tribulation – Page 4

antibiotics, grace, jesus, rapture, tribulation, wrath

The end of antibiotics: the beginning of biblical plagues?

Posted on October 28, 2013 by elizabethprata

SEM depicting methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus bacteria

I read an interesting article linked on Drudge to the UK Daily Mail, and discussed over at the American Thinker. It is that we have come to the end of the era of antibiotics.

Here is the American Thinker’s take on it
They’ve been predicting this for years and it looks like it’s finally come to pass.
In our human hubris, we think we can outsmart or defeat Mother Nature. It’s things like this that remind us how our pitiful efforts to control the natural world usually go for naught.

Daily Mail:
A high-ranking official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declared in an interview with PBS that the age of antibiotics has come to an end. ‘For a long time, there have been newspaper stories and covers of magazines that talked about “The end of antibiotics, question mark?”‘ said Dr Arjun Srinivasan. ‘Well, now I would say you can change the title to “The end of antibiotics, period.”‘

The associate director of the CDC sat down with Frontline over the summer for a lengthy interview about the growing problem of antibacterial resistance.

I suffered from bronchitis and pneumonia quite bit growing up and into my 20s. In my 40s I suffered from sinusitis, and in my 50s, various ailments that run the gamut of all of the above now that I’m working in a school again.

I’m allergic to sulfa drugs so that limits the number and variety of antibiotics I could take. After a couple of times in my 40s I never went to the doctor again for relief of any of them. I was always worried that the doctors were overprescribing. I was worried I’d build an immunity to them and that when the chips were really down, that they wouldn’t work as well for me.

My suspicions have been confirmed. The doctor went on in the interview saying,

‘We’re in the post-antibiotic era,’ he said. ‘There are patients for whom we have no therapy, and we are literally in a position of having a patient in a bed who has an infection, something that five years ago even we could have treated, but now we can’t.’.

It’s the era of the superbugs. This story from NPR six days ago tells more.

“Many people are familiar with the type of resistant infections often acquired in hospitals, caused by MRSA, the acronym for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. But most people don’t know about the entirely different group of resistant bacteria that Hoffman reports on in , airing Tuesday on PBS’ Frontline. The show explores an outbreak of resistant bacteria at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the U.S., and explains why there is surprisingly little research being conducted into new antibiotics to combat these new superbugs.“

In the days before antibiotics, men died from the merest cut. That is one of the wonderful things about antibiotics, that people no longer die from simple injuries like they did for thousands of years. In this 2010 article by Rustam Aminov titled A Brief History of the Antibiotic Era, from the journal Frontiers of Microbiology, it is stated,

“Antimicrobials are probably one of the most successful forms of chemotherapy in the history of medicine. It is not necessary to reiterate here how many lives they have saved and how significantly they have contributed to the control of infectious diseases that were the leading causes of human morbidity and mortality for most of human existence.”

“We usually associate the beginning of the modern “antibiotic era” with the names of Paul Ehrlich and Alexander Fleming. Ehrlich’s idea of a “magic bullet” that selectively targets only disease-causing microbes and not the host was based on an observation that aniline and other synthetic dyes, which first became available at that time, could stain specific microbes but not others. Ehrlich argued that chemical compounds could be synthesized that would “be able to exert their full action exclusively on the parasite harbored within the organism.” This idea led him to begin a large-scale and systematic screening program (as we would call it today) in 1904 to find a drug against syphilis, a disease that was endemic and almost incurable at that time.“

Add caption

The September 3, 1928 event that led to the penicillin discovery by Fleming a year later was synthesized as Fleming and Erlich had done, and by 1945, penicillin was being mass produced and distributed.

I was born in 1960, a preemie by 5 weeks. I had pneumonia and no doubt penicillin saved my life. I grew up entirely in the era of widely available medicines for any variety of illnesses, cuts, or injuries. I see that that era is coming to a close, or as the doctor in the Daily Mail article stated, has already closed. Widely available antibiotics are not widely available any more, and where they are, oftentimes the patients with the infections are showing a disheartening resistance to their effectiveness. This is serious, because people are dying.

“The mortality rates due to multidrug-resistant bacterial infections are high. Each year, about 25,000 patients in the EU die from an infection with the selected multidrug-resistant bacteria (ECDC/EMEA Joint Working Group, 2009), and more than 63,000 patients in the United States die every year from hospital-acquired bacterial infections.” (source)

So what is to be done about this? It seems that the superbugs are rising fast. The answer is complex and involves societies, government, mass behavior change, widespread education, research and mass distribution. In other words, nothing will happen fast that will help, and a lot can happen fast that will hurt. This is where I see prophecy coming in.

Jesus said that many will die by pestilence.

“Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.”(Luke 21:10-12)

“When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.” (Revelation 6:7-8)

Soldiers from Fort Riley, Kansas,
ill with Spanish influenza at a hospital ward at Camp Funston.

The time is ripe for any superbug to cover the world quickly. The verse in Revelation says a fourth of the earth will be killed by famine and beasts and pestilence. Assuming a billion are raptured away as Christians (I am being generous, I don’t think there will even be that many), that leaves 6 billion people, so that leaves one billion five hundred million dead from the variety given in the verse. By contrast, the number killed in one of history’s worst pandemics, the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918-19 killed 100 million in the largest estimate.

If the Spanish Influenza killed that many and so quickly prior tot he age of travel, what will a superbug do? Well, what the bible shows us.

Now, you may ask, why am I bringing this up? Why speculate on what hasn’t happened? Why camp on gloom and doom? Because it is a matter of scale.

People first of all don’t take judgment seriously. Look at Lot’s sons-in-law. When Lot said the angels in their home were there to render judgment on the city, the men thought Lot was joking. (Genesis 19:14). But just because the Lord is long-suffering does not mean He won’t punish sin- and sinners. (Numbers 14:18, 2 Peter 3:9). He will.

Secondly, the scale of the judgments shown to us in revelation are unknown to any in the history of the world. (Matthew 24:21). Heaps of dead, masses of dead, hospitals overrun, entire communities with dead in the streets. The blood running and running. The police simply unable to keep up, whole neighborhoods will burn, whole oceans become as blood.

it is good to dwell on the might of the Lord and the power of His wrath. it is good not to think ones self able to withstand the torments from heaven that will over take the whole world (Daniel 7:23) and would ave overcome all flesh if Jesus had not elected to shorten the days. (Matthew 24:22). Do not think that you will wait to make a decision about Jesus when you see the rapture happening. It will happen in the blink of an eye. (1 Corinthians 15:52). Death will then ensue on a scale no man or era has ever seen or written about. You will be as a mote on a violent tsunami wave, disappearing in an instant into the gaping maw of hell if you have not repented. Hell is enlarging its mouth even now.

“Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.” (Isaiah 5:14)

Do not cockily think you have “the stuff” to endure, even as you delay repentance and submitting to Jesus. Do not think that you will be able to handle it. Men will drop dead on the spot from fear and terror. (Luke 21:26). You will be no different.

The scale of what is coming and even as I see it on the horizon is something to fear and respect. God’s long-suffering hand has been stayed these long epochs. It will descend one day on an unsuspecting world, and the scale of the horrors will be unlike anything a person can even rationally comprehend.

The era of antibiotics is ending. The era of the Tribulation may be soon on the horizon. But the Age of Grace is NOW. Jesus has come in the flesh to live the sinless life as the spotless lamb, to die sacrificially and be resurrected by the power of God. He substituted Himself for our place for on the cross, so that any person who believes in Him will not have to endure the wrath that is to come!

That is the reason I focus on this, the prophetic, from time to time. It is the end of days and Jesus will return. His long-suffering, mercy, and patience is one of the miraculous characteristics He shows us daily. William S. Plumer wrote in 1865 in his wonderful essay on Providence,

“Truly, it is astonishing that such sinners as we are should be spared; but surely it is not astonishing that if spared at all, it should be under the government of such a God. “The Lord is long-suffering, not willing that any should perish.” God never punishes with delight. He does not will, or plan, or seek the ruin of his bitterest and most inveterate enemies. In the esteem of God the death of a sinner is a dreadful thing. “Many a time he turns his anger away” (Psalm 78:38) before he strikes a blow or crushes a sinful worm. The reason is, “God is love.” None else would bear so long—would so long avert deserved and terrible punishments from the heads of the rebellious. Truly, the prophet told us of the glorious nature of God, when he said, “The Lord does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.”

Come to Jesus now, under His grace. Repent, and live.

“Shall your repentance be unto life and salvation? Or shall it be but the fruitless relenting of a soul in an undone eternity? O accept the mercy offered to you now. Embrace the Savior, while he waits to be gracious.”

street of gold, tribulation, wealth

Wealth is relative

Posted on October 16, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Photo Wikimedia. Our plate had only two claws on it.

Some time ago, I went out to dinner with my husband and a well-heeled couple. The rich couple were hosting some clients. We all ate at a very high-end restaurant in Miami. We had attentive waiters, there were plush carpets, an extensive wine list…one of those places. I remember ordering the stone crab claw appetizers for $30 per plate, and this was in the 1990s.

Growing up, I never paid attention to money much. We always had a lot of it. I thought it was important to be frugal, though, and moderate with money, and to be generous. But as to the amounts, I didn’t pay attention. It was always there.

In my early adult years I owned a home and had a professional job, and not a lot of debt except the house. I liked earning my own money and paying for things in a timely manner. I guess you could say that I was a regular person in my relationship to money and personal wealth.

Now of course, the economy in America has changed and many people are struggling, even if they are lucky enough to have a job. “The working poor” I think the term is. Wikipedia explains:

“While poverty is often associated with joblessness, a significant proportion of the poor in the US and Canada, but also Italy, Spain, and Ireland are actually employed. The wages the working poor receive are insufficient to provide basic necessities and lead to people making choices between having food on the table or having a table. Largely because they are earning such low wages, the working poor face numerous obstacles that make it difficult for many of them to find and keep a job, save up money…“

So back to the long-ago fancy dinner in Miami. The bill came to well over $600. I was amazed that one evening’s entertainment could be so expensive. I remarked as such to the host (a person with I was very familiar, so we could speak familiarly). He said, “It’s like this. You go out and spend $60 and it’s not so much money to you, because of your income. I go out and spend $600 and to me it is not so much, because of my income. It’s only another zero.”

He said that in 1998, and I remember it today. “It’s only another zero.”

The coming Tribulation will widen the gap between the working poor, who will simply become the poor, and the rich. There will be extreme wealth (Rev 18:3) and extreme poverty (Rev 6:6).

The extremely wealthy will trade in ivory and gems and spices and men. The poor will work all day for a loaf of bread.

However the relativity of wealth even then will be able to be comprehended. The people eating bread will glare at the large limos gliding by, the wealthy eating in restaurants, and the money traded as ships come in. “It’s only another zero” will still be comprehensible.

However, the wealth I am thinking of is incalculable.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3-5)

There are not enough zeroes in the world to comprehend the treasure that awaits His children.

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” (Colossians 3:23-24)

The inheritance is our salvation come to full fruition in the eternal state. Oh, yes, we will receive physical inheritance, in terms of rewards, and a place in His Father’s house prepared for us, and we will dwell where there are magnificent jewels and a street of gold. That is not the inheritance I am speaking of. That is like what we think of on earth when we inherit the grandmother’s jewels or mom’s house or dad’s roadster.

What we inherit is salvation, and then we inherit Christ. He is the unique jewel of the universe, distinct in glory and beauty.

And there are other things too, we can’t even conceive of.

“But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)

The difference between a rich man and a poor man’s zero is minuscule compared to the riches of His immeasurable grace and our inheritance in Christ Jesus.

May these thoughts bless and encourage you.

peace, tribulation, war

Old fashioned wars using the Millo and siege ramps, and future wars using EMP genades and nuclear bombs

Posted on September 24, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

I am reading through 1 Kings and in chapter 9 and then chapter 11 and a mysterious thing called “the Millo” is mentioned. Here are two verses which mention the Millo, though certainly not the only verses in the only books of the Old Testament which mention this structure.

“And this is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon drafted to build the house of the Lord and his own house and the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megiddo and Gezer” (1 Kings 9:15)

“And this was the reason why he lifted up his hand against the king. Solomon built the Millo, and closed up the breach of the city of David his father.” (1 Kings 11:27)

Other times the Millo is mentioned (and it is always the Millo) are 2 Samuel 5:9, 1 Chronicles 11:8 and 2 Chronicles 32:5.

The context of the mentions is always in a militaristic context, so the Millo seems to be something like a wall or a fortress, or a defense structure of some kind. It is not THE wall, because the Millo is mentioned separately from the wall in the 1 Kings 9 verse. This article abstract from Biblical Archaeology Society explains:

Scholars’ Corner: Has Jerusalem’s Millo Been Found?
“One of the puzzles British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon solved during her Jerusalem excavations of 1961–1967 was the meaning of the untranslatable Biblical word Millo. Or did she? On the steep eastern slope of the city of David (or Ophel), the site of the original city of Jerusalem south of the Temple Mount, Kenyon uncovered tier upon tier of architectural terracing buried beneath an avalanche of stone and debris. Kenyon identified this terracing, which had supported buildings of the city located on the slope, as the Millo of the Bible: “And David dwelt in the stronghold, and called it the city of David. And David built the city round about from the Millo inward” (2 Samuel 5:9). The Millo is also mentioned in 1 Kings 9:15, 24; 11:27; 1 Chronicles 11:8 and in 2 Chronicles 32:5. Etymologically, Millo is related to a root meaning “filling,” and here there was filling aplenty. Moreover, we know from the Bible that the Millo was located in Jerusalem and had to be repaired from time to time.”

Here is a photo from Jerusalem 101 website which shows the wall Kenyon uncovered which they believe was part of the Millo mentioned in the Old Testament.

source

Interesting, isn’t it?!

I really enjoy the military aspects of the bible. The battle strategies, the terms for weapons and defense. I did a blog essay on bucklers once. You know, the verse where it says “Take up the shield and buckler”? (Psalm 35:2)

The Millo is pretty interesting to me. The siege ramp is also interesting. There is one mentioned in 2 Samuel 20:15, where it is a literal method of attack.

“And all the men who were with Joab came and besieged him in Abel of Beth-maacah. They cast up a mound against the city, and it stood against the rampart, and they were battering the wall to throw it down.”

And in Job 19:12, where Job meant it as a metaphorical attack: “His troops come on together; they have cast up their siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent.”

A siege ramp is where the opposing army of the besieged city constructs a huge earthen ramp against which they batter the walls, hoist armaments to lob at the interior of the city and scramble upward and over the walls to penetrate the besieged fortification. My description makes it sound a lot easier to construct and use a siege ramp than it was. Here is a description and illustration from Wikipedia—

“In his Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War), Caesar describes how at the Battle of Alesia the Roman legions created two huge fortified walls around the city. The inner circumvallation, 10 miles (16 km), held in Vercingetorix’s forces, while the outer contravallation kept relief from reaching them. The Romans held the ground in between the two walls. The besieged Gauls, facing starvation, eventually surrendered after their relief force met defeat against Caesar’s auxiliary cavalry. The Sicarii Zealots who defended Masada in AD 73 were defeated by the Roman legions who built a ramp 100 m high up to the fortress’s west wall.”

And here is the ramp the Romans built at Masada, again Wikimedia Commons photo

I think about the battles to come in the last days and into the Tribulation. Albert Einstein was often quoted as saying “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Einstein was born in 1879 and died in 1955. He certainly saw a great change in military capabilities within his lifetime. For example, he would have been a young man reading newspaper reports about the Spanish-American war of 1898. Both the regular cavalry and the volunteer cavalry, and Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders used smokeless ammunition. In later battles, national guard and other mobilized militia used black powder Civil War era rifles. That was the big military-technological advance back then.

By the time Einstein died, he had seen men split the atom and use an atomic bomb to end WWII. The first hydrogen bomb test occurred three years before Einstein died. No wonder he was musing about what military & technological advances would be unleashed in the future.

One side-effect of a thermo-nuclear blast is the electro-magnetic pulse emitted along with the regular pulses and shock waves of the blast. Except people are now catching wise to the fact that you don’t need the nuclear part to render your enemy dead in their tracks. You can send any civilization back to the stone age with one pulse over the central part of their land mass and all life as they knew it would come to a dead stop in seconds.

And now people are catching wise to the fact that instead of mass blasts, you can target this EMP specifically to smaller ranges, as in use of an EMP grenade to stop a tank.

Here is an excerpt from a story from 2009 at The Register, a tech publication:

Contradicting previous reports, a US Army electronic-warfare colonel has apparently confirmed the existence of working non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) ordnance – apparently so portable that it is even available in hand-grenade size. The revelation came at a blogger roundtable (press conference) held in order to introduce the US Army’s new electronic-warfare specialist career field.

An electro-pulse will short out any and all electronic circuits within range. This means phones, computers, vehicles, buses, and anything else that relies on an electronic chip. So that means pretty much everything.

I was watching a Discovery program called Future Weapons, about what happens when an EMP blast hits a car. (the link goes to a 3 minute clip showing a small remote-controlled helicopter being hit with an EMP and then a car). I use the term ‘blast’ but you don’t see anything nor hear anything. There is no light, no sound and no blast. Your car just stops. Simple. It doesn’t affect people at all…until you starve to death. Then you’re affected.

So Einstein was pretty much right, in my opinion. The next war could indeed be nuclear and the one after that, back to Stone Age fighting. The descriptions in Zechariah 14:12 seem to indicate the biological effects upon a person who is at ground zero of a nuclear blast. And the bio-hazard clean up described in Ezekiel 39 also seem to indicate that a nuclear war had occurred. The number of dead, also seem to indicate such a technologically advanced battle. The level of mutually assured destruction in the next war may well guarantee that the war after that may very likely be conducted as a Stone Age tribe used to.

So that begs the question of when the bible records the last days battles such as the Gog Magog battle of Ezekiel 38: “army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great host, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords” it may be that the Prophet recording God’s words was using language he understood and we understand to this day to describe a sophisticated war using artillery that was out of range of his comprehension. Or it could be a literal recording of such a war being conducted- with actual horses and shields and bucklers and not tanks and rocket launchers and planes.

I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud here. But it does make me wonder if the old time siege ramps and shields and bucklers and horses and swords will be used in the last wars of the Tribulation. Revelation 14:20 records the following-

“And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia.”

Blood Flowing from the Great Winepress of God’s Wrath,
Nicolas de Bataille, 14th century Apocalypse Tapestries

The winepress is the winepress of God’s wrath but the blood is very real. The verse is telling the result of the battle at Armageddon when the Lord returns and smites His enemies. 1600 stadia is 20 miles. I wonder why the horse’s bridles is used as a vertical measure here. Goliath was said to be 6 cubits high. Cubits was usually used to measure height, with span or handbreadth for smaller vertical measures. Maybe it’s because actual horses are used at the battle of Armageddon?

With all the talk of Israel and Iran, and Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and the window closing to when Iran will finally have made a bomb (and you know they will use it if they got it), I just wonder if the last technologically advanced war will be happening soon and then those who remain on the earth will be back to using sticks and stones (and the Millo and siege ramps and horses and bows and arrows) as Einstein predicted.

We know that the LORD our God is in charge of it all, and He never loses. He ordains everything and nothing is a surprise to Him.

I am an enlisted soldier in God’s army (2 Timothy 2:3-4). The Preacher said in Ecclesiastes 3:8 that there is “A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace.”

As long as sin in in the world, there will be war. But for all those in Jesus, He is the giver of peace. No longer am I at war with God who is Holy, my sin-nature rebelling against His statutes. I am at peace, being reconciled to Jesus my precious savior.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27)

ezekiel battle, gog magog, prophecy, rapture, tribulation

Is the Ezekiel 38-39 Gog-Magog battle imminent?

Posted on September 7, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

photo credit: a l-ust for all things pointless via photopin cc

God is setting the stage to bring Himself glory.

Hallelujah!

Here is the story:

In Ezekiel 38 and 39 a battle occurs. It is the most lengthy and detailed prophetic battle in the entire bible, even more than Armageddon. This future battle is a coalition which has never formed before in quite the configuration described. For this reason, bible scholars believe the battle to be yet future. I use the term battle and not war deliberately, because this seems to be a very short military foray. As a matter of fact, hardly any weapons are loosed, it is over so quick. It is a battle, and God wins it decisively.
In addition, the battle is not between nations. It is between this coalition of nations and God Himself. The coalition of nations doesn’t know it, because they think they are marching against Israel. But it is God who intervenes and protects Israel by smiting the advancing army.

He does this in demonstrable and vivid ways. He wins the battle for Israel so clearly that the nations know it is God who is doing the fighting. More on those details below.

photo credit: MoudBarthez
via photopin cc

The coalition which is prophesied to come against Israel includes Iran, Turkey, Russia, Armenia, Libya, Ethiopia, Sudan (i.e. northern tier of North Africa). Also Sheba and Dedan (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen? most likely). The merchants of Tarshish (no one quite knows who those people are) and all its leaders stand by. They don’t participate in the evil coalition, but they don’t help Israel either. They are interested sidelines quarterbacks. (Ezekiel 38:13).

The LORD said that He will plan this and execute it. He said in Ezekiel 38:4- “And I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great host, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords”.

He will do this to show the world that HE IS ISRAEL’S PROTECTOR! And to bring himself glory!!

“And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them. The house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God, from that day forward. And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt so treacherously with me that I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from them.” (Ezekiel 39:22-24)

He shows His protection of Israel and His glory by doing things that only God does:

“In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. The fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the beasts of the field, every creature that moves along the ground, and all the people on the face of the earth will tremble at my presence. The mountains will be overturned, the cliffs will crumble and every wall will fall to the ground. I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Sovereign Lord. Every man’s sword will be against his brother. I will execute judgment on him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him. And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 38:19-22)

All the people on the face of the earth tremble at His presence??!?! Even the birds?! He rains brimstone down! Turns over mountains! He sends plague! Some estimate the number of dead invaders at three quarters of a million up to a billion dead. All the earth will know God is on the scene. It will be a momentous day. His wrath is a fearful thing.

Remember when the Japan 9.0 quake happened in March 2011? It was a powerful enough quake that it jolted the earth off its axis 8 feet. The quake in Ezekiel’s Gog-Magog battle will be ten times worse. A hundred times worse. I can’t quantify it because my brain can’t comprehend all the mountains on earth turning over and every cliff and every wall falling down.

photo credit: chany14 via photopin cc

I am so thrilled when the LORD receives Glory and He magnifies Himself. He has been doing that in the Church Age the last 2000 years by redeeming lost sinners, cleansing them with His Son’s blood. In the future Gog-Magog battle Ezekiel describes, He will give Himself glory by demonstrating both His raw power and His seriousness about keeping His covenant promise with Israel.

When does this Gog-Magog battle happen? No one is sure where it falls on the schedule of prophesied events, and there are a lot of opinions on this topic. The only collective thought is that it happens at or after the tribulation. All the stances have some biblical credibility, but some stances are weaker than others and some are stronger. Personally, I used to think it will happen at or just after the rapture. But in reading the verse about every mountain falling down, I am not so sure. In Revelation 6:14 we read that:

“The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.”

So the Ezekiel earthquake removes every mountain by overturning them but then the Revelation earthquake crumbles them … again?

photo credit: ronsho © via photopin cc

If the Ezekiel battle happens at the outset of the Tribulation, then the verse where God says in Ezekiel 39:7 that “I will not let my Holy name be profaned any more” would not be true, since His holy name is continually profaned throughout the Tribulation. The antichrist is especially blasphemous. The verse mentions blasphemy three times in succession:

“And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling,a that is, those who dwell in heaven.” (Revelation 13:5-6).

Many have said that since the Ezekiel battle mentions in chapter 39 a special crew of buriers burying the dead over the course of 7 months, marking bones with a flag to identify another part of another body from the army God vanquished. And the people of Israel shall use the weapons for fuel for 7 years, so people believe the 7 years means the battle occurs at the outset of the Tribulation and Israel burns fuel for the duration of it, which is 7 years. However, there is no reason the 7 years could not refer to a battle toward the end of the Tribulation, and the fuel burning overlapping into the Millennium. Or it could occur at the end of the Millennium, a more likely prospect since during that 1000 years God’s name is not profaned, AND Israel is dwelling peacefully and securely without walls (Ezekiel 38:11, Ezekiel 39:25).

In other words, the timing of this prophesied battle cannot be clearly and dogmatically stated.

In any case, it seems that the world stage is active and lively right now with prophetic implications of these battles to come. We see a potential Gog in Putin, and Russia rising. We see an isolated Israel, bemoaning they only have God and their military to rely on. God is stripping Israel of all, and when Israel finally says, ‘we have ONLY God’, He will bring them back to His bosom.

photo credit: Wessex Archaeology
via photopin cc

Since the chapters of Ezekiel 38-39 show the LORD bringing His people back into personal dealing again, the Gog-Magog battle cannot occur while the church is on earth. Since His program for the church and the nation Israel are separate, it seems the church will be gone when He resumes dealing with the nation of Jews.

During this Church Age, God is dealing with people via His Spirit and through Resurrected Jesus who is in heaven. It is an age of grace, not of wrath. During the Tribulation He parts the veil and personally intervenes on earth again- in wrath and not in grace.

Here are several progressive essays which examine the timing of the Gog-Magog battle. They are from Nathan Jones of Lamb and Lion Ministries, and one is from John MacArthur, who believes the Ezekiel battle will occur at the Millennium’s close. As always, check out these things for yourself, pray, and think.

1. The Gog-Magog Battle – Search For Timing

2. The Gog-Magog Battle – Before the Tribulation?

3. The Gog-Magog Battle – During the Tribulation?

4. The Gog-Magog Battle – During the Millennium?

5. The Gog-Magog Battle – Unfolding; (their stance on the timing)

6. Twelve attributes of God the study of the Ezekiel Battle yields

John MacArthur: The Gog Magog battle timing- at the end of the Millennium

I hope that when you read those essays and especially when you read the bible, do so with a notion that God is great, and His purpose for all of it is to bring glory to Himself, and to bring people to holiness. End time studies are meant to revive our hearts in love and awe for a great and holy God, to make us aware of the temporal and fleeting time and body in which we live, and the eternal importance of souls.

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After four years, the Israel-Palestinian peace talks resume. How does this fit in prophecy?

Posted on July 19, 2013 by elizabethprata

Here is some news just out-

Kerry: Direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks to resume next week in Washington
“U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced Friday in a press conference in Amman that direct Israeli-Palestinian talks are due to begin next week in Washington. The announcement comes after Kerry had traveled to the region six times within four months and spent countless hours in talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. “We have reached an agreement that establishes a basis for resuming direct final status negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis,” he told reporters in Jordan. “The agreement is still in the process of being formalized.”

According to Wikipedia, there are numerous issues to resolve before a lasting peace can be reached, including the following:

Borders and division of the land;
Strong emotions relating to the conflict on both sides;
Palestinian concerns over Israeli settlements in the West Bank;
Status of Jerusalem;
Israeli security concerns over terrorism, safe borders, incitements, violence;
Right of return of Palestinian refugees living in the Palestinian diaspora.

Prophetically we know several things. Overall, we know that there will be no lasting peace until Messiah comes. (Isaiah 2:3-5).

The world will be against Israel in the final days. (Zechariah 12:2-3)
The LORD will allow the nations to invade and (mostly) defeat Israel (Zechariah 14:2, Rev 11:2)
They have divided His land, angering the LORD (Joel 3:2)
He will save a remnant, all Israel will be saved (Romans 11:25-26)
While they are saying peace and safety sudden destruction will come upon them (1 Thessalonians 5:3)

Here is the biggie:

A covenant will be confirmed. A pact. A treaty.

“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.” (Daniel 9:27)

Othe translations say-

“And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week” (KJV)
“He will make a firm covenant with many for one week” (Holman Standard)
“He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.'” (NIV)

This indicates that some kind of treaty or pact is already in existence and will be confirmed among the many, rather than a new one being created or formulated at the time.

This covenant satisfies Israel. We know this because firstly, they participate in its confirming, and secondly, they are allowed to begin sacrificing at the temple again. All seems well for three and a half years, until the antichrist reveals himself by stepping into the temple. He declares himself God and commands all worship must focus on him. Until then, we do not know who the antichrist is, although he does participate in the original confirming of the covenant three and a half years earlier. (2 Thessalonians 3:6).

It is this moment which Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24:15-17, “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel–let the reader understand-Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: …”

Any time many nations are involved in forming a treaty or pact with Israel, it is time to heighten attention to the prophetic words of His prophets. It is time to pray for Israel even more fervently. It is time to pray for the pagans and Gentiles who live in that region with vigor. It is time to pray for the Christians witnessing to Messiah in the Land that they would be the Light so many will be saved and thus escape the horrors to soon come. It is time to strengthen our own faith and straighten our own walk, so that we may be ready for the trumpet call to stand unashamed before Him in glory.

Seeing the scaffolding having been erected for the Tribulation we know that soon the rapture call will occur, because the Bride will be called home before the judgments begin. So look to the Middle East with the political doings, and look up. Is our Redemption drawing nigh? I believe so, every day brings us closer. With the resumption of peace talks, the inching forward just took a giant leap.
____________________

Another reason the rapture is pre-trib

Posted on May 27, 2013March 15, 2019 by elizabethprata

I’ve written many times from a biblical standpoint that the rapture will happen before the Tribulation. Church Age believers living in this present Age of Grace will not go through the Tribulation. The Tribulation’s purpose is for the salvation of Israel, not the refining of the Bride. (Jeremiah 30:7, Isaiah 45:17).

Here are some of the links of previous writings on this topic:

More on the rapture will be pre-tribulation, from John MacArthur

Why the rapture is biblically pre-tribulation.

Why pre-tribulation rapture is doctrinally correct

Thirty–Six Pre-Trib Rapture Texts

Pre-tribulation rapture in the Old Testament

More on why the rapture will happen pre-tribulation

The differences between the Rapture and the Second Coming

LOL, I think you can see that I am passionate about the topic. That is because it pains me to see people needlessly worry. It hurts to know people may be stocking up instead of looking up. It is all so unnecessary.

Anyway, here is another thought for you.

In the New Testament at the end of His time on earth, Jesus told the Church to go and make disciples. He charged the church with evangelizing the world.

“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”” (Matthew 28:18-20).

Originally, the Jews were supposed to be the evangelizing vehicle for His name. (Isaiah 42:6). However, they turned to idolatry, became insular, and so He cut them off for a while and selected a new people for His name who would be grafted into the original vine and be the light to the Gentiles. (Acts 13:47, Romans 11:11, Romans 11:24). This is the church age. The church is the vehicle He is currently using to bring salvation to the lost peoples.

During this Age, He has partially hardened the hearts of the Jews while He is building His church. He will continue to do this until the number He has ordained to complete the church has come in. (Romans 11:25). Then the rapture will happen.

But what about evangelizing, the Great Commission? Who brings the Light to the Gentiles, then? If the Tribulation is a return to working on His people the Jews, as it is, then His original commission also re-ignites. Who does Jesus tell to evangelize the world during the Tribulation? The Jews. 144,000 of them. (Revelation 7:4).

Why?

Because the church is gone. He is returning the original commission back to the tribes of Israel. They are his first fruits of which Zechariah prophesied. (Revelation 14:4, Zechariah 12:10). The Tribulation is about ISRAEL, in every respect. (Daniel 9:24-27).

If you read all of Romans 11 in context and go through Zechariah it will widen your perspective. God is always at work. It is amazing to read what He has done and what He plans to do, by reading both the New Testament and the Old. My voice isn’t loud enough to proclaim all His goodness and wonders! But I will still try!!

apocalypse journalism, ecclesiastes, robert jensen, tribulation

What we need around here is some apocalyptic journalism

Posted on May 9, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

A true church is marked by spiritual discernment. The church, the body of Christ, the people of God, are able to look at the world and understand it. They have the capability to sort out the things that are happening all around them both in the realm of the physical world as well as the spiritual.”

~John MacArthur, Marks of a True Church part 1

People underestimate the power of the press. The words the press uses, and the issues they choose to present (and not present) shape the way we think about the world. For a Christian, it is the bible that shapes our thinking and provides the worldview. (Romans 12:2). It is either-or. You are either influenced by the world, or the bible. Just as the words of the bible have the ability to transform our mind, the press has the ability to shape how we think about issues. The result of journalism is that it can potentially shape our reality. Journalism does the following-

first, it helps people make sense of the world (as described above)
second, it figures prominently in the upcoming Tribulation (more in a minute)
third, I believe unsaved people have now gone beyond comprehending what is going on in the world and that therefore journalism has exceeded its usefulness in this regard. This is the point of this essay.

Robert Jensen of the University of Texas at Austin, Journalism department, wrote an extraordinary essay this week. In it, the Professor called for “apocalyptic journalism.” Don’t get excited, he is not referring to Christianity in any way, nor giving credence to our God as existing and sovereignly controlling affairs of men. But he is acknowledging that man’s understanding (unsaved man, that is) simply can’t comprehend the scope of our world’s catastrophes any more. In my opinion, his acknowledgement is a significant advancement on the road toward the rapture.

Jensen seems to understand that the fabric of things is unraveling … and unraveling so completely that it is not going to be repaired. He, and others he quotes, see an upcoming “massive social dislocation” due to our failure to ‘make peace with Gaia.’ (honoring the creation rather than the creator as per Romans 1:25.) He writes,

“That means that we’re in trouble, not in some imaginary science-fiction future, but in our present reality. We can’t pretend all that’s needed is tinkering with existing systems to fix a few environmental problems; significant changes in how we live are required. No matter where any one of us sits in the social and economic hierarchies, there is no escape from the dislocations that will come with such changes. Money and power might insulate some from the most wrenching consequences of these shifts, but there is no permanent escape. We do not live in stable societies and no longer live on a stable planet. We may feel safe and secure in specific places at specific times, but it’s hard to believe in any safety and security in a collective sense. … In short, we live in apocalyptic times.”

He is right. We do. And this isn’t even the Apocalypse yet.

What Jensen is comprehending is the eternity set within his heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11). He feels it, but just doesn’t know what it is. He seeks a framework within which one can try to make sense of what is happening. Jensen speaks the same words that millions are already thinking, of this I am sure. His view has become the representational view of most of the secular world. Sadly, he will never find the framework he seeks to make sense of things, unless he has the framework of Jesus.

The world does not make sense unless one sees it through the biblical worldview. Any other worldview will be false. But it is the worldview people have used for millennia and its falsity is showing up clearly now because it is coming apart at the seams. Nothing makes sense anymore and nothing is working.

Jensen continues in his article by saying that we need a new framework in order to connect the dots. He is right, and he is so close to the truth! The framework we need in order to make sense of the world is Jesus. But that is not what Jensen calls for.

In Jensen’s mind, and I believe he is speaking for many in the world who can’t figure out what’s going on, is that the old dots that need connecting are too far apart now. They are so far apart that each one is as distant from one another as the east is from the west. So therefore, he calls for new dots. He calls for “apocalyptic journalism”, a kind of return to ‘prophetic preaching.’ He says in effect that those prophets of Old Testament days didn’t cause the crises that came upon people, but they had something important to say that ought to have been listened to. He says we need more of that nowadays. What Jensen forgets is that the old Prophets had messages from God, they weren’t monster shouters spouting off on their own agendas. Anyway, the people didn’t listen to Noah preaching apocalypse when the world was unraveling the first time. To continue, Jensen writes,

Prophetic preaching does not put people in crisis. Rather it names and makes palpable the crisis already pulsing among us. When the dots are connected, it will require naming the defining sins among us of environmental abuse, neighborly disregard, long-term racism, self-indulgent consumerism, all the staples from those ancient truthtellers translated into our time and place.

The sins that need naming are not environmental abuse, being a bad neighbor, racism, and consumerism. Jensen says that those were the old sins that Amos and Hosea and Jeremiah and Isaiah were calling out against, and we use modern language to name them now. No, not at all. The prophets were calling the people to stop sinning by turning away from sin and turn to Him in repentance. Obeisance and repentance were the clarion calls of the day, as were rejecting idols and worthy worship of the LORD, because God is the only hope, through Jesus. I am so sad that people today see that the world is crumbling, the old frameworks don’t make sense any more, that journalism is failing to show us the world through a proper lens- and do not turn to the one Hope there is. Even Jensen says he has no hope. Look what he writes at the end of his article–

[INSERT HOPEFUL ENDING HERE]
That subhead is not an editing oversight. I wish there were an easy solution, an upbeat conclusion. I don’t have one. I’ve never heard anyone else articulate one. To face the world honestly at this moment in human history likely means giving up on easy and upbeat.

In this, Jensen is right. To face the world honestly DOES mean giving up on being upbeat- if you are a secular person who doesn’t know Jesus, that is.

The upcoming Tribulation movers and shakers will use journalism as a fully satanic framework to promote satan’s false signs and wonders. (2 Thessalonians 2:9). It will be used to promote the peacemaker who will turn out to be the antichrist. It will be used to show the death of the Two Witnesses. (Revelation 11:9). Satan has his clutches in the media even now, and after the rapture you will not be able to believe anything you see or read. The Tribulation will be a time of utter lies, because it is the time given to satan to allow sin to come to the full, and satan is the father of lies. Anyone who reads a newspaper or watches the news now knows we cannot trust it. What will it be like after the rapture? The worst.

Jensen’s message, as well as most of humanity’s today is, “Nothing’s working, we’re losing hope, it is all for nothing”. These were words that Solomon used after he had tried every which way to find fulfillment. Solomon’s conclusion was that all is vanity.

All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing. (Ecclesiastes 1:8)

Hosea wrote that Israel had been feeding on wind. (Hosea 12:1). That is the world today, feasting on vanity and wind, and finding that nothing they do fulfills. But, there IS hope!! Saving the world does not depend upon us, upon man. That should be a relief. The earth is the LORD’S and everything in it. (Psalm 24:1). He will take care of renewing it. The prophets of old called for the people to turn their eyes on God and his coming Messiah. He is the hope. Any spiritually discerning person knows that though these times are dark we have a huge hope in Jesus coming soon. We have the hope of our inheritance, which is Him and His finished work on the cross, forever. Jensen calls for someone to [INSERT HOPEFUL ENDING HERE]? OK I will!

[THE LIGHT OF THE GOSPEL]

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

rapture, salvation, time of jacob's trouble, tribulation

Will there be Christians saved after the rapture?

Posted on April 24, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

A question I’m asked quite often is “Will there be Christians after the rapture?” If the Holy Spirit is taken away from the earth, how will He draw men to salvation?

Lars Justinen, “Robe of Righteousness”

These are good questions and I’ll do my best to offer scriptural answers.

The first basis to answer this is to understand that God has plans. I think we all agree on that. Jeremiah 29:11 reveals that God has plans for Israel. Isaiah 14:26 reveals that God uses nations to fulfill His plans. Amos 3:7 reveals that God has plans and that He reveals them to His prophets (and in the NT, through the Holy Spirit Who set them down in the bible).

photo credit: khalid almasoud via photopin cc

In addition, God’s plans are different for His people & His nation Israel; and the church who is His bride. This is called dispensational biblical interpretation. You can read about this doctrine here in succinct fashion-

“What is dispensationalism and is it biblical?“

and here

“What are the seven dispensations?“

All it means is that God has different plans for Israel and the Bride. Ultimately however, His plans merge in general by His grande redemptive plan. No matter what dispensational epoch we lived in, we will all be trophies of His grace for all eternity. And how we all get there is the same (Old Testament believers from Adam, to Noah, to Moses to Abraham to Anna- through belief in and faith of the promise of a coming savior; for New Testament believers, from John and Peter, Mary, Paul, and on through to today’s born again believers throughout the world, belief in and faith of the promise of an already risen savior).

Secondly you have to understand that the rapture will occur prior to what the Jews call the Time of Jacob’s Trouble (Jeremiah 30:7) and known to New Testament believers via the Olivet Discourse Matthew 24 as the Tribulation and Great Tribulation. I am not going to argue this fact, it is explicitly and implicitly set out in scripture that this is so. I have written about it at least ten times on this blog. Search in the search box above for ‘pre-trib’ and many results will come up.

Once you understand that the Age of Grace in this dispensation will end with the rapture and then the tribulation begins, we also can go on with answering the post’s main question. Will there be Christians after the rapture?

Yes. There will be Christians after the rapture.

Biblical proof of this is myriad. For example, Revelation 4:1 seems to be the pivot point in the Book’s largely chronological unfolding of events. The first three chapters are letters to actual churches of John’s day outlining praise and/or condemnation of their deeds. This section of Revelation is also a metaphor for believers in days of yore and us today in church, as to what Jesus will praise or condemn in our corporate worship life. As we begin Revelation 4:1 we read from then on, ‘These are things which will take place after’. By Revelation 5, the seals are about to be opened and we are told, gloriously,

“Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” (Revelation 5:5)

In Revelation 6, when He opened the fifth seal unleashing the wrath of God, we read:

“I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.”

Those who were slain for God and their witness are Christians. They are not Christians from the Age of Grace because the Christians were raptured before the beginning of the Tribulation. These are souls who had come to saving knowledge of Jesus as Savior afterwards. How do I know this? Because all Christians were raptured prior to the wrath. The Bride is not appointed to wrath. (1 Thessalonians 5:9). The wrath begins in Revelation 6:1.

Another question that is asked is, how did they become Christians after the rapture if the Restrainer had been removed? This question is in reference to 2 Thessalonians 2:6. The Restrainer mentioned here is the Holy Spirit. One of His ministries is to restrain the devil in raising up the man of sin before his time.

MacArthur explains,

So he says to the Thessalonians…you know this, you know that there is a force, a supernatural force that keeps Satan from doing what he would otherwise want to do. Listen, you think the world is bad now, you haven’t seen anything yet. Fortunately if you know Christ you won’t see it, but in the day of the Lord when the restrainer is gone and all hell breaks loose, the world will see what happens when God does not restrain Satan in his plans.

In Genesis chapter 6 there is an important verse, verse 3, “Then the Lord said, My Spirit shall not strive with man forever.” What you have here is a concept. The Holy Spirit battling against wicked men. And God says My Spirit isn’t going to do that forever. My Spirit isn’t going to fight your wickedness forever. It wasn’t long until He drown them all, right? And I think you have there the work of the Holy Spirit that is a restraining work. The Holy Spirit was battling against the flood of wickedness in the ancient world. In Acts chapter 7, one other verse that shows us the Spirit’s ministry in this kind of area. In Acts 7:51, “You men who are stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit.” Now here again [in 2 Thessalonians 2:6] you have the Holy Spirit battling against sin, battling against iniquity, battling against evil, trying to restrain, as John tells us, to convict in John 16. (more here)

photo credit: Viqi French via photopin cc

So the Christians who are part of the Bride are whisked away before the wrath begins. Christians who come to faith after wards are not part of the Bride though they are appointed to eternity as well. The man of Sin is unveiled and the total saturating sin as it was in the Days of Noah repeat, (Dan 9:24) except worse. Yet Christians still come to saving faith. That is because though the restrainer is not holding back sin nor the man of sin any more he is still drawing men.

God supernaturally seals 144,000 super evangelists (Revelation 7:1-8) and by Revelation 9, a great multitude of the redeemed are standing before the throne and praising Him!

God also sends an angel flying at mid-heaven to pronounce the Gospel (Revelation 7:6) and the result is that by Revelation 7:12 there are saints enduring in the faith.

None of this would be possible if the Spirit had not drawn them. (John 6:44, John 6:65). Even during the Tribulation the Father, the Son and the Spirit are working in perfect unity to perform His plan and to redeem trophies of grace for His glory!

Finally, of course there are Christians who come to faith after the rapture, because it is those believers who are alive – in the flesh- and left upon the earth who enter the Millennial Kingdom. GotQuestions explains,

Matthew 25:31-46 is another passage that should be considered. This passage is commonly called the separation or judgment of the sheep and the goats. The sheep and goats refer to righteous and unrighteous Gentiles. Christ will judge the unrighteous Gentiles (goats), and they will be cast into the lake of fire for eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46). Therefore, no unbelieving Gentile will survive to live on into the millennial kingdom. The righteous Gentiles, or sheep, will live on into the millennial kingdom. Read more

The Lord our God is a God of steadfastness to His persecuted ones. He sent His Son to be persecuted and die for our iniquities, and thus the finished work of His salvation to the elect was completed when God exhausted His wrath in Jesus.

The Holy Spirit continues to draw all those people whom God had written in the Lamb’s Book of Life before the foundation of the world. (Revelation 13:8, 1 Peter 1:20, Matthew 25:34). No matter when a believer lived or will live, in the Garden in the Age of Innocence, the Age of Conscience which was pre-flood, the Age of Human Government which was post flood, Age of Abraham and the Promise, during the Age of Law with Moses, the Age of Grace which is the Bride, or the Millennial Age to come, if your name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life you are His trophy of grace and will never be set aside, lost or otherwise disowned.

As Paul says in Romans 8:23,

“And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

So yes, Christians will come to faith after the rapture, as they will also in the Millennium age after that. What a wonderful eternity we will have, sharing and listening to the stories of His graceful redemption of humans throughout the ages, all the while praising the Holy Spirit who worked throughout to draw men unto the God of Salvation! (Hosea 13:4)

Lars Justinen, “Robe of Righteousness”

end time, jesus, rapture, tribulation, wrath

Police restrain crowd from taking food after supermarket eviction

Posted on March 28, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Apparently, a couple who owned a grocery store went way behind on their payments. The bank closed the store and evicted the owners. All the merchandise they’d had in the store was put outside to go to the landfill.

The owners say they offered the food to a church, but members didn’t show up to claim it. That’s when word that store products were abandoned spread through the community. When people who got wind of the goods stacked up on the ground outside the store, they hurried down to see if they could scavenge some. Instead of being able to get some food, the police were called to evict the growing and restless crowd who were told the food had to go to the landfill because it wasn’t theirs to take. The crowd got more restive and the police had to restrain them.

They asked, “People have children out here that are hungry, thirsty, could be anything. Why throw it away when you could be issuing it out?”

About 300 people came to take merchandise home, but they were held back by law enforcement. “These are brand new items; we saw the potential for a riot was extremely high,” said Sheriff Richard Roundtree. more here

So where did this crowd of hungry people show up to scavenge food? Where were police dispatched to hold back a potentially riotous crowd? Greece? Slovenia? Cyprus?

No.

Augusta, Georgia, USA.

My heart breaks for folks who are hungry. We see it all over, not just GA, though I live in GA. An increasing amount of kids are qualifying for free lunch and breakfast. More people are relying on either the emergency room at hospitals or the school nurse for their non-emergency medical care. More people are using the county or church food banks. It’s a sad thing to see a hungry person, and in formerly the wealthiest nation in the world. Still are pretty wealthy, compared to many other nations. But that cliff is coming up quick and we are on a fast slide down.

The Tribulation will be much, much worse. When the Third Seal is opened according to Revelation 6:5-6 it shows us that food will be scarce. The Fourth Seal will bring famine. At that time a fourth of the earth will die.

The police that were called today were sympathetic, mild, and peaceful. The scene was tense, but remained controllable.

It will not be controllable after the rapture, when hunger, famine, violence, starvation sets in and desperate people behave in unrestrained manner. (2 Thessalonians 2:6).

In the bible, there are scenes of cannibalism. (Leviticus 26:29; Deuteronomy 28:53-57; Jeremiah 19:9; Lamentations 2:20; 4:10; Ezekiel 5:10). “Moses and other prophets predicted that, if the Israelites forsook God, they would fall into such awful degradation as to cannibalize their own children. These harrowing prophecies were fulfilled during the siege of Samaria during the reign of King Jehoram. Cannibalism was the physical horror which accompanied the spiritual horror of apostasy.”

I do believe America has gotten on God’s last nerve. No, the church is not Israel and the USA is not Israel. No we are not in Old Testament times. However, God does not change. Do we believe that we can apostatize and not be punished for it? That such things won’t happen to America, just because we are America? Of course not. God shows no partiality. (Romans 2:11).

The Tribulation, AKA The Time of Jacob’s Trouble, (Jeremiah 30:7) is a 7-year period when God will allow sin to come its full measure. (Dan 9:24). The Holy Spirit will have stopped His restraining ministry and sin will bloom like putrid oil bubbling to the surface of every person (except those who come to salvation after the rapture). People standing in a parking lot today, pleading for food but obeying the officers, will, in the Tribulation, simply use their guns to shoot anyone in their way.

Like also in GA this week, two teenaged boys attempted to rob a woman, and when she said she didn’t have any money, they shot her baby in his stroller, in the face. And this is before the Tribulation.

The only reason you won’t go to heaven in a glorified body at the trumpet call and miss all that terrible times, is because you have not repented and believed on the resurrected Jesus as Lord. That’s it.

“Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” (1 Corinthians 15:51-53)

“We” means believers. To become a believer,

“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”(Romans 10:9).

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

You cannot get to the Father God because we are sinners, (meaning, we think, say and do wrong things that are against God’s holy standard). So God sent His Son Jesus to earth as a man in a real body to teach us, and then He was put on the cross as the sacrifice for our sins, the payment for which God poured out His eternal wrath. Thus, Jesus took our sin upon Himself (2 Corinthians 5:21). Instead of us dying, we will put on incorruptible and live forever in His house. This is all due to Jesus dying in our place (Romans 5:8). Three days later, Jesus rose from the dead, proving His victory over sin and death (Romans 6:4-5) and that he is the Son of God, forever to live and reign. Why did He do all that? He loves us, that’s why. Jesus loves you. Yes, you.

Refusal to believe on Him and repent of our sins, thus being cleansed of them through the sacrifice of Jesus, will put you squarely under God’s wrath, which He will pour out on all flesh in the Tribulation and then forevermore on the unbelievers in hell. (Rev 6:15-17; Rev 19:1-3).

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36).

Your belief or unbelief in Jesus is all the difference between eternal joy in perfected glory with Him, and eternal wrath that begins at the Tribulation which will be hell on earth. Yes, you can be saved after the rapture, but there is no guarantee that you will even live until that day. There is no guarantee that you will live thorough the Rapture event. There is a minimal chance you will live through the Tribulation, given that most of the world’s population will be killed. Now is the time of your salvation.

I hope you’re hungry now, hungry for Jesus. He will save you from all that. Believe on Him!

eschatological, rapture, tribulation

Where the vultures gather

Posted on March 16, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

I’m sure you’re familiar with this verse. It is in Matthew 24 and here from Luke 17

“Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding together. One will be taken and the other left.” And they said to him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” (Luke 17:33-37).

The above is a real photo that I took when driving along in my hometown in GA. They are indeed vultures, turkey vultures, and I thought the composition was interesting. They didn’t budge when I stopped my car under the branch and snapped a few photos. Then I inverted it, changed the mode to B&W and voila, spooky birds.

Vultures always seem kind of spooky, don’t they. While camping in the Everglades, the buzzards used to glide in and stand on the picnic table, staring at us. They are huge birds, made all the more spooky by knowing they eat carrion. Or live things, it doesn’t matter. We kept our cat holed up in the VW pop-up while we were there. The birds just seemed way to interested in chomping either her, us, or our lunch.

And that is the point of the verse. So many people think that it is a rapture verse. It is not. The Lord had spent the bulk of the Matthew passage explaining the labor pangs of the Tribulation to the disciples, in order and in detail. Luke has a shortened version of it. Then in Matthew, the Lord explained the Abomination of Desolation, which is the unveiling of the antichrist at the Temple, calling himself God. Then He said when you see that happen, do the following, and He delivered instructions to the Jews.

He concluded with “Immediately after the tribulation of those days…” and gave a couple of parables to finish it off. The verse is contained in the section at the end of Matthew 24 and Luke 17, where the Lord tells us that no one will know the day nor hour of His coming. The world will not know because the sun is dark, no one knows what day it is, the antichrist had sought to change times and seasons. They lose track of what day it is. THEN the Lord will come in a blaze of glory.

The people taken are those non-believers taken alive who displeased God, and those who are left are those believers who pleased God. He takes the non-believers away to judgment. He cements this thought by saying they will be where the vultures gather. Vultures are carrion birds which gather where the (spiritually) dead are. Believers are left to enter the Millennial kingdom on earth. Jesus concludes with reminding us that where the carnage is, the spiritually dead and the physically dead in judgment, there the vultures gather. It is the wicked who are taken- to judgment.

Any person can escape all these things by believing on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He came to save the world and make the payment to God for our sins, taking on God’s wrath instead of allowing it to be poured out on us, as it should have been. He was crucified and died. He was buried but by the power of God, who was pleased with His son, resurrected Him from the dead. Jesus is in heaven now, reigning on His throne, and will come again to earth to judge the living and the dead.

If you are still not sure about the interpretation of the Matthew 24 passage as a Tribulation and not rapture passage, and also the Luke 17 parallel passage, here is a lesson at Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM) on How to Interpret the Bible and they use these exact verses to share how to interpret a passage. It will lead you through it verse by verse and step by step.

If you believe you are a sinner disqualified from entering heaven, and believe that Jesus is our savior and Lord, you can be saved. Saved from what? His wrath. That is what the Luke and Matthew passage refers to, the spiritually dead who are already under God’s wrath and which will come fully one day to judge you. Pray to the Holy Spirit, Who is also God, for more information, as you read more here too: God’s Simple Plan of Salvation. Or speak to a local pastor of a bible believing church. You are spiritually dead and are gathering where the vultures are. The miraculous grace of God can regenerate you alive. Think on these things- they are real issues and eternal, too.