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What is slipping away? What is creeping in?

Posted on March 21, 2014 by elizabethprata

In 2 Kings 22, King Josiah of Judah ‘s temple workmen found the Book of the Law abandoned and dusty in a temple wardrobe. Judah’s apostasy had gone on so long, the people had not only abandoned the practices of the Law but had forgotten there was a Law, a real one, on paper.

Josiah instituted reforms right away. He read the Law to the people first. He and the people joined in the covenant. (2 Kings 23:2-3).

Then Josiah removed everything that was an abomination in the sight of the LORD. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does satan. (Matthew 12:43-45). Abandoning the Law had created a vacuum into which satan had come in a flood. Josiah “the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven.” (2 Kings 23:4)

Imagine, inside God’s holy temple were implements to worship other gods! Even worse, there were male shrine prostitutes in the temple too. (2 Kings 23:7). Josiah ordered them gone, as well as any priest from another religion, the Asherah poles, the mini-temples on the high places, all tokens dedicated to to other gods left at the gates to Jerusalem, all fires for Molech, the horses and chariots offered to the Sun, anything profane in Ahaz’s upper chamber. Josiah put away the mediums and the necromancers and the household gods and the idols and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem… (2 Kings 23:24) and all idolatry in Judah. Matthew Henry wrote of Josiah’s effort,

What abundance of wickedness in Judah and Jerusalem! One would not have believed it possible, that in Judah, where God was known, in Israel, where his name was great, in Salem, in Zion, where his dwelling-place was, such abominations should be found.

When you abandon God’s Holy Word you abandon everything. See what else Judah had abandoned:

And the king commanded all the people, “Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.” 22For no such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, or during all the days of the kings of Israel or of the kings of Judah. (2 Kings 23:21-22)

For if, after they [false teachers] have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 2 Peter 2:20-22We look at the Israelites and the Judeans’ apostasy and we say, “Wow, they were crazy.” But they were sinful humans just like we are sinful humans, and human behavior doesn’t change one bit. We do the same thing as the Judeans. No, we don’t have Asherah poles in the temple or fiery statues of Molech to put our babies in, or sun chariots dedicated to a false god, but we have celebrity pastors who are worshiped instead of Jesus, and abortion and idols like the shiny and too-expensive SUV in the driveway and the too-large house we can’t afford. Monuments to the idol of self and greed and covetousness. We don’t have male temple prostitutes but we have active unrepentant homosexuals in church or even as clergy in church. How does it happen that an ‘abundance of wickedness’ comes in?

In the New Testament we read, “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” (Heb 2:1).

Inattention. Faith is a thing to be grasped, it is living and active. (2 Thessalonians 2:15). It is something that is meant to be lived. The close attention that is commanded in Hebrews is paralleled in Jesus’s admonition that we must pick up our cross every day. (Luke 9:23). Part of that verse we often neglect is that we must deny ourselves. All false religion and idolatry at root is a worship of self. Jesus calls for us to do the opposite, deny self.

If we are denying self every day and picking up our cross every day, that is pretty close attention. Close attention also means a vibrant prayer life. In Matthew 6, Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray. In the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ we read that we should ask for our daily bread. If we are asking for provision every day in prayer that means we are praying to Jesus every day. That’s pretty close attention.

Apostasy is a process. Sometimes it happens fast, like with Demas who accompanied Paul and then abandoned Paul for the world (approx 60-66AD at most) or apostasy can take a long time to surface, like with Billy Graham (1953-1997). Of course those who apostatize were never saved to begin with (1 John 2:19), but suffice to say, the call for Christians to pay close attention is nevertheless one that should be adhered to. Though we can’t be lost, we can make a shipwreck of our lives, and cast mud onto the name of Jesus in the process.

When we persevere, what a glorious reward we receive! The Bereans persevered, they examined the scriptures daily to see if what they had been taught was so. (Acts 17:11). Acts 2:42 says the disciples “devoted themselves” to “apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Paul & Company ‘thanked God constantly’ for their congregations’ eagerness to hear the word and live it (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

In our faith, perseverance is a virtue. Cling to Jesus, the Chief Shepherd!

“And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” (1 Peter 5:4).

His crown, His glory. He deigns to share it with us, His sheep, His children, His friends. He is so worthy to cling to. How gross and mean the Asherah poles, sun chariots and male temple prostitutes seem to us now when we compare them against eh holiness and perfection of Jesus. How useless the SUVs, the fancy houses, the celebrity and fame seems to us. May it always stay that way! Vibrant and loving faith, centered on Jesus, the only worthy one in all the universe. Ahh, comfort.

If it has been a while since you’ve read the bible, prayers, thanked Him, clung to Him, then all it takes is one step in repentance and humility, o prodigal, toward the Father and He will run to you! He is a great and merciful and loving Jesus.

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“In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded"

Posted on March 20, 2014 by elizabethprata

Scientists have announced another breakthrough. Breakthroughs seems to come fast and furious in some of the scientific disciplines. Some seem to stick and others seem to fade away immediately after the hoopla subsides. Think Missing Link in the field of evolution. And think Higgs Boson in the field of Physics. Or gluon. Or quark. Or dark matter. Or, even, the Big Bang.

The “breakthrough” physicists are excited about is that they say they have found another nugget of information about our universe immediately after it banged open. They believe that everything we see was once smaller than an electron, and something made it bang open. At the bang, there were massive gravitational waves that spread out, and this is what physicists have said they found evidence of. “Inflation” is the term they use to describe the run-up to the bang.The universe got bigger and bigger until it split open in a cataclysmic event. Gravitational waves billions of light years across or something, spread out across an instantly expanding universe. The gravitational waves make a distinctive curl or a swirl, and since the wave has already passed by, supposedly billions of years ago, the only remaining way to detect the wave is the way the light around where it used to be is polarized. A telescope in the Antarctic has discovered the swirly polarized signature of the gravitational Big Bang wave. I’ll let Discovery explain further.

Located in the arid atmospheric conditions of Antarctica, BICEP2 has a very clear view of the cosmos. The instrument has the ability of measuring the polarization of the weak signal from the CMB radiation. On Earth, sunlight can become polarized if it reflects off a mirror or when filtered by polarized sunglasses (thus reducing the glare). The radiation from the ancient CMB can also become polarized and gravitational waves have the ability to manipulate the polarization of the incoming radiation. The specific type of polarization, known as ‘B-mode polarization,’ is what BICEP2 has been looking for. And now, with a high degree of certainty, astronomers have found it.

“The swirly B-mode pattern of polarization is a unique signature of gravitational waves,” said Chao-Lin Kuo, of Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, co-leader of the project. “This is the first direct image of gravitational waves across the primordial sky.”

Today’s announcement is being touted as the “discovery of the century,” and although the two papers that were announced today have yet to go to print, the high certainty that backs these results is a huge hint that astronomers may have struck gold. Not only does this finding support the theory of cosmic inflation and the first strong observational evidence of gravitational waves, it could tie in to one of the most perplexing problems in modern quantum physics: What role does gravity play with the quantum world?

Physicists are having a hard time understanding how gravity relates to the Standard Model of physics, a situation that has forced theoretical physicists to pursue increasingly exotic ideas to find an answer.
—————-

The ‘increasingly exotic ideas in order to find an answer’ is where physicist Alexander Unziger comes in. He is a scientist who says that most of what physicists have come up with is bunk and inventions. But first, a review.

The way that most physicists describe the universe is in the Standard Model. Scientists know there are four major components of the universe, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force, electromagnetic force, and gravitational force. They think have figured out the first three but for the life of them they can’t figure out gravity. Like where it comes from or how it works. So in the Standard Model they simply ignore it. The Standard Model does not address gravitational force at all. They focus on the first three. That is the first inkling that all is not well in astrophysics.

You might remember the Large Hadron Collider, which conducted an experiment to collide particles to recreate a mini-Big Bang, and see what resulted from the collision. Physicists were looking for the particle that is called Higgs Boson, which would explain the universe’s mass. Back along, they discovered neutrinos, which are particles that have no mass, but what gives the universe mass, the corresponding element to counterbalance the neutrino? They postulated there must exist such a particle, which they dubbed the theoretical Higgs Boson.

Yet that brought them further down the rabbit hole, because if there is a Higgs boson particle, counterbalancing the mass-less neutrino, there still isn’t enough matter in the universe to account for the universe. We’re only up to 4% of the universe. So they invented the theory of dark matter.

“Our current understanding of the universe suggests that the matter we can observe only accounts for about 4 percent of all the matter that must exist. When we look at the movement of galaxies and other celestial bodies, we see that their motions suggest there’s much more matter in the universe than we can detect. Scientists named this undetectable material dark matter. Together, observable matter and dark matter could account for about 25 percent of the universe.” (source)

So they invented the theory of dark energy.

And so on and etcetera.

Back to Dr Unzicker.

Science on Sunday: The Higgs Fake
I’ve just read The Higgs Fake by Alexander Unzicker. He says physicists such as Einstein would have considered the “discovery” of the Higgs boson to be utterly ridiculous. And more. Unzicker really rips into particle physics. Not physics, particle physics, also known as high energy physics or HEP. But note that Unzicker isn’t some anti-science zealot. See the author section on Amazon along with his CV and his arXiv papers. He’s a whistleblower, which is why he’s written this book.

You know this when you’ve read A Zeptospace Odyssey by CERN physicist Gian Giudice, because then you know a few things. Like the Higgs mechanism is “frightfully ad hoc”. Like it’s responsible for only 1% of the mass of matter. Like the Higgs boson isn’t the central particle of the Standard Model. So you know there’s a big difference between the facts and the mystery-of-mass hype. And you know that there’s particle physicists out there who know the facts but keep quiet, whilst others hype the hype and tell fairy tales about cosmic treacle.

So you know Unzicker isn’t talking out of his hat. You know Unzicker is right when he says particle physicists haven’t reduced the number of parameters or incorporated gravity. You know they haven’t explained the fine structure constant. Or the mass of the electron and the proton. Or why the electron and proton and their antiparticles are the only stable massive particles. You know particle physicists haven’t explained spin, or charge, or Beta decay, or any of the other puzzles that bothered Einstein and Bohr and Pauli and Schrödinger and Dirac. You know instead that particle physicists have made things more complicated rather than more elegant, going against the grain of scientific progress. You know that instead of explaining things, particle physicists have invented things. Things like supersymmetry, which is now a dead man walking. Things like isospin and color and hypercharge and strangeness. Things that aren’t explained at all, and things that are swept under the carpet, like quark confinement.

So you smile wryly when Unzicker quotes from The End of Physics by David Lindley, a former editor at Nature: “In the end, the quark model succeeded by the ironical trick of proving that no quark would ever be directly seen by a physicist.

This Alexander Unzicker sounds like my kind of scientist.

So why this whole long science essay? To mention the following three items:

1. When scientists theorize one thing and it doesn’t fit, they have to invent another theory to cover the flaws in the first theory, and then invent another to bring along the first two, and so on. This is a perfect fulfillment of this verse:

always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. (2 Timothy 3:7)

Of course the verse mainly means they are always learning about God in some kind of fake religion but for these scientists, science is their God. They want to know about the creation, to them it’s called the universe, and they are always learning and dub their theories “The God Particle” and “Higgsogenesis”, but never actually acknowledge God or know God.

2. Forget muons and gluons and Standard Model and dark matter and dark energy and Higgs boson and Large Hadron Collider and gravitational waves. Here is the Standard Model of the Creation of the Universe:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

That’s it. That is the answer. It is so simple that people think, ‘Oh No, It Cannot Be’. O, but it is. We overcomplicate the Gospel by adding words and law. (Galatians 3:12). We overcomplicate our prayers by adding words and repetitions. (Matthew 6:5, 6:7). And we overcomplicate science by deleting God, the First Cause of the Universe’s Existence and the Sustainer of the the Creation. (Hebrews 1:3)

3. It is all a shame, because though science is interesting, the God of creation has been made plain to them. Plain! It’s obvious! It’s not difficult, people!

“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” (Romans 1:19).

The word in Greek is from phaneros, and it means: apparent, disclosed, evident, light, obvious, outward, tell, well known. The verse doesn’t say that He just showed it to them but He has made it plain.

Yet they persist. Famous Physicist Niels Bohr said,

“It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we say about Nature.“

There we have it. man seeks not only to suppress their evident knowledge of God, nor glorify Him, nor give Him thanks, “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). They make themselves gods by saying how the universe came to be.

They come up with theories like gravitational waves in the Big Bang, a theory novelist Terry Pratchett poked at in his book Lords and Ladies,

“In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.”

Genesis 1:1 is simple but profound. Please listen to Phil Johnson’s wonderful recent sermon called “What Creation Reveals.” Pastor Johnson said,

Of Genesis 1:1, “A. W. Tozer said that’s the single most important verse in all of Scripture, even surpassing John 3:16. Something in me recoils from the idea of trying to rank the relative importance of key Bible verses, because “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable” but (of course) Tozer believed that as well. So I think I understand what he meant when he ranked Genesis 1:1 as the Bible’s most important text. This is the necessary starting-point and foundation for everything else the Bible has to say.There is no text in the whole Bible that contains more or explains more than Genesis 1:1. Literally everything is in this verse. …

If creation is the foundation of all truth, the gospel is the central truth to which all other truth leads, and Christ Himself is the very pinnacle and incarnation of all truth. If you have not yet embraced Him as “the way, and the truth, and the life,” my prayer for you is that God will open your eyes to see, and that your entire life and worldview will be transformed by the truth of Christ.“

encouragement, fearing the Lord, hezekiah, prayer

How to pray: an example in Hezekiah

Posted on March 17, 2014 by elizabethprata

Prayer is important. I hope you all have a vibrant and active prayer life. I don’t pray as often as I should and I know I don’t pray as I ought, but I do pray and I’m not ashamed to pray at any place at any time for any reason. I just love talking with Jesus.

Very often essays or sermons on prayer focus on the Lord’s prayer (Matthew 6:5-13). This is good and reasonable, after all, the Disciples had asked how to pray and Jesus answered them. We have a point-blank lesson from Jesus on how to pray.

But there are other important and wonderful prayers in the bible we can see as a Godly model. Hannah’s prayer, (1 Samuel 1:10-18), Mary’s prayer, (Luke 1:46-55), and Hezekiah’s prayer.

I’m reading 2 Kings. Hezekiah, 13th King of Judah, was a king like no other before him or after him. The LORD was pleased with Hezekiah. In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, a situation occurred. In the throes of the situation, Sennacherib king of Assyria sent Hezekiah a letter indicating he was about to invade. Hezekiah’s response and his prayer are recorded both in 2 Kings 19 and in Isaiah 37. Here is the prayer from Isaiah 37:14-20,

Hezekiah’s Prayer for Deliverance

“Hezekiah’s Prayer for Deliverance

14Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. 15And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: 16“O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. 17Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. 18Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, 19and have cast their gods into the fire. For they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. 20So now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.”.”

Isn’t that just beautiful! How humble and loving and God-fearing!

I’ll add some comments from the MacArthur study bible.

Verse 14: Godly Hezekiah returned to the House of the Lord as he should have, whereas Ahaz in a similar crisis refused to even as for a sign from the LORD.

Verse 16: The basis for Hezekiah’s plea was God’s role as Sovereign and Creator of the Universe, not Judah’s worthiness to be delivered.

Verse 17: hear…see…hear…- in contrast to the gods of other nations the God of Israel heard and saw all.

Verse 18-19: Hezekiah exploded the Assyrian theory that the LORD was no different from other gods of the other nations that they could not deliver their worshipers.

Verse 20: Hezekiah displayed the highest motivation of all in requesting the salvation of Jerusalem- that the world may know that the LORD alone is God.

I just love that mental scene of Hezekiah spreading out the letter before the LORD. It is so beautiful, such intimate conversation between God and His servant, the LORD being so real and alive to Hezekiah. I love how he went immediately to the Lord for help. We can learn much from Hezekiah’s example.

Please consider these wonderful things as you pray. Remember that God said of Hezekiah,

“And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. … He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses. And the Lord was with him…” (2 Kings 18:3, 5-7a)

discernment, noah movie, ray comfort

Is the fact that 2014’s been dubbed ‘Year of the Christian movie" a good thing? Well, was Ahaz redecorating the temple a good thing?

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

The year 2014 has been dubbed “The Year of the Christian Movie.” Ten years ago Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ” was released and it became a blockbuster by any standard but especially for a Christian movie. Then…nothing. Crickets. No mainstream Hollywood movies with a Christian theme have been released. Until now.

All of a sudden, in 2013 New Ager Mystic Roma Downey and her equally lost husband Mark Burnett released a television mini-series called “The Bible”. They relentlessly hyped it in print, promoted it on tv and flogged it to preachers. Many mega-church bought into their hype, like Joel Osteen and Rick Warren (who were on the series’ ‘doctrinal staff’) and so the mini-series was even promoted from pulpits. Only thing, it wasn’t a series about Jesus, at least, the one from the actual bible, the Word of God. There were so many doctrinal errors and aberrations that it could easily be seen that the series was not spiritually profitable. But it was terribly financially profitable.

Except that many Christians couldn’t or didn’t see that the series was not about the real Jesus and it had left the real bible in the dust.

Spurred by the mini-series’ success, the Downey/Burnett duo extracted scenes from and re-worked the mini-series into a feature movie for theaters. The hyping, flogging and promoting went apace, and it was released this month. Once again the movie did brisk business at the box office. This has opened the bible-based movie floodgates, so to speak, as a Hollywood movie called Noah starring Russell Crowe is out, and almost a dozen Christian or bible based movies are ready for release or are in development or talks. 2014 has been dubbed the year of the Christian movie and many undiscerning pastors, congregants and others are hailing this as a mark that ‘the world is hungry for Jesus.’

Except it’s not. But more on that in a minute. Let’s take a look at the slew of media based on the bible that will be an affront to Jesus and unholy to everything we hold dear.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~2014~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

February: Son of God, reviewed here, and here where there are even more links to other reviews.
March: Noah (Russell Crowe). Noah is depicted as a boat-building psychopath wanting to murder his grandkids. Ray Comfort of Living Waters said of Noah: “They have no qualms about sensationalizing the story of Noah in order to make it more profitable,” he says. “That’s their bottom line. But the movie strays so far from the biblical account that it omits its essential message – God’s judgment for man’s sin and evil.”

March: Noah and the Last Days (Ray Comfort made this movie to respond to and oppose the Crowe movie Noah)

Spring: Left Behind, reboot of the old Left Behind released in 2000 by Jerry B Jenkins, Tim LaHaye. This one stars Nicolas Cage. Reboot translated means ‘better special effects.’

March: God’s Not Dead, Willie and Korie Robertson from Duck Dynasty. The Robertsons, while well-intended, are part of a church that preaches baptism is necessary for salvation. Go here to view a response as to whether this is correct doctrine and advance to 4:00 mark. Or here to read one.

April: Heaven Is For Real, book by Todd Burpo. Go here to read Justin Peters explain why trips to heaven do not line up with the bible.

December: Exodus (Directed by Ridley Scott, who once called religion the “source of evil.” Starring Ben Kingsley and Sigourney Weaver)

Easter 2015: Mary Mother of Christ, starring The Bible and Son of God actor Diogo Morgado as Joseph and 16 year old Israeli Odeya Rush plays Mary. Ben Kingsley and Julia Ormond round out the star power. Joel Osteen is Executive Producer.

In development: Gods and Kings, (biography of Moses directed by Ang Lee.)
In talks: Pontius Pilate (potentially starring Brad Pitt)
In talks: Cain & Abel, dir by Will Smith

And in a weird and horrifying turn of events, a new video game:

Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture video game PS4, “The game will take place in a village in Shropshire during the apocalypse.”

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So are you excited that after a ten year drought of movies depicting the God of the Universe with His Holy Word as the script that finally a slew of entertainments using the bible as source are slated for your popcorn pleasure? No? Good. Because it’s not good. It’s apostasy is what it is.

Photo CC, Liz West

Hollywood is not making movies to edify your soul, they are making movies to line their pockets. Run out of creative ideas, they saw the response from the Bible miniseries and went for a long-ignored source for the craven entertainment of the pagan populations. They ran like rats to a carcass to rip off a piece for themselves before all the ‘best characters’ were taken. They are not making movies that show a real Jesus as THE Son of God, they are re-making Jesus into a comfortable idol they can feel good about having brushed up against, if only on celluloid.

I’d mentioned above that 2014 has been dubbed the year of the Christian movie and many undiscerning pastors, congregants and others are hailing this as a mark that ‘the world is hungry for Jesus.’ The world is most assuredly NOT hungry for Jesus. The world does not want Christianity. The world hates Jesus, hates Christians and hates everything we stand for. Hates.

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” (John 15:18)
“The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil.” (John 7:7)

The matter is very simple. If it comes from the world, its works are evil.

The interest of Hollywood in bible movies is one prime example right off the bat they they are showing a false Jesus and presenting aberrant doctrine. ‘The Bible’ was almost universally praised. So is Son of God. I call the following verse the curse of popularity-

“Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.” (Luke 6:26)

Buddy Christ, from movie Dogma

The only reason they are making bible and Jesus movies, and they hold their nose while they do it, at least until they change Jesus enough for them gulp the putrid air they are used to breathing, is to make money. And again, Jesus said this would be so.

“And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.” (2 Peter 2:3)

‘Son of God’ Kicks Off Flood of Religious-Themed Films in 2014
“Hollywood is looking for that new market and it’s ignored that market for a while,” says the Rev. Michael Morris, who teaches film and religion at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, Calif. It is a great marketing device and a direct appeal to a market that has somewhat been estranged from movies and are not going to go unless they get their money’s worth,” Morris says.

Biblical films’ Hollywood comeback
Whatever happens, Noah will have the same advantage for studios as the other biblical epics. Unlike movies based on superheroes, or the latest literary sensation such as Fifty Shades of Grey, the studios will not have to pay millions of dollars in copyright and licensing fees. The stories in the Bible are free to use.

Just the combination in the same sentence of the mention of 50 Shades of Grey, a porn movie, and movies about Jesus is enough to make one shudder. But to flippantly state that the bible is an even better source because there are no licensing fees, is over the top.

But what the Hollywood movie-makers are doing and saying is not any different than what evil King Ahaz did. Ahaz went up to the King of Assyria and saw in his temple at Damascus some cute furnishings. Ahaz returned home and treated God’s house like “Extreme Makeover: Temple Edition.”

“When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar, and its pattern, exact in all its details. And Uriah the priest built the altar; in accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, so Uriah the priest made it, before King Ahaz arrived from Damascus. And when the king came from Damascus, the king viewed the altar. Then the king drew near to the altar and went up on it and burned his burnt offering and his grain offering and poured his drink offering and threw the blood of his peace offerings on the altar. And the bronze altar that was before the Lord he removed from the front of the house, from the place between his altar and the house of the Lord, and put it on the north side of his altar.” (2 Kings 16:10-14)

Pulpit Commentary says of this passage and the verses subsequent:

“He had a new altar made and introduced into the temple, which at first he used for his own private sacrifices (vers. 10-13); then, that his new altar might occupy the pest of honor, he removed from its place the old brazen altar of Solomon, and put it in an inferior position (ver. 14). After this, he required all sacrifices to be offered on the new altar (ver. 15). Finally, he proceeded to interfere with several other of Solomon’s arrangements, with what particular object is not very apparent (vers. 17, 18). … One sin leads on to another. Having introduced his self-invented quasi-idolatrous altar into the temple, and so inserted “the thin end of the wedge,” Ahaz was not satisfied, but proceeded to another innovation.

For example, the High Priest was not to be commanded by the king in matters of worship but was only to be commanded by God. And so little by little, a redecorating here, a move there, and pretty soon God’s divinely ordered Temple was a shambles of scurrilous offerings and idolatrous activity. It is the same with the culture today. We do not have a temple but we have the word of God which is also divinely authoritative. But a little wedge here and a camel nose there, and you have seen how quickly the flood of blasphemous movies made by blasphemous people has swept in and one innovation proceeds to another. Satan was removed from Son of God because he looked too much like Obama. Noah is dark and psychotic and the reason for the flood has been omitted. And so on. These are not good innovations.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary,
“The sin in this affair consisted in meddling with, and improving according to human taste and fancy, the altars of the temple, the patterns of which had been furnished by divine authority (Ex 25:40; 26:30; 27:1; 1Ch 28:19).“

The bible is divinely authorized, and to meddle with or improve to human taste or fancy, and in these cases from Hollywood, to line pockets, is sin.

They keep asking the question, “Why are there suddenly so many bible movies?” and the undiscerning response has been “because the world is hungry for Jesus.” We have seen that it is not so. They are hungry for a spiritual idol of their own making, and soon they will find it in the antichrist. Rearranging the Temple went badly for Ahaz. And re-arranging the word of God to suit fancies or line pockets will go badly for those who participate also.

“Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:29-31)

Or an image on silver celluloid.

Never fear! “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11)

No amount of celluloid adulterating can ever tarnish the wonderful God we have in Jesus. He is holy and pure and unchanged, and He is coming to rescue His children, who persevere in the faith.

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It’s all about the blood

Posted on March 15, 2014 by elizabethprata

Before I was a Christian I thought that Christianity was ghoulish. All that blood. Plus, eating the body. Ewww. As a Christian now, I am fascinated that God, who is Spirit, incarnated so as to shed His perfectly righteous blood to make a new covenant with His people so we can be with Him. It is a stunningly fearful and amazing thing. Below are interesting facts about the physiology of the blood from Dr. J. D. Watson, who according to his bio, “entered full-time ministry in 1974 and is currently the pastor of Grace Bible Church in Meeker, Colorado.”

“There is some fascinating history here that illustrates all this. In his 1628 book, On the Motion of the Heart and Blood, English physician Dr. William Harvey (1578–1657) was the first person to describe in detail the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped to the body by the heart (although others had similar ideas before him). “It is the fountain of life,” he wrote, “the first to live, and the last to die, and the primary seat of the animal soul; it lives and is nourished of itself, and by no other part of the human body.” He did, in fact, fully revive the Mosaic principle of the vitality of the blood. This principle was later adopted by the celebrated Dr. John Hunter (1728-93), professor of anatomy in London, who fully establish the reality of this through experimentation.

Later, the eminent French zoologist Milne Edwards (1800-85) made this amazing statement:

If an animal be bled until it falls into a state of syncope, and the further loss of blood is not prevented, all muscular motion quickly ceases, respiration is suspended, the heart pauses from its action, life is no longer manifested by any outward sign, and death soon becomes inevitable; but if, in this state, the blood of another animal of the same species be injected into the veins of the one to all appearance dead, we see with amazement this inanimate body return to life, gaining accessions of vitality with each new quantity of blood that is introduced, eventual beginning to breathe freely, moving with ease, and finally walking as it was wont to do, and recovering completely.

Pretty interesting about the physiology of the blood, isn’t it?!

Here are just a few of the verses which speak to the blood throughout the bible.

The blood cries out from the ground (Genesis 4:10). Even the ground is cursed until Jesus removes sin.
Rivers are turned into blood (Psalm 78:44, Revelation 16:4) They could not drink, and were ever thirsty.
The blood is the covenant. (Exodus 24:8). The LORD keeps His promises.
The life is the blood. Leviticus 17:11. See above, about the physiology of blood.
Justified by his blood. (Romans 5:). As Matthew Henry said, the justification is not simply a legal arrangement, it is life.
This cup is the new covenant in my blood. (1 Corinthians 11:25).
We have redemption through his blood. (Ephesians 1:7). He bought us with it! (also Ephesians 2:13).
The blood of his cross made peace (Colossians 1:20).
The blood cleanses. (1 John 1:7). Think of a blood transfusion, our dirty blood being circulated away as the new blood comes in.
The blood freed us! (Revelation 1:5). How often does sinful man try to free captives by bloody warfare, but Christ’s blood is an eternal freedom from captivity and oppression. In Him we’re truly free.
Ultimately, His blood sanctifies us (Hebrews 13:12).

Coming soon: the blood of the sinners. His blood was shed once for all. In the future He will shed their blood as He comes to judge and make war!

And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia. (Revelation 14:20, also Revelation 19:11)

It is ALL about the blood.

charismatic, continuationism, john piper, spiritual gifts

Cessationism versus continuationism

Posted on March 14, 2014 by elizabethprata

A conference called Strange Fire, held at John MacArthur’s church last fall and attended by notable keynote Christian pastors, there has been an ongoing fire of its own. The conference was to expose the heresies of the Charismatic movement and to explain biblically why continuationism has a falsely interpreted basis.

Continuationism is the hallmark of the Charismatics and to a degree the word faith believers also. It holds that the first century apostles’ healings, direct prophecies, and other miracles are normative to every Christian’s experience. Cessationism holds that the miracle spiritual gifts were for a foundation only, alive in the first century apostles and designees only and ceased after the foundation of the church was laid the the bible was completed.

A lot of ink has been spilled in the debate prior to and subsequent from the conference. It is still raging. But there was one comment I enjoyed for its succinct biblical explanation of why these miracle gifts have ceased. It is from a blog essay posted this week by John MacArthur, who is following up on some things from the conference regarding John Piper. I encourage you to go to the essay and its follow up and read the piece in its entirety.

The comment I enjoyed is here, #44 by comment moderator Gabriel Powell. He was responding to the people who embrace continuationism by saying that to reject cessationism is to reject the Holy Spirit entirely.

Posted by Gabriel Powell | Tuesday, March 11, 2014at 3:47 PM

It seems like there is some confusion over what cessationism rejects. While there are clear differences between the two theological positions, the reality of miracles and healing is not one of them.

Cessationism affirms that God maintains the power to heal and perform miracles. What we deny is that the “gifts” to perform signs and wonders which were so prevalent and normative in the 1st century church are still prevalent and normative today.

God’s character remains the same (which is the point of “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever”), but He deals with His people in unique ways at unique times (Hebrews 1:1).

christian life, condemnation, joy, prophecy

Do you struggle with condemnation? It’s not complicated. Don’t.

Posted on March 14, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Post-salvation, do you ever feel any condemnation, or ever struggle with it? A lot of people do, especially new Christians. I don’t want to seem super-spiritual or anything, but I don’t struggle with condemnation. I’ll tell you why, and maybe it would be encouraging.

Accused of being dogmatic all my life, I always saw things in black and white, right and wrong. People said that as I grew up I’d come to know that there are gray areas.

Do you see any gray there?

I mulled that over for a long time but rejected that notion, there is no gray area. There is only right and wrong, dark and light, good and bad, etc. The “seeking” of the rest of my life was to discover a philosophical construct which fit my innate sense of either/ors.

Buddhism seemed excessively complicated. Wicca seemed excessively simple but trying to be complicated. Islam, well, Islam is just crazy. Catholicism had too many rules, and they contradicted each other.

I found my dogmatism, my either-or perspective, satisfied in Jesus.

In Him there is law/grace, broad road/narrow road, condemnation/forgiveness, in Christ/out of Christ, heaven/hell. A great gulf is fixed. Everything with Jesus is clear and simple. Not simplistic, because Christianity is the most complicated and deep philosophy/religion/way of life one can ever study, but simple in its approach. The Gospel is often rejected because ‘it can’t be that simple’.

Let’s take a look at a scene. At the end of the Tribulation, Jesus will have blinked out all the lights in the universe. There will be no moon, no sun, and no stars. Earth will be wrecked so probably no electricity. It will be dark. It will be dark for a while, because Jesus says no one knows the day or time the son of Man is coming. (Matthew 24:36).
whoever does not believe is condemned already. John 3:18

Then all of a sudden a blinding light fills the sky. JESUS is coming in wrath, and with condemnation on His lips, and His glory is undimmed, unveiled, and no other light competes with it. It terrifies the inhabitants of the earth! They fall down and hide under the rocks and in caves, crying out

“Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?” (Revelation 6:16-17)

If I think myself condemned, or have done an action that Jesus would condemn, I think of that scene. Am I there? NO. I am not one of those unbelievers hiding under a rock and begging to escape the notice of the Lion of the tribe of Judah? NO!

Well, since Christianity is either-or, and if I’m not there, where am I? HERE:

“More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” (Romans 5:11)

So I never struggled with condemnation, because it’s either-or. If I think about my sins, former or present, sure, I’d feel condemned. It is a heavy weight to know I fail Jesus even today, with the Spirit in me. But I don’t think about it. If I do, I’d be putting myself on the place of those poor blasphemers in Rev. 6 at the coming of Christ, hiding under the rocks and terrified of His approach. I’m not there, that’s not me. So, who am I? I am forgiven, in the light, embraced by Jesus who knew me before the foundation of the world. It simply isn’t profitable to think of being condemned, and we’re told not to:

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

Not that we don’t feel bad when we sin. I certainly do. But the glory of Christ is His intimate relationship with us, and my opportunity to bring my mourning over my sin to Him and ask for forgiveness. He delights in His children and wants to forgive. As for the unnecessary feeling of condemnation?

It’s not complicated.

Jesus went through excruciating pain and agony in order to satisfy God’s wrath. He took our punishment so that we would not be condemned. Therefore I will not diminish His work by adopting an attitude of condemnation.

It’s not complicated.

If we have the faith of a child, we won’t overcomplicate the message. We’re co-heirs with Christ, in us there is no condemnation. (Romans 8:1). Why purposely burden my life with a gray area of endless options for feeling condemned in my sins when Jesus stripped it all down to two? We are either outside Christ and condemned or we are in Christ and forgiven. It’s that simple.

encouragement, jesus, new jerusalem

We will be with Jesus, personally

Posted on March 12, 2014 by elizabethprata

We long for Jesus, don’t we? We want to be in heaven where things are beautiful, and perfect, and where we won’t sweat or toil. We want peaceful rest and perfect fellowship with the saints. We definitely don’t want to sin any more.

But above all, we want JESUS!

We like to picture Him on His throne, reigning with an iron rod, in perfect peace and justice. (Revelation 2:27). We mostly picture this in the Millennium Kingdom because the bible says almost nothing about life after the 1000 year kingdom concludes, our eternal state. Prophetically the order of things to come at this point is

—The Rapture. This is when the saints who believed in the Resurrected Jesus all throughout the Church Age (between Jesus’s ascension/Pentecost and the rapture) will be translated alive or resurrected from the dead into perfect bodies able to withstand gazing upon His glory. We live in New Jerusalem which for the time being is in heaven. We enjoy the Rewards ceremony for the things done in Christ (Bema Rewards) and the marriage supper of the Lamb. Down below, the tribulation is happening,
—The Tribulation AKA the Time of Jacob’s Trouble. Jesus will unleash His stored-up wrath upon the sinning inhabitants of the world and also punish Israel. This time of wrath and punishment will last 7 years. It will be a time of hell on earth, the antichrist and false prophet will be allowed a very long leash, many thousands or millions of salvations occur, and just as many martyrdoms.
—The Second Coming. Jesus will return from heaven, with us and also the angels, put a stop to the carnage on earth. He will judge the nations. (Sheep and Goats judgment)
—Millennium Kingdom. Judgment concluded, those who are saved will be allowed entry into the kingdom. This will be a time of the prophesied 1000 years of Jesus reigning on earth, which will be a renewed earth, and the church age saints living in New Jerusalem which had descended to earth. Satan will be bound in the pit during this time. At the end of the 1000 years, he will be let our for one last, very short battle, and then satan is thrown forever into the lake of fire.
—The Eternal State. Earth will be melted. We continue on in eternity with Jesus forever.

Here is a question. Jesus came to live in a body and He was killed in a body and when He was resurrected, He still had that body. He is man AND God but He is in a body. That was the sacrifice.

During the Millennial Kingdom period, when Jesus reigns from His throne in Zion (Isaiah 9:7), will Jesus be in only one place? Will those who live in Egypt or Assyria be able to be with Jesus even though they live far from Mt. Moriah? Do they lose out in being able to petition Jesus or worship Jesus or be with Jesus personally?

And what about us? The Millennium Kingdom will be vast, with all Israel’s originally promised borders finally unmolested and intact, and peoples re-populating the world, and all the Church Age saints living in New Jerusalem…with so many people around worshiping and sacrificing to Jesus, will we be able to be with Jesus personally? Have one-on-one time, in His presence, worshiping Him or just gazing in adoration?

Yes, we absolutely WILL be able to be with Him and personally, too. He is with every person who believes right now, whether they are in Greenland or Australia, Chile or Germany. How? I don’t know. But He is. (Matthew 18:20, 28:20; Hebrews 13:5).

Psalm 55:22 says He sustains us, and this means each one of us. He personally knits together every babe in the womb.

We see that He is personally involved with us now, from womb to death and beyond, and when we get to heaven, He will be personally available to us as well, but even better because He will be bodily there. 1 Corinthians 13:12 says we will see face to face. He will personally wipe each tear from our eyes (Rev 21:4)

If each person who ever lived will stand before Him to be personally judged individually by their deeds, how much more glorious will it be when we share eternal joy with Him, standing with Him at the bema seat to be rewarded! (1 Thessalonians 2:19-20). We will be with Him, with Him, with Him…

He is the creator of all dimensions. How could Paul be in the body on earth but also in the spirit seeing the third heaven, (2 Corinthians 12:2) which is so beautiful no man can say the things that went on there? How can John be both on Patmos but also among the lampstands speaking with Jesus? (Revelation 1:12-13). How can Peter be on the mountain but suddenly out of another dimension he sees Moses and Elijah with them on the mountain, too? (Matthew 17:3). Which reality is real, the one where Elisha’s servant sees only the army coming to conquer them, or the one that Elisha asks God to show, the chariots of fire which were there all along? (2 Kings 6:17). God makes it happen, in heaven there are no space constrictions, and no time worries!

Have no fear, in heaven there is no disappointment, only joy. Therefore since Jesus is our joy, we will be with Him. (Matthew 25:21). He will not forsake us, ever. If he is with us now, He will be with us then, and face to face.

bible, birds, physics, science, string theory

From musical birds on a wire to natural numbers controversy; string theory to theory of everything- some thoughts

Posted on March 11, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

A month ago I wrote about the Music of the Spheres, the ancient concept developed by Pythagoras and promoted by Plato that there is a hidden order and musical harmony behind what we see manifested in the physical universe. Pythagoras believed that numbers were the foundational glue that ordered the worlds, and further, that as the planets and universe went about their business orbiting and just being, that they emitted an actual musical score, thrumming as strings.

If this sounds a lot like string theory, Pythagoras had the initial glimmers. If you’d like to read more, I discussed the concept of the Music of the Spheres into three parts. Part 1 begins here.

Imagine my delight when I came across this from South America. It is from 2009, so it’s not new, but isn’t this just charming:

LifeBuzz describes:

Birdsong, by Jarbas Agnelli
One morning while reading a newspaper, composer Jarbas Agnelli saw a photograph of birds on an electric wire. He cut out the photo and was inspired to make a song using the exact location of the birds as musical notes. He was curious to hear what melody the birds created.

He sent the music to the photographer, Paulo Pinto, who told his editor, who told a reporter and the story ended up as an interview in the newspaper. It ended up Winner of the YouTube Play Guggenheim Biennial Festival.

A physics controversy is erupting. It seems that a youtube video is making a splash. According to this article it has been seen by 1.5 million people as of February 4, 2014.

Two physicists explain: The sum of all positive integers equals −1/12

Whaaaa?

I read several Physics chat rooms and forums and it seems there is a huge debate over this. Two string theory scientists had recently posted in their Youtube video explaining that all the positive integers added up to infinity equals a negative number. Who knew there were that many string theory scientists & geeks. Anyway, there is huge debate over their results. The link above is a good article explaining what the string theory scientists are about.

The article opens this way-
“How far should scientists go in simplifying complexity to engage the public imagination?”

Though the scientists say they focus on the infinite, what they’re really focusing on is the eternal.

God is the infinite. Only God can simplify the eternal so that man’s finite brain can understand it. This is why unsaved people cannot understand the bible, and this is why unsaved scientists cannot understand the complex. In fact, the only people who can understand string theory are Christians.

All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16)

One of the scientists saying this positive number equals a negative number thing is Tony Padilla. Padilla says,

“It’s by no means obvious, but this is the only sensible value one can attach to this divergent sum. Infinity is not a sensible value. In my opinion, as a physicist, infinity has no place in physical observables, and therefore no place in Nature.”

No, infinity does not have a sensible value. How can one put a value on the infinite (eternal)? However, if you think about it, numbers in general do not have a sensible value! It is finite man who developed counting systems with values. Though in the US we use base-10, others use base 12. This mathematician wrote,

“Humans, for the most part, count in chunks of 10 — that’s the foundation of the decimal system. Despite its near-universal adoption, however, it’s a completely arbitrary numbering system that emerged for one very simple reason: We have five fingers on each hand.“

Mayans used base 20 and Babylonians used base 60. So scientists who put all their trust (faith?) in a value of

Babylonian numerals

a number forget that assigning a value to a number, (written in what is only a man-made squiggle after all, remember XVII?), is just as arbitrary and at root, have no sensible value, either.

David Hilbert, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics, described infinity as “a mathematical abstraction that does not have a physical content.”

That’s because infinity is God (eternal) and God is spirit! God does not have physical content.

Linnaeus: Table of the Animal Kingdom (Regnum Animale)
from the 1st edition of Systema Naturæ (1735)

OK, this math positive numbers equal negative numbers thing is a classic example of scientists attempting to classify the unclassifiable. Physics comes extremely close to who God is and one of His infinite qualities, omniscience. The scientists are trying to order and organize something that is impossible to order and organize without knowing God. They are UNspiritual people trying to learn spiritual things- 1 Corinthians 2:13- and with a finite mind, no less.

Some parts of our physical existence can be seen and understood, but even Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, had a difficult time with his hierarchical organization trees because new species kept cropping up that destroyed his finely created “kingdom-class-order-phylum-genus-species hierarchical taxonomy.

And physicists try to do the same, but with math. It works to a degree but just when they get close, like mercury squirting out from under their thumb, their theories collapse. Their pursuit is like Tantalus’, eternally reaching for the fruit and the water that was eternally outside his grasp. It is a classic case of 2 Timothy 3:7!

Hilbert was right, more right than he knew. Infinity IS a mathematical content that has no physical…it’s God. But they will never accept that. I watched the BBC series “Atom” a couple of summers ago, narrated by physicist Jim Al-Khalili. He showed how even this dimension we are living in is likely a hologram, AKA not real – and how right he is! Which is the ‘real’ dimension? This one or the one that appeared before the disciples’ eyes on the mount of Transfiguration, with Moses and Elijah ‘suddenly’ appearing and speaking to each other? The one that Elisha’s servant saw, or the one that Elisha asked God to reveal which was there all along? In physics this hologram universe is called the ‘holographic principle’. PBS Nova describes the holographic principle–

The holographic principle, simply put, is the idea that our three-dimensional reality is a projection of information stored on a distant, two-dimensional surface. Like the emblem on your credit card, the two-dimensional surface holds all the information you need to describe a three-dimensional object—in this case, our universe. Only when it is illuminated does it reveal a three-dimensional image. This raises a number of questions: If our universe is a holographic projection, then where is the two-dimensional surface containing all the information that describes it? What “illuminates” that surface? Is it more or less real than our universe?

So when math guys say that all positive integers added to infinity would result in a sum that is a negative number, why NOT? What is real about anything we know, except for what God revealed to us in His word? all that math is, and physics, is an arbitrary philosophical construct based on man’s interpretation of things outside of the only construct that makes sense- the bible.

Physicists seek the Theory of Everything. “A theory of everything (ToE) or final theory, ultimate theory or master theory refers to the hypothetical presence of a single, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe. ToE is one of the major unsolved problems in physics.” (source)

O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” (1 Timothy 6:20)

We rejoice in the Creator without succumbing to worshiping the creation. We take delight in Who God is, without attempting to overlay scientific theories that explain Him. He is eternal, infinite, expansive, majestic, and above all, holy. The Theory of Everything that scientists constantly seek, is … the bible. Best of all, it’s not a theory. It is fact.

“Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord! Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore! From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised! The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens! Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high,” (Psalm 113:1-9)

encouragement, rapture

The Rapture of the Church

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

I love visuals. Of course, putting Jesus on a visual is always fraught with biblical issues (Second Commandment). Trying to picture the worst horrors of hell or the Tribulaton is unwise. And how does one capture some of the more nuanced concepts that can really only be seen in the Word? It’s called the word for a reason. Not ‘The Picture”. Even the Apostles and Prophets who saw what they saw still struggled with ways to say it in words. “It was like a…” and Daniel simply became ill after several of the visions.

There are three artists I can think of who seem to have done the best job In my opinion in capturing biblical concepts visually. Annie Vallotton, (and Vallotton here too) Chris Koelle, and Action Jones (AKA Chris Powers).

“…He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”

Action Jones

Annie Vallotton via ArtBible.net

Go to the link for Chris Koelle to see his work. It’s copyrighted. A couple of years ago he completed illustrations for the Graphic book of Revelation. he also illustrates some of John Piper’s poems, and has recently finished a series of illustrations showing the History of Redemption from Genesis to revelation. his work is available for purchase or for church events at a discounted price. His Revelation illustrations are actually chillingly, spiritually otherworldly for me to look at and so I don’t look too often.

Trying to envision the rapture is one of the hardest concepts to get right. After all, the bible says it will happen in the blink of an eye. (1 Corinthians 15:52). How do you capture that? I see lots of art that depicts Christians with arms outstretched and jet marks under their feet as they’re launched off the ground…kind of literal and corny if you ask me.

I did like this one from a short youtube video showing us a points of glory light zooming off earth into the universe:

40-second video here

Then I came across this one today. It is a free wallpaper. Someone had added the words at the bottom. I liked it because it showed the suddenness of the rapture, via the lightning. The storm clouds bespeak wrath. In my interpretation, the first Horse of the Apocalypse will ride immediately after the rapture or coinciding with it, because once the church is removed, God will unleash His stored-up wrath upon the inhabitants of the earth. So the galloping horse also is going to be part of the event at or immediately after the rapture. See what you think:

The rapture of the church, explained. 14 minutes.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. Let’s be encouraged!

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.