tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post8306213947441234825..comments2023-10-07T04:07:56.527-04:00Comments on The End Time: Apostasy and tolerance: both are bad. Read the bible to find out moreElizabeth Pratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04341086233512507156noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post-37306562476300375212013-01-25T12:40:50.081-05:002013-01-25T12:40:50.081-05:00Elizabeth,
Thank-you for your faithfulness to the ...Elizabeth,<br />Thank-you for your faithfulness to the word. I have been reading your blog for several months now, and am inspired and convicted by your writing. This particular blog really resonated with me because I was a false convert for decades. I put on a good show, but my heart was not regenerated. I had prayed 'the prayer' and 'accepted Jesus into my heart' a dozen times, just to be sure that it took. I had taken out 'fire insurance'. I did not want to go to hell, and as long as I was not going there, I did not care if the rest of the world perished.<br />That should have been the first indication that something was wrong with my walk. The Holy Spirit revealed the falsity of my walk the darkness of my heart through a book, called The Way of the Master by Ray Comfort. In this book he writes of false converts and how, if you have never fallen on your face, convicted of your sin before a just and HOLY God, you had better examine yourself and see if you are in the faith. I remember reading the book and thinking 'that is not me. I am not one of those false converts'. Yet, that still, small voice was saying 'Yes, that is you'. I struggled for a week, I was miserable and did not want to talk to anyone. I couldn't believe it. Perhaps I should say, I wouldn't believe. When I realized that I had been lying to myself for years, I fell on my face and cried out to the Lord to forgive me. I weep even as I write this. I am so grateful for His mercy. He lifted me out of the pit. If I had died prior to that point, I would have been one of those disillusioned souls who stand before Christ and cry 'Lord, Lord.....' and He would have said, 'I never you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity'(Matt7:23)<br />When I realized that, I was almost physically sick. My heart is now for the people who fill the churches and believe that are saved, but are not. They are deceived, just as I was. I have shared my faith with more people in the last three years than I had in the three decades prior. I gave my testimony in a church and it offended many of the people there. There are so many people who would rather believe a lie than the truth.<br />Is my walk perfect now? No, I still struggle. The difference now is I don't go running to sin like I did before. I don't justify my behavior. I am a work in progress and God, in his mercy, is not finished with me yet. <br />God bless you and thank-you for the work that you do.<br />StaceyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post-12635845666588487352013-01-25T05:56:47.436-05:002013-01-25T05:56:47.436-05:00Good word, Linda. I was shocked when he participat...Good word, Linda. I was shocked when he participated in the Lectio Divina with Moore, and then participated in Passion 2013 with all the false words from the pulpit- and didn't rebuke them.<br /><br />That's really interesting about the "master of the oblique." Any time I listen to a preacher more than once and the sermon is oblique I get worried. It's like my brain has cotton balls in it and "there's no there there" as Gertrude Stein said. The Word is clear and even the freshest preacher with the least experience will make at least one clear point. I never found the "there" in Piper's sermons. Or his books. There are so many other good preachers who bring the word to life that after a while I just quite trying with Piper.Elizabeth Pratahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04341086233512507156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post-91277946001622993522013-01-25T00:12:06.869-05:002013-01-25T00:12:06.869-05:00I agree with your reply Elizabeth and I enjoy your...I agree with your reply Elizabeth and I enjoy your blog. The Lord has really blessed you with such writing skills for His glory. <br /><br /> From the get go, something has never settled right with me about Piper. In fact when I think about it he and Moore are very similar with being great orators filled with more of a proclivity towards being moved more by the emotions than by the truth. <br /><br />I learned about Piper over 8 years ago from listening to him on my Christian radio and decided to check him out on the internet and listen to some more of his sermons. Yet, the more I listened to his sermons, the more something just didn't settle well with me about Piper ---that was then. His messages seemed to have a proclivity towards emphasizing a slightly mystical more poignant theatrical message than sincerity for the love of the truth of God's word (itself). There's no depth in his sermons like John MacArthur.. Peter Masters said -"he finds Dr. Piper too keen on producing startlingly original ways of looking at everything, and seldom are these to be found in the Bible. He is a master of the oblique approach"- I agree. <br /><br />Anyways, the problem I run into is when I have brought up that verse 1 John 1:9 with Piper because he IS running ahead,even believers we know who are sound in the faith will refuse to take God's word seriously and will continue to give him the benefit of the doubt. I know this is a hard truth to accept.But he has been confronted and refuses to repent along with Beth Moore. I believe for the purity of the Church,it needs to be heeded.<br />Lindahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09418337100329537312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post-62431168596939725012013-01-24T22:06:30.235-05:002013-01-24T22:06:30.235-05:00Jeff,
It is neither my purpose nor right to prono...Jeff, <br />It is neither my purpose nor right to pronounce you saved or lost, it is my duty to point you to the Scriptures. As one who had not less than three "false starts" that resulted in my thinking that I was saved it remains that the Scriptures tell us the truth in such matters. I, too, believed myself to be saved and experienced guilt for my sins for nearly forty years. My mind was convinced that I was a "saved, carnal Christian". After all, I walked the aisle, prayed the prayer, got dunked in a pool and joined the church. What more was there? (Jer. 17:9) My heart was so deceitful that I would remind God from time to time that He must allow me entrance into His heaven upon my death because I declared myself to be saved by the prayer I prayed at the 'alter' of a Baptist church many years ago.<br /><br />As the years passed, my sins of choice grew to obsessions that I could not control. The guilt was always present. I would often bemoan my state and seek deliverance, but none came and my sin was in complete control-I was a slave to my sins (Rom. 6:1-23).<br /><br />1 Cor. 6:9&10 speaks to the condition of souls that are lost, caught in their sins, unable to free themselves. All who are really born again will find themselves described here, usually more than once. Equally true is the fact that they-the real believers-will also find themselves in verse eleven. Washed, sanctified and justified by the blood of the Lamb. If a person thinks himself to be in right standing with God and continually sins, the same sin over and over again without being able to overcome the sin it should be a huge red flag as to the eternal destiny of their soul. Christ delivers us from the power of sin, Rom. 6:14; Col. 1:13 & 2:11 and others. <br /><br />If anyone is still plagued by the same sins they struggled with prior to 'salvation' that is good cause to question whether regeneration took place or not. It is by grace we are saved and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God (Eph. 2:8&9). Christ delivers us from our sins, He does not leave us to languish in them 'til we die. <br /><br /><br /> Darrelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13394480152156186566noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post-24485208974042069082013-01-24T21:51:11.726-05:002013-01-24T21:51:11.726-05:00Linda, that is a great question.
It is hard to en...Linda, that is a great question.<br /><br />It is hard to envision a true faith where the teacher states they have been gifted with a vision in another dimension though the eyes of Jesus, told to come back, and teach it. This is apostolic authority and that ended with John. In years past statements like that are made by quacks on television evangelism channels and were easily dismissed. Today those statements are made by 'teachers' such as Beth Moore and because of her popularity we hesitate to say she's false. But given the many biblical commands and warnings about falsity, and lifestyle, we have to hold her to the benchmark of absolute truth and my own conclusion is she is false. One cannot misuse scripture to the point she does, preach from pulpits, and claim excessive personal revelation and think that her Gnosticism mixed with a form of Christianity means she has some truth in her. At least not in my own opinion<br /><br />I cannot believe a faith like hers that includes audible conversations with God, personal visitations, visions, and doctrinal error comes from a real faith. Was she false all along? Very likely. I look to another famous apostate for an example of a long road of slow-falsity reveal: Billy Graham<br /><br />His was a case where the verse from 2 Peter 2:12-- "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction."<br /><br />The key is that they *secretly* bring in. Graham always believed in a possibility of ape-men/evolution, sanctification begins at infant baptism, and that men may get to heaven in a different way than Jesus- he just didn't talk about it a lot. So we say, in that case, he always was false, we just didn't know it. Eventually the heart reveals itself. Luke 12:34, "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."<br /><br />What happens is that they may have started out having faith- just not saving faith. It can continue for a long time as a form of the real thing. But at some point, satan knocks you off your course. Any driver, pilot or sailor knows that even a half a compass degree off course, uncorrected over time, will mean you end up in Anchorage instead of Phoenix. A Christian can't be knocked off course because ours is the North Star which does not move. But the false ones have nothing to cling to and either they get moved off course fast (Jesse Duplantis, Todd Bentley) or slowly (Moore, Graham)<br /><br />As far as the wheat and the tares go, the field is the world, by the way, not the church. (Mt 13:38). If the parable meant the church then it'd mean we can't do church discipline. But the field is the world.<br /><br />The under-farmers knew there were weeds among the tares. So, the verse doesn't say they didn't know which were tares. They knew. It's just that Jesus said that they were so intermingled that the real ones would be uprooted so leave them until harvest. (Mt 13: 27-30). The thing they were shocked about is that there were so many of them! And that they grew so close together! I think it is interesting that the intermingling of the almost-true like Moore and the really true is so prevalent today at the end time.<br /><br />Piper is an interesting case. I think it's too soon to tell. His could be a legitimate but temporary wobble and he might straighten up, or it may be the beginning of a reveal that later one shows he has more falsity in him. I don't know.<br /><br />But of each individual's teaching in the moment, Jesus doesn't leave us unable to conclude whether it is solid or not. We may not be able to tell overall of a person's heart but we can tell their teaching. We can know by comparing it to the truth. We are always on safe ground doing that.<br /><br />The point of that parable in my opinion is that we are to influence the darnels. Of what hope there is for Moore or Graham ...we need to influence them and pray they do not continue to reject the truth but come to accept His light.Elizabeth Pratahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04341086233512507156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post-26391351179315045182013-01-24T18:02:34.625-05:002013-01-24T18:02:34.625-05:00Hello Dear Jeff,
I am going to say something, and...Hello Dear Jeff,<br /><br />I am going to say something, and I please ask you to consider it. I say it because I worry deeply for you. By your words, you repented of all your sins at age 6, understanding why you need a savior and repenting of all your sins, knowing that Jesus is Savior AND Lord, but spent the next 44 years continually resisting the conviction of the Holy Spirit, refusing His Lordship, and absent from noticeable sanctification...and yet you believe you are saved? What, exactly, makes you believe so?<br /><br />You may well be saved- but I want to pass this to you for our consideration, your journey sounds sounds like the false doctrine of Carnal Christianity, which The Founders Journal writes is actually very similar to your experience:<br /><br />---begin Founders Journal article excerpt---<br />http://www.founders.org/journal/fj16/article2.html<br /><br />There is a teaching that a person can be a “carnal Christian”. The testimony goes something like this: "When I was 7 or 8 years old (or older perhaps), I received Christ as my personal Savior, but I did not make Him Lord until much later in life." This kind of testimony reflects an erroneous interpretation of one's experience. To avoid this serious error we must hold tenaciously to a fundamental principle, that is, we must always interpret our experiences by the Scripture and never interpret the Scripture by our experience.<br /><br />I acknowledge that there are babes in Christ. In fact there are not only babes in Christ, but there are different stages of "babyhood" in understanding divine truth and in spiritual growth. <br /><br />All the marks of Christianity are not equally apparent in all Christians. Nor are any of these marks manifest to the same degree in every period of any Christian's life. There are many hills and valleys in the process of sanctification; and there are many stumblings, falls and crooked steps in the pathway to the Celestial City. <br /><br />There is a difference between true, saving belief and spurious belief. This distinction is found throughout the New Testament. Many believed but Jesus did not commit Himself to them (John 2:23, 24); they believed but did not confess Him (John 12:42, 43); they believed for awhile (Luke 8:13); Simon Magus believed and was baptized but he thought he could buy the Holy Ghost (Acts 8:12-32); Peter said he would perish, (v. 20); his heart was not right (v. 21); therefore not changed, he was in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity (v.23). But the strongest evidence is in his prayer--he, like the unregenerate, was only concerned with the consequence of sin and made no request to be pardoned and cleansed from sin--just, "...that none of these things come upon me." Just like the so-called carnal Christian he wanted Jesus as a kind of hell insurance policy but does not want delivered from sin. James 2:19 says, "the devils believe..." <br /><br />In all of these cases people believed, that is, they had faith but it was not saving faith. Similarly all of the carnal Christians have belief, but it is not always saving belief<br /><br />---end Founders Journal excerpt---<br />More Information here also<br />http://www.gty.org/resources/articles/A293/the-lordship-controversy<br /><br />In saving faith there is obedience and submission. If you are convicted to examine yourself to see if the true marks of saving faith are in you, I'd be honored if you would go here<br /><br />What Kinds of things prove genuine, saving faith?<br />http://www.gty.org/resources/questions/QA145/what-kind-of-things-do-and-do-not-prove-the-genuineness-of-saving-faith<br /><br />A believer's Assurance: A practical guide to victory over doubt<br />http://www.gty.org/resources/positions/P17/a-believers-assurance-a-practical-guide-to-victory-over-doubt<br /><br />I don't write these things to criticize you but on the off-chance that you may be one of the many that the Lord says "Depart from me ...I never knew you". You may not be, & all will be well! At this point in the lateness of the hour, I ask everyone to check themselves. It never hurts to examine one's self, Paul wrote in 2 Cor 13:5 :)Elizabeth Pratahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04341086233512507156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post-58101952736606786052013-01-24T14:55:28.508-05:002013-01-24T14:55:28.508-05:00Like Rick I've been reading here for a while a...Like Rick I've been reading here for a while and I appreciate you MUCH! Thank you for the labor of love to share the WORD with us. You are an encouragement in these END TIMES. Even so come quickly LORD JESUS. <br /><br />Please keep writing, we will keep reading and praying and sharing til JESUS comes. Kathiehttp://www.revelation217.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post-77912692197585138182013-01-24T14:37:44.860-05:002013-01-24T14:37:44.860-05:00Every time I think of Apostasy and people leaving,...Every time I think of Apostasy and people leaving, I think of teachers like Beth Moore or John Piper. I've brought up the verse in 1 John 1:9 where it states --"Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son."-<br /><br />Pretty strong truth. <br /><br />My dilemma is, Since we cannot know a person's heart, but yet some of these people are running ahead like Moore and Piper, can we honestly conclude that they "do not have Christ" or is it still premature because we have to let the wheat grow up with the chaff? Lindahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09418337100329537312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post-50741937237286904452013-01-24T07:01:31.728-05:002013-01-24T07:01:31.728-05:00No kidding!! about the good church these days. Min...No kidding!! about the good church these days. Mine is reformed but our eschalatogical views are different. And it really does matter. I think that what you believe about the endtimes determines how you will teach the rest of the Scriptures. It makes me sad when we go thru the Bible and prophecy is either overlooked(hard to do, in my opinion)or spiritualized. Those are some of the most precious parts of Scripture.<br />But anyway, I am with you on who the apostates are. I always say that the "true born from above church(body of Christ) is doing just fine! Again, I say professors or possessors. You are either inhabited by the Holy Spirit or you have the appearance of godliness but without power. <br />As always, thanks Elizabeth for your relative to today insight.<br />PamAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post-57148124302182390242013-01-23T23:47:22.291-05:002013-01-23T23:47:22.291-05:00I was saved when I was 6 yrs. old. I was raised i...I was saved when I was 6 yrs. old. I was raised in church but fell away in my late teens into my 20's but I was ALWAYS convicted of where my walk was and what I was doing. I came back to the church and was baptized again and rededicated my life at about age 26. I grew and then I fell away again but I was continually convicted. I prayed every day and sought out the Lord in my own way but I always knew that wasn't good enough. I've had many trials and tribulations in my life but I always knew that Christ was near if I would just seek Him. I am now 50 yrs old and I can truly say that I'm a Christ follower. There are many things I could fill in between all of this but it would take a while to explain how God has worked in my life. My point is this, I believe if one is truly saved then they will have those convictions on a constant basis and I mean all day every day. I did and as I look back at that I can't believe I wouldn't just do what Christ wanted me to do. It's still not always easy but having that daily walk with Him is so awesome. I want to keep writing so I ask for your prayers because I think God wants me to write my "story" and I've not followed through because I don't feel like I'm a "writer". There I go again, not giving God credit for working through me. It's not about my perceived abilities, it's about how God uses them.<br /><br />God BlessAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14144897064914656024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post-64707408764487782462013-01-23T20:56:46.582-05:002013-01-23T20:56:46.582-05:00The verse that spoke to me is the "my zeal we...The verse that spoke to me is the "my zeal wears me out, the enemies won't listen." It is upsetting to see even those who profess Jesus preach sin in the name of Christ, teach devilish doctrines in the name of the Holy Spirit. The false teaching is monstrous...and everywhere. If a person is in a good church, praise His name, often! It is a gift these days.Elizabeth Pratahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04341086233512507156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post-91650788065566162282013-01-23T20:52:01.902-05:002013-01-23T20:52:01.902-05:00This lesson is very relevant as I wrote you today....This lesson is very relevant as I wrote you today. I have been told over and over to just not worry about it. This is reassuring that my zeal for The Lord is real for I am so completely concerned with the apostasy and false teaching in the church. <br />ThanAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post-7790913654899660682013-01-23T20:50:06.835-05:002013-01-23T20:50:06.835-05:00Hi Rick,
May the Holy Spirit bring to mind all t...Hi Rick, <br /><br />May the Holy Spirit bring to mind all that you need to become humble but zealous, pure but compassionate :). <br /><br />I'll pray.Elizabeth Pratahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04341086233512507156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2736720231951988221.post-91389409124488426512013-01-23T19:40:07.558-05:002013-01-23T19:40:07.558-05:00Hi, I have been reading some of your postings for ...Hi, I have been reading some of your postings for awhile now and I would just like to say, thank you for taking the time to do this. Today's posting was very relevant and I feel that I need to examine my heart to be sure that I have not fallen in this way. Please pray for me and my family, I so much want to see them turn back to the Lord in these times. Thanks and may the Lord richly bless you and yours.<br />RickAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com