Interesting discussion about a CIA-and FBI drafted memo to Obama outlining likelihood of Israeli strike against Iran in August. We’ve heard for months that a summer strike is in the works. In May, Maj. General Paul Vallely was certain that a Mid-East regional war would come this summer.
In any case, the interview is fascinating. It’s worth 6 minutes of your time.
Ann Rice is famous for her vampire series of books, her bi-sexual erotica, and her very public conversion to Catholicism ten years ago. Her announcement this week that she is quitting Christianity is, of course, just as public. She said:
“Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out,” she wrote. “I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious and deservedly infamous group. For 10 years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else…. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”
Rice wrote that she cannot get behind a religion that is “anti-gay”. The culture of our times, here in the last days before the Time of Jacob’s Trouble, is such that man’s personal choices and ideas always trump God’s. His standards for morality and purity are that His men and women refrain from sexual indulgence until marriage, that they stay married, that they remain faithful until they die. This notion is mocked and scorned today. The literati firmly claim that it is hopelessly outdated. Even Federal Judge Walker said that the notion of opposite-sex genders as the only qualifiers for marriage is an “artifact from a past time” when he overturned the California constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
Equally, the notion that God renders consequences on those who choose to set aside His standards is anathema to today’s culture. No one wants to be held accountable and no one wants to think that anything they do has any consequences whatsoever. Ann Rice’s renunciation of the religion, the bible, yet claims of remaining faithful to Jesus are just another example of the tendency for fallen humans to pick and choose ideals with which they can remain fleshly and indulge in their favorite pastimes.
It is particularly poignant that she states that she remains “committed” to Christ but quits adhering to His standards, and in His name, no less. One cannot remain committed to someone or something after you selectively decline so many precepts the entirety looks like a foundation-less house. It is not possible to remain “committed to Christ” and repudiate His Word and His standards for purity, marriage, life, and culture. It is simply not possible.
Further, her statement reveals just how little she understood genuine conversion. Upon renunciation of your sins, seeking forgiveness of Jesus for them, and last, submitting to His will for your life, The Holy Spirit then enters and seals you. Thinking that even for a minute that man can tell the Spirit to come or go is ridiculous. Thinking for even a minute that man has the power to break a seal that God Himself set is even more ridiculous. And Jesus promised that the gates of Hades will not prevail against His church. Ann Rice never was a Christian. You can’t leave something you never went to. And sadly, Ann Rice believes she is a friend of God, has the power to break His seal, and can select at will the precepts to which she will adhere. This attitude is prevalent today, held not just by author Rice, but many, even most, Christians and non-believers.
Of course there is no such thing as an ex-Christian. But it speaks to how far we have fallen and how blinded we have become to even say such a thing with a straight face. The only thing left in Ann Rice’s spiritual landscape is the name of her Savior; the very God who hung on the cross so that she would be allowed to claim Him as savior- or reject Him. Unfortunately, Rice, and all of who believes as she does, will discover the devastating choice she made when Judgment Day rolls around. She can refuse to be anti-gay, anti birth control, anti-feminist all she wants. And she, and all who refuse the Way of Jesus will hear this: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’
Christian, if you have the Spirit in you, your walk should be closer each today to Him. If you wonder whether you are saved (or are considering “leaving Christianity”), then pray, pray hard and do a heart-check. Appeal to Him to forgive your sins and then repent, which means turn away from temptations and lifestyles that draw you back into lawlessness. It’s now, or then. And for eternity’s sake, turn from lawlessness NOW.
Last November in CA, citizens voted on a citizen-initiative at the polls defining marriage as only between one man and one woman in the state constitution. It passed. The amendment was immediately challenged legally, there was a trial, and it’s been in Judge Walker’s hands for consideration ever since.
Judge Walker sifted through evidence, heard arguments, reviewed the law, made a decision, and today he totally botched it. He ruled that homosexuals banned from marrying under the newly enacted, State constitutionally defined marriage definition was a contradiction against the US Constitution. He struck down the definition that only one man and one woman are qualified to marry in CA. The case marks the first federal court test of a state law banning gay marriage.
In one very real sense this in an interesting interplay with the MA law that was also recently struck down that stated the Federally defined marriage act stating one man and one woman are the only qualifiers for marriage, was unconstitutional because the Federal Government had no business defining marriage qualifications for the states. But in CA, the citizens did just that in their state, and and passed their definition. And it was struck down.
The Judge wrote that Prop 8 “unconstitutionally burdens the exercise of the fundamental right to marry and creates an irrational classification on the basis of sexual orientation.” God’s definition of marriage is not irrational. But to continue, the judge wrote, “[Prop 8] fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.” The freedom to marry is a fundamental right under due process, he said. Beginning on page 113 he outlines the criteria for marriage under our nation’s past legal history, traditions and practices and uses those criteria as the foundation to show that marriage between same sexes is a fundamental right, rather than a new right.
Walker said that characteristics of marriages in the US have included two parties, free consent, forming of a household, and mutual support of each other and dependents. Nowhere is the main characteristic of marriage in the US’s history mentioned, that those two parties have always been of opposite gender. As a matter of fact, he wrote, the institution of marriage has been moving away from a gendered institution as our understanding of gender increases and the two genders are now considered equal.
Moreover, the notion of two genders having distinct roles in society is an artifact of a time that has passed. (p 115).
Judge Walker could not be more wrong, about everything. The gender roles are just as distinct and in force as the day that God made them (Gen 2:20-25). It is man’s sinful and corrupt nature that has put aside the good and the perfect that God planned for us, including the structure of marriage and the functions of the husband and the wife.
Jesus said that the time immediately prior to His coming would be like the Days of Noah. (Matthew 24:37). The days of Noah were “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that <sup class="xref" value="(D)”>every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.”” (Gen 6:5-7)
Paul said the time of the end would be characterized by conditions where the majority of people will be “boasters, proud, blasphemers,… unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…” (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
Of the decision, the chortling and trumpeting of the ‘new day’ has already begun. Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote on Twitter, “Very joyful court ruled against #prop8, it is a stain upon the CA Constitution’…” Sean R. Simons wrote, “is a huge victory for all Americans who believe in equality for not just few, but for all. Today is a great day for our nation.” Lesbian talk show host Ellen DeGeneres said, “We’re all equal, and we should all have equal rights. I’m so grateful for today’s decision.” A Twitterer tweeted “If one should have faith in anything, it is that Love endures. In the end, Love will always win out over Hate.”
Understandably, the lost do not realize that God is love and satan is hate, and that they are actually working for satan and his hate against anything and everything God holds dear, including and especially marriage. Unfortunately, they will soon understand that, and more devastatingly, they will have an eternity to ponder its truth. Yes, Love will win, it already has, in the form of Jesus at the cross, dying for the very people who pollute His institutions today.
Christian, if your heart is heavy, and you see, listen to, and read the joyful chortles of mockers and scoffers of our faith, and more importantly, of God’s standards for moral purity, take heed that His wrath is coming and what the mockers and scoffers will endure will be far worse than anything we can say or do.
“It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. “It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. (Luke 17:28-30)
UPDATE: The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay.
Rocket and sniper attacks over the last four days in Israel. More below
Lebanese snipers pick off IDF soldiers inside Israel’s border
Israel has confirmed that a battalion commander was killed in clashes with Lebanese troops that also claimed the lives of two Lebanese soldiers and a newspaper reporter. The casualties occurred after Lebanese and Israeli troops exchanged fire at a border location that the Israeli Defense Forces described as being west of the Israeli town of Misgav Am…. the Lebanese troops shot inside Israel without provocation. He said Lebanese snipers shot Israeli officers standing more than 300 metres from the fence, as opposed to the soldiers removing bushes by the fence.
Sderot children and veteran’s rehabilitation center decimated by rockets
The upgraded Kassam rocket on Sderot Saturday night scored a direct hit on the ceiling of a children’s hydrotherapy rehabilitation center in the heart of Sderot’s Sapir College, bringing to nearly 400 the number aerial attacks launched from Gaza since the ceasefire which halted Israel’s Cast Lead counter-terror campaign in Gaza in January 2009.
Rockets hit Southern Israel/Jordanian border towns, Egypt denies
Reuters reported from Radio Israel that preliminary information by Israeli police revealed that at least three rockets fell on the Israeli southern port city of Eilat and nearby areas on Monday morning, causing no casualties. A GRAD missile fell in the southern Jordanian port city of Aqaba Monday morning, injuring four people, Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications Ali Al Ayed said.
Of course, when rockets hit Israel, the world blames Israel. When one of them misses and hits Jordan, the UN calls it terrorism and demands justice. All week, Israel suffers attacks and the UN looks the other way. Snipers pick off soldiers well behind the border fence. UN looks the other way. Childrens’ hospitals are destroyed, and UN looks the other way. But a resort in Jordan gets one accidental rocket wandering over the border, once? Ban Ki Moon is all over it.
Secretary-General condemns deadly rocket attack in southern Jordan
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned this week’s rocket attack that killed one person in the southern Jordanian town of Aqaba and urged countries in the region to work together to bring those responsible to justice.
I hope the above map of Israel and the arrows showing rockets falling on the nation from top to bottom over the last 4 days makes an impact. The tiny, beleaguered nation, has the Almighty God behind her. O, if she will only look UP! Pray for the peace of Jerusalem
“There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.” (Luke 21:11)
Famines take a long time to emerge. They are a slow catastrophe, requiring years of drought and other adverse agricultural conditions to set them up. They are also complex, taking into account variables such as food distribution, crop type, agricultural failure, water conditions, population growth, stresses on land, development, and weather. In America, we have plenty of food, but increasingly, people are unable to afford it. In some African nations, donated food is plentiful, but it is not correctly or widely distributed. But simply put, famine is scarcity of food.
Not only will there be famines, because Jesus told us there would be, but Revelation shows us what some parts of that upcoming famine will look like. The Third seal is Famine itself, the first being the Antichrist and the second, War.
The Third Seal–FamineWhen He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come ” I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.” (Rev 6:5-6)
It will cost a day’s pay for bread, but the luxury items of oil and wine will still be available, indicating there will be people still able to afford it. This is confirmed in Revelation 18:3b
“the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries” and then a bit later in Rev. 18:12-13 those luxuries are listed:
cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and bodies and souls of men.
The Restrainer has been taken away (2 Thess 2:6-7). The one who Restrains is the Holy Spirit and though His ministry of restraint will end, He will still be present on the earth (Gen 6:3). However, because He no longer retrains, the rich hardly care that people are in such need that their children die from lack of bread (2 Tim 3:2-5).
We read the news today about an incredible and sudden jump in wheat prices.
Wheat Soars; Rogers Sees ‘Much Higher’ Food Prices
The July rise in wheat prices, the fastest in 51 years, indicates that shortages in agriculture are coming, Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, told CNBC.com Tuesday. Wheat prices in Europe hit their highest level in two years, rising almost 50 percent since late June as Russia’s wheat crop was affected by drought. “That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Rogers, who has been warning about shortages coming in the agriculture sector for a while, said in a telephone interview. “We’re going to have much, much higher prices over the next few years,” and this from the UK, BBC News: Wheat prices reach 22 month high. Or this headline also from today: Drought Strains Russian Wheat Supplies: “extreme heat and drought had decimated roughly 20 percent of the country’s winter crop…”
A denarius was about a day’s pay for Romans, or 22-25 USdollars. Are you ready to work all day for a loafof bread shared among your entire family? Because the conditions that will spring onto the scene after the rapture in the Third Seal of the Tribulation are coming. If you recognize that you are a sinner and worry about those sins, or wonder about after-death and accountability to God, then pray to Jesus. Ask Him to forgive your sins and to change your heart and your life. Make Him Lord in the sense that He knows best for you (after all, you sin, right? He doesn’t, so He knows better!) and allow yourself to be led by the Holy Spirit into a changed life. And the best part is you will be worshiping Him in person when the Tribulation unfolds down below, on a lost and dying world.
Good Old Faithful Spaceweather.com reported on another sun-eruption from massive and growing Sunspot 1092:
SPACEWEATHER.COM–
“On August 1st around 0855 UT, Earth orbiting satellites detected a C3-class solar flare. The origin of the blast was sunspot 1092. At about the same time, an enormous magnetic filament stretching across the sun’s northern hemisphere erupted. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the action:”
“The timing of these events suggest they are connected, and a review of SDO movies strengthens that conclusion. Despite the ~400,000 km distance between them, the sunspot and filament seem to erupt together; they are probably connected by long-range magnetic fields. In this movie still, a shadowy shock wave (a “solar tsunami”) can be seen emerging from the flare site and rippling across the northern hemisphere into the filament’s eruption zone. That may have helped propel the filament into space.” The UK Telegraph called it a solar tsunami, “The explosion was aimed directly towards Earth, which then sent a “solar tsunami” racing 93 million miles across space.”
“In short, we have just witnessed a complex global eruption involving almost the entire Earth-facing side of the sun.” Moreover, “Sunspot 1092, a key player in yesterday’s Earth-directed eruptions, is big enough to see without the aid of a solar telescope. Oleg Toumilovitch “spotted” it on July 31st rising over Blairgowrie, South Africa:”
Jesus said that there will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars. Those are mostly for the Tribulation, but we can see the sun and stars ramping up their activity. I have not seen much in the way of signs on the moon but the planets and certainly the sun has been active. Even the sun’s non-active period was a sign in itself, being unusual for so long. A major Coronal Mass Ejection would indeed be devastating because the magnetic storm arriving on earth would interrupt electronics. We rely so heavily on electronics now, for satellite entertainment, banking, maps/directions, and plain old energy that an X-class CME would truly hurtle us into the stone age. M-class CME would do damage, and even the smallest class, C-class coronal mass ejections, would disrupt things. (But also put on a pretty display of Northern Lights!)
Sun storm promises Northern light show extravaganza
“Astronomers are predicting that a huge Sun storm over the weekend will produce a spectacular Northern Lights, or aurorae show in the night sky this week for many areas that do not normally seem them. According to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Aurorae usually are visible only at high latitudes but large geomagnetic storms such has the one that just occurred can light up the sky at lower latitudes. Sky watchers in the northern US and other countries should look toward the north on the evening of August 3rd/4th for rippling “curtains” of green and red light, the group stated.”
They’re talking about Sunspot 1092 here, the one that just erupted in tandem with the filament eruption. The article continues,
“This eruption is directed right at us, ” said astronomer Leon Golub of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “It’s the first major Earth-directed eruption in quite some time.”
The article did not state just how far south those in the northern hemisphere can expect to see the Lights, but even though I’m in North Georgia, I’m going to go outside tomorrow night just in case!
During the Tribulation, the sun gives many signs:
Revelation 6:12 – “I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red,”
I wrote earlier about this sign of the sun, that the earthquakes likely trigger massive volcanic action, which in turn spews ash into the atmosphere, darkening the sun. More here. In any case, it’ll be cold.
Revelation 9:12 – “When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss…” Can you imagine a smoke chimney so large that it blots out the sun? The next 2 verses in Revelation say that not only was the sun darkened by the smoke escaping from the abyss, but “…out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads” (Rev 9:3-4).
In the 1800s the flocks of migrating passenger pigeons were that large.
“One of the most remarkable of day flyers was the Passenger Pigeon. At times several days were required for the migrating hosts to pass a given point. The procession stretched from horizon to horizon and was a mile or more in width. Often the sun would be obscured by the clouds of flying birds. In 1808, Alexander Wilson, America’s pioneer ornithologist, estimated that during a great flight of Pigeons which he saw in Kentucky, 2,230,272,000 birds passed in four hours.” If the flock of demons escaping the abyss is even close to as large as the passenger pigeon flocks, there will be two billion, two hundred thirty million, two hundred seventy-two thousand demon-locusts on earth. You really don’t want to be here then.
Revelation 16:8 – “The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire” Can you imagine a sun so hot you spontaneously combust just by going outside?
Acts 2:20, Joel 2:31, Mt 24:29, Is 13:10 all talk about the sun going dark and stars falling from the sky, just before the LORD returns. The sun will be doing some crazy things, and all at the behest of the One who made the sun.The sun has no free will. It cannot refuse, rebel, or even pout. It simply is part of creation and its molecules obey the Lord. Just as the sea parted and the rocks would shout with joy, the sun shines or doesn’t shine at the behest of the Lord Almighty God. And today, it hiccuped.
Are you ready for Him?
Anything that happens to, or about, Israel in any time of her life as a nation or a people is worth watching. Israel and the Israelites is the apple of God’s eye. The prophecies tell us that at the end Jerusalem will be a cup of trembling, a burdensome stone, that will cause reeling. “In that day I shall make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.” (Zech 12:3) Israel is increasingly in the news, as well as her neighbors. We see the Israel-hate rising even now.
In the news today and in the last few days, we read of troubling developments in the Middle East. The tension increases, to now, almost unbearable levels.
Mullen says US has Iran strike plan, just in case
WASHINGTON – The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff says the U.S. military has a plan to attack Iran, although he thinks a strike is probably a bad idea. Adm. Mike Mullen, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, has often warned that a military strike on Iran would have serious and unpredictable ripple effects around the Middle East. At the same time, he says the risk of Iran developing a nuclear weapon is unacceptable. Mullen would not say which risk he thinks is worse. But he tells NBC’s “Meet The Press” that a military strike remains an option if need be. And he says that, should it come to that, the military has a plan at hand. He didn’t elaborate.
Syria’s president says chances of regional war ‘increasing’
Syrian President Bashar Assad said the chances of a regional war were “increasing,” in comments published by several official media outlets Sunday. “The real peace spectrum in the region is moving away and the prospects of war and confrontation are increasing,” Assad said.
Iran: We will torch Tel Aviv
Syria was not the only country to warn of conflict over the weekend, with Iran’s delEgate to the United Nations warning that his country would burn Tel Aviv if attacked by Israel. “If the Zionist regime commits the slightest aggression against the Iranian soil, we will set the entire war front and Tel Aviv on fire,” Mohammad Khazai told the Farhang-e Ashti daily, according to a report by the AFP news agency. Israel has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear installations, which it says are aimed at building a bomb – a charge Iran denies.
Turkey Building 10 Meter High Wall inside Jerusalem
For no apparent reason, the Turkish government is building a 10 meter high wall along a section of the Old City wall. Aryeh King, Chairman of the Public Complaints Bureau in eastern Jerusalem, recently noticed signs in Turkish and English around a section of the Old City wall near the Lions’ Gate. The signs proclaimed that a construction project was being carried out by Turkish governmental fund TIKA. Next to the signs, Arab workers were working on completing a huge 10 meter high wall around the Muslin cemetery there. King told Arutz Sheva‘s Hebrew news magazine that there is no apparent reason for building the wall, since a wall already surrounds the Muslim cemetery. The new wall is twice as high as the old one and does nothing to strengthen it, he said. “There is no logic behind this structure, either engineering or landscape-related,” he explained, and the new wall blocks the view of the Old City to drivers passing by it on the Jericho Road.
Video Footage of Rocket Damage on Sderot Child Rehab Center
The upgraded Kassam rocket on Sderot Saturday night scored a direct hit on the ceiling of a children’s hydrotherapy rehabilitation center in the heart of Sderot’s Sapir College, bringing to nearly 400 the number aerial attacks launched from Gaza since the ceasefire which halted Israel’s Cast Lead counter-terror campaign in Gaza in January 2009. The child hydrotherapy rehabilitation center at Sderot’s Sapir College provides therapy and workshops for special-needs children who live in the Western Negev and is used by children from the entire country. The facility was totally decimated. On any other day, a catastrophe would have taken place, killing all the children at the center. During weekdays, the Center is packed with hundreds of children and therapists before it closes at 10 p.m. Israeli intelligence confirms that that the Hamas regime has now assembled an arsenal of over 5,000 missiles with a range of 40 kilometers [25 miles].
‘We will resume suicide attacks’
Islamic Jihad plans attacks from West Bank after IAF Gaza raids. Talkbacks The Islamic Jihad organization said on Sunday that it has decided to resume suicide attacks against Israel from the West Bank. The threat came in response to attacks launched by IAF planes on the Gaza Strip following the firing of rockets on Israel in the past few days.
Kiddie Jihad: Child Bombers Terror’s Newest Weapon
WASHINGTON — Islamic terrorists are always looking for new ways to escape detection and carry out their attacks. One of their latest ideas is using children as suicide bombers. The growing phenomenon may soon spread beyond the Middle East to the rest of the world.
Terror groups, however, are taking extremism to new levels by indoctrinating Muslim children in the deadly art of suicide bombing. “The state-sponsored illegal recruitment and education of innocent Muslim children to become suicide bombers and child soldiers is occurring throughout the Muslim and non-Muslim world,” said Brooke Goldstein, founder and director of The Children’s Rights Institute, an organization focusing on human rights violations against children. A 6-year-old Afghan boy recruited in 2007 was told that his suicide belt would “explode into flowers.”
Though ever since the day Israel was made a nation in 1948 there has been tension in the Middle East, and threats, the directness of the threats is a new thing. Threatening specific cities is new. Threatening to use this specific piece of military equipment or other is also new. The frequency of threats, even amid hopes of peace, is new. And certainly the frequency of rocket attacks from Gaza to Israel is heightening.
The prophecy of Isaiah 17:1 will come to pass, and soon I believe. It says “An oracle concerning Damascus: “See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins.” This has never come to pass yet because Damascus has never not been inhabited. It is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Damascus is mentioned in Genesis 14:15. What I’m expecting is that Israel attacks Syria at Damascus, and then this is the catalyst for several nations to retaliate as per the Psalm 83 battle. Those are Jordan, Lebanon, Gaza. Only Egypt as an abutting neighbor isn’t involved.
After that, the Ezekiel 38-39 Gog/Magog battle begins, and it seems that it will be subsequent to the first two of Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83 because none of the nations involved in those two battles are involved in the Gog-Magog battle, and they would be if they could.
In any case, no matter what the chronology, battles will soon erupt in the Middle East it seems. On July 22, 2010, The House of Representatives of the United States introduced HR 1553, a Resolution giving Israel the green light for a strike on Iran:
“Expressing support for the State of Israel’s right to defend Israeli sovereignty, to protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, and to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within reasonable time to protect against such an immediate and existential threat to the State of Israel.” The Resolution ends with:
“Whereas the United States does not want or seek war with Iran, but it will continue to keep all options open to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives— condemns the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for its threats of ‘‘annihilating’’ the United States and the State of Israel, for its continued support of international terrorism, and for its incitement of genocide of the Israeli people; supports using all means of persuading the Government of Iran to stop building and acquiring nuclear weapons; reaffirms the United States bond with Israel and pledges to continue to work with the Government of Israel and the people of Israel to ensure that their sovereign nation continues to receive critical economic and military assistance, including missile defense capabilities, needed to address the threat of Iran; and
Resolution 1553 provides explicit support for military strikes against Iran, stating that Congress backs Israel’s use of ‘all means necessary’ against Iran, “including the use of military force,” BBC Persian reported. We see back up to the first headline, that the US has a military plan for Middle East/Iran attacks.
Lord come soon!
The planet has been plagued lately with a spate of explosions, oil leaks, and sinkholes. A chemical plant exploded in Athens GA yesterday, destroying the plant and sending plumes of toxic smoke into the air and chemicals into a nearby creek. I reported on two oil leaks the other day, one in Kalamazoo River in Michigan (800,000 gallons polluted the river and Lake Michigan). The other was in Louisiana, a tug crashed into an abandoned wellhead, and gas and oil spewed 100 feet into the air. And the sinkholes, goodness, the sinkholes! From China to UK to America to South America, the ground has been sinking, cracking, and simply pitting, into enormous holes that swallow cars, buildings, and whole intersections. The earth will crack up eventually, Isaiah talks about the earth reeling to and fro like a drunkard before it eventually cracks apart. It has been my contention that though we are not in the tribulation now, therefore no judgment is occurring (only warnings- to repent!) that we can see precursors to future prophesied activity. Peeking around the corner we see it all coming like a freight train.
[Above, Athens GA plant explosion.] Now, is it unusual that a chemical plant exploded? No. But the almost daily occurrence of these events from north to south, east to west, IS. Check out this headline from Time Magazine this week China’s Industrial Accidents Quietly on the Rise: “A massive explosion in a southern Chinese city is only the latest in a series of industrial accidents that have hit China in recent weeks. While the country’s economic boom has always been dogged by environmental and safety hazards, the frequency of disasters this summer has raised new questions about whether the country can maintain its pace of expansion without doing catastrophic harm to its people and the environment.”
Here is today’s sinkhole activity. I say ‘today’ because it seems to be occurring on a daily basis now. This one occurred yesterday in West Cumbria, in the northwest of England.
Twenty foot deep hole opens on main west Cumbrian road
“Traffic chaos in Whitehaven town centre is set to continue over the weekend as investigations take place into why part of a road collapsed. Part of busy Inkerman Terrace collapsed last night, leaving a 20ft deep hole in the carriageway. A Cumbria Highways spokesman said this afternoon that further investigations are being carried out.”
Whitehaven teen tells of shock road hole find
“Josh Pears was heading off on a camping trip with friends and walking out of Whitehaven on Thursday evening when he noticed the hole in Inkerman Terrace. When he and his friends looked into the hole, which was a matter of inches across, they could see a pipe, but nothing beyond it, and even throwing coins into the darkness couldn’t help them work out how deep it was. The 16-year-old said: “All you could see was the pipe about a foot below the surface, and after that there was nothing. We were throwing pennies in but you couldn’t hear them landing. It could have gone miles down for all we knew.”
When daylight hit, observers said, “The sudden appearance of the hole, alongside the Chase Hotel, spread about 12 feet across the street underneath the surface. Area engineer Karl Melville said this morning: “It’s just a huge hole. There’s nothing there at all. It’s lucky no one fell in to it.”
The Lord Jesus said that the end time would be characterized by birth pangs. The end time is technically the moment of Jesus’ ascension through the clouds to the moment He returns. However, Jesus also said that birth pangs would increase as a sign that the end was nearing. He wants us to notice the time. He wants us to repent, for time grows short. He sends signs and warnings and prophecies, and they are listed in most of the Old Testament books and all but 4 of the New, so that we WOULD repent. Even if you are a Christian, check your walk with Him. Make sure you know where your final destination will be. He said that many will not be saved, even those who think they are saved. I know when the trumpet sounds and He calls for us, I am headed up! Do you know for sure?
This example is used a lot in sermons and devotionals. It is an oldie but a goodie. I am asking you to think of the example I’ll shortly give in terms of prophecy.
Florence Chadwick was a young woman in 1952 but had already swum the English Channel, both ways, and broke records doing it. That morning in 1952 she stood on the shores of California with intent to swim the 26 miles to Catalina Island. It was foggy. She was used to fog, rough water, and cold, having swum in these conditions since when was 11 years old so she was prepared for any conditions that may beset her on the long swim. It was so foggy that Florence could not see the support boats motoring around her to scare away the sharks. However after 15 hours of rough water stroke after stroke, she felt like she wasn’t getting anywhere. Despite encouragement from her mother and others in the support boat next to her, Florence wearied and asked to be taken out of the water. She soon discovered that she was half a mile from her goal.
At a news conference the next day Florence said, “All I could see was the fog.…I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it.”
Florence tried again two months later. This time, she made it because she said that she kept a mental image of the shoreline in her mind while she swam.
Prophecy is not meant to BE the fog. It is knowable, profitable, and given to us for all education. It is a light to keep in our heart as to the immutable existence of God, His eternal promises, and the goal for every believer, to reach the eternal Lighthouse. There are end of time prophetic utterances in most of the Old Testament and in every book of the New except for four. And three of those four are single-chapter letters to one individual. Jesus meant prophecy to be the mental image for us to hold dear as to the goal. Do not give up half a mile from the finish line! He is near, He is coming. Do not wander, drift, be swept away by currents taking you far from the goal. May every stroke of your swim toward eternity be as vigorous as the one before. Pray for that vigor. The Holy Spirit is there to help us: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;” (John 14:16)
If you knew that the Rapture was tomorrow would it change your decision not to study the bible today? Not to pray? Not to help someone? If you knew it was next week, or next year, how differently would you act as a Christian? You’re tired. We are all tired. The wages of sin splash up on us, and sometimes splash into us. It is wearying holding firm against the current. But keep the goal in mind!
Most marathon swimmers swim between 60 and 70 strokes a minute. Therefore, a 10-hour swim would require 42,000 strokes, and a 14-hour swim would require 58,000 strokes-an incredible feat. That is a lot of energy to expend to make the landing, reach the goal. There are sharks in the water wanting to make you their dinner. There is flotsam, waves, hindrances such as tide or current. But there is the Spirit in the boat next to you, helping, guiding, encouraging. There are angels flying around you to scare away the demons. If you become defeated it is only because you closed yourself to help, succumbed to temptation to drift, and forgot the vision. The shore is near, and the goal is within our reach. Keep swimming! And soon, He will lift us from the cold and tormenting waters of sin … and we will fly!
Exciting news from Bulgaria today:
“Parts of St. John the Baptist’s relics might have been discovered during archaeological excavations in Bulgaria’s southern Black Sea town of Sozopol, report Bulgarian media. Archaeologists investigating the Sv. Ivan (St. John) island off Sozopol have found an exquisite reliquary – a relic urn – built in the altar of an ancient church bearing the name of St. John the Baptist. The reliquary has the shape of a sarcophagus and is dated end of 4th – beginning of 5th c. AD. It was discovered by the team of Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov. The church’s name, as well as the fact that it had a special emperor’s statute issued, has hinted to archeologists that it might actually contain St. John’s relics. The urn is expected to be opened Sunday.” more at link
And then… “One day after the unique discovery of an ancient marble reliquary, thought to contain the relics of St John the Baptist that archaeologists made on the island of St John near Sozopol, today the team has run into another finding. A mysterious stone box was unearthed from the same niche which contained the reliquary. The box looks like a match box but is a bit larger. There are two inscriptions in Greek on it. The one reads: My Lord, help your servant, Toma and the other inscription, found on the other side of the box reads: Saint John. The stone container is full of soil and stirred archeologists in complicated reflections. “What we have discovered is strange and inexplicable. For now we do not know what it is, we are not sure about its purpose either. We can only guess that the stone box is a part of the reliquary…” source
This spread is a miracle in itself. The changed lives resulting from its taking hold in cultures as divergent as Israel, Turkey, and the Baltics is also a miracle. It is a testament to the truth inherent in the Gospel, and the miracle of His death for our sins, the supreme miracle.
I am always surprised at people who deny Christianity’s factual beginnings, proved in history, by likening it to fables. Fables don’t spread so far and so fast. Fables don’t stick, 2000 years later.
“Christianity began spreading initially from Jerusalem, and then throughout the Near East, ultimately becoming the state religion of Armenia in 301 , of Ethiopia in 325, of Georgia in 337, and then the state religion of the Roman Empire in 380. Becoming common to all of Europe in the Middle Ages, it expanded throughout the world during the Age of Exploration. Christianity has thus become the world’s largest religion.”
Jesus saves!
the-end-time.org 