My eBook, “Prophecy in Grace”

By Elizabeth Prata

I’ve kept my blog daily for twelve and a half years. One of the saddest patterns I’ve learned I have to live with, is waking up, reading news, seeing some formerly solid & beloved leader now disgraced in scandal, and I have to go back and scrub blog references to him and replace links. That’s the nature of long-term commitment and perseverance in the faith- some grow stronger, some drift, and are snatched back, and some fall away in sin. Some of those repent and some do not, failing even to see their desperate need for repentance.

Over the years, I’ve published about 5,500 essays. In 2016 I gathered a bunch of essays into a Kindle book I felt were aimed at encouraging people for the glory of God, called Encouragement in Grace. I also gathered a bunch of prophecy essays I’d written for the edification of the saints and the glory of God into a Kindle book called Prophecy in Grace.

I haven’t done much with them since. I didn’t really market them or promote them, I just let them fly and then sink to the bottom of the crowded Kindle basket of all the other self-published books. I mainly wanted to go through the process to test it and see what self-publishing is like.

After I finish writing anything, I always think it’s the worst thing I ever wrote, and I can’t bear to go back and re-read it. I was the same with my newspaper. I never read the finished, print edition of my own newspaper, lol. If I look at it’s like a movie goer watching the scary film through threaded fingers over her eyes.

I was asked about the books recently. So I re-skimmed my Encouragement book and the Prophecy book. Perhaps you might be blessed by reading either of them. They’re not bad. I love the prophecy book because I love prophecy. It gets a bad rap these days. A theologian friend said that prophecy is a kind of disgraced section of study and those who are called dispensationalists are seen as the Rednecks of the disgraced section of study.

I understand. The failed claims of prophecy date-setters damage the credibility of these wonderful scriptures. The fringe preppers and newspaper eisegesists also damage the reputation further. But I am unashamed of anything in the Bible and certainly not ashamed of the promises that Jesus set before us and are specifically given to encourage us!

The doctrines of past and future things in prophecy give hope and underpin our fervency. We know that one of the prophecies promised is that they will mock prophecy. They will say-

“Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue just as they were from the beginning of creation.” (2 Peter 3:4).

All things SEEM like they were since the beginning of creation, but in actuality the providential outworking of God is that every day, every second, is part of His plan to hurtle us forward to the end of time. Time will end. At some point just prior to His Second Coming, all things will visibly and horrifically NOT be as they were from the beginning. The sun will darken, the food chain will fail, the oceans will fill with blood, visible demons will roam, and more.

Understand that we are dust motes in a controlled holy stream of activity sustained and propelled by Jesus. He upholds all things by the word of His power, says Hebrews 1:3b. If you want to know for sure what the future holds, at least as far as Jesus has revealed it, study your Bible, of which about a quarter to a third of the entire book is prophecy. Prophecy should inspire us to greater fervency, since Christians know more than anyone that time is near (Revelation 1:3).

Since so much of the Bible is prophecy, and though some of it is fulfilled, much of remaining prophecy is unfulfilled. What is to come? Can we know the future? What did Jesus say will happen? Is prophecy too complicated to understand? This book contains essays explaining the future history of believers and non-believers alike. What is the Rapture? Does Israel have a future? What about the nation of Egypt? Jordan? What about the timing of prophesied events?

I use proper interpretation, scripture and commentaries from noted theologians to explain answers to these questions and more. Prophecy is the ultimate encouragement because it demonstrates the faithfulness of Jesus and His sovereign control over all things, including the history of man.

Those were the questions I addressed in the e-Book Prophecy in Grace. If you are interested, the book is here.