wrath

It’s Gospel season

Posted on December 7, 2025 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Christmas is a time of blessing, love, warmth, and peace. Even non-Christians enjoy this season in their way, expressing generosity and care to those around them. We all seek to put hard feelings, pettiness, and trouble behind us.

Christians exult in the celebratory season because the Son of God, very God, Perfect God, poured His infinite self into human flesh to live and die for our sins, and also to impute His righteousness to us. We remember the babe in the manger but also the Man-God on the cross taking all the Father’s wrath for sin.

If a person gets that far in their thinking, it’s usually as far as it goes. We do not like to think of the wrath of God. But we must think of it, because this is the eternal destination for unbelievers.

The next step after the Babe, after the cross, even after the ascension, is to ponder His judgment. He came to save, but He will also punish. He is King, Priest, Prophet, Friend to repentant sinners, and Judge for those who won’t.

Christmas is a good time when unbelievers are thinking of Christ, whether they want to or not. It can be called Gospel season…

Think of those who bask in their sin, refusing God’s Gospel, and die in unrighteousness. They are consigned to hell. Jesus took the wrath for sinners, yes, but we must repent of those sins and fall at the feet of Jesus, else when a person meets Him they will hear those fearsome words, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire.” (Matthew 25:41). The wrath is real.

I have been thinking lot about hell lately. I have unsaved family members. Some of those have heard the gospel from me, some from others. I’ve received negative reactions, dismissals, and rejections. I’ve heard “Away with your dogma!”, “Religion is a crutch for stupid people,” and “I’m fine, I served on the church board and I’ve done good deeds.” Sinners really hate the gospel.

But the reality of hell hangs over them. Some have gone on to their place, including my father. He died at the scene of a car accident he caused. The newspaper took a photo of his tarp-covered body, one elbow sticking out, crumbled car behind him. He was tootling along the highway one second and the next, he was in hell (probably). Of course I can’t know for sure, but after 84 years of rejecting Jesus in his confirmed atheism, one surmises the outcome is not good.

Jonathan Edwards preached about heaven, and in his follow-up sermon, Edwards preached the famous sermon about hell titled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” It is a startling sermon even today. Edwards was no showman and reportedly read his sermons in practically a monotone, but the weight of the words and the reality of hell caused people to fling themselves out of their pews toward the altar crying “What must I do to be saved?!”

I think of a portion of that sermon that hits my soul like a bowling ball on a mosquito,

“It is everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see a long forever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. So that your punishment will indeed be infinite. Oh, who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it, gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it; it is inexpressible and inconceivable: for ‘who knows the power of God’s anger?'” ~Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

In whose hands are you today? Have you looked to Jesus? Charles Spurgeon was suddenly gripped by a faltering shoemaker, a layman who took over the pulpit that snowy morning, who kept saying from Isaiah 45:22 over and over again—”Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else.” Spurgeon looked. He saw, his eyes were opened.

You do not have to be a skilled preacher, an astute theologian, or an experienced evangelist to share the gospel with someone. Spurgeon said the layman who took over the preacher-less pulpit that morning didn’t even pronounce all the words right, “but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in that text.” It’s the TEXT that saves, not your delivery of it. God’s word is powerful with the Holy Spirit behind it, whispering it along, or in some cases like mine, hammering it into my stony heart to shatter all my self-sufficiency.

“Is My word not like fire?” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer which shatters a rock?” (Jeremiah 23:29).

Here is a Founders article on The Horror of Hell. It does not carry the same sweetness as thinking of the Babe in swaddling cloths, but it is the default destination of everyone who, in this Christmas season, looks upon a Nativity set and goes their unrepentant fleshly way.

The Horror of Hell by Tom Ascol.
“So, what should we think of hell? Is the idea of it really responsible for all the cruelty and torture in the world? Is the doctrine of hell incompatible with the way of Jesus Christ? Hardly. In fact, the most prolific teacher of hell in the Bible is Jesus, and He spoke more about it than He did about heaven. In Matthew 25:41–46 He teaches us four truths about hell that should cause us to grieve over the prospect of anyone experiencing its horrors...”

theology

The Fate of Souls: Heaven vs Hell in Scripture

Posted on January 18, 2025January 18, 2025 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

According to several passages in the Bible, it is believed that angels may escort believers to heaven when they die, (Luke 16:22). We read about the poor man Lazarus who was carried to heaven by angels after he died. After all, Hebrews 1:14 says that angels are ministering spirits who serve those who will inherit salvation. It isn’t a stretch to surmise that they might minister to us as our flesh fades away and our spirit ascends to heaven, guided along by gentle zephyrs in the company of angels who tenderly bring us to our eternal place.

It’s a soft, comforting, lovely thought of the care that Jesus has for our souls, even at the end and beyond.

The difference of how the lost’s souls are handled is stark. Far from being guided in love to safely and gently dock in pastures so green in heaven, only the fires await those who are not in Christ. The lost are THROWN away (from the presence of Jesus). They are CAST into hell.

When you blow your nose and wad a tissue do you gently deposit it into the wastebasket? No, likely you toss it. A wadded up piece of paper? Throw it…score! When you deem something trash or waste, you don’t handle it gently. It is of nothing to you. Toss without care.

The word ‘cast’ or ‘thrown’ is used repeatedly in the Bible referring to those whose destination is hell. Every time. Sin and Hades itself are also thrown or cast into the Lake of Fire.

Matthew 5:29, Now if your right eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

Matthew 7:19, Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Matthew 8:12, but the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Matthew 18:9, And if your eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fiery hell.

Luke 13:28, In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out.

John 15:6, If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and dries up; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

Revelation 20:10, and the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Revelation 20:15, And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

The word used here is ballo with an ek in front. Ek means out. The definition is To cast out, to drive out, to send out, to expel. Expel is to remove something by force.

We are so used to the notion put forth by false teachers that Jesus is a boyfriend romantically pursuing us, or that He is a ‘gentleman’ who wouldn’t not force Himself on us. Neither of these characterizations are accurate. He is meek, yes. He is compassionate, yes. He is never soft on sin. He is angry at sin. He has no use for those who did evil in His sight and there is no need to gently lay into the fire those who rejected His gospel. They are tossed.

Yes, He has compassion on those who are without a shepherd, but when it comes time for the judgment, it will be rough, hard, and a display of the ultimate rejection, them against Jesus and Jesus against them.

Why write this? To awaken a renewed sense of wonder at Jesus’ gospel. To spark a deeper gratitude that He saved us from this. We who are in Him will be witnesses to it. During the Tribulation there will be silence in heaven for ‘half an hour’. (Revelation 8:1). It is a solemn silence of profound expectation of the final and decisive catastrophe- wrath unknown and unexperienced until now.

And yet, the final judgment of casting souls inside fitted bodies into the fires will be worse. Isaiah 66:24 says

“All mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says the LORD. “Then they will go out and look At the corpses of the people Who have rebelled against Me. For their worm will not die And their fire will not be extinguished; And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind.”

Most commenters take this as figurative language, of those viewing the bodies of the Jews who had rejected Jesus and lay rotting in abundance in their deaths in the aftermath of the battle at Gehenna. I personally think it is literal, that there is a literal lake of fire with literal bodies of the lost in a literal fire. It will be literally somewhere and occasionally the saved will view them and remember as a testimony to God’s mercy that there but for the grace of God, go I.

Therefore let’s approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for help at the time of our need says Hebrews 4:16. As we approach that throne of grace, let gratitude flow that He has dealt gently with us.

end time, signs

If you think Hurricane Helene was bad…

Posted on October 4, 2024 by elizabethprata

Elizabeth Prata

On the Mount of Olives, Jesus sat with his disciples and answered their questions about the end of the age and the signs of His second coming. He answered in specific detail in Matthew 24 and 25, also Mark 13 and Luke 21. It is the longest answer He gave to any question the disciples asked.

The verses in Mt 24:3-6 read: “Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.“

These signs are warnings to allow the Spirit to give birth to the faith within. A parallel reference to Matthew 24:6 is given as Romans 10:17: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”

He speaks through His word (the Bible) and He shows himself through the creation.

I am reminded of Paul’s warning in Romans 1:18, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,”

They suppress the truth. What is that truth? That truth is that God exists, He created everything, thus, He is Authority over the earth and its inhabitants, and as the Authority and Creator, He will judge our lives. The other truth is, that we are ALL sinners due wrath from God. They suppress that!

When I saw the devastation in TN, North Carolina, and southern Georgia, it shocked me. Whole towns wiped away. Cities like Asheville and Augusta, extremely damaged. You’ve seen the pictures and video. Shocking and heartbreaking.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, ‘You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? (Matthew 3:7)

There is wrath to come.

Jesus said in His Olivet Discourse as to the end of the end of days, it will be the worst time on earth there ever was or ever will be. Famine, earthquakes. Never mind towns, whole islands will flee away. Hawaii- gone. Malta, gone, Elba, gone England, gone. Floods, tsunamis, volcanoes. It will be like the North Carolina floods happening but also everywhere else all the disasters are happening too! At once, and/or in rapid succession. Just as one devastation happens, another occurs.

The one who believes in the Son has eternal life; but the one who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. (John 3:36)

In fact, the purpose not only is to demonstrate God’s wrath for sin and to punish Israel, but to UNcreate the earth before God restores it to its near-pre-Eden condition and then remake it totally. The recent hurricane was monstrous in size and its path of devastation was horrendous. The Tribulation will be worse.

Please listen to what Jesus is telling us in His word. He loves the world. He wants your sins to be forgiven so He may embrace you as friend on Judgment Day (1 Timothy 2:4), and not cast you alive into the Lake of Fire as an enemy. The difference between friend of God and enemy of God is a personal recognition of our own sins, and repenting and asking Jesus to forgive them. He is already the Lord of your life- this life AND the next one. Repenting makes Him your Savior. Saving from what? The wrath.

You do NOT want to be here during the coming Tribulation. Repent while it is still day. Before you are hardened in your sin, before you draw your last breath. Jesus forgives and He saves!

Annihilationist, false doctrine, wider mercy

Two options: heaven, or hell

Posted on September 25, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

It is pretty simple. There are only two options, accept the Lord’s offer of pardon for sins by repenting and gain heaven, or refuse it and gain hell and eternal judgment. Stay strong. I have observed that the longer people go in Christianity the wobblier they get on the basics. Some of them. For example, here are three quotes from people in their unscriptural beliefs which you may not be aware. Who said it? None of these are from Rob Bell or Joel Osteen. The answers may surprise you.

This first quote speaks of Annihilationist doctrine, the doctrine that Hell is not eternal and punishment does not happen-

1. “Scripture points in the direction of annihilation, and that ‘eternal conscious torment’ is a tradition which has to yield to the supreme authority of Scripture.”

2. “All who live a just life will be saved even if they do not believe in Jesus Christ … “The gospel teaches us that those who live in accordance with the Beatitudes… ‘the poor in spirit, the pure of heart, those who bear lovingly the sufferings of life’ will enter God’s kingdom.”

3. “…there’s the Body of Christ. This comes from all the Christian groups around the world, outside the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves Christ, or knows Christ, whether they’re conscious of it or not, they’re members of the Body of Christ … And that’s what God is doing today, He’s calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ, because they’ve been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don’t have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think they are saved, and that they’re going to be with us in heaven.”

These are the people who said it:
1. Prominent and influential Evangelist John R.W. Stott, in the book, Essentials pp. 306-326, discussed here.
2. Pope John Paul II, the pope everyone liked.
3.Billy Graham, American evangelist

Are you surprised that Billy Graham, formerly the world’s most famous evangelist, thought that Muslims who don’t know Christ are in the body of Christ? That people who live a good life with a longing heart knowing they vaguely ‘need something they don’t have’, will meet Jesus as his friend? I listened to the interview where Graham had said that. He went on to say that his ‘views had softened with age’, that he ‘used to be more fiery and brimstone-like’, but he’d ‘mellowed’.

If people who enter the kingdom not knowing Jesus as Graham stated, (which is actually impossible) makes a lie of this verse: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Mt 7:21-23).

You HAVE to know Jesus.

People who believe that hell isn’t eternal and that there is a way to heaven aside from Jesus suffer from one problem: a high view of sin and a low view of His holiness. It is simple. It all boils down to sin, holiness, repentance – and eternal justice for the unrepentant. It began with sin in Genesis 3, it ends with sin in Revelation 20:11-15 at the Great White Throne judgment of sinners for all time. Sin-judgment-repentance-salvation, that is the foundation of His work in the world. Period.

Be careful of incremental chipping away of your faith and belief in the foundational doctrines Jesus taught us in the bible. There is one way to heaven. It is narrow. “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.” Stay praying and stay in the Word and stay being built up by brethren at regular worship services! It is a dangerous time for us all, spiritually.

“The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life…. He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” (Rev 22:17, 20)

theology

Till there was no remedy

Posted on September 11, 2024September 11, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Some verses just strike fear into the heart. They make you shudder. Or even cry. Several verses do that to me, including the well known “Depart from me you evil doer. I never knew you!” (Matthew 7:23). Also the one in Revelation that simply says the one who sat on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth “and the earth was reaped.” (Revelation 14:16).

There is this which struck me at church on Sunday:

but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose against His people, until there was no remedy. (2 Chronicles 36:16).

Until there was no remedy. Ponder that. In this day and age, people have dragged Jesus down from His heights of transcendent glory, to make Him a buddy, a boyfriend, a butler in their minds. They render Him toothless, weak, and a simpering milquetoast, pleading for souls but unable to bring them into the kingdom if they choose to reject. They have errantly thought that His longsuffering is endless, that His patience is boundless.

But no.

There will come a day. That day will come for individuals, when he gives them over to their sin, forever locked in a deadly embrace with it, to gnash but also pet their sin even in hell. There will come a day for nations, when there are not even 10 righteous, and like Sodom, will be smote under His wrath. One day, in one moment, it will be too late. God’s limit allowing sin has been reached, and He will punish their sin.

Matthew Henry says,

“They mocked the messengers of God (which was a high affront to him that sent them), despised his word in their mouths, and not only so, but misused the prophets, treating them as their enemies. The ill usage they gave Jeremiah who lived at this time, and which we read much of in the book of his prophecy, is an instance of this. This was an evidence of an implacable enmity to God, and an invincible resolution to go on in their sins. This brought wrath upon them without remedy, for it was sinning against the remedy.” (Source Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p. 614). Hendrickson.)

If you are playing church, if you are doubtful you are actually saved, if you are pretending to be Christian, you may be coming up to the line of no remedy. For it isn’t only mocking and deriding God that provokes His anger, but our sin itself is enmity against Him. Rejection of God’s word is not mere disagreement, it is actually despising it. As my friend said Sunday in his sermon devotional, “Rejection of God leads to rejection by God.”

He promised that and He DID do that with his own People that He chose, the Israelites. He will do the same with His very own people who may dwell in nations that reject Him.

Today is the day of salvation! Find Him while He may be found.

and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)

theology

Jesus judges whole cities

Posted on June 10, 2024June 20, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

In the New Testament, Jesus pronounced oracular woes. He pronounced doom for peoples, individuals, nations, kings. He also predicted doom for entire cities!

Of those cities that reject Him, He said-

be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near. I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. (Luke 10:11b-12).

Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. (Luke 10:13).

for Sodom—Tyre and Sidon were ruined by commercial prosperity; Sodom sank through its vile pollutions: but the doom of otherwise correct persons who, amidst a blaze of light, reject the Saviour, shall be less endurable than that of any of these. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

And the sense of the whole is, that though the iniquities of Sodom and Gomorrah were very great, and their punishment very exemplary; yet, as there will be degrees of torment in hell, the case of such a city which has been favoured with the Gospel and has despised and rejected it will be much worse than the case of those cities, which were devoured by fire from heaven; and than that of the inhabitants of them in the future judgment, and to all eternity;

Gill on Matthew 10:15. Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

One wonders with New York City’s rejection of the Gospel and acceptance at its highest levels the horrific infanticide of babies, what their judgment will be.

Scoffers set a city aflame,
but the wise turn away wrath.
(Proverbs 29:8)

And what IS wisdom? Fear of the LORD. Nineveh was wise:

Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. He issued a proclamation and it said, “In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.” (Jonah 3:5-9)

Bethsaida and Corazin were not wise, they were scoffers at the Gospel presented to them. Therefore, a whole City is to come under judgment!

The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. (Matthew 12:41)

Some people have the false notion that the OT God and the NT God are different. People often point to a meek and gentle Jesus speaking softly to the woman at the well about her adulteries, or mournfully but silently pitying the Rich Young Ruler who rejected Him in for favor his own lands and wealth. But Jesus pronounced DOOM for entire cities, that means populations of thousands if not millions.

The five Cities of the Plain were a connected metropolis with enormous populations. When Sodom and Gomorrah were smote for their sin the doom also included the cities of Admah and Zeboiim. (Deuteronomy 29:23). Four of the Five Cities of the Plain gone.

Not to mention His righteous anger at the Temple money changers, his firm pronouncement in Matthew 24 of the worst time on earth there shall ever be when His judgment comes, his warnings about hell (which were frequent), and the Lord of Revelation who judges the earth. The New Testament is full of the same God of the Old Testament who is both love AND wrath.

Jesus came in humility the first time but will come in wrath the second time. We can be praying for our leaders, that the Lord would instill in the Christian leaders courage to withstand the secular tsunami of sin that inevitably comes against them. We can pray for the unsaved leaders for God to instill repentance into their heart and then they may do good in His name within their position.

Whole cities will fall.

————————————————————————-

Further Reading

Chapter 8 of Moby-Dick, describing Father Mapple and his pulpit:

“The pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first described, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favorable winds. Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow. ~Herman Melville, Moby-Dick”

God, hell, judgment, paul washer, sin, wrath

God’s holiness and His wrath

Posted on May 2, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

“And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3).

Holiness is a quality of perfection, sinlessness, and inability to sin that is possessed by God alone. As Christians we are called to be holy (1 Pet. 1:16). But this does not refer to our nature. Instead, it is a command of our practice and thought. We are to be holy in obedience (1 Pet. 1:15). God has made us holy through his Son Jesus (Eph. 1:4; 1 Pet. 2:9). (source)

Our LORD is holy. We so often focus these days on His friendship with us, His provision to us, His loving-kindness … that we could always use a refresher on His holiness, I think.

“so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of God. (2 Chronicles 5:14)

“Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.” (Exodus 40:35)

Our LORD is holy! How wonderful it must have been to be so overcome with His holiness that they could not even stand!

The flip side of His holiness is His wrath. He is angry over sin. On the day of His wrath, which is His anger over sin released, no one will be able to stand, either. His holy fury will overtake the sinful world.

They were “calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Revelation 6:16-27).

His sinless perfection is offended at putrid sin. The following is a 10-minute sermon jam from Paul Washer on the Wrath of God. Remember, the flip side to God’s holiness is wrath over sin.

Wrath
“Biblically, wrath is the divine judgment upon sin and sinners. It does not merely mean that it is a casual response by God to ungodliness, but carries the meaning of hatred, revulsion, and indignation. God is by nature love (1 John 4:16), however, in His justice He must punish sin. The punishment is called the wrath of God. It will occur on the final Day of Judgment when those who are unsaved will incur the wrath of God. It is, though, presently being released upon the ungodly (Rom. 1:18-32) in the hardening of their hearts.”

“Wrath is described as God’s anger (Num. 32:10-13), as stored up (Rom. 2:5-8), and as great (Zech. 7:12). The believer’s deliverance from God’s wrath is through the atonement (Rom. 5:8-10). “For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,” (1 Thess. 5:9).” (source)

Praise Lord Jesus that He will accept you if you repent, and you shall be cleansed and redeemed to His bosom. No wrath will be upon you. GO HERE if you want to learn how to be saved from the wrath of God.

eagles gathering, prophecy

The Great Supper: You can eat, or you can be eaten

Posted on September 18, 2023 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

The culmination of the age of man ends with two great feasts. In one, believers will dine with the glorious King of all Kings!

“Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure”-for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.” (Revelation 19:6-9)

In the other, the dead on the earth after Armageddon will BE the supper…for vultures:

“Then I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, “Come and gather together for the supper of the great God, that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great.” And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh.” (Revelation 19:17-21).

The Pharisees asked Jesus when the Kingdom would come, and where. He answered:

“And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.” (Luke 17:37)

Eagles (other translations say vultures) will flock to where the prey is and they flock most to where there is easy prey. Jesus was saying that eagles will gather where the dead are- the wicked dead. Unless we each individually repent and are forgiven by Jesus, we are dead in our sins. (Colossians 2:13).

Unless this nation which accepts and codifies homosexuality, abortion, greed, usury and other sins abhorrent to God, repents and is forgiven, we are a dead nation.

Will you dine? Or will you be dined upon? Both suppers will happen. Repent now and fall on Jesus asking for forgiveness from the King who accepts worship from forgiven sinners.

prophecy, Uncategorized

Is America under judgment?

Posted on August 31, 2023 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

“America seems ripe for judgment”… The discerners of the church body have been saying ‘judgment in America’ for a while. I know I have. In 2010 I’d written that America seemed to have passed the “point of no return. Before the Economic Crash of 2008, all had been going along like it had been in this country. America was strong and mighty and seemingly invincible. Warning that judgment was coming soon was met with strange looks and shaking of heads. No brimstone was falling, after all. Just because we don’t see brimstone falling from the sky does not mean we as a nation are not experiencing judgment.

Many people think of judgment as the kind that occurred at Sodom and Gomorrah: brimstone from the sky and obliteration of the entire city. (Genesis 19:24). And that IS one kind of judgment.

Bible Fact: There are 13 mentions of brimstone (sulfur) in the Bible. Six mentions are in the Old Testament. Seven mentions are in the New Testament. Of the 7 mentions of brimstone in the NT, six are in Revelation.

The wrath of God is not one-dimensional. There are in fact many different kinds of wrath that God displays. Hosea 5:12 says “He is as a moth to Ephraim or or dry rot to Judah”, working silently and invisibly. In his 2012 sermon “When God Abandons a Nation“, John MacArthur outlined five distinct kinds of wrath the Lord has displayed throughout the Bible.

1. Eternal wrath: that is the punishing eternal, judgment God brings upon sinners in their death.
2. Eschatalogical wrath: God’s stored-up anger unleashed at the end of this present age upon the world, promised by Old Testament saints, outlined at length in Jesus’ Olivet Discourse, and seen unfolding through Revelation.
3. Cataclysmic wrath: These are tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., the result of sin and the curse upon the world.
4. Consequential wrath: this is a person receiving the just due for their actions while on earth, the sowing and reaping.
5. Abandonment: This is the wrath seen in Romans 1:18-32. MacArthur preached, “God will abandon sinners to their own choices and the consequences of those choices. And just what is this abandoning act on God’s part, it is the removal of restraining grace. It is when God lets go and turns a society over to its own sinful freedoms and the results of those freedoms. No Scripture more directly confronts this abandonment and its consequences than Romans 1 does.”

A Hillary Clinton presidency would be a Jezebel judgment in my opinion. A Kamala Harris Vice-Presidency is also indicative of judgment, as Isaiah 3:12 seems to indicate.

MacArthur said in that 2012 sermon that “It’s pretty convincing that God has abandoned our nation.” God has done so in the past to other nations, many times. In Hosea 4:17 it is recorded that God said, “Ephraim is joined unto idols, let him alone.” America isn’t special that we should not expect the same treatment as other rebellious nations when we abandon Him.

In Acts 14:16, the Apostle Paul said, “In the generations gone by, He…God…permitted all the nations to go their own way.” This is the story of history. All the nations of history go their own way. So like the nations of old, like the nations past, we follow the same cycle of having the truth, rejecting the truth and being abandoned by God. ~MacArthur

Can you think of a worse wrath than for God to leave you alone? Whether He is abandoning you as an individual or as a nation, it is a deeply disturbing thought. In Romans 1:18-32,

Three times you have the statement, “God gave them over.” This term paradidomiin the Greek can have a judicial sense. It can be used of a judgment made on a criminal who was then handed over for punishment. Each of these phrases expresses the fact that the wrath of God has acted judicially to sentence sinners. It is God officially giving them over. It is God letting them go to the uninterrupted cause and effect their sinful choices produce. When this judgment falls, there is a depriving of restraining grace and sin runs rampant through a society. (Source)

Do the people of a nation under the wrath of abandonment know it is happening when it is happening? Non-believers don’t of course, and even most believers don’t. But the Prophets certainly did, and it was a deep lament to them.

Cut off your hair and throw it away; take up a lament on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and abandoned this generation that is under his wrath. (Jeremiah 7:29)

2006: When God Abandons a Nation–

And so, we are under His wrath. That brings the question…is there any hope? … [T]here is a word of hope in Psalm 81…This is a plaintive cry from God who says, “Oh that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways.” The key, listen to Me. Walk in My ways. The only hope for this or any other society is to hear the Word of the Lord and obey it, to hear the Word of the Lord and obey it. And I would suggest that this is not a good time for weak men preaching weak messages in weak churches. This is a time for bold and powerful strong biblical ministry that calls people to hear the Word of the Lord and respond. This is the only hope for any people for any individual.

The day is sobering and the times are troubling. We all strive to display the joy of Christ in our daily life, to persevere in and aura of hope and peace. We know to be gentle and humble, and to love our friend, neighbor and enemy. But there is no doubt that the times demand of us a careful attention to the Bible and its paths, more than ever in fact.

We don’t like to be downers but we also don’t ignore the fact that we are living in difficult times that are on the precipice of being massively more difficult soon. We know that God created each person on earth specifically and for a specific purpose in their era. If I am here now, for just such a time as this, what can I do to both advance the kingdom like I’m supposed to, and also prepare for the times ahead? We must do our diligence to lift Jesus’ name to the highest with all our strength, soul, mind, and heart.

theology

Contending for souls: The Wrath and a Confession

Posted on May 6, 2023May 6, 2023 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

I wrote a few days ago in my essay The Forgotten God: His Wrath, that preaching and teaching on God’s wrath is an essential part of the Gospel. Yet in our day there has been such a dampening of this important attribute of God that we have marginalized it in Gospel proclamations.

I’d said I love God’s wrath because it is one of His attributes and I love everything about God. It is also part of His justice and how He will right all the wrongs in the world. I do mourn those who live under God’s wrath (Romans 1:18) and those who have already passed and will eternally be enduring God’s wrath (John 3:36). But God IS angry with sin. He WILL punish sinners.

Then after I posted my The Forgotten God essay I came across this tweet thread by D. Michael Clary. It touched me greatly. His humility, clarity, and emphasis on the wrath prompted me to ask if I may repost his thread. He said yes.

Please take a quick read of his confession. Wherever and whenever I can promote the balanced Gospel, one that includes all the elements such as law, grace, justice, wrath etc, I will. What follows is from Mr. Clary.

Michael Clary @dmichaelclary

Tweet Thread

I learned an important ministry lesson years ago from an unbeliever I was trying to evangelize.

I was on staff with CRU & he was a brilliant & thoughtful student. Over the next few years, I shared the gospel with him many times, answering objections & using all the tools. 1/10

To answer his more complicated moral, philosophical, and theological objections, I took him to meet one of my theology profs at SBTS. Despite all this, he could never commit to Christ. He was a classic “always learning but never arriving at the church” kind of guy. 2/10

Eventually, I moved away to plant a church, and I continued to pray that someday he would come to faith.

Fast forward a few years, he calls me out of nowhere to tell me he’d become a Christian. I also spoke to his new wife, who was also a solid believer. 3/10

Not only that, but he had begun taking seminary courses to explore church planting.

I was floored. What finally broke through? What book, apologist, or intellectual finally convinced him? So I asked him. 4/10

Someone invited him to a church service and the preacher preached about hell and eternal judgment. It scared the crap out of him and he surrendered to Christ at that moment.

Like, he legit got saved. Radical, immediate conversion. 5/10

Looking back, I’d spent the better part of four years appealing to his intellect, talking philosophy & theology. I wanted to prove to him how intellectually satisfying & philosophically robust Xnty is. All that is well & good, but I missed the one thing he needed most. 6/10

He needed to know what many Christians want to avoid talking about with unbelievers. He needed what I was too afraid to mention bc I was embarrassed. He needed to know about judgment & hell, the unpleasant doctrines that demonstrate, by contrast, the beauty of the cross. 7/10

God gave me a huge part to play in his conversion, for which I’m grateful, but the honor of seeing him cross the finish line went to another man who was faithful in an area where I’d failed. 8/10

I’d spent years showing him a “respectable” Christianity, which kept him comfortable in his unbelief. In scripture, however, we learn that “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Co 1:18). 9/10

One plain spoken sermon, that clearly laid out God’s wrath against sin and the grace of the cross, had more power than my years of trying to reach him by the human means of appealing to his intellect.

In other words, the foolishness of God is wiser than men.

–end D. Michael Clary’s words.

That was the content I come for! May God bless pastors such as Pastor Clary and all who unashamedly proclaim the balanced Gospel in love and truth.

Further Reading

Desiring Truth: Five Truths about the Wrath of God

God’s Wrath: Resources from Ligonier

The Wrath of God- sermon from John MacArthur