Posted in Uncategorized

The seasons are changing, it is the season of weeping and woe

Posted on by elizabethprata

I hope this fine spring week has offered you beautiful glimpses of God’s creative intellect and His wonderful power. We always enjoy the march of the seasons. “He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down.” (Psalm 104:19, KJV). Wherever we are in the world, reading this newsletter, we see and understand the times and seasons. We look for the robin, the crocus, the ladyslipper. The orderliness and consistency of the seasons since His ordination of them is a comfort.

Yet in Jeremiah 8:7 Jeremiah says of the seasons, meaning God’s season, “Yes, the stork in the heaven knows her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the LORD.” In the natural history of Israel, Barnes notes explains, “Jeremiah appeals to the obedience which migratory birds render to the law of their natures. The “stork” arrives about March 21, and after a six weeks’ halt departs for the north of Europe. It takes its flight by day, at a vast height in the air (“in the heaven”). The appearance of the “turtle-dove” is one of the pleasant signs of the approach of spring.”

As for the part of the Jeremiah verse which speaks to His judgments, Matthew Henry holds sway here: “Sin is backsliding; it is going back from the way that leads to life, to that which leads to destruction. They would not attend to the warning of conscience. They did not take the first step towards repentance: true repentance begins in serious inquiry as to what we have done, from conviction that we have done amiss. They would not attend to the ways of providence, nor understand the voice of God in them, ver. 7. They know not how to improve the seasons of grace, which God affords. They would not attend to the written word. Many enjoy abundance of the means of grace, have Bibles and ministers, but they have them in vain. They will soon be ashamed of their devices. The pretenders to wisdom were the priests and the false prophets. They flattered people in sin, and so flattered them into destruction, silencing their fears and complaints with, All is well. Selfish teachers may promise peace when there is no peace; and thus men encourage each other in committing evil; but in the day of visitation they will have no refuge to flee unto.”

How perfect and prescient His Word is! What was true then is also true now. So many are in a season of backsliding sin, of wasting this season of grace. My statement goes toward the lost and Christians as well. The lines of demarcation are widening, and more Christians than ever are uncovered as pale, weak, lukewarm. It is the season of woe, because “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isiaah 5:20). It is the upside-down season. This is the season of proclaiming sin as good and Jesus as evil. Man becomes more like the animals every day.

In Numbers where God is dispensing instruction to the Priesthood, God said, “I am giving you the service of the priesthood as a gift.” (Numbers 18:7b). It is a gift to serve Him. It is a gift to dedicate one’s life to him. It is a gift to be close to Him. It was a gift to the people who needed priests. He also gave the Prophets as a gift and in the New Testament, the gift of prophecy is also a gift. (1 Corinthians 12:10; Romans 12:6).

I feel deeply for Jeremiah the Prophet, who was known as The Weeping Prophet. Jeremiah lived in a time when the People’s pride was dragging them backward into sin and away from the LORD. (Jeremiah 13:15-27- “Pride precedes captivity”.) He lived when the people’s sins had piled up to the point where they were actually living in their last days. Jeremiah was the last prophet sent to preach to the Southern Kingdom. The searing effects of their sins had hardened them so much that no one ever listened to Jeremiah. He never had one convert. “Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and the dictates of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.” (Jeremiah 7:24).

Unfaithful Israel, engraving by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld

Jeremiah preached and spoke and prophesied, but yet he was hated and reviled. They did not listen. He had no friends. He had no wife even to weep with, for the LORD had forbidden him to marry, knowing the grievous deaths that would soon take place in His coming judgment of the southern kingdom. God was actually sparing Jeremiah THAT special kind of grief, but Jeremiah still cried out, “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! (Jeremiah 9:1). He is saying here that he mourns so deeply for what he knows, that he does not have even enough tears to weep for the people.

“My mourning for the sins and desolations of my people has already exhausted the source of tears: I wish to have a fountain opened there, that I may weep day and night for the slain of my people. This has been the sorrowful language of many a pastor who has preached long to a hardened, rebellious people, to little or no effect,” says Clark’s Commentary.

This is how I feel. Is it how you feel? Do you weep for the people and nations that sin, who allow sin to drag their hearts to destruction? Do you rejoice in gladness for the warnings and grace the Lord bestows, but weep for those who refuse to heed? Knowing the brutality that awaits them in the Tribulation, punishment for living a brutal life of sin against Jesus? I do. I weep especially for all those who believe they are saved and are a sanctified Christian, but will discover to their horror at the rapture that they were not called up. They were left behind. “My sorrow is beyond healing, My heart is faint within me!” (Jer 8:18). Jeremiah could clearly see the people’s pride and sin and he could clearly see the coming consequences, destruction of the nation and destruction of many hearts.

I ask you this, gently, lovingly: at prayer meeting, we weep and cry and mourn for Aunty Tilly’s big toe, but do we weep and mourn for souls? Sob, tear our clothes, wish that our very head was a fountain that we could shed many tears for them? We speak of His love these days and His joy, of peace in knowing Him. All these things are good. But where is the grief? Where are our weeping prophets (Christians) today?

Jeremiah begged them not to succumb to the false gods who lulled them into security and which did not make them feel guilty or convict of sin. They did not listen, and they were destroyed. It shall be so again. Prepare your hearts. Jesus is coming soon. Don’t be left behind.

Posted in Uncategorized

Studying John the Baptist, the Spirit is a great teacher

Posted on by elizabethprata

We had a nice study at church Wednesday night. We are going through Matthew, and we are up to Matthew 3. This chapter introduces an adult John the Baptist. and I loved exploring it. The people in our study will talk and share and contribute, which makes it interesting and collegial.

This blog post serves a dual purpose. It is good to employ some metacognition when studying the Word. That means thinking about your thinking. Knowing about your knowing. When you’re learning, understand not only what you’re learning, but how you’re learning it. To that end, I want to share what I learned about John the Baptist this week, and also how I learned it. I am hoping that this will raise your own awareness of how the Spirit may be working in your own study life.

So I was reading Matthew 3. When I first begin to read a section or book, I just read it. I let the words flow and I don’t stop to consult a concordance or look at a commentary. I just read. I let the word engulf me and wash me. I think it’s important to let the word speak for itself, uninterrupted.

Then I read it again. At this second reading I also resist the temptation to stop and look up stuff. At the third reading, I start digging. Now, at the first or second reading, but certainly by the third, a word or a verse will “jump out” at me. You know what I mean. If it happens at first I jot a note down and keep reading. But by the third reading, the Spirit seems to be pulling me to one certain point in the verses. This time is was John being a Nazirite. I mean, there is a rich variety of points to ponder in the chapter. Certainly John’s message of repentance, there’s the reference to the prophecy in Isaiah, there’s Jesus’s baptism, there is the history behind the Pharisees and Sadducees. But the Spirit pulled me to the behavior of John and whether he was a Nazirite from birth.

So then I pray. I ask the Spirit to dispense wisdom to me in what He wants me to learn. It is one of His ministries. (Ephesians 1:16-17; James 1:5; 1 Corinthians 2:9-10). After prayer, I begin research. In this case, I looked up Nazirite in the bible. Matthew 3 does not state that John the Baptist was a Nazirite, but Luke 1:13-17 seems to indicate that John would be specially consecrated from birth, and the addition of the prohibition of never drinking wine is one of the Nazirite vows. The verses say nothing about the most physically evident of the prohibitions, that the person making the vow shall never cut his hair as long as he is under the consecration, but I believe circumstances are such that I believe John was a Nazirite from birth. Luke 1:80 states he went to live in the deserts and from then on he consecrated himself to God completely, separating from society.

After I looked up the Nazirite vows in the bible in Numbers 6:1-21, and also looked up the verses relating to other Nazirites from birth- namely Samson and Samuel, I stopped to pray again. I asked the Spirit to continue to lead me in the direction He wanted me to go to learn what the Lord was making known. I can’t say I know how I got to Numbers and Luke and Judges and Samuel 2, just that it is a work of the Spirit to lead me to the right verses that relate to the study I’m engaged in. It is an answer to my prayer to be led and taught.

It is really interesting, how the Spirit works in this. A study always builds on something that came before and will build on something that will come after. A year might go by, and then some verse will “jump out at me” in another study of the future and I’ll remember this one, and a connection will be made.

Oftentimes, after I use the bible as primary source in the first through third readings, I’ll listen to a preacher I trust preach on it expositionally. This extends the study. And of course, I’ll go to class and listen to my home teacher and the comments from my fellow saints, folding in the insights gained from those places. The most important thing at this point is two fold: pay attention to what the Spirit says, and make notes. We often pray, but it is equally important to pay attention to the answer to prayer. Don’t send up a prayer for wisdom and insight and then move ahead so fast you leave your ears behind!

I picture the study of the Word as sewing a tapestry. Every nugget of learning through this process is a thread that weaves through the tapestry. The first and most important result of a study is to learn more about God. The bible is His revealed truth to us. It’s the only untainted way to learn Him and His ways. The bible contains words about who God is, what He is doing, what He will do, what he expects, and more. So I ask myself, what did I learn about Him through this? How does what I learned help me understand Him, my position before Him, and/or what I need to do to make corrections in any of the above?

Ultimately, a good bible study for me will include reading the Word, prayer, submission, and open mind, a notebook, and a willingness to use good study aids, such as concordance, commentary, or a solid bible teacher, and participation in my home church.

A good study would not be complete without seeing how the Word can be applied to my life. I ask the Spirit to let me know how to apply this new knowledge. The Word is not only the Word for head knowledge, it is for heart knowledge and for encouraging the saints and applying in life. So I ponder John, being filled with the Spirit, and think about how he consecrated himself so that he would remain pure. I thought about how bold he was to proclaim curses on the Pharisees. I thought about how humble he was to say that his time was over, he must increase and Jesus must increase. His humility was also displayed when Jesus came to John for baptism, and John said he wasn’t worthy to loosen His sandal. There are many messages to learn from John the Baptist, and I am sure the Spirit will reveal more to me in time, along with increasing the fruits He wants borne from this knowledge. Faith into action, based on the prayerfully studying the Word. I love studying the bible. I hope you do too.

Posted in north korea, secret sin

Of North Korea, secrets, and Jesus

Posted on by elizabethprata

It seems that our attention lately has consistently veered between North Korea and the Middle East. Like a ball moving over the net at a tennis match, our heads are scanning left, then right, then left then right…If NK is quiet for a while, there is a coup in Mali. The African coup settles down, only to find NK suddenly preparing to launch a ballistic missile. Then Kim Jong Un goes quiet and there is a rocket attack on Israel. Back and forth, wars, and rumors of wars. Just as Jesus said it would be.

It was unusual that NK’s new leader, Kim Jong Un, spoke for half an hour in public. It was unusual because in the entire time his father Kim Jong Il ruled North Korea from 1994 to 2012, he never spoke in public. That NK is secretive to the outside world is a given, that they are this reclusive and secretive with their own people is another thing entirely.

Source

Fox News reports, “North Koreans are told he graduated from Kim Il Sung Military University and speaks several foreign languages, including English. But his age, marital status and even the name of his late mother — said to be one of Kim Jong Il’s wives, Ko Yong Hui — have never been made public.”

Now that’s secretive. For the most part, Kim Jong Un has kept his personal history a secret, even from schoolmasters in Switzerland and from schoolmates.

However, Jesus knows all. He knows Kim Jong Un’s heart, his motivations, his intent. “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12:14). In Psalm 90:8 we read, “You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.”

Of that last verse, I read a book last year that brought that situation to light. It was an edgy book, I read about a third of it and then stopped. It was kind of like an apocalyptic, dystopian Pilgrim’s Progress. The protagonist was wandering from place to place and at one point he wound up in a city. It was a dark city but he stayed for a bit because it was intriguing, the sins of the city, I mean. So all the people were streaming toward this large building and he went in. It was a show! In the center of a massive auditorium with seats all around it, like a boxing ring without the ropes, a raised stage was lit up. He settled in his seat and as the lights darkened, he saw that the wife and children he thought he had lost were sitting in the front row. He tried to get to them but couldn’t. And then the show started. Suddenly the stage was transformed into a hotel room, and inside the hotel room on the bed was the protagonist, or a replica of him! And the woman he had been in an adulterous affair came in and prepared to sit on the bed with him. Oh, no, the man realized, this was a show of the secret sin he had committed, and his wife and kids were watching!

He was in agonies of embarrassment and shame, and his wife began to cry as the scene shifted to its sordid conclusion.

I never forgot that part of the book, a book whose title I can’t even remember now. But I remember that scene. In His time, on His day, every secret shame, every hidden sin, every private motivation will be brought to light;

“Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God.” (1 Corinthians 4:5).

All the kings of the earth will be laid low, those who do not know Jesus that is. Men like Kin Jong Un, who oppress an entire nation and live in utter luxury, choosing to reveal this or that about himself, deciding to keep this or that private…all his life and all his deeds and all his works will be revealed. Him and others like him, the great and the small will be judged. (Rev 20:12). Sin grows in the dark, but Jesus is the Light, shining it upon the hearts of all men to expose them.

Even those who do know Jesus, or who or did know Him while they were alive, will wait patiently in line for their turn before the throne at the Bema Seat where our works will be examined and rewarded. (1 Cor 3:13-15; Rom 14:10-12). Ours will be a reward ceremony. However, I work hard  every day to ensure, I hope, that my works bear fruit for His name and are not just hay and stubble to be burned. I hope that there will be things left in the pile that show I was motivated rightly and worked for His name and not my glory. I pray that’s your wish as well.

Remember, every secret thing will be brought out. “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” (Ephesians 5:11). There are no secrets from Jesus. Wait patiently, brethren, and soon Jesus will rectify all private things, all back room deals will be exposed, all undercover deeds will be seen.

“For there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light.” (Mark 4:22).

Posted in dolphin die-off, end time, woke up gay

News tidbits of the weird

Posted on by elizabethprata

Massive Dolphin Die-Off in Peru May Remain a Mystery
“When a retired fisherman called to report that about 1,500 dolphins had washed up dead on Peru’s northern coast, veterinarian Carlos Yaipén’s first reaction was, “That’s impossible.” But when Yaipén traveled up the coast last week, he counted 615 dead dolphins along a 135-kilometer stretch of coastline. Now, the death toll could be as high as 2,800, based on volunteers’ counts. Peru’s massive dolphin die-off is among the largest ever reported worldwide. The strandings, which began in January, are a marine mystery that may never be unraveled.”

As we approach the time of the Tribulation, which is a manifestly supernatural time, we increasingly find events in the news that totally perplex authorities and scientists. In this present Church Age, though the supernatural exists (Ephesians 6:10-20; Hebrews 13:2), we don’t see it in mass quantity. In the Tribulation, they will see the supernatural in mass quantity. The inexplicable will be a fact of life. (Two Witnesses resurrected, rivers and seas turn to blood, demon locusts from the abyss, etc). As we get closer, we see the increasingly inexplicable occurring in increasingly in wider spheres. These events are getting harder to dismiss.

In this next news story, there have been some nasty hail storms lately. I wrote about hail twice this week, here, and here. Hail is devastating to crops. He sends the hail, and for different reasons. (“He destroyed their vines with hail,And their sycamore trees with frost” (Psalm 78:47) and “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)

Hail storm equals crop damage
KINGS COUNTY, Calif. (KMPH) -“This week growers throughout the Valley are accessing the damage of last week’s powerful hail storm that rolled through the area. The hardest struck was to the south, from north Hanford to the Kingsburg area. The total monetary loss is still too hard to predict because the damage was so widespread, but it is in the millions. … Pete Hanse says “Storms like this one I saw maybe one other time, but not very often.”

UK rugby player had stroke, lay in a coma, woke up gay, he says
“I wasn’t interested in women any more. I was definitely gay,” Birch said. “I had never been attracted to a man before. I’d never even had any gay friends. But I didn’t care about who I was before, I had to be true to my feelings.”

Mr Birch is the focus of an upcoming BBC documentary, which explores the question, “the crux of the documentary was whether Birch truly “woke up gay” – was it really a transformation, as he insists, or merely a realisation of something that had been dormant within him his whole life?”

The issue of homosexuality being a neurological fact and not a lifestyle choice has the liberals wetting their pants at the prospect of homosexuality letting them off the hook, and ultimately not being morally culpable to a Holy God. I believe the man int he article was merely actualizing a sin that had lain in his mind all his life. (Mark 7:21-22; Matthew 23:26). Sin is not only what we do, it is what we think. Entertaining sinful thoughts leads to speaking of them, and finally to doing them.

If you find yourself thinking of sins, allow the Spirit to transform your mind by taking every thought captive. (2 Corinthians 10:5). If you hear yourself speaking of sins even in joking fashion, realize that the sinful thoughts are on their way to ensnaring you. Picture them as slimy tentacles, clutching your brain. But the Spirit is powerful and so appealing to Him in penitence will clear the decks for purity of heart and clarity of mind to swoop in again. Don’t dwell in sinful thoughts, and certainly don’t start joking, speaking, or telling of sinful things. “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature (Romans 13:14).”

As for Mr Birch, the Lord will sort that one out. As of now, the gentleman is sinning by living in a homosexual lifestyle. But our Lord is powerful and forgiving, Mr Birch or any homosexual can be saved…if he repents.

Posted in earth crasking, rapture, repent

Quake Expert: Earth Cracking Up

Posted on by elizabethprata

Here is something interesting from the Croatian Times a couple of days ago:

“A leading earthquake scientist has warned that the planet could be cracking up after a series of massive quakes in just 48 hours. Expert Gheorghe Marmureanu – from Romania’s National Institute of Earth Physics – says 39 quakes had hit the globe within two days. The series started with two massive quakes in Indonesia measuring 8.6 and 8.2 on the Richter scale rapidly followed by three more only slightly smaller in Mexico within hours.”

“There is no doubt that something is seriously wrong. There have been too many strong earthquakes,” said Marmureanu. He added: “The quakes are a surprise that cannot be easily explained by current scientific knowledge. With the Indonesian quake for example, statistically, there should be one big earthquake in this part of Asia every 500 years. However, since 2004, there were already three quakes with a magnitude of over 8, which is not normal.”

Not normal indeed. So many things are happening that are so outside the scope of scientific understanding and expectation as a weather or earth happening. Just look at the major quakes this week:

6.2 EAST OF THE SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS
6.8 EASTERN NEW GUINEA REG, PAPUA NEW GUINEA
6.7 OFFSHORE VALPARAISO, CHILE
6.2 OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
6.5 VANUATU
6.2 DRAKE PASSAGE (the passage between Antarctica and southern tip of So. America)
6.9 GULF OF CALIFORNIA
6.2 GULF OF CALIFORNIA
6.5 MICHOACAN, MEXICO
8.2 OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
6.0 NORTH INDIAN OCEAN
8.6 OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA

Scientists are really doing the old soft shoe shuffle right now. They are vociferously denying that anything untoward is going on when we all can see that it is. I am reminded of the classic show “Chicago” starring Richard Gere as the lawyer, on how to fool people into thinking that there is meat to his case when there isn’t, he sang the famous tune “Razzle Dazzle ‘Em”.

Yet, there is an honest scientist, Gheorghe Marmureanu, saying that something is wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. And Mr Marmureanu is right. The bible says the earth WILL CRACK UP.

The earth is broken asunder,
The earth is split through,
The earth is shaken violently.
The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard
And it totters like a shack,
For its transgression is heavy upon it,
And it will fall, never to rise again.
(Isaiah 24:19-20)

Is the earth beginning to crack up now? I daresay it is. It will not complete its cracking up until the fullness of the sin weighing upon it is also finished, at the end of the Tribulation (Daniel 9:24). But in my opinion at least, there is no doubt in my mind that the judgments are about to fall because the events are passing the normal and are consistently ABnormal. I think this is almost as far as things can go before they are actually judgments.  Paul said that we are not appointed to wrath, (1 Thessalonians 5:9) and that our sins are forgotten when we repent, (Heb. 8:12, Heb 10:17) so I do not believe that the Bride will be on earth when judgments in wrath befall the unrepentant. But how it seems that the tension is dragging out, that the warnings are veering ever so precipitously to wrath!

You can escape all these things by repenting and believing on Jesus as risen Lord and Savior! It is just that simple. It is not easy, but it is simple. He paid for our sins with His flesh and shed blood, sacrificing Himself for us. God was pleased to raise Him up on the third day and He lives now. We cannot stand before Him as sinners, so believing on His work on the cross as pardon for those sins justifies us before Him. Otherwise, you have no hope, now or forever. He is the hope! Believe on His glorious name and be saved from his wrath for your sins. The earth is cracking up, but even better to hear is that your pride is cracking up. Allow Him in and humble yourself before Him, and ye shall be saved.

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.