end time – Page 19

48 years apart: Lightning strikes kill dad, son

Posted on July 15, 2011 by elizabethprata

It might be time to review what God has to say about lightning…

“HAMMONTON, N.J. – July 14, 2011 (WPVI) — The story seems almost unbelievable, but the bark blown off an old sycamore tree is a reminder this tragedy is all too real. It was in a Hammonton backyard that 54-year-old Stephen Rooney was struck by lightning at a family barbeque July 3rd as he stepped away from the crowd to light a cigar. The party host, Rooney’s cousin and next door neighbor, Funzi Digerolamo, says a giant bolt shook the yard. “Hit the tree, went up the tree. It electrified all through the root system of the tree at that time so he was standing right in the electric field,” Digerolamo said. Digerolamo’s son Scott was blown right off a bench, but survived. Steve Rooney died five days later.”

“Just before he was hit, Rooney downplayed concerns about the lightning. “He had just said that lightning doesn’t strike two people in one family right before it happened, not long before it happened, he said that,” neighbor Paula Weisbecker said. Lightning is not supposed to strike twice, but in this case it did.”

“Steve Rooney’s father George was also killed by lightning 48 years ago when Steve was just a 5-year-old boy. The odds of this happening to a father and son are astronomical. Everyone is stunned that a bolt of lightning could claim them both, almost 5 decades apart.”

Why TV cooking shows have morphed into adventure programs

Posted on July 15, 2011 by elizabethprata

I’ve been talking about two things lately. First, are the increasing superlatives that must be attached to describe the events we’re seeing in the world. Because Jesus likened the time to birth pangs, we know that birth pangs get worse and worse, more and more painful as the big event nears. The weather is record shattering, this flood is the worst ever, this tornado outbreak is the biggest in history. Yet the superlatives keep getting attached to the events in ever bigger form as the events grow larger and records keep getting shattered. It is an upward spiral that eventually will bring everyone down.

The second thing I’ve been mentioning is ever-deepening sin. Sin’s depths know no bounds. In 1969, Charles Manson was discovered to have led a bevy of mind-controlled females and males into committing the Tate/LaBianca murders in California. Nine people died and it absolutely shocked the country. Nowadays if there aren’t at least nine killings on a television show the ratings dip. As one sin becomes passe, another worse one has to take its place. There is simply no where else to go for the rush except to top it and try and repeat the rush next time.

This deepening of sin and its combined adrenaline rush is played out in television show titles. I was noticing on the television listings about the nature of the titles of reality shows. The Food Network for example. In decades past, the shows used to feature gourmet chefs who were galloping, or were frugal. The titles were benign, inoffensive, charming. The very first cooking show on television was James Beard in 1946. (no, not Julia Child, she came along more than a decade later, in 1962). Beard’s show was simply called “I Love To Eat.”

Nowadays we have gone from:

Top Chef … to … Chopped …to… Iron Chef …to… Extreme Chef. Where once upon a time, people were content to simply sit still for half an hour and watch a competent chef teach them something new, we watch quick-edits of chefs running in the desert and dodging hailstones while extracting ingredients from a block of ice or using a Swiss Army knife as a lone cooking utensil, being are pushed to their physical and mental limit. All for a good pasta.

In 2003 “The Restaurant,” a reality show featuring two owners at odds with each other, was compelling enough to spawn more restaurant shows, each with a more adrenaline-rush name:

Hell’s Kitchen … to … Restaurant Nightmares… to …Restaurant Battle …to … Restaurant Impossible. Impossible! As each television season unveils a new show, the names have to be tougher, the people participating in them have to be rougher, the fights bigger, the injuries worse. And these are the cooking shows. In order to lure increasingly jaded audiences, they entice them with teasers promising blood, crashes, fisticuffs. Again, I’m talking about cooking shows.

In 2000, The History Channel aired a 46-minute episode titled “Ice Road Truckers” as part of the ‘Suicide Missions’ series. The IRT episode became a break out show on its own. After four years, Ice Road Truckers alone wasn’t good enough (not enough of them sank beneath the cracking ice to drown their drivers in a frozen lake?) so we got IRT: Deadliest Roads in the Himalayas with constant quick-cuts to crushed vehicles at the bottom of precipitous inclines.

The shows titles and of course their material are getting more extreme. I think if we looked at a prime time television line-up schedule from 1965 and then looked at one now we’d be shocked at the mentions of extreme, death, deadly, etc. Like this- What’s after ‘Fear Factor’? “Terror Factor”?

The only place to go is down. Television is rapidly becoming more and more shallow, nasty, and polluted. However, being a mirror for our culture, it is only reflective of the people who watch it and our descent into sin is also rapid, polluted, and nasty. It is a progression James 1:15 aptly describes: “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” The lust he describes is not just a sexual lust, it is a coveteousness, desire, sensuality that seeks to fill the emptiness inside. That emptiness is a place just waiting for Jesus, His light, His holiness, His righteousness. But if they do not accept Jesus, they continually seek to fill it with ever deepening poisons and perversions.

Unbelievers say that they are free. They are not, they are slaves to their lusts. The television schedule shows us that, plainly. But Jesus is the INSTANT answer to the need for that emptiness to be filled. He is waiting to fill it. You will be a participant in His plan to regenerate you from the inside out. He replaces lusts and poison and depravity with light and holiness and righteousness. You feel fresher. You no longer seek and seek and seek the next high, because you have finally found the ultimate High: Jesus.
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earthquake english channel, end time

Earthquake hits English Channel

Posted on July 14, 2011May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

I’d written a couple of weeks ago of a bizarre tsunami that occurred along the southern English coast, accompanied by widespread reports of static electricity. It was said at the time, “Experts said the phenomenon, which was felt from Penzance in Cornwall to Portsmouth, was likely to have been caused by a landslide on the continental shelf under the sea.”

Today an earthquake hit the English Channel. BBC reports:

“An earthquake with a magnitude of 3.9 has struck in the English Channel, the British Geological Survey (BGS) said. The quake had a depth of 10km and its epicentre was south of Portsmouth, according to the BGS. Residents in parts of West Sussex reported buildings shaking for a few seconds at about 0800 BST. Sussex Police, Solent Coastguard and West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service said they had not been called out to any incidents related to it.”

‘Largest since 1734’
“David Kerridge, from the BGS, said it was the biggest incident of its kind in the area for nearly 300 years. He said: “This is the largest earthquake in this area since a magnitude 4.5 event in 1734. “Historically, there have been two other significant events nearby – a magnitude 5.0 earthquake in 1878 and a magnitude 4.3 earthquake in 1750.” It should be noted that French seismos have the magnitude at 4.6, which WOULD make the quake the biggest in that area and almost the biggest ever.

Think about all those people in the English Channel train tunnel when an earthquake hits. Here is a seismic map:

I have no idea if the English tsunami two weeks ago and the Channel earthquake today are related. But I thought they were interesting, happening in nearly the same location and within a two-week time frame of each other. And here we have yet another superlative: the ‘largest in 300 years’. These birth bangs will progressively get bigger, worse, taller mightier than the one happening before, until they run out of superlatives because the event will exceed man’s ability to comprehend it. (Luke 21:26, Revelation 15-16).

Denver had a terrible storms last night. I read the twitter stream of people talking about it. They were terrified, many natives noting they had never seen the like. Here are the results from today’s news:

“Boulder Creek surge sets off sirens as latest storm wreaks havoc
“Sirens blared and Boulder residents were ordered away from the creek as a 4-foot surge of water rolled into town Wednesday night, part of another wild weather night in Colorado. The Front Range, from Pueblo to Wyoming, roiled amid thunderstorms, lightning, hail and flooding for the second night in a row — and the eighth straight day of heavy rain. Most parts of the metro region have recorded at least three times their normal rainfall for this point in July.”

But that was only the water. Let’s talk about the hail. The hail was so bad it damaged 12 planes and they shut down the airport, stranding 1000 people.

“More than 1,000 airline passengers — including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — were forced to spend the night at Denver International last night after a severe storm forced numerous flight cancellations. The storm brought a 15-minute period of golf-ball-sized hail, which damaged some aircraft at the airport, The Denver Post reports. Some of the damaged planes had to be taken out of service, which complicated efforts to accommodate disrupted passengers.”

You may not know that this was the 8th day in a row such storms plagued the people in Colorado.

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crime, end of days, end time, holy spirit, prophecy, restrainer

Copper thievery and sinful conditions

Posted on July 14, 2011 by elizabethprata

Sin doesn’t end. Sin doesn’t settle. Sin doesn’t shrink. It expands, creeping bigger, more, deeper. A lie in your mind changes to a lie out loud, to two lies, to a tangled web … There is no end to Jesus’ love and conversely, there is no end to sin. The heights of Jesus love are mirrored by the depths of sin, and sin can go pretty deep.

Jesus, Paul, and Peter outlined the specifics of what was to come at the end of the age (in the Tribulation). But they all also taught about moral conditions that would be upon humanity. Jesus said “love will wax cold”, (Mt 24:12); Paul said they will be brutal, unloving, and without self-control (2 Timothy 3:3); Peter said the truth will be blasphemed and covetousness will rule (2 Peter2:2-3) just to give a few examples.

Jesus also said that the Tribulation will be a time like the days of Noah. In the days of Noah, the evil of man was so great that he only had evil thoughts, continuously. (Gen 6:5) That is 100% sin saturation! We are not at 100% saturation of evil now, but we are sliding down the hill quickly. After believers are removed from the earth at the rapture (Gen 6:3) and the ministry of restraint of the Holy Spirit is removed, (2Thessalonians 2:6) evil will have free reign to unleash whatever it will. It will be pretty bad. Jesus said that unless He cut short the days, no one would be left alive on the earth, it will be so evil and violent. (Mt 24:22).

So let me give you an example of the descent of sin. We are not in the Tribulation now, but we do have to move from the level of earthly sin we’re in now toward that 100% mark and I believe we are seeing the speeding up of it now, in this time just prior to the rapture.

The metaphor of deepening sin is encapsulated in an example of the copper thieves.

Copper thievery is a sin that has always plagued us. But it has spiked exponentially, said police in Alabama. “Record copper prices have caused a surge in U.S. copper thefts, plaguing law enforcement and local governments and prompting states to pass new laws. “Since the beginning of the 2004 spike in copper prices, copper theft and copper prices have been directly linked,” a 2010 U.S. Department of Energy study on copper wire thefts said.”

Thieves used to take coils from constructions sites, empty houses, when no one was around. Then they began stealing copper from churches. They graduated to gutters, and these kind of bandits are called “gutter grabbers.” Most often the house is occupied, the thieves not caring if people are about. They they moved on up to larger booty: transformers. In this article titled, “Antioch Copper Wire Thieves Reach New High – Or Low” you see, the lows just keep getting lower. “Just days after Pacific Gas and Electric lamented the ongoing and widespread theft of copper wire from its Antioch power poles, the utility is now revealing that a particularly brazen thief – or thieves – stole an entire transformer from a power pole.”

The booty is getting bigger, and so is the personal risk, both to the owners of the copper and to the thieves. More of them who attempt to steal copper from live wires are getting fatally electrocuted.

So then they ‘graduated’ from transformers to whole air conditioning units, attached to houses where the people are living. Stealing the unit puts the people inside at risk, of course. In a heat wave people die. Stealing the scrap metal or copper from live gas lines means houses explode, sometimes with the people inside them. These thieves sunk even lower, stealing the AC unit from an animal shelter, putting all the puppies and kittens at risk.

So in a short time we have gone from a constant of petty wire thievery at abandoned homes or constructions sites, to huge AC units attached to homes, churches and non-profit centers, and from pipes to gutters to entire transformers that black out whole neighborhoods. But we don’t stop there.

These thieves stole an entire irrigation system in Modesto CA. “Thieves crushed a grape crop when they took off with the tools that help a local vineyard to grow. Grape grower Frank Rashid was on track for a record-breaking year. “See how beautiful?” said Rashid, gesturing toward his grapes.But in an instant, thieves crippled all of his hard work. “A lot of trouble for me, [and] the grapes; I can lose the crop, you know,” said Rashid. Bad guys stole the grape irrigation system worth more than $10,000.”

Copper thievery has gotten so persistent and so bad that there are states proposing laws regulating the sale of the metal. Copper thievery has risen sharply in Winston-Salem, with “more copper thefts in Winston-Salem in the first six months of 2011 than there were all of last year, city police said.”

The boldness of the copper thieves, the size of the booty, the heightening of danger, are examples of a downward progression in sin and evil in these last days. This progression is in all sins and crimes of course. We’ve gone from child abuse, to child abuse and kidnapping, to child abuse, kidnapping and murder, to child abuse, kidnapping, murder and dismemberment. Embezzlement is no longer perpetrated by a furtive, mealy-mouth man in some back cubicle at a tiny company. That sin’s depths were revealed to us in the Bernie Madoff schemes where he boldly made off with billions. Petty shoplifting is a thing of the quaint past, now we have whole mobs storming stores in full view of security guards and grabbing all that they can. Each and every sin on earth is getting deeper, worse, more corrupt.

The point is, you don’t want to be here when there is NO restraint. Things are this bad now but soon there will be free reign to plunder, steal, be brutal and selfish and the sanctity of life will mean nothing.

By His grace He died to save us from our sins. He will forgive you your unholy crimes if you ask him with penitent heart. He is sending these signs and warnings to us now to let us know the era is drawing to a close. He will remove His bride from the earth, He will send the Holy Spirit into retreat, He will allow satan full capacity to do his worst. You really don’t want to be here when that happens. And you don’t have to be. Just turn to Jesus.
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bible jesus, conforming to the world, end time, liberal theology

An example of what happens when seeking crumbs from secular tables

Posted on July 14, 2011 by elizabethprata

Wow, I was excited when I read a tweet from a Christian College Academician who recommended a secular article about the Bible. He titled his tweet and the introduction to the essay, “Well, Well, The HuffPo Finally Gets an Essay on Scripture Right!” It had been retweeted by a twitter pal who is in seminary. Wow, I thought, two bigwigs! They should know! This article ought to be good, and how wonderful an accurate and respectful secular article is in the Huffington Post! I clicked and read. The Seminary Professor’s introduction to the Huffington Post’s essay on the bible went like this:

“David Lose does a good job in analyzing the common misrepresentations of ‘how we got the Bible’ and then he does an even better job of describing how the process of ‘scripturalization’ (my word, not his) worked. Give it a read. I know, I was apprehensive too at first given the fact that the Huffington Post doesn’t usually do accuracy when it comes to Bible related stuff. But they managed to get an informed essayist this time.”

Okey dokey. I plunged on. The HuffPo article begins by offering the three most common cultural misconceptions of how the bible came to be, ‘Holy Dictation, Imperial Decree, and Forgeries and Falsehoods.’

Here is the Huffington Post explanation about what the secular world thinks of Holy Dictation:

“A: Holy Dictation. Promoted by conservative Christians, this view stresses the inerrancy — that is, the factual accuracy in all matters of faith, history, and science — of the Bible. Authors, in the grip of the Holy Spirit, received a divine revelation directly from God that they transcribed without error. So while the biblical authors may have written in their own voice and style, the contents of their compositions were nevertheless divinely inspired and controlled. For this reason, there are no errors of any kind in the Bible; hence, if the Bible says the world was created in seven days then, indeed, it was created in seven days.”

True enough! Next came the essayists’ discussion of it. He said that the answer of where the bible came from is not ‘A. Holy Dictation,’ nor ‘B. Imperial Decree’, and not ‘C. Forgeries and Falsehoods’, either. It’s ‘D. ‘None of the above.’ He wrote, “All of the “possibilities” are flawed”. In fact, the author of the essay wrote: “In fact, the theory of inerrancy — a word never used in the Bible — was only coined only a century ago by fundamentalist Christians seeking to defend the Bible from recent discoveries about its historical origins and fallible conclusions in the realms of history and science.”

Christians have come to expect this kind of thought about our bible from secular essayists. That he didn’t deride the bible nor the “option A. Divine Inspiration” is to his credit. We usually see much more hostile treatment from the secular crowd and worse from liberal media like HuffPo. I don’t take issue with the HuffPo author.

Of course, I take issue with the secular essayist’s proposition that the bible’s delivery by Divine Inspiration is a possibility and not a fact. Of course I take issue with the notion that the doctrine of Divine Inspiration is flawed. I don’t take issue with the author, though. That’s to be expected from Christians, but we don’t bark up every secular tree, because the world is fallen. They can’t help but believe these things.

But Christians should know better.

I take issue with the Christians who make a public claim that the article is an “informed answer”. I take issue with Christians who make public statements about how the essay promoting the notion that the bible’s inerrancy doctrine is flawed. I take issue with Christians who say that essays promoting these things is “is a good job”. I take issue with Christians who state that their apprehensions of yet another mischaracterizing bible Christian representation disappear when reading that the bible ISN’T Divinely Inspired.

I am making two points here.

The first is that Christians of today have a tendency to attach to the world. They want the world’s approval. They get tired of always defending, contending, fighting the good fight. They compromise on small things, then larger things. They accept leaven with the dough and pretty soon their entire doctrine is polluted. Attaching to the world skews a Christian’s perspective. Satan influences Christians by incremental degrees. A jot here, a tittle here. If he was to burst in on the scene and say that the entire book of Ephesians was non-inspired, or something egregious like that, we’d know the force behind the sentiment is satan. But he creeps. He slouches toward the goal line stealthily and subtly. (Jude 1:4; Gen 3:1). But we are not unaware of his schemes! (2 Cor 2:11).

We are in a war. (Ephesians 6). It’s WAR. In war do you let down your guard? Sleep on patrol? Give ground to the enemy just because he pleased you? Accept his compliments because you would rather not carry your battle armor any more and just want to go home? We all want to go home. But we’ll go home when the LORD calls the battle-weary up to heaven and until then, don’t give the enemy one inch of ground.

Brethren, it is tiring to be Christian. We stand, we walk, we race. We fight, we run, we go. It’s all active, every day. Christians who get tired are called liberals. Soon after, they are called apostates. Does one think it pleases the Holy God for Christians to be so attached to the world that they are grateful for a secular crumb in an online blog that besmirches Holy Scripture? Have we become that pathetic? Yes. Revelation 3:14-15 tells us that through Christ’s rebuke to the lukewarm Laodicean church, AKA the apostate church. We’re supposed to be separate from the world, as God told Ezra as the model of separating so as not to be polluted:

“Now make confession to the LORD, the God of your fathers, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives.” (Ezra 10:11). Haggai 2:12-13 has something to say about it, too. So the first point is that by conforming to the world we soon seek the world’s approval and not God’s. Christian, beware! It’s a sly and subtle process.

Secondly, the point also is that academia these days seems especially polluted. I am not saying there aren’t good bible colleges. But most of them have compromised. For example, there are about 105 colleges in the Christian Coalition and only 6 adhere to a biblical, literal interpretation of the Genesis 6-day creation. Rather than being a bastion of free, conservative and staunch doctrinal thought, seminaries, Christian colleges and Christian Universities tend to the heretical rather than the biblical. I’ve noticed this in my own experience time and again. I know people who were hot to become missionaries operating under the Godly influence of the pure Holy Spirit but when they went to Christian Seminaries they came out academic gamesmen, pursuing academic thought in ever higher sheepskin degrees for its own sake, not the Lord’s.

My advice to you is to be wary and skeptical of Professors, Academic Theologians AND Seminary students and their doctrines than accepting of them. In all cases, even with the most conservative and proven pastors or professors, be a Berean and ask the Spirit to deliver wisdom to you in situations where you have a conflict between doctrines you’ve learned or a question about scripture. He leads into all truth, being the Holy Teacher. Also, ask for discernment. The scriptures are rife with Godly men asking for it, as David did here:

“Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments.” (Psalm 119:66). We have this promise, too:

“My son, if you receive my words,
And treasure my commands within you,
So that you incline your ear to wisdom,
And apply your heart to understanding;
Yes, if you cry out for discernment,
And lift up your voice for understanding,
If you seek her as silver,
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will understand the fear of the LORD,
And find the knowledge of God.
For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;
He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; ” (Proverbs 2:1-7a)

Be very, very careful these days. And for heaven’s sakes, don’t read Huffington Post!
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economy, end of days. prophecy, end time, global economic crash, one world government

Economic crash dead ahead: prophetic fulfillments one after another

Posted on July 13, 2011May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

The economy around the world is in a shambles. The US has a debt limit ceiling of August 2. However, by that time they must have already come to an agreement on whether to raise it or not because any proposal to raise it must have gone through Congress first, and that takes a minimum of two weeks or so. The talks on the debt ceiling are breaking down like a shreds of a popped balloon. Anger, threats, and inability to come to a conclusion have been the hallmark of these talks, with the world watching and getting more fearful and angry by the minute.

US default is inevitable, says CNBC analyst. Just a few years ago just saying default and US in the same sentence would have evoked laughter. Now they are talking about its inevitability, the only question remaining as to what KIND of default the US will have.

“It is inevitable that the US will default when the debt ceiling deadline on August 2 comes around, David Murrin, chief investment officer at Emergent Asset Management told CNBC. “It’s inevitable that the US will default – it’s essentially an empire which is overextended and in decline – and that its financial system will go with it. The question is: does it default when it is forced to by the outside world, probably the Chinese, or does it take the option to default on its own terms in such a way that it may have a strategic advantage,” he said.”

I’m flabbergasted that just four years ago America seemed to be on top of the world in every arena, including economic, and now we are taking of not only the inevitability of default, but of what KIND of default. Sovereign default is what we used to make fun of in the Banana Republics, but now Obama is vehemently denying that we are one. In high finance, vehement denials always come just before the thing that is being denied comes about.

The ‘Eurozone’ also has difficulties, worse ones actually. While the US has been staying the execution of our economic system by printing more money, Europe can’t do that. Those in the zone, the EU, have one currency. One nation just can’t go off and print more drachmas, because there is no such thing any more as drachmas. Or Lira. or Escudo. There was an emergency meeting on Italy’s looming default that ended with no solutions. There is a meeting scheduled for this Friday about Greece that is already in disarray. Ireland was cut to junk status. Italy is coming apart like a $20 suit.

Greece is rumored to be preparing to leave the Eurozone, but denies it vehemently. Remember the truism that in economics the more vigorous the denial, the more true the thing is that they are denying. The Eurozone crisis is growing larger while stocks dip and slide, and it is reaching a critical point with Italy’s cracks being added to the already crumbling foundation.

Those are some of the details of what is happening in the economy and how close we are to total collapse. A US default, and/or Greek, Italian or Irish would pull everyone else down with them. And I haven’t even mentioned Spain and Portugal.

Now for the bigger picture. These meetings in the US and Europe are held with the greatest minds on the subject. They are the top officials. They have the most experience, the longest resumes, the most power. In some cases, they are the people who put the economic system together, and have intricate understanding of how it works, and therefore should have intricate understanding of why it isn’t working. But they don’t. They try and try and fly here and there and go to and fro and meet and meet and still things are worsening.

This situation of economic gridlock causing so much consternation is exactly the beginning of fulfillment of prophecy. In Luke 21:25 it says: “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.”

Barnes Notes explains the state of distress from the Greek word used: “The word translated “distress” denotes anxiety of mind – such an anxiety as people have when they do not know what to do to free themselves from calamities; and it means here that the calamities would be so great and overwhelming that they would not know what to do to escape. There would be a want of counsel, and deep anxiety at the impending evils.” Is that now, or what?!

Further, the roaring of the waves does not denote tsunamis or hurricanes but is parallel to this scripture from Isaiah 17:12 “Oh, the raging of many nations–they rage like the raging sea! Oh, the uproar of the peoples–they roar like the roaring of great waters!” Is that happening now, or what?! The ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings, the anger of the people everywhere at the leaders who can’t and won’t and don’t fix this, Greek and UK riots on austerity measures…Just now there have been successive bomb blasts in Mumbai, killing many.

I personally think the remainder of the summer will be really interesting prophetically. Between the deadlines regarding Israel and dividing of her land, either through the peace process or a unilateral vote at the UN, and the deadlines for resolving the debt before it crushes us, and continuing natural disasters hammering away at the economy, I don’t think we will have much longer before the cracks in that old foundation give way to a heap of rubble that used to be our economy. And prophecy students know that at the middle of the Tribulation, the antichrist has gained so much power that he can monitor every single person on the planet and include them or exclude them from buying or selling. (Rev 13:15-17). For there to be so much power and capability on one person’s hands there must have been a reformation of the economic system to allow it. I think we’re on that brink.
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end time, peace, prophecy, rapture

Peace be with you

Posted on July 13, 2011May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Good morning,

Did you ever have a feeling of peaceful well-being that was saturating you completely? A feeling of rightness in the world, though it is fallen and corrupt, but of sweetness with the Lord anyway? Of needing nothing and wanting nothing, just content with what you have and relieved that all has been taken care of and provided for by the Almighty? Of gladness that you know the Holy Spirit and can feel Him doing the regenerative work in you? That is how I feel this morning.

“Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (Hebrews 13:20-21)

Because He was loving and obedient to the Father:

We soon share in His peace forever

Please accept His free pardon that He offers for your sins. Pray to Him and confess, making Him Lord of your life and you will be cleansed from the sins that weigh you down so. You will then know true peace, being reconciled to the Prince of Peace.
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end time, katla, prophecy, volcano

Volcanoes going off everywhere: Katla, Etna, and… Oz?

Posted on July 9, 2011 by elizabethprata

Just a short entry today. I spent all day putting together the prophecy newsletter and between the heat and the humidity I’m tapped out. Two volcano stories for you–

Warnings of volcanic eruption in Australia
“Scientists are now warning that volcanoes in Western Victoria and South Australia are due to erupt. The prediction comes just hours after two earthquakes hit the state this morning. Using new dating techniques, University of Melbourne scientists have found that the volcanoes usually erupt every 2000 years, with the last eruption at Mt Gambier, South Australia, 5000 years ago. Earth sciences Professor Bernie Joyce says Australia needs a plan in case of an eruption. It comes as Victorians are warned to brace themselves for more tremors after a shallow magnitude quake hit at 11.32am, sending shockwaves through towns and suburbs more than 100 kilometres away. A series of tremors lasting up to 15 seconds have been felt across Melbourne’s CBD and southeastern suburbs. A second, smaller quake shook Korumburra, with reports it was again felt in Melbourne, at 12.37pm. Senior seismologist Clive Collins said people should prepare for aftershocks in the coming hours. “There will be aftershocks, that’s a certainty,” he told the Herald Sun. “We still expect lots of smaller ones. “After the last significant quake in Victoria there were more than 200 aftershocks.” The tremors shook Melbourne office buildings and many homes across the state, including Warragul, Ferntree Gully, Sunbury and as far north as Melbourne Airport.”

I had written three days ago that scientists were warning that Hekla in Iceland may erupt. I put up a map showing Eyja, Hekla and Katla were in close proximity and noted that when one of the three erupts then one of the others usually does as well. Today this is being reported:

Possibly Small Eruption in South Iceland Volcano Katla

There was sudden flooding and melting of a glacier and the thought is that a small eruption caused it.

“A glacial flood, probably, from the volcano Katla in Mýrdalsjökull has disrupted the Ring Road (highway no.1), by the river Múlakvísl on Mýrdalssandur in south Iceland, tearing the bridge across Múlakvísl. The road is closed between Höfdabrekka, east of Vík, and the river Skálm, near Álftaver. The flood is thought be the result of a small eruption underneath the icecap of Mýrdalsjökull, probably in the Katla crater, ruv.is reports. “At least this is not a large eruption, the Katla eruption people have been waiting for,“ geophysicist Freysteinn Sigmundsson told ruv.is “If it is a volcanic eruption, it is a small event and possibly only geothermal water.“ The Civil Protection Department has issued a warning to people in the area, to beware of sulphurate smell near the river, as it might be poisonous sulphurate gas.”

In this news article, they write, “Small eruption at Katla“
“For the people of Iceland, the past few years must feel like the old saying “when it rains, it pours’: we’ve seen two significant eruptions, one at Eyjafjallajökull and one at Grimsvötn, in less than a year. Earlier this week, there was news that another Icelandic volcano, Hekla, was showing signs of unrest, although it was unclear whether they pointed towards an eruption. Then, the switcheroo, where instead of anything at Hekla, we get a surprise jokulhlaup (glacial outburst flood) at Katla on the southern end of the island.”

His description reminds me of the people at a tennis match when their heads swing this way then that way then this way…just as we look to one p art of the world for an expected event, another one pops up over there where we least expected it. In 2008 the Chilean volcano Chaiten erupted suddenly and is still erupting. Volcanologists say that Chaiten volcano had not erupted in 9500 years. Last month, the Eritrean volcano Nabro suddenly erupted for the first time ever. In Java, a new volcano was formed within two days. Fisherman were stunned. Three weeks ago I reported that there were 35 earthquakes at the Cuidad Juarez/El Paso border of the US that have geologists and seismologists thinking a new volcano may be born there soon, and a joint team of scientists from US/Mexico went to investigate. Volcanic eruptions from existing volcanoes have increased. Two days ago, “Palermo – An uncountable series of quakes have been recorded in Sicily. The strongest one had a magnitude of 3.1 and was recorded in the province of Messina, along the northern coast of Sicily that has been subjected to a persisting series of seismic events in the last few weeks. The quake was detected 3:01 am at a depth of a little more than 8 km. In the same area, a lighter 2.3 magnitude quake was recorded at 1:58 at approximately the same depth. . .” Today, ash from Mt. Etna closed an Italian airport. What next?!

Stay tuned, and be glad you chose to repent of your sins and accept the free pardon Jesus offers. If you have not repented, heed these wonderful words:

“Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way
and the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.” (Isaiah 55:6-7)

“For thy name’s sake, O LORD, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.” (Psalm 25:11)
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end of days. prophecy, end time, famine, forgiveness, love, revelation

Looking at famine

Posted on July 8, 2011January 25, 2022 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

I wrote about famine as a judgment from God recently. It is truly saddening to see these things happening because although I glory in His promises coming true it also means suffering and death for many. And death for the unsaved means an eternity away from God, in hell. In that essay I quoted a news article that said, “The striking images of the landscape seem to represent a deceptively simple assessment of the drought: the dirty work of Mother Nature.”

It is the LORD who sends the rain in preparation for the crops. (Psalms 147:8). It is the LORD who sends it to the obedient. (Leviticus 26:4). He appoints seasons in His own authority. (Acts 1:7). “Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” (Acts 14:17) He sends the crops, the seasons and the weather for our benefit, to His glory. He can, and will reverse the process when we fail to thank Him and refuse to acknowledge His authority. That is the spiritual fact.

On a practical level, famine is both biological and social. It occurs to a person individually while it is also happening to all others around the sufferer. And unlike pestilence, where sick people are quarantined, privately sequestered, or are too insentient to socially connect, famine leaves the individual able to share in it with others.

“When starvation becomes a mass experience, the phenomenon is no longer purely biological.” (Robert Dirks, Academia.edu).

Famine is sneaky because the population has no clue that this crop failure will lead to a continual shortage, or that this lack of monsoon rains will lead to a permanent drying-out. It is only after successive storms or failures or absence of expected weather that it become apparent that food will not be coming. By then malnourishment or early stages of starvation may have already set in.

The biological consequences of famine begin with scarcity, move to malnourishment, elevate to starvation, and finish with famine. Starvation happens when the energy demands of the biological unit exceed supply. Technically, starvation begins 4-6 hours after the last meal, when the body has broken down all that will be or is able to be used, and no new food is forthcoming. However since a person living in a healthy culture will then consume more within a reasonable time period after the last meal, the negative effects are not really felt.

After a day or so, though, dehydration, hypoglycemia, and ketosis begin. After 24 hours, there are impacts to the tissues as loss outpaces fat. As starvation continues, exhaustion sets in and there is decreased tolerance for work. People move more slowly and adopt an energy saving posture. “In mobilizing its reserves, the body progressively selects fat over muscle as fuel, allowing life to be sustained for one to three months in acute starvation.” (Dirks).

Things go rapidly downhill from there, with all sorts of nasty things happen to the individual’s biology. And that’s just starvation, not famine. But you can see, it happens quickly. Though drought and famine take a long time to set up, when it hits, the body, mind, and soul shrivel pretty quickly.

I wrote above that in the first few sentences mother nature was blamed, and in addition, war also precipitates famine. War does have a devastating connection with famine. In Revelation 6, first there is war, then there is scarcity, then there is death. Those are Seal Judgments two, three, and four. In history, famine has almost always followed war. As the Red Cross says in discussing humanitarian aid, “the fact must be faced that food aid alone will never eliminate famines nor the suffering they cause. It still falls short of meeting the victims’ needs and appears essentially inadequate to solve their problems.” That’s because there are complex reasons for it that also include war, conflict, and strife.

Famine is destructive to those societies where malnourishment is always present, and soon after initial starvation sets in, financial ruin and disease take over. For some societies, they may at first adapt to conditions that in many cases don’t affect them. There is such a thing as “class famine.” We see in Revelation 6:6 that millions starve, unable to afford more than a loaf of bread even though they worked all day, while in Revelation 18:13 we see that all the while, a hefty trade in food luxuries had been ongoing. (“and cinnamon and incense, fragrant oil and frankincense, wine and oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep…”) There are the very rich and the very poor, and you can bet the very rich will not be affected by famine. The Tribulation’s predicted scarcities will be characterized by class famine.

When famine conditions deepen, the ‘Law of Diversification and Polarization’ comes into play. As Dirks quoted Sorokin, “simply put, this means that catastrophe brings out the best and the worst in people. It exaggerates what is already there.”

Sociological studies show that at first, people share when disaster strikes. As the disaster continues, and/or as supplies run short, sharing ceases. Starvation’s biological effects are that people become exhausted and irritable. Volatile situations erupt. Populations tend to migrate, looking for better conditions. The 1901 Indian Famine Commission called it “unusual wandering.” When adding to that the prophecy that love grows cold (Matthew 24:12), people are unthankful, (2 Timothy 3:2-4) and their thoughts are only evil continuously, (Matthew 24:37, Genesis 6:5) then you can see that violence will soon become the norm just at the time when people are physiologically least able to handle it.

So let me sum up the ivory tower talk: famines have always occurred and will continue to occur, followed by the worst brought out in people who are marauding hither and yon, looking for anything they can steal so they can stay alive. Violence breaks out and a true Darwinian human ‘survival of the fittest’ is played out in front of atheists everywhere, with the starving exhausted falling where they lay in irritable convulsions, dying by degrees while no neighbor cares.

Oh, but Jesus cares. His famines may be one of His sore judgments, yes, but it is to alert rebellious people that He is still in control and He is still holy. His control includes an eternal and infinite love for all His children. He wants you to turn from your carnal thoughts and lifting up of Mother Nature and replace those with perfect thoughts and spiritual infinity in His love. As long as you have not rejected him and slammed the door shut, you can enter the door to heaven by repenting of sins. He is the door and he stands ready to allow all who would believe to enter. (John 10:9)

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you (Matthew 7:7) What is beyond that door? Certainly not war or famine or exhaustion or violence. See what is there:

The Gospel is exclusive: Jesus is the only way. The Gospel is inclusive: any person can accept Jesus as their savior and forgiver of sins. I hope you enter in to His rest, escaping all the Tribulation things and choosing to partake of the Eternal things. What it takes is a prayer to Jesus that you know and understand you’re a sinner, unworthy to enter His realm, and ask Him to forgive those sins. Since He is sinless and died as the sacrifice for your sins, your debt is paid. But you have to ask. Do it soon, my beloved friend. Soon.

end time, phoenix dust storm, prophecy

About that Phoenix dust storm…

Posted on July 6, 2011May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

A dust storm occurred in Phoenix the other day. Forbes is certainly writing about it breathlessly. Get this:

Arizonans are calling it the mother of all dust storms.
“The mile-high wall of ominous, billowing dust that appeared to swallow Phoenix and its suburbs is all that locals can talk about. It moved through the state around sundown Tuesday, halting airline flights, knocking out power to nearly 10,000 people, turning swimming pools into mud pits and caking cars with dirt. The sky was still filled with a hazy shade of brown Wednesday as residents washed their cars and swept sidewalks. Because dust storms, also known by the Arabic term “haboobs,” are so hard to predict, Tuesday’s took everyone by surprise. Seemingly out of nowhere, the 100-mile-wide storm moved like a giant wave, the dust roiling as it approached at up to 60 mph. Once it hit, visibility dropped to zero in some areas, the sky turned nearly black, trees blew sideways, and even downtown Phoenix skyscrapers became invisible. “Just the height of it looked like a special-effect scene from a movie, like a dust storm out in Africa,” said Charlotte Dewey, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Phoenix. “It looked so huge, looking at the city down below, it was just specks of light and miniature buildings. She said meteorologists were still trying to get exact measures from satellite and radar to figure out how big the dust storm was and compare it with previous ones, but they estimate it was more than a mile high and more than 100 miles wide. “People who’ve lived here their whole lives, 30 or 40 years, are saying they’ve never seen a storm this large,” Dewey said.” More at link.

The question remains, however, in wondering first how common or uncommon are dust storms in Phoenix? Pretty common, according to this 1984 article in the Journal of Climatology, based on studies of storms in Arizona from 1965-1980. “In general, Yuma experiences the most dust storms per year followed closely by Phoenix, with Tucson and Winslow having very few events. Dust storms at Phoenix, on average, tend to be more severe than those experienced at the other sites. The most intense and frequent dust storms in Arizona occur during the summer months and are associated with strong downdrafts generated by intense thunderstorm activity.”

This short news article from 2009 warned about a storm that limited visibility and advised motorists to use caution. That’s all, run of the mill.

So in seeing an event like the storm this week, it is wise to stop and place it in context. The answer is that dust storms happen frequently in Phoenix. But in looking at end time signs, it is also wise to wonder about frequency and intensity. We know from Matthew 24:8 that Jesus said the Tribulation will be as labor pains. He likened the Tribulation and end time events as such because it will be a time of increasing travail, rising and rising in pain and intensity until the birth. The end of the Church age as it approaches the threshold of the Tribulation will also be a time of increasing disasters in all realms: spiritual, economic, and ‘natural.’

I find it interesting that the storm was so huge, sudden, and particularly devastating. I also think it is interesting that they likened the air quality to the ash fall from the various volcanoes erupting in different hemispheres this month. That the storm was a mile high and 100 miles wide is a very large storm that would strike fear into any person unlucky enough to be in its path.

This article says, “The massive dust storm that swept through Phoenix, Ariz., last night (July 5), reducing visibility to near zero and delaying flights, was a whopper, meteorologists said. The dust storm is what’s called a a haboob (Arabic for “strong wind”). In the United States, haboobs are common in Arizona, Texas and New Mexico. But yesterday’s haboob was more like something you’d see in the Middle East or other arid regions around the world, said Ken Waters, the warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service (NWS) in Phoenix. It was mind-boggling, just absolutely amazing,” Waters told OurAmazingPlanet. “I’ve been a meteorologist for years and I’ve not seen a wall of dust like that.”

We can all agree- even atheists have to agree- that the science shows increasing meteorological disruption. Outsized storms, volcanoes erupting that never erupted before, strange sun behavior, earthquakes in diverse places…all speak to end time signs. I’ve been beating the drum long enough that people should really begin looking to Jesus if they have not repented, and be looking to Jesus if they have, as the comfort of His soon appearance.
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