Month: June 2010

Posted in end time, end time. prophecy, great tribulation, signs in the sun

Signs in the sun and the stars and the moon. Is the sun shrinking?

Posted on by elizabethprata

Jesus said that in the end time there will be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars. The word “Signs” means something different from tokens and different from wonders and different from miracles. In Hebrews 2:4 the three words are used successively, and more importantly, separately. “God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.” Therefore it is obvious that they mean different things.

I think by any stretch of the imagination that the word miracles means something totally supernatural, cannot have occurred without Divine direction. Resurrecting people or healing their illnesses on the spot is a miracle. A sign, for which the same Greek word is used in many cases, also means pointing toward the Word’s truth in a confirmation. For example, in Luke 2:12 the angel said to the shepherds, “This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” It is not a miracle to see a baby in swaddling cloths. It wouldn’t even be unusual to see a baby in a manger in the barn, it was really crowded in many towns during the time of the census as mass populations were on the move. It was more like a declaration of proof of what the angels were saying, ‘Go see, when you find the sign you will know what is stated is true.’ And, of course, the circumstances of the baby’s birth and the reason for it was a miracle, as the world discovered later.

A sign is just that, like the signs you see on the highway, “Des Moines, 235 miles.” You already knew you were on the road to Des Moines, and you already knew it was pretty far, but it’s still nice to see the sign confirming it.

Back to Jesus’ statement that there will be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars. I believe we have seen signs in the sun and stars (& planets) but the only sign absent has been the signs in the moon. But turning to this week’s activity up in the cold reaches of space, we have a spate of scientists scratching their collective heads at the mis-behavior of Jupiter and the sun, and jumping up and down in excitement at Comet McNaught brightening so quickly.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9/2227271001?isVid=1

What’s wrong with the sun?
Sunspots and other clues indicate that the sun’s magnetic activity is diminishing, and that the sun may even be shrinking. Together the results hint that something profound is happening inside the sun. The big question is what?

Jupiter Impact: Mystery of the Missing Debris
On June 3rd, 2010, something hit Jupiter. A comet or asteroid descended from the black of space, struck the planet’s cloudtops, and disintegrated, producing a flash of light so bright it was visible in backyard telescopes on Earth. Soon, observers around the world were training their optics on the impact site, waiting to monitor the cindery cloud of debris which always seems to accompany a strike of this kind.
They’re still waiting.
“It’s as if Jupiter just swallowed the thing whole,” says Anthony Wesley of Australia, one of two amateur astronomers who recorded the initial flash. The other, Christopher Go of the Philippines, says “it was thrilling to see the impact, but the absence of any visible debris has got us scratching our heads.”

Newly discovered comet dazzles skywatchers with increasing brightness
Skywatchers are dazzled as a recently discovered comet is becoming brighter than initial predictions and can now be seen with the unaided eye during the next few weeks. Australian astronomer Robert McNaught discovered Comet McNaught last September Although initially an extremely faint object, it is now visible for people with dark skies away from urban and suburban lighting. By mid-June it may be an easy skywatching target for most people, reports Fox News. With the beginning of April, the comet was estimated at magnitude +12—this is still about 250 times dimmer than the faintest star that one might see without any optical aid. But the comet started brightening more rapidly in the days and weeks that followed and it is now bright enough to be glimpsed with the naked eye in a dark clear sky.

Has Jupiter sent cosmology down a false trail?

It’s supposed to be the “gold standard” of evidence supporting the standard model of cosmology– including dark matter, dark energy and the exponential expansion after the big bang known as inflation. But could it be wrong? Might misleading measurements by NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) have been leading us towards the wrong theory of cosmology? One astrophysicist thinks so, and he says the planet Jupiter is to blame – though others insist that there is nothing amiss.

Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. (Luke 21:26)

As the end time ticks over into the Tribulation, the heavenly bodies are shaken in ways that no one can miss. As Joel 2:10 describes, “Before them the earth quakes, The heavens tremble, The sun and the moon grow dark And the stars lose their brightness.” Has the process of signs in the heavenly bodies started now, before the Tribulation? According to Revelation and other verses, I believe that all the prophecies given in the bible have been either fulfilled or are in some stage of near fulfillment because the Tribulation is that near. So, yes, I think the process of signs in the sun/moon/stars has begun. Look to the moon, that is the only celestial body not to have been giving a sign as yet or have been causing scientists to scratch their heads in amazement in the change in standard behavior. But it will. Oh, it will. The Lord’s Word is good and He is faithful to the truth.

Posted in bp oil spill

Who ya gonna believe?

Posted on by elizabethprata

A little pairing juxtaposition from what the Resident says and what the Scientists are saying. Truth or dare. You decide which you are going to believe.

Resident Obama- “Come on down” 
“The last point I’m going to make — and this is something that’s been repeatedly emphasized here in Mississippi, but it’s true in Florida, it’s true in Alabama and it’s true in portions of Louisiana — there’s still a lot of opportunity for visitors to come down here, a lot of beaches that are not yet affected or will not be affected,” the president said at a Coast Guard station in Gulfport, Mississippi. “And we just want to make sure that people who have travel plans down to the Gulf area remain mindful of that,” Obama said. “Because if people want to know what can they do to help folks down here, one of the best ways to help is to come down here and enjoy the outstanding hospitality.”

WWL TV, New Orleans Scientists advise: “Leave the area”
Take Hydrogen Sulfide, commonly known as swamp gas: a normal level in the air for it ranges from 5 to 10 parts per billion (ppb). At monitoring station in Venice, on May 2, the levels recorded were 30 ppb. The next day, May 3, the reading was nearly 40 times that, at 1,192 ppb. The day after that, May 4, it dropped down to 46 ppb, before rising on May 5 to 1,010 ppb. … “They’re there at a little over the levels that you would expect to start getting those health impacts,” Subra said. “So, that is of concern, that the people understand what is there and understand if they start getting the health impacts, they should take precautions to move out of the area.”

—————————————————

Resident Obama – Clean up’ll be a snap!
in dealing with this disaster, we are minimizing the short term impacts, and we’re making sure that we’ve got the resources to fully recover.

US Coast Guard: One ton tarballs wash up in Florida
“One of two one-ton masses of tarball material recovered south of Perdido Pass, Fla., by the crew of the lift boat Sailfish, a Vessel of Opportunity working in the largest oil spill response in U.S. history, on Saturday, June 11, 2010. Photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class John Walker, USCG.”

——————————————–
Eat! Eat!
Resident Obama: Gulf seafood safe to eat
President Barack Obama sought to reassure nervous diners during his trip to the coastal town of Theodore, Alabama Monday that seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is as tasty and safe as it ever was,

Fishing bans have been enlarged now to also include Florida waters as well as LA and Alabama. 35% of the Gulf is off limits to fishing. This map was released June 14, 2010.
 

Posted in bp, end time, gulf of mexico, hurricane, nations in dismay, prophecy, roaring and tossing of seas

Hurricane forming? Nations in dismay with perplexity: a study on the Gulf Oil leak and prophecy

Posted on by elizabethprata

“There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, (Luke 21:25 NASB)

From the Weather Underground Blog, we learn that a tropical wave is forming in the Atlantic. Even more interestingly, we learn that it is unusual so early in the season. “An unusually large and well-developed African tropical wave for so early in the season has developed midway between the coast of Africa and South America.” It is called 92L. With the BP Oil leak continuing unabated, actually it’s getting worse, all eyes are upon the weather forecasters who track low pressure systems in the Atlantic and the Gulf. Yesterday low pressure system 92L that popped up was forecasted to have a 20% chance of turning into a tropical depression. Then its chances were upped to 30% in the same day and upped again and again, until by the end of the day yesterday, the system had a high percentage of forming into a hurricane. The forecasted track is straight into the Gulf.

In looking at the signs Jesus said would come upon us in the end time, we look at things that are out of normal cycles. Hurricanes in the Gulf are not abnormal. One forming so early and so well, is. Further, we see additional anomalies in this season’s hurricane cycle. Again from the Wunderground blog,

“[S]ea surface temperatures (SSTs) underneath 92L are an extremely high 28 – 30°C, which is warmer than the temperatures reached during the peak of hurricane season last year, in August – September. In fact, with summer not even here, and three more months of heating remaining until we reach peak SSTs in the Atlantic, ocean temperatures across the entire Caribbean and waters between Africa and the Lesser Antilles are about the same as they were during the peak week for water temperatures in 2009 (mid-September.)”

Grasp that for a moment: sea surface temperatures (which drive hurricane formation) are HOT, hotter than ever before and hotter than they should be at this point in the season.

It is heartbreaking to wonder about the roiling seas churning all that oil, dispersant, hydrogen sulfide and benzene onto the peoples along the Gulf and further inland. It also brings to mind the scripture from Luke 21:25 above, “…dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves,”

First, note that it is nations, plural. Nations are in dismay at the roaring of the sea. The sea is singular. Why would nations around the world be in anguish over roaring waves on a sea??

The word perplexity is known to us. It commonly means trouble or confusion, and it is used throughout the bible. So again we wonder,  why should nations be dismayed and confused at the roaring of the sea and waves? Tropical storms, typhoons, tsunamis and hurricanes are known to us and though they do strike terror, why perplexity? However, in looking at the Greek, this particular word for perplexity is “aporia” and it is used only once. Since every word in the bible is carefully chosen by God and inspired to the writer by the Holy Spirit, this one-time use bears closer looking into.

The Greek word origin of perplexity is: aporia, a (state of) quandary — perplexity, impasse; lack of resources; puzzlement; doubt; confusion. This state of being is different from a regular kind of confusion, which typically is individual anyway, “nations” don’t usually display confusion. And the word for dismay is actually anguish. Now, what could whole nations be in a quandary about, totally at a loss over, at an impasse through, and anguished from when the sea roars and tosses?

BP oil spill.

Aporia, the Greek word used in this verse for perplexity, is further defined from the alpha (as a neg. prefix) and poros (a way, resource) and it means to be without resources, to be in straits, to be left wanting, to be embarrassed, to be in doubt, not to know which way to turn. It is a Greek term for a difficulty or puzzle (literally, “with no pathway”).

We’ve watched BP try and try and try and fail to find a way to solve this problem on the sea. We’ve watched Resident Obama appear to try to find a way to solve this in meeting with the British Prime Minister. The State Department confirms there has been an international outreach on the BP oil spill. It is of concern to nations, and they are in perplexity over it and in anguish because of it. This situation affects the many nations, may soon affect a third of the seas, and we know that eventually all the oceans die.

Based on prayer, study and the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, I believe the verse in Luke portending roaring seas and anguish of nations could apply in part or in whole to any and all upcoming storms in the Gulf of Mexico and the BP oil spill, which will further deepen as depicted in Revelation when a third of the seas become poisoned, and at the end of this age when all the seas die. Is the Gulf oil issue the beginning? It seems that it well could be … Lord, come quickly!

Posted in earth cracking up, earthquakes, end time, katla, prophecy

Is the earth cracking up? Follow-up, because the cracking continues and Isaiah predicts it

Posted on by elizabethprata

I’d mentioned in a post I made on June 10 that the spate of mine collapses, oil and gas explosions, and sinkholes, never mind the documented increase in earthquake and volcano activity may be related. It seems to me that the earth feels like it is cracking up. At least, shifting in some dramatic way. I’d said, ” The earth is changing…or moving…or cracking…or something. We have a God who promised to use events in the end time to speak of His Holy power and the need for sinners to repent. We have an earth that has been prophesied to be renewed, from the ground up. In understanding where we are in the end time, I personally believe that the news related to explosions from the earth’s crust and ruptures are crustal shifts presaging the more massive shifts to come.” Those massive shifts culminate in an event that is described in Revelation 16:18-20. Isaiah 24 also speaks to the earth’s cracking open, read to the bottom for those proof-verses.

Today another sinkhole has opened in China. In the original article linked above, I noted that the Chinese have been fearing the sudden outbreak of sinkhole activity lately but today’s article states that there have been 35 since April. That is a high amount of activity if you ask me.

“THIS motorist had a lucky escape when his car almost completely disappeared into a massive pothole. The vehicle came to a screeching halt on a busy road when the sinkhole suddenly appeared in China’s Nanchang City in Jiangxi Province. The force of the accident was enough to cause the car’s airbags to deploy and its bonnet was left wedged into the tarmac. Dozens of sinkholes have been discovered across the country – 35 have appeared since April. It comes after a three-storey building was swallowed by an even bigger sinkhole in Guatemala last month. Sinkholes are formed when surface water dissolves bedrock and the flow continues to erode material underground to form caverns. The crust of earth left on the surface eventually collapses “swallowing” everything on top of it.”

In other interesting underground news, a pipeline unexpectedly broke in Salt Lake City, Utah, spilling 500 barrels into a protected creek and water system. Officials are perplexed as to the reason the pipe broke. The oil is still leaking and the main concern at this point is to prevent the oil from reaching Great Salt Lake.

Oil sits on the shore of a pond in Liberty Park. (G. Frey/Getty Images)

And just today, another mine collapse kills one, this time in Ukraine. In America, the disasters have a human toll behind them. As Tom O’Connor writes for the Kansas City.Com, “Amid the horrific scenes of the BP oil spill, we should not neglect the fact that 11 workers died on the rig when it exploded April 20. Nor should we neglect the daily carnage that workers suffer on the job in America. It’s been a very bad couple of months for worker safety: Seven dead in Washington following the explosion of the Tesoro refinery. Six dead in Connecticut in the Kleen Energy power plant explosion. Twenty-nine dead in West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch Mine disaster. And 11 dead in the Gulf of Mexico oil rig collapse.”

People are becoming increasingly aware of the malfeasance of corporations doing business in the earth at the expense of the toll on human life. Neglected inspections, payoffs, wink wink attitudes toward safety and/or stewardship of the earth’s assets. This greed at the expense of human lives and our quality of life is another condition we are told will exist in spades in the Tribulation:
Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you. (James 5:4-6)

Isaiah said that the “earth is also defiled under its inhabitants” and we see from recent events how deeply we have defiled it, with our sin and with our waste. And even as I write this, a 7.5 earthquake happened yesterday in Indonesia, and was followed up by another one off Japan, a 6.1 magnitude. Volcano Katla in Iceland, a potentially disruptive volcano, which has historically erupted following the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull (which first erupted April 14). Katla awoke suddenly yesterday and has evidenced 11 earthquakes in 24 hours. Katla is ten times more powerful than Eyja and has the potential to cause tremendous climate change, as in, winter all year long for years at a time.

What exactly is going on, only God knows. We do know what he has shared with us from His word, in His grace and in His mercy, to warn us in advance: things will get a lot worse. Things won’t work any more, and I’m not talking about man-made things like pipes and sewers and electricity etc; I am saying that the sun won’t work. The Earth won’t work. The moon won’t work. The oceans will fail. These things will happen, and can only be caused by the supernatural power of God Himself. It happened before, Joshua saw that the earth stood still and the moon stood still. And God will do it again, cause changes in the earth and the other planetary bodies that only He can do. Has that change begun? Is the earth cracking? Isaiah prophesies that IT WILL crack entirely open.

Isaiah 24 speaks to the earth’s reeling and cracking in several places. The 24th chapter speaks to “The Last Times of the World in General, and of Judah and the Church in Particular:”

Behold, the LORD makes the earth empty and makes it waste, Distorts its surface, And scatters abroad its inhabitants. (Is 24:1)

The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, Because they have transgressed the laws, Changed the ordinance, Broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, (Is 24:5-6)

And the foundations of the earth are shaken. The earth is violently broken, The earth is split open, The earth is shaken exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, And shall totter like a hut; (Isaiah 18b-20)

The earth will crack up. Has that cracking begun? In my opinion, yes. However, as a saved Christian, that question for me is academic one. I am secure in the knowledge of His mercy and saving grace, extended to me through His Son. No man comes to the Father except by Jesus, and I have entered that door. He received me and I am still on my knees in gratitude. At the appropriate moment, He is coming to gather His own to His bosom so that we may be where he is, always and forevermore. That is known in the bible as the rapture and it is found in the books of 1 Cor. 15:35-53 and in 1 Thes. 4:16-18. I do not have to worry about being on a planet that is cracking up, reeling to and fro like a drunkard. You don’t have to worry, either, if you acknowledge that you are a sinner, and turn away from your sins to Jesus as your Savior and Lord! Go through that door, prayer is the beginning. He is waiting with open arms!

Posted in abraham, end time, prophecy, remember lot's wife

Abraham’s altars and the lesson for us

Posted on by elizabethprata

Genesis is such an amazing book of the bible. In re-reading Genesis 12, I was again astounded by the depth and complexity of human history and our relationship with God. Gen. 12 is the famous chapter in which God called Abram (later name changed to Abraham) and made a significant promise:

I will make you a great nation; … I will bless those who bless you. And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen 12:2a & 3a)

You can be sure that the promise of God is solid, and that we are seeing the curse of nations who curse Israel beginning before our eyes. In verse 7 of Genesis 12, “Then the LORD appeared to Abram,” God appeared to Abraham. In my interpretation he appeared as the Son (Jesus said in John 8:58,”Before Abraham was, I AM.” He was quoting God speaking to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3:14). God appeared to Abram! Think on that for a moment. The El-Shaddai, the I AM, the ALMIGHTY, appeared to a man, walked with him, spoke to him, comforted him, and commanded him. It is a shuddering thought to ponder the gravity of those moments. That gravity was not lost on Abraham, who built altars to Him all over the Land wherever he went. Abraham did not build houses for himself, he built altars to God.

Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD. So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South.

Abraham built altars right away, to mark his obedience to the LORD, and to sacrifice and worship. When Abraham came back from Egypt, “to the place of the altar which he had made there at first. And there Abram called on the name of the LORD.” (Gen. 13:3-4) which is another way of saying worship and sacrifice. When Abraham and Lot had separated and Abram moved to the region of Hebron, he “built an altar there to the Lord” (Gen. 13:18).

Abraham corresponded with the LORD by building altars for worship. Building an altar is an intentional, physical act. Worshiping on front of an altar is an intentional, physical act. When Abraham returned from Egypt, Abraham saw the altar he had originally made and ‘called on the name of the LORD’ in worship and thanks. In this case, the altar was a reminder of his relationship with the great I AM.

We do not need to build altars, but we do need to be as dedicated and as intentional as Abraham in our relationship with God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. You note that when Abraham and Lot separated, there was no mention of Lot building an altar to the LORD. Lot was with Abraham when Abraham got the calling from God (Gen. 12:5) and was with Abraham throughout the blessing of his peoples’ increase. Lot saw God working in his family’s life. He reaped the blessings of Abraham’s obedience. But Lot did not build an altar. And from the biblical record we see how the distance between man and God can slowly grow when we fail to consistently correspond with the LORD. Lot crept toward Sodom, closer and closer he pitched his tent, until he was finally living inside the city with all its sin and perversity. Though the sins of the city grieved Lot greatly (2 Pet. 2:6-8) Lot did not build an altar. And in the end, Lot lost his city, his possessions, his family, his wife, (“Remember Lot’s wife” Luke 17:32) and sin fell upon his daughters, who lay with their father.

We do not build altars … but we pray. Our part of the correspondence between ourselves and God/Jesus/Holy Spirit is maintained through prayer, corporate worship, and fellowship in the body of the believers. Is your heart an altar to I AM? Do you pray constantly? Do you worship in faith and obedience, as Abraham did? No? Remember Lot’s wife. Jesus said:

Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. “In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife.

Build an altar of prayer in your life and you will be blessed by the presence of the I AM Himself!!!

Posted in end time, holy, prophecy, repent

Holy is a word you don’t hear much these days

Posted on by elizabethprata

And that’s a shame, because it is the central point of all of the story of Redemption. God is Holy. That means He is perfect, sinless, well, Holy.

And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” (Isaiah 6:3)

Humans are not holy. We were originally created sinless, perfect, but through free will, Adam and Eve in the garden decided to follow Lucifer’s suggestion to eat the forbidden fruit, and in doing so, directly disobeyed a command from God. That is what sin IS, disobeying God. I tell my children in the Good News Club, an after school bible club, that “sin is “anything we think, say, or do that displeases God.” Since we have thoughts, words and actions that displease God all the time, and couldn’t stop if we tried, it means we are sinners with a sin nature. Paul refers to our sinful nature in Galatians:

The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. (Galatians 6:8)

Even if you do not believe in Adam and Eve and the garden and the forbidden fruit, you know deep down, that you are a craven person who does wrong things. Even if you ever said one lie to spare a person’s feelings (“Yes, that dress looks great on you!”) you are disqualified from being with God in heaven. Why? His Holiness is eternal. So is that lie. Sin is eternal, too. It doesn’t go away after you say it or do it or think it. It remains. And your sin and His holiness shall never meet.

Why would a liar think he is qualified for heaven? A cheater? As self-admitted liars and cheats and adulterers, and gossips and lusty people, why do we think we are “a basically a good person” and therefore qualified to dwell forever with a Holy God? We aren’t.

However, God so desires a relationship with us, that He made a way. He sent Jesus to us. I used to think that Jesus first came to us at Bethlehem on Christmas. But that is not so. He has been with God since the beginning. Genesis 1:1-26 shows that the Father God, Jesus and the Spirit were all involved in the Creation. And just in case there is confusion on this point, John 1:1-3 says

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

At one point known only to God, God said

“I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.(Psalm 2:7)

And God’s Plan to send a Holy One to redeem us was enacted, as reiterated by Paul in Acts 13:33:

that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, ‘YOU ARE MY SON TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU.’

So if we’ve all been sinners since Adam and Eve and He is Holy and cannot dwell with us, that’s it, then, isn’t it? Not quite! We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19) He loves us SO MUCH! He sent Jesus to us to minister and preach and heal, so that our only, ONLY call to the road to heaven is “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” (John 6:29b)

It is very simple. Believe. All other verses are spokes stemming that central truth: for example, believing in “the One” means believing in the Messiah. Why was He sent? To seek and save the lost. Why are we lost? We sin. Why is He Messiah? Because He is the ONLY one who is qualified to forgive our sins, being sinless. Why would we confess? Because He came to seek and save us from our sins, therefore it makes sense that we would acknowledge those sins through our stated belief in Him.

Many people believe in God. Believing in Jesus is a huge leap because the gulf between (Jesus and us) and (God and us) is sin. If you believe in Jesus you believe you are a sinner, like the thief on the cross did, because a person is finally recognizing his OWN sin in the face of the obviously Sinless one. Many people believe in God without believing they themselves are sinners and they leave Jesus out of the equation completely.

Because God is HOLY, and we sin, man must “reform your ways and your actions and obey the LORD your God. Then the LORD will relent and not bring the disaster he has pronounced against you. (Jeremiah 26:13)”

Believe, and turn from your sin. Repent and be dwelling in perfect love for all eternity! Love, love, love, we love because HE FIRST LOVED US! He is wonderful and a holy God like no other. “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple,” that is how holy He is. Yet for all His holiness, “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14-16) He is waiting there for you with open arms.

Posted in bp, brimstone, end time, prophecy

Brimstone is in the air…

Posted on by elizabethprata

In this post, The Language of God: fire and brimstone, I made the connection between brimstone (sulfur) and the increase in volcanic eruptions, and the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Biblically, God has used fire and brimstone to warn and punish. He has threatened to use fire and brimstone to punish. He has threatened to use fire and brimstone to punish (Revelation). It is part of God’s vocabulary to us humans. In that post, I’d said that one of the vocabulary words that God uses is His promise of judgment through fire and brimstone, and one of the byproducts of the spill in the Gulf is hydrogen sulfide, which is Sulfur, which is Brimstone!

When the people of the Gulf smell that distinctive “rotten egg” smell, it is sulfur, or brimstone, and they have been smelling it. People have been getting sick. Now the Louisiana Environmental Action Network has released its analysis of air monitoring test results by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA’s air testing data comes from Venice, a coastal community 75 miles south of New Orleans in Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish. Hydrogen sulfide has been detected at concentrations more than 100 times greater than the level known to cause physical reactions in people. Among the health effects of hydrogen sulfide exposure are eye and respiratory irritation as well as nausea, dizziness, confusion and headache.

The concentration threshold for people to experience physical symptoms from hydrogen sulfide is about 5 to 10 parts per billion. But as recently as last Thursday, the EPA measured levels at 1,000 ppb. Hydrogen sulfide levels are normally 5-10 pts per billion allowed. Tests in the Gulf now show readings are 1000-2000 pts per billion.

By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. (Revelation 9:18)

 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. (Luke 17:29)

Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup. (Psalm 11:6)

And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; (2 Peter 2:6)

It could not be any clearer…a sudden explosion in the Gulf, a perplexing problem too big for man to solve, and wafting brimstone in the air over the wicked and ungodly, and surely that is what America has become, wicked and ungodly.

However, His promises to take His children away to be with Him where He is, is as good as gold. The entire issue of brimstone exists on the ungodly because they refuse to repent. That means turn from sin and be broken and sorry for the bad things we do, which in reality are against God. All a person needs to do is ask Him to forgive the sins they have committed and make Him the Lord of your life, believing in Him as risen Savior. He loves you! He loves all of us! He wants no one to perish! You can rest secure in the promises of Jesus and know that at the moment at which only God knows, we will be raptured away from the tanking economy, the chemicals, the violence, the perversity of this world to dwell with Him in glory! I hope you pray that prayer, seeking repentance. The time draws nigh…

Posted in end time, explosions, methane, natural gas, prophecy, sinkholes

Is the earth cracking up?

Posted on by elizabethprata

During the flood that is described in Genesis 6, mountains were raised up and valleys were made deeper to hold the enormous quantities of water generated in the Great Flood. Earth’s land masses have been pushed apart to make the current continents and islands. The earth as it looks now is not how it looked in the beginning, and it is not how it will look after it is returned to its original condition. In the latter part of the Tribulation God uses the massive natural disasters to not only judge the inhabitants of the earth, but to begin the transformation process in returning the earth to its pre-flood condition. In one example:

And there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. … And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. (Rev 16:18b-19a, 20)

It not so inconceivable that now, in these end times, the prophesied transformation process is beginning. The February 8.8 earthquake at Chile was so great it might have shortened earth’s days and tilted its axis. “A large quake shifts massive amounts of rock and alters the distribution of mass on the planet. The massive earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday may have shifted Earth’s axis and created shorter days, scientists at NASA say.”

The notion that there could be an earthquake so great that it shifts earth and makes it wobble, is intuitively understandable even if one is not a NASA scientist. But in the months since the Chilean earthquake in February, there have been an upsurge in disasters from below. We have seen a massive mine explosion and the largest oil spill in U.S. history. But that is not all, by any means. Besides the most “massive” and the “largest”- qualities we know are indicative of the end time with the constant ramping-up of painful contractions – we see the following constant and successive earth crustal disasters:

It has been a bloody week for China’s coal industry, with four reported accidents. In Russia, there were Two powerful blasts at the country’s largest coal mine that killed at least 12 miners and left 84 people – including 19 rescue workers – trapped deep underground while emergency services scramble to clear smoke and deadly gas from the stricken tunnels. At least six miners have died and seven are missing after a coal-mining accident in eastern Ukraine, regional officials say. In the US, an explosion at West Virginia Massey Energy mine killed 29 men last month, the nation’s worst coal mine disaster in 40 years. Mine disasters in the US are rare. In the US there was one in 2007, two in 2006, one in 2001, and one in 1992…and so on with their intermittent frequency indicating that such disasters are a relative rarity. Now suddenly it seems that mines are collapsing all over the place. But that’s not all that is collapsing.

Recently I wrote about the house and family in Quebec that was swallowed by an unexpected sinkhole in a location not known for sinkholes. That sinkhole tragedy was followed the next week by half an interstate lane disappearing in TN. And the world soon became highly aware of the eerie sinkhole in Guatemala City that swallowed a clothing factory, disappearing down a perfectly cylindrical hole that looked for all the nether-world like the shaft to hell.

Apparently, sinkholes have been appearing with enough regularity in China that the situation is spooking the population. A Sudden Sinkhole Outbreak Raises Fear in China–

“While the Guatemalans are wondering if the giant sinkhole formed on June 1 in their capital city is an isolated case, on the other side of the globe, the Chinese have discovered at least eight sinkholes that suddenly formed in the past two weeks across their country, and many more have appeared during the past two months. On June 3, four huge sinkholes opened up in Guangxi Province where a torrential storm was raging. According to Chinese state media reports, more than 600 villagers had to be evacuated because of them. Three smaller holes were found in southwestern Sichuan Province, and in Yibin City about 260 miles from the Sichuan earthquake’s epicenter, 26 larger sinkholes have formed since April 27. Prelude to Disaster? The outbreak of sinkholes has struck fear in Chinese people.” The report says that “Sinking government credibility and all too fresh memories of a series of recent disasters are causing Chinese society to become easily agitated. This February, the mere rumor of an earthquake scared tens of thousands of citizens in Taiyuan City in Shanxi Province out of their homes and into the streets to spend the night.”

Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. Luke 21:26

Besides earthquakes, mine disasters and sinkholes, there have also been a spate of gas and oil rig explosions. We’re all too familiar with the BP Deepwater Horizon rig explosion on April 22. On May 9 in Decatur Alabama, house was leveled in natural gas explosion. The blast could be felt as far as 2 miles away. Pictured above is a Pennsylvania methane explosion that injured 7 workers. The flames could be seen two miles away On June 8 in West Virginia a methane blast burned 7. The next day, Two men were killed Tuesday by a natural-gas pipeline explosion in Texas, the second such incident in the state in two days. There were several other gas explosion incidences that have occurred in May, but they were over-written in the news by subsequent incidences in June and became too hard to keep track of.

Earth’s increasingly temperamental crustal behavior is not escaping the attention of even the most liberal of opinion-casters, Keith Olbermann, who stated last night as “a Doomsday Scenario that is not far off” and reported something that is worse than Doomsday: something brought up by Florida Senator Bill Nelson in an interview with Andrea Mitchell. A transcript is here, the video is below. It seems that the ocean floor itself has ruptured underneath the BP well and oil is gushing out straight from the earth. A geologic rupture (subsurface blowout) was first mentioned weeks ago by Matt Simmons, who was pooh-poohed but now the scenario seems kind of, um, likely. You can read both Simmons’ claim and the pooh-poohing here.

I don’t like to connect dots that are not there.  However it is fact is that there have been an unusual number of and successive methane, natural gas, and oil explosions in places that don’t usually have them, and whose cause have been investigated as non-terror related. Sinkhole outbreak and sub-sea geologic ruptures are being discussed. The earth is changing…or moving…or cracking…or something. We have a God who promised to use events in the end time to speak of His Holy power and the need for sinners to repent. We have an earth that has been prophesied to be renewed, from the ground up. We have documented evidence that earthquake frequency is up and that volcano eruption activity is up. In understanding where we are in the end time, I personally believe that the news related to explosions from the earth’s crust and ruptures are crustal shifts presaging the more massive shifts to come. In other words, don’t look out below, LOOK UP!

Posted in end time, pelosi heckled, prophecy, senator watches porn

A great gulf fixed: goodbye middle class!

Posted on by elizabethprata

It is commonly supposed that the Tribulation will be rife with poverty, starvation, and famine. And that is true. When the Third Seal is opened, a black horse rides, with scales in his hand and famine will be on the earth. A loaf of white bread will cost as much as a day’s pay. (Rev 6:6). Jesus said in Mt. 24:7 that “There will be famines.” People will be poor, starving, and desperate.

But that is not the total picture. That is only half the picture. There will be riches on earth, too. Though most of the world is crying out for relief, or marching with pitchforks against employers who cheat them of their pay while resting in their luxuries, (James 5:1-5), the rich will be very rich. How do we know this?

Revelation 18:11-

And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise anymore: merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones and pearls, fine linen and purple, silk and scarlet, every kind of citron wood, every kind of object of ivory, every kind of object of most precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble; and cinnamon and incense, fragrant oil and frankincense, wine and oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and bodies and souls of men. The fruit that your soul longed for has gone from you, and all the things which are rich and splendid have gone from you, and you shall find them no more at all. The merchants of these things, who became rich by her, will stand at a distance for fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city that was clothed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls! For in one hour such great riches came to nothing.’ Every shipmaster, all who travel by ship, sailors, and as many as trade on the sea, stood at a distance and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is like this great city?’

There ARE luxuries on earth during the terrible time of most of the Tribulation, but we can see that the gap between rich and poor, compassion and selfishness has widened beyond measure even now in the end time prior to the Tribulation.

For many Third World countries, a middle class is non-existent. In Ecuador, where I traveled in the mid 1990s, the middle class was slipping into oblivion. In First World countries such as America, the middle class felt permanent and comfortable. Not so anymore. Most people are hanging on to Middle Class with their fingernails.

At least the climber has a rope. Many Americans don’t and the one safety net they do have, unemployment benefits, food assistance, or Social Security, are rapidly fraying. In this article, titled, “Game Over for the American Middle Class – Inflation Adjusted Wages up 20 Percent in Last 20 Years While Housing Costs are up 56 Percent and Healthcare Costs are up 155 Percent,” the struggle “for average Americans to keep up is largely becoming an act of will power and force in this current grand recession. In fact, many more people are simply trying to stay afloat let alone pursuing the middle class ideal. Over 37 million Americans are now part of the food stamp program, not only is this the highest number ever but also the highest percentage of Americans ever to be on food assistance.”

The picture in Revelation of the luxuries being sold to the very rich while the employees cry and wail because they are cheated out of their wages and are dying for lack of bread illustrates not only the wealth gap that is upon us now, but the compassion gap, too. If nothing else, these three videos show the very rich and powerful are awash in their sins, whether it is power, ambition, or lust, and are immune to the very real problems their own constituents face. Watch them and the I’ll comment below. Note: prurient parts are blurred out.

Fl. Senator Bennett watches porn while in session
When approached by the reporter, Mr Bennett said he was sent the pornographic image in an email from a woman ‘who happens to be a former court administrator’. ‘I was just sitting there, bored as they were debating the abortion bill,’ Mr Bennett said. ‘I opened it up and said holy s***! What’s on my screen? and clicked away from it right away,’ he told the Sunshine State News. A Senate spokesman said Mr Bennett had thought the email was relating to the abortion bill. It is unclear if he thought the video of the dog was also in relation to the bill. He refused to show the Sunshine State News the original email on his computer after consulting with the Senate’s top lawyer. And when asked if he would ever watch porn on the Senate floor, he replied: ‘You’d have to be insane to do that. It all goes through a server. I don’t think anybody would be doing that.’ [watch the video to determine for yourself if Sen Bennett quickly looked away from the e-mail attachment]

Romanian Senator Marius Nicoara [ PNL party ]

Sen Nancy Pelosi’s bodyguard says “We have to leave, they’re throwing things”
Nancy Pelosi is heckled at Code Pink event:

If you notice the reactions of the three, first Sen. Bennett: When asked about the pornography he is looking at on the laptop, he is quoted as saying that since the servers are public he would have to be crazy to view porn at the senate chambers. He didn’t say that pornography is a sin, that is it offensive and in no way would he engage in it. He said it is an activity better done in private and therefore since he isn’t that dumb he wasn’t REALLY looking at porn.

As for the Romanian parliamentarian, his goofy grin and unabashed wink wink at the camera, while immediately returning to his activity knowing the camera was upon him, speaks to how deeply our leaders fail in every ethical and moral stance. It is heartrendingly evident that our world’s leaders are not engaged in the world’s problems, but are partying like there’s no tomorrow on the backs of the poor.

As for Mrs Pelosi…the crowd is so angry they are throwing things at her. And those are not Republicans in the audience, make no mistake, those are liberals shouting her down and throwing things. It’s quite a testimony that body guards are even needed, never mind suggesting that she be hustled to her armor plated car and whisked away.

Despite leading two wars, is in the midst of the Second Great Depression, and our southern coastline is being slowly ruined by chemicals and oil, our Resident Obama parties, and parties, and parties, and parties.

All middle ground is falling away. There will be the very rich, and the very poor. Home owners (behind gates no doubt) and homeless. The starving and the fat. And the most important gap of all: the saved and the lost. Jesus is removing all earthly safety nets with the result that the gulf widens inexorably. It is a great gulf fixed, “so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.” And that gulf is finally coming into view. The faithful will fully rely on Him and the faithless will see just how far one can fall when relying on human folly. No middle ground. The powerful are not listening, and the oppressed are sharpening their pitchforks. O, Lord, come quickly!

Posted in explosion, oil well blowout

What’s with all these wells blowing up today?

Posted on by elizabethprata

Ponder these and later I’ll post a prophetic analysis to it. If the Spirit leads…meanwhile, pray for the poor men and women on all these sites who are experiencing pain at this tragic time…

North Texas Gas Explosion Kills 3
DALLAS – A gas well explosion in North Texas has killed at least three people and is sending enormous flames and plumes of smoke into the sky The fire broke out at about 3 p.m. at 2101 County Road 1120 in Hood County, south of Fort Worth. At least 10 others are missing. CareFlite dispatched four air ambulance helicopters to the scene. The blaze consists of flames hundreds of feet high and can be seen from at least 30 miles away. Additionally, Sky 4 helicopter pilot Mike Warner said it was so intense he could feel the heat from nearly a mile away. The force of the blast and resulting burn also generated spinning spirals of smoke resembling funnel clouds, often called dust devils. Area residents report hearing a loud explosion or series of explosions. They also said they felt the earth rumble and their homes shake for several minutes. Tracy Mann heard the ruckus and said she initially thought a summer storm was brewing. But the situation quickly turned into something Mann knew was unusual. “Boy that has really lasted a long time for some thunder,” Mann said. “All of our windows were shaking.” A brushfire sparked by the explosion has already consumed about 200 acres, Warner said.

West Virginia gas blast hurts 7, sparks inferno
70-foot high column of flame blazes at former coal mine
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – A crew drilling a natural gas well through an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle hit a pocket of methane gas that somehow ignited, triggering an explosion that burned seven workers, a state inspector said Monday. The blast created a column of flame at least 70 feet high, and it will likely burn until a team of well fire experts can reach the scene to extinguish it, said Bill Hendershot, an inspector with the Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Oil and Gas. The fire is in a rural area outside Moundsville and presents no danger to any structures or people, Hendershot said.

BP Well Bore And Casing Integrity May Be Blown, Says Florida’s Sen. Nelson
Oil and gas are leaking from the seabed surrounding the BP Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida told Andrea Mitchell today on MSNBC. Nelson, one of the most informed and diligent Congressmen on the BP gulf oil spill issue, has received reports of leaks in the well, located in the Mississippi Canyon sector. This is potentially huge and devastating news. If Nelson is correct in that assertion, and he is smart enough to not make such assertions lightly, so I think they must be taken at face value, it means the well casing and well bore are compromised and the gig is up on containment pending a completely effective attempt to seal the well from the bottom via successful “relief wells”. In fact, I have confirmed with Senator Nelson’s office that they are fully aware of the breaking news and significance of what the Senator said to Andrea Mitchell.

Friday:

Pennsylvania well brought under control after natural-gas explosion
Natural gas and polluted drilling water from an out-of-control well shot 75 feet into the air in a remote area of Pennsylvania before crews were able to tame the flow of explosive gas more than half a day later, officials said Friday.