Category: end time

Posted in bp, end time, end time. prophecy, oil hurricane, oil spill

Hurricane season in the Gulf, will the oil be airborne?

Posted on by elizabethprata

On April 30, day 10 of the oil spill, I quoted Op-Ed News here regarding the likely reality that “Hurricane season starts June 1 and it will likely contain storm whipped oil splattering across the gulf towns from shorelines to well inland. “The strong winds in hurricanes, sweeping across the surging waves they have created, such up a considerable amount of surface water and blow it inland. This time, however, those winds could also end up picking up a considerable amount of the oil slick floating on the sea’s surface, which would be deposited as rain well inland, damaging croplands and forests, too.” Think about it- What happens when you mix oil with salty water? It results in a mayonnaise like light foam, an emulsion. A lot of foam can be created from a small amount of oil. The emulsion could become easily airborne under high winds. As the hurricane makes landfall, the oil foam would be plastered on everything for hundreds of miles. When trees, grasses, plants, animals, etc. get pounded with the foamy winds they will get a thin layer of oil. That thin layer of oil mixed with sea water will kill any vegetation. Normally Texas receives its first tropical storm on average around June 6.”

Above, oil splatter on a screen from Chinese oil fields, article by Sean Gallagher, “The Sea of Death”

It seems now more than ever that since the oil has not been capped but is in fact gushing more and more each day, that the “Gulf Faces ‘Difficult Reality’ of Storm-Whipped Oil“

As oil, tar balls and dead wildlife wash up on the coast of Louisiana from a leaking well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, another threat looms on the horizon — hurricane season, which officially starts June 1. “It is a very difficult reality for people to fathom right now,” said Courtney Howell, 32, the executive director of Bayou Grace Community Services in Chauvin, Louisiana. “They know how big this threat is, but trying to think about that on top of a hurricane is too much to bear… If one or more storms hit the slick before making landfall, work on plugging the leak would have to stop and oil may be pushed miles inland, soiling beaches and marshes or even spreading all over the Gulf, said Barry Keim, Louisiana’s climatologist and a professor at Louisiana State University. Waves of about 25 feet can come with a tropical storm and 50 to 75 feet with a hurricane, Keim said.”

Yes it is almost too much to bear. Yet we know that in the end time that we are to encourage each other and to lift our eyes to Jesus. The tough times that are upon us are difficult but nothing like what will be for those left behind in the Tribulation. So, Christians, this is the time to urge repentance. Disasters such as the long, slow-moving oil spill disaster are opportunities to look at our inward parts and see our sin for what it is, rebellion against God.

Posted in end time, prophecy, quake rainbow

LA quake rainbow appeared, and then there was a quake

Posted on by elizabethprata

On May 15 I wrote that people had spotted what has come to be known as a “quake rainbow” over Los Angeles. Weatherspace.com was reporting that a “quake rainbow” hovered for hours over the city, which some say portends an upcoming earthquake. Similar rainbows had been spotted over China before their quake and also Peru prior to theirs. An alleged quake rainbow is a rainbow that does not arc in bands of color, but instead is a colorful patch that hovers. Of course, Discover Magazine debunked the phenomenon (if it is one in the first place) here. But Physics Forums maintained a scientific inquiry into the quake cloud issue, here, and excited sky watchers of all stripes exclaimed over the coincidence: here. Maybe quake rainbows are a thing, and maybe they are not.

But then a day or two later there was a 5.1 quake in LA. Coincidence? Could be, LA is very seismically active. Not a coincidence? You decide.

Posted in atheist, bp, end time, oil, prophecy, ted turner

About that Ted Turner comment…

Posted on by elizabethprata

The End Time, technically since the moment Jesus ascended and the angels told the onlookers He’d be back (Acts 1:11), and especially since Israel was created in 1948, are ramping up like the birth pangs we’re told will come. God is making Himself more evident in the world and will do so until the rapture and then things will go forward on warp speed.

Though God is speaking to us not only through the Spirit but through the events listed in the end time discourse, and are loud and clear to us Christians. But for most lost people, they are part of the background din satan successfully weaves into “normal life” so that the mind remains blinded. That was why it was all the more extraordinary that super-atheist and billionaire Ted Turner thinks that the BP Oil Spill could be a message from God. Is the Spirit speaking to Mr Turner? And if He is, is the message being received correctly?…

Turner has been openly hostile to Christianity in the past, once famously saying “Christianity is a religion for losers,” and as reported here, “Seeing CNN employees wearing ashes on their forehead on Ash Wednesday, he remarked, “What are you, a bunch of Jesus freaks? You ought to be working for Fox.” He is so viscerally uncomfortable with the Christian faith that he blamed his divorce from his third wife, Jane Fonda, partly on her decision to become a practicing Christian.” He joked that he has been “born again seven times, so one of them is bound to take.”

This week in an interview with CNN, he said that the BP Oil spill may be God trying to tell us something. Now, for a super-hostile atheist to liken earth’s events to the divine hand of God is a great glimmer of light to the blinded mind. But oftentimes, it is not enough.

What Turner said was, “Could be, He’s sending us a message.” Turner sat down with Harlow recently to discuss the energy policy in the United States. He continued, “I’m not a real religious person, but I’m somewhat religious. And I’m just wondering if God is telling us he doesn’t want us to drill offshore,” he said. “And right before that we had that coal mine disaster in West Virginia where we lost 29 miners,” as well as repeated mining disasters – “seems like there’s one over there every week” – in China. “Maybe the Lord’s tired of having the mountains of West Virginia, the tops knocked off of them so they can get more coal.”

Most people do not make the connection between things that happen in the world and God’s Divine Hand and Plan. The end time is a time where God, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance, rolls out opportunity after opportunity for us to do so. Note that the verse is often misquoted ‘not willing that any should perish but all come to everlasting life…” but this is not correct. The goal is REPENTANCE. The end time is a time for all to see a Holy God pouring out His warnings and to make the connection to self, our sin and rebellion against God. The first step is repenting.

Turner said it could be that God is sending us a message. Yes, He is. But what message? The message is not that He doesn’t want us to drill or mine. It is that He wants us to repent. It’s all too easy for the blinded mind to understand there is a God but never make the connection to sin, self, and Jesus’ work on the cross as the only way to heaven. The end time is a period where we pray that the lost not only acknowledge a Holy God’s warnings to an unbelieving world, but to have them understand that without Jesus we are nothing and worse, we are destined for hell forever.

Before we get over-excited about Turner’s possible conversion remember that even the demons believe in God, and tremble. But they do not repent. If the Spirit is working in Turner, and in others during the end time, who see these things coming to pass and wonder about God, pray for them. But pray that the most important step is taken, that they repent of their own sins. It’s hard to imagine the man who re-wrote God’s Ten Commandments and carries them around in his wallet (and by the way they are all “earth”- oriented, none recognize his personal sin) is the same man who would get down on his kneels acknowledging Jesus and submitting his life to Him, the next step after repentance. Always keep repentance in mind. Acknowledging a God-sent message is not enough, and satan strives to misquote God’s messages to us at every turn.

In an ironic statement, when Turner created CNN, he said, “we won’t be signing off until the world ends. We’ll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event–and when the end of the world comes, we’ll play ‘Nearer my God to Thee’ before we sign off.” He is likely right. During the Tribulation when the Two Witnesses are killed, they lay in the street of Jerusalem for three days and then are miraculously resurrected and ascend to heaven before the astonished eyes of the world. (Rev 11:8-9; 11-12) It may well be true that an intrepid reporter with a CNN microphone will interview the fearful crowd as the Two Witnesses stir from having received the breath of life from God and float up to heaven upon His command to “Come up Hither!” I hope that by then Mr Turner is a participant in Jesus’s Kingdom and not just a scoffing observer. For Christians are not “losers,” but are winners. “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.” (1 Cor 9:24)

Posted in end time, God, hail, oklahoma city, prophecy

The language of God: Hail

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Throughout human history (post Fall), there have been “natural disasters.” Insurance companies call these Acts of God.

“An act of God is an uncontrollable event, such as tornadoes, floods, or tsunamis, not caused nor controlled by humans. Insurance companies often limit or exclude coverage for acts of God.” (Source)

How does God get our attention? Through many ways, and one of them is hail. God uses hail to demand attention, it is one of His signature calling cards. It behooves us to return to the Bible to see when and how He uses hail to make His name known.

God has storehouses of hail (Job 38:22). He uses hail as a just warning to those who refuse to acknowledge Him, notably Pharaoh. “Throughout Egypt hail struck everything in the fields–both men and animals; it beat down everything growing in the fields and stripped every tree.” (Exodus 9:25) Initially awed by God’s power, Pharaoh acknowledged that he had sinned. However when the rain and hail stopped, He sinned again.  God specifically used a massive hailstorm to indicate His power over the earth, and to know that the earth is the LORD’S. Pharaoh did not acknowledge God’s sovereignty.

God uses hail to warn the unrepentant to come back to Him. ” ‘I smote you and every work of your hands with blasting wind, mildew and hail; yet you did not come back to Me,’ declares the LORD.” (Haggai 2:17).

He uses hail to render justice upon the wicked. “I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will overflow your hiding place.” (Isaiah 28:17). In one example, the LORD hurled hail down onto the Amorites at Azekah, as a vengeance against the wicked (Joshua 10:11)

God plans to use hail again in the future: “The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered great Babylon, to make her drain the cup of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found; and great hailstones, heavy as a hundred-weight, dropped on men from heaven, till men cursed God for the plague of the hail, so fearful was that plague.” (Revelation 16:18-21)

It is evident that from His storehouses of hail God has used it for a variety of reasons and will use hail for the same reasons again. Job’s verse continues from this “Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, “Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?” The ‘Time of Jacob’s Trouble’ is also known as the Tribulation, (Jeremiah 30:7; Daniel 12:1; Matthew 24:15-22 ) and the Revelation verse is the one that promises another plague of hail, one most especially severe with hailstones weighing a hundred pounds.

Terrible hail storms have always been and will be part of God’s language to an unrepentant and wicked people. Was the hail storm in Oklahoma City and in China His warning to us? Could be. We look to the bible and see such warnings many times over in the past so we would be remiss is we did not at least let the thought into our mind that He may be speaking again right now. Are you listening?

Posted in end time, gray whale Israel coast, nuclear, prophecy

Will there be nuclear war?

Posted on by elizabethprata

At the time just before the Tribulation begins, Israel is attacked by an evil coalition of nations that include Russia, Iran, Turkey and others. During the Tribulation, Israel is attacked again.

Zechariah 5:1-4
Then I lifted up my eyes again and looked, and behold, there was a flying scroll. And he said to me, “What do you see?” And I answered, “I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits and its width ten cubits.” (30 X 15 feet) Then he said to me, “This is the curse that is going forth over the face of the whole land; surely everyone who steals will be purged away according to the writing on one side, and everyone who swears will be purged away according to the writing on the other side. “I will make it go forth,” declares the LORD of hosts, “and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of the one who swears falsely by My name; and it will spend the night within that house and consume it with its timber and stones.”

A scud missile looks like a rounded cylindrical scroll of about thirty feet in length and fifteen feet in diameter… and the effects of radiation linger in the house…

Zechariah 14:12
“Now this will be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongue will rot in their mouth.”

Many interpreters take this to mean something in modern warfare, such as a nuclear bomb or a neutron bomb. “A Neutron Bomb, also called ENHANCED RADIATION WARHEAD, specialized type of small thermonuclear weapon that produces minimal blast and heat but which releases large amounts of lethal radiation. The neutron bomb delivers blast and heat effects that are confined to an area of only a few hundred yards in radius. But within a somewhat larger area it throws off a massive wave of neutron and gamma radiation, which can penetrate armor or several feet of earth. This radiation is extremely destructive to living tissue.” source

Alternatively, the plague which comes upon Israel could be the Ebola Virus, which also causes the flesh to rot from the insides.

I bring this up because nuclear issues are in the news and they all surround Israel and the Gog-Magog nations. Suddenly everything is about nukes, who has them and who will use them. After 70 years of nuclear ambiguity, Israel suddenly is being outed in her nuclear capabilities. It is entirely possible that the last battles of the Tribulation may be nuclear in nature. There is an IAEA board of governors meeting in Vienna on June 7 over which I urge Christians to pray and be watchful. I pasted below, in its entirety, a great essay on the subject of Israel and nukes from “Israel Behind the News.” It’s readable and sheds light on this important and dangerous topic.

NUCLEAR AMBUSH FOR ISRAEL?
By Ronen Bergman,Investigative Reporter,Yediot Ahronot
Published in Yediot Ahronot, May 12, 2010 /Sat May 14 2010

In the midst of the Munich Security Conference that was held four years ago, a number of Arab representatives tried to place Israel’s nuclear capabilities on the agenda. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, who was sitting in the crowd, a smile and shot them down. Everyone knows that Israel has to defend itself against existential dangers, said Rumsfeld, and ended that debate before it even began.

But the reality nowadays is completely different.

For the first time in its history, the International Atomic Energy Agency is going to discuss the atomic arsenal that is ascribed to Israel. Section eight of the agenda for the IAEA board of governors meeting in Vienna on June 7 ought to be troubling to Israel for two reasons. The first is that the Israel Atomic Energy Commission and the Israeli intelligence community learned yesterday about the existence of this section from an Associated Press report, and not from their own sources. The second and more important reasons is that this constitutes the further erosion of the wall of nuclear ambiguity that Israel has maintained around the “textile factory” in Dimona.

Had the US administration acted differently, none of this would have happened. While the senior American representative at the Munich conference four years ago derailed the debate on Israel’s nuclear arsenal, American representatives at the very same conference that was held this February squirmed and provided vague answers about the need to free the Middle East of nuclear weapons, identical to the official statements that have recently been issued by the White House and the State Department on this issue.

Why are the Americans doing that? Does this not constitute the violation of the secret agreements that were reached between Golda Meir and President Nixon, that Israel would scrupulously maintain its nuclear ambiguity and the US, in exchange, would not demand that it either sign the NPT or open its nuclear installations to IAEA supervision? What truly is prompting President Obama to attack us on this front as well or, at the very least, to sit with folded arms while others do so?

One possible answer is that Obama is motivated by a liberal ideology that truly believes that the powder-keg known as the Middle East truly can be defused before peace reigns here. Another possible answer pertains to the fabric of relations between Israel and the United States. The US is furious with Israel about its behavior on the Palestinian track and that is why it has partially removed the protective vest that it has provided to Israel for so many years on the nuclear issue. There are some members of the Israeli intelligence community who believe that the Americans are so fed up with Netanyahu that they enjoy seeing us bleed.

Either way, the Arab states have correctly read the changes in Washington and are bombarding us in Vienna. On April 23 the Arab representatives sent IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano a letter in which they asked him to report to the board of governors everything the IAEA knows about Israel’s nuclear capabilities and to demand that Israel permit supervisors to enter its nuclear facilities. Amano recently sent a letter to the foreign ministers of the 151 IAEA member countries and sought their recommendations as to how to persuade Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

If Israel were a signatory of the NPT, the IAEA meeting could have led to a UN Security Council debate and a ruling that Israel was in violation of the treaty. Based on that ruling, the UN Security Council then would have the right to impose sanctions against the violating country. Since Israel never signed the NPT, that is a scenario that cannot occur. Yet the very fact that such a meeting is being held by such an important forum that oversees global nuclear proliferation, for the first time since that agency was established 52 years ago, is very problematic from Israel’s perspective.

The position that was drafted by Yehiel Horev, the former director of security in the security establishment, posits that any discussion, debate or demand to supervise the turn of events in Dimona is bad for Israel. If the ambiguity dissipates, warned Horev and his colleagues, Israel will find itself on the list of countries under international boycott, and even the United States, under any administration, would be obliged to change its policies. That would be damaging to science, the economy and Israel’s national security.

Others, such as Professor Uzi Even, one of the founders of the reactor in Dimona, believe that the time for nuclear ambiguity has passed. Israel, believes Even, needs to achieve a status similar to India’s. While it does not publicly brandish the nuclear weapons it possesses, it is a signatory of the NPT and enjoys the international consequences resulting from this.

The problem is that the upcoming IAEA meeting is liable to erode Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity, but also its ability to cope with Iran in the diplomatic arena. The very fact that someone has placed Israel, Iran and Syria on the agenda of the same meeting makes the Israeli Foreign Ministry fight against a nuclear Iran much more difficult.

Ultimately, this sort of meeting is going to damage Israel’s shaky international standing. Everyone eager to lash out at Israel, and not only in the Arab world, is going to exploit this meeting to demand that the very same steps that are being taken against Iran be taken against Israel. As is, Israel has been suffering from mounting isolation and delegitimization as the national home of the Jewish people. In that kind of reality, raising the issue of Israel’s nuclear capabilities is the last thing that we need.

Posted in bp, end time, oil, pollution, prophecy, sin

Man’s failure at stewardship

Posted on by elizabethprata

The BP Gulf oil spill is heart-breaking. Knowing that the Gulf economy is wrecked, the fishing industry is kaput, tourism is gone, and the lovely and stunning beaches and marshes are oil-slicked ruins is completely disheartening. Also knowing that the animals are suffering is also hard to watch, because they are innocent. What did a dolphin ever do to us?

As a matter of fact, God set it up so that they would depend on us and our stewardship. He gave dominion of the animal world to us, saying to Adam, “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” The bible talks a lot about stewardship, and many people take that to mean money and tithing, and it is, but it also means conscientious handling of the earth. [Above, An oil soaked bird struggles against the side of the HOS Iron Horse supply vessel at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP (Guardian / UK) – May 10, 2010.] We are definitely failing in our stewardship charge.

Today I saw some photos of an ‘illegal highway’ in Arizona, a path where Mexicans apparently go across the border and when they do, they drop what they are carrying so as to blend in better with the local illegal and legal population once they emerge from the desert. The photos were accompanied with the typical “Good for Arizona and Oh gosh those filthy Mexicans” kind of tripe. Here is one photo example making the rounds:

But then thanks to Coyote Blog‘s entry ‘Glass Houses”, I started thinking of other areas of the world where such trash piles accumulate. Left unpicked-up, trash accumulates in National Forests,

In bucolic New England towns, from people too lazy to cross town to get to the dump, where they leave “Bags of trash, mattresses, cardboard boxes, metal barrels, tires, and car seats were just some of the items found on a quick inspection of the area on Tuesday. [K]ids found dead animals in trash bags a few years ago. Typically the trash has been household garbage, washers and dryers, tires and sometimes adult magazines…”

And from rich Americans and Europeans atop Mount Everest, where a massive expedition has been undertaken to remove it.

From the forests to the prairies, from the mountains to the sea, we’re pigs. We have totally abandoned God’s call to stewardship of the planet and of the animals.

It reminds me of a great Twilight Zone episode called “The Masks.” In it, a rich guy with an attractive and well-tailored but craven and evil family summons the gang to his deathbed. He tells them that if they wear some Mardi Gras grotesque masks until midnight they get all his money but if they don’t all they get is train fare home. Uncaring of his imminent death and wanting the money, they comply. As the evening progresses, they writhe under the unbearable discomfort the masks afford, and beg to remove them. Reminded that the riches will not be theirs until the appointed hour, they reluctantly leave them on. The patriarch dies after making his final speech. Joyous that they could now remove the grotesque masks, they reach up only to find that the masks had morphed into their faces, rendering their outward likeness as a mirror of their interior character and nature.

In Matthew 23:26 Jesus said, “Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” What is on the inside of us will come out as filth. Unless our insides are cleaned by Jesus, it will always result in filth. The photos of the trash and death and destruction of the earth are simply an outward representation of what is inside us, for “Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. (Isaiah 59:7). As long as the world is ruled by a fallen man, the fruits will surface, and the fruits of fallen man are trash. “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” (Isaiah 64:6).

However that is not the end of the story. He will make all things new!! “And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.” (Rev 21:5). He is true and faithful, He will remake the earth that we have messed up in our sin and filth, and forevermore sin will no more pollute the earth- or our souls! Hallelujah.

Posted in bp, end time, oil, prophecy

Can you say "dead zone"? More plumes than can be counted

Posted on by elizabethprata

“Researchers have found more underwater plumes of oil than they can count from the well, said Samantha Joye, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia. “The discovery of these plumes argues that a lot more oil and gas is coming out of that well every day, and I think everybody has gotten that fact except BP,” she said. The hazards of the plume are twofold. Joye said the oil itself can prove toxic to fish, while vast amounts of oxygen are also being sucked from the water by microbes that eat oil. Dispersants used to fight the oil are also food for the microbes, speeding up the oxygen depletion.”

Full article here. What does it mean, prophetically? I believe it means that United States Christians, as well as Christians globally, will be in for some very tough times before the rapture comes.

As for God’s promises, His comfort is always with us. Sure, we’ll have a few days or weeks or even a year or two of tough times, but He made us a promise, actually, many promises. First, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Cor 1:3-4.) FOr we are not here long, actually. “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” (2 Cor 4:17) Do not worry, God has everything under control. Soon and very soon, we will SEE HIM and we will understand all things. Meanwhile, it is OK to mourn this world, as long as we are not attached to it…“those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.” (1 Cor 7:31)

Posted in end time, end time. prophecy, gray whale Israel coast, jonah, signs

Gray Whale found swimming off Israel

Posted on by elizabethprata

Jesus said that there would be signs to indicate His coming at the end of the age. In the Olivet Discourse with His disciples, Jesus lengthily answered the Disciples’ questions as to these warning signs. (Mark 13, Matthew 24, Luke 17:20-3) He wanted us to look to those signs as proof of His word. (Matthew 24:25 & Matthew 24:42).

To the Pharisees, however, the hypocritical and unbelieving Pharisees who kept pestering Jesus for a sign that would prove He is the Messiah rather than relying on faith and belief, He gave a completely different answer. In Matthew 12:38-42 He rebuked them sharply, “But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

You know the story. God wanted Jonah to preach to the fallen in the city of Nineveh (which is today’s Mosul, Iraq). Jonah hated Nineveh and ran away. He boarded a boat and a storm came. Soon the men noticed that Jonah was the cause of the storm so Jonah abashedly allowed them to toss him overboard. Jonah was swallowed by a whale (actually a great fish), and was inside its belly for three days and nights. (Jonah 1)

A careful reading of Jonah 2 will elicit the interpretation that as Jonah was sinking to the bottom of the sea and falling unconscious, he prayed for forgiveness, then died. My stance is biblically supported through the verses of Jonah 1:2; 5-7; and through Mt 12:38-40, but more on that in a moment). God sent the fish to scoop up Jonah, who was kept for three days inside the great fish’s belly and then spit up on land, alive.

The Greek renders the word “fish” in this verse dagah. Nineveh at that time was a Dagon-worshiping bunch. Dagon was a Philistine fish-god, referred to in Judges 26:23; I Sam. 5:1-7. Dagon the fish-god is still worshiped today. Imagine the impact of an unbelieving population to have seen a man spit up by a great fish and begin talking about the One True God who trumps this Dagon.

The unbelieving generation to whom Jesus was talking in Matthew 12:38-42 were the Pharisees, who had the advantage of reading the scriptures to verify what they were seeing in front of them, and yet they still refused the Truth. So for the short answer, Jesus compared Jonah’s sign with His upcoming sign. We know that Jesus died and lay in the belly of the earth for three days, and therefore in comparing Him sign with Jonah’s we also conclude Jonah died. Jesus’ warning to look to Jonah should not be dispensed with because He has risen.

So in the news there are things happening that could be called signs. They are certainly perplexing. The planet Jupiter lost a belt. Yes, indeed. One year it was there and next day it wasn’t.

And, off Israel, a gray whale was spotted. So what, you ask? Well, gray whales have been extinct in that part of the world for three hundred years. “The whale population which lives in the northeastern Pacific normally migrates southwards in around October, heading for warmer waters around the Gulf of California in a huge round trip of at least 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers), AFP reported.” It is called the ‘most amazing sighting in history of whales’. It swam for several hours off Herzliya Marina, close to Tel Aviv. They are saying it is a “miracle” and “back from the dead.” Scientists say the North Pacific whale either took an arctic route between ice floes, or Arctic route, swam through the Panama Canal, or continued another 8,000 miles to the south and round Cape Horn at the bottom of South America. Take a look at the map and start tracking a route from Baja CA to Israel either going north to the Bering Sea, south to Cape Horn, or through the Panama Canal across the Atlantic. That is one determined whale.

I have found a useful approach to bible understanding and prophecy interpretation is, after prayer, to just think. Don’t take anything at surface level without asking, “What could it mean?” and asking the Spirit to bring you into deeper understanding. Sure, a gray whale off Israel is an amazing incident. Don’t let it end there, though. Think…Israel…why Israel? The whale could have stopped far, far earlier. There were twenty other countries along a 10,000 mile route he could have stopped at instead of the mere 168 miles along Israel’s land-sea border. Instead, he went through the Straits of Gibraltar or the Suez Canal to specifically get to Israel.

Additionally, when you think of Israel and a whale, what immediately comes to mind? Jonah. And with Jonah, the sign that Jesus Himself gave to a wicked and [spiritually] adulterous generation of their need to repent and believe.

I can’t make a case that the gray whale’s resurrection off the coast of Israel has biblical meaning but even the scientists say it “is bizarre in the extreme“. With bizarre events comes thoughts of Jesus’ promise that the end time will have “fearful events and great signs from heaven.” (Luke 21:11). A sign in the Bible is some event or activity which may or may be supernatural, that would convince OR confirm the Person and claims of Jesus. A sign is usually a miracle with a clear intent; it was a miracle designed to reveal something specific. The Greek word ‘signs’ in that verse means ‘miracle’. “Is the sea off the coast of the Holy Land harboring a miracle? That was the question for biologists after a gray whale appeared off the shores of Israel, Sky News reported on Thursday.”

In my own mind it is not even a question. It is a sign, and with that particular sign we are reminded of the consequences of running from God’s will, His power, and also His redemptive mercy. Will you heed it today?

Posted in end time, little girls, prophecy, single ladies

Sexualizing the young: the ‘Single Ladies’ little girls dancing controversy

Posted on by elizabethprata

These girls are seven years old. They are wearing small bikinis, socks made to look like dominatrix boots, netted elbow-length gloves, and are shaking their bodies in mimicry of sex moves. They are seven years old. This is insane.

It was for the World of Dance Competition in Pomona, California and there’s no doubt they are good dancers. There’s also no doubt that getting dressed up and made up and danced up like hookers is atrocious. It is child pornography. When the video hit the news stream 12 hours ago prior to going to work, I flagged it immediately and took a screen shot, getting the piece ready for when I came home tonight to publish. Since then, the YouTube video has gotten 2 million hits. That is creepily disturbing.

This is worse than bad. The first issue with this is the fact that we are sexualizing the young, and that is something to which Jesus takes huge issue. He thought highly of children–

“And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” (Mark 10:13-14) He thought so highly of children that “He said to His disciples, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come! “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.” (Luke 17:1-2)

The second issue is that He thinks highly of sex, but within adult, two-gender marriages only. He discusses the importance of marriage and having godly offspring in Malachi 2:13-14. To desecrate a little one by perverting them through sex for a dancing award is definitely not Godly.

The main issue is the morality slide. Every time a benchmark line is crossed, non-believers say that there can be no absolute morality, but that the downward slide will certainly stop before it gets too bad. Right?

Wrong. Man’s craven and fallen state means that he is led by satan and satan lives to destroy. His perverted depth knows no bottom. We will slide further and further down until … Well, take the bikini for an example.

When the bikini was invented in 1946 it was named after Bikini Atoll, a Pacific Island which was the site of nuclear tests by the US. The bikini was said to be as explosive as a nuclear device. Even over a decade later, by 1960, the bikini was still considered too risque for mainstream wear, as described in the hit song “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.” It told the story of a shy girl wearing a revealing polka dot bikini bathing suit at the beach, who in the first verse is too afraid to leave the locker where she has changed into the aforementioned swimwear; in the second, she has made it to the beach but sits on the sand wrapped in a blanket; and in the closing verse, she has finally gone into the ocean, but is too afraid to come out, and stays immersed in the water – despite the fact that she’s “turning blue”, to quote the song’s lyrics – to hide herself from view.”

It was only thirty years after the shy gal wearing the bikini wouldn’t come out of the water that a young woman flashed her thong to a President. A thong is a garment worn as either underwear or a bathing suit where the back consists only of an elastic string. So over time we’ve gone from this:

to this:

to this:

tho this:

It doesn’t look like anything is halting the slide yet, do you? Aw, but that is adults, you say, I thought you were talking about children. Well, I don’t see anything stopping the morality slide in using and abusing and sexualizing children, do you? We are promoting them in ever sexual ways. Immorality in adults means we are teaching immorality to children.

I wrote about it in 2009 here, regarding “Toddlers and Tiaras” television show, a behind-the-scenes look at child beauty pageants. Can you imagine, that in this day and age, we have NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy love Association. Wikipedia explains it here but it’s in actuality an organized front for criminal and sexual exploitation of children. We have Sex tourism as a very lucrative industry that spans the globe. In 1998, the International Labour Organization reported its calculations that 2-14% of the gross domestic product of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Phillippines, and Thailand derives from sex tourism. And those statistics are ten years old. Lest you think that sex trafficking is a Third World problem only, in the United States, new research indicates that the sex-trafficking problem is more widespread and more severe than previously thought. It is estimated that 100,000 and 300,000 American children are trafficked within the U.S. each year.

The last thing this country needs are seven year old children dressed as dominatrices, prancing on stage to sex moves against lyrics that spew —

Cuz if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it
Don’t be mad once you see that he want it
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it
I got gloss on my lips, a man on my hips
hold me tighter than my Dereon jeans
acting up, drink in my cup
I couldn’t care less what you think
I need no permission, did I mention
Don’t pay him any attention
Cuz you had your turn

Sex trafficking comes in all shades, and the world should be ashamed at exploiting children. They are a gift from God! Children glorify God! For such as these is the kingdom of heaven made!!!!!!!!!

Unless the world clings to the absolute morality of the bible, the downward slide will result in dancing child porn and 2 million hits. It will not stop there. Where it will fall from here I shudder to think. O, Jesus come soon, save the children!

Posted in bp, end time, end time. prophecy, oil, paul noel

Watching our own demise, live on the internet

Posted on by elizabethprata

By now everyone knows the oil rig explosion on April 22, 2010 off Louisiana was a horrendous event. Lives were lost, and oil immediately started spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. Initially the Powers That Be (heretofore known as TPTB) told us at first, here and here, no oil was leaking at all. Then they said that the oil leak was stopped, then, the magnitude of the spill was downplayed. However, thanks to the internet, by April 30th the leaking oil quantities first put forth were quickly debunked as headlines like this one were published: Gulf oil leak reaches crisis proportions and lead sentences blared, “The massive oil well leak in the Gulf of Mexico abruptly turned into a national crisis yesterday, when scientists realized oil is probably gushing from the seafloor at five times the rate they first thought.” Or this one, which said flatly “Size of Oil Spill Underestimated, Scientists Say“

Anyone with eyes could see that more oil than TPTB said was leaking into the Gulf. Photographs showing the animals struggling in their dirtied environment soon made the rounds, and after that, hundreds of dead and dying animals soon washed ashore.

A pod of Bottlenose dolphins swim under the oily water Chandeleur Sound, Louisiana, Thursday, May 6, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

An oil soaked bird struggles against the oil slicked side of the HOS Iron Horse supply vessel at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana Sunday, May 9, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Current estimates of the leak are 200,000 barrels per day. Yes, that’s barrels, not gallons. There are 42 gallons per barrel. 8,400,000 gallons a day.

Paul Noel, works as Software Engineer (as Contractor) for the US Army at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. He has a vast experience base including education across a wide area of technical skills and sciences. He supplies technical expertise in all areas required for new products development associated with the US Army office he works in. He supplies extensive expertise in understanding the Oil and Gas industry as well. He writes for Pure Energy Systems today:

I…think that the situation is getting further and further out of hand. The nature of the crude had changed, indicating that the spill was collapsing the rock structures. If it is collapsing the rock structures, the least that can be said is that the rock is fragmenting and blowing up the tube with the oil. With that going on you have a high pressure abrasive sand blaster working on the kinks in the pipe eroding it causing the very real risk of increasing the leaks.

More than that is the very real risk of causing the casing to become unstable and literally blowing it up the well bringing the hole to totally open condition. Another risk arises because according to reports the crew was cementing the exterior of the casing when this happens. As a result, the well, if this was not properly completed, could begin to blow outside the casing. Another possible scenario is a sea floor collapse. If that happens Katie bar the door.

The deposit is one I have known about since 1988. The deposit is very big. The central pressure in the deposit is 165 to 170 thousand PSI [pounds per square inch]. It contains so much hydrocarbon that you simply cannot imagine it.

The oil industry has knowledge of the deposit more than they admit. The deposit is 100 miles off shore. They are drilling into the edge of the deposit to leak it down gently to be able to produce from the deposit. The deposit is so large that while I have never heard exact numbers it was described to me to be either the largest or the second largest oil deposit ever found. It is mostly a natural gas deposit. The natural gas that could be released is really way beyond the oil in quantity. It is like 10,000 times the oil in the deposit.

It is this deposit that has me reminding people of what the Shell geologist told me about the deposit. This was the quote, “Energy shortage…, Hell! We are afraid of running out of air to burn.” The deposit is very large. It covers an area off shore something like 25,000 square miles. Natural Gas and Oil is leaking out of the deposit as far inland as Central Alabama and way over into Florida and even over to Louisiana almost as far as Texas. This is a really massive deposit. Punching holes in the deposit is a really scary event as we are now seeing.

If there are two things to remember from Noel’s comments they are: that the rock wall surrounding the deposit may be crumbling, and that the size of the original deposit covers 25,000 square miles. Think on this! The finances of a multi-million dollar company that brings us oil (which is in most products we use today), the economy of an entire region of the US, and the environment of millions of innocent sea animals are devastated. They may be devastated forever. This certainly isn’t something from which a nation recovers from quickly. It’s death and destruction and devastation on an enormous scale. Personally I believe that the impacts have not yet even begun to be felt and that it will be a lot worse than most realize.

One of the judgments is when “The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood,” (Rev 8:8; 2nd Trumpet judgment which occur after the 7 Seal judgments). By the time Rev. 16 bowl judgments roll around, all the seas will be as blood and all the creatures will die. Now, think on this for a moment: the Revelation judgments haven’t even BEGUN. The above photos are of the end time warnings, they are not judgments (because we are not appointed to wrath), and it’s still pretty awful to bear!

If you think the above looks bad now, later during the Tribulation you know how much worse it will get. I encourage all non-believers to ponder the gravity of the present situation, and decide if you really want to stick around or not. Because you do not have to be here to watch the planet’s demise, live and unfolding on the internet.

You can choose to repent of your sins, which means that you are really sorry for the bad things you have thought, said, and done. Badness is rebellion against God, and He hates it. But He loves you and He made a way for you to be reconciled to Him. You ask, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” and all you need do is “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:31). Believe that He died for your sins, believe that He has the power and ability to forgive them, believe that He lives now after being resurrected on the third day. Believe. And be saved. Or stick around and watch the planet’s death throes. God leaves it up to every individual to make that decision. And know this: not deciding is deciding.