands, like weeds, and are as much the luxury of the poorest as of the richest.

Leeks. This word usually means grass (as in Psalm 104:14), and may do so here, for the modern Egyptians eat a kind of field-clover freely. It seems to be a kind of mild watercress.

Garlic was highly valued. According to Pliny, Garlic and onions are invoked by the Egyptians , when taking an oath, in the number of their deities. Ramses III ordered garlic to be distributed in large quantities in the temples.

Onions. These are mentioned in the well-known passage of Herodotus (2:125) as forming the staple food of the workmen at the pyramids. Here is what the ancient historian Herodotus wrote-

“On the pyramid (of Cheops) it is declared in Egyptian writing how much was spent on radishes and onions and leeks for the workmen, and if I rightly remember that which the interpreter said in reading to me this inscription, a sum of one thousand six hundred talents of silver was spent;” Herodotus, Histories II, Project Gutenberg

Onions still form a large part of the diet of the laboring classes in Egypt, as in other Mediterranean countries. These different articles of food are exactly the items which an Egyptian labourer of that day would have cried out for, if deprived of them. The Israelites who had become accustomed to the Egyptian diet of bread, fish and vegetables, complained when they were wandering in the desert.

The above taken from several sources and summarized by me. Pulpit Commentary, Nave’s Topical Bible, and Old Testament texts, esp. Numbers 11.

It is extremely telling that the mental mindset of the Israelites was such that they cried out for workingman/slave food rather than the food provided to them directly from heaven. They had become used to the spicy flavors of the aforementioned items and were willing to substitute the satisfaction of a temporarily satisfied palate rather than the food from God which would sustain them both bodily and spiritually (by being satisfied and obedient with His provision).

In addition, the Israelites’ attachment to onions in particular verged on the dangerous, as onions were a major item of worship of false gods in Egypt. See the following-

HISTORY OF ONIONS. From the website All about Onions.

In Egypt, onions can be traced back to 3500 B.C. There is evidence that the Sumerians were growing onions as early as 2500 B.C. One Sumerian text dated to about 2500 B.C. tells of someone plowing over the city governor’s onion patch.

In Egypt, onions were considered to be an object of worship. The onion symbolized eternity to the Egyptians who buried onions along with their Pharaohs. The Egyptians saw eternal life in the anatomy of the onion because of its circle-within-a-circle structure. Paintings of onions appear on the inner walls of the pyramids and in the tombs of both the Old Kingdom and the New Kingdom. The onion is mentioned as a funeral offering, and depicted on the banquet tables of the great feasts, both large, peeled onions and slender, immature ones. They were shown upon the altars of the gods.

Frequently, Egyptian priests are pictured holding onions in his hand or covering an altar with a bundle of their leaves or roots. In mummies, onions have frequently been found in the pelvic regions of the body, in the thorax, flattened against the ears, and in front of the collapsed eyes. Flowering onions have been found on the chest, and onions have been found attached to the soles of the feet and along the legs. King Ramses IV, who died in 1160 B.C., was entombed with onions in his eye sockets. [My note: the Exodus began in 1446BC]

Some Egyptologists theorize that onions may have been used because it was believed that their strong scent and/or magical powers would prompt the dead to breathe again. Other Egyptologists believe it was because onions were known for their strong antiseptic qualities, which construed as magical, would be handy in the afterlife.

Onions were eaten by the Israelites in the Bible. In Numbers 11:5, the children of Israel lament the meager desert diet enforced by the Exodus: “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic….”

————————-end history of onions————————

O, the crafty devil had shifted their eyes from the holy God above to meager and temporal foodstuffs. They remembered the onions, but forgot their deliverance.

dark, encouragement, spurgeon, wicked

The Hindu smashed the microscope!

Posted on December 9, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

In his wonderful sermon, “Pride the Destroyer”, Charles Spurgeon preached,

A prideful person “does not seek the Light of God. You can often notice that if a man has a high opinion of himself, he is extremely good and excellent and does not need to be saved by Grace. He does not want to be told too much about himself. He likes to go to a place of worship where they prophesy very smooth things and if he ever strays in where there is very plain talk, he says that the preacher is too personal. The Hindu thinks it is wicked to kill an insect, or to take life of any kind—and that he will surely not enter into his happy paradise if he does. When the missionary showed a Hindu, by means of a microscope, how many living creatures there were in a single drop of the water which was in a glass on the table, in order to convince him of the impossibility of avoiding the destruction of life if he drank the water, what did the Hindu do? Why, he smashed up the microscope! That was his way of answering it! And so, sometimes, if the Truth of God is put very plainly so that men cannot escape from the force of it, not wishing to know the uncomfortable Truth, they turn upon their heels and find fault with the preacher and refuse to hear any more from him!”

We are the microscope. We show the truth of the hidden manna. We point the eye toward the hidden kingdom. Some will not even look through the lens! Others who dare to peer, will react as the Hindu did, and smash the Christian. Why is this?

For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (John 3:20)

In 1845, American Preacher Daniel A. Clark said,

Wicked men hate the light, because it exposes his vileness. When the cellar has been shut up for years is first laid open, by the opening of knows and doors, it presents a disgusting sight. We wonder how so much filth could have accumulated there. So the dark and wicked heart of man seems unutterably vile and loathsome when God’s Word and Spirit enters into it.

Wicked men hate the light, because it shows the necessity of a better character. The soul in love with sin is agonized with an apprehension of the necessity of reformation. Sinful habits let go their hold with a wonderful reluctance. They cry out, “let us alone,” and they are expelled, just like the demons who were driven out by our Savior. The contrast which exists between good and bad men is painful to the wicked just as it is perceived.

(source, The American National Preacher, Volumes 19-22, 1845)

But there is good news too. John 3 continues from verse 20 to verse 21,

“But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

day of the lord, imminent, prophecy, rapture, S. Lewis Johnson

What does it mean when the Prophets say "The Day of the LORD is near?"

Posted on December 8, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

I was listening to S. Lewis Johnson preach Obadiah. in a sermon titled “The Prophet of Edom’s Doom.” In Obadiah 1:15, the Prophet of God says,

For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations.

Any reader of the bible, Old Testament or New, casual reader or diligent, will have read that expression. It is rendered frequently. For example Ezekiel 30:3 states the Day is near, so does Joel 1:15, Joel 2:1, Zephaniah 1:14, and so on. Were all the prophets wrong? It has been two thousand years! What can we make of this?

S. Lewis Johnson explains.

Now, he [Obadiah] says the day of the Lord draws near on all the nations. Well, of course, that would lead us to ask the question, “Well, now what a minute, the day of the Lord has not come yet. It’s been hundreds of years since the prophet Obadiah prophesied and not only has it been hundreds of years but we don’t have anything in the immediate future to indicate that the day of the Lord is nigh at hand. The catching up of the church has not even taken place yet, so how can he write near? Was he wrong? Did the prophet speak not unto inspiration when he said the day of the Lord is near? What do we mean when we say near in the sense of the prophetic word?

Well, probably we mean something like imminent; that is, it may come at any moment. We don’t mean it must come at any moment. That’s evident from the Biblical teaching in the Old Testament as we see here and also in the New Testament. So the term really means something like it is imminent, it may come. Now, it so happens we know that the day of the Lord has not come and it’s been a long time.

One of the students of the Book of Obadiah, a very good student has said, “Now, when we say that a prophetic event is imminent just what do we mean?” The following illustration is helpful. With a little care one may balance a heavy book on the edge of a table. There the book remains poised. Let the room remain absolutely quiet and the book may stay there indefinitely yet at any moment a slight jar may cause it to fall.

No one can predict the precise instance of its drop, for its fall is imminent. So it is with the next event in the prophetic schedule. He says, “The rapture may come in our day or it may linger far beyond our time. Not itself, the day of the Lord, it is the vestibule of that day.”

EPrata photo

Therefore since the Day of the LORD is near, the rapture is nearer. Let this be a comfort to you.

encouragement, martyr, missionary, phil masters, stan dale

Sunday Missionary Moment: 20th century Martyrs Phil Masters and Stan Dale, a story of the Yali and Kimyals

Posted on December 7, 2014November 24, 2017 by elizabethprata

With the support of Dutch Christians, in 1855 two German-born missionaries, Carl Wilhelm Ottow and Johann Gottlob Geissler sailed for the forbidding lands of Dutch New Guinea.

After both the Dutch Indies government and the Sultan of Tidore had given permission, Ottow and Geissler left their schooner Ternate in January 1855. It was there they reportedly fell on their knees to pray and called out: “Im Namen Gottes betreten wir dieses Land” (“In God’s name do we set foot on this land”); after that they went across to the mainland to look at another site, then returned to the ship. Early in the morning of Monday, 5 February, the Ternate anchored off Manaswari to drop them off with their belongings. To this day that date is celebrated as marking the beginning of the Protestant mission in (formerly) Dutch New Guinea. (source)

One hundred years later, missionary work was still going apace in the DNG islands. Yet there were still peoples who had not even been contacted, who had not met with the outside world at all. In 1968, in the same area but with a new name, now called Irian Jaya, Indonesia, two missionaries prepared to leave their mission base and penetrate the Snow Mountains. The Snow Mountains were home to one of the most feared tribes of the area, the Yali. This Stone Age tribe was heavily animistic, deeply superstitious, practiced human sacrifice, and they were cannibals. Very few men had met them and come out alive.

The two missionaries preparing to leave base were Phil Masters from America and Stan Dale from Australia, who had been working out of Korupoon for the previous 6 years. Though progress had been slow, the missionaries had seen some conversions from other tribesmen who had come to faith. For example, Masters’ work with the Kimyal (Kimjal) people had yielded some conversions in 1963 when several of the Kimyal chieftain’s sons had converted. Dale’s work with the Dani had led to conversions also. But not the Yali. They resisted, fiercely.

In this note Stan Dale wrote to his support personnel back in Australia, he said-

“Please continue to remember us in prayer. Unfortunately, there is not much interest where the visible results are small. We trust that something will happen in our areas that will bring glory to God, even though we may be unknown.”

The Yali were a short tribe of people, what we used to call pygmy. The Yali men grew to less that 5 feet, the women a bit shorter. Despite their diminutive stature, they were the most feared tribe in the mountains. They were savage and aggressive, cannibalistic toward other tribesmen not only during in war but sometimes hunting humans just for meat. After killing a person they would chop them, grind their bones and scatter the dust, in order to prevent the person from ‘returning’. As a result of their fearsome demeanor and ferocious acts, the mountain tribes rarely interacted with each other.

However, the language of the Gospel is universal, and while some tribes, like the Kimyal, had been somewhat receptive, Stan and Phil were determined to reach the Yali peoples too. In 1961 on a former trek where the Gospel had been preached to the Yalis along by Stan with fellow missionary Bruno de Leeuw, Stan had been shot with five arrows, and the duo retreated. Now Stan wanted to try again, this time Phil Masters would be his companion. The two men were propelled by an equally fierce conviction that the Yalis needed Jesus, even if at the expense of their own lives.

It was a grueling journey. The geography of the region was challenging, rugged, and isolating. Trekking was arduous. Though the native people would clamber through the dense jungle and trot barefoot up inclines in the rugged terrain, never slipping, the going was harder for the missionary men and their carriers from the Dani tribe. There was one friendly Yali with them.

As the group reached Yali territory, warriors came out of their huts, and menacingly waved their arrows. Undaunted, the group of missionaries and carriers continued. The Yali tribesmen with the group observed that a sign had been given that they were to be killed. The group turned around and began trekking back. When they came upon a small, level river beach with rugged mountains towering over them, the Yali let loose a volley of arrows. Stan was hit numerous times, but amazingly, he simply stood. He tore the arrows out of his body, one by one. The volley of arrows continued and still, Stan yanked them out. The Yali became fearful, knowing these men served another God. Their volley of arrows became more intense, fearing more and more the God they served and wanting the men to die so they could quickly escape the area in case there was divine retribution.

Phil was spurred on by Stan, and the two men, who supernaturally had been withstanding an incredible onslaught, finally became too weak to pull out their arrows, and they fell. Several of the carriers were killed also. The Yali chopped the men and ate them, and scattered their ground-up bones so they could not be “resurrected,” a term they had heard before when Stan had shared the Gospel in 1961.

The LeMars Daily Sentinel, September 1968:

PHIL MASTERS REPORTED MISSING ON TREK INTO INDONESIAN JUNGLE

Phil Masters, author of the Daily Sentinel’s Missionary Dairy, is reported missing in the interior of West Irian, Indonesia. A missionary for the Regions Beyond Missionary Union, Phil and his family have spent some six years in the primitive areas of what was once the island of Dutch New Guinea. The island was taken over by Indonesia over three years ago. Mrs. Masters is the former Phyllis Wills, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hollis Wills, Seney. It was reported by Phil’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Tom Masters, Mapleton, were notified Monday morning by telegram that Phil is overdue from a trek into the interior. Although all the details have not been learned, it is believed Phil and another missionary went into the jungle to visit a neighboring village and haven’t been heard from since.

MRS. MASTERS DECIDES TO STAY ON ISLAND; BODIES AREN’T FOUND

Mrs. Ron Severson, LeMars, has received a news release from the Regions Beyond Missionary Union, Philadelphia, with more information about Rev. Phil Masters. The Severson family was one of the interested in LeMars area families in the work of Phil Masters. The union reported the deaths of two of its missionaries in the eastern highlands of West Irian, former Dutch New Guinea, Wednesday, Sept. 25. The date had not been reported previously. Rev. Philip Masters and Rev. Stanley Dale were killed instantly in an ambush by hostile tribes while on an evangelistic trek between the RBMU outposts of Koruppun and Ninia, the missionary union source said.

The society is one of several mission groups working in the interior of West Irian among tribes just emerging from a stone-age culture. A phenomenal response to the message of the Gospel has been witnessed among some of those warring cannibal tribes. Notably, in the Swart Valley alone, since 1960, some 8,000 of the Dani tribe have become Christians, weapons and fetishes have been discarded and literacy has become widespread.

One of the last communications received by the home office from Mr. Dale carried this significant comment—“I have a burden for these places where the way is hard. Please continue to pray for the people of the Holuk that they may break free from their fetishes and declare themselves wholly on the Lord’s side. Please continue to remember us in prayer, for we still carry some heavy burdens that are not burdens of work.”

The Lord blessedly answered the missionaries’ prayers. The various peoples of the Seng Valley in Indonesia have been released from their shackles to a ritualistic and demonic system of fear and death. They are joyously free. Though the burdens Stan and Phil (and Bruno, and the Wilsons who are still there) carried were heavy, they were temporary. The massacred missionaries are now enjoying freedom from their earthy tent of a body and dwell in glory with Christ. The day will come when the two men, shot through with arrows and ignominiously eaten, will eagerly and joyously greet their brethren the Yalis in heaven. Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can cause such warm love and dramatic transformational change.

The Lord Jesus Christ loves His people, all peoples, and He died and rose again to bring a message of light and hope to all men. He sends His Spirit to indwell men and some of those, Jesus has set them apart for missionary work to bring the Gospel message to those who are in deepest darkness.

The Korowai people of that area did not emerge into the 20th century nor had they been contacted by any Westerner until 1974. Wikipedia: “The first documented contact by Western scientists with members of a band of western Korowai (or eastern Citak) took place on March 17–18, 1974.”

We are not talking long ago times of unreached people groups. Dutch Christian missionaries immediately began living among the Korowai and the first converts came to Christianity in the late 1990s. You see that the fields are white, the need is deep. These cannibalistic, stone age tribes are still emerging into the present day.

And before the Wilsons who live there now, there was Dale and Masters, and before that Bruno de Leeuw and before that Carl Wilhelm Ottow and Johann Gottlob Geissler…and before that Apostle Paul and before that…JESUS. No matter where one extends the unbroken line of missionaries back, it always ends, or begins, with the first missionary. He left His holy habitation of pure glory to descend to depraved man, bringing the Light and the Hope of the Gospel.

Thankfully, some tribes already have emerged into the Light. Here is a wonderful video of the Kimyal people, whom Phil had worked with, rejoicing when a small plane brought to them their first bibles in their own language. Below that, the Yali themselves commemorate the day that Bruno and Stan brought the Gospel to them in 1961, which has become their TRUE Independence Day.

The Kimyal Tribe of Papua, Indonesia celebrate the arrival of the New Testament Bible in the Kimyal language:

Youtube summary:
“On May 21, 1961, Stan Dale and Bruno de Leeuw made first contact with the Yali tribe in what is now Papua, Indonesia. In the week of May 16, 2011, the Yali held the Yubileum, or Jubilee: they celebrated fifty years since the coming of the Gospel to their tribe, and fifty years of its transformational impact on their society. This video captures some of the highlights of that celebration, as well as the Holuwon Yalis’ welcome of John and Gloria Wilson and their family, who had lived among them for twenty years:”