Category: news

Posted in news, theology

Please don’t repeat fake news, here’s how to spot fake news

Posted on by elizabethprata

I was a journalist for over 6 years, working for weeklies and dailies. I can attest to the fact that most newspapers have an obvious liberal slant. They don’t see it, and they would deny it.

Add to the mix widespread social media and unscrupulous liberals who really do stop at nothing to push forward their talking points. I can attest to the fact that the liberal worldview, which is satan’s, has minions that promote or engage in violence, lie, cheat, and generally do anything to ensure both the squashing of the Christian worldview and to push forward the liberal world view. We’ve seen that on television broadcast news. It’s the same in newspapers. I knew some newspapers that just made up stuff. I wonder how they justified it.

Sadly, there are few sources for a conservative to turn to receive unbiased news with no agenda behind it. We can always ready past news and future news in the Bible, I guess!! LOL.

If we want to be responsible citizens of God’s Kingdom, we don’t want to perpetuate lies, either. We need to engage in the world, but responsibly.

Facebook seems largely a woman’s domain. Many men on that particular social media are strong witnesses for Christ, but they can also fall prey to a liberal trap.  A lot of these fake news items arise from Facebook and then get pushed into other mediums. Please sisters, don’t forward or like news posts that are false. We can’t fall into the trap of fake news. Before you share or tweet or like or forward or message, lol, stop a second and think. We can’t be perpetuating lies. Here is a helpful schematic to run through a thought process to see if the news item is true or false.

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. (Proverbs 26:4)

fake news

Posted in jerusalem, news, peace, psalm

Unrest in Jerusalem: a month of terror attacks takes its toll

Posted on by elizabethprata
Pixabay photo

Jerusalem and Israel proper is the location where our Holy God has put His name (2 Chronicles 6:6) and set up His people. (Zechariah 2:12).

As a result, the world hates the holy city. The world hates His people. The world hates the tiny nation. Yet God has said that those who harm Zion touch God Himself. (Zechariah 2:8).

But the God-hating world doesn’t care about what God has said. The sinful world hates Sinless God and ignores His warnings…and touches Israel anyway.

Of late there has been an increase in violence in Jerusalem. Usually when I write about any terror attacks in that holy land it means that the Palestinians are lobbing rockets their way. This time is different. The terror attacks are personal and one-on-one: car rammings and stabbings. Here is a report from Tel Aviv by AFP News

As violence grips Jerusalem and other cities, a climate of suspicion has threatened even the most basic interactions between Jews and Israeli Arabs, not to mention Palestinians. Israeli authorities have long sought to stress the diverse nature of their society, with Israeli Arabs and Jews living together. But while some cities are relatively integrated, on the whole the two communities live parallel existences. Arab Israelis account for some 17.5 percent of Israel’s population. A series of gun, knife and car-ramming attacks against Jews as well as ongoing clashes between security forces and Palestinian protesters has worsened mutual mistrust. In the streets of Jerusalem and other cities, Israelis are frightened by random knife attacks, 

See this live-listing from the IDF blog (Israel Defense Force)

The latest cycle of Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians began on September 14th, and has been ongoing. This violence includes unruly riots, shootings, stabbings, car rammings, hurled IED’s and rock attacks that are taking place throughout the country.
The IDF and its troops continue to work tirelessly with its partners in the Defense Establishment to protect themselves and ensure security for Israel’s civilians, in accordance with government directives. 

Terror attacks by the numbers: 

41 Stabbings
4 Shootings
5 Car Rammings 

For real-time updates, follow our Twitter account:@IDFSpokesperson 

October 23
7:15 A.M. – IDF soldier injured in stabbing attack near Gush Etzion. Assailant shot on site.

October 22
8:00 A.M. – Israeli civilian injured in stabbing attack in Beit Shemesh. Assailant shot on site. 

October 21
9:00 P.M. – Five IDF soldiers injured in car ramming attack near Bethlehem. Assailant shot on site.
3:30 P.M. – IDF soldier injured in stabbing attack near Jerusalem. Assailant shot on site.
6:20 A.M. – Attempted stabbing attack in Israeli community near Nablus. Assailant shot on site. 

October 20
9:50 P.M. – IDF soldier injured in stabbing attack in Hebron. Two assailants shot on site.
4:30 P.M. – IDF soldier and Israeli civilian injured in car ramming attack at Gush Etzion Junction. Assailant then attempted to stab the wounded but was shot on site.
11:15 A.M. – IDF officer injured in stabbing attack during violent riot near Hebron. Assailant shot on site. 

And so on…

As Mr Abbas, the Palestinian Authority President commented at the outset of this latest surge of violence.

Mr. Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, said the following on Palestinian television on Sept. 16: “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood, blood on its way to Allah. With the help of Allah, every martyr will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward.”

CBN posted this a few minutes ago:

Israel Ramps Up Security at Rachel’s Tomb amid Terror Surge

JERUSALEM, Israel — Thousands of Jewish worshippers gathered at Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem Friday and many more are expected throughout the weekend to mark the anniversary of the biblical matriarch’s death. Israeli authorities will deploy hundreds of extra police and security forces to the site in view of the surge in attacks by Palestinian terrorists. The rise in attacks began on the eve of the Jewish New Year and continued throughout the fall holidays and afterward.

As I said at the beginning of this essay, the world hates Israel and Jewish people because God has set His name upon them. So why, if God loves His people as the Bible claims, does the LORD allow terror and evil to befall His people so often, these people who are the apple of His eye? Because of His promises. Not only did He promise them Land, and His presence among them as ruler, and exaltation, and being set apart and dwelling in safety, He also promised punishment if they failed to worship Him as He commanded. Therefore, the LORD is allowing this violence as part of His ongoing promise of punishment of His people for rejecting His Son, Jesus, the promised Messiah, for their rebelliousness and their faithlessness.

This punishment will continue until it reaches its full expression in the Tribulation. The Time of Jacob’s Trouble (Jeremiah 30:7, FMI go here) is about Daniel’s people as it is stated in the Book of Daniel in 9:24.

The Tribulation has nothing to do with the Church. It has everything to do with the pagan world’s rebelliousness in pursuing sin and not God, (Isaiah 24). It will be a time when God will purge the earth of wicked people. It also has everything to do with Israel.

As evil and dark as the Great Tribulation will be, it will also be a time of glorious salvation. (Revelation 7, especially Revelation 7:9). Many will come to redemption, and all Israel will be saved. (Romans 11:26-27, Isaiah 45:17).

We are called to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. When we pray for that peace, we are really praying for the Lord’s return and the end of all hostilities against His people in His land, forever. The hostilities will continue to occur until that Day, the Day of the LORD.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you.” (Psalm 122:6).

We pray for His holy city, for the prosperity of a city whose very name means peace. In so praying we are also praying for the holy Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem. As Gill’s Exposition states of the Psalm 122:6 verse,

for Jerusalem, not merely literally considered; though as that was the metropolis of the nation, and many of them the psalmist addresses were inhabitants of it, it became them to seek and pray for the peace of it, their own peace being concerned in it; see Jeremiah 29:7; but for the spiritual and heavenly Jerusalem, the church of God, and for the peace of it; that Christ, the Man, the Peace, the Peacemaker

The minds of the Jerusalemites are darkened in understanding about Who Jesus is. The minds of the Palestianians are darkened in understanding about who Allah is. Rather than hate them, because they are not our enemies, we love them in their ignorance and pray for deliverance; deliverance of the city, of the Land, of the people.

The LORD will set the Day in which He will protect His people with His own hand. (Ezekiel 38:17-23). At the final battle called Armageddon, human rule is destroyed forever. (Daniel 2:44). Israel

Pray for the peace that will bring war, and pray for the war that will being peace. Love Jerusalem and share our goods with the poor of that most high city.

For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. For they were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings. (Romans 15:26-27).

Posted in earthquakes, encouragment, news, prophecy

Lightning strikes on the rise, quakes this week, ground shift in WY, Heaven tourism books, New Jerusalem

Posted on by elizabethprata

From a good science essay which discusses a comparison of DNA between apes and humans and shows why Christians don’t have to worry about the theory of evolution. “How Similar are Humans & Apes?“

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Here’s why Christians don’t need to worry about the Jesus Wife papyrus fragment. Or listen to this 15 minute podcast on Issues, Etc, with Dr Craig Evans.

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I’ve often published essays reporting on the statistics which show increasing numbers of earthquakes, or storms, or strength of storms, or sinkholes, etc. But I’ve never been able to discover whether lightning strikes are more common now than before, until I read this article in an Israeli news outlet.

Lightning strikes a warming planet
They say lightning never strikes twice, and that getting struck by lightning is as rare as winning the lottery. But such folk wisdom may no longer be true, report scientists studying global lightning patterns. A cross-country research project published recently in the American Journal of Climate Change suggests that in developing countries especially, lightning strikes and death by lightning appear to be growing. Asked to comment on the story by the BBC, Price said: “The underdeveloped world is where you have the maximum frequency of lightning and thunderstorms — in places like the Central African Republic and DR Congo, the Amazon region of South America, the Indonesian islands and Borneo in South East Asia. “When you add the figures up, there may even be more people killed or injured by lightning than most of the other natural hazards we have on the earth today.” A rising world population also means that there are more people who have the potential to get hit by lightning.

 According to Price, the increase in lightning activity will be seen especially in areas that become warmer and drier –– like the Mediterranean region and the southern United States. From 2012 research, he already concluded that the storms of the future will be more violent. For example, the Brazilian city of Manaus, in the middle of the Amazon, has witnessed a 50% increase in lightning strikes over the last three decades. The city now gets about 13.5 strikes per kilometer per year.

There have been several major earthquakes over the last day. According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), there was a quake at

Nicaragua, 6.6
Papua New Guinea, 6.5
Papua New Guinea, 7.1
Chile, 6.0
Nicaragua, 6.1

In Chile there have been 61 quakes this week.

Of interest is the continuing quake swarm at Oklahoma. This week there have been 50 quakes, including a large (for the area) 4.1.

In France, a rare 5.0 earthquake occurred this week. Strong earthquakes are rare in France.

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Dozens evacuated in Wyoming as ground shifts
Dozens of Jackson residents who were evacuated after land began shifting on a hillside in this Wyoming resort town are waiting to find out if and when they can return home. Assistant Town Manager Roxanne Robinson said today there is still no word on what is causing the East Gros Ventre Butte land to shift, but officials have taken steps to ensure there is no catastrophe. Geologists are on the scene, and other geologists are being brought in to get a better idea of what is happening. A road and parking lot of a Walgreens pharmacy have been distorted and buckled by ground movement, which was also the cause of breaks in nearby water pipes last weekend.

“When you see these kinds of scenes out of Washington state and the landslides in the canyon, it’s not to be trifled with,” he said, so the officials are monitoring carefully, but despite many rumors as to the reason this is occurring, in the article “Worry Mounts as Butte Slips, he continued, “I don’t know if anybody knows exactly what the issue is,” Barron said.

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Understanding the times and knowing what the church should do. Seven things to keep in mind.

Pastor David Platt speaks with clarity and beautiful fervency and discernment of the demonic deception of the surge in heavenly tourism books. They’re fanciful accounts, frivolous features and juvenile attractions. 4-minute video. Please watch

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In light of the two blog essays I’ve written recently about adopting a heavenly perspective and being of heavenly good, let’s finish with Nathan Busenitz’s essay on the physicality of the heavenly city of New Jerusalem. It is an essay titled The New Jerusalem.

Posted in christianity, integrity, missionaries, news, test all things

Christian Martyrs about to be executed, or mind-controlled North Koreans mourning their dictator?

Posted on by elizabethprata

North Korea is the most closed nation on earth. Extracting any reliable information from that closed dictator-led nation is near impossible. Still, reports leak out. Depending on the source, some of them are more reliable than others.

There is a recent report that the new dictator, Kim Jong Un, son of the old dictator, Kim Jong Il, held a mass public execution last November 3. November you say, and we’re just hearing about it now? That is how slowly real news leaves the closed and mysterious country of North Korea. If the reports are true at all.

The reports say that the executions were held publicly with children forced to watch. There was no clear reason why the executions were held, other than for some infractions such as owning a bible or watching a South Korean film.

There are more recent reports that the dictator has ordered the execution of 33 Christians, for the crime of having had contact with a South Korean Baptist missionary. Those reports seem more reliable.  Read more here.

I am extremely saddened by these events. We are told that Christians throughout the Church Age will be persecuted or even killed for the faith. It doesn’t make knowing the fact of them happening in front of our faces any easier to take.

However, something that diminishes the honor due missionaries and martyrs who give their life on earth for the faith in a brutal, lonely death is when undiscerning Christians, well-meaning no doubt, fall for easily discovered ruses. Like this:

Accompanying the recent story about the November executions, often appears this photo of alleged about-to-be killed North Korean Christians-

These are not Christians. These are not believers about to be killed. These are young North Koreans mourning the death of their beloved Kim Jong Il, AKA “Dear Leader”, “Superior Person” and “Father of the People.” The are victims, brainwashed and mind-controlled atheists in a locked country, suddenly bereft of their ‘god.’

How do I know this? A 5 second google search yielded this photo published in Russia Today in December 2011, not March 2014. The headline to the article in which this photo originally appeared states,

Kim Jong-il dead: Grief & mass hysteria in North Korea (VIDEO)

And the caption states, “Pyongyang residents react as they mourn over the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang (Kyodo / Reuters)”

Please, if we are to test all things regarding what we are taught by bible teachers and preachers, then let’s extend that to testing Christian news before we pass along information about missionaries and martyrs. Far too often on Facebook, twitter, or other social media and blogs, I find mindlessly repeated hoaxes, false information, and just plain obvious ruses that diminish the credibility of Christians. Let’s stay as pure as we can, on behalf of the One of whom we speak. Check it out before you pass it along. In other words, Google is your friend.

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Now as to some real news about a N. Korean missionary, this is from Voice of the Martyrs-

North Korea: Missionary Released

UPDATE #2
After being detained for two weeks for attempting to distribute gospel tracts in North Korea, John Short, 75, was released by North Korean authorities on March 2. The Australian missionary, who resides in Hong Kong with his wife, had traveled to Pyongyang as part of a regular tour group on Feb. 15. The following day, he was questioned about the gospel tracts and subsequently detained. Upon his release, he was flown to Beijing, where he was met by officials from the Australian embassy. He is expected to return to his home in Hong Kong.

UPDATE #1
Praise God that North Korean officials deported John Short to Beijing on March 2, 2014.

ORIGINAL STORY
Australian missionary John Short, 75, was questioned and detained by North Korean authorities on Feb. 16., reportedly after police learned of gospel tracts in his possession.

Short, who has lived in Hong Kong with his wife for the past 50 years, traveled to Pyongyang on Feb. 15 with a tour group, and police questioned him at his hotel the next day about the Korean-language gospel tracts that he was carrying. Officials reportedly asked him who translated the material into Korean, who sent him and to what organization he belongs.

Short’s wife was informed of his detention by a member of the tour group who was allowed to leave on Feb. 18. The tour company has made repeated calls to North Korea, but officials have refused to provide any information.

North Korea is considered the worst persecutor of Christians in the world. Although its constitution provides for freedom of religion, the practice of any non-state-sanctioned religious activity is prohibited. Possessing a Bible, praying to God or Jesus, and meeting with other Christians all are punishable by death.

The Australian government is working on Short’s behalf through its embassy in South Korea and has also requested help from Sweden, which has an embassy in Pyongyang.

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Here is one account of a martyr we will meet in heaven, killed under Diocletian’s persecution beginning in 304AD. From Foxe’s Book of Martyrs

Agrape, Chionia, and Irene, three sisters, were seized upon at Thessalonica, when Diocletian’s persecution reached Greece. They were burnt, and received the crown of martyrdom in the flames, March 25, A.D. 304. The governor, finding that he could make no impression on Irene, ordered her to be exposed naked in the streets, which shameful order having been executed, a fire was kindled near the city wall, amidst whose flames her spirit ascended beyond the reach of man’s cruelty. 

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O, for the day when we are all beyond reach of man’s cruelty, under the shelter of the arms of Jesus! When all children will be translated instantly to a place of safety and love. When the aged and infirm receive their resurrected, glorified bodies and can run and leap in joy toward Jesus and kneel without pain at His feet. When persecution is no longer a word in our vocabulary and it has lost all power to instill fear or cause death. That day is coming, brothers and sisters, it is coming.

Posted in news, prophecy, pulpit, sermons, signs

Should pastors do news-prophecy updates?

Posted on by elizabethprata

I’ve been thinking a lot about pastors who do prophecy updates. This is when pastors speak from the pulpit regarding current events of the day, such as the Syrian civil war, or a major earthquake, or the eclipses coming up, or Egypt’s coups, etc. The speak about this news from the pulpit during service and relate the news back to the bible.

Should pastors do this? Should they refrain from updating their parishioners on the news?? It is a difficult question. As with all hard questions (and easy ones too) let’s look at the bible first. The role of pastor is to include:

–Care to those whom he has been entrusted (1 Peter 5:2-3).
–A pastor is a shepherd of God’s flock who is to instruct, teach, and protect the people under his charge. In John 21:15-17, Jesus said to Peter, feed My sheep, tend My sheep, feed My sheep.
–Acts 6:4 those who lead the church are charged to give themselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the Word.
–Acts 20:27 declare the whole counsel of God
–2 Timothy 4:2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

Though pastors have many duties as defined by the bible, teaching and preaching the word of God to the flock is number one. It is the major way they tend the sheep, and feed the sheep. They also protect the sheep from wolves, by guarding the congregation from false doctrine and the people who bring it. Feeding the lambs with the bread of life is uniquely given to elders/overseers.

Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Mark 13:31. The only enduring thing in this world are the words of Jesus, and shepherds are entrusted to pass them to the people, to explain, to use as encouragement and rebuke, for training in righteousness.

Prophecy is part of that general mandate. Too few pastors preach the prophetic passages or even mention them in passing. Somehow prophecy has gotten a bad reputation. This is likely because so many crazy people have set dates and brought shame onto Christianity by being a fringe element. Others are too shamefully gleeful at the wrath parts of judgment in prophecy and do not demonstrate the love of Christ by counterbalancing His wrath with talk of His grace and mercy. Or, many pastors don’t want the ‘taint’ that has besmirched prophecy in general to taint them, so they shy away. Oftentimes, it is also because seminaries do not teach pastoral students the importance of prophecy or preaching the prophetic passages, calling them unknowable, or controversial, and they ignore them altogether. Thus, new pastors don’t feel equipped to preach on them and they never do, even as they mature.

Frontspiece to “America A Prophecy”
William Blake 1793

As for the sheep, us, many have gotten discouraged by the hype that too many eager pastors have promoted with prophecy. Or, they have picked up on the general taint and they frown meanly from the pews when or if a pastor preaches it.

Yet the bible says to preach the whole counsel of God. Preaching the prophetic is encouraging because it shows God’s sovereignty, His careful attention to detail, and His everlasting covenants. When was the last time you heard a good sermon from, say, Obadiah? I listened to Phil Johnson preach from Nahum last weekend, and I loved every minute of it.

However that said, there is a difference in preaching prophecy and preaching secular news. As an example, John MacArthur has been preaching for 46 years, 44 of them at one church. All of his sermons he’s preached since 1969 are online. I’ve listened to a healthy sampling of them from each decade, including the ones from 1969, from the 70s, and 80s and 90s and 00s and beyond. In a bare few, he mentions current events. For the most part, he simply does what the bible says, preach the word. The word is always fresh. When he expounds on it, I literally cannot detect which era the sermon is from. It is as fresh as if he delivered it today than when he did 45 years ago. It is all edifying.

I applaud and honor those pastors who occasionally relate something happening in the culture or the world to the bible. John MacArthur did this in 2012 when he preached two sermons pointedly on America’s downward slide into immorality. They were “sermons on the spiritual and moral decline being championed by our country’s leaders.” The introduction to that two-part series states,

“If you’ve followed John MacArthur’s teaching for any length of time, you know he rarely says much about politics, culture, or society. It’s not that he’s uninformed on those topics. It’s that they’re often an intrusion upon the teaching of God’s Word. Evangelical Christians are already too easily distracted from the Great Commission in order to engage in partisan politics.“

However, sometimes mixing the current news and the bible is called for. Dr MacArthur stated

“I’m not one to talk about politics as such, but I was essentially amazed that one of the historic parties here in the United States adopted the sins of Romans 1 as their platform. This is a new day in our country. Parties which used to differ on economics now differ dramatically on issues that invade the realm of God’s law and morality.”

Even at that, the bulk of those two sermons were mainly focused on the Word of God and not the news of culture. And the rest of his sermons are focused totally on the word of God.

In the few cases if a secular news event is mentioned in an older sermon I am listening to, it’s jarring. It dates the sermon and makes it seem old and creaky. It kind of ruins the whole thing. Tying news into preaching is a bad mix, kind of like the iron and clay toes in the statue of Nebuchadnezzar that will not stay together.

There are some pastors who choose to speak a prophecy update each week, or quarterly. I have more concerns about these. I truly thank these preachers for doing weekly prophecy updates, I know their heart is in the right place. I know they love the Lord. But to work news back into the bible and claim meaning from it regularly is a dangerous activity, in my opinion. When a pastor has committed to a weekly prophecy update that includes the news of the world, their attention is necessarily divided.

I believe pastors should walk a fine line when it comes to preaching the news. They spend time reading newspapers instead of reading the bible. Tying news articles to the word means we think we can see what the Lord is doing or that we know his ways. But His ways are far above our ways. The pulpit is for God’s word.

Pastors should be excited about His appearing though, and talk much of our new home based on what the bible says, and look forward to the era to come. But they throw ALL prophecy out with the bathwater and never mention that this earth isn’t our home! Instead of preaching news stories from the pulpit, they go too far in the other direction and never preach the bible’s prophetic passages, either.

As far as news goes, we have come to the prophetic brink so often since 2008 and then the Lord saw fit to retreat the world from the prophetic brink. Russia is rising, Middle East is inflamed, the world economy is tanking, Damascus is dying, Egypt is failing, we can see the prophetic indicators.

The pastor’s role is to preach the word in season and out, ALL of the word, and this is on them- when

St Bernard preaching from a pulpit,
G. Martini, 1470

they do not preach prophecy passages from the bible they are not fulfilling the command to feed His sheep the whole counsel of God. But the word does not command shepherds to feed us news. So many pastors unwittingly get drawn away when they include secular news to their sermons from the pulpit. They start looking at the news and not expending their precious time on learning the word. Satan will take anything, even something good, and make it bad. If they feed us the word then we will understand and see the times. Jesus chastised the Pharisees for being able to tell the weather from signs but not His appearing from the fact of His appearing! (Mt 16:3). And Paul said –

“But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. 5For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.” (1 Thess 5:4-5)

So the pastors preach the word, the whole word, and the Spirit illuminates the times for us.

It is a shame that so few are excited about His appearing. Paul mentioned it constantly! I talk about it a lot at church. I think He is coming soon. Not because the news indicates He is coming back soon but the bible says His return for His bride is imminent. It is something to get excited about! Not the news but simply the eagerness of going to our new home or the fact of His coming to get us. It is a sad thing that too few Christians look eagerly to that moment. If Paul and the early Christians did, how much closer is it today! Every NT book except Philemon mentions the prophetic future of our being raptured to Him and the new era. Christians who long for His appearing even earn a crown! And that is a shame, that so many brethren won’t share the joy of anticipation. I speak it from the bible, though, not from the news.

I do believe that the Lord is returning soon. I believe the rapture will be any day. I have believed this since I read it in the bible. The events today look to me like they are pointing to our last moments on earth under the Age of Grace. But, it’s been 7 years since I first thought that and it could be two years from now or another ten or I could die tomorrow and go to heaven anyway. We just don’t know. We look at the seasons and we look for His appearing and this should give us urgency to witness. But when I go to church I want to hear His word explained, there is no better way to spend time than hear the word. It is the only enduring thing on this earth.

What’s your opinion on the matter?

Posted in news, peace talks, tornado milan

Why Christians should stop sharing hoaxes, acid scarring attacks in India, tornado in Milan

Posted on by elizabethprata

I thought this was well stated:

4 Reasons Christians Need to Quit Sharing Hoaxes
“I’ve seen a trend that’s both interesting and troubling: If I find a hoax in my news feed, chances are it will have been shared by an evangelical Christian. I know that sounds like a terrible thing to say, but it’s true. In fact, it’s so typical and intriguing, that I’ve been keeping track of the phenomenon for quite a while.”

Why should we be holy? Sunny Shell explains in this essay, The Way of Holiness
“Just as the honor of being assigned as an ambassador of an earthly country should not be taken lightly, so we also, who are in Christ, should not take our high calling as children of the Most High God lightly. An earthly ambassador is chosen to live in a foreign land to represent their country, while maintaining every attribute and character of their homeland. An ambassador does not lose or forget who he/she is merely because they live in another country for a time, rather, they honorably and proudly represent their country and their people.”

Tensions rise at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount–

‘The Israeli Government Has Surrendered the Temple Mount’
“In an “unprecedented” move, police on Wednesday informed Jewish groups that the Temple Mount will be closed to all non-Muslims until at least the end of Ramadan, on 11th August. The announcement has provoked renewed anger over anti-Jewish discrimination on the Temple Mount, and sparked calls by activists for a mass-protest on 7th August, at the start of the Hebrew month of Elul.”

There are three to four acid attacks against women a week in India??

‘Rejection doesn’t mean you scar a woman’s face’
“India’s top court has ruled authorities should regulate the sale of acid, which is often used in attacks on women. But that’s not enough, says Suneet Shukla, a campaigner with Stop Acid Attacks. Society needs to change. Customers are now required to present a photo ID when buying acid; retailers have to register the customer and write down name and address, India’s Supreme Court recently ruled. Acid burns the victim’s skin and leads to horrible injuries. There are no official statistics about acid attacks, as they are not documented as distinctive crimes. According to the Stop Acid Attacks campaign, about three to four cases are reported every week in India.”

A massive tornado occurred in Milan, Italy the other day
We will begin with the following disclaimer: You should not stand behind a window in your office and film a tornado. Yes, a guy in Milan, Italy, did that yesterday, and, yes, the video is amazing, but safety first. Twelve people were injured in the storm. Which made us wonder: how often does Italy see these kind of tornados? It is natural, in our modern, weird-weather times, to wonder if the storm in Italy is abnormal, extreme weather for which we can thank our decades of greenhouse gas production. And, as always, the answer is: It’s hard to tell.”

There are occasional tornados in Italy as the article goes on to report, but over water. Tornados need wide-open spaces to generate energy and go forward. Therefore a tornado in Milan would indeed be unusual, as the one in Venice Italy was a last summer.

The Milan tornado footage is incredible. It picks up in a big way after 40 seconds.

The Washington Post link has a few other videos in different angles on this same tornado from other locations in the city where it hit.

Those Israel peace talks…Obama spoke with both parties today
“United States President Barack Obama spoke to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday, several days after peace talks between the sides officially restarted. The White House said Obama made separate calls to both men in an effort to keep up the momentum. The PA-based WAFA news agency reported that Obama urged Abbas to make use of the current momentum to reach a deal with Israel and stressed his support of the efforts that led to launching the peace process. An Abbas aide told WAFA he hoped a deal could be reached in six to nine months. Abbas reportedly stressed his commitment to a two-state solution and the need to reach a solution in the nearest time possible.”

Remember 9/11? I do. here is a photo of the Twin Towers under construction in 1972, from @HistoricalPics

Posted in news

News roundup: Israel/Golan Heights, Economy, Northern lights in Kansas

Posted on by elizabethprata

Here is a news roundup for you, covering several different spheres, articles of interest from each sphere. Enjoy

Science

Laki: Geologist and volcano enthusiast Erik Klemetti has a summary article about the power and impact of the 18th century eruption of Iceland’s Laki, noting its explosive power was less than the immediate pyrotechnics of Tambora and Krakatau, but its impact was much deeper. He begins his article this way:

Local and Global Impacts of the 1783-84 Laki Eruption in Iceland
“Saturday marks the 230th anniversary of the famed Laki (or Skaftár Fires) eruption in Iceland — one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history. It wasn’t a enormous explosion like many people associate with giant eruptions, nothing like Tambora or Krakatau. However, it did have a profound impact on people living around the entire Northern Hemisphere for years afterwards…”

Klemetti also noted yesterday on Twitter that “three Alaskan volcanoes on elevated alert status: Pavlof, Cleveland and Veniaminof.”

This article reports that in the last three years, 12 new Alaskan volcanoes have been discovered. Folks, we really don’t know as much about the earth as we think we do…

A Blast of a Find: 12 New Alaskan Volcanoes
“In the past three years, 12 new volcanoes have been discovered in Southeast Alaska, and 25 known volcanic vents and lava flows re-evaluated, thanks to dogged work by geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Forest Service. Sprinkled across hundreds of islands and fjords, most of the volcanic piles are tiny cones compared to the super-duper stratovolcanoes that parade off to the west, in the Aleutian Range.”

Spaceweather.com reports today that “Researchers working with data from NASA’s AIM spacecraft have announced that noctilucent clouds (NLCs) are behaving strangely. Boosted by changing “teleconnections” in Earth’s atmosphere, the summertime clouds appeared earlier this year than ever before, setting the stage for an unusually good season of NLCs. “Unusually good” certainly describes the apparition this morning over Troon, Ayrshire, Scotland. “It was an amazing display,” says photographer Mark Ferrier. “The clouds appeared after sunset on June 8th and lasted straight through to sunrise on June 9th. :”

Gorgeous, isn’t it! The clouds look like gentle beach waves touching the sand.

Less gentle has been our sun lately. NASA reports, “The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 6:49 p.m. on June 7, 2013. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where communications signals travel. This disrupts the radio signals for as long as the flare is ongoing, anywhere from minutes to hours.  This flare is classified as an M5.9 flare…”

Spaceweather again, explaining the levels of solar flares. “There are 3 categories: X-class flares are big; they are major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms. M-class flares are medium-sized; they can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth’s polar regions. Minor radiation storms sometimes follow an M-class flare. Compared to X- and M-class events, C-class flares are small with few noticeable consequences here on Earth.”

Northern Lights were seen last night as far south as Kansas! Our skies are truly beautiful, day or night.

“The LORD, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the human spirit within a person,” (Zechariah 12:1)

Middle East:

There is a lot going on in the Middle East. It is the central point upon which all prophecy past and present will focus down to a laser point at the very end of time. Many people believe that those days are upon us. I myself think that there are not many days left until we are called home by Our Blessed Hope, Jesus, in the rapture. First we turn to Syria, specifically the border with Israel at the Golan Heights.

The civil war going on in Syria for almost three years now is spilling over to Israel. More battles are taking place on the Golan Heights, an important strip of land for Israel in terms of military defense. Recently, the Austrian UN peacekeepers decided to withdraw from the area, citing it as too dangerous for them men and women to remain. In their stead, Russia’s President Putin offered to Israel that Russian peacekeepers would go to fill the void. Israel said, “No thanks.”

UN: Russia Can’t Take Part in Golan Heights Force
“The United Nations said on Friday that Russia cannot send troops to the Golan Heights peacekeeping force, after President Vladimir Putin said he was ready to bolster the force, AFP reported. Putin offered troops after Austria decided to withdraw its 377 soldiers from the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) between Syria and Israel because of growing spillover from the Syria conflict. However, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said later on Friday that Russia was banned from taking part in the force because it is one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council. “We appreciate the consideration that Russia has given to provide troops on the Golan. However, the disengagement agreement and its protocol between Syria and Israel does not allow for the participation of permanent members of the security council in UNDOF,” Nesirky told reporters, according to AFP.”

You might remember that Russia has sold Syria S-300 missiles, a missile that greatly enhances Syria’s war capabilities. It is an advanced anti-ship cruise missiles with advanced radar that makes them more effective. Israel asked Russia not to send them, but Russia insisted that they were keeping the deal with Syria.

Instead, Israel hinted that they themselves would fill the void with their own troops.
“Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned that Israel would fill the vacuum left by a disintegrating UN peacekeeping unit in the Golan Heights amid reports that Israeli and Syrian recently came close to their biggest direct clash in 40 years. Only last week, we saw battles close to out border on the Golan Heights,” he said. “The crumbling of the UN force on the Golan Heights underscores the fact that Israel cannot depend on international forces for its security. They can be part of the arrangements. They cannot be the basic foundation of Israel’s security. Mr Netanyahu’s remarks came after it was disclosed that Israel had warned Syria that it was prepared to act after the Syrian army moved five tanks and five personnel carriers into the demilitarised zone between the two countries last Thursday in breach of a longstanding ceasefire agreement.”

Over in neighboring Jordan, Multinational Military Exercises Launch in Jordan
“Patriot missiles were deployed for the first time at an annual multinational military exercise in key U.S. ally Jordan on Sunday, Jordanian and U.S. army officers said. The 12-day “Eager Lion” exercises have brought together 8,000 personnel from 19 mainly Arab and European countries to bolster defense capabilities in the face of a possible flare-up from neighboring Syria. … Meanwhile, Syria’s regime and its patron, Russia, have expressed concern over the Patriot deployment.”

The Guardian reports that sectarian divisions are popping up and adding to the religious divisions already present in the Middle East.

Conflict in the Middle East is about more than just religion
“Recently, Shia-Sunni conflicts have seen Hezbollah help Syrian government forces to recapture Qusair. Battles rage between the two sides in Lebanon while in Iraq the monthly death toll from Sunni-Shia violence has topped 1,000. But religion alone does not explain the escalating tensions. Fundamental political shifts begun by the Arab spring are helping create new regional disputes in the Middle East.”

Culture:

The sinful culture is just getting putrid. Let’s face it- it is garbage out there. It is garbage in churches too. It seems that no please, no heart, no spot in earth is not being revealed to have been deeply stained by the curse. Not that we believe there is one area unstained by it, but the increasing visibility of it astounds us. The rapidity of the disintegration is amazing.

Julian Assange: U.S. rule of law suffering ‘calamitous collapse’
“WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Friday that the US justice system was suffering from a “calamitous collapse in the rule of law”, as Washington reeled from the sensational exposure of vast spy agency surveillance programmes. “The US administration has the phone records of everyone in the United States and is receiving them daily from carriers to the National Security Agency under secret agreements. That’s what’s come out,” said the 41-year-old Australian. Two damning newspaper exposes have laid bare the extent to which President Barack Obama’s intelligence apparatus is scooping up enormous amounts of personal data — on telephone calls, emails, website visits — on millions of Americans and foreigners.”

Limbaugh: ‘We are in the midst of a coup’
“President Barack Obama and his administration are leading a “coup d’etat” to “take over” the United States, Rush Limbaugh claimed on his radio show Friday. Reflecting on the administration’s recently-discovered massive domestic surveillance programs, Limbaugh argued there is a “coup” taking place to subvert what the kind of country the United States has always been. “[It’s] not a violent coup, and not a militaristic coup, but nevertheless a takeover of a government, and it’s being done by the Obama administration,” he said.”

In the The Limbaugh Letter he explained further,
“There are people attempting to take over this country and to make it something that it wasn’t founded as; turn it into something that it wasn’t intended to be. That is happening. You know it and I know it. It’s peaceful, nonviolent. The military isn’t involved. But nevertheless it’s a coup. … We have Fast and Furious. We have Obamacare. The evidence of the totalitarian nature or the authoritarian nature of this administration is on display undeniably every day … The story is that practically every major tech group and company in this country is participating with the government in allowing the government access to their servers. E-mails, texts, phone calls, photographs. Virtually any communication that’s taking place via the Apple servers, the Microsoft servers, the Google servers, the NSA is able to look at in real time. This is the story now.”

While America is crumbling in rule of law (crime too), other nations are having their own horrific wake-up call.

American woman gang raped in India
“An American woman was gang-raped in the northern Indian resort town of Manali, police said. Three men in a truck picked up the 30-year-old woman as she was hitchhiking to her guest house after visiting a friend, police officer Sher Singh said. The men drove to a secluded spot and raped her, he said. She went to police and they filed a rape case. Authorities issued an alert for the three men and set up roadblocks to check any trucks leaving the town, he said. No arrests had been made as of Tuesday afternoon, Singh said. The rape came after a Swiss tourist was gang-raped in March while on a cycling trip through rural India. Six men were arrested in that attack. The same month, a British woman traveling elsewhere in northern India jumped from a third-floor window fearing a sexual attack after the hotel’s owner tried to force his way into her room. Concern about sexual assaults in India has heightened since the fatal gang-rape of a woman in New Delhi in December sparked public protests demanding better protection for women.”

As society crumbles, the society’s most vulnerable are always at risk: children and widows (or, women alone). (Isaiah 10:2, Psalm 146:9, James 1:27, Malachi 3:5).

Money:

Ouch. Just reading this next headline hurts.

Hourly Compensation of U.S. Employees Declines Most Since 1947

12 Clear Signals That The U.S. Economy Is About To Really Slow Down
“If we were going to have an “economic recovery”, it should have happened in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Unfortunately, as a recent Los Angeles Times article detailed, an economic recovery never materialized…Now we are rapidly approaching another major economic downturn. But poverty in America has continued to experience explosive growth since the end of the last recession and dependence on the federal government is already at an all-time high.”

Posted in news, prophecy

News updates from around the US and the world

Posted on by elizabethprata

I haven’t done a news update for a while. Here are some news excerpts I feel are interesting in these times, which I believe are the last moments of the last days.

This is an interesting essay on the correlation between elections and earthquakes

What Earthquakes Can Teach Us About Elections
“Political historian Allan Lichtman says he sees elections the way geophysicists see earthquakes — as events fundamentally driven by structural factors deep beneath the surface, rather than by superficial events at the surface. … Lichtman says he sees elections the way geophysicists see earthquakes — as events fundamentally driven by structural factors deep beneath the surface, rather than by superficial events at the surface.

That thought dovetails with an essay I read earlier today, that “Elections are the fruit, not the root, of morality.”

Now on to news of real earthquakes-

Magnitude 5.2 earthquake near Honshu Japan
“The US Geological Survey (USGS) is reporting that an earthquake with an initial magnitude of 5.5, occurred off the coast of Honshu, northern Japan, early on Friday. … The last major seismic incident in Japan was a magnitude 9.0 earthquake in March 2011, that set off a tsunami that left over 20,000 dead or missing and caused a nuclear accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, the worst since the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986.”

Powerful quake hits Guatemala, killing at least 48
“A 7.4-magnitude earthquake rocked Guatemala on Wednesday, killing at least 48 people in two states as it toppled thick adobe walls, shook huge landslides down onto highways, and sent terrified villagers streaming into the streets of this idyllic mountain town near the border with Mexico. One hundred people were missing, and hundreds were injured. The quake, which hit at 10:35 a.m. in the midst of the work day, caused terror over an unusually wide area, with damage reported in all but one of Guatemala’s 22 states and shaking felt as far away as Mexico City, 600 miles (965 kilometers) to the northwest.”

‘Perfect storm’ of geological factors make the Eastern U.S. more susceptible to strong earthquakes than previously thought
“As if the folks out on America’s east coast don’t already have enough to worry about after the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy, it now looks like last year’s magnitude-5.8 earthquake in Virginia was no anomaly. According to a report presented this week at the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting, the highly populated area around Washington, D.C. features a kind of ‘perfect storm’ of geological factors, that could amplify the effects of seismic activity. And worse still, the area also appears to be susceptible to landslides.”

Who’d a thunk it? Jesus did! “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.” (Matthew 24:7)

Earthquakes this week: USGS

Large quakes:
6.3 Vancouver island, Canada
7.4 Offshore Guatemala

Diverse places, unexpected or unusual, at least to the populace-at-large:

3.7 Ontario-Quebec border region, Canada.
3.1 Utah
2.6 Arkansas

Volcano update- good satellite images of volcanoes, including Kilimanjaro, Shasta, Bezymianny, Toba and more:

Volcanoes Seen From Space for November 9, 2012
“[I]t seemed like it was time to take a look down on some of volcanoes from the eyes sitting in space. Some are volcanoes that are currently erupting, some haven’t erupted in thousands of years, but they’ve all left their mark on the landscape. As always, if you want to keep up with all the activity each week, be sure to read the Smithsonian/USGS Global Volcanism Program‘s Weekly Volcanic Activity Report.”

~~~~~~~~One World Economy~~~~~~~~

“Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.” (Revelation 13:16-17)

How will the antichrist monitor who has the mark at the point of sale, and who does not? Heavy surveillance and invasive monitoring via technology, one surmises. All over the world we have seen in these last years a huge growth of the Big Brother and government with eyes everywhere. It has increased with rapidity in the UK and the US. Now this news from Florida, United States:

Armored trucks with cameras in FL
“Coming soon to a St. Petersburg neighborhood near you: an armored truck that you cannot miss and that cannot miss you, at least not with the four cameras mounted behind bullet-resistant glass, pointed in all four directions.”

Next is a good Christian essay about the decline of culture. Keep the progression of Romans 1 in mind. A culture without God never ascends, it always descends.

Psalm 12:8 Illustrated Yet Once Again
“The light Tuesday’s election cast on the degradation of Western culture’s expression in the United States should not have surprised us. But we still hope for some restraint, some sign that God will restrain the madness of men rushing to destroy everything that is good and holy and just. But what did we see? An open lesbian elected to the United States Senate. A trans-sexual elected to office in the Northeast. A bisexual here in my own state of Arizona. The profaning of marriage in multiple states, for the first time by popular vote. It was truly an amazing revelation. I have avoided watching much media since Tuesday evening. I know too well that Psalm 12:8 is being played out repeatedly: The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men.”

~~~~~~~~Israel!~~~~~~~~

 Zechariah 12:1-3 says “The oracle of the word of the Lord concerning Israel: Thus declares the Lord, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the spirit of man within him: 2 “Behold, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to all the surrounding peoples. The siege of Jerusalem will also be against Judah. 3 On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will gather against it.”

Times of Israel reports,

At interfaith meet in Jerusalem, a grim picture of Jewish-Protestant relations
“Protestant clergymen painted a largely pessimistic view of the church’s relationship with Israel and the Jewish community during a visit to the Holy Land, suggesting that anti-Semitism is a deep-seated problem based in Christian theology that will be difficult to uproot. Jewish-Protestant relations are currently undergoing a severe crisis after senior leaders of Mainline Protestant churches in the US last month accused Israel of “widespread” human rights violations and urged Congress to reconsider military aid to Jerusalem. … “I am completely pessimistic in terms of believing that I, we, are going to overturn 2,000 years of erroneous theology that has manifested itself in all kinds of diatribes and anti-Semitic factions,” said the Rev. Paul Wilkinson, the associate minister at Hazel Grove Full Gospel Church, a small pro-Israel congregation in Stockport, England. “I believe we’d be fooling ourselves if we believed that we can overturn and change what I perceive to be a Goliath of theology in the church. The Goliath we face is the Goliath of replacement theology, the Goliath of Christian Palestinianism that taunts Israel, that goads Israel, that accuses Israel, that condemns Israel and those Christians who stand with Israel.”

~~~~~~~~The Tribulation~~~~~~~~

It will be a time of unparalleled terror, strife, and wrath. It literally will be hell on earth. It is hard for the unbelieving world to understand that things will or could change that dramatically. (2 Peter 3:4).

I think that a glimmer of how things can change so quickly was delivered to us this week. Hurricane Sandy, huge quake in Canada & Guatemala, and the election results combined changed the world for a lot of people. Mostly, Hurricane Sandy brought to mind that once infrastructure is stripped away, we revert quickly to living as animals. Because the unregenerated heart has only a veneer of morality, once it is pressed, it disappears fast. It is easy for Jesus to rip away electricity. Child’s play to send a storm of any size. Simple to collapse homes under a strong wind or swept away under a rushing flood. These photos reminded me in a small way of the coming sights the unregenerated will be seeing after the rapture- not as an unfortunate anomaly, but as a daily overload.

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Scenes like these are becoming commonplace, absolutely common. Last year’s Midwestern drought was terrible but worse were the Joplin tornadoes, but still worse just a few months later, Hurricane Irene came. As each disaster stacked up one on top of another, the previous one, endured only a few months or weeks prior, slipped from minds as the new disaster comes on the scene. Hurricane Irene was terrible, but that faded quickly as coldest-ever winter slammed the northeast, and the spring floods, then hurricane Sandy superstorm…then the nor’easter, then the quakes. These last few, occurring in 2012, all happened in the same month. The same week.

There is so much pain and tragedy in the world, so much that the mind rebels against the notion that it could and will worsen. What used to happen a year apart shrunk in time scale to months apart then weeks apart now there seems to be some horrific thing happening daily. And I don’t mean just news, regular ole news, but news that newscasters, scientists, climatologists themselves call first ever ,or worst ever or apocalyptic or horrific. But it will get worse, to a degree that even Jesus said would be hard for us to comprehend:

“For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.” (Matthew 24:21-22)

That was the bad news. Please be mindful of the difficulties people are enduring. Be in prayer for your brethren in the US and around the world who are living in increasingly hostile territory. This is the Good News- always have confidence in the faith Jesus delivered once for all to the saints. (Jude 1:3). These earthly trials will pass and we will be glorified with Him when we meet Him in the air. Therefore bring along as many with you as you can 🙂

Posted in Colosseum, end time, jesus, news, shark

600M without power in India, shark attack, Colosseum is tilting

Posted on by elizabethprata

Some news I thought was interesting

Colosseum in Rome is leaning, officials say
“Experts say ancient building has started to tilt, with south side 40cm [15inches] lower than north, and may need urgent repairs. The ancient Colosseum in Rome is slanting about 40cm lower on the south side than on the north, and authorities are investigating whether it needs urgent repairs. Experts first noticed the incline about a year ago and have been monitoring it for the past few months, Rossella Rea, director at the 2,000-year-old monument, said in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.”

Before I was saved, I went to Italy. One of those times I visited the Colosseum. I wrote about that visit here. For a short while immediately after I was saved, in reading the passages in Revelation and Peter and Isaiah where the earth will be completely deconstructed and remade, I was sad that all the pretty things would be swept away too. All the “great art”, all the “monuments to man” like the Colosseum or Pyramids. But of course all those were made by sinful man’s hands and many of them, particularly in art, are odes to false gods. (Botticelli’s Primavera for example). As I matured I began to see man’s works for what they were, symbols of debauchery against a holy God amid our history across human epochs. The Colosseum will fall. Now or later, it is guaranteed to be swept away in the calamity of judgment imminently bearing down on us. Let’s start seeing these cracked and tottering monuments of rebellion for what they are- and get used to thinking about the glories ahead made by Jesus’s hands. (John 14:3).

600 million without power as massive blackout plagues India
“India’s northern and eastern power grids have failed, plunging half the country into darkness. It is the second consecutive day in which blackouts struck India. … Hundreds of miners are reported to have been trapped in Burdwan, North of Kolkata following the outages. “We are trying to rescue the coal miners. All efforts are on to resume power supplies. You need power supplies to run the lifts in the underground mines,” Mamata Banerjee told reporters in the state capital Kolkata. … Power is also being channeled into the subway to help get stranded passengers to the nearest station. The subway has been partially restored after coming to a grinding halt when the power cut struck. … A grid failure in Delhi and much of northern India left more than 300 million without electricity on Monday. This was one of the worst power outages to hit the country in more than a decade.”

600 million is twice the population of the entire US. Those in the dark today represent about 60% of the entire nation of India, which has 1.2 billion people. Wow.

The spiritual metaphor that sprang to my mind was the light versus the dark. India is the birthplace of four of the world’s major religious traditions; namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. According to 2001 census as Wikipedia reports, 80% of those 1.2 billion people in India are Hindu. Again according to Wiki, only 2% of those in India are Christian. Now they are in the dark physically. The nation is in the dark, spiritually. Even if the Electrical Power Minister organizes the crews to get the lights back on, those people will still be in the dark.

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Man Hospitalized After Shark Attack Near Cape Cod
“The man bitten by a shark as he body-surfed with his teenage son off the coast of Ballston Beach near Cape Cod, [Truro] Mass., is expected to live, officials said. The attack happened around 3:30 p.m. Monday when Chris Myers, a father of two, was pulled under the water by a shark. Police say the shark bit Myers in both legs below the knees in possibly one single, crushing blow. “They dragged him out and they had to carry him up here and they had to wrap it around his legs and he was bleeding through the gauzes,” a witness said. “It was bad. Both his legs were pretty bad.””

Shark attacks this time of year in Massachusetts are not unusual. Seals come to feed, and they come pretty close to shore. Sharks prey on seals so it’s natural they would be close to shore as well.

I visited Martha’s Vineyard in 1975, crossing from RI to the Island on a friend’s trawler. That is where Jaws was filmed. Some of the filming apparatus was still around. The movie was just out but the kids I was traveling with nor the parents seemed concerned about swimming in the harbor. I remember the older teenage boys jumping from the flybridge into the sea, plunging down deep under the slate gray surface. Shudder. Not me. Too spooky

I have mentioned before that I also lived on a sailboat for a while. On our first day in the blue Bahamian waters, just after crossing from Florida, we swam and swam, delighting in the fact that we could see the bottom. The water was that clear. In the Atlantic you never see the bottom unless you snorkel close to shore. “What’s under there?” was a question that had held endless fascination for us and now we could actually see! We swam further and further, trailing along the anchor line that extended far in front of the yacht. Finally as the sun set we called it quits and climbed back aboard. Our VHF radio crackled on and the buddy boat we had crossed the Gulf Stream with told us some important information. “Never swim at dusk. The sharks come out to feed. In the ocean, you are at the bottom of the food chain.”

The ocean can be, and often is, a hostile environment even for man who has been given to reign supreme over the animals. On dry land, we are on hostile territory too- spiritually. Satan is the god of this world, according to 2 Corinthians 4:4. When Satan tempted Jesus, he offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would just worship Satan. (Matthew 4:8-9). Jesus did not refute that satan had the ability to make the offer. Though under God’s sovereign control, satan has been given latitude on this earth to roam freely and to devour whom he will. (John 10:10; 1 Peter 5:8).

If you are not saved, you are at the bottom of the food chain. Satan comes at you sneakily. Satan will chomp your legs just as fast as that shark did to that man in Cape Cod. If you are saved, Jesus has lifted you from the bottom of the food chain to the top! However, satan will still try to come at you, like Chihuahua nipping at your heels. If you do not resist him, he brings other Chihuahua dogs to harass you, or God may even cause him to dog you (2 Corinthians 12:7) for your own good. Always remember we’re on hostile territory- enemy territory. It is what is going to make reaching heaven through death or rapture such a relief. We’ll finally be in friendly lands, not a stranger any more but home with the Father and our spiritual family.

Posted in end of days, news, prophecy

Another massacre in Syria, the prophetic news keeps rolling in

Posted on by elizabethprata

Here is some of today’s interesting prophetic news:

A plague of mice! The US isn’t the only farming nation to recently have a major crop cut by half…

Field mice overrun farms in central Germany
“Millions of field mice are overrunning the central German states of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, much to the concern of local farmers. The rodents are devastating food crops, cutting yields by up to 50 percent. Getting birds of prey to hunt the critters didn’t help, and now farmers want to be allowed to use a banned rat poison. … “The birds got so fat from eating all the mice that they almost couldn’t fly any more,” Kopp said. “But they still couldn’t keep up.” (Rev 6:8)

Humungous solar flare erupts in our direction
The sun unleashed a huge flare Thursday (July 12), the second major solar storm to erupt from our star in less than a week. The solar flare peaked at 12:52 p.m. EDT (1652 GMT) as an X-class sun storm, the most powerful type of flare the sun can have.” (Luke 21:25)

The flare’s effects are due to arrive on earth July 14 at around 4:30 am EDT give or take 7 hours.

Syria’s army foments war of faiths (Google translated from German magazine Spiegel)
Berlin – Again, there are gruesome pictures from Syria, and again the question arises as to the perpetrators. Syria’s opposition to the regime is accused of having murdered in the village at Hama Tremseh more than 220 men, women and children. Some are killed by artillery fire from the army, others have been killed by militia from neighboring villages. Kofi Annan said on Friday that it was proven that had been used in Tremseh artillery, helicopters and tanks. This is a clear breach of his peace plan by the Syrian army.” (Isaiah 17:1, Psalm 83 Matthew 24:6).

Syria massacre in Tremseh village shocks Annan
“Amateur video footage which appeared to show the corpses of 15 men gave an inkling of the scale of the reported bloodletting in the village of Tremseh after a major onslaught by government forces and pro-regime militiamen. Survivors and activists told of how gunmen went from house to house clinically executing survivors while others were shot dead as they tried to escape through the fields surrounding the village, which lies in Syria’s western province of Hama. The bloodshed marked the third large-scale massacre in Syria since mid-May…”

Assad may be moving his chemical weapon stockpiles, and make no mistake, he has a lot of them and they are technologically advanced. The question is, is he moving them to safeguard them, or to ready them for use?

The situation in Syria really is hazardous. Keeping in mind the Isaiah 17 prophecy, I am not kidding when I saw that one day soon we will wake up to find Damascus doesn’t exist anymore.

The Midwest drought is sparking food inflation…big time. After all, today’s drought, tomorrow’s higher food prices. (Revelation 6:5-6)

Russia Today reports on Obama. I grew up in the age of Russian propaganda via the newspaper Pravda, but now we rely on Russia to reflect back to us the doings of our president because the US press has now become Pravda.

Obama gives himself control of all communication systems in America
“US President Barack Obama quietly signed his name to an Executive Order on Friday, allowing the White House to control all private communications in the country in the name of national security. President Obama released his latest Executive Order on Friday, July 6, a 2,205-word statement offered as the “Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions.” And although the president chose not to commemorate the signing with much fanfare, the powers he provides to himself and the federal government under the latest order are among the most far-reaching yet of any of his executive decisions.” Rev 13:16-17).

These kind of power grab plays right into the hands of the coming oppressive regime and ultimate dictator. When the Tribulation happens, and the cataclysmic events begins to occur, control of information will be of utmost importance.

Well, that’s gotta hurt- JP Morgan admits to losing 5.5 billion this year. Moody’s downgraded Italy, junk rating awaits, but not just yet.

In regards to the coming apostasy, which many say is either here or nearly here, the following is an essay on the roots of the emergent church and how to spot it if it is creeping into yours.

How to spot the emergent church creeping into your church
“Here is a short list of authors, teachers and areas of concern that may indicate that the leadership of your church is being influenced to varying extents by Emergent Church philosophy.”

If you are of the kind of Christian who believes (knows) God is sovereign over all the affairs of men, then you know He ordained your birth at this time, now, for a reason. He has planned work for you to do. Ephesians 2:10 tells us this:

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Therefore, did you ever think about why He planned for you to be born, now, in this era, for just such a time as this? It wasn’t to lay around reaping the benefits of the wealth our nations have produced. It was to do a good work. Will you rise up today in prayer, seeking His face, and appealing to Him to send the work and giving you strength and resolve to perform it? Because that is where joy comes. In knowing Christ and serving Him.

Understanding His word brings joy:
“And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them.” (Nehemiah 8:12)

God’s presence is joy:
“Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” (Psalms 16:11)

And doing His work is a joy!
“And kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy: for the LORD had made them joyful, and turned the heart of the king of Assyria unto them, to strengthen their hands in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.” (Ezra 6:22)

No matter what is going on in the world, there is work to be done in His name and for His glory. Let’s get to it!