By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
In Jeremiah 34, King Zedekiah and the Israelites promise to free their servants, hoping to gain God’s favor during Babylon’s siege. Once danger lifts, they break their vow, re-enslaving them. This hypocrisy exposes false repentance. God condemns such deceit, reminding believers that vows to Him must be sincere and kept.
Continue reading “The Hypocrisy of Hollow Obedience”By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
I encourage believers amid the world’s growing sinfulness by recalling Charles Spurgeon’s sermon, “God’s Non-Remembrance of Sin.” As believers grapple with their own imperfections, Spurgeon offers hope that God not only forgives but forgets sins. This message remains relevant, urging believers to embrace and share God’s mercy and grace.
Continue reading “Finding Hope in God’s Forgiveness and Forgetfulness”By Elizabeth Prata
In 2013, Aerobatic Wing Walker Jane Wicker and her pilot Charlie Schwenker were killed when the plane crashed at a Dayton, OH airshow.
The second before the plane crashed, the Dayton Ohio air show announcer said as wing walker Jane Wicker positioned herself on the upside down wing: “Jane Wicker, on top of the world!” One second later, she was dead.
I often speak of the soon return of Jesus. Today is one day closer to His return than yesterday was. Paul used to speak of Jesus’ soon return often. As a matter of fact, every New Testament book except Philemon speaks of Christ’s coming. You need to be ready.
However, we are not guaranteed a tomorrow. Yes, Jesus could come, but death could come also.
James 4:14 says “yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”
I often wondered what Ms Wicker was thinking as she sat on the upside down wing. Nothing indicated that one second later she would be dead. Did she think she had loads of time left to ponder the deep mysteries of faith and salvation? Had she put it off until tomorrow, but tomorrow never came?
I hope she was saved by grace of Jesus.
So many people are abruptly taken out of this world to meet their eternity. Yet so many people put off for tomorrow what they should be reconciling today. I remember during a sermon one of my elders had said that as a teen they were evangelizing in a grocery store. One of the team gave the gospel to a man who was exiting. He said he did not need Jesus. He walked out of the sliding door to the sidewalk and fell down dead right then.
If you are not saved, then do not put off to tomorrow what should be done today. God has appointed you to a limited number of days in this lifetime. You do not know what that number is.
“Show me, LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure.” (Psalm 39:4-5).
Taking care of business means coming to grips with a few things. First, this life is not all there is. We are given a limited number of days to dwell upon the earth, but this body and this life is only phase 1. After death, there is a phase 2. If you have repented of your sins and believed on the resurrected Jesus as Lord and Savior, you will go to heaven and be with Him. You will be given a glorified body that is impervious to death or sickness, has no sin nature, and can withstand the full blast of His glory and Holiness. (1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 50; Philippians 3:21).
If you rejected Jesus in this life- and you don’t have to actively reject Him but passively fail to accept him (doing nothing is the same as rejecting) then you will go to hell after you die. This is a place of eternal separation from God and you will be given a body that can withstand the full blasts of the punishment that will be inflicted on you as eternal payment for your sins and crimes against Him. (Revelation 14:11, 2 Thessalonians 1:5-9)
It is a lie that you will be annihilated, that there is nothing else after death. It is a lie that hell is only temporary. It is surely eternal, as your sins are eternal and as Jesus is eternal. (Matthew 25:46). That is why Christians can dwell with Him forever, (Matthew 28:20; John 14:3) because He is eternal and He paid the price for our sins eternally when He took God’s punishment on the cross. (Romans 3:23-24).
You say, “God is loving, He would never send people to hell for punishment.” Really? It pleased Him to crush His Son! (Isaiah 53:10). Jesus absorbed all of God’s punishment while He was on the cross. Is God loving who would do that? Yes, He was making a way for YOU, whom He also loves. Jesus did that voluntarily, because He loves His people. If you reject Jesus though, you reject the way to heaven. (John 14:6).
Eternity is real and it is permanent. You do not know what today will bring. Ms Wicker didn’t. I hope these few words from my heart makes you think of the afterlife. For the Christian, it is a joy to ponder the time we will be with Jesus. For the unsaved, there is dread and fear of the unknown. But you can know, your eternity could be secure- if you repent. (Mark 1:15).
———————-
Further reading:
What is repentance?
By Elizabeth Prata
From whence does your hope spring?
From this thing or that thing?
They will pass away.
On what does your foot stand?
On filthy mud? Unstable sand?
You will fall.
On what does your eternity rest?
Your works? Your deed or words you thought best?
They will be rejected.
Jesus is the hope, the rock, eternal life.
The narrow path, the bread of life, the door, the gate-
In Him we reach eternal state.
In Him and only Him is the way.
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
poetry by EPrata
By Elizabeth Prata
We’re sinners, you know.
The Bible explains in constant and plain terms what is in our heart. You know the heart is not to be trusted. Yet, so often we hear idioms about the heart, and believe them as if they were true.
Heart-to-heart means a serious conversation between two people in which they talk honestly about their feelings
Best interests at heart means to make decisions based on someone’s best interests
Heart of gold means a person is truly nice, deep down
One can set one’s heart upon something, meaning, one desires and expects something
Out of the goodness of one’s heart means doing something simply because one is kind
All lies. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5)
“And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.” (Genesis 8:21)
“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10)
The Lord our God is merciful. He knows what is in our heart, and He made a way. In the Old Testament, circumcision was a picture of how the heart is covered but the Lord cuts away its foreskin.
“Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.” (Deuteronomy 10:16)
“And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:6)
Pulpit Commentary explains, “As circumcision was the symbol of purification and sign of consecration to God, so the Israelites are enjoined to realize in fact what that rite symbolized, viz. purity of heart and receptivity for the things of God.”
In the New Testament, Paul spoke about the circumcision of the heart,
“But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.” (Romans 2:29)
Our hearts are desperately wicked from birth and the inclinations of our heart are only evil continually. Only the Holy Spirit can purify the heart. Only Him. Paul is arguing that true circumcision is a matter of the heart, an operation only the Spirit can perform.
Left, Salvador Dali, The Veiled Heart
The beauty and grace of our merciful God is that He does clean us. If we repent, He will purify us and establish us as His adopted heirs, His very children. What Good News!!
Don’t believe your heart, but believe Jesus. The Book of Revelation calls for repentance 10 times. The entire New Testament in the ESV calls for repentance 53 times. The entire Bible calls for repentance 75 times. The first word John the Baptist uttered in his public ministry was repent. (Matthew 3:2). The first word Jesus uttered in His public ministry was repent. (Matthew 4:17).
We are NOT “basically good.” Our heart is not something to depend on but contains the things that are evil, things He hates. Sin. Only Jesus can clean our heart, cleaning us from the inside out. He is the Resurrected Savior who shed His blood, died, and rose from the dead to perform this very act: forgiveness.
By Elizabeth Prata
Though you pound the fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, His foolishness still will not leave him. (Proverbs 27:22)
Proverbs is interesting. I don’t usually know what they mean, though. They take time to unearth the nuggets of wisdom embedded in each and every one.
I read the verse above and it stopped me. The visual was too vivid to just pass it by.
I remember being unsaved. I was 42 or so when I was regenerated so that means I had plenty of time to sin. I was a bad sinner, sinning and sinning more. I ran from God at every opportunity. I was brought kicking and screaming to the altar of repentance when He gave me the spirit of Repentance. Finally I caved when in His kindness He showed me how evil my sin was.
I remember telling a Southern Baptist lady (who believed in altar calls and our own free will to repent) that I was brought to the altar by the scruff of the neck resisting every second. She rejected that notion outright, saying, “No you did not.”
Oh but I was. Too many people think that we float elated down an aisle, content in our ‘decision’ to repent and enter the gates of the kingdom. The fact is, we are dead in sins and it takes the strong arm of God to graciously deliver a spirit of repentance to us before we even make a move toward God. Meanwhile, just prior to the repentance, He mashes our face in our sin like a wayward puppy in our mess.
Before His deliverance to me of that spirit, the Lord saw my vicious habits and worked to ground my foolishness from me with rods and chastening. Still I persisted in my foolishness. Until the day when the Spirit came and I saw the light and entered his love instead of His wrath abiding on me.
Oh yes, He pounded this fool!
But what does the Proverb mean? Mathew Henry explains-
Solomon had said (ch. 22:15), The foolishness which is bound in the heart of a child may be driven out by the rod of correction, for then the mind is to be moulded, the vicious habits not having taken root; but here he shows that, if it be not done then, it will be next to impossible to do it afterwards; if the disease be inveterate, there is a danger of its being incurable. Can the Ethiopian change his skin?
Observe, 1. Some are so bad that rough and severe methods must be used with them, after gentle means have been tried in vain; they must be brayed in a mortar. God will take this way with them by his judgments; the magistrates must take this way with them by the rigour of the law. Force must be used with those that will not be ruled by reason, and love, and their own interest.
2. Some are so incorrigibly bad that even those rough and severe methods do not answer the end, their foolishness will not depart from them, so fully are their hearts set in them to do evil; they are often under the rod and yet not humbled, in the furnace and yet not refined, but, like Ahaz, trespass yet more (2 Chr. 28:22); and what remains then but that they should be rejected as reprobate silver?
Source: Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p. 1017). Hendrickson.
I am GRATEFUL that His grace in HIS will decided to stop short of rejecting me as reprobate silver. I am grateful that He used force buttressed with grace to shake me from my stupor. Sisters, never forget your salvation, and do not neglect it.
For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. 2For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every violation and act of disobedience received a just punishment, 3how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? (Hebrews 2:1-3a)
The End Time Blog Podcast Season 2, Episode 277
By Elizabeth Prata
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. (Romans 1:18-19).
What did they suppress, exactly? And where? Or how?
They, meaning unbelievers, deny in their minds that there is a God. They suppress that He made everything in creation. They hate thinking of the fact that He made them, which would mean they are accountable to Him at judgment for their words, their deeds, their lives. They squash their conscience when they do evil.
Continue reading “Suppressing the truth and searing the conscience”Zechariah 14:9 says:
“And the LORD will be king over all the earth. On that day the LORD will be one and his name one.”
The saints know Jesus is coming soon. We are excited to see what He is doing in the world. Not that people are in pain or distress, obviously, but rather that His name is on the lips of many. His glory and power are noticed, and His word is repeated between and among believers and non-believers alike. This ‘crazy time’ isn’t crazy. It is a controlled series of events from the Creator of people, the Creator of the earth and all that is in it. He is telling us something. How many warnings will there be? Not many more, I fear. He has been patient with us, kind and generous. That period of warning will end and after the rapture, the judgments will begin.
Continue reading “Peace, or trouble? Repentance is the key”By Elizabeth Prata
Sometimes we think that when people die outside of Jesus and they earn their final resting place in the fires of hell, they will be sorry. That at least we might have the comfort of knowing they see Jesus for who He really is, see their sin for what it was, and repent. Everyone should bow to Jesus in true repentance, and so, we might be tempted to come up with a fantasy of everyone being sorry and being contrite and repentant in the end.
Will the abuser be sorrowful for his deeds against his family?
Will the molester be repenting for his evil?
Will the serial adulterer be sad for what he did to his wife?
Will the neglectful parent be contrite for their perfidy?
No. They will not.
They will not repent in hell.
But this gives us two lessons.
1. Never underestimate the power of sin.
2. The hell-dwellers’ unrepentance should make us love Jesus for the savior He is. We need a power outside of us to bring us to repentance.
First, what in the Bible tells me they will not repent? Do I even have grounds for saying so? Hell is a very powerful motivator, isn’t it?
First, the Pharisees knew Jesus was from God. Nicodemus said to Jesus that ‘We know you’re from God…” (John 3:2). They personally saw His miracles. For example, no one had ever, in the history of time, been healed of blindness. (John 10:21). Yet they would not repent despite clear proof and sure knowledge of Hades. They saw Jesus for who He is, and refused to repent.
Lazarus’s Rich Man…he lived an expensive life of wealth and comfort. Lazarus the poor man lay at the rich man’s gate begging, with sores. When Lazarus died he went to Abraham’s bosom and a peaceful rest. The Rich Man went to Hades and torment.
Yet the Rich Man kept ordering Abraham to “send” Lazarus topside to perform tasks for him. Even though the situation was explained to the Rich Man, that he’d had his comforts and now Lazarus was receiving his, the Rich Man displayed not an ounce of compassion or generosity for poor Lazarus. He just kept wanting to disturb Lazarus from his rest to go do more stuff for the Rich Man.
In Revelation 16:9, it says,
They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.
They knew the plagues were supernatural and further, they know it was God’s doing. They did not repent. The Tribulation is hell on earth, wrath poured out. What makes anyone think that if someone is removed to a different location, hell under the earth instead of on the earth, that at last they would be sorry?
No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
Luke 13:3 above indicates the timeline. Repent, OR perish. The time for repentance is topside. (Not that any person can change locations after death, but even repentance will not be possible, nor remorse.) The Rich Man was only sorry that his brothers might have to come to Hades, but he never said he was remorseful for anything he had done.
1. Never underestimate the power of sin in an unregenerated heart.
Eve and Adam sinned. They personally knew God. They lived in a perfect state of being- emotionally and physically. They sinned.
Lucifer was the most beautiful, the most high angel. He dwelled in glory in close proximity to God. He watched the power of God create the universe. Yet, Lucifer sinned.
Sin is the most powerful force in the universe under God. Sin enslaves. What can enslave a person? Something so powerful you cannot extricate yourself. A force beyond your control or ability to cope. That’s powerful.
Sin kills. That’s powerful.
People underestimate sin’s draw. They dabble. They worship their sin. They succumb to temptation. Sin is powerful.
2. Therefore, hell-dwellers’ unrepentance should make us love Jesus all the more for the Savior He is. Without Him, no one would be saved! We need a power outside of us to bring us to repentance. Grace is MORE powerful!! He chose to save us, despite our unrepentance and our hell-bound trajectory. He saved us with grace, grace, grace. What relief! What joy!
No, repent while you can, While the Light is here, before the darkness comes…while it is day, before the night.
Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:6-7).
So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. (John 12:35)
So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. (2 Corinthians 6:2).
Here is a VERY sobering essay from Banner of Truth:
The Lake of Fire: What’s It Like, Who Goes There, and Why?
One of the most hated, if not THE most hated doctrine of Christianity, is the exclusivity of Jesus. This doctrine is the one that states Jesus is the only way to heaven. You cannot get to heaven by your own works, family relations, church attendance, other god, other religion, or any other method except to repent of your sins and believe in the resurrected Jesus by faith alone through grace alone.
I receive some arched eyebrows, heated responses, and hate mail for saying so, some from my own family. “Away with dogma!” my aunt grandly proclaimed, right before she blocked me. Same with other family members. But these responses are no worse than anybody else’s experiences and a great deal less hurtful than what others have endured, I’m sure.
But whether the negative response about the exclusivity of Jesus is from a stranger, friend, or family member, the fact is the same, Jesus is the only way to heaven. He is the only God. He is the only source of life. He is the only truth. It is about Him and no other.
Would God the Father have sent His Son to die on a cross, the most horrific and excruciatingly humiliating method of torture and execution ever devised at that time, if there was any other way?
Did God care for Jesus so little that He sent His Son to live a perfect life, and die as the blood sacrifice required, and endure all the wrath for those sins, just so He could allow us to choose from other methods of gaining entrance to heaven just because we felt like it? Is this Let’s Make A Deal, the old game show with contestants choosing from Door Number one, Door Number Two, or Door Number Three?
Does the Bible lie when it states over and over that there is only one way?
And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12).
I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. (John 10:9).
I know that people aren’t insulted with the idea that Jesus is the only way because they care that there is only one way. There are lots of things that are only one way of achieving things, and people are fine with that. If you want to become a lawyer, you have to pass the bar. If you want to be a doctor you have to get a certificate. If you want to drive certain places, there is only one road to get there. We don’t get choices for a lot of things.
People get upset because of the way that Jesus represents. This apoplectic, spittle flying, white of the eyes rolling fits people have over Jesus is because of what is involved with His way. It is spelled with three letters. S-I-N. People absolutely hate to be called sinners. They pillory those who say that they are not qualified for heaven. They attack the concept that we will be judged. They hate Jesus because they hate His way.
This is because satan has blinded their minds, and they are completely under his influence, and satan hates Jesus. (2 Corinthians 4:4). So those who are satan’s also hate Jesus.
Why do I believe Jesus is the only way?
I believe Jesus is the only way because He said so.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)
So Jesus is either a liar, or He is telling the truth. I assure you, He is not lying.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14-15)
Believe.
the-end-time.org 