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Apostasy and tolerance: both are bad. Read the bible to find out more

Posted on January 23, 2013 by elizabethprata

In December, I read that the UK “census shows number of people in England and Wales who are not religious has risen to 14.1 million, almost double from 2001.”

It got me thinking about faithlessness and what we are told about in 1 Timothy 4:1

“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,”

I always found it interesting that the verse reads ‘the Spirit expressly says’. In other translations it reads ‘the Spirit clearly says’, and ‘the Spirit explicitly says.’ One would think that the Spirit is always clear and expresses exactly what He wants to say. I mean, it would still be authoritative enough if the verse read “The Spirit says that in latter days…” But that adverb ‘expressly’ always gets me. In interpreting His word when I come up against something like that, I come to a full stop. If the Spirit expressly says something, then it behooves us to pay attention to it.

The Greek word for ‘expressly’ is an adverb which is a derivative of rheo, meaning “command.” OK, that’s pretty strong.

So the upshot is the Spirit commands us to know and understand that in latter days some will depart the faith.

We can rest assured, that God’s numbers are not diminishing. It isn’t a weak religion where people can come and go and God #fail. Not at all. Whom He saves is saved. If they depart from the faith they are actually demonstrating that they never belonged to God in the first place. (1 John 2:19).

Oftentimes a departure from the faith is called apostasy. We are told that apostates will increase in number just before the Second Coming (Of Jesus, Not Obama. Sorry, I had to get that in there). 2 Thessalonians 2:3 has the verse:

“Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,”

The Holman Bible Dictionary defines apostasy as “the act of rebelling against, forsaking, abandoning, or falling away from what one has believed.

Old Testament The Old Testament speaks of “falling away” in terms of a person’s deserting to a foreign king (2 Kings 25:11; Jeremiah 37:13-14; Jeremiah 39:9; Jeremiah 52:15). Associated ideas, however, include the concept of religious unfaithfulness: “rebellion” (Joshua 22:22); “cast away” (2 Chronicles 29:19); “trespass” (2 Chronicles 33:19); and “backslidings” (Jeremiah 2:19; Jeremiah 8:5). NAS uses “apostasy” in Jeremiah 8:5 and Hosea 14:4 with the plural in Jeremiah 2:19; Jeremiah 5:6; Jeremiah 14:7.”

It seems clear to most of us that the Lord is revealing that many who adopted a form of godliness but had denied its power (2 Timothy 3:5) are being stripped of their falsely spiritual cloak and are being revealed for whom they actually are.

An essay recently on iCNN, the citizen input channel of their news media’s online arm, recently published an essay that has reportedly garnered the second highest number of hits ever.

Why I Raise My Children Without God

Posted on January 14, 2013, it has received 9,100 comments. Over 60,000 have recommended the essay on Facebook. A competing essay on iCNN titled “Why I raise my children WITH God”…has received a tenth of the number of comments and a third fewer recommends on Facebook.

People are apostatizing, and rapidly. The gap is widening so there can be no fence straddlers for very much longer.

We know what atheism is. It is people like the woman who wrote “Why I Raise My Children Without God”, they are people who never believed in God in any form for any time because they theorize that God does not exist. They have great faith in their theory.

It seems clear that we also know what apostasy is. It is people who (seemed to) believe for a time, and then abandoned any pretense of believing in their version of God. Muslims can apostatize. Buddhists can become apostate. But for the purposes of this essay, we are discussing people who claimed to believe in a risen Jesus as savior, but after a time, abandoned that belief and either went on to something else or simply became what they always were: atheist or agnostic.

But I have another question about who an apostate might be.

I wrote recently about old Eli, the temple priest whose record in the bible never revealed a sin that he personally committed, but he and his sons were killed for the sons’ sins. The sons were taking money from congregants, taking the choicest meats, and then taking women. Eli was not participating in this travesty, but he knew about it, and did nothing. That last thing is what God seemed upset about. The sons were killed for their part in the sinful behavior and Eli was killed because he didn’t do anything about it. (1 Samuel 2:29, 1 Samuel 3:13.)

What God said to Eli was that Eli was honoring his sons above God. I think we forget who we sin against, when we sin. All sins are against Jesus. (Psalm 51:4). The prodigal son said to his father that he’d “sinned against heaven, and against you.” (Luke 15:21)

In Revelation 2:21 Jesus said he had something against the church at Thyatira. “Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.“

They knew there was sin, they knew the sin was destroying their church, and they did nothing about it. So Jesus had a condemnation for them. If it was today they would probably sit around saying “touch not God’s anointed” and “judge not” and “aren’t we so humble, in our tolerance.” Tolerance in the wrong direction is actually a sin. Think about it.

Paul condemned a situation in Corinth, where a man had his father’s wife. Paul condemned the sin and severely chastised the person performing the sin. But the church body was also chastised for tolerating it. Paul called them arrogant.

“You are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn?” (1 Corinthians 5:2)

Paul chastised them for boasting. The Corinthians were going around boasting about their gifts and their status and their works, and yet they were tolerating a gross sin. Their boasts were resting on a corrupted pedestal. If it were today, I would venture to say that they’d be boasting about their tolerance and their humility not to “judge.”

So the question is, is a person apostatizing if he tolerates gross sin but does nothing about it? Like Eli, Thyatira, and Corinth? If a person can tolerate such sins against Jesus and not do anything about it, are they actually loving Jesus as they should? Are they growing lukewarm, or even cold? If a people who actually know what sin does to a person, allows a person to continue in that sin, do they love that person if they do nothing to help them?

Does a false tolerance and an overdone spiritual correctness mean that love is growing dim? That they are apostatizing?

I don’t know if the definition of apostasy can be given to that kind of behavior. I’m just asking. I do know that Jesus condemned it the three biblical examples I used. At root, it means that they honor the sin more than they honor Jesus.

After Jesus threw out the moneylenders in the temple, “His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” (Psalm 69:9; John 2:17)

Barnes Notes says, “Its meaning is, that Jesus was affected with great zeal or concern for the pure worship of God. The zeal of thine house – “Zeal” is intense ardor in reference to any object. The “zeal of thine house” means extraordinary concern for the temple of God; intense solicitude that the worship there should be pure, and such as God would approve. Hath absorbed me, or engaged my entire attention and affection; hath surpassed all other feelings, so that it may be said to be the one great absorbing affection and desire of the mind.”

No matter what the exact definition of apostasy, zeal for God should consume us. Is our worship pure? Are we intensely concerned that no leaven is spoiling the lump? (The charge Paul gave to the Corinthians in the above passages). Do we tolerate a devastating pattern of sin in our own life, or in our church? You are not doing yourself, Jesus, or your brethren any favors by adopting a false sense of humility and refusing to address obvious and entrenched sin in God’s house. The bible is clear on that.

Dearest ones who have addressed sin, or tried to, in God’s house, He understands the toll zeal takes:

“My zeal wears me out, for my enemies ignore your words.” (Psalm 119:139)

The writer of Hebrews lets us know that there is nothing Jesus hasn’t gone through first that He isn’t intimately familiar with in us. (Hebrews 2:17). He understands the toll it takes to be zealous for God, and He has made many promises to those who persevere in the purest worship they can offer, the most zeal they can give, and the best attempts at rooting out sin. Here is one of those promises-

“He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 25:8)

Take heart. He is coming soon.

inauguration, Obama, worship

What’s up with the Obama worship?

Posted on January 22, 2013 by elizabethprata

So this weekend brought the Inaugural ceremonies to acknowledge Obama’s second term as President of the United States. I’ll say right off the bat, that it is my opinion gained through observation of the times (secular and biblical) that Obama is America’s judgment. I believe he means ill for the nation and has been and will continue to dismantle it. Just so you know my stance at the outset 😉

Even a hermit would notice that there seems to be something different about the people’s reaction to Obama, who, after all, is just a politician. In his earliest campaign days in 2007 and 2008 people saw in him a unique charisma capable of transfixing his audience and causing actual fainting. Even early on, the charisma exceeded adoration and plunked itself firmly into the land of physiological reaction (fainting, swooning, screaming) and Messianic language. This article’s from 2008–

“Call it the Barack Obama traveling salvation show – campaign rallies and speeches that seem like the secular counterpart of tent-meeting revivals and evangelistic sermons common in the U.S. a century ago. And, in apparent similarity to the religious enthusiasm of that bygone era, some of those coming to hear the Democrat presidential candidate “preach” his message are fainting as he speaks.”

In 2008, the NY Times remarked on Obama’s charisma, calling it a cult of personality, perhaps unknowingly revealing the uniqueness of what is normally simply an attribute had veered into something deeper, and darker.

“Would we call this a cult of personality? Today that term is all around Barack Obama — perhaps because there seems so little other way to explain how a first-term senator has managed to dazzle his way to front-runner in the race for the presidency, how he walks on water for so many supporters, and how the mere suggestion that he is, say, mortal, risks vehement objection, or at least exposing the skeptic as deeply uncool. Charisma, as defined by the early sociologist Max Weber, was one of three “ideal types” of authority — the others were legal, as in a bureaucracy, and traditional, as in a tribe — and rested upon a kind of magical power and hero worship. Philosophers call it “civil religion,” using the language of religion and elevation to talk about your country.”

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas, the same Newsweek that created a cover this week of Obama and named him as the Second Coming a few days ago, in 2009 wrote, “brought adulation over President Obama’s Cairo speech to a whole new level on Friday, declaring on MSNBC: “I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God.”

Newsweek didn’t even bother to use a lower case “G”.

This kind of reaction and language to describe Obama’s unusual charisma continued unabated from his first appearances in 2007 through to now- where it was revealed this month that the reporter pool was ‘treated’ to a personal visit at hang-out their bar by Obama and they were all atwitter and a-flurry. It was a group swoon, a reporter said.

The Messianic language popped up again and as mentioned a moment ago, continues to this day. At yesterday’s Inauguration Weekend church service the Reverend Braxton said,

Obama, said Braxton, was just like Moses facing the Red Sea: “forward is the only option … The people couldn’t turn around. The only thing that they could do was to go forward.” Obama, said Braxton, would have to overcome all obstacles – like opposition from Republicans, presumably, or the bounds of the Constitution. Braxton continued, “Mr. President, stand on the rock,” citing to Moses standing on Mount Horeb as his people camped outside the land of Israel.

But it wasn’t enough to compare Obama with the founder of Judaism and the prophet of the Bible. Braxton added that Obama’s opponents were like the Biblical enemies of Moses, and that Obama would have to enter the battle because “sometimes enemies insist on doing it the hard way.”

Yet the civil religion as mentioned in the above article surrounding the charismatic Obama goes much further than previously idolized or even idealized politicians, such as FDR or Ronald Reagan. That is because previously “civil religion” language was used by politicians to connect with the people to elevate their nation. But with Obama, civil religion language is used by the people to elevate the politician.

In the same NYT article it is stated, “What is troubling about the campaign is that it’s gone beyond hope and change to redemption,” said Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton…”

Without Jesus, what this whole Obama exercise shows us is that people without hope want hope. That people without a savior need a savior. That people who live in darkness will swap their loyalties to any ‘dazzling’ entity that comes along.

The Newsweek editor’s sycophantic adulation of Obama and likening him in 2008 to God and in 2012 to the Second Coming is ironic in the extreme. It shows just how illogical and how deep into the craven psyche they will go in clinging to their false hope. Why? The same political figure that four years ago Newsweek endowed with all trust that he would get the nation out of the economic mess only deepened it, to the point where Newsweek itself has folded as a print publication by the opening of his second term. Yet as Newsweek fades away, they still give him godlike qualities as a Second Coming. With their dying breath they continue to reach out to their false god.

This is all a pale imitation of what will happen when the antichrist comes on the scene. By then, the church will have been raptured. Though the rapture will cause many to come to faith the number of unsaved, sinning, lawless, and ungodly will be running rampant, crawling over the world like cockroaches in the dark. They will love him.

Obama only promised hope and change, and did not deliver. They still love him now, even while the nation is practically living in a refrigerator box by the side of the road. The antichrist will have actual solutions and actually implement them. They will love him more.

They will love him because he will wear out the saints and make war against them. (Daniel 7:21), something the unsaved would really love to do now but the Restrainer is still on the earth. He will speak flatteries (Daniel 11:32) and great things (Revelation 13:5-6).

We have gone beyond mere ‘charisma’, the kind of human attribute given to likable politicians such as JFK and Reagan. No one ever called them gods or savior or national husband. With Obama’s ‘charisma’ we entered the territory of nearly visible demonic, spiritual warfare. It is a supernatural charisma that sparks worship. The antichrist’s appearance will cause exponentially more adoring fans, deeper worship, and more firm adherence to all-things-antichrist. What we see today is nothing compared to what’s coming, as creepy as this Obama-worship is today.

“Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false” (2 Thessalonians 2:11). Many translations say ” believe THE lie” and interpreters take that to mean they will believe the lie that antichrist is Messiah. It is hard to know for sure, but given the prophetic promise that the world will follow after the beast, (Revelation 13:3), it seems a reasonable interpretation.

When you shake your head at the foolishness of people who worship a man like Obama, think of how it will be when the Restrainer Holy Spirit is gone and they worship an evil man as THE Messiah, not just a god. Given the following that Obama has received and sustained despite the Spirit being on earth, as well as Jesus Christ’s Bride, it’s easy to see how the coming delusion will be deep and horrific.

The glory of the Lord is that now, we know Him now and we have nothing to fear. The Tribulation saints will know the Lord and will not be seduced by the antichrist, either. The New Living Translation says,

“He will flatter and win over those who have violated the covenant. But the people who know their God will be strong and will resist him.” (Daniel 11:32)

I pray you know Him. Jesus is the only Person worth knowing first and foremost. He will help you resist sin, and will take the scales off your eyes to see who the true Savior is!

end of days, last days, prophecy

The world’s richest, science’s dumbest, weather’s worst

Posted on January 21, 2013 by elizabethprata

Here is some general news which I feel is of prophetic import. This prophetic import is my opinion, of course 🙂

World’s 100 richest earned enough in 2012 to end global poverty 4 times over
“The world’s 100 richest people earned a stunning total of $240 billion in 2012 – enough money to end extreme poverty worldwide four times over, Oxfam has revealed, adding that the global economic crisis is further enriching the super-rich. “The richest 1 percent has increased its income by 60 percent in the last 20 years with the financial crisis accelerating rather than slowing the process,” while the income of the top 0.01 percent has seen even greater growth, a new Oxfam report said. For example, the luxury goods market has seen double-digit growth every year since the crisis hit, the report stated.”

This is interesting to me because the Tribulation, though the financial and economic systems will have been crashed and remade into a one world system, will contain the largest gap between rich and poor the world has ever seen. Though millions will be dying of famine and starvation for want of a loaf of bread, the trade in the world’s richest luxuries will have been going strong throughout. See the verse indicating the poor in Revelation 6:5-6 and the rich in Revelation 18:9-20.

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Brazil rape statistics skyrocket
Reported rapes in Brazil rose by 157 percent between 2009 and 2012; 5,300 rapes in first six months alone
“Reported rapes in Brazil rose by 157 percent between 2009 and 2012, with Rio de Janeiro state recording 16 sexual assaults a day last year, according to official data released Sunday. In just the first six months of 2012, more than 5,300 people — 90 percent of them women — were raped in Brazil, which is home to about 194 million people.”

This is interesting to me because of the verse in Matthew 24:12 –“And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.”

The word “lawlessness” here in the Greek means sin which is breaking God’s law, not secular lawbreakers. But the result of sin often leads to secular lawbreaking, in the form of crimes such as rape. 2 Timothy 3:1-5 tells that the last days will be perilous in the extreme.

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40% of flights to Paris’s main airports cancelled due to heavy snow
“London’s Heathrow Airport canceled a fifth of flights on Sunday and airlines scrapped 40 percent of flights to Paris’s main airports as snow blanketed parts of Europe, with more forecast.”

Avalanche in Scottish Highlands kills 4, injures 1
Four people were killed Saturday when a group of climbers was swept away by a powerful avalanche in the Scottish Highlands, local authorities said on Sunday. A young woman remains in a critical condition with serious head injuries. Large parts of Britain have been affected by heavy snow and strong winds in recent days. Accidents on the scale of Saturday’s incident are extremely rare in the United Kingdom

Nearly 40,000 without power in southeast Michigan, crews contend with frigid temperatures
“It’s a one-two punch for tens of thousands of people without power in southeastern Michigan. Wind gusts up to 60 m.p.h. roared through the area early this morning, knocking out power to more than 100,000 homes and businesses. Now, both powerless customers and utility crews trying to restore electricity have to contend with frigid temperatures moving into the area for the next several days.”

I read a report from Scotland in 1990 that said avalanche fatalities were increasing and at that time two killed per year was the norm. Avalanche dangers have only increased from the 1990s as heavy snows increasingly fall on the Highlands as a regular course.

As for the “one-two” weather punch in Michigan, it seems that our weather has been “one-two-three-four-five…punch” of late. We are receiving storm after storm, interruption after interruption. This is expected, as Jesus said that there would be meteorological disturbances the closer to the Tribulation we get. (Luke 21:10-11). Jesus also said that during the Tribulation there will be even worse climatological events, such as drought for three years, no wind blows anywhere, sulfur from the sky, scorching heat that burns men, and more. The birth pangs we’re experiencing now seem to indicate the disruptions are increasing in frequency and painfulness in advance of the total waywardnness of the weather during the Tribulation.

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Wanted: ‘Adventurous woman’ to give birth to Neanderthal man – Harvard professor seeks mother for cloned cave baby
Yet this incredible scenario is the plan of one of the world’s leading geneticists, who is seeking a volunteer to help bring man’s long-extinct close relative back to life. Professor George Church of Harvard Medical School believes he can reconstruct Neanderthal DNA and resurrect the species which became extinct 33,000 years ago. His scheme is reminiscent of Jurassic Park but, while in the film dinosaurs were created in a laboratory, Professor Church’s ambitious plan requires a human volunteer. He said his analysis of Neanderthal genetic code using samples from bones is complete enough to reconstruct their DNA. He said: ‘Now I need an adventurous female human.

Since the Fall, it has been satan’s desire to reduce man from human made in God’s image, to monkey, or even a lower order biological lump, like an amoeba. It has been his desire to mingle the unholy and ungodly with the Godly and the holy so as to pollute anything God has done. The miracle of human birth via God’s knitting of him in the womb, to brutal and unthinking neanderthal ape-man, is right up his alley.

Our fight is for the integrity of Genesis 1 and the creation in seven literal 24 hour days. Satan’s war wages deep. Look how satan got to Billy Graham:

“How you believe doesn’t affect the doctrine. Either at a certain moment in evolution God breathed into one particular ape-man who was Adam, or God could have taken a handful of dust and blowed and created a man just like that” (Billy Graham, ‘United Church Observer’ ‘Sunday Magazine’ June 1966).

God blew life into an ape-man? Satanic in the extreme. Billy Graham has always been a liberal compromiser and friend to the world.

As Ken Ham said today in his essay “The Legacy of Brainwashing”,

“Despite their claims to the contrary, atheists use evolution as their religion to replace God. Evolution is a foundation for their set of beliefs about life and how it arose, just as creation, as described in Genesis, is our set of beliefs about how life arose. Atheists blindly hold to evolution because of their rejection of Christ.”

Asking a woman to be a biological host for an alleged ape-man goes one step further toward Jesus’ prophecy that immediately prior to His coming the days would be like the Days of Noah (Matthew 24:37), when as this passage titles it, there was “Increasing Corruption on Earth”

“When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. 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 6:1-5)

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“Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God” (2 Peter 3:12).

Pray for His soon return, and hasten it. Do not let anyone belittle eschatology. Don’t let anyone intimidate you away from knowing the important commands of living in expectation and anticipation of His coming, even looking for it, praying in alignment with it, and speaking boldly of it.

“Let’s look at verse 12 and just see the component parts of this tremendous truth. Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, it’s as if Peter is saying you certainly shouldn’t be afraid of it, you certainly shouldn’t be worried about it, you ought to be like those of whom Paul speaks and with whom he identifies himself in 2 Timothy 4:8, when he talks about those who love Christ’s appearing. You ought to be like John who said, “Even so, come Lord Jesus.” Like Paul who said, “It’s nice to be here, far better to depart and be there.” You ought to have a longing in your heart for the coming of the day of God.” (source)

Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Apostle Paul, joy

Can we really do all things through Him who strengthens us?

Posted on January 21, 2013 by elizabethprata

What Christian isn’t familiar with one of the New Testament’s most famous comfort verses?

“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)

It is good to be reminded that it’s His strength and not our strength which propels us along in sanctification. It is good to be reminded that He is our all, and that all is possible.

However too many people misunderstand and misuse the verse. It does not mean I can attain whatever desire I have through Jesus. And it doesn’t mean Jesus plops all things or all strength down into us fully formed and ripe for use.

Let’s back up a little and take a look at what came before that verse. There is more to it than what many Christians of today take the verse to mean.

Paul said several times that he learned contentment. Learned it. He had to work at contentment, and learn the skill of practicing contentment over his long road of personal tribulation.

The two verses which precede the all things of verse 13 are:

“Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.” [emphasis mine].

What Paul was learning is the power of Christ as the daily means of sanctification as he strove to holiness, and ultimately, contentment in all circumstances.

Paul had to consciously strive toward contentment through constant practice of cultivating it through reliance on God’s provision and promise. And he is not talking of self-sufficiency here, but of a diminishment of worldly desires as he strove to do all things God would have Him do in the name of Jesus.

Paul had many trials and difficulties. Paul isn’t saying that Jesus plopped down a supernatural contentment to his heart as he took a deep breath and relied on Him to do all things through Him. Not at all. As a matter of fact, Paul admits to dissatisfaction covetousness brings, in Romans 7:8. Through all his varied circumstances, Paul is saying, he had the opportunity to practice being content in the circumstances he found himself in, because those circumstances are divorced from earthly measures of contentment and joy. He had to learn it. This indicates an active participation on the part of the Christian.

Whenever Paul was low or high, had plenty or hunger, abundance or need, didn’t matter, because Christ was strengthening him in love, growth, joy and the other treasures we hold dear. If we divorce our joy or contentment from worldly things, what remains is Christ! Through Christ, all things are possible! Paul learned that. It took him a while and he had to work at it. But what glory for the Savior when we learn it.

So be careful what you are really saying when you say “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Are you working at learning how to do all things, apart from our flesh and distinct from the baggage of worldly wants? No matter your circumstances?

Phil Johnson preached on it recently, and this little note is a summary of what I took away from his sermon. I found his sermon exposition to be tremendously enlightening and inspiring. For a full explanation of what that verse means, I encourage you to take a listen and /or look at the transcript.

How to Find Contentment in a World of Discontent

Pastor Johnson ends his sermon this way:

“By the way, verse 13 contrasts wonderfully with Jesus’ statement in John 15:5: “Apart from me you can do nothing.” But “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” If the boundaries for “all things” that you seek to accomplish are set by the express commands of God and the righteous example of Christ, then there truly is no limit to what you can do through His power. That is the secret to true contentment. It’s not really a complex mystery. But the reason it is so difficult to learn is that it entails the mortification of our worldly lusts, our carnal ambitions, our selfish pride, and our ungodly attitudes.

“Hard? Yes, it’s a lifelong pursuit. But it is by no means impossible. “[We] can do all things through him who strengthens [us].”‘

auroras, God

Auroras, Dinoflagellates, and God

Posted on January 20, 2013 by elizabethprata

From Spaceweather.com this morning:

CME IMPACT + MICROBIAL LIGHTS: A coronal mass ejection hit Earth’s magnetic field on Jan. 19th at approximately 17:15 UT. The weak impact did not trigger a full-fledged geomagnetic storm, but it did illuminate the Arctic Circle with auroras. Frank Olsen photographed the display from a beach in Sortland, Norway; scroll past his picture to learn about the glittering lights in the sand:

“The lights in the sand are bioluminescent dinoflagellates, a type of naturally glowing microbe. “To my surprise, I found these guys floating around on the beach tonight,” says Olsen. “They looked great together with the auroras in the sky.”

“There is an interesting link between the auroras and the dinoflagellates. Both use oxygen to create their glow. In the case of the marine organism, a chemical pigment (luciferin) reacts with oxygen to create light. Meanwhile up in the sky, charged particles from the solar wind rain down on the atmosphere, colliding with oxygen molecules to create the telltale green hue of auroras.”

Don’t you just love how it looks like the dinoflagellates are a reflection of the stars and auroras? The symmetry and beauty of the earth and heavens is always astonishing! God fills the heaven and the earth! (Jeremiah 23:24)

“For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.” (Psalms 103:11)

repent, sin, snare, trap

Sin is a snare

Posted on January 20, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

“Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.” (Ecclesiastes 9:12)

The bible speaks of snares a lot. Sins, people, doctrines all can trap a person and there they stay in the snare of sin, and then they die. I heard a sermon recently and the pastor was speaking of unaddressed sin in a person’s life. Whether you’re a believer or a non-believer, we all sin and we all need to repent. Of the believer, if you have sinned but not repented, the pastor preaching the sermon said that on the day you die or the day you are called home to the Lord in the rapture, you will be flash-frozen in your sin. THAT will be the status upon which you stand before Him at the Bema seat, giving an account of yourself. There will be no more chances. When Jesus calls an end to your days or an end to the Church Age, there you go with all your unrepented sins with you.

Now, that should give you pause to let your sins go unaddressed, lol!

There are frequent mentions in the bible about snares. Sins are snares that trap us. (1 Timothy 3:7). Enemies are snares that trap us. (Judges 2:3). False doctrines are snares that trap us. (Proverbs 13:14). False gods are sins that trap us. (Exodus 23:33; Deuteronomy 7:16). Idols are a snare. (Psalm 106:36).

Since many of us are no longer living in an agricultural environment, trapping food for our sustenance or even hunting it for pleasure, let’s talk about what a snare is, how it works, and what happens when you’re caught in it.

We all know a snare is a trap. It traps birds and smaller mammals. But let’s go deeper into understanding the metaphor of sin being a snare.

Snares are anchored cable or wire nooses set to catch wild animals such as squirrels and rabbits. A snare is essentially a loop that is set up to tighten around an animal as it passes through. Snares are one of the simplest traps and are very effective. They are cheap to produce and easy to set in large numbers. A snare traps an animal around the neck or the body; a snare consists of a noose made usually by wire or a strong string. The snare can be laid down on the ground and camouflaged, or upright like the Wiki Books illustration at left.

Did you catch that? Snares are simple, easy to make, lots of them can be made at once, and they are effective. That is how sin works. Sometimes we think of the devil as an unholy being with super-complicated methods. And he does indeed, and we are not unaware of his schemes (2 Corinthians 2:11), but really, why waste energy on complicated stuff when a simple sin-snare is so easy to set up?

A person will become captured in a snare and right away things get a lot worse. The animal fights for its life and even more damage can be done to him as he struggles. David was “only” an adulterer, until he was about to get caught, Then he became a murderer too. One sin piles on top of another. Lance Armstrong was “only” a doper, until he was about to be exposed. Then he became a liar, a brutal revenger, an intimidator and an enemy to his friends. His sin-snare tightened its noose-like grip the more he struggled against exposing the first sin the more sins got piled on top.

Do you see the snare at right? It is almost invisible, and an inattentive rabbit wanting just to take a mouthful of the juicy and tempting moss will get caught! It’s like when we say, “one visit won’t harm me…one drink will be OK…if I take just $5 from the till no one will notice…”

Rolling snare, Alderleaf Wilderness College

There was a chapter in the book Watership Down by Richard Adams called “The Shining Wire”. It was a fiction book about rabbits looking for a new place to set up a warren, due to imminent development of their pasture. A brave band of rabbits set out to find a place and they came to a warren where all the rabbits were fat and sleek and had plenty to eat. However as they stayed a while, visiting, they noticed that the rabbits exhibited strange behavior. They focused on making art and poetry instead of hunting and procreating, never mourned the sudden disappearance of friends, and refused to listen to stories about Rabbit God.

It turned out that the rabbits had capitulated, allowing themselves to feed on the food that the farmer put out, knowing full well that he also set out snares and took some from their number frequently.

The knowledge of their deadly compromise enslaved them, and after a while, made them crazy. They were fed, but at a terrible price. No rabbit in that warren could ever speak of the shining wire.

The rabbits became dependent on the overlord that will eventually kill them, but they still preferred to live and die by the snares than to be free. Although they had the illusion of freedom, they all knew deep down that the snares are ever- present, and they doom themselves the moment they make the decision to live off of food the farmer gives them. (source)

It is like that for the unsaved. They all know that they are feeding on food (sin) that is handed to them by someone who wants their death, but they focus on other things, refuse to speak of what their sin is doing to them bodily and spiritually, and hope that that day is not their day to become trapped and die. And they are all a little crazy. As Dan Phillips wrote at Pyromaniacs, “Sin makes you irrational, insane, crazy, nuts (cf. Genesis 3—Revelation 22; especially, for instance, Genesis 3:8; Numbers 13-14; Matthew 12:24; Ephesians 4:17-19).”

The Lord Jesus Christ freed us from our original sin, and continues to free us from the snare of our daily sin. When we repent, He opens the snare and we hop free! Soooo, repent! And don’t delay. You don’t want to carry them to heaven and lay them down at the throne and explain them all to Jesus, do you?

Blessed be the Lord,

who has not given us

as prey to their teeth!

We have escaped like a bird

from the snare of the fowlers;

the snare is broken,

and we have escaped!

Our help is in the name of the Lord,

who made heaven and earth. (Psalm 124:6-8)

theology

Absent from the body…

Posted on January 20, 2013 by elizabethprata

Published on Jan 17, 2013 by “I’ll Be Honest”, part of Grace Community Church of San Antonio, TX, Pastor Tim Conway.

At last year’s Fellowship conference Pastor Tim exhorted the brethren that some of us may not be there next year. During the very next year Bob Jennings at 63, and Ayla Petteruti at 23, went to be at home with the Lord.

Now is the time of your salvation!

bible, scripture, truth

Scripture cannot be broken

Posted on January 19, 2013 by elizabethprata

I’m watching a sermon from John MacArthur from this week’s Master’s College conference. It is titled “The Word of God: The Divine Revelation to Man – Truth & Life Conference ’13”

In it, MacArthur spends some time describing Isaiah 53, an amazing chapter. Isaiah 53 describes the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

He said, “This chapter is full of truth that dominates the New Testament: salvation, forgiveness, reconciliation, eternal life; all provided by vicarious, substitutionary sacrificial death of a divinely chosen acceptable lamb who bears all the sins of His people by taking on himself willingly the full weight of divine punishment. It sounds like Romans in the NT. It looks like it is completely out of place.”

Now, get this. He said,

“Isaiah is 66 books. It is divided the same way the bible: 39 chapters and 27 chapters. The first 39 are about judgment. The next 27 are about salvation.”

“Of the last 27 about salvation, the first 9 have to do with the salvation of the nation Israel. The last 9 have to do with the salvation of the earth. The middle 9 have to do with the salvation of the soul.”

“If you go to the middle of the middle 9, you get to chapter 53, and if you go to the middle of 52:12-53 you come down to verses 4,5. and 6, “He was wounded for our transgressions.”

The bible is a wondrous book. John 10:35 says, “if he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—“

Scripture cannot be broken. It is uttered from the mouth of God through His Holy Spirit and His Son. It is easier for the world to pass away than for one jot or tittle of scripture to pass away (Matthew 5:18).

It is tightly woven tapestry that is perfect. The Law is perfect (James 1:25; Psalm 19:7). His works are perfect (Deuteronomy 32:4). Psalm 18:30 says His way is blameless. His way is perfect and His word is perfect! (2 Samuel 22:31).

Once someone said to me, “I just take a lot of the Old Testament with a grain of salt.” This bothered me then and it bothers me now. You cannot take one jot or tittle away from His word and expect that the tapestry will remain woven.

Revelation 22:18-19 says “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.”

Woe to those who say “I have a word from the Lord and I am here to teach it to you.” No one can add to His word. Woe to those who take away from His word by claiming some part is untrue and it doesn’t mean what it says it means.

It is all perfect and true. If you start picking threads out that are true and not true, or to believe or not believe, and it becomes YOU who are broken, for the scripture cannot be broken. It is perfect!

What is the point here? Read your bible. It is really good!

discernment, don green, false teachers, touch not the Lord's anointed

Oh no, I touched the Lord’s anointed!: Developing Biblical Discernment

Posted on January 19, 2013 by elizabethprata

I enjoy listening or watching an array of mature preachers. John MacArthur, Steve Lawson, Phil Johnson, Jim McClarty, Steve Hadley, Paul Washer (and here) and Don Green are my most frequently visited go-to men. In his latest sermon, Pastor Don Green of Truth Community Fellowship is preaching through 1st John. In this sermon titled Developing Biblical Discernment, he used the following verses:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 John 4:1-6)

In this day and age, (as it has always been) there are competing claims to spiritual authority. There are new philosophies of ministries that come and go with each passing year. There are ongoing claims of charismatic phenomena as the proof of anointing, Pastor Green explained.

It would be a travesty if our God of truth would have in His creation people who lyingly speak in His name when they are actually giving voice to demons- and give us no way to discern them. But, get this- just because there is confusion and deception, does not mean we cannot find truth. We can. We are each commanded to test spirits and discern the truth, and in the verses Pastor Green preaches on, it becomes evident that the Lord provides a way to do so.

Of interest to me, because it happened to me, lol, is the part where Pastor Green states directly, that when you hear someone tell you, “Touch not the Lord’s anointed,” run. He said,

One of the first things that mark a false teacher: they claim to be the Lord’s anointed. Then they are going to tell you, “Don’t touch the Lord’s anointed.” As soon as someone says that to you, get away from them. Because they are trying to exempt themselves from the tests of discernment. No one has a right to tell you ‘don’t examine my teaching’, ‘don’t examine my life’, because Christ himself tells us to do exactly that. As soon as you hear that, warning bells should start in your mind. Something is not right here … When a man says “don’t touch the Lord’s anointed”, figuratively speaking, that is exactly when you should most smack him with the test of biblical discernment.

False teachers are not simply people who are making a mistake. False teachers give voice to demonic teachings. They are a mouthpiece for satan. The verse says “this is the spirit is antichrist.” Green said, “This is the same spirit that will rise up at the end of the end of days in the Tribulation and oppose Christ.”

I say to us all, we become so inured to some of the passages in the bible, familiarity breeding over-familiarity, that we lose the import of the warning. This is the spirit of antichrist. Therefore think of this: every time you encounter a false teacher you are entering a mini-tribulation.

Green said, truth is absolute. There is no such thing as relative truth. It’s an utter fallacy to believe we can have “your truth” and “my truth” all the while each are saying completely contradictory things. Truth belongs to God- he has revealed it in scripture. He has called His people to discern truth from error. He has called us to test the spirits, test the prophets, and not try to accommodate those who lie and reject that which is false. So, how do we do this, the biblical way?

Don Green explains it in his sermon “Developing Biblical Discernment” (1 John 4:1-6), giving three tests for discernment in his hour-long sermon. The three tests for us to perform of all those who claim to speak for God are–

–examine their manner of life,
–examine their confession of Jesus through their teaching,
–examine their view of scripture.

We arrive at the end of the sermon with confidence, not worried about false teachers, because as the verse says, “we have overcome them.” We still have to practice discernment, but we do so from a position of strength, not weakness. The Lord Jesus gives us so many magnificent gifts! Discernment is one. Please give a listen.

wwjd 2

Christian movie review: "WWJD II: The Woodcarver"

Posted on January 19, 2013 by elizabethprata

I watched WWJD 2: The Woodcarver last weekend. It is not a sequel to a previous movie with John Schneider called WWJD.

It stars John Ratzenberger of Cheers, Toy Story, who is a grieving widower. Meanwhile a family has disintegrated, the parents fight all the time, they are separated and thinking of divorce. Their 15 year old son has lashed out by quitting school and vandalizing the local Baptist church.

The story is about the intersection of these two sets of characters.

The themes are:

–power of prayer
–putting Jesus first
–the man resuming headship of his family under the guidance of Jesus via worship at church, prayer, and bible precepts
–living a sacrificial life of love for your neighbor, and your family

While I’m not a huge fan of the whole WWJD thing, being more of a “What did Jesus SAY” kind of gal, I thought the movie was fairly well done. I didn’t hear any gross doctrinal errors.

–Although the cross was posted in homes that were shown, once it was a crucifix, but it was not prominently displayed.
–The pastor was shown as caring, and in the counseling session he urged the family to rethink divorce and maintained that through Jesus any family can be reconciled.
–The widower was visiting the cemetery with the teenager and said that he talks to his wife there, and when the boy asked if she talks back, he said no, ‘she is in a better place now’ and ‘I only hear her in my memories’. So that was good.
–I liked how the widower’s grief and gradual retreat from the world was not soft-soaped. It was shown that continuation in sacrificial service to the Lord despite personal grief or other circumstances was what the Lord told us to do.

Overall I thought it was a corny, fairly well done Christian movie. Of course, the movie could have done so much more. But overall, what was in the movie seemed fairly good, even if it lacked some stuff that was out of it.

I am always taken by the power of watching a multiplying faith founded on shared love and personal sacrifice. These kind of movies are far better because they demonstrate what Jesus would have us do in making disciples and working out our faith in fear and trembling. Movies that show a faith like this don’t rely on flashy miracles like in “Faith Like Potatoes” but instead show the strong, undying, persevering commitment to living a Christ-like life in mundane circumstances in your home, your work, your school – which is the real miracle. “The Secrets of Johnathan Sperry” also did this well.

Here is the movie trailer. Hope you enjoy.