Posted in faith, Luke, martyr

Sunday Martyr Moment: Luke

Posted on by elizabethprata

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. According to this summary from Christian Book Summaries,

Writing in the mid-1500s, John Foxe was living in the midst of intense religious persecution at the hands of the dominant Roman Catholic Church. In graphic detail, he offers accounts of Christians being martyred for their belief in Jesus Christ, describing how God gave them extraordinary courage and stamina to endure unthinkable torture.

From the same link, the book’s purpose was fourfold:

  • Showcase the courage of true believers who have willingly taken a stand for Jesus Christ throughout the ages, even if it meant death,
  • Demonstrate the grace of God in the lives of those martyred for their faith,
  • Expose the ruthlessness of religious and political leaders as they sought to suppress those with differing beliefs,
  • Celebrate the courage of those who risked their lives to translate the Bible into the common language of the people.

Luke

Luke was a Gentile, possibly a Greek. It’s not known as to when or how he was converted. He was a physician in Troas and was probably converted there by Paul, especially since it was at Troas that he attached himself to Paul’s party and started traveling with them. Notice in Acts 16:8-10, that it is at Troas he switches from “they” to “we” in his text-

“So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. 9And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10And when Paulc had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”

Luke went with Paul to Philippi, but was not imprisoned with him and did not travel with him after his release. He apparently made Philippi his home and stayed for some time. It’s not until Paul’s visit to Philippi (Acts 20:5-6) about seven years later, that we again meet with Luke. From this time he again traveled with Paul and stayed with him during his journey to Jerusalem (Acts 20:6-21:18). But he disappears once more during Paul’s imprisonment at Jerusalem and Caesarea, and only shows up again when Paul starts for Rome (Acts 27:1). He then stayed with Paul through his first imprisonment (Philemon 1:24; Colossians 4:14). Many bible scholars believe Luke write his Gospel and Acts when in Rome with Paul during this time. During Paul’s second imprisonment, Luke apparently stayed nearby or with Paul, but because just before his martyrdom, Paul wrote to Timothy and said, “only Luke is with me.” (2 Timothy 4:11).

After Paul’s death, Luke apparently continued to evangelize as he had learned to do with Paul. Exactly when and how he died is unknown. One ancient source states “He served the Lord without distraction, having neither wife nor children and at the age of 84 he fell asleep in Boeatia (Place unknown), full of the Holy Spirit.” Another early source said he went to Greece to evangelize, and was there martyred by being hung from and olive tree in Athens in AD 93.

Posted in earthquakes

Four Major earthquakes this week, looking at some earthquake data

Posted on by elizabethprata

United States Geological Society (USGS) rates a quake major if it is over 6.0 in magnitude. Each year, the average number of 6.0-6.9 quakes occurring in that range for the entire year is 134. So far this year (2013) there have been 60 in the 6.0+ range. There have been four this week.

The breakdown goes like this: (Data from USGS)

Comparing last year at this same time, the number of quakes in the 6.0-6.9 range was 59.

Let’s compare this half-year to last year’s half-year.
The number of quakes in the year 2012 between magnitude 4.0-9.9 from Jan 1- June 15 are 4,266.

The number of quakes in the year 2013 between magnitude 4.0-9.9 from Jan 1- June 15 were 6,130.

Looking at a longer term trend for quakes between 4.0-9.9 magnitude, from Jan-June for the last 7 years:

Now, looking at only half a year is not the best way to look at data for this data set, because earthquakes don’t occur in a predictable or proportional way over the course of a year. But if wanting to use this year’s data at all, it is important to look at apples-to-apples, so I compared it that way for the previous years.

As a note, USGS changed their pages. The search page is still functional, but one critical piece is missing from the way they offered the search results before: the total count. If I want to get a total count for any search data on earthquakes, I have to copy the USGS result into Word, manually delete the extraneous information, copy all, press the number button, and look at the last line to see how many there are. It is cumbersome. As with any data gathering, the more you introduce humans monkeying with the data, the more chances there will be to introduce human error. In addition, I can’t find out how many quakes there are for the entire year because the sheer volume of copied information will crash or freeze Word.

Come on, USGS, give us the total number of quakes for our search function again. Please?

So there ya go, just FYI, some information for you at the half-way point in 2013. Does it feel like half the year is gone already? It is going so fast. Maybe July-December will be the time frame the Savior will come! One can hope for the Blessed Hope, and pray too. :). Maybe tomorrow will be the Day.

Posted in evil, God, holy, minnesota, nazi

The Stranger: Nazi officer discovered in Minnesota

Posted on by elizabethprata

A few days ago, I read an interesting article about a man who had been living in Minnesota for decades was really a WWII SS Nazi Commander. For him to have been a commander in WWII, he’d have to be really old by now, and the story says he is 94 years of age.

I thought that was an interesting coincidence because I’d just watched a movie called “The Stranger”. This is a fictional 1946 movie about a Nazi who had masterminded the genocide of the Jews and when the war was over managed to flee Germany to the United States. He settled in a small village in New Hampshire, obtained a teaching position at an academy, and married the town scion’s daughter. It starred Orson Welles as the Nazi, Edward G. Robinson as the FBI man chasing him, and Loretta Young as the wife who married the Nazi.

The movie built its suspense, making the conclusion a sneak attack of horror. Its chosen location was a burb so guileless that patrons of the General Store helped themselves to pouring the ever-percolating pot of coffee behind the counter while the genial proprietor sat playing checkers near the woodstove with anyone who’d take him on for a quarter. There were happy teens running track, a well-attended church, and a luminous bride chirping about her white wedding.

Harper, NH is a kind of town every person could admire, life there is what we hope for, and wants life to be like. A town that’s safe, pretty, innocent, and upright.

Its stomach-turning, gasping horror was due to the juxtaposition of the clean-cut innocence of the town being gradually overcome with the stain of the evil heart of the Nazi. It was like watching a baby just out of the bath being approached by a rabid, drooling, mangy dog ready to devour it.

The movie gradually descended you into the mind of the Nazi, but the resistance of our mind to recognizing such horror is strong, especially by the young wife who had just married the evil man masked as a thoughtful teacher. In response to her father’s question about walking home after dark, she had said, “In Harper, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

The fictional town of Harper, NH where the Nazi had come to live

The wife resisted the clear implications of her husband being a murderous Nazi, even after he confessed to two killings. He had (made up) a good reason, after all. She resisted facing the truth to the point where Robinson had to show her film of a recently liberated Concentration Camp, complete with wasted skeletons of people weakly and pitifully thanking their liberators, right down to close-ups of the skeletons in the ovens. The Stranger is said to be be the first to show actual footage of the German camps.

Loretta Young’s character had a problem facing such evil, because one would surely be able to spot it? Something about the person would set him apart from all the other people who are not so evil, surely? We as rational, innocent, good people, would be able to distinguish ourselves from the Nazis who harbored such hellish minds and dark hearts? Surely we would not … marry a person like this?

Loretta Young’s character finally broke down and faced the truth. The movie is called The Stranger and the title is apt. The stranger is not the man who came to town with all his WWII evil hidden away, the stranger is the evil that is in all of us, a potential that waits coiled up like a snake at the base of our hearts, waiting to be fed.

So having just seen the movie the night prior and then reading the article about the Minnesota man, was interesting to say the least.

Report: Former Nazi SS Officer Living In Minnesota
A 94-year-old man who allegedly was a top commander of a Nazi SS unit responsible for the massacre of civilians during World War II is reportedly living quietly in Minnesota, according to an exclusive report by The Associated Press. The news agency says it obtained records through the Freedom of Information Act that show Michael Karkoc

“A June 3, 1944, photo provided by the
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
shows SS chief Heinrich Himmler (center) as he reviews troops
of the Galician SS-Volunteer Infantry Division.” Source

lied to officials in 1949 about his past in order to immigrate to the United States. According to the AP, Karkoc concealed his military service during World War II as an officer and founding member of the SS-led Ukraine Self Defense Legion and later as an officer of the SS Galician Division. “The Galician Division and a Ukrainian nationalist organization he served in were both on a secret American government blacklist of organizations whose members were forbidden from entering the United States at the time,” the AP reports.”

Michael Karkoc Revelations: Nazi Unit Leader’s Minneapolis Life Prompts Shock
“The revelation Friday that a former commander of a Nazi SS-led military unit has lived quietly in Minneapolis for the past six decades came as a shock to people who knew him, prompted harsh condemnations from World War II survivors in the U.S. and Europe, and led prosecutors in Poland to say they would investigate. … “I know him personally. We talk, laugh. He takes care of his yard and walks with his wife,” his next-door neighbor, Gordon Gnasdoskey, said Friday. Gnasdoskey, the grandson of a Ukrainian immigrant himself, said he was disturbed by the revelations about his longtime neighbor.”

St. Michael’s and St. George’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Karkoc is a member of the St. Michael’s and St. George’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church, seen at right, and is a member in good standing, said his pastor. The implication being, how could such a quiet man, who the day before had been seen doing normal suburban things such as cleaning his gutters, have participated in brutal and evil crimes against humanity?

Paul Washer has the answer.

“Hitler was not an anomaly. Hitler was not a phenomenon. Hitler was what everyone in this room has the potential of being. Not only that, you need to understand that even in all the wickedness of Hitler, he was still restrained by the common grace of God. And you need to know this, that if it were not for the common grace of God, restraining you in your unconverted state, you would make Hitler look like a choirboy.” Paul Washer.

The “shock” is not that there is a Nazi living among us. The shock is, that any one of us could be a Nazi.

When we come to grips with our own terrible evil, evil we use and wield against God every day, we come to better grips with His love for us. His holiness is so pure, so strong and majestic, so piercing, that even a glimpse of it terrifies the common man.

“When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.” (Exodus 34:29-30).

His perfection and holiness puts fear into us. That is because we recognize how depraved and evil we are.

Isaiah saw immediately how depraved he was, when confronted by the holiness of God. “And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5).

The delusion satan brings is that we are good, we are innocent, we are pure. Or, at least to the slightly more honest among us, we’re not so bad.  “We’re not like HIM” our minds cry out when we discover that our neighbor is a Nazi. We use each other as a benchmark of progress in the goodness department, when the true standard is God. Our minds want to shrink from using Him as a benchmark because deep down we know what we are:

“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5).

Do you see how complete that statement is, “so great”, “every intention”, “continually”? We are saturated with sin, permeated down to the last molecule. Washer is right, “All men are born evil.”

Washer is right to say that Hitler was restrained from worse. The restrainer is holding back the full potential of sin in the human heart, and so we enjoy His common grace. But once the restrainer is out of the way,

“Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, … The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders…” (2 Thessalonians 2:7b, 8a, 9).

In other words, watch out! ‘Satan with all power’. Everyone on earth except those who believe in Jesus after the rapture will make Hitler look like a choirboy. God’s common grace will have been removed- which will reveal the undeniable fact that everyone is not just a Hitler, but is an antichrist.

Once we understand this, the shock shifts. We are no longer shocked by the Nazi man puttering in his garden, because we see ourselves as having the same potential. The shock is, GOD LOVES US ANYWAY.

We can have a higher and deeper awe and love for Holy God because he loved each and every little Hitler on earth. Our precious Jesus died and shed His blood to save us!

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

If the Nazi in the camp had turned from the ovens and bent down and asked the Lord to forgive his sins, Jesus would have, and the Nazi would go to heaven and the Jewish man on the slab about to be put into the oven would go to hell. His infinite love forgives any sin- except the sin of rejecting Him. His love is eternal, infinite, unstoppable, and would blanket you in glory in an instant,

“because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9).

The Lord will unhesitatingly save you, and change your evil heart to a holy heart.

Posted in beth moore, contend for the faith, discernment, false teacher, judgment, personal revelation

Examining Beth Moore’s statement: the ‘Bride is paralyzed by unbelief’

Posted on by elizabethprata

Last night, I was thinking about something Beth Moore said. I want to look closely at the content of what Beth Moore said in this example I will show you. I am personally offended by it and I’m spiritually grieved by it.

In a LifeToday with James Robison, a televised Christian program, Mrs Moore said, [deleted from Youtube, can now see the video here) ,

“We could live our whole believing lives through, and never make it to our promised land. We get to heaven and go ‘You were not faithful to me! You didn’t do what you said you were gonna do!’ ‘Child, I was holding every single bit of that for you. But I will insist that you cooperate with me.’ What it says over and over in this particular chapter, the number one hindrance to our calling becoming a reality, is unbelief. This is the heart of our study. Listen carefully. What God began to say to me about five years ago, and I’m telling you it sent me on such a trek with Him, that my head is still whirling over it. He began to say to me, ”I’m gonna tell you something right now, Beth; and boy, you write this one down. And you say it as often as I give you utterance to say it: ‘My Bride is paralyzed by unbelief. My Bride is paralyzed by unbelief’ … Starting with you.’ ” … Amen.”

Let’s examine each part of what she said through a biblical lens.

1. Her ‘oh, no’, scare tactic, try-harder faith is on display here. This is Legalism, also exemplified here. Example; “We could live our whole believing lives through, and never make it to our promised land.” Really? We can lose our salvation and not make it to heaven? That’s not what the Bible says. (John 3:16, Romans 8:38-39, John 10:28-29). Perhaps she was talking about unbelievers, one may protest. No, she said “believing lives.” Another may protest that perhaps she meant believers may not make it to our promised land here on earth. But this is not what the Bible teaches, either. The Bible says we are not promised ease on earth. (John 16:33; Acts 14:22). As a matter of fact this earth isn’t even our home. We should not consider earth our promised land whatsoever.

2. She degrades the holy relationship with an almighty God and promotes an earth-centric focus. Example: “We get to heaven and we might say something like this to GOD: “You were not faithful to me! You didn’t do what you said you were gonna do!” Really? When we get to heaven we are going to still be greedy for the things on earth? No. (Matthew 6:20-21).

When we get to heaven we are going to argue with God? Not hardly. We will be so overcome by His glory we will fall down. (Revelation 4:10, Isaiah 6:5, Revelation 1:17). Even Daniel when confronted with an angel from heaven, he fell down. (Daniel 10:8). But Mrs Moore teaches that when we get to heaven we’re going to cry for the things of earth and make a charge against God for their lack. This is ludicrous. In my opinion, it is blasphemous.

In actuality, Zephaniah tells the people, “Be silent before the Lord GOD! For the day of the LORD is near; the LORD has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests.” (Zephaniah 1:7). And the LORD tells Zephaniah to say it again, “Be still before the LORD, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.”‘ (Zephaniah 2:13).

3. She says she is a prophet. No, she doesn’t come right out and say “I am a prophet”. But she uses personal revelation and biblical language about the context of her supposed revelations to teach people that she is hearing from God and has a message from Him to proclaim. Example: “boy, you write this one down. And you say it as often as I give you utterance to say it:”

Read how God interacted with the Prophets:

“Therefore say to them, Thus declares the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 1:3)
“Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.” (Revelation 1:19)
“Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.” (Habakkuk 2:2)
“Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD:” (Ezekiel 14:4)
“Boy, you write this one down. And you say it as often as I give you utterance to say it:” (Moore 1:1)

Just kidding on that last one.

Either Beth Moore is a prophet like John and the rest, or she should heed what Ezekiel, a true prophet, has proclaimed from the LORD,

“Her prophets have smeared whitewash for them, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,’ when the LORD has not spoken.” (Ezekiel 22:28).

4. She confuses people with internally contradictory statements. Example: “My Bride is paralyzed by unbelief.” First, who is the bride? Let’s get clear on that. GotQuestions says, “The imagery and symbolism of marriage is applied to Christ and the body of believers known as the church. These are those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their personal savior and have received eternal life. In the New Testament, Christ, the Bridegroom, has sacrificially and lovingly chosen the church to be His bride (Ephesians 5:25-27).”

So the Bride is the Church. The Church is the body of believers.

So what Moore is saying is that the global church is in a state of paralyzing unbelief. She says God told her that the church doesn’t believe. This is impossible. If you believe, you’re a member of Christ’s church. If you do not believe, you aren’t. She speaks a self-refuting idea.

Also, about being “paralyzed”. If we take her statement to be true, then what she is saying is that the global body of believers on earth, the Bride, is not operating in the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit dwells in every true believer, (and He does) and every believer is frozen and paralyzed, (what she says) then this means the Spirit is not operating, or can’t. She is saying God said the Spirit is paralyzed, frozen, and inoperable. Can this be so? No. (2 Corinthians 4:6-7). Worse, she is saying Jesus told her this. Worst of all, she said Jesus told her to teach it.

The truth is, the Spirit indwells every believer, (Romans 8:4, Ephesians 1:13b-14), and we already know that the body of Spirit-filled believers is the Bride, so what Moore is saying is that the church isn’t working. In fact, the Bible says Christ is in us, and Christ is always working. John 5:17 and Ephesians 2:2 testify that all three Persons of the Trinity are always working. To say that He isn’t, that the Spirit in His Church is paralyzed, is malignant in the extreme. I’m serious. Only satan would say that the Holy Spirit, Jesus and God is frozen and paralyzed. It is the Modern Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Below, John MacArthur from the linked sermon:

“A way to perceive this would be to see it as a contrast to what we see in Matthew chapter 12, for example. The leaders of Israel committed the unpardonable sin and what was that unpardonable sin? It was attributing to Satan the work of the Holy Spirit. You remember that? It was attributing to Satan the work of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 12:31-32. What’s going on today is the opposite, attributing to the Holy Spirit the work of Satan. That’s what’s going on. Attributing to the Holy Spirit the work of Satan. Satan is alive and at work in deception, false miracles, bad theology, lying visions, lying dreams, lying revelations, deceptive teachers who are in it for the money and power and influence. Satan is alive and well and the work of Satan is being attributed to the Holy Spirit, that is a serious blasphemy just as attributing to Satan the work of the Holy Spirit is a serious blasphemy.”

5. Extra-biblical revelation is not to be trusted. I’ve focused on Moore’s claims of personal revelation before, here and here.

What does the Bible say about forthcoming revelation of God? (Hint: It ain’t happening).

Source

“But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.” (Revelation 10:7)

Did you catch that? Just as he announced (past tense). God announced to His prophets what He was going to do.  (Amos 3:7). That announcement is contained in the Bible. He has been working and will continue to do work. God’s work on earth will not be finished until the last trumpet, as Revelation shows us, but His announcement of it was. The revelation of His work on earth is concluded. Yet Beth Moore is making additional proclamations from God. Either God is lying, or Moore is. (Hint: Jesus IS the Truth, and the truth is in Him; John 14:6, Ephesians 4:21).  Friends, the canon is closed and the announcement of what God plans to do was already proclaimed.

Gill’s Exposition on Revelation 10:7 says: “As He said to Isaiah 60:3, &c. and Isaiah 66:8; and to Daniel, in Daniel 2:44 Daniel 7:25; and to Zechariah, in Zechariah 14:9, and others;” Beth Moore’s name is not on that list.

For those who want to cling to Beth Moore as a teacher and defend her, saying perhaps that she didn’t mean what she said: I’m sorry. The Bible says that teachers are held to a higher standard. (James 3:1). In order to even BE a teacher one must be mature, self-controlled, vigilant and possess a host of other qualifications that qualify a deacon/teacher/overseer. This is so they will teach rightly and they can spot a false doctrine in the first place- one aspect of protecting and feeding the flock. (Acts 20:28, John 21:17). Teachers are supposed to teach rightly. (2 Timothy 2:15).

Teachers rightly dividing the word for their pupils are raising up pupils who can then turn to the scriptures to see if these things are so. (Acts 17:11). This makes the student stronger. How can a student of Beth Moore examine the scriptures to see if these things are so, if they came from her head, or a vision, and not the Bible? They can’t. And so in this way, she actually raises up people who do not rely on the word, and are weaker.

The word is all-sufficient. (2 Timothy 3:15-17). That’s why we rely on it!

We don’t judge  a teacher as false by one thing they said, once. We give the benefit of the doubt, and watch carefully for a long time, comparing their words and teachings to scripture. One misstep does not make a false teacher, perhaps, but a long pattern of variance with the Bible, does.

Mrs Moore has passed the time of benefit of doubt and has proven over long years that her words, doctrines and actions are not to be trusted. I am not the only person who has compared what she says and does to the sterling Word and found that she is not to be recommended. The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry has found the same, and so has Rev. Mike Abendroth of Bethlehem Bible Church, and Rev. Jim Murphy of First Baptist Church at Johnson City, NY, and Shai Linne, Modern Reformation, and Pastor Tim Challies, and so on.

In this post, I’ve striven to not only open your eyes to the poor theology and confusing doctrines of Beth Moore, but I’ve also striven to show you how to parse these things for yourself. To stop and really think about what a teacher is saying, phrase by phrase, and to compare it carefully to the Bible. The Bereans sought the scriptures to see if these things were so, and that bespeaks of having a constant stance of asking ‘are these things so?’ If they believed Paul on his face they would not have sought the scriptures, would they? Constantly testing all things, all spirits, is what we are called to do. (1 John 4:1). And don’t stop there. If you have found things that are NOT so, don’t keep it to yourself. The church at Thyatira tried to do that, (Revelation 2:20) and were charged by Jesus for it. Speak up. Be brave.

Do not rely on external feelings or teachers who claim to have had an experience. This today from No Compromise Radio, quoting BB Warfield:

Source

“In the history of Christian thought mysticism appears accordingly as that tendency among professing Christians which looks within, that is, to the religious feelings, in its search for God. It supposes itself to contemplate within the soul the movements of the divine Spirit, and finds in them either the sole sources of trustworthy knowledge of God, or the most immediate and convincing sources of that knowledge, or, at least, a coordinate source of it alongside of the written Word . . . There is nothing more important in the age in which we live than to bear constantly in mind that all the Christianity of Christianity rests precisely on “external authority.” (Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, The Biblical Review, ii. (New York: The Biblical Seminary, 1917), 169-191.)

And what is that external authority? The One True God as revealed in the Holy Bible. Sola Scriptura!

Source
Posted in egypt, ethiopia, isaiah 19, psalm 83, renaissance dam

Hot mic catches Egyptian president and cabinet plotting against Israel, America, and Ethiopia

Posted on by elizabethprata

Isaiah 19 along with the more ‘famous’ prophecy in Isaiah 17 (Damascus destroyed)  are two prophecies that have not yet come to fruition. Isaiah 17’s oracle regarding the city of Damascus (Syria) being razed to the ground with not one inhabitant hasn’t come to pass yet because Damascus is the longest continuously lived-in city in the world- about 5500 or 6000 years. Isaiah 19’s companion prophecy about the future of Egypt also has not come to pass-yet, though some parts of it have come to pass once already. Coffman’s Commentary on the Old Testament explains the double fulfillment concept like this:

Source

“THE BURDEN OF EGYPT”

“This well organized chapter naturally divides into two sections. The first (Isaiah 19:1-15) falls into three stanzas or strophes: (a) strophe 1 (Isaiah 19:1-4) prophesies the overthrow of Egypt through strife and their suffering under a cruel ruler; (b) strophe 2 (Isaiah 19:5-10) prophesies the drying up of the Nile and the total collapse of Egypt’s economy; (c) strophe 3 (Isaiah 19:11-15) foretells the incompetence of Egypt’s vaunted wise men. The total picture that emerges in these fifteen verses is that of the total ruin of Egypt. “We may see in this section of the oracle Isaiah’s determination to persuade the court of Judah not to embark on any alliance with Egypt against Assyria.”

“The second division of the chapter (Isaiah 19:16-25) is Messianic and is composed of five sub-paragraphs, each of them beginning with the words “in that day.” The paragraphs begin in Isaiah 19:16,18,19,23,24. Although the prophecies of this section could refer to historical events prior to Christianity, to the extent that this might be true, we believe that the great thrust of the passage is Messianic and that whatever fulfillments might have come in pre-Christian times such fulfillments were typical of the far more perfect fulfillments in Christ and the age of the Gospel. For example the return of Judah from captivity is far more adequately fulfilled in the acceptance of Christ by the “righteous remnant” of Israel and their release from the captivity of sin.”

Isaiah 19 is not a long chapter, I recommend you read it.

In any case, with the usual attention to Turkey, Syria, Israel, Russia, and Iran in prophecy, I wanted to bring some attention back to Egypt in prophecy. The LORD has a plan for the Egyptians, it is a glorious plan, too! Though it will be dark for the Egyptians for a while, they are one of three nations specifically mentioned to be receiving a blessing in the Millennium! Here is what the LORD says,

“In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.” (Isaiah 19:24-25).

Isn’t it fantastic that Egypt, terrible Pharaoh-ruled Egypt who oppressed the Israelites, are going to be blessed? Perhaps it is because that nation was chosen to harbor the savior Babe when the family fled Herod’s plans to kill the Jesus and all the children. Don’t count Egypt out just yet. They will be front and center of prophetic plans from our LORD!

Meanwhile, back to today, there is a part of the Egypt prophecy that I’d like to look at in view of some news.

“And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight, each against another and each against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom;” (Isaiah 19:2)

Egypt has had a long history of strife, external and internal. One Arab Spring or one dictator falling doesn’t mean imminent fulfillment, but it is confirmatory of the character of the people throughout history, as described in the bible. With that caveat, here is the news,

“Egyptian Cabinet member caught on hot mic discussing war with enemies Israel and America“
“Just last month, Secretary of State John Kerry quietly sent Egypt an additional $1.3 billion, even though Egypt has failed to live up to democracy standards. That largesse didn’t stop a prominent Egyptian politician from talking about Egypt’s “enemy” the United States in what some pundits are classifying as a classic and embarrassing “hot mic” moment. President Mohammed Morsi gathered a group of politicians last week who thought they were speaking privately at a parliamentary meeting. But as seen in an Egyptian television video of the meeting — excerpts of which were later translated by the Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI) — they were actually on live television, cringingly discussing secret ways to stop Ethiopia’s Nile River dam project which threatens water flowing to Egypt.”

“Before being told he was on television, Hussein described the U.S. as an enemy:

I’m very fond of battles. With the enemies, of course – with America and Israel, but this battle must be waged with maximum judiciousness and calm. Even though this is a secret meeting, we must all take an oath not to leak anything to the media, unless it is done officially by sister Pakinam [el-Sharkawy, a Morsi aide]. We need an official plan for popular national security, even if we…”

“The viewer sees him being handed a note, which presumably points out that his words are not confined to the room. Hussein laughs, then continues with the anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric: “Okay… Fine… The principles behind what I’m saying are not really secret… Our war is with America and Israel, not with Ethiopia. Therefore, engaging in a war… This is my opinion…”

Another part of the Isaiah 19 prophecy involves one of the world’s great rivers, the Nile. The ‘secret

meeting’ the Cabinet held to discuss their mutual enemy (America/Israel) was over the contentious issue of the Ethiopian Dam which Egypt feels would staunch the flow of precious water into their country. The prophecy says, Isaiah 19:5-10,

“And the waters of the sea will be dried up, and the river will be dry and parched, and its canals will become foul, and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up, reeds and rushes will rot away. There will be bare places by the Nile,on the brink of the Nile, and all that is sown by the Nile will be parched, will be driven away, and will be no more. The fishermen will mourn and lament, all who cast a hook in the Nile; and they will languish who spread nets on the water. The workers in combed flax will be in despair, and the weavers of white cotton. Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed, and all who work for pay will be grieved.”

That is specific. Its fulfillment will be devastating, because a great many millions of people depend on the river for income, as you can see in the prophecy. It was true when it was written around 700 BC and it is true today. When that prophecy comes to pass, it will mean total economic devastation for Egypt.

Source

I’ve been watching a development which I’ve written about once, and that is the new dam that some claim will dry up the Nile River. It is variously known as the Grand Millennium Dam and the Renaissance Dam. I’d written,

“One thing that may hurry this disaster along is the dam that Ethiopia is building. We read above that the headwaters were only discovered a century ago and they are in Ethiopia. Ethiopia (and other nations) are tired of Egypt dominating the River. The Ethiopians are building a huge dam so they, too, can control the waters.”

In November of 2012 we read, Egypt, Ethiopia Tiff Over Nile Dam Continues

And seven months later to this very day the tiff is escalating into a full-blown war room plan to stop the dam. Egypt is serious about their water, and they have to be. See what Morsi’s cabinet member said in that same meeting, with Morsi present and in attendance

“I say to the Egyptian people: Nobody can turn off your water supply – unless they want to turn the Egyptians into the world’s most extremist people. Imagine what this people would do if its water were turned off – what all 80 million of us would do to Israel and America if our water were turned off,” Hussein concluded.”

Ethiopia shrugged off Egypt’s threats over the dam. “Mohamed Morsi, promised to “defend each drop of Nile water with our blood” and other senior Egyptian politicians called for the dam’s destruction.” Ethiopia should not be too hasty to shrug off those threats, the serous intentions of which were revealed in the hot mic gaffe.

Barry Rubin at GLORIA wrote, “The televising of a meeting held by President Muhammad Morsi allowed listeners to hear plans for military attacks on Ethiopia because of a dam that country is building on the Nile in order to generate electricity. Participants didn’t know the meeting was being aired on live state television. Egyptian leaders discussed covert operations to destroy the dam or giving covert support to rebel groups.”

Source Commons Wikipedia

Forbes speculated on the practical ways Egypt might carry out their threat. “As Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said June 9 following Ethiopia’s refusal to halt construction of the dam and ahead of his trip to Addis Ababa to discuss the project, Egypt will not give up a “single drop of water from the Nile.” “No Nile, no Egypt,” he said.”

Forbes’s speculation included Egypt convincing N. Sudan to allow them bomber landing privileges so that Egypt could bomb the dam … a bombing Morsi alluded to in the hot mic gaffe The Blaze, MEMRI, and Barry Rubin reported on.

Today the Egyptian Parliament ratified a new Nile sharing agreement. “Ethiopia’s parliament on Thursday ratified an accord that replaces colonial-era deals that awarded Egypt and Sudan the majority of the world’s longest river.” The article goes on to say that the agreement for water sharing will include five other Nile River countries: “Ethiopia, and Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Burundi”.

South Sudan is said to be getting on board with the pact, but not North Sudan. So perhaps North Sudan will cooperate with Egypt after all as Forbes speculated, and the dam will be history soon. Or not, but the prophecy says the Nile will be dried up. How that happens is anybody’s guess, but right now the dam is the front runner contender.

When Morsi’s people say, “No Nile, no Egypt” they are right. Not because they are so wise, but because the bible is. Isaiah 19 depicts a very dark time for Egypt. Their main artery of the Nile River dries up and their economy totally collapses. Whether that time is imminently in front of our eyes or is still in the future is unknown to us.

One thing is for sure, it will happen. My advice is to keep watching the news of this tiff over this dam.

One last note.

Morsi held a secret meeting and talked of the war against Israel. This echoes the Psalm 83 language, verses 3-4a

“They lay crafty plans against your people; they consult together against your treasured ones. They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation;”

Our glorious God will not let that happen. And even though they vainly plot against His people now, He will hold His nation Israel in His hand and personally protect Israel. And alongside Israel in the Millennium He will raise up Assyria and Egypt, and bless them. God is surely loving and forgiving! Egypt will think so too, they will worship Him!

“In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at its border. 20It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. When they cry to the Lord because of oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and deliver them. 21And the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make vows to the Lord and perform them. 22And the Lord will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will return to the Lord, and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them.”

“23In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.”

“24In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, 25whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.”

———————-
Further reading:

According to prophecy the Nile River will dry up

Posted in end of the spear, Huaorani, missionaries, nate saint

Movie: "End of the Spear", and being lost in Ecuador

Posted on by elizabethprata

I watched a movie called End of the Spear, about missionaries making first contact with the Stone Age Huaorani tribe of Ecuador not far from the Shell oil company corporate base in Shell-Mera Ecuador. It’s a good movie and I recommend it. The missionaries made the contact in 1956 in the Amazon basin. I got curious and looked up where Mera is, and it is only 5 miles from Puyo.

I was in Puyo, I was in the Amazon.

This is why I am so fascinated by Providence. Little did I know that the incident the modern movie depicts was in 1956 a famous event in Christianity- and still is. When the five missionaries who were killed by an aggressive tribe in the jungle in the middle of the last century in a different hemisphere, that a mere four decades later there I would be at that nearly exact place, sitting at a cafe on the main street unaware of my own lostness and need for those same missionaries who had come there years before. I was unaware and unaffected by the drama of courage and salvation that had taken place and had opened up so many hearts. And how Jesus knew that a few years after that, I would become one of His children, my very own heart He opened up to His grace.

He knew I’d come to understand the debt I owe to those missionaries who in the great relay race over

centuries, kept the faith alive for all peoples and tribes and tongues to hear the words of life, the baton of belief passed from hand to hand and mouth to ear, so that one day I might partake of the great truth. All I knew back in 1996 was that there were too many Jesus statues in Puyo.

Even grander is the story of the missionary widows who shared the Gospel with the very men who killed their husbands. The Huaorani came to faith. I remember reading the Life magazine story about it online. The movie depicts it well.

With a magnificence as great as His grace and the power of the Gospel word, we should rightly celebrate His work in the world in awe and in gratitude. Even on the days when you feel useless for Christ, know and understand that the seeds of faith are powerful and everything you do and say in His name adds to His tapestry of faith, and makes a difference. Providence is an amazing thing- because Jesus is always at work.

———————
Further reading:

Take heart, O grieving family members!

How to be effective Christians wherever you are

Posted in crazy ants, gallinippers, plague of beasts

Crazy ants "CANNOT" be stopped!

Posted on by elizabethprata

When I want to read something but relax my brain I read the UK’s Daily Mail. It is full of agitation, hyperbole, and large photos. Actually, their photos are great. It is aimed at a female readership, and is a tabloid paper, meaning, along with its bigger size, uses large photos and it “tends to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, celebrity gossip and TV.” The paper does have good writing, and it did enjoy journalistic success in the 1980s. According to Wikipedia, it has been awarded “National Newspaper of the Year in 1995, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2003 and 2012 by the British Press Awards.”

All in all it’s not a bad paper and I really, really like the photos. So here is one from an edition this week:

‘Crazy ants’ that feast on electronics and are invading the U.S. CANNOT be killed with normal insecticide

(see, the hyperbole in the headline is the all-caps for ‘cannot’. Here’s the great photo)

LOL! I mean, what better than to emphasize the imminent invasion of damaging creatures we cannot, I say, CANNOT, control than this severe close-up of a slobbering, grinning, menacing insect?

“A new and annoying species of ant is terrorizing the U.S. and chemicals that kill off other types of the insect are proving ineffective against it. The ‘crazy’ ant, named for the erratic trail it leaves as it makes its way across the country, originated in Argentina and Brazil. But since it was first spotted in Houston in 2002, it has spread to some 21 counties in Texas, 20 counties in Florida and a few locations in Mississippi and Louisiana. University of Texas researcher and co-author of a study on the creatures Ed LeBrun said the omnivorous ants attack and kill other species as well as monopolizing food sources to the detriment of the entire ecosystem. He said everything from cattle to songbirds are at risk of the tiny ants, despite them being at the bottom of the food chain. According to ABC News, the chemicals that kill the more common red ant aren’t effective on crazy ants so residents should call pest control if they find an infestation in their home. And hopefully they’ll get there before the critters attack their computer. The insects, bizarrely, are attracted to electrical wiring and components and in one year alone caused $146.5 million in damages in Texas, ABC reported. The devastation occurs when one ant discovers the transformer then gets electrocuted when it touches it, and ‘waves its abdomen in the air’ omitting a certain scent. The scent lures for ants to the scene and they too are electrocuted, again sending the scent into the air to attract their friends. Eventually, there are so many dead ants that the electric switches get stuck or the insulation fries and the system shuts down.”

Source

The world has always been terrorized by insects, and for most of the time of humankind’s life upon it, humankind has been at the mercy of them. Plague arose from fleas on rats. Plague was “one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, killing an estimated 75 to 200 million people and peaking in Europe in the years 1348–50. It’s estimated to have killed 30–60% of Europe’s total population. All in all, the plague reduced the world population from an estimated 450 million down to 350–375 million in the 14th century.” (Wikipedia, Black Death)

Malaria has been a scourge for millennia. “References to the unique periodic fevers of malaria are found throughout recorded history, beginning in 2700 BC in China. Malaria may have contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire, and was so pervasive in Rome that it was known as the “Roman fever”. (Wikipedia). Malaria killed 15,000 people a year in Italy, which is believed to be an under-estimate because malaria led to other health complications that people subsequently died from. Malaria borne by mosquitos was the most important health hazard encountered by U.S. troops in the South Pacific during World War II, where about half a million men were infected, says Wikipedia.

Bill and Melinda Gates have devoted a significant amount of their time, energy, and fortune to the plague of deaths still to this day caused by malaria: “Malaria occurs in nearly 100 countries worldwide, exacting a huge toll on human health and imposing a heavy social and economic burden in developing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. More than 200 million people suffered from the disease in 2010, and about 655,000 died, the vast majority of them children under age 5.”

I think that is way worse than ants infesting your laptop.

In Deuteronomy 8, when the Moses is recounting God’s mercies of delivering them from a terrible time, an insect is mentioned as one of the scourges:

“who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock,” (Deuteronomy 8:15).

Out of the ten plagues of Egypt, two were a plague of insects. (Gnats, Exodus 8:12-15; flies, Exodus 8:20-32).

Of course men have been terrorized by locusts for much of history. (Joel 4:1-7)

Source

Under the curse of sin man has always been at the mercy of the creation. Weather, insects, animals, and diseases are regular occurrences. This will not be reversed until Jesus comes. (Revelation 19:14). The interesting thing is that man thinks he can control any of this. The line in the ant article that caught my attention was this:

“A new and annoying species of ant is terrorizing the U.S. and chemicals that kill off other types of the insect are proving ineffective against it.”

Today, we see that in human diseases and in insects, man’s efforts to control them are increasingly ineffective. We’ve all read about how diseases man is infected by are becoming resistant to antibiotics, how diseases that used to be contained in animals are jumping to humans, and we’re dying of things we thought we had beaten into submission and obscurity. (Tuberculosis, gonorrhea).

The same with insects. Romans drained the marshes in an effort to defeat the mosquito, they diverted canals and engineered their way around mountains, but the mosquito is undaunted. So is the locust, ant, and bee. Just today the Israel Agricultural Ministry in Jerusalem declared victory over the locust, but I believe that is premature, as we see below-

“And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.” (Revelation 6:8).

In the Tribulation, all the animals will be released from their dread and fear of man (Genesis 9:2), which God had instilled in them after the flood. They will seek to kill man on a widespread basis- so widespread that such deaths will be called a plague. A fourth of the remaining world’s population will die in some form or fashion from animals.

John MacArthur believes that it will be the flea again. After all, the most widespread death that ever occurred in the planet at one time was the aforementioned bubonic plague, AKA The Black Death, carried by a flea. Of course this makes total sense.

Personally I do not believe the prophesied plague of beasts will be ONLY the flea, but all animals. If we follow the progression through the bible:

–Man had dominion over the animals. They were friendly. (Genesis 1:25-26, Genesis 2:19)
–Man sinned, there was a flood to wipe out all living flesh. (Except Noah and family). After the flood, animals were cursed. They were fearful of man. (Genesis 9:2). This is because now animals were to be food for man, and be hunted. (Genesis 9:3).
–During the Tribulation, a prophesied 7-year period of divine retribution by God upon humankind, animals will have lost their fear of man and be hunters of man instead of the other way around. (Revelation 6:8). Even dear old Fluffy and Spot will turn on men and become killers again. There will be no such thing as a ‘domesticated’ animal.
–In the millennium kingdom after the Tribulation, animals will be friendly again. They will have been released from the curse (Romans 8:22; Isaiah 11:6-9). (Above, Edward Hicks, The Peaceable kingdom 1816).

We see a small picture of the plague of beasts in 2 Kings 2:23-24. Elisha the prophet cursed the youths who were mocking him (and thereby mocking God, since a Prophet was God’s emissary), and immediately after Elisha cursed them, two she-bears came and ate the youths.

“And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys. From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.”

In this scene, animals were used to execute a punishment of people mocking, blaspheming and insulting

God. This is also a picture of how powerful animals actually are. Since they have always had the fear and dread of man in them since the flood, we have only seen the restraint. Yet when God used the bears to accomplish His will (Leviticus 26:21), two of them tore up 42 young men. One bear killed 21 young, strong men in a matter of minutes. Not one got away. That is amazing strength, speed, and power. In the Tribulation, all animals will once again use their strength, speed, and power to the utmost against us in having lost the restraint of fearing and dreading man.

I mean, did you ever wonder how a man who weighs 180 pounds can control an elephant weighing 15,000 pounds, with just a stick?

In summary, we are always at risk of being terrorized by animals, birds, and insects. This post is about His sovereignty. We puny humans think we have things under control, but look at the pinpoint accuracy of God’s control:

“And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” (Jonah 1:17). In the middle of the sea, in the midst of a great and deadly tempest, God appointed a fish to be in the exact spot where one man was put into the sea, to be swallowed. And at the end, in Jonah 2:10,

“And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.”

Once again with pinpoint accuracy, God appointed the fish to be where HE wanted the fish to be and deposit Jonah at the exact spot He wanted JONAH to be.

For a little while, if man thought that he had conquered the insect, and can live malaria-plague-disease free, he will soon learn that this is not the case. If crazy ants are going to invade, they will invade. We hear so much mocking from people who say that bible stories are just a bunch of fables made up to satisfy primitive man as to what was happening in the world that they did not understand, but today’s man is actually more stupid and more primitive than they were.

The bible men understood that it was GOD doing these things. Even the pagan sailors in Jonah’s boat understood the storm was supernatural from an angry God and prayed to stop it. (Jonah 1:14-16). Not so today. Today we have hermetically sealed meat packages and insecticides and malaria screens and conceit that man is in control. We get articles alarming the populace that crazy ants are coming, and that insecticide CANNOT kill them. Oh, no! We have lost control, is the implicit point of articles such as these. We never had control of the world to begin with. This fact will be painfully revealed in the Tribulation:

“Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Revelation 6:15-17)

To answer that question, no one can stand in the presence of Holy God, except those He has declared Holy! All sinners are at war with God, and are His enemies. Those sinners who have declared themselves sinners, (Romans 3:20), and unworthy to dwell in a perfectly holy place such as heaven with a mighty God, and have repented of those sins and appealed to Jesus to forgive them, He declares peace. (Acts 13:39). To those people, He sees as friends of Himself, and justified them as having been pardoned of their sins and crimes against Him. (Romans 10:4). You can be in that group.

The original apostles were sent to bring a message. “So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent.” (Mark 6:12). That message is still good today. There is no expiration date on God’s word. He wants you to repent so you can be declared reconciled to him, no longer at war with Him. (Romans 5:10.)

In heaven, the insects won’t bite and you won’t need screens on your windows. There will be nothing to “terrorize” you. There will be no alarming news. The entire place will be beyond beautiful and filled with the brilliant light of God’s glory!

“After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald.” (Revelation 4:1-3).

Source

“Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking.” (Ezekiel 1:28)

And when you hear the voice of God speaking, I pray it is as His friend, who says, “Well done good and faithful servant,” (Matthew 25:23) and not as one who hears this: “I will display my glory among the nations, and all the nations will see the punishment I inflict and the hand I lay on them.” (Ezekiel 39:21)

God is glorious and worthy! Selah
————
Further reading

Attack of the gallinippers

Killer bees sting a man to death in Texas

Plague of beasts

Posted in discernment, false, praydreaming

The latest Catholic craze: praydreaming, and discerning why it is false

Posted on by elizabethprata

Today I woke up and read a devotional a friend and pastor wrote on his Facebook page. It was filled with gratitude. It reminded me that it is refreshing to read of gratitude and to be grateful all the day long. The main thing that jumped out at me though was his phrase “pray for wholesome desires.” That hit me.

Not that I haven’t been praying along those lines, but the succinctness of the phrase was tremendous. It brought clarity to my mind of good desires and bad desires. It was a wonderful thing to meditate on. And meditate I did. No, I didn’t go ‘OHM’ in front of lit candles, I turned to the bible. When you want to read about proper desires and how to slay the old man, where else are you going to go but to the Psalms and Romans? I did a word search on the word desire, I read widely about desires in context, and I prayed. Then I wrote a response to the initial devotional, and it appears here:

Praying for Wholesome Desires

In the midst of that, a blog commenter wanted to know what I thought about the blending of New Age and Roman Catholicism into the world’s prophesied final religion. I researched about the RCC Mystics, and put together a long response. It got me thinking about Catholicism and its patron saints, mysticism and how mysticism really points the person back to one’s self, the opposite of what praying for wholesome desires does. I did some more thinking on good desires vs. evil desires.

As I finished both the blog entry and the long comment back to the commenter, I started to web surf. Immediately I saw an essay from AmericanCatholic.org by Mark E. Thibodeaux, S.J., “a spiritual director, retreat director, high school teacher and Jesuit priest. He holds a Master of Divinity from Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the author of Armchair Mystic: Easing Into Contemplative Prayer“. The essay is called,

Praydreaming: Key to Discernment

Praydreaming? And what does that have to do with discernment? It sounds New Age. It seems like Mysticism.

It turns out that praydreaming is the exact opposite of what I had been researching and thinking of all morning. THAT is how the Spirit works. He is amazing!

Now I will write about “praydreaming”. I am writing this to you so that when you hear of this practice, and you will, just like you have by now heard of contemplative prayer, you will know what it really means.

The blog entry I wrote earlier today is an examination of how our internal desires are bad. When we read in the bible the word desires, it is usually spoken of in a negative way. Our heart’s desires are only bad and bring us into judgment. (Ecclesiastes 11:9).

As depraved people we have no hope of changing our desires to good ones that will please the Lord. The only hope we have is first salvation, and then, sanctification. We aid the Spirit in His sanctifying work by relying on HIM and HIS desires for us. We ask Him to instill in us wholesome desires and the strength to resist our own evil ones. This is what it means to be conformed to His likeness. (Romans 8:29). We are gradually transformed by the renewing of our minds and the rejection of being conformed to the pattern of this world (Romans 8:22) with all its evil desires.

Praydreaming is the opposite. The. Exact. Opposite. In this way, it is a component of a successful false religion (Catholicism) because it turns our mind and heart from Jesus back to the sinful desires of our own selves. It offers the false notion that our desires are good and we can instill them into our selves by ourselves by searching deep within ourselves. This lie forms the basis of every false doctrine. To be clear: avoid praydreaming like the gangrenous infection that it is. (2 Timothy 2:16-17). Here is why-

Praydreaming comes from St. Ignatius of Loyola, a Catholic priest in the 1500s and a religious leader during the Counter-Reformation. The counter-reformation was the push-back to the rejection of the Pope’s absolute authority that Martin Luther and others began in the reformation. Loyola’s devotion to the Catholic Church was characterized by absolute obedience to the Pope. Ignatius was a Catholic’s Catholic. The article in American Catholic about praydreaming explains Loyola’s teaching on praydreaming and it begins like this:

“We Christians don’t just decide things, we discern them. That is, we do our best to figure out what God is calling us to in every situation. We do our best to say yes to that divine invitation. But how do we discern God’s will for us? That’s the tricky part.”

1. Catholics are not Christians.
2. We do decide things.
3. God’s will for us is not tricky to discern. Discernment comes from being in His word, not from any other source, because no other source can be trusted. Within the first sentence he sets up a straw man.

But look how the article goes on.

[Loyola’s] insight was this: “Good discernment consists of prayerfully pondering the great desires that well up in my daydreams.”

See how already the Catholic pushes upon us the notion that discerning what is good and what is evil comes back to ourselves? And that what we spontaneously think of in our hearts is worthy? It is a false path he is leading you down. Good discernment prayerfully ponders the WORD, not our desires. The article continues:

“Are desires good or bad? Many spiritual writers of Ignatius’ day spoke of desires as obstacles to God’s will. One solution was to suppress one’s desires—to eliminate them whenever possible. Ignatius, on the other hand, held the radical notion that God dwells in the desires of a good person.”

Good people do not exist. “There is no one good, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10, Mark 10:18).

The article continues, “Not only are desires not evil, but they are one of God’s primary instruments of communicating his will to his children. God enflames the heart with holy desires, and with attraction toward a life of greater divine praise and service. Ignatius did not seek to squash desires, but rather sought to tap into the deepest desires of the heart, trusting that it is God who has placed them there.”

The primary way God communicates His will is the Word who is Jesus Christ. The primary way He communicates to us is the bible, that is where we find His will. It is written down in the bible. Blindly trusting that any particular desire we have comes from God- whatever it is- is a false notion. Satan inflames our hearts with desires, too.

“For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come–sexual immorality, theft, murder…” (Mark 7:21)

Now look how the author redefines what evil desires ARE.

“A teenager may want badly to have sexual relations with a girlfriend or boyfriend. Spouses may become sexually attracted to people outside of their marriage. Are these evil desires? No, they are merely disordered desires. Why do any of these people want intimate sexual relations? Because each craves oneness with another—each is created by God, for the experience of unity.”

By his definition, a priest’s desire to have sex with an altar boy is not evil, merely disordered.

Yet those are evil desires- they are fornication. They’re evil because they do not honor Jesus. The lust of the heart breaks a commandment and that is evil. (Matthew 5:28, Exodus 20:17). Colossians 3:5 says to put to death what is evil in us, and sexual immorality is one of those evil desires. What’s more, it is idolatry! “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”

Nowhere does it say that all desires are good but some are disordered, to just discern the desire under the desire, and praydream it! The bible is clear in describing what evil desires are, because it lists them. Then we read commands to slay these desires, not coddle them by peeking under them to find more and granting them light of day in God’s name.

Anything that does not honor Jesus is evil. There is good, and there is evil. It is an old trick to call evil good and good evil. Isaiah spoke of this in Isaiah 5:20-

“Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!”

Pulpit Commentary explains, “This is the fourth woe. There are persons who gloss over evil deeds and evil habits by fair-sounding names, who call cowardice caution, and rashness courage, niggardliness thrift, and wasteful profusion generosity. The same men are apt also to call good evil; they brand prudence with the name of cunning, call meekness want of proper spirit, sincerity rudeness, and firmness obstinacy. This deadness to moral distinctions is the sign of deep moral corruption, and fully deserves to have a special “woe” pronounced against it.”

Doesn’t that say it all? The Catholic essay about praydreaming promotes a deadness to moral distinctions, and woe will be upon him. In the article, after giving a couple more examples of how what is clearly sin is not really sin, the article continues,

“We fall into sin when we are ignorant of the desires beneath the desires. Consider this way of understanding personal sin: We sin, not because we are in touch with our desires but precisely because we are not in touch with them! This is one of Ignatius’ most profound insights.”

Well he is right- now it is getting tricky. According to praydreaming methods promoted by Loyola, first, I have to discern my desires. Then I have to discern whether the desire is holy by mulling it over within myself. Then if it is unholy I have to discern the desire underneath that desire. How do I do all this? Via praydreaming, as we read next.

“How, then, do I tap into these great desires? I daydream, that’s how! I fantasize about great and beautiful futures. I let God dream in me and I sit in silent awe and wonder as these holy dreams come to life before the eyes and ears of my soul. Now that’s a different approach to prayer than most of us know. But that’s what St. Ignatius taught.”

He goes on at length in a teaching manner of how to praydream, by giving many different examples of life scenarios. I don’t recommend you read it because it will cause confusion and there is no profit in learning how to praydream. The author unwittingly reveals that Loyola’s method always brings a person back to themselves. The phrase “my dreams” occurs a lot. The upshot is, it is a method for dreaming what you want to do in the flesh and using God as a method of permission to accomplish them.

Finally, he says that when you praydream and discern properly what decision to make, a sweet inner peace will be “the telltale sign” that it is the right decision.

I have warned against a so-called ‘inner peace’ as a tell-tale sign before. There is a difference between confidence in God and an inner peace. Often, I have to do things that are outside my comfort zone, or are difficult, and I have a lot of angst about it. Feeling a sweet inner peace for me often means that I am making a wrong decision, because the calm feeling leads me to my own comfort zone which exists inside the circle of my own desires. Though sometimes I do have an inner peace, I do not have a sweet inner peace about many things I must do, but I do them anyway because I am a slave to Christ and I know that He is with me to help during the hard times.

As an example, do we think that any of the martyrs as they were led to their doom, had what Loyola says is a feeling of “sweetly, lightly, gently, as a drop of water that enters a sponge”? Tradition says that Peter’s wife was crucified before his eyes. Do we suppose that Peter’s decision to remain true to Jesus at that moment gave soul his gentle drops of water on his heart? Even Paul agonized over doing the right thing, and asked that the thorn in his side be taken from him because it was painful. Paul certainly felt peace, and he certainly felt angst, but neither of those feelings are a telltale sign of proper discernment for any given decision he made.

Beware of relying on feelings as the sole arbiter of discernment. Our feelings usually lead us falsely.

Even at the end of the article as the author explains how Ignatius urges the person to pray for confirmation of their decision, the method once again points the person to their own selves.

“Once we feel that we have reached a point of decision, Ignatius suggests we place that decision before God and await his confirmation. How will this confirmation come? In the same way that our initial discernment came. It will be through pondering the stirrings of our heart as we begin to take the first tentative steps toward our new option.”

The stirrings of our hart is the sign that I have made a right decision? But the bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Not once is the authority of scripture mentioned. Not once was the Catholic person urged to consult the word to see what it has to say implicitly or explicitly about a situation.

However, we born-again believers must believe in sola scriptura, the doctrine that “sola Scriptura has to do with the sufficiency of Scripture as our supreme authority in all spiritual matters. Sola Scriptura simply means that all truth necessary for our salvation and spiritual life is taught either explicitly or implicitly in Scripture. … it means that everything necessary, everything binding on our consciences, and everything God requires of us is given to us in Scripture.” (Scripture, Tradition, and Rome“)

Discernment comes by knowing the word of God from the bible alone, and obeying it. Jesus is called the Word, and He is The Word of God. (John 1:1, Revelation 19:13). We discern it by reading the word of God and by submitting to that as our sole authority. Not daydreams, not desires, not feelings, not the heart. We are called to be holy, in fact, to be patterned after Jesus who is Holy (1 Peter 1:15). If we can’t imagine that Jesus had a certain desire, then it is an evil desire.

There is a famine in the land and is it because of methods like praydreaming that we are hungry. Rev. Matt Slick writes,

“Spiritual discernment is lacking in the Christian community. Though there are faithful pastors and Christians who take the word of God seriously, there is an increasing number of Christians who are abandoning the clarity and commands of Scripture and substituting political correctness, feelings, and tolerance for biblical truth and its sometimes difficult revelations. They want to make Christianity more palatable so that the gospel offends no one, but they fail to realize that the gospel that offends no one is not the gospel of the Bible. Though we are not to purposely offend, in the name of truth offenses will come and we are not to shy away from them.”

“So, what do we do to develop better spiritual discernment? First and foremost, you must be born again (John 3:3; 2 Cor. 5:17) so that you may have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). Second, you must study the Word of God and believe it. Third, you need to develop a proper biblical theology that includes the sovereignty and holiness of God found in both the person of Christ and in the Bible. Proper theology is the bedrock of discernment.”

Posted in prayer, sin

Praying for wholesome desires

Posted on by elizabethprata

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” (1 Peter 2:11).

That’s hard to do. My sinful desires are always cropping up, willfully and forcefully. Even Paul had that problem.

“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15).

In a way, it is a comfort to read that Paul struggled with this. He wasn’t a superhero, immune to the sins of the flesh and impervious to the influence of the culture. He was a real guy, and he struggled with putting the ‘old man’ down. We are a new creation in Jesus, but as long as we are in the flesh, we still struggle with the sin that wants to influence us to do evil actions.

“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6:13).

Pulpit Commentary sums up that petition contained in the Lord’s Prayer that we are to make: “The words are a cry issuing from a deep sense of our personal weakness against the powers of evil.”

Personal weakness indeed! For me, it is a total helplessness, the only antidote of which is for the Holy Spirit to aid me. For is is the Spirit which reveals the things of Christ and thus, His holy desires for us. (John 16:14).

Do a word search in an online bible for “desires” and see how often the word appears, to the negative. (1 Timothy 6:9, 2 Timothy 4:3, Ephesians 2:3, Acts 15:29, Romans 6:12, and so on)

The good news for those of us who believe is, the death and resurrection of Jesus on the cross means that He broke that domination. (Galatians 5:24). As He gradually sanctifies us, making us a new creation, we will always struggle on this side of the veil, but the Spirit helps us reflect Jesus as He conforms us to His likeness, day by day. (Ezekiel 36:27). The fruits of the Spirit are proof that the new creation in us is growing. (Galatians 5:19-21).

The process isn’t passive. Peter said that this is a war. Sinful desires are waging war in your flesh. They won’t win in the end, because Jesus will perfect us at the resurrection. But meanwhile, these sinful desires have an influence on us because our flesh isn’t glorified yet. So, Peter says to abstain.

A powerful weapon in our arsenal is to pray for wholesome desires. We abstain, or as Joseph did, run. (Genesis 39:11-13). We also submit to the helpful influence of the Holy Spirit by actively praying for Him to substitute the old sinful desires into wholesome ones!

What a great thing, to honor Jesus by praying that He place within our hearts the desires of HIS heart! Doing this glorifies Him. Jonathan Edwards said,

“God’s purpose for my life was that I have a passion for God’s glory and that I have a passion for my joy in that glory, and that these two are one passion.”

Praying for wholesome desires draws us into that happy circle ever tighter, the center of which is our Holy God, the effectual Spirit, and our faithful and true Savior.

His Goodness to us is infinite and a complete delight to continually discover. He helps us in our need and in our weakness. Thank you Father.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” (Psalm 136:1)

Posted in news

News roundup: Israel/Golan Heights, Economy, Northern lights in Kansas

Posted on by elizabethprata

Here is a news roundup for you, covering several different spheres, articles of interest from each sphere. Enjoy

Science

Laki: Geologist and volcano enthusiast Erik Klemetti has a summary article about the power and impact of the 18th century eruption of Iceland’s Laki, noting its explosive power was less than the immediate pyrotechnics of Tambora and Krakatau, but its impact was much deeper. He begins his article this way:

Local and Global Impacts of the 1783-84 Laki Eruption in Iceland
“Saturday marks the 230th anniversary of the famed Laki (or Skaftár Fires) eruption in Iceland — one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history. It wasn’t a enormous explosion like many people associate with giant eruptions, nothing like Tambora or Krakatau. However, it did have a profound impact on people living around the entire Northern Hemisphere for years afterwards…”

Klemetti also noted yesterday on Twitter that “three Alaskan volcanoes on elevated alert status: Pavlof, Cleveland and Veniaminof.”

This article reports that in the last three years, 12 new Alaskan volcanoes have been discovered. Folks, we really don’t know as much about the earth as we think we do…

A Blast of a Find: 12 New Alaskan Volcanoes
“In the past three years, 12 new volcanoes have been discovered in Southeast Alaska, and 25 known volcanic vents and lava flows re-evaluated, thanks to dogged work by geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Forest Service. Sprinkled across hundreds of islands and fjords, most of the volcanic piles are tiny cones compared to the super-duper stratovolcanoes that parade off to the west, in the Aleutian Range.”

Spaceweather.com reports today that “Researchers working with data from NASA’s AIM spacecraft have announced that noctilucent clouds (NLCs) are behaving strangely. Boosted by changing “teleconnections” in Earth’s atmosphere, the summertime clouds appeared earlier this year than ever before, setting the stage for an unusually good season of NLCs. “Unusually good” certainly describes the apparition this morning over Troon, Ayrshire, Scotland. “It was an amazing display,” says photographer Mark Ferrier. “The clouds appeared after sunset on June 8th and lasted straight through to sunrise on June 9th. :”

Gorgeous, isn’t it! The clouds look like gentle beach waves touching the sand.

Less gentle has been our sun lately. NASA reports, “The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 6:49 p.m. on June 7, 2013. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where communications signals travel. This disrupts the radio signals for as long as the flare is ongoing, anywhere from minutes to hours.  This flare is classified as an M5.9 flare…”

Spaceweather again, explaining the levels of solar flares. “There are 3 categories: X-class flares are big; they are major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms. M-class flares are medium-sized; they can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth’s polar regions. Minor radiation storms sometimes follow an M-class flare. Compared to X- and M-class events, C-class flares are small with few noticeable consequences here on Earth.”

Northern Lights were seen last night as far south as Kansas! Our skies are truly beautiful, day or night.

“The LORD, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the human spirit within a person,” (Zechariah 12:1)

Middle East:

There is a lot going on in the Middle East. It is the central point upon which all prophecy past and present will focus down to a laser point at the very end of time. Many people believe that those days are upon us. I myself think that there are not many days left until we are called home by Our Blessed Hope, Jesus, in the rapture. First we turn to Syria, specifically the border with Israel at the Golan Heights.

The civil war going on in Syria for almost three years now is spilling over to Israel. More battles are taking place on the Golan Heights, an important strip of land for Israel in terms of military defense. Recently, the Austrian UN peacekeepers decided to withdraw from the area, citing it as too dangerous for them men and women to remain. In their stead, Russia’s President Putin offered to Israel that Russian peacekeepers would go to fill the void. Israel said, “No thanks.”

UN: Russia Can’t Take Part in Golan Heights Force
“The United Nations said on Friday that Russia cannot send troops to the Golan Heights peacekeeping force, after President Vladimir Putin said he was ready to bolster the force, AFP reported. Putin offered troops after Austria decided to withdraw its 377 soldiers from the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) between Syria and Israel because of growing spillover from the Syria conflict. However, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said later on Friday that Russia was banned from taking part in the force because it is one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council. “We appreciate the consideration that Russia has given to provide troops on the Golan. However, the disengagement agreement and its protocol between Syria and Israel does not allow for the participation of permanent members of the security council in UNDOF,” Nesirky told reporters, according to AFP.”

You might remember that Russia has sold Syria S-300 missiles, a missile that greatly enhances Syria’s war capabilities. It is an advanced anti-ship cruise missiles with advanced radar that makes them more effective. Israel asked Russia not to send them, but Russia insisted that they were keeping the deal with Syria.

Instead, Israel hinted that they themselves would fill the void with their own troops.
“Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned that Israel would fill the vacuum left by a disintegrating UN peacekeeping unit in the Golan Heights amid reports that Israeli and Syrian recently came close to their biggest direct clash in 40 years. Only last week, we saw battles close to out border on the Golan Heights,” he said. “The crumbling of the UN force on the Golan Heights underscores the fact that Israel cannot depend on international forces for its security. They can be part of the arrangements. They cannot be the basic foundation of Israel’s security. Mr Netanyahu’s remarks came after it was disclosed that Israel had warned Syria that it was prepared to act after the Syrian army moved five tanks and five personnel carriers into the demilitarised zone between the two countries last Thursday in breach of a longstanding ceasefire agreement.”

Over in neighboring Jordan, Multinational Military Exercises Launch in Jordan
“Patriot missiles were deployed for the first time at an annual multinational military exercise in key U.S. ally Jordan on Sunday, Jordanian and U.S. army officers said. The 12-day “Eager Lion” exercises have brought together 8,000 personnel from 19 mainly Arab and European countries to bolster defense capabilities in the face of a possible flare-up from neighboring Syria. … Meanwhile, Syria’s regime and its patron, Russia, have expressed concern over the Patriot deployment.”

The Guardian reports that sectarian divisions are popping up and adding to the religious divisions already present in the Middle East.

Conflict in the Middle East is about more than just religion
“Recently, Shia-Sunni conflicts have seen Hezbollah help Syrian government forces to recapture Qusair. Battles rage between the two sides in Lebanon while in Iraq the monthly death toll from Sunni-Shia violence has topped 1,000. But religion alone does not explain the escalating tensions. Fundamental political shifts begun by the Arab spring are helping create new regional disputes in the Middle East.”

Culture:

The sinful culture is just getting putrid. Let’s face it- it is garbage out there. It is garbage in churches too. It seems that no please, no heart, no spot in earth is not being revealed to have been deeply stained by the curse. Not that we believe there is one area unstained by it, but the increasing visibility of it astounds us. The rapidity of the disintegration is amazing.

Julian Assange: U.S. rule of law suffering ‘calamitous collapse’
“WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Friday that the US justice system was suffering from a “calamitous collapse in the rule of law”, as Washington reeled from the sensational exposure of vast spy agency surveillance programmes. “The US administration has the phone records of everyone in the United States and is receiving them daily from carriers to the National Security Agency under secret agreements. That’s what’s come out,” said the 41-year-old Australian. Two damning newspaper exposes have laid bare the extent to which President Barack Obama’s intelligence apparatus is scooping up enormous amounts of personal data — on telephone calls, emails, website visits — on millions of Americans and foreigners.”

Limbaugh: ‘We are in the midst of a coup’
“President Barack Obama and his administration are leading a “coup d’etat” to “take over” the United States, Rush Limbaugh claimed on his radio show Friday. Reflecting on the administration’s recently-discovered massive domestic surveillance programs, Limbaugh argued there is a “coup” taking place to subvert what the kind of country the United States has always been. “[It’s] not a violent coup, and not a militaristic coup, but nevertheless a takeover of a government, and it’s being done by the Obama administration,” he said.”

In the The Limbaugh Letter he explained further,
“There are people attempting to take over this country and to make it something that it wasn’t founded as; turn it into something that it wasn’t intended to be. That is happening. You know it and I know it. It’s peaceful, nonviolent. The military isn’t involved. But nevertheless it’s a coup. … We have Fast and Furious. We have Obamacare. The evidence of the totalitarian nature or the authoritarian nature of this administration is on display undeniably every day … The story is that practically every major tech group and company in this country is participating with the government in allowing the government access to their servers. E-mails, texts, phone calls, photographs. Virtually any communication that’s taking place via the Apple servers, the Microsoft servers, the Google servers, the NSA is able to look at in real time. This is the story now.”

While America is crumbling in rule of law (crime too), other nations are having their own horrific wake-up call.

American woman gang raped in India
“An American woman was gang-raped in the northern Indian resort town of Manali, police said. Three men in a truck picked up the 30-year-old woman as she was hitchhiking to her guest house after visiting a friend, police officer Sher Singh said. The men drove to a secluded spot and raped her, he said. She went to police and they filed a rape case. Authorities issued an alert for the three men and set up roadblocks to check any trucks leaving the town, he said. No arrests had been made as of Tuesday afternoon, Singh said. The rape came after a Swiss tourist was gang-raped in March while on a cycling trip through rural India. Six men were arrested in that attack. The same month, a British woman traveling elsewhere in northern India jumped from a third-floor window fearing a sexual attack after the hotel’s owner tried to force his way into her room. Concern about sexual assaults in India has heightened since the fatal gang-rape of a woman in New Delhi in December sparked public protests demanding better protection for women.”

As society crumbles, the society’s most vulnerable are always at risk: children and widows (or, women alone). (Isaiah 10:2, Psalm 146:9, James 1:27, Malachi 3:5).

Money:

Ouch. Just reading this next headline hurts.

Hourly Compensation of U.S. Employees Declines Most Since 1947

12 Clear Signals That The U.S. Economy Is About To Really Slow Down
“If we were going to have an “economic recovery”, it should have happened in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Unfortunately, as a recent Los Angeles Times article detailed, an economic recovery never materialized…Now we are rapidly approaching another major economic downturn. But poverty in America has continued to experience explosive growth since the end of the last recession and dependence on the federal government is already at an all-time high.”