prophecy – Page 40

economy, mark of the beast, one world economy, prophecy, revelation

Thoughts on Economic Collapse and Tribulation economy

Posted on April 20, 2015 by elizabethprata

Someone asked me about the economy in the Tribulation, and wondered if the global and American economy will collapse prior to the Tribulation or not.

It’s speculation, because the Bible doesn’t specifically say how we will get from here to there, only what will be. I do like to be aware of what the bible says about the seemingly near event on the prophetic timeline, the 7 years of Tribulation. (The rapture is the very next event. I also enjoy thinking about the Millennium which will occur after the Tribulation such as the peaceable kingdom, and the temple and the King’s Highway, and New Jerusalem, etc).

As for the economy, it’s an interesting question because the Bible prophesies that during the Tribulation, the antichrist’s right hand man, the False Prophet, will enforce a mark on people. The mark is one of worship. No one will be fooled, they will know it is a mark of allegiance to and worship of the Beast. (Revelation 14:9). The enticement to take the mark is that one may then participate in the economy, buying and selling. If one refuses the mark, they may not buy or sell. (Revelation 13:16-17). Further, they will be identified as an enemy of the state and be killed (Revelation 6:9-11, Matthew 24:9).

It’s an interesting question, isn’t it, about financial collapse. The collapse of ’07-’08 was incredible, and the subsequent years even more so. I had read a Christian economist who said recently that with the derivatives bubble, college loan bubble, fiat currency and massive outstanding debt, it is OBVIOUS that America, and most nations in fact, are being held up by the supernatural power of God. Nothing in traditional economics makes sense enough to explain how we are going on as we are for so long.

As for the Tribulation economy, that’s interesting too. There IS an economy during the Tribulation. The global economy does not collapse until Revelation 18. Or, at least, it might have partially collapsed prior to then and been rebuilt according to Antichrist specs, with a one world economy and mark of the beast currency. Yes, Revelation 6:6 shows that currency is so inflated that it costs a day’s wage to buy one loaf of bread. But Rev 18 shows a highly advanced trade in luxuries. I believe this shows that the wealth gap will widen so much that many poor starve to death and the love of the rich grows cold in not caring. If Jesus emphasized compassion on the poor and generosity toward same in both the OT and the NT to the degree He did, the antichrist will emphasize the opposite. So there will be an economy, it just won’t look like it does now.

As a brief rabbit trail, you might already know that the sex trafficking and slave trade is growing all across the world. Poverty adds to this sad fact. Many daughters are being sold because people are so poor they cannot afford to feed kids. In Greece a few years ago when their economy nearly failed (before the EU bailout) the problem of abandoned kids was huge. You note in Rev 18:13 one of the luxuries being traded will be slaves. I believe that when the poor become utterly destitute in the Tribulation economy, slavery will blossom massively and that will be the reason why. No food, and in order to get money, they will sell anyone, even their mother. After all, love will wax cold. (Mt 24:12)

I read a prophecy minister’s essay once who thinks that it will be the event of the rapture itself that will trigger the collapse. The sudden removal of thousands or millions of Christians from the economy will certainly put a dent in it. However I’m not so sure the rapture will collapse it completely. Jesus said the way was narrow and few find it. I think there are way fewer Christians who will be taken in the rapture than people think. I think the loss of workers will dent the economy, maybe enough to re-structure it, but not collapse totally. After all, the antichrist only has 7 years, 3.5 actually, to make the Mark of the Beast economy prophesied in Revelation 13:16-17 come about and healthy enough to see such massive collapse as we do in Rev 18. He has to have something to work with to begin with in order to revive the economy.

And think on this, right now gargantuan amounts of money go toward social programs to help the sick, the poor, the disadvantaged. When the Christians are removed, and the Spirit withdraws His restraining ministry, (2 Thessalonians 2:7) then compassion, generosity, and love will cease (2 Timothy 3:1-5). All that money being poured into cancer research and orphanages and welfare and social justice programs will be re-diverted. There will be no compassion, (Matthew 24:12) therefore no money needed to help anyone at any time through any compassion program. It will be the end of philanthropy, effectively freeing up trillions of dollars.

It has been interesting (but sad) to see the drought bloom in CA, and all the while we in GA received 5-6 inches of rain this week alone. Drought has a slow-moving but ultimately devastating impact to economies. CA’s economy is the largest in the US, much of it from agriculture. Personally I think it will be drought that does us in here in America.

You remember the American Dustbowl here in the US during the Great Depression of the 1930s. It sparked one of the most massive internal migrations we have ever experienced in the US

Historians have since clarified some of the dimensions of the misnamed migration. Numbers are elusive but it is safe to say that 300-400,000 Oklahomans, Texans, Arkansans, and Missourians moved to California and settled there during the 1930s. This would have been a significant population transfer in any era but was particularly momentous in the context of the depression when internal migration rates for other parts of the country were low and when high unemployment made any kind of relocation risky. (Source)

Look at this interesting article about drought’s economic impact.

Drought produces a complex web of impacts that spans many sectors of the economy and reaches well beyond the area experiencing physical drought. This complexity exists because water is integral to society’s ability to produce goods and provide services. Impacts are commonly referred to as direct and indirect. Direct impacts include reduced crop, rangeland, and forest productivity, increased fire hazard, reduced water levels, increased livestock and wildlife mortality rates, and damage to wildlife and fish habitat. The consequences of these direct impacts illustrate indirect impacts. For example, a reduction in crop, rangeland, and forest productivity may result in reduced income for farmers and agribusiness, increased prices for food and timber, unemployment, reduced tax revenues because of reduced expenditures, foreclosures on bank loans to farmers and businesses, migration, and disaster relief programs.

In short, the entire economic situation is a myriad of intertwined causes and effects. They go back a long time and they are set in motion through the sovereignty of the Lord. It brings praise for the Lord to mind when I realize how precise He is to have developed all these events together to draw us ever closer to the Tribulation hour. He raises up kings and sets them down. He raises up nations and strikes them down. He thrives economies and He impoverishes them. He will perform what He has decreed.

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. (James 5:1-5)

The only economy is the one in Jesus: repentance, faith, belief, and being doers of the word. This economy will always thrive, never become impoverished, and sustain itself at the magnificent Hand of God.

facebook, facial recognition, mark of the beast, prophecy

One app’s facial recognition outstrips the CIA’s, you will never guess which it is

Posted on April 15, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

One of the most mysterious segments of prophetic scripture are the verses telling us about the Mark of the Beast. We read about it in Revelation 13:11-18. The Second Beast is the false prophet. It’s actually the false prophet who causes all to have the mark, or be excluded from the economy. The mark is an identification of allegiance to and worship of the Beast. The penalty for not taking it is that no man may buy or sell. But the reason to take it is to worship the antichrist. Here is the passage.

The Second Beast
Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. 12It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed. 13It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, 14and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain. 16Also 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, 17so 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. 18This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.

Part of being entranced by the verses is the fact that there are so many questions that arise from reading them. How does one person cause all on earth to receive a mark? How will they know if someone doesn’t take the mark? If someone gos to buy something without the mark, what will happen? How long will it take until someone in authority comes to grab the person who doesn’t have the mark? Most interesting of all, much of this buying and selling and grabbing and beheading has to do with technology.

Prior to today’s technology, such massive, global tracking and marking would never have been possible. I’m only 54 years old and I clearly remember when bar codes were invented and came into ubiquitous use. Never mind laptops, internet, and now quantum computing, Artificial Intelligence, bitcoin and its ilk, iris scanning, robotics, and nanotechnology. It’s dizzying. It reminds me of the prophecy in Daniel 12:4,

“But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

As a rabbit trail for just a moment, the Lord sends an angel to fly at mid-heaven and warn the people of the world NOT to take the mark. See below:

And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.” (Revelation 14:9-1)

The mark of the beast is definitely a mark of worship and allegiance to the antichrist, which means the person has declared for satan. That’s why taking it incurs so much wrath. But back to the technology of today. Managing the buying and selling of all peoples in earth via this mark is just an astounding concept to me. There is no such thing as privacy any more, tracking and hacking are things the youth of today are used to, though I’ll never get used to it. There are undoubtedly many different kinds of technologies that will merge into the one that will allow the mark of the beast to be implemented and global economic tracking to such a specific degree occur. But consider this, I’ll run it past you…

It’s from Extremetech, published last March:

Facebook’s New ‘DeepFace’ Program Is Just As Creepy As It Sounds

Facebook owns the world’s largest photo library, and it now has the technology to match almost all the faces within it. Yes, even the ones you don’t tag. Facebook announced last week that it has developed a program called “DeepFace,” which researchers say can determine whether two photographed faces are of the same person with 97.25 percent accuracy. According to Facebook, humans put to the same test answer correctly 97.53 percent of the time — only a quarter of a percent better than Facebook’s software. The takeaway: Facebook has essentially caught up to humans when it comes to remembering a face.

Facebook’s facial recognition software is now as accurate as the human brain, but what now?

It would also be irresponsible if we didn’t mention the true power of facial recognition, which Facebook is surely investigating: Tracking your face across the entirety of the web, and in real life, as you move from shop to shop, producing some very lucrative behavioral tracking data indeed.

As we move from shop to shop? 97% accuracy?

Facebook will soon be able to ID you in any photo

“we’ve been able to detect faces in images for about 2 decades,” LeCun says. Even the puny computers in cheap consumer cameras have long been able to detect and focus on faces.

But “identifying a face is a much harder problem than detecting it,” LeCun says. Your face uniquely identifies you. But unlike your fingerprints, it is constantly changing. Just smile and your face is transformed. The corners of your eyes wrinkle, your nostrils flare, and your teeth show. Throw your head back with laughter and the apparent shape of your face contorts. Even when you wear the same expression, your hair varies from photo to photo, all the more so after a visit to the hairdresser. And yet most people can spot you effortlessly in a series of photos, even if they’ve seen you in just one.

In terms of perceiving the world around us, facial recognition may be “the single most impressive thing that the human brain can do,” says Erik Learned-Miller, a computer scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. By contrast, computers struggle with what researchers call the problem of A-PIE: aging, pose, illumination, and expression. These sources of noise drown out the subtle differences that distinguish one person’s face from another.

Thanks to an approach called deep learning, computers are gaining ground fast.

Now, I am not saying that Facebook is the Mark of the Beast, for heaven’s sake don’t misunderstand. However, I’m intrigued that all along as we watch technology grow to an excessively intrusive point in our lives, that quietly, unassumingly, Facebook has amassed the data and know-how to put into place a large part of the puzzle that may become part of the technology involved with the Mark of the Beast.

I’m one of the last generation to have grown up technology-free. I played outside after school, roaming the neighborhood on my book, coming home when the streetlights turned on. I’m one of a generation who loves the internet but remember a time when I read books and went skating and built snowmen and played hopscotch- outside. I remember.

Reading that Facebook has amassed the world’s largest facial recognition data dropped the penny. Facebook has my birthdate, photo, locations where I’ve lived, friends, employment, education…in short, an online profile. And I gave it to them.

It is an amazing, dizzying time, this new millnnium. Meanwhile, knowledge is increasing and technology is rapidly heading to its ultimate destination. I feel like Thumbelina on a leaf going down the rapids. But the leaf is really the hand of Jesus and I’m safe and secure. I’m not worried or scared or depressed. I’m amazed. Every day we make technological advances that enhance the lives of humanity but one day will be turned to evil use by the antichrist and false prophet. Amazing, stunning time. I want to see what happens next. Hopefully the Lord’s return to collect His Bride in the rapture!

Because, you see, we will be raptured before any of this comes to pass. We won’t have to worry about the mark of the beast, the false prophet, the antichrist, being excluded from the economy, starvation, or beheading. He will rescue us from the wrath to come, (1 Thess 1:10) and spare us His indignation poured out. (Isaiah 26:20). If you have repented of your sins, and confessed to Jesus as Lord and Savior, and know He is resurrected and reigning from heaven, soon to return as the Bible says, you are saved. (Romans 10:9). We rest securely in His arms and seek to become weak in the flesh so the Spirit will use us strongly. (2 Cor 12:9-10).

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go check my Facebook status…

genesis 3, prophecy, satan

A wonderful prophecy: satan’s defeat

Posted on April 7, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

I can’t wait for the day when satan and his demons howl in pain and anguish, knowing they are finally, completely defeated.

grace, mighty, prophecy, resurrection, risen

He is risen!

Posted on April 5, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

The Righteous Reign of the Branch

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,

the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and might,

the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

Isaiah 11:1-2

prophecy, resurrection, scripture

He will not let His Holy One see corruption!

Posted on April 4, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Vyrso Verse of the Day

For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.

(Acts 2:27, Psalm 16:10)

He describes his resurrection: God loosed the pains of death, because it was impossible that he should be holden of it; ōdinas—the sorrows of death; the word is used for travailing pains, and some think it signifies the trouble and agony of his soul, in which it was exceedingly sorrowful, even to the death; from these pains and sorrows of soul, this travail of soul, the Father loosed him when at his death he said, It is finished. Thus Dr. Godwin understands it: “Those terrors which made Heman’s soul lie like the slain (Ps. 88:5, 15) had hold of Christ; but he was too strong for them, and broke through them; this was the resurrection of his soul (and it is a great thing to bring a soul out of the depths of spiritual agonies);

this was not leaving his soul in hell; as that which follows, that he should not see corruption, speaks of the resurrection of his body; and both together make up the great resurrection.” Dr. Lightfoot gives another sense of this: “Having dissolved the pains of death, in reference to all that believe in him, God raised up Christ, and by his resurrection broke all the power of death, and destroyed its pangs upon his own people. He has abolished death, has altered the property of it, and, because it was not possible that he should be long holden of it, it is not possible that they should be for ever holden.”

Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p. 2069). Peabody: Hendrickson.

barack obama, confirm a covenant, end time, israel, prophecy, satan

Obama’s Israel hate, his next moves could involve a covenant at the UN dividing Israel’s land

Posted on March 30, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Left, Israel’s Netanyahu, right, Obama in 2012.
Their relationship has not improved since then. Source

Today Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, chief rabbi of Efrat, compared US President Obama to the biblical figure of Haman, enemy of the Jews. The Jerusalem Post reports,

“The president of the United States is lashing out at Israel just like Haman lashed out at the Jews,” he said. “I’m not making a political statement,” he clarified, “I’m making a Jewish statement.” … Just as Mordechai was focused on saving the Jews of Persia from destruction, he said, so Netanyahu is focused on saving Israel and the world from destruction.

Rabbi Riskin is a prominent Rabbi in both the US and in Israel. Wikipedia lists Riskin’s associations and accomplishments:

“Riskin is the founding rabbi of Lincoln Square Synagogue on the Upper West Side of New York City, which he led for 20 years; founding chief rabbi of the Israeli settlement of Efrat in the West Bank; dean of Manhattan Day School in New York City; and founder and Chancellor of the Ohr Torah Stone Institutions, a network of high schools, colleges, and graduate Programs in the United States and Israel.”

In the article, Rabbi Riskin was referring to a recent round of nuclear talks between Israel and Iran with the US as mediator. The JPost article reported,

The World Values Network, founded and run by American rabbi and public figure Shmuley Boteach, took out a full page advertisement in The New York Times on Saturday comparing the deal being drawn up with Iran on its nuclear project to the Munich Agreement signed in 1938 by British prime minister Neville Chamberlain with Adolf Hitler, widely seen as an act of appeasement that emboldened the Nazi leader.

Foreign Affairs cover, 2012.

Six world powers and Iran are at work to meet a deadline Tuesday (March 31, 2015) for an agreement that would constrain Iran’s nuclear program or best case scenario, put it completely out of Iran’s reach. The nations meeting to discuss this are the US, represented by Secretary of State John Kerry, Iran represented by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Britain’s Philip Hammond and top diplomats of Russia, China, France and Germany. This is the first time they are meeting since November. The Iran/Nuclear issue has actually been on the table as a UN agenda item for 12 years.

The issue is that Israel and the West claim that Iran is working assiduously to obtain a nuclear bomb. Iranian scientists are hard at work underground like worker bees with spinning centrifuges and scientific advances that will allow them to create and presumably use a nuke, presumably against Israel. Israel believes this is an existential threat against their existence because Iran has said many times that it wants to wipe Israel from the earth. Iran’s use of a nuke on the tiny country would certainly go a long way toward that dastardly goal.

The other issue is that the 6 mediating nations, including the US, are taking Iran at their word when they say they will not use the bomb, that their pursuit is for “peaceful purposes.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blasted the impending nuclear deal between the P5+1 world powers and the Iranian regime, calling the accord a historically bad agreement that lets Iran race towards nuclear weapons development.

Worst, it has become clear that Obama is an enemy of Israel and a friend to Iran. The Jewish Press goes so far as to say that Obama’s behavior toward Israel, our only Middle East ally, is actually a declaration of war against the Jewish nation. The American Thinker said today that Obama creates chaos and calls it peace. Of the proposed nuke deal with Iran, Fox News asks if Obama wants Israel to commit suicide.

And now we are back to that interesting quote from the Rabbi with which I opened this article Obama as Haman-type and Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu as a Mordecai-type.

In the bible, you might remember the book of Esther. The historical characters of Esther, Haman, and Mordecai are recorded in those 4 chapters. The Jewish Encyclopedia summarizes:

Son of Hammedatha; chief minister of King Ahasuerus (Esth.iii.1-2). As his name indicates, Haman was a descendant of Agag, the king of the Amalekites. On account of his attempt to exterminate the Jews in the kingdom of Ahasuerus, he is frequently called “the persecutor of the Jews” ( ; Esth. iii. 10; viii. 1; ix. 10, 24). His machinations against the Jews and his downfall are remembered during the Feast of Purim. Filled with annoyance because Mordecai did not bow before him, Haman resolved upon the extermination of the Jews throughout the whole kingdom. He drew lots to determine the day of the massacre, and the lot fell on the 13th of Adar (Esth. iii. 4-7). He offered the king ten thousand talents of silver for permission to do with the Jews as he pleased. The permission was granted, and he accordingly despatched letters to all parts of the Persian kingdom to massacre the Jews on the 13th of Adar (iii. 8-15). His intrigues, however, were baffled by Esther.

The Triumph of Mordechai, by Pieter Pietersz Lastman

It is interesting that the Rabbi would liken Obama to one of the most well-known of historical figures seeking to destroy all the Jews. In the end, Haman was hung on the gallows he had erected for Mordecai’s hanging. Of course we know Hitler wanted to destroy all Jews, and actually killed 6 million before the Allied powers got to him. In history, another Hitler-type was Antiochus Epiphanes who also massacred many Jews (167BC). None of these and other historical-political Jew-haters were ultimately successful, and the antichrist who will also seek to kill all the Jews in the future won’t be successful either. (Revelation 12:13-14).

The prophecies state that Jerusalem will be a burdensome stone at the time of the end, (Zechariah 12:3a), that Israel’s land will be divided, (Joel 3:2), that there will be no friend left to Israel, (Zechariah 12:3b, Zechariah 14:2) and that Israel’s enemies will cry out to wipe Israel from the map (Psalm 83:4). Some of these prophecies have been partially fulfilled and some will be fulfilled at the end of the Tribulation, AKA Time of Jacob’s Trouble.

There is another prophecy concerning the antichrist and the covenant he will institute with Israel and then break, triggering the Great Tribulation. It’s seen in Daniel 9:27.

And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.

What Daniel recorded is the time of the end, when antichrist will lull Israel into a false sense of security by signing a covenant or decree. Israel will be given a place to perform sacrifices again, and will do so for three and a half years. Israel will be so lulled they will not have bars or walls up and will be living in peace. (Ezekiel 38:11). That’s when the antichrist will go after the Jews, invade, seek to destroy, and massacre. Satan of course is behind this. See Matthew 24:15 where Jesus also speaks of this yet-future event.

Jackson Diehl, Deputy Opinion page editor of the Washington post wrote an analysis opinion piece today titled Obama’s Next Earthquake:

President Obama’s rhetorical assault on Benjamin Netanyahu last week was in part the product of pique. But it also set the stage for what could be another crockery-breaking bid by Obama for a foreign policy legacy, on a par with his opening to Cuba and would-be nuclear deal with Iran.

By declaring Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations dead and blaming Netanyahu, Obama laid the predicate for a decision to go forward with a U.S.-backed U.N. Security Council resolution that would set the terms for a final peace settlement. Envisioned as an updating of U.N. Resolution 242, which has been part of the framework for the Mideast “peace process” since the 1960s, the idea would be to mandate the solution to the questions Israelis and Palestinians have been unable to agree upon for decades, such as the future status of Jerusalem. Not incidentally, it would provide Obama with the Mideast legacy he has craved since his first day in office. Whether or not it accelerated Palestinian statehood (and most likely it wouldn’t), Obama’s initiative would set off an earthquake in U.S. foreign relations and for Israel’s standing in the world.

Rush Limbaughcommented on Dieh’s Op-ed today. It is additionally interesting because as far as I know Rush isn’t a Christian and doesn’t really pay attention to prophecy or biblical things.

One of the sidebar news stories about the Iranian nuclear talks is that Obama, there’s a credible train of thought, folks, that is percolating inside the Beltway and up to New York, the New York-Washington corridor, that Obama is officially, within the next few months or so, is officially going to abandon Israel as a United States ally. The way it would happen, you know, we’ve been negotiating the Middle East peace process …

The scuttlebutt inside the Beltway and up to the New York corridor is that Obama is going to solve the Middle East peace process by going to the United Nations, getting a resolution demanding a two-state solution and divvying up Jerusalem and giving part of it to Palestinian or the Palestinians, which would be a total sellout of the Israelis.

Make no mistake, taking this route would not be taken to protect or to enforce the rights of Israelis here. Obama would do this because Netanyahu will not agree with Obama, what Obama wants. And Obama now doubly insulted, not only will Netanyahu not cave, Netanyahu came and showed him up with that joint speech to Congress. So it’s get-even time.

Now, I’m here to tell you, I don’t know if there’s any truth to this, but with Obama the experience teaches us never to discount these kinds of things, because they actually make perfect sense if you put them in context of the US foreign policy mission and directives during this administration. Folks, this is an act of hate. I mean, I hate to be so blunt about it, but that’s what this is.

I did get chills when I read that. Satan does hate God’s people and Israel with a white-hot, 6000-year-plus fury, which will be allowed to be fully expressed during the Tribulation. That satan is behind Obama’s hate of Israel there is no doubt.

Our job as Christians is to persevere, pray, continue to be the Light of truth and good works in His name. The Lord will return in the air to gather His bride when He is ready. Is He getting ready? I hope so. I know I’m ready.

How can you be ready? By having confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior, asked forgiveness of your sins, understanding and believing Jesus was killed for the sins of His people, absorbed all of God’s wrath for it, then rose again on the Third Day.

Here is a good resource called Getting the Gospel Right, it outlines what the Gospel is and isn’t.

When the Lord comes for you and me, what a glorious day that will be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Christian Astronomer debunks the blood moon theory from both a scientific and a biblical perspective

Posted on March 21, 2015 by elizabethprata

An internet friend named James sent me an excellent article regarding the hoopla surrounding several astronomical events due to occur this week. The article debunks any credibility whatsoever regarding blood moons related to prophecy. It is reasoned, biblical, AND scientific. The author of the article is Dr. Hugh Ross, a Christian Astronomer. Dr Ross was asked by John Hagee Ministries to participate in Hagee’s movie regarding the blood moons, knowing Ross is a skeptic, to Hagee’s credit. Thus, we have a credible insider’s view on every level to explain to us why the blood moons are not ushering in a new era. Here is the beginning of the article and I urge one and all to read it.

Blood Moons: An End-Times Sign? (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.reasons.org/articles/blood-moons-an-end-times-sign-part-1-of-2 http://www.reasons.org/articles/blood-moons-an-end-times-sign-part-1-of-2

Four Blood Moons, a theatrical one-night event scheduled for March 23, 2015, and based on Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee’s New York Times bestseller of the same name, has garnered attention. I’m featured briefly in the film as a skeptic of Hagee’s central claim that a sequence of four total lunar eclipses signifies that “world history is about to change,” bringing about the rapid fulfillment of a biblical end-times prophecy. I’m also included in a 20-minute panel discussion on the movie that was recorded at Hagee’s San Antonio headquarters.

Hagee knew in advance my views on his claims and I’m impressed that he would allow a “skeptic” of his view to participate. For that, he is to be commended.

The biblical basis for the four blood moons claim as an eschatological event appears in Joel 2:31, which states, “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” The scientific basis rests on the fact that often during a total lunar eclipse, the Moon, as seen from Earth’s surface, takes on an orange or red hue (see figures 1 and 2).

My greater concern centers on biblical, rather than scientific, misinterpretations of the blood-moon sign, and I will address those in part 2. First I will address the science and history of lunar eclipses.

And to get caught up on the biblical reasons debunking the blood moon theory, go here

discernment, encouragement, God, prophecy, sovereign, spring

3 Bad Reasons to Leave your Church, How cults begin, Spring has sprung

Posted on March 20, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

At the Millennial Evangelical blog, Chris Martin wrote a piece on 3 Bad Reasons to Leave Your Church. Chris is 24 years old, feels called to be a pastor and currently works as a Social Media Facilitator at LifeWay Christian Resources and is pursuing his M.Div. at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

I have not read a great quantity of articles at his site, but I did enjoy this piece. At the bottom of it, he has a link to a companion piece called 3 Good Reasons to Leave Your Church. Here is 3 Bad Reasons’ opening paragraph:

Stop treating your local church like your high school girlfriend, and start treating it like the bride of Christ.

You don’t leave the church when it doesn’t share the same musical interests, when it hurts your feelings, or when a newer, more popular one catches your eye.

The people of God, the Church around the world, is the bride of Christ, and the bride of Christ deserves the faithfulness of a bride, not the summer crush you bailed on when you were a jerk in college.

Your church is broken because it’s made up of broken people, including yourself. Abandoning the local church is only acceptable under a few extreme circumstances we’ll address on Friday. Other than in certain circumstances, the people of God have the responsibility to sacrificially love their local churches as Jesus has.

If anyone has the right to abandon the adulterous, idolatrous bride called “Church,” it’s God, and he hasn’t, so we need to be careful how quick we are to bail when the going gets tough.

Here are three bad reasons to leave the local church:

Thoughts about the judge not crowd, fringe prophecy, use of photos, my friend bronchitis

Posted on March 12, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Here are a few updates and thoughts about the blog.

Last October I got the flu. By November it had left me with bronchitis. I’ve been struggling with bronchitis ever since. In November I went to the walk-in clinic and got a course of antibiotics, but it did not defeat the bronchitis. By December, the flu season was in full sway and it was impossible to get seen at the local clinics. I tried three times in person, and once I called for a renewal of the antibiotics. No go. Packed.

In January and February it subsided to manageable levels, and I coughed only infrequently, but was still dragging. The daytime work takes it all out of me and at night it’s only through the strength of the Holy Spirit that I write and study and complete my personal chores around the house. Last week, I got a cold and it revived the bronchitis totally. Yesterday I coughed non-stop. I am home on a sick day today. Even though the course of drugs in November didn’t help, nothing else since has helped either. (Rest, fluids, over the counter remedies, home remedies…) I will likely have to go back to the clinic. I do not like the clinic.

If you notice the photos on the blog, some are labeled “EPrata photo”. I have lots of photos and I like to use them. However you may see other photos with no attribution. It is not that I am failing to attribute, but these photos are Creative Common, license-free photos that require no attribution. Here is a snippet of a photo I used earlier and the CC statement:

Here is the terms of use:

Via download provided Images on Pixabay are bound to Creative Commons Deed CC0. To the extent possible under law, uploaders of Pixabay have waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to these Images. You are free to adapt and use the Images for commercial purposes without attributing the original author or source. Although absolutely not required, a link back to Pixabay would be nice.

Pixabay is a nice site and I appreciate the donated photos.

I monitor comments and when warranted, I ruthlessly delete. However for the most part, I do try to give people their say and I enjoy that it gives me an opportunity to engage with folks, and to share insight and verses with them and from them. However I am getting impatient with the plethora of comments that incorrectly use the “judge not lest ye be judged” verse from Matthew 7:1.

It seems that it is the go-to response of everyone who wants to criticize. I appreciate criticism, but when a person uses the ‘judge not’ chestnut, I know they have no biblical understanding of sin, of studying the bible correctly and are simply parroting the one verse they have learned, bless their heart. Most don’t even to add the chapter and verse, but simply and out of context say ‘judge not’ as if that solves everything. It is the religious equivalent in a debate to Godwin’s Law.

Godwin’s Law (or Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies) is an Internet adage asserting that “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches— that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or Nazism. … there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress. This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin’s law. (Wikipedia)

We can say the same about “Judge Not”. It is the religious Godwin’s Law. Let’s call it the UnGodly Law.

‘UnGodly Law is a new Internet adage asserting that “As an online discussion about sin, especially homosexuality, grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving judgment approaches— that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will trot out the misused verse from Matthew 7:1 and say “judge not!”. … there may be a new tradition forming in many newsgroups and other Christian discussion forums (OK, just on this blog) that once such a statement is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the judge not chestnut has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress and will be deleted without mercy or second thought.’

I decided that if anyone uses the ‘judge not’ verse in the incorrect way from now on it will be a trigger for automatic delete. In the past, I’ve attempted to reason with the judge not crowd, but their gross lack of understanding is too weighty to overcome in the space allowed in the comment box, and too deep to instruct in the time a life can be lived. So. Delete.

Back when I started the blog 8 years ago, I enjoyed posting some of the more speculative prophetic passages such as Nephilim, or cryptids, or sinkholes, or the changing behavior the animal kingdom is exhibiting, and musing on them in light of contemporary news. The autistic brain excels at seeing patterns, and with the Holy Spirit inside, and the bible to show all of human history, detecting a pattern is made even easier.

I still enjoy seeing today’s news, knowing history, and looking back to see where the current news fits in to the past pattern. However I haven’t posted about that for a while. Here’s why.

— I don’t want to go beyond scripture. I don’t think I have done that in the past, but I don’t want to even creep off the yellow center line by an inch because the longer I go on in sanctification the less I trust myself,

— I don’t want to cause someone else to stumble,

— Mainly because it seems that even a mere mention of such things nowadays opens the floodgates. In the last 5 years, people have gotten both stupid and irrational about the scriptures. Not that people weren’t before, but like interest that compounds, the stupidity and irrationality has compounded to levels unmanageable by me. Spiritual discernment is at an all-time low (a record which will likely be broken tomorrow) and biblical literacy is at an even all-time lower level. People don’t know their bible, they don’t quote their bible, they don’t use the bible as a basis for discussion, and they go off the deep end into conspiracies at the drop of a hat.

The acceptance of demonic proclamations by Beth Moore and Kim Walker Smith in visions and Sarah Young’s declarations in book form attest to this. So does the popularity of Johnathan Cahn’s books in 2012 such as The Harbinger and the Mystery of the Shemitah: The 3,000-Year-Old Mystery That Holds the Secret of America’s Future, the World’s Future, and Your Future!, and John Hagee’s Four Blood Moons: Something Is About to Change book published a year later.

I mean, come onnn. The hubris of Cahn’s proclamation that he knows the future of all persons on earth (who would buy his book) and the world’s future ‘unlocked’ nearly equals satan’s when satan promised to unseat God from the throne.

And as bad as Edgar Cayce and Jeanne Dixon were, at least they were more specific in their false prophecies than Hagee, who simply subtitles his book, “something is about to change.” Really? I’d never have guessed that. Let me know when it happens.

That people accept these ‘Christian’ books and visions and attempt to learn from them is saddening. In stepping to the fringe, people nowadays seem to more easily hurl themselves off the edge of solid biblical foundations. They gleefully run toward the latest prophetic fad, and in so doing, give real prophecy a bad name. It makes many people not want to study prophecy and the times, but that is not good either. As my friend and pastor in Maine said,

My brothers and sisters, I urge you in the name of the Lord not to dismiss current events or to become discouraged by them.

We don’t live under a rock. We live in the world, and that means we are living in biblical prophecy because prophecy is always current. World events are important, and when understand the times and we point to the Lord it ignites our fervor for His soon return, which grounds us in our work until He comes.

However today’s superficial, nominal, or false Christian doesn’t get to the end of the last sentence. They focus on current events as if they are the be-all and end-all of truth. When I try to turn their head to Jesus, the author of these events, they balk. When you try to say that some of these things go beyond scripture and we should be careful, they scream ~~judge not!~~ ‘men of Issachar!’

Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, 200 chiefs, and all their kinsmen under their command. (1 Chronicles 12:32)

As the Treasury of Scripture says of the Men of Issachar verse,

understanding of the times That is, as the following words indicate, intelligent men, who understood the signs of the times, well versed in political affairs, and knew what was proper to be done in all the exigencies of human life; and who now perceived that it was both the duty and political interest of Israel to advance David to the throne.

If I may be allowed to paraphrase, we have understanding of the times, That is, as the following words indicate, intelligent men, who understood the signs of the times, well versed in political affairs, and knew what was proper to be done in all the exigencies of human life; and who now perceived that it was both the duty and spiritual interest of the church to advance Jesus on His throne.

I have been remiss. I have not thanked you, the readers, in a while. I do thank you and am energized by you and I do love you. The Holy Spirit fills me with strength and insight and for the sake of the Name I want to share what He does in my mind and heart when I open the bible. That people out there would read and respond and as some of you have said, pray for me, is simply lovely. It is the expression of the Kingdom on earth, the church glorious and invisible, worldwide and intimate. Thank you friends.

encouragement, exhort, prophecy, salvation, steven lawson