(no title)

Woman ordained as Catholic priest

Posted on April 28, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

How bad is rebellion? Are there degrees of falsity? Is it like Animal Farm, all animals are equal but some are more equal than others? All rebellion is bad but some rebels are worse than others?

Catholicism is a false religion. Catholics who hold to Catholic dogma are not saved. Yet it gets worse, with the move from the top down, from Pope Francis down to rogue women, to ordain women as priests and/or place them in higher positions. It’s rebellion wrapped up in more rebellion, hypocrites behaving falsely. They wax worse deceiving and being deceived. Rebels rebelling in yet more rebellion.

Kentucky woman ordained as priest in defiance of Roman Catholic Church
In an emotional ceremony filled with tears and applause, a 70-year-old Kentucky woman was ordained a priest on Saturday as part of a dissident group operating outside of official Roman Catholic Church authority. Rosemarie Smead is one of about 150 women around the world who have decided not to wait for the Roman Catholic Church to lift its ban on women priests, but to be ordained and start their own congregations. In an interview before the ceremony, Smead said she is not worried about being excommunicated from the Church – the fate of other women ordained outside of Vatican law.

“It has no sting for me,” said Smead, a petite, gray-haired former Carmelite nun with a ready hug for strangers. “It is a Medieval bullying stick the bishops used to keep control over people and to keep the voices of women silent. I am way beyond letting octogenarian men tell us how to live our lives.”

And that last statement sums it up. They say “I’m not letting a man tell me what to do.” Their same attitude is held toward God. They are not letting God tell them what to do. Disobedience from His ways and His word always results in catastrophe for the rebel, and I am so sad that this woman is leading other women down a very perilous path.

Do you see the hypocrisy below? The woman priest seems to submit to God but she is only making a show, for she already declared she does not submit to men who hold a doctrinal opinion alternate from hers. She is ultimately rebelling though seeming to submit. And yet the whole thing is a hypocritical endeavor because the entire Catholic Church is false. She is already not submitting. It is what Jesus said,

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1)

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.” (Matthew 6:5)

The problem is, her attitude of dismissing men who are in authority (though Catholic priests and Pope have no authority) infects Christian denominations in a flood. Christian Caine, Beth Moore, Priscilla Shirer, and many others not as well-known are ordained and/or function as pastors despite the fact that the bible prohibits women from that office.

Women pastors / preachers? What does the Bible say about women in ministry?”

So with women Catholic priests you have an unbibical position falsely created by the false Catholic Church, absolving sins as an “alter Christus”. The Catholic doctrine of ‘alter Christus’ means another Christ, and that is who they believe priests are. It is why they say they have the power to absolve sin. Yet 2 Corinthians 11:4 says that if anyone comes and preaches another Christ, let him be accursed.

And it only makes matters worse to say that a woman is ‘another Christ’. God revealed himself as a man. Much like William P. Young in the blasphemous book, The Shack, who presented God as a woman, and the Holy Spirit as a woman, it is equally wrong to say a woman can be another Christ.

The false ones change what Jesus said, but no longer content with that, they now change who He is.

The only way to combat that in your own life is to know who He is. Read the word, that is where God revealed His Son to us, and it is the only place where we can be sure of the truth. The truth of who Jesus is is not contained in visions, nor dreams, nor other religions, but only in holy scripture.

And once you know who Jesus is, you can know who you are, and you won’t be deceived by people coming along whispering … ‘I’m another Christ, let the men be damned’.

chemical weapons Syria, earthquakes, north korea

USA bad, puppies good: two postcards for sale in North Korea; earthquakes, Syria chemical weapons

Posted on April 28, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Don’t forget about North Korea. They still hate us.

Photo by David Guttenfelder, National Geographic

The scare of earlier this month seems to have died down. Only it hasn’t, it just isn’t being reported all that much. Goodness, the US media has the attention span of a gnat. Look, North Korea! Over there, Lindsey Lohan! Wait, the White House Correspondent’s Dinner! Oy.

North Korea is still busy moving missiles, reports the UK Guardian.

“North Korea has moved two short-range missile launchers to its east coast, apparently indicating it is going ahead with preparations for a test launch, a South Korean news agency reported. Seoul and its allies have been expecting some sort of missile launch during weeks of heightened hostility on the Korean peninsula.”

Sooo, China ordered more troops to the border of North Korea.

“China is reportedly beefing up its military presence on the North Korean border amid heightening tensions in the region. The troop mobilisation is said to be taking place along with deployment of dozens of tanks in the strategically important border region with North Korea, which is separated by the Yalu River. The Chinese military is on high alert over the ongoing tensions in the Korean Peninsula.”

Just thought I’d let you all know that it is still going on over there. Lindsey Lohan notwithstanding.

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

This week there has been some reporting from main stream news outlets that Syria has used chemical weapons. However, those reports started leaking out a month ago. I reported on Israel’s claim that chemical weapons were used in Syria back on March 19. Israel’s claim got a huge ho-hum from the world. But now that a defected Syrian General is telling the world that he was ordered to use them, the world is being forced to face it. So the UN dips a toe and cautiously investigates. The US and UK are “treading cautiously.“

Ignoring it, is my opinion. They went into Libya pretty fast, as I recall.

Joel C. Rosenberg reports that Israel is closing in on the end of their patience with Iran and their nuclear program. He wrote this week, “Close confidante of Netanyahu warns “it’s now or never” for military strike on Iran: Analysis.” The article opens this way:

“Tzachi Hanegbi — a close, trusted, long-time personal friend and confidante of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – made remarks on Tuesday at a security conference in Tel Aviv that did not make news in the U.S. But they should have. Hanegbi explained that the time for sanctions and diplomacy and covert options to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat is over, and the time for Israel to use its military option has come. “It’s now or never,” said Hanegbi, ”and the option of never does not exist.”

However later, the guy was told to stay mum on all that. And that is the news from the ‘epicenter’.

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

Speaking of earthquakes, I’d noticed that in previous years there had been a huge increase in quakes in the 6.0-6.9 magnitude. Then this year a severe drop-off. Since 2003, quakes in that magnitude had exceeded the United States Geological Survey’s own annual average. See here:

The dearth of 6.0+ quakes has continued into 2013. I had wondered what was up. Apparently I was not the only one who wondered. This article’s title poses quite the interesting conundrum:

A global murmur, then unusual silence
“In the global aftershock zone that followed the major April 2012 Indian Ocean earthquake, seismologists noticed an unusual pattern. The magnitude (M) 8.6 earthquake, a strike-slip event at intraoceanic tectonic plates, caused global seismic rates of M=4.5 to rise for several days, even at distances thousands of kilometers from the mainshock site. However, the rate of M=6.5 seismic activity subsequently dropped to zero for the next 95 days. This period of quiet, without a large quake, has been a rare event in the past century. So why did this period of quiet occur? In his research presentation, Fred Pollitz of the U.S. Geological Survey suggests that the Indian Ocean earthquake caused short-term dynamic stressing of a global faulting system. Across the planet, there are faults that are “close to failure” and ready to rupture. It may be, suggests Pollitz and his colleagues, that a large quake encourages short-term triggering of these close-to-failure faults but also relieves some of the stress that has built up along these faults.”

Aha! We know from the bible that the earth will shake and totter continuously throughout the Tribulation. (Isaiah 24:20, Matthew 24:7). Upcoming earthquakes of increasing magnitude are prophesied to occur. For example, there will be one in Jerusalem that will kill 7,000. (Rev 11:13). A huge one will occur that is predicted in Revelation 6:12 that will submerge all islands and crumble all mountains. In between the earthquakes will continue in diverse places. (Luke 21:11).

All this speaks to the scientist’s notion that the earth’s quake faults are about to fail. It’s because they are.

Pray, live for Christ, and look up, for our Redemption draweth nigh.

sin of omission, tolerance

Discernment lesson: The sin of inaction

Posted on April 27, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

We know we sin. We sin all the time, every day. There is none who does good, no, not one. (Psalm 53:3, Romans 3:12).

The bible is the only reliable barometer for how to act. There are many explicit commands for do and don’t, and some gray areas in the generalities which the Holy Spirit helps us with to interpret what to do in any given situation.

So when we sin, we repent to Jesus, our High Priest, (Hebrews 8:1) who makes intercession for us at the throne. (Romans 8:34). Jesus is faithful to forgive us and that is an amazing praise to His mercy and His glory.

However, failing to act is just as much of a sin as acting in the wrong. Both are sins and both need repentance. In both cases, failure to repent sears the conscience and we travel further away from Jesus. James 4:17 explains it ever so clearly:

“So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it,
for him it is sin.”

Just in case someone out there wants to make a case that it doesn’t mean what he thinks it means, Luke 12:47 follows it up, John 9:41 confirms it, and 2 Peter 2:21 cements the deal. Inaction is a sin. Gill’s says it clearly:

“The omission of a known duty, as well as the commission of a known sin, is criminal.”

MacArthur says there are three problems with the sin of omission as James outlined in verse 17. “…this is the sin of disobeying God’s will. First, ignoring God’s will…secondly, defying or denying His will and thirdly, disobeying it.”

Gulp.

When we fail to do the good we know we must do it is actually disobeying God’s will. The entire Word testifies to the danger and ruin that happens when people fail to perform God’s will. Like Nike says, “Just do it,” but in our flesh we don’t. We delay, rationalize, ignore, or simply pretend that it’s not our concern.

Barnes Notes explains the James verse:

“If he understands what his duty is; if he has the means of doing good to others; if by his name, his influence, his wealth, he can promote a good cause; if he can, consistently with other duties, relieve the distressed, the poor, the prisoner, the oppressed; if he can send the gospel to other lands, or can wipe away the tear of the mourner; if he has talents by which he can lift a voice that shall be heard in favor of temperance, chastity, liberty, and religion, he is under obligations to do it: and if, by indolence, or avarice, or selfishness, or the dread of the loss of popularity, he does not do it, he is guilty of sin before God.”

I’m going to conjecture a bit here, but I can imagine what the congregation at Thyatira went through. Let’s

look at the verse, one which I believe is a life action experience of what James was talking about. We find it in Revelation 2:20-21:

“But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.” (Revelation 2:20-21).

There’s a lot going on here but mainly Jesus is condemning the people at Thyatira, an actual church of John’s day, because they knew something was wrong in their church and they did not do anything about it- for a long time. See, all the time Jesus gave the false prophetess time to repent, He was giving His sheep time to address the problem.

I can imagine how hard it may have been for the people at Thyatira. The false prophetess may have been well-liked. Maybe she was very popular and loved and they thought that were doing the loving thing by not ‘stirring up trouble’ or ‘making a controversy’. Perhaps she was well-connected and they did not want to infringe on the money flow, rationalizing that with the money, they could really do some good things. Perhaps they didn’t know who should address the problem, or how, saying “I’m not a leader, I’m not an elder…it’s someone else’s God-given task to open this can of worms.” Whatever the reason, the false prophetess had been around long enough to have birthed spiritual daughters. This means in my opinion that her false teaching was now infecting a second generation of foxlets, (Revelation 2:23) who were going out and carrying the seed of corruption with them.

Jesus charged the false prophetess but He also charged the people who knew she was teaching and doing wrong but failed to act.

Being tolerant is not loving- to JESUS. We tend to forget some important truths. First is this- no matter how much we love a person, we must love Jesus more. (Matthew 10:37). Love toward a fellow believer isn’t the sole barometer for whether we act. It isn’t even an important barometer for how or why we act. Jesus said we must love HIM MORE. When we act on behalf of Jesus at the seeming ‘expense’ of others, we are honoring Him by putting Him first. All good will flow from this. (Romans 8:28).

If we fail to act because we love that person more than Jesus, what we are actually doing is setting Jesus aside. All bad will come from that. Where Jesus is dishonored, He will do no mighty work there. (Mark 6:5).

So as hard as it may have been for the people at Thyatira to confront the false prophetess with her sin, it would have been much better to do so. If there is an issue in your church or in your family somewhere that needs addressing, or there is a false doctrine being accepted in your church, or the pastor or a leader is engaging in a gross ethical violation, whatever it is, and the person performing the sin is not addressing it, you must risk the confrontation.

Failure to do so actually encourages the wicked, (Ezekiel 13:22) and his sin of commission and your sin of omission combine to do an even darker work of evil. Ezekiel was warned about failing to do his duty. If Ezekiel had received a word from the LORD and failed to speak it, he was performing a sin of omission and he would be liable. (Ezekiel 3:16-21).

Paul discovered that a gross sin was being tolerated by the Corinthians and he laid into them, and said they ought to mourn and to confront the man performing the sin! (1 Corinthians 5:1-8).

We are not engaging in a right view of fellowship when we allow someone we love to continue in their sin. It is a wrong view of fellowship with each other but most importantly it is a wrong view of fellowship with the sweet Savior, who is the Head of the Church.

No one likes it, but we must risk the confrontation. Paul did, with Peter.

“But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.” (Galatians 2:11).

Paul loved Peter enough to understand that his own failure to confront his brother would lead to his brother’s condemnation and leave blood on his own hands. Show no partiality. We must – in all meekness- look AT sin, not away from it, and lovingly call for repentance. And yes, it is our business:

Charles Spurgeon said,

“Did I not hear someone in the company say, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” I know that gentleman! I heard his voice years ago. His name is Cain and I have this to say to him—it is true that he is not his brother’s keeper, but he is his brother’s killer . Every man is either the keeper of his brother, or the destroyer of his brother! Soul-murder can be worked without an act or even a will—it can be and is constantly accomplished by neglect!”

Do not encourage the wicked, leave your brother condemned, and open a space for satan to waltz into. Instead, risk the confrontation, honor Jesus, retrieve your brother from condemnation, and reject the wicked. Operating within His will is always better!

charismatic, god told me, personal revelation, scripture

The "God told me" crowd – satan’s tares are doing very bad things to the church

Posted on April 27, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Why did Paul so often tell his people to persevere? We often suppose that it was because of the persecution they were undergoing, and that is surely true. But there is another reason, also.

“It is so hard, to know – that’s why the work of the church is difficult. The work of the church isn’t difficult because of what Satan’s doing in the world, it’s difficult because of what Satan’s doing in the church.” ~John MacArthur, sermon, “The Faith that does NOT save“.

Here is a biblical example of what satan is doing in the church- the Parable of the wheat and the tares

The Parable of the Weeds
“He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” (Matthew 13:24-30)

This is an amazing and potent parable. There are a lot of ways to go with looking deeply into this, but I’ll restrain myself. The main thing is the obvious point: satan will steal into the kingdom of God by stealth and APPEAR to be wheat and not a weed. This will be a successful tactic until the harvest.

Therefore we can say that though some of the more obvious satanic tactics are destructive to the kingdom- such as Benny Hinn and Todd Bentley’s false healings, and false teaching like Islam and Buddhism, the more destructive tactics use quiet, secrecy, and stealth. They closely match the true faith.

The more Christian-appearing the tactic, the more successful satan will be. Most of western Christianity is somnolent, like a satiated picnicer taking a nap in the summer sunshine. Just can’t keep his eyes open.

John Singer Sargent: the Chess Game

Along those lines, I’d like to bring your attention to an excellent article by TA McMahon. It delves specifically into who and how the subtleties of satan are especially brought to the fore in the current Charismatic movement. The excesses of this movement are going to be addressed by the conference later this year called Strange Fire. The reasons we need to confront this strange fire movement of satan are spelled out here.

Meanwhile, this essay by Mr McMahon outlines just how devastating it is to our faith when we listen to people who CLAIM TO SPEAK FOR GOD. He writes, “The root fallacy of the movement is the view of how one receives communication from God. … in practice this false teaching elevates what (supposedly) God has spoken to them as equal to or above what is written in the Scriptures. It goes far beyond someone stating that he “believes” that the Lord has impressed something upon his heart.”

To be clear, this is the crowd who says things like –

“God told me”
“God revealed to me”
“I have a word from Jesus”
“I had a vision and He said…”

John MacArthur says of this kind of activity:

“God told me . . . “ has be come the anthem of the Charismatic Movement. Strange private prophecies are proclaimed by all kinds of people who evidently believe God speaks to them. … that the Bible is not our final source of God’s revelation but simply a “witness” to additional revelation that God is giving today. Williams is declaring that Christians can add to the Bible—and that they can accept others’ additions to Scripture as normal and conventional. He believes the Bible is a “model” for what the Holy Spirit is doing today to inspire believers.”

Today’s ‘God told me’ crowd includes Mark Driscoll, Beth Moore, Kim Walker Smith of the band Jesus Culture, Steven Furtick, Todd Burpo, Joyce Meyer and many others.

The impact of these direct revelation, Charismatic excesses can’t be overstated. Please take a moment to read the article.

It begins this way:

They Claim to Speak for God (Part 1)
T. A. McMahon

“A very large part of Christendom in the United States is enamored with those who claim to speak for God. If you think that’s an overstatement, simply tune into some of the programing on Trinity Broadcasting Network or some of the other cable religious networks. What you will see are churches filled with thousands of Christians hanging on to every word of a man or a woman who is declaring what God has just revealed to him or her. The content ranges from the mundane to the bizarre. To some observers who are fairly well versed in the Scriptures, what they are hearing and seeing is laughable. But that’s a tragic reaction by some who are forgetting that many of those being led astray by the so-called new prophets and apostles are their brothers and sisters in Christ.”

…

“Not only is such a cavalier attitude wrong biblically, but it is extremely shortsighted and therefore blinds a person to the seductions and ultimate deceptions that are involved. In this series of articles we want to present a wider view of what’s involved with those who “claim to speak for God,” demonstrating that it’s far more than a few delusional zealots but rather a host of men and women, ministries, and movements that have an agenda and methodologies, all of which are contrary to the Word of God.”

The sad part is that today’s “God told me” people are not just fringe Pentecostals but as you can see from the above list, conservative evangelicals who should know better. Even sadder, the movement has swept up many multitudes of conservative youths too.

I’ll end the same way I started, with the quote

“The work of the church isn’t difficult because of what Satan’s doing in the world ,it’s difficult because of what Satan’s doing in the church.”

You can be a sleepy sunshine napper like this-

Thomas Mora Picnic, Wrentham, MA c. 1900

Or you can wake up, put on your armor, and look around, like this,

I am reminded of the song of Deborah. In Judges 5:12, Deborah incites Barak to carry off as his prey the captive Canaanites and their sheep and cattle-

“Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake, break out in a song! Arise, Barak, lead away your captives, O son of Abinoam.”

Gill’s Exposition explains,

“Awake, awake, Deborah, awake, awake, utter a song, &c. Either perceiving some languor and remissness in her spirits, while she was delivering this song, and therefore arouses herself to attend to this service with more ardour and zeal; or rather finding herself more impressed with a sense of the great and good things the Lord had done for Israel, calls upon her soul to exert all its powers in celebrating the praises of the Lord, and therefore repeats the word awake so often as she does.”

Be not languorous and accept the false teaching of the ‘God told me’ crowd! Be diligent to know your bible well enough to see the very ‘fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel’ on its glorious pages. Awake and arise!

encouragement

The angel of the Lord encamps around you

Posted on April 25, 2013 by elizabethprata

Boy, the headlines are getting hard to read, aren’t they? Not the articles, no, I dispensed with them long ago. But just headlines alone, are enough to make me shudder while my heart is breaking. So I quit that too.

Many people say to me they are ready to go. Even more say “not yet.” But those who aren’t ready to see Jesus aren’t saying so because they want to witness to one more person…see their family saved…finish a mission. It’s because they are attached to the world.

Don’t be.

Look what the Lord our Holy God promises to us:

I sought the Lord, and he answered me

and delivered me from all my fears.

Those who look to him are radiant,

and their faces shall never be ashamed.

This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him

and saved him out of all his troubles.

The angel of the Lord encamps

around those who fear him, and delivers them.

(Psalm 34:4-7)

Have you sought the Lord? The more you seek Him, the more you want Him. If you’re feeling unsteady on your feet, or attached to the world, it may be because you have not sought the Lord.

And look what you get if you seek Him! He listens to you, answers, and delivers you from all your fears! Pretty good deal.

Looking to Him will make us radiant because He is the Light. Looking to the world will make your face dark. Your countenance will fall. (Genesis 4:5). But looking to the Light will make your face radiant, not the least reason is because you will have been delivered from all your fears. Sweet deal again.

The angel of the Lord is Jesus, most interpreters interpret. They say so because “The angel of the Lord speaks as God, identifies Himself with God, and exercises the responsibilities of God (Genesis 16:7-12; 21:17-18; 22:11-18; Exodus 3:2; Judges 2:1-4; 5:23; 6:11-24; 13:3-22; 2 Samuel 24:16; Zechariah 1:12; 3:1; 12:8). In several of these appearances, those who saw the angel of the Lord feared for their lives because they had “seen the Lord.” Therefore, it is clear that in at least some instances, the angel of the Lord is a theophany, an appearance of God in physical form.”

What could be better than that? O, to be encircled by the protection and love of Jesus! Brother and sister, we have it. Look to Him and He will encamp around you.

Looking to the Lord and seeking Him means praying, reading the bible, attending worship, thinking about Him, singing praises to Him, following Him, and obeying Him, among other ways. Look to Him, He is your all in all.

Headlines are nothing. Jesus is everything.

camp life, soldier, spiritual warfare

A soldier’s life: earth is our camp and we’re homesick for home

Posted on April 24, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

What was life for a soldier during the Civil War in camp? Authors Brooke C. Stoddard and Daniel P. Murphy, Ph.D tell us-

Soldiers in the Civil War did not see battle every day, or even every week. Most were inactive about 75 percent of the time, thanks to the hurry-up-and-wait nature of warfare. During these down periods, the typical day started at 5 A.M. during the spring and summer months and 6 A.M. during the fall and winter. Soldiers were awakened by reveille, roll call was taken by the first sergeant, and then everyone sat down to breakfast.

Much of a soldier’s life is waiting around for orders

During the rest of the day, soldiers engaged in as many as five two-hour drill sessions on weaponry or maneuvers. Most soldiers found these drills extremely boring and tedious; they wanted to fight, not practice, though they realized the drills could mean the difference between life and death when fighting did occur.

Soldiers also cleaned and readied the camp, built roads, dug latrines, gathered wood for cooking and heating, and sometimes foraged for food to supplement their meals. Letters from home kept them going.

[They engaged in] recreation to help them while away the rest of the hours. Those who were able wrote long letters home or read books, magazines, and newspapers when they could get them. Others played cards or engaged in various sports, such as baseball, boxing, and cockfighting.

Of all the hardships soldiers faced in camp, homesickness was probably the most rampant and difficult to cure.

Source

It is the same for a Christian soldier. Exactly the same. We are all called to persevere in the battle, but the battle isn’t always at the same pitch every day. While waiting for orders, we go to work, have leisure, engage in drills and practice (corporate worship, study, and prayer). We live for letters from home, which of course is the bible.

We’re moms, dads, youths, and regular people, living a Christian life … living in camp, joshing with other soldiers, cleaning our armor and longing for home, until called upon to launch into action. And do you know what that action is?

Standing.
Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. (Ephesians 6:13)

Praying.
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. (2 Corinthians 10:4)

Resisting.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:7)

We are not loudly pronouncing binding and loosing in Jesus’s name in public places. We do not exorcise demons from every bush. We do not prayer walk a location to assess the enemy’s capability. We do not map out the demonic strongholds in a place and gather to scream prophecies at them.

We pray, stand, and resist. We do this because our High Commander has won the battle. The battle is His.

Yes, earth is our camp and sometimes camp life is boring. Sometimes there is a long time between skirmishes and sometimes soldiers enter skirmishes that last a long time. It is an enduring and tiring war, outlasting our lifetimes, unless the Lord comes and raptures us. As President Abraham Lincoln said at the conclusion of the United States Civil War-

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Read that with understanding that when Lincoln says ‘nation’ we understand that nation to be the kingdom of God. Understand the soldiers who died and are buried here precede us in the long battle. And indeed, the world as Lincoln says, does not like what we do but they cannot ignore it and cannot forget it. We have a great task, and it is our measure of devotion to our Commander that these soldiers who went on before us have not died in vain and that one day, the kingdom of Jesus shall not perish from the earth but shall endure forever.

rapture, salvation, time of jacob's trouble, tribulation

Will there be Christians saved after the rapture?

Posted on April 24, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

A question I’m asked quite often is “Will there be Christians after the rapture?” If the Holy Spirit is taken away from the earth, how will He draw men to salvation?

Lars Justinen, “Robe of Righteousness”

These are good questions and I’ll do my best to offer scriptural answers.

The first basis to answer this is to understand that God has plans. I think we all agree on that. Jeremiah 29:11 reveals that God has plans for Israel. Isaiah 14:26 reveals that God uses nations to fulfill His plans. Amos 3:7 reveals that God has plans and that He reveals them to His prophets (and in the NT, through the Holy Spirit Who set them down in the bible).

photo credit: khalid almasoud via photopin cc

In addition, God’s plans are different for His people & His nation Israel; and the church who is His bride. This is called dispensational biblical interpretation. You can read about this doctrine here in succinct fashion-

“What is dispensationalism and is it biblical?“

and here

“What are the seven dispensations?“

All it means is that God has different plans for Israel and the Bride. Ultimately however, His plans merge in general by His grande redemptive plan. No matter what dispensational epoch we lived in, we will all be trophies of His grace for all eternity. And how we all get there is the same (Old Testament believers from Adam, to Noah, to Moses to Abraham to Anna- through belief in and faith of the promise of a coming savior; for New Testament believers, from John and Peter, Mary, Paul, and on through to today’s born again believers throughout the world, belief in and faith of the promise of an already risen savior).

Secondly you have to understand that the rapture will occur prior to what the Jews call the Time of Jacob’s Trouble (Jeremiah 30:7) and known to New Testament believers via the Olivet Discourse Matthew 24 as the Tribulation and Great Tribulation. I am not going to argue this fact, it is explicitly and implicitly set out in scripture that this is so. I have written about it at least ten times on this blog. Search in the search box above for ‘pre-trib’ and many results will come up.

Once you understand that the Age of Grace in this dispensation will end with the rapture and then the tribulation begins, we also can go on with answering the post’s main question. Will there be Christians after the rapture?

Yes. There will be Christians after the rapture.

Biblical proof of this is myriad. For example, Revelation 4:1 seems to be the pivot point in the Book’s largely chronological unfolding of events. The first three chapters are letters to actual churches of John’s day outlining praise and/or condemnation of their deeds. This section of Revelation is also a metaphor for believers in days of yore and us today in church, as to what Jesus will praise or condemn in our corporate worship life. As we begin Revelation 4:1 we read from then on, ‘These are things which will take place after’. By Revelation 5, the seals are about to be opened and we are told, gloriously,

“Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” (Revelation 5:5)

In Revelation 6, when He opened the fifth seal unleashing the wrath of God, we read:

“I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.”

Those who were slain for God and their witness are Christians. They are not Christians from the Age of Grace because the Christians were raptured before the beginning of the Tribulation. These are souls who had come to saving knowledge of Jesus as Savior afterwards. How do I know this? Because all Christians were raptured prior to the wrath. The Bride is not appointed to wrath. (1 Thessalonians 5:9). The wrath begins in Revelation 6:1.

Another question that is asked is, how did they become Christians after the rapture if the Restrainer had been removed? This question is in reference to 2 Thessalonians 2:6. The Restrainer mentioned here is the Holy Spirit. One of His ministries is to restrain the devil in raising up the man of sin before his time.

MacArthur explains,

So he says to the Thessalonians…you know this, you know that there is a force, a supernatural force that keeps Satan from doing what he would otherwise want to do. Listen, you think the world is bad now, you haven’t seen anything yet. Fortunately if you know Christ you won’t see it, but in the day of the Lord when the restrainer is gone and all hell breaks loose, the world will see what happens when God does not restrain Satan in his plans.

In Genesis chapter 6 there is an important verse, verse 3, “Then the Lord said, My Spirit shall not strive with man forever.” What you have here is a concept. The Holy Spirit battling against wicked men. And God says My Spirit isn’t going to do that forever. My Spirit isn’t going to fight your wickedness forever. It wasn’t long until He drown them all, right? And I think you have there the work of the Holy Spirit that is a restraining work. The Holy Spirit was battling against the flood of wickedness in the ancient world. In Acts chapter 7, one other verse that shows us the Spirit’s ministry in this kind of area. In Acts 7:51, “You men who are stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit.” Now here again [in 2 Thessalonians 2:6] you have the Holy Spirit battling against sin, battling against iniquity, battling against evil, trying to restrain, as John tells us, to convict in John 16. (more here)

photo credit: Viqi French via photopin cc

So the Christians who are part of the Bride are whisked away before the wrath begins. Christians who come to faith after wards are not part of the Bride though they are appointed to eternity as well. The man of Sin is unveiled and the total saturating sin as it was in the Days of Noah repeat, (Dan 9:24) except worse. Yet Christians still come to saving faith. That is because though the restrainer is not holding back sin nor the man of sin any more he is still drawing men.

God supernaturally seals 144,000 super evangelists (Revelation 7:1-8) and by Revelation 9, a great multitude of the redeemed are standing before the throne and praising Him!

God also sends an angel flying at mid-heaven to pronounce the Gospel (Revelation 7:6) and the result is that by Revelation 7:12 there are saints enduring in the faith.

None of this would be possible if the Spirit had not drawn them. (John 6:44, John 6:65). Even during the Tribulation the Father, the Son and the Spirit are working in perfect unity to perform His plan and to redeem trophies of grace for His glory!

Finally, of course there are Christians who come to faith after the rapture, because it is those believers who are alive – in the flesh- and left upon the earth who enter the Millennial Kingdom. GotQuestions explains,

Matthew 25:31-46 is another passage that should be considered. This passage is commonly called the separation or judgment of the sheep and the goats. The sheep and goats refer to righteous and unrighteous Gentiles. Christ will judge the unrighteous Gentiles (goats), and they will be cast into the lake of fire for eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46). Therefore, no unbelieving Gentile will survive to live on into the millennial kingdom. The righteous Gentiles, or sheep, will live on into the millennial kingdom. Read more

The Lord our God is a God of steadfastness to His persecuted ones. He sent His Son to be persecuted and die for our iniquities, and thus the finished work of His salvation to the elect was completed when God exhausted His wrath in Jesus.

The Holy Spirit continues to draw all those people whom God had written in the Lamb’s Book of Life before the foundation of the world. (Revelation 13:8, 1 Peter 1:20, Matthew 25:34). No matter when a believer lived or will live, in the Garden in the Age of Innocence, the Age of Conscience which was pre-flood, the Age of Human Government which was post flood, Age of Abraham and the Promise, during the Age of Law with Moses, the Age of Grace which is the Bride, or the Millennial Age to come, if your name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life you are His trophy of grace and will never be set aside, lost or otherwise disowned.

As Paul says in Romans 8:23,

“And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

So yes, Christians will come to faith after the rapture, as they will also in the Millennium age after that. What a wonderful eternity we will have, sharing and listening to the stories of His graceful redemption of humans throughout the ages, all the while praising the Holy Spirit who worked throughout to draw men unto the God of Salvation! (Hosea 13:4)

Lars Justinen, “Robe of Righteousness”

ads, facebook, greasemonkey, youtube

Removing ads from Facebook and Youtube, and profanity filter

Posted on April 23, 2013 by elizabethprata

If you are like me, appealing to the Spirit for ever more sanctification, this will mean that you are increasingly sensitive to the things of the world being evil and eternities apart from God’s holy standard. I can’t think of what it must have been like for Jeremiah or Paul to endure seeing and being around evil every day. Paul was upset a lot of the time, and Jeremiah simply wept. How about Jesus, who was totally holy and sinless, being amid all the earth’s sin! Ow! What He endured for us!

In my own way, I also am aggrieved by sin. I hate seeing profanity, looking at television commercials that are licentious even if the program I’m watching is clean. Facebook and Youtube have become crowded with ads that are sometimes not too healthy to see. Though I’m careful to follow clean speaking people on Twitter, occasionally they will retweet something that has a curse word in it. It is all the more starkly vivid for having been absent from my life. It’s jarring when you see or hear those words. So what to do?

Greasemonkey. In the web browser Firefox, there is an add-on you can enable which will allow you to customize web pages to your liking, as long as you can find the script someone has written who feels the same as you. Apparently, a lot of people felt the same as I do about Facebook ads and Youtube ads, because there were a lot of scripts some people had written that wiped out the ads on both those pages. Simply adding greasemonkey does not stop the ads, it only provides the platform for adding scripts which will do that job for you.

Here is how to do it-

1. In Firefox, search for and then add-on “greasemonkey”
2. Restart Firefox
3. See monkey icon on top menu bar. Click once to see the drop down menu. Choices are ‘greasemonkey options, ‘manage scripts’, ‘get new script’, ‘web sites’ etc.
4. Click on “web sites’
5. This will take you to Greasemonkey’s website, userscripts.org. From there you can search for scripts that other people have written which customize web pages in some way. Search for Youtube no ads, or Facebook no ads, whatever you want.
6. Of the search results, look at the reviews. I tend to like 4 and 5 star reviews. Once you find one that is satisfactory to you,
7. Click on ‘source code’ at the top of the page, which will bring you to the page of the actual script
8. Copy the script
9. Go back to Greasemonkey icon
10. Click on the monkey and click on “new user script”
11. A pop up will come up, allowing you to name it. I named mine No ads Facebook HA HA HA. Lol. Then at the bottom of the popup it asks “add from clipboard? and say yes.
12. That is it! The script is now installed. The next time you go to your website that you just customized, it should be working. I have been ad-free on FB and Youtube for two days now and it is a relief!

It literally only took me half an hour from not knowing Greasemonkey existed to having installed three new scripts and no more ads.

As for the profanity filter, that took a little tweaking because of the unintended consequence. LOL. Get this- I was happy knowing I was not going to see any more profanity. Then I went to the John MacArthur Grace to You page to listen to a devotional about the use of the word raca in Matthew 5:22. It was titled “*** and the Name Caller.” Huh? Oh, I get it, the word the asterisks were blotting out was hell.

It turned out that hell is used a lot in my own writing (which the profanity filter blotted out,) and on others’ Christian websites, not as a curse but when using the word to describe the place. I went back into the userscript, found the word hell that it was banning, and deleted it fromthe script. Problem solved.

Except not.

Later, I was googling “clean television shows” and one result popped up in someone’s recommended list that looked like this

“The *** Van *** Show”

Huh?

Oh, I get it. Dick Van Dyke. Hm, two more banned words in the script, apparently. HA HA I found a clean tv show that my profanity filter wouldn’t spell out the title of. Irony!

Oh well, still needs tweaking I guess. Obviously there are two meanings to some words that can be used as a curse. If this gets too onerous I can edit the script. Other than that, so far so good!

I had mentioned this on my Facebook account and others had asked me to explain how I did it so I thought maybe here also would be a help to someone. I think you can use greasemonkey with Safari and one or two other browsers, but not Chrome. You can look it up.

I have seen no ads on FB nor Youtube since I installed it and I could no be happier. Oh, eventually FB and YT will likely write a script of their own to get ads back in, and then some layperson will write another script getting around that and post it. But maybe we will be raptured by then and never have to deal with unholiness again! Hey, a gal can hope…

average us, discernment

"The need for Discernment", Average Us, Glenn Beck

Posted on April 22, 2013 by elizabethprata

So sorry for the short blog today. I am in the middle of something and I can’t concentrate on anything else right now…again, apologies. Here is a starter paragraph from Mike Gendron at Proclaiming the Gospel. It is an excellent essay. I recommend reading the entire piece.

The Need for Discernment
Written by Mike Gendron on 18 April 2013.

“When asked, “What will be the signs of your return?’, the Lord Jesus mentioned several signs, but he repeated one sign three times. There will be false teachers, false prophets and false Christs who will deceive even the elect if possible (Mat. 24:4,11,24). Knowing this we must examine everything carefully so that we can hold fast to that which is good and abstain from every form of evil (1 Thes. 5:21). We need to identify and expose religious leaders who are servants of the devil carrying out his goal is to deceive the world (2 Cor. 11:13-15).”

"Stating heresy IS the heresy"

Posted on April 22, 2013 by elizabethprata

I put the title in quotes because I read that sentence this week on a blog somewhere. It is so true. (I wish I could remember who wrote that, because I’d give full credit!)

Today, even ‘daring’ to point out heresy makes me the heretic; I’d like to share a comment on a older essay that I received last night and my response. It is a conversation that is becoming all too common these days.

I had written a series about the modern-day Gnostics, people who claim to have ecstatic experiences with the Jesus of heaven in their bathroom, living room, bar, car, zoo or any other place, and ascribe to Him and/or the Spirit something that He would not say or do. However, many people are not only believing these experiences on its surface, with no scriptural checking, they seek after and find their own experiences. They claim the experiences are as good as or better than scripture. This is dangerous. Once satan unhitches you from checking these things against scripture, you’re a sitting duck for his wiles. Remember, you’re no match for satan, he is the craftiest creature in the Garden. (Genesis 3:1-2).

Here is what the commenter said:

the only falsehood idea i see is your own these people have a love for god that you people would not understand how dare you judge them for thier love of christ the fruit of what they are doing is bringing them to christ how dare you judge them like the pharisee did to jesus christ you are the ones that will be called to account for your actions against your fellow

See? It is heretical these days to say that any person’s “experience” checked against scripture and coming up short, is in fact the heresy, not the other way around. Here is my reply:

Fervency does not equal salvation. Even the demons believe- and tremble (James 2:19). Actually, they are further along than the Gnostics, because with their alleged experiences of ‘hanging out’ with Jesus, they don’t even tremble!

Simon the Magician SAID he loved God, even followed Philip for a long time, fooling even Philip, who had baptised Simon! (Acts 8:1-25)

I am NOT judging them like Jesus judged the Pharisees. Judgment to the eternal fire only belongs to Christ. However, I AM judging their doctrine, matching up what they say against the bible. That is something John definitely says to do-

“Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”” ESV

The NLT says, “Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.””

Your condemnation of me urges me to judge by appearances, but that is not biblical. So, how does one judge righteously? But comparing what they say and do to scripture. We can detect fruit, the fruit of the Gnostics is bad, coming from a bad tree. Just because someone says they love Jesus, does not mean they do.

Paul called many to account, so did Peter, John,etc. Failing to hold so-called believers to the holy standard is unloving.

Here is an essay written by Pastor Paul which speaks to the issue. He begins it this way:

” Evil Becoming More Evil “
“Wouldn’t it be great if we could just throw open our arms and embrace anyone and everyone who claimed to be Christian. It should be like that but most of us know it isn’t. So many people who claim to be Christian are stating their family tradition and not their personal relationship with Jesus. They haven’t a clue what it is to live in the Spirit or to have anything to do with God except when they are in some kind of trouble. Even then the name of Jesus is used more as an exclamation than a plea for help. … This is vital for us so we do not allow ourselves to be enticed away by those who claim Jesus but don’t live Jesus. Paul warned Timothy:”

But evil people who pretend to be what they are not will become worse than ever, as they fool others and are fooled themselves. (2 Timothy 3:13)

——————
Heed the warnings in the bible. Don’t fall for the notion that stating heresy IS the heresy. Honor Jesus by being a Berean and looking into these things.

It is becoming such a problem, that John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, Conrad Mbewe, RC Sproul, Steve Lawson, and Nathan Busenitz organized a second Master’s Seminary conference to specifically address these exact issues. It is called “Strange Fire” because when someone accepts false experiences as real, or touts their own false experiences as from the Spirit when they are not from the Spirit, ti is akin to offering strange fire before the LORD.

I encourage you to go to the website and learn more about the conference, go here to find links all together in one place, or go here, where there is a thoroughly scriptural explanation as to why they plan to “Confront the Charismatic Movement.”

Are YOU offering strange fire before the LORD?