Posted in rapture

No one knows the day nor hour

Posted on by elizabethprata

I talk about the soon return of Jesus a lot in real life. I am constantly surprised by the reactions I receive from Christians. More often than not, the rapture conversation makes them uncomfortable. It is sort of amazing to think of the prophesied abruptness of the change from one epoch to another. It will happen in the twinkling of an eye. In 1/100th of a second, Christians will be changed from corruptible to incorruptible, and the lost will remain and wonder what is happening. But still, the notion of a speedy snatching up to Jesus is supposed to make us glad, eager, and aware of our destiny in Christ. Yet too many Christians see that moment as an unnecessary interruption of their lives.

Some Christians take it better than others. The mildest kind of deflection usually goes something like this: after listening patiently, even indulgently to me, of Jesus’s return and the necessity of our forgiven state, they will say “Well…no one knows the day or hour.” And then they change the subject.

I want to address that response. I want to address it because it is wrong.

The bible is right, no one knows the day or hour. But too many people use that verse as an incorrect response to any discussion of the imminence of the rapture. What they mean is, because no one knows the day or hour, we must not speak of His snatching us away at all. They say “It may be thousands of years. No one knows.” And they believe that to be a sufficient deflection of the topic. They verbally and rhetorically push it off a few thousand years, hinging on that verse as their justification to put it out of their mind. How wrong they are. But they deflect the topic because confronting that notion, that time for us may end at any second, means they must take a close and imminent look at their sin, their lifestyle, their walk, their weakness.

I say this: because no one knows the day or hour, we must speak of it constantly. Why? It could be tomorrow.

Posted in cultural decline, last days

The predicted cultural decline is rapidly upon us

Posted on by elizabethprata

Paul warned Timothy that in the last days it would be perilous times. (2 Tim 3:1-5). That warning was aimed at first century Christians’s edification, about first century Christians, and it is even more so for us now. The cultural decline within the Christian community is rapidly increasing, and as one might expect, the cultural decline among the non-Christians is increasing even more. Take this statistic. It is astounding:

“Cohabitation in the United States has increased by more than 1,500 percent in the past half century. In 1960, about 450,000 unmarried couples lived together. Now the number is more than 7.5 million.” (Source)

That’s my lifetime. I was born in 1960. I grew up in a culture where the standard for cohabitation as man and wife, legally married in a covenant marriage observed by God, has been thrown away and any manner of dyads and triads of any or all genders for any period of time that is convenient for all parties is looked upon as the societal norm. This will have consequences.

The last days are typically understood to be from when Christ ascended to when He returns. The last 7 years of that end time is the Tribulation. That is when Jesus punishes Israel and judges the world.

In advance of the Tribulation the rapture will occur. I know that many say that we don’t or can’t know that for sure, but that is not true. The bible is clear on the timing, and any doctrine contrary to the pre-tribulation rapture in my opinion is a satanic device to steal confidence and assurance in God’s promises to His Bride. However it is true that the rapture will be a signless event.

That is for two reasons. First, it always has been an imminent event. Nothing “has to happen” before He calls His Bride up to Himself. Secondly, the rapture is an event that is not tied to a date, but a number. Paul said in Romans 11:25 that “do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.” (NIV) Other translations say ‘fulness of the Gentiles’. In the Greek, fulness means a filling up, a full complement, complete, to consummate, as in a number.

God has a number in mind for His church, and when that number is reached, it is full. We will be called up to Him, the dead in Christ will rise and those who are alive and remain will be caught up with them to be with Jesus forever. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). Note that Paul said that the Israelites’ hearts had been partially hardened. That hardening will be released at the rapture (Acts 15:14-16) and during the Tribulation many Jews will be saved. He always preserves a remnant!

Though we do not know days nor hour, we can suspect the season. If you read 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 you will see that those who are not in darkness can understand the season drawing to a close, and in Matthew 24 we are told that when the fig tree buds, we will know the time is near.

However, even though the rapture is a signless, always, imminent event, the Tribulation is not. As we see what the Lord has forecast for the people left on earth during that terrible time, we see the prophetic pieces coming together and even now the pieces are almost touching. If we can see signs that the Tribulation is nearing, how much closer would the rapture be? Close. So that is the rationale for believing His coming for His bride is near. Looking to His coming is something we are rewarded with doing, as well. (2 Timothy 4:8, 1 Corinthians 9:25).

At the time of the Tribulation, He will lift the Holy Spirit from the earth as well as He did prior to the Flood (Gen 6:3). He will not disappear completely, of course, because the Spirit draws men to God (John 12:32). But the ministry of His hand holding back lawlessness (sinful rebellion against God) through Christians on earth will cease. Sin will be allowed to run rampant. Sin will have dominion.

Prior to that terrible time, perhaps even now we can see the effect of a rising rebelliousness and sin’s hold on a Godless society having its tipping point. We know that in the time of the end the churches will have less and less power, become weaker and weaker, and by definition, sin will increase.

Revelation 2-3 shows us letters to actual churches in the first generation of Christians but also the letters are included in Holy Writ so that we may be instructed today. We see that Ephesus is a church that had forsaken its first love; Pergamum is a church that needs to repent Thyatira is a church that has a false prophetess, Sardis is a church that had fallen asleep, Laodicea is a church with the lukewarm faith. Only the letters to the churches at Smyrna and Philadelphia did not contain a rebuke. So we see that 5 of the 7 churches had grown weak and ineffective in one or more ways, and so shall it be as the Church Age progresses. Far from there being a prophetic indication of a great revival prior to the Tribulation, the church will become weaker and more ineffective.

As the church grows weaker, sin becomes stronger, stranger, more rampant and obvious. Here is one small example. With that in mind, here are some crime stories this week, people are not only acting in increasingly weird ways, but really are off their rockers. That is what sin will do to a person. Sin makes you crazy.

Lawrence Deptola Of Utica Attempts To Rob Three Banks With A Toilet Plunger
“Lawrence Deptola is flush out of luck.Deptola, 49, of Utica, New York, allegedly tried to rob three banks — unsuccessfully — using a toilet plunger, WKTV News reports.At about 1:30 on Thursday afternoon, Utica Police responded to a report of an armed robbery at a Key Bank location. Deptola, plunger in hand, entered the branch and started screaming obscenities, demanding that bank employees put money in a bag. He threatened tellers with the suction-stick, police said. Cops arrived on the scene after receiving calls from two other banks, which Deptola also allegedly demanded money from.”

Woman strips naked at DIA
“A female passenger at Denver International Airport caused a stir Tuesday morning when she stripped naked in the middle of Concourse B, airport officials said. The incident happened at about 8:45 a.m. when, according to DIA spokeswoman Jenny Schiavone, the woman was caught smoking a cigarette at gate B81, in a non-smoking area. At some point after airport workers told her to extinguish the cigarette, the woman took off her clothes. It wasn’t immediately clear why. However, Denver Police say it was unrelated to the smoking issue. Authorities eventually transported the woman to a hospital, Schiavone said. She was not arrested and does not face charges.”

Exorcist wanted in Saskatoon
“A case of what is being called possible demonic possession in Saskatoon has prompted local church officials to consider the need for an exorcist.CBC News spoke with a Catholic priest involved in the case, which arose in March, and agreed not to identify participants in order to protect their privacy. According to church officials, a priest was called to a Saskatoon home by a woman who said her uncle showed signs of being possessed by the devil. The woman believed a priest’s blessing could help the distraught man. At the home, the priest encountered a shirtless middle-aged man, slouched on a couch and holding his head in his hands. The man had used a sharp instrument to carve the word Hell on his chest. When the priest entered the room, the man spoke in the third person, saying “He belongs to me. Get out of here,” using a strange voice. The priest told CBC News that he had never seen anything like this and was concerned enough to call police, for safety reasons. He said he then blessed the man, saying he belonged to the good side, to Jesus. With that, the man’s voice returned to normal for a short time. The unusual voice returned when police arrived, and the priest continued to bless the man until he resumed a more normal composure.”

Secret Service agents busted because they refused to pay hooker: source
“The dozen Secret Service agents sent home after a prostitution scandal in Colombia were busted after at least one of them refused to pay a hooker, sources said. The scandal — a black eye for the United States’ reputation abroad — was revealed Friday before President Obama arrived in Cartagena for the Summit of the Americas.The 12 agents were part of an advance team meant to secure a local hotel before the summit began — yet their attention apparently turned to taking advantage of Colombia’s policy of legal prostitution.“They had arranged to have a bunch of prostitutes come by and one of the agents refused to pay a prostitute,” said author Ronald Kessler, one of the leading experts on the Secret Service. “Yes, doubly good judgement there.” Kessler, who was briefed on the investigation by his sources within the agency, told the Daily News Saturday that the spurned hooker went to the police to report the lack of payment. The local authorities then notified the U.S. officials, who immediately recalled the 12 agents back to Washington. “Their careers are over,” said Kessler. “Number one, it is against basic ethics to go to a prostitute,” he continued. “Number two, it is incredibly embarrassing to the White House.”“And number three,” he continued. “It could leave them open to blackmail and a possible assassination attempt.” “

Crazy, huh?!

Posted in surrender

Surrender to Christ

Posted on by elizabethprata

Our pastor said today that there is a difference between saying “I commit to Jesus” and “I surrender to Jesus”. He’s right of course. The commitment is a personal choice, and we are still in control. Surrender is an acknowledgement that we are Jesus’s and it is HIS will be done.

John MacArthur had a good sermon on the theme a while ago: “Slaves of Christ“, reminding us that when we read the word bondservant or servant in the bible, that the Greek word is actually doulos, meaning slave. We are slaves. Our will is not what’s best for us, it is HIS will that is best for us.

The understanding that He knows best means we have to trust Him. In cases where sight may be faulty or circumstances may be hidden, God is in it, behind it, and supports it, and He knows what is best. We can’t tell, and we don’t know. We see through a glass darkly. Trust Him. Surrender.

Spurgeon said, “When we come to the end of self we come to the beginning of Christ.”

Surrender is not a popular concept for American Christians, particularly. We were raised to believe we are exceptional. We are imbued with a sense of purpose and self-sufficiency and git ‘er done mentality. That is counter to the kind of relationship God demands, where He and He alone is the boss. But to have a proper understanding of His position as the Most High, and us as (forgiven) sinners of the most low, we become His slaves. And He will raise us up on the last day, (John 6:40) to offer us our inheritance and to begin the relationship of co-heirs with Him (Romans 8:17). Until then, brethren, we are His slaves. The question for this week is, do we act like it?

Posted in ruin porn

The new visual genre of "ruin porn"

Posted on by elizabethprata

Detroit is the poster child for the ruined economic times in which we live. Detroit is literally crumbling away. I’ve posted many articles about how the city is struggling to keep the street lights on, keep ahead of the crime, the dwindling or AWOL police and fire department workers, urban blight, and condemned homes. Now here comes a story today from Jalopnik

“Jalopnik” is the nick-name of a Yahoo! writer of things automobile. In today’s article, Jalopnik posted a story of the economic times that has driven a Detroit man to live inside an abandoned auto manufacturing plant. The author Jalopnik (Matt Hardigree) uses a term in the first sentence of the article. “Ruin porn”. Ruin porn, or a fetish for images of ruin and decay, is defined this way,

“Hearing “Detroit” today brings to mind some ideas specific to the post-2000s: a city emptied by the flight of business, money and population, the crisis faced by American car makers during the economic crisis, a bunch of grand buildings built while times were flush and now as empty and silent as a modern Stonehenge. The last idea, the connection of Detroit with its failing, crumbling architecture, has now become such a dominant visual path for artists depicting the city that an entire genre has arisen: Detroit ruin porn. In a Studio 360 segment, Jennifer Guerra explores why artists create ruin porn and how Detroit citizens are reacting to it. In an interesting conversation, Guerra talks to Dan Austin, editor of the architecture information site Buildings of Detroit. Austin notes that artists and photographers from all over the world have contacted him to act as their guide to Detroit’s ruins, help for quick photo and art projects. These “parachuters” leave Detroit just as quickly as they arrived, contributing little but to the city’s image of decay. Ruin has become Detroit’s brand: what the city is known for is its slow death, like Rome in collapse.”

A city, emblematic of a culture, in slow collapse. Hard truth, isn’t it?

This is an example of ruin porn from Hyperallergenic

Appropriateness of ruin porn as a visual artistic genre aside, you are familiar with ruin porn, I am sure. It seems that every poster of a movie or trailer clip of one has an iconic image these days of a post-apocalyptic ruined city. Just think of movies such as The Road, The Book of Eli, Falling Skies, 2012, Hunger Games, and even the post-apocalyptic television ad during the 2012 Super Bowl for Chevy, which, if you remember, ends with a plague of frogs raining down on the men who had survived the apocalypse. Some ‘entertainment’… The 1969 Super Bowl top ad featured Wiley Coyote chasing a Plymouth through a cartoon desert. Innocent fun. In 2012, the top super bowl car ad featured scenes of total ruin, smoking hulks, twisted charred building remains, and a truck that can drive through it all. Ugh. But ruin porn sells.

The Atlantic tried to psychoanalyze ruin porn in January of this year in an article titled The Psychology of Ruin Porn. In another recent article, Grist, a green magazine, addressed this new “porn” in a positive light, essentially trying to put a positive spin on urban collapse by saying brightly, ‘hey! with all the abandoned lots we can grow mini-farms in between dodging rats and vigilante gunfire!’ Here is their excerpt–

Beyond ‘ruin porn’: Film gives farm’s-eye view of Detroit
“What happens to a post-industrial city? How does it revive itself amidst the ruins of a disappearing way of life? In Detroit, modern America’s favorite example of urban decay, the auto industry left behind pockets of resilience: “Growtown” is full of urban farms flourishing in backyards and abandoned lots, like wildflowers sprouting from the ash of a charred forest.”

So Matt Hardigree’s article about the documentary that was recently made of the man living in the abandoned Detroit plant that opens with a reference to ‘ruin porn’:

Meet Allan Hill, the man who lives In Detroit’s abandoned Packard Auto Plant
“Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of Detroit “ruin porn” is it inherently ignores the very real people who still live in the city. Now there’s a convergence — the amazing story of Allan Hill, the man who legally lives inside the city’s abandoned Packard Auto Plant.What’s most surprising about this moving mini-documentary is Hill’s “quality of life” doesn’t look as terrible as you’d imagine, nor does his reasoning for choosing to stay in the largest abandoned factory in the world seem so unsound. Yet, Hill has power, Internet access, a welding setup, and a small kitchen. He even maintains a webcam. The owner apparently gave him his blessing so long as Hill works as a custodian of the property. He reminds me of the Prophet Amos, whom God appointed to tell the Israelites to stop letting the wealthiest few prosper at the hands of the poorest. This was not a popular message as it came at a time when Israel was doing fairly well. Amos also told them to prepare themselves for judgement, especially from a foreign nation. Amos 9:13-15– “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills, and I will bring my people Israel back from exile.”They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,” says the LORD your God.”

Leave it to the syndrome of the frog slowly boiling in water for an article to state that a man living in an abandoned manufacturing plant isn’t so bad really, as circumstances go…I guess by recent comparison, it isn’t. By comparison 20 years ago, it’s unthinkable. As this blogger said, “Living in the Rust Belt one becomes accustomed to what many find shocking. Example: in a period of a few weeks I saw the façade of an abandoned brick building fall out of itself on fire and into the street. Firemen and neighbors gathered around to look. Nobody was surprised really. It was more communal than anything. Then not a few weeks later I went for a jog and came upon a skeleton of twisted metal that had its insides sunken in. It was quiet. The smell was of a cooled burning. Such scenes of destruction are prevalent in the post-industrial setting. Not only that, the commonness of vacancy, disassembly, and decay can be damn near Mad Max-ian. Don’t believe me? Spend a day in Detroit. Chunks of the city feel like the real-life version of the fictional setting in Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road.”

Below, poster of movie The Road

Below, actual photo of Detroit, Peggy Turbett, Plain Dealer

Note that the secular author writing about the man living in the abandoned plant likened the scene to the prophet Amos. Many times recently I’ve mentioned that in seeking meaning of the incomprehensible crumbling of our infrastructure, cities, economy, culture, that people turn to biblical references. This is most commonly seen in weather reporting. Typically reporters will more often these days use phrases like “of biblical proportions”. Wiktionary defines that phrase as: “Of or pertaining to a natural disaster or other cataclysmic event so immense that it brings to mind biblical accounts of horrific catastrophes. Ex: The tsunami wrought destruction of biblical proportions.”

We can all see the collapses before us. This real collapse is reflected in the culture’s incessant fascination with apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic visual images, movies, television, novels, and comics. As Christians we know why the collapses are happening. Lost people don’t. But the eternity He placed inside us (Ecclesiastes 3:11) prompts us all at some point or on some level to turn to the bible for answers. That is where Christians come in. First, we have to know the bible. Second, we have to know it confidently enough to share its truths about the last days with people who are questioning  things about the apocalypse. Third, we have to have joy in the promise of His coming! The joy will be a light against all the dark, post-apocalyptic visions. Jesus always shines!

Posted in freak weather, hail

Incredible photo of hail storm in Nebraska

Posted on by elizabethprata

Yesterday I’d written about 2 recent unusual hail events, one in China and one in Texas. You can read that essay titled “Freak hailstorm amazes, hard to believe” here, containing photos and explanation from the bible. Here is another hail storm, occurring now in Norfolk Nebraska from @TWCBreaking (The Weather Channel Breaking News)

The LORD is in control of the earth, and He has storehouses of hail. (Job 38:22)

Exodus 9:18
Behold, tomorrow about this time I will cause very heavy hail to rain down, such as has not been in Egypt since its founding until now.

Psalm 78:47
He destroyed their vines with hail, And their sycamore trees with frost.

Isaiah 28:2
Behold, the Lord has a mighty and strong one, Like a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, Like a flood of mighty waters overflowing, Who will bring them down to the earth with His hand.

Posted in bible jesus, end time, freak storms, hailstorm

Freak hailstorm amazes, hard to believe

Posted on by elizabethprata

Have you ever heard of people getting killed by hail? I haven’t so much, either. I’ve heard of lightning strikes, and deaths by tornadoes, hurricanes, and windstorms. But not hail. Until yesterday:

“Hailstones the size of golf balls have reportedly killed three people and injured 25 others in China. The giant pieces of ice pelted several rural areas in east China’s Jiangxi province overnight and on Wednesday morning, resulting in the deaths of three people, the Xinhua news agency said. The hailstones were said to be as large as 3.5cm in diameter and weighed 18g on average. The storms forced the evacuation of more than 700 people, destroyed about 2,700 hectares of crops and damaged more than 900 houses, a spokesman with the Jiangxi provincial department of civil affairs said. Around 170,000 Jiangxi residents have been affected by the freak weather, the spokesman added.”

So let’s take a look at whether the impression I have of the rarity of death by hailstones is legitimate or not:

The folks at American Association for the Advancement of Science; ScienceNet Links were asked the same thing.

“Every year, tornadoes, hurricanes, and snowstorms claim lives and cause injuries. But strangely, hailstorms, which pelt the ground with hard balls of ice, never seem to hit human targets. A listener called Science Update to ask why. We’ve all heard stories about golf ball- and baseball-size hail denting cars and damaging houses. So that prompted Lee Greenfield of Washington, D.C., to ask why we never hear about people getting hurt by hail. We checked with Harold Brooks, a research meteorologist at The National Severe Storm Lab in Norman, Oklahoma. He says hail stones have to be a couple inches in diameter to cause injury. But hail of that size is pretty rare. And hail that could really seriously hurt you—getting to be baseball-size and larger—there aren’t very many storms each year that do that. And even within a storm that does produce hail that size, not very many of the stones are that big. Most of the stones are much smaller than that. … the listener’s perception—that relatively few people get killed or injured by hail—is correct.”

So just as I was mulling all that over, today I read of another hailstorm that was freak to say the least.

4 feet of hail? Massive hail storm hits Texas panhandle

“DALLAS–Maintenance crews worked Thursday to clear roads after a storm dumped several inches of hail on parts of the Texas Panhandle, trapping motorists in muddy drifts that were waist-to-shoulder high. The storm left so much hail in its wake that workers had to use snow plows to clear the piles from the road.”It was crazy,” National Weather Service Meteorologist Justyn Jackson said about the strange storm, which hit Wednesday afternoon. The hail was “real small” but there was a lot of it in a concentrated area, accumulating 2- to 4-feet deep, he said. The rural area where the storm struck was mainly ranch land, about 25 miles north of Amarillo and south of Dumas. Rainwater gushed across the parched land, washing dirt and then mud into the hail, pushing it all onto U.S. 287, Potter County Sheriff Brian Thomas said. “There were just piles of hail,” said Maribel Martinez with the Amarillo/Potter/Randall Office of Emergency Management. “Some of the cars were just buried in hail and people were trapped in their cars.”

This story from the UK Daily Mail is pretty interesting. Apparently even though the US Weather Service confirmed the freak weather event, people were dubious. So they posted photos on the US Weather Service Facebook page and people were still dubious. Skeptics derided the unlikelihood of the event as actually having occurred, it was so outside the scope of understanding and expectation as a weather happening. The Daily Mail focused on the skepticism part, and titled their article, “Hail No!“

“A small town in Texas was hit with a whopper of a storm Wednesday morning that left four feet of hail in its wake.Officials from the National Weather Service in Amarillo said that the storm was so severe and the hail so unrelenting that a major highway in Potter County was completely covered. But the photos of the one-off event are so unbelievable that an army of online sceptics have cast doubt on their authenticity, suggesting that instead they may simply show large rocks. When the weather service posted a photograph to Facebook of a firefighter next to the ice — which reached all the way up to his chest — commenters couldn’t believe their eyes. That just doesn’t even look real! Dang!’ Bridget Hefner said on the site. Commenters turned their disbelief into hypotheses, offering alternative explanations to the unbelievable reality. ‘Looks like a bunch of rocks/stones,’ suggested Tiffany Baugh Berry. Another cynical poster wrote: ‘It’s a lite dusting of hail on some damn rocks.’ ‘I can assure you we do not have big rocks like that in West Texas,’ Scotten retorted to MSNBC.com. ‘That was four feet of ice,’ she insisted, adding that the hail was compacted by rain and floodwater across a wide area. She blamed the ice’s rock-like appearance on drought.’We’re very dusty around here,’ she said.”

Here is a raw video from an eyewitness. At about 51 seconds in, one guy says to another, Have you ever seen anything like THIS?” The other guy answers, “No! No I have not.”

Yesterday I noted that the Lord said in His Olivet Discourse of the signs in advance of His coming that “you will hear…”  and the word for hear means to listen, with an attendant figurative meaning of “to hear God’s voice which prompts Him to birth faith within.”

THESE ARE SIGNS FROM GOD, people! Wake UPPPPP.

As far as the localized nature of the Texas hailstorm goes, He has done that before:

“And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another ….” (Amos 4:7)

In the past He has used hail to wake up the population to turn to Him, as well:
“I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the Lord.” (Haggai 2:17)

And He will use hail in the future. Now, if golf ball sized hail can kill, weighing mere ounces, what will a global deluge of 100 pound hail do to people? It will be massive death:

“And huge hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, came down from heaven upon men; and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, because its plague was extremely severe. (Revelation 16:21).

See, by then they know it is God who sends the hail, and for judgment, too, but they are so far gone that they simply blaspheme Him. Don’t let that be you. Repent NOW.

Posted in end time, signs

End time warnings are sent to spark faith

Posted on by elizabethprata

On the Mount of Olives, Jesus sat with his disciples and answered their questions about the end of the age and the signs of His second coming. He answered in specific detail in Matthew 24 and 25, also Mark 13 and Luke 21. It is the longest answer He gave to any question the disciples asked.

The verses in Mt 24:3-6 read: ” Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”

Verse 6 begins with ‘to hear’. I looked up the Greek word to hear, listen is from: akoúō – properly, to hear (listen); (figuratively) to hear God’s voice which prompts Him to birth faith within

These signs are warnings to allow the Spirit to give birth to the faith within. A parallel reference to Matthew 24:6 is given as Romans 10:17: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”

He speaks through His word (the bible) and He speaks through the creation.

Of those who won’t listen and won’t allow the birth of faith inside them by heeding the end times signs, I am reminded of Paul’s warning in Romans 1:18, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,’

They suppress the nascent flame of faith that the signs are meant to kindle!

Please listen to what Jesus is telling us in these days. He loves you and wants for your sins to be forgiven so He may embrace you as friend on Judgment Day (1 Timothy 2:4), and not cast you alive into the Lake of Fire as an enemy. The difference between friend and enemy is a personal recognition of our own sins, and asking Jesus to forgive them, making Him the Lord and Savior of your life- this life AND the next one.

Posted in doctrine, magi

Pharisees & Magi, a tale of two intellectuals

Posted on by elizabethprata

Here is the text I’m considering today:

Wise Men from the East
“Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet:
‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
Are not the least among the rulers of Judah;
For out of you shall come a Ruler
Who will shepherd My people Israel.’”

“Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the young Child, and when you have found Him, bring back word to me, that I may come and worship Him also.” When they heard the king, they departed; and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way.” (Matthew 2:1-12).

This was the beginning of the long journey of hate between Jesus and the Sadducces, Pharisees, and scribes. Today we will be comparing them against the Wise Men, and look to the lesson we can learn from both of the groups’ different responses to learning doctrine.

The chief priests of the day were from the highest class. They were the most learned men, the most advantaged, the richest, and the most powerful. Their role was to perform sacrifices, serve at the altar, and of course bless and teach the people.

The scribes were also higher class and powerful. They were learned men whose main job was the transmit the holy writings and to interpret them. Because of the intensive proximity to the holy writings, they became thoroughly familiar with them. They were held in esteem and they held authority of leadership.

The ancient writings contained information about the promised Messiah’s coming. Christ is all throughout the Old Testament. There are ancient scriptures that describe what the Messiah will come to do, will be like, even when He was coming. The specific timetable is found in Daniel 9:24-27.

I mentioned that the relationship between the Sadducees, Pharisees, and scribes was a journey of hate because they hated Jesus from the moment his birth was announced in the above scriptures and really ramped up during His adult ministry, culminating in their plot to kill Him.

That was a thumbnail sketch of the chief priests and scribes. Now let’s turn to the Magi.

The Magi, or wise men as they are known, were a sect of men in Persia, history indicating were a priestly tribe of people from among the Medes. Their main point of existence was to study astronomy (the heavens and the bodies within it) and astronomy (divination by those celestial bodies). They were such an ancient people and so learned that they became part of the highest classes and were powerful and well-respected. They had the king’s ear. Their priestly line, like the Jewish Priests, was hereditary.

Now it came to pass that the Jews were taken into captivity to Babylon and the rising star among those taken captive so to speak was Daniel. Eventually, Daniel attained a very high place. When Daniel interpreted the King’s dream, Nebuchadnezzar made Daniel master over all the Magi (Dan 2:48). There never was a more Godly man influencing a pagan people than Daniel.

Daniel’s influence was so great that the Magi kept alive the knowledge of the future coming Messiah-King from generation to generation. They kept this information alive for 600 hundred years! The Magi went on, learning and learning, but always holding that important information from Daniel foremost, until the signs came to pass, and the star appeared. When the Magi saw it, they knew.

Let’s contrast the pagan Magi with the “holy” chief priests and scribes. What you have are two groups of intellectuals. They both have kept information about the coming Messiah intact for hundreds of years. However, that is where the similarity ends.

The chief priests and scribes were caught flat-footed. When the Magi showed up, there is no scripture saying that the scribes or chief priests had been celebrating the Messiah’s birth.

When the Magi saw the sign, what did they do? They put their knowledge into action. They packed up, assembled gifts, and set off across 900 miles of desert.

When the chief priests and scribes heard the news, what did they do? They were troubled. Later, they conspired against Jesus. (Matthew 27:1; John 11:57).

The Magi’s response to the news of His arrival was proper: giving gifts, prayer, worship and adulation. (Mt 2:11). The took the knowledge they had protected through generations, and put it into action.

The chief priests and scribes were more interested in heaping up their treasures for themselves, retaining honor, and taking. The knowledge they protected through generations they used to feed their egos, pocketbooks, and through their inaction, ultimately squashed their faith into a dead, putrid thing.

Learning is good. We need to know doctrine, theology and proper principles for interpreting His word. But what will we DO with the information? Will we put it into action? Or will it rule us, and we become haughty with the knowledge but never reaching the heart? The faith the knowledge is supposed to inspire having become cold?

The lesson is clear: knowledge can be used for good or for ill. It can stiffen into something as hard and brittle as bones. It could be said that the chief priests and scribes were coprolites, petrified dung. It can be said that the Magi, the pagan diviners of a foreign culture, were a caravan of torches, marching across the pages of the bible from beyond the Euphrates to the little house in Bethlehem where the Messiah child lived- in search of the worthy King and object of worship.

Doctrine is all about the motivation for which you learn it and whether one uses that knowledge to exalt Him or to exalt the self. Do we take the knowledge we’ve gained and say “He’s so wonderful?” Or do we say, “I’m so smart!” The chief priests and scribes took knowledge of God and made a fortress out of it, eventually preventing themselves from being able scale their self-imposed walls and meet the Messiah. The chief priests and scribes are good examples of the warning Paul gave to Timothy: always learning and never able to come to knowledge of the truth.’ (2 Tim 3:7). The Magi were motivated to learn about the coming Messiah and took that knowledge and were led to worship.

My prayer for you is that what you learn about Jesus today inspires you to put the knowledge of Him into action, to exalt Him, worship Him, to give to Him, and to praise Him. We must be ever learning, coming to the knowledge that He IS truth.

Posted in earthquake, end time, indonesia

Is God speaking through the Indonesian earthquakes?

Posted on by elizabethprata

Today there have been two mega-quakes in Indonesia, with major aftershocks. They occurred in the same place the terrible 2004 quake occurred, near Banda Aceh, which sparked a tsunami that killed almost a quarter million people. Thankfully today, no one has yet been reported killed (a miracle in itself!) but tsunami warnings went up in over a dozen nations almost immediately. Later it was discovered that the were not the kind of quakes that cause tsunamis. By this afternoon, the warnings had been lifted.

Three weeks ago, after a large earthquake in Mexico, I posted information about the Mexican quake and also looked at the bigger picture by asking ‘are there more quakes?’ Jesus said in Matthew 24:7 that as a sign of His soon coming there would be earthquakes in diverse places, and He also said in the next verse that the time would be like birth pangs. It is generally understood that because birthpangs increase in intensity and frequency as the birth gets closer that the signs He listed would also increase in the same manner. In that essay I posted a chart. I searched the USGS database for quakes in each of the large quake magnitudes, year by year. I plotted the results. I compared them against the annual average the USGS uses as a benchmark. Voila, here is the result:

Given that the number of earthquakes are rising, what is the percentage change? Here is the percentage change in 2011 over the annual average number of quakes USGS says we can expect:

5.0-5.9 mag: 72% UP
6.0-6.9 mag: 38% UP
7.0-7.9 mag: 36% UP
8.0-9.0 mag: 0% change

Percentage change in 2012 so far:
8.0-9.0 mag: 100% UP

People are curious about the connection to the end times and earthquakes. Many people wonder, is there a connection? Is there a Godly purpose to earthquakes? Yes. Yes there is.

God has used earthquakes for several reasons. Here are just a few. In the Old Testament, Mount Sinai ‘trembled violently’ before God spoke to Moses. (Exodus 19:18).

God used an earthquake to demonstrate the outcome of rebellion against Him. The ground opened, swallowing Korah and his men. (Numbers 16:31-32).

God used an earthquake to show that despite His power to create an earthquake, Elijah could also hear Him in the still, small voice. (I Kings 19:11).

The great earthquake at the time of King Uzziah was spoken of by Amos. Uzziah had grown insolent and haughty. The LORD used the earthquake to remind the king of the LORD’S power. That one was a judgment quake.

In Matthew 24:7 Jesus told His disciples (and us) that in the last days there would be earthquakes in various places as one of the signs of His coming. (Mt 24:7).

In Matthew 27:51-54 when Jesus died on the cross a great earthquake occurred, splitting the Temple veil in two and resurrecting many saints from their graves. This was a vivid demonstration of His power, and as a witness to the truth that Jesus is His Son.

In Revelation, quakes are mentioned 7 times. In Revelation 11, when the Two Witnesses are resurrected, “In the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. In the earthquake seven thousand people were killed, and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven.” (Rev 11:13). He will use that future quake to show His glory and many will respond.

In today’s twin 8.0-plus quakes, The UK Daily Mail reports, “In the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh, terrified residents screamed ‘God is great!’ as they jumped into cars and the backs of motorcycles, clogging streets as they fled to high ground.” I hope that of those who yelled God is great that they were speaking of the One True God and that they repented of their sins and sought Jesus as Savior.

An anonymous commenter posted on the previous blog essay about earthquakes, the following wisdom:

“God uses these things to calls us back to him…the Lord continues to come after us. He will keep reaching toward us all, to save us all. It will become more and more clear, and the choice will become very clear. Recently I had a young man who found out how evil music has become. He went away from it, and then made the clear decision to stay with it, evil or not. He made a clear decision. I think that the Lord will use things and people, so we make a clear choice. No more waffling, no more half-measures…either you are with the Lord, or you are not…”

As the LORD said to Ezekiel about His messages, “As for them, whether they listen or not– for they are a rebellious house– they will know that a prophet has been among them.” (Ez 2:5). By the end of time at the Judgment Seat, no one will be able to say that God didn’t use use various means to warn them. However, not all will make the choice to respond to His messages, whether they are bible verses, a sermon, an earthquake, or the still small voice of the Spirit. I believe the commenter is right. We are rapidly approaching the time when the entire world will have made the choice yea or nay. By the time Revelation 13 arrives, all the world will have either taken the mark of the beast and thus are condemned, (Rev 14:9) or will have chosen Christ – and be martyred in this life (Rev 20:4). By Revelation 13 it will be one, or the other. No middle ground. In the Tribulation, a person must declare for one or the other. There will be no atheism. No person saying ‘I believe what I believe, it’s private’. There will be no Islam. No Catholics. No Pope. There will only be people who are forced to take the mark to worship the beast and its image, bowing down to it (Rev 13:15-16), and people who refuse because they love Jesus. At the very end, there will be a clear choice.

The middle ground is rapidly shrinking even now, prior to the Tribulation. People are becoming entrenched in their views, for or against Jesus. Are you with the One True God, the God who shakes the world? Or are you not? Time is drawing to a close, possibly through death with the choice taken away from you and your final fate sealed forever. Or you may live on a while longer, waffling until after the rapture, when coming to the Lord will be hard and nearly impossible, only to end up facing the most evil beast there ever was. Please heed to the signs now. “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door.” (Matthew 24:32-33).

Posted in THIS A VIDEO TAKEN BY A STATE TROOPER DASH CAM. SEE HOW QUICKLY YOUR LIFE COULD CHANGE BY TAKING YOUR EYES OFF THE ROAD FOR A SPLIT SECOND.

Horrific crash on Russian Highway

Posted on by elizabethprata

The following video is making the rounds on Facebook now. Many times the things making the rounds on Facebook are hoaxes. I looked this one up and it seems that it really IS an actual crash that occurred in February in Russia. Snopes the hoax investigation website says, “According to an article in the Russian newspaper /Komsomolskaya Pravda (as best we can make out through translation software), the accident shown in the video clip linked above took place on 24 February 2012 on the M-7 Highway in Russia. As described by the news account, a 32-year-old Moscow resident named Alexander (no last name given) lost control of his Nissan Navara, collided with another vehicle, and then drifted into an oncoming traffic lane where he was hit head-on by a Freightliner big rig. The driver of the Nissan was killed, and the driver of the big rig suffered moderate injuries.”

“The particular stretch of road where this collision took place has apparently been site of several deadly accidents in recent years, including a 2009 bus crash that killed 12 passengers and a 2007 automobile accident that took the life of Russian actor Aleksandr Dedjushko, his wife, and his son. “No available information documents the suggestions that the car that taped the accident was a police vehicle, or that the driver of the Nissan was texting or reading at the time he lost control of his car.”

The 34 second video is not graphic but it is disturbing.

The Christian response is to remind one and all of the following truth, as if the glaring truth didn’t come through in the video:

“Man’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.” (Job 14:5)

“Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be…” (Psalm 139:16)

“a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,” (Ecclesiastes 3:2)

“Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (James 4:14).

We need to be ready to meet the Maker at any moment! “For he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2)

Are you ready? Is today the day of your salvation? It may be your day of death. We never know.