Category: great tribulation

Posted in great tribulation, jesus, pisgah, usgs

Pisgah Crater volcanic activity: DutchSinse vs. USGS and the rumble in the desert

Posted on by elizabethprata

I mentioned yesterday about the fight for truth in the secular world. I’d stated that the people know there is stuff going on, but the people who have access to the data or are otherwise in official capacities speak to the opposite of what we see and know. Or they deny completely what is going on, or they simply lie.

I’ve said a few times and shared the statements that the United States Geological Survey has said that there is no increase in earthquakes, then I used their data to show the opposite, earthquakes are regularly exceeding the USGS annual average. The same is true for volcanic activity. The US Government officials say we are in an economic recovery, or that TAARP has worked, when we can all see the economic outlook worsening by the day. Economist John Williams has made a career of showing the true economic data as compared to the information given to us by the General Accounting Office. I don’t think that I’ll get any argument that the value of the information being presented by official channels these days are usually tainted. It is wise to be skeptical in this day and age of any and all secular information we’re given. Search these things out for yourself and be a wary and critical consumer of information.

But when you do search you get a mishmash. Who to trust?  Some people are simply crackpots. At the very least, most of us don’t know how to correctly interpret a monetary chart, radar, or scientific data. That’s why we leave it to the experts. Yet at the same time it was citizen journalists who spotted the Nabro eruption, revealed the false data in Climategate, and this week, made a claim of a volcanic venting in Southern California that even prompted a response by the USGS.

There is a YouTube man named DutchSinse who regularly posts information concerning weather, earthquakes, and volcanic activity. I’ve listened to him and I find that his approach is careful, measured, and best of all, he shows how he arrives at his conclusions. He doesn’t make outrageous claims but instead puts forth conclusions reasonably based on what he sees from the data. This week he posted three videos showing data to support his claim that there has been volcanic venting at an ancient volcano in the southern California desert, Pisgah.

Pisgah Crater is located between Barstow and Needles CA about 2.5 miles from I-40. It borders the Mojave National Preserve. The Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program says the crater and attendant lava beds are from the Holocene Era which according to secular scientists is a geologic era that began about 11,000 years ago and continues to this day. Its last known eruption is unknown.

In his first two of videos from Sunday July 24 he shows a Nexrad radar of the area with what looks to be a stationary plume of moisture emerging from ground level and hovering for hours before dissipating. He mused that it was volcanic venting.

The next day on the 25th of July DutchSinse posted another video showing the same thing. Dutch moved his audience through his thought process and showed us step by step how and why he had come to the conclusion the volcano was venting. He sent the video and his findings to the USGS. In response, the USGS issued a press release denying that was what was going on.

What I found interesting about the press release was that they didn’t deny something was going on, they simply stated that Dutch had misinterpreted that data. Here is the press release:

“BARSTOW • A YouTube user who claimed to have discovered a volcanic eruption in the Mojave Desert over the weekend was mistaken, U.S. Geological Survey officials said Monday. A YouTube video posted Saturday evening displayed radar images and Google Earth maps as a narrator described what he believed to be evidence of a volcanic eruption over Pisgah Crater, a young volcanic cylinder cone between Barstow and Needles about 2.5 miles south of Interstate 40. “There was no indication of a volcanic eruption on that date and time, and nor is there one brewing today,” USGS spokeswoman Clarice Ransom said.Dr. John Eichelberger, program coordinator of volcano hazards for USGS, said the video didn’t appear to be a hoax, but rather a misinterpretation of the data.”

Now, I find this fascinating for many reasons. Dutch has a Youtube channel and a website complete with blog, images, and video. But his name is nowhere to be found. So a United States Government Agency found it necessary to respond to the information from an anonymous guy putting out a few videos. I find that extraordinary. It is telling that citizen journalists have made such an impact that the official channels of information react knee-jerk with immediate denials.

Equally interesting is that the USGS referred to data but only said it was not interpreted correctly. However the USGS failed to interpret it for us. They did not tell us what it meant. They admitted there was data, and that there is an interpretation to be made. What it is though, the USGS stopped short of revealing. And therein lay the problem: in any information vacuum, people will fill it in with their own ideas. In some cases like DutchSinse, they will come to reasonable conclusions. In others they will be off the wall.

The next day, by the way, Dutch posted a third video showing what he interpreted to be venting for the third day in a row. It was then that he said he felt 100% certain that what we were seeing is volcanic activity near the Mojave, notwithstanding the USGS denial of his interpretation (but not his data).

People are clamoring for truth to make sense of what is happening all around us. Context and solid information helps us feel less anxious. Recall the Fireside Chats from President Roosevelt during the Depression. Those chats either contained authoritative information or were simply Presidential encouragement to help the people through a dark time- the Depression. We needed to know the officials were “on it”, were “with us”, and we were united in our goal to get through it with unity and dignity. We don’t get that any more. All we get from the people in charge are denials and lies.

As to the immediate point, whether Pisgah is about to erupt or not, I don’t know. Dutch made a good point when he said it was not military, it wasn’t cloud cover, nor was it a brush fire. It was moisture in the hottest part of the desert, stationary to that location, and from the ground. Brush fires move. Clouds move. This didn’t. If it wasn’t venting, what was it? It is not far-fetched to wonder if the volcano will erupt at some point, I mean, Nabro in Eritrea recently did, and that was a volcano that had never erupted. Again, that was an event spotted by amateur radar and satellite aficionados. Chaiten in Chile erupted fairly suddenly, and that volcano had not erupted in 9500 years. From the bible we know that the earth will act in increasingly aberrant ways with earthquakes, super-hail, volcanic eruptions, and more. (Rev 6. I believe that the Revelation verse noting the sun went black as sackcloth is from volcanic ash blanketing the sun’s rays. More here.)

Now to the main point. The end time will be rife with falsity, the bible tells us. In terms of the Gospel, there will be false doctrines, false teachers, false prophets, liars, and seducers. (2 Peter 2; 1 Tim 4:1; 2 Tim 3:8). In the secular world we are told that men will be boasters, slanderers, lovers of themselves, traitors- all conditions that at their root have a lie at the center. (2 Tim 3:1-5). In other words, in both the secular and the Christian world, the truth will be harder and harder to find. As the world veers inexorably toward falsity, it will culminate during the Tribulation with “THE Lie”. (2 Thess 2:11). Though the lie is not defined in the Thessalonians verses, many people (myself included) believe this to be the lie that the man who appears in the Tribulation is Messiah. They did not receive Jesus when He came, and but they will accept another. (John 5:43). Truth will be increasingly hard to find until the Tribulation when lies will be ALL that people will find.

As a Christian I urge one and all to be deep into your bible. We have to cling to Jesus and walk closely with Him to avoid being prey to religious fads, false doctrines, and wolves in sheep’s clothing. Jesus is the only truth and as he revealed Himself to us in His word we must take it to heart and seriously study. We, being flesh, will and do often fall prey to lies. The flesh wants to believe lies but the Holy Spirit in us wants to regenerate us into His likeness. (Titus 3:5). An active prayer life, a close walk with Him and daily dying to flesh will go a long way to the Holy Spirit to grow us to righteousness and glory.
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Posted in end time, end time. prophecy, great tribulation, signs in the sun

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

Posted on by elizabethprata

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Has Jupiter sent cosmology down a false trail?

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

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

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

Posted in end time, great tribulation, prophecy, rapture

The purpose of the Tribulation

Posted on by elizabethprata

Jeremiah 30:7 shows God talking to Jeremiah, explaining that in due time, both Israel and Judah will experience trouble like the two kingdoms never had before. “How awful that day will be! None will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it.” He was prophesying of the time of the Jews from then until the Tribulation, the last seven years of Daniel’s prophesied seventy sevens.

Daniel 9:24-27 explains it:

Seventy Weeks and the Messiah
“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.”

Seventy weeks of years, or 490 years are decreed for the Jews to finish their transgression, or rebellion. Ah, but it seems that the 70 weeks is not spoken of as occurring consecutively. 

“So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.”

When Jesus died and rose again, the time of the prophetic clock paused and the 490 years was interrupted by the Church Age. The Old Covenant was suspended at 483 years upon Jesus’ death (Not forgotten! Not set aside! Simply paused) and the Church Age began. In Acts 15:13-18 James states “Simeon has related how God first concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for His name.” The Church Age is the taking a people from among the Gentiles, the Gentiles are grafted into the Covenant. Galatians 3:8 confirms this is part of God’s Plan: “The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” Acts 15 continues with Stephen reminding the Jews that

“‘After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it, that the remnant of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who bear my name, ” (Acts 15)

That rebuilding will take place at the outset of the Tribulation. Jerusalem is the scene of the Psalm 83 war and the Gog-Magog Battle. Though they do emerge victorious, the city does not emerge unscathed and there is rebuilding to attend to.

An interesting thing happened when Jesus died and rose, and the Church Age began. Not only did the Old Covenant pause and the New Covenant begin, but the Holy Spirit entered a new phase of His ministry. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit came upon people, and sometimes left people, but during the church age the gift of grace includes the doctrine of Once Saved Always Saved by the promise and strength of the indwelling Holy Spirit. However before the Church Age and after the Church age in the Tribulation, Jews and Gentiles alike were and are responsible for maintaining their faith through outward displays of service and obedience to the Lord through sacrifices and worship.

“Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.” (Daniel 9)

The prince to come is the Antichrist.

“And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.” (Daniel 9)

The covenant will be confirmed for a period of seven years, resuming the last ‘week’ necessary for the Jews to finish their Transgression. That seven years is the Tribulation. It will not occur until two things happen: first as Paul revealed in Romans 11:25, the Jews have had a hardening of the heart until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. [“I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.”] “Full number” is a nautical term indicating the practice of by law, requiring a certain number of sailors and soldiers to man the ships, without which, they could not set sail. The hardening of the heart means that the Jews cannot and will not recognize their need for a Messiah until that hardness is lifted. And that hardness will not be lifted until the Church is lifted, literally, raptured and the last 7 years begins. The Old Covenant and the New Covenant do not mingle. At that point the prophetic clock resumes and the Old Covenant resumes as well, with the Jews suddenly clamoring for a Temple and the sacrifices allowed because their hearts are no longer hard.

And secondly, the hardness of heart won’t be lifted until the Gog-Magog battle occurs, as prophesied in Ezekiel 38-39. — “My holy name I will make known in the midst of My people Israel; and I will not let My holy name be profaned anymore. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel. Behold, it is coming and it shall be done,” declares the Lord GOD. “That is the day of which I have spoken.” God uses the Gog-Magog battle to show Israel His presence in their lives and uses His direct intervention in that battle to draw Israel back to Himself. (Ez. 39:7-8). The Jews recognition of God’s direct intervention in their lives occurs by the end of that battle. The 7-year peace treaty is signed and the Temple is immediately rebuilt. Sacrifices resume.The Church is gone by then.

So Daniel prophesied 490 years for the Jews’ full transgression. After 483 the clock stopped when Jesus died and the Church Age began. God builds up His church to a full number only He knows. It is a 2000 year pause as the Old Covenant is suspended temporarily and the New Covenant begins. (Hebrews 8:6-8; Luke 22:20). The end times are prophesied with its signs, and then when the full number of Gentiles is reached we are raptured. The Church Age is over. The end time is over. The clock starts again and the last 7 years begin: the Time of Jacob’s Trouble. The Tribulation is completely about Israel, and God’s conclusion of His punishment for their transgression. The Holy Spirit resumes His Old Testament ministry and the Jews resume their old covenant style of worship (along with Gentile believers- Acts 15:17). Church Age believers eat a banquet supper with Jesus as His bride and earth-bound unbelievers and new believers on earth go through a living hell.

Won’t you accept Jesus’ sacrifice for your sins NOW? Now is the day of your salvation – “For he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor 6:2) We are warned: “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. (Is 55:6). Do not say you will wait and see. Do not say that you need signs. Do not wait because He is near, even right at the door! His gift to you awaits. His love and mercy and forgiveness of your own rebellion. It is the most precious gift…and it is free. Here you can read How to Be Saved.

Posted in end time, great tribulation, prophecy

The plague of beasts

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Gustave Dore, Vision of Death. 1865. public domain

I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth. (Revelation 6:8).

Consider those words for a moment…we are all familiar with plagues such as THE Plague, as in bubonic, Swine Flu and Dengue Fever and Malaria and all the other diseases and plagues throughout the centuries as well as biblical plagues of locusts and the ten plagues of Egypt. But one of the plagues loosed in Revelation 6 as the 4th seal is opened will be wild beasts.

Before we explore further, let’s go back to the beginning, in Genesis1:28 and Genesis 9:2. In Gen 9, God said “The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given.” In this verse, after the flood, God is making a promise to Noah and his descendants. God grants them power over the inferior creatures for their use and benefit. Man would have dominion over them. In Gen 1:28 God gave dominion over the animals but it was in harmonic governance. By Gen 9, the change is that He will now instill a fear into the animals, and fallen man shall rule over them through their fear and dread of man. “Those creatures that are any way hurtful to us are restrained; so that tho’ now and then man may be hurt by some of them, yet they do not combine together to rise up in rebellion against man” writes Wesley.

Have you ever pondered the thought that we can ride a horse and make it do our bidding using only our heels and a bridle? Or that we can cause a bull to do our will, or an elephant to prance around on two legs? Or train a lion using a chair? Or ride Killer whales at Sea World? These are huge animals who could stomp us in a second, yet they don’t (as a rule). Why? They are restrained because of their fear and dread of us.

By the time Revelation 6:8 comes, the LORD will have taken away that fear and dread and the animals will rise up. Animals are already being abandoned in great number, and not just the small animals of dogs and cats, horrifying enough as that is, but also horses and zoo animals. We read more and more of sharks attacking in closer waters,  mountain lions poaching humans in the backyard suburbs, wolf attacks are increasing, even raccoons attacking daily in DE and FL.

Imagine what it will be like when the LORD removes the restraint completely and allows animals to willfully rise up and attack. Remember how Wesley interpreted it: “Those creatures that are any way hurtful to us are restrained; so that tho’ now and then man may be hurt by some of them, yet they do not combine together to rise up in rebellion against man.” In Revelation 6 they will do exactly that!

God has cursed man with the plague of wild beasts before. In Lev. 26:22 “God said ‘I will let loose among you the beasts of the field, which will bereave you of your children and destroy your cattle and reduce your number so that your roads lie deserted,” and in Ez 14:21 “For thus says the Lord GOD, “How much more when I send My four severe judgments against Jerusalem: sword, famine, wild beasts and plague to cut off man and beast from it!”

Matthew Henry commentary -“Hurtful beasts, noisome and noxious, either as poisonous or as ravenous. God can make these to pass through the land (v. 15), to increase in all parts of it, and to bereave it, not only of the tame cattle, preying upon their flocks and herds, but of their people, devouring men, women, and children, so that no man may pass through because of the beasts; none dare travel even in the high roads for fear of being pulled in pieces by lions, or other beasts of prey, as the children of Beth-el by two bears. Note, When men revolt from their allegiance to God, and rebel against him, it is just with God that the inferior creatures should rise up in arms against men.”

How horrifying that the wild beasts should hunt us, attack, and do so in great number! You, Dear reader, do not have to be among the number killed by claws and teeth. Jesus made a way. If you feel saddened and upset over your misdeeds, called ‘sins’ in the bible, then ask Jesus to forgive them. Sinners cannot attain heaven, God hates sin and always judges it. That’s what the Tribulation is about: judging Israel and punishing national and individual sin through His wrath. If you pray to Jesus to forgive your sins and do so with sincere heart, believing He and only he can forgive them because of His work on the cross, then you are saved! Saved from the plague of beasts sure to come upon the world and then a worse fate of an eternity without Jesus in heaven. It will happen soon, do not delay.

illustration source