Posted in babylon, judgment, revelation

Babylon: The Spiritual and Economic Harlot, Part 2

Posted on by elizabethprata

Babylon: The Spiritual and Economic Harlot, Part 1, here
Babylon: The Spiritual and Economic Harlot, Part 3 here

God will judge Spiritual Babylon in Revelation 17. Nimrod, Noah’s great-grandson, and his wife Semiramis, brought the first organized false religion to man. His city, Babel, was the place where the Tower was built. The tower was a monument to man and what man could do, not a monument to God and what He can do. God stopped the building of the tower but that did not stop the growing of the false religion. It still grew. Babylon is therefore forever known as by full name: “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth”. (Revelation 17:5)

So where is Spiritual Babylon today? Does she still exist? Yes, she exists. Technically, Babylon the Mother of Prostitutes is the mother of all false religions, starting with Nimrod and his wife, Semiramis, who called herself Queen of Heaven. The Queen of Heaven is mentioned in Jeremiah 44:15-19. The Queen of Heaven’s counterparts in different cultures are Ishtar and Isis. All false religions that spawned from her are the harlot daughters of the original. But there is one religion that can be said not to be a daughter of the original Harlot Babylon but is still the Mother herself: The Catholic Church. Mary is the Catholic’s Queen of Heaven.

I bring Catholicism into this discussion because of the prophecy in Rev. 17:9, “This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits.” Rome is known as the City of Seven Hills.  I do not know dogmatically that the city of 7 hills refers to Rome. I do not believe that the Harlot of False Religion is only the Catholic Church, I believe that it refers to ALL false religions in the world. The prophecy in Revelation shows us that though all false religions are tolerated by the Beast (Antichrist), in the middle of the Tribulation the Beast puts a stop to them all, and any semblance of ecumenism goes out the window. Catholicism will not be tolerated. Wicca will not be tolerated. Judaism will not be tolerated. Islam will not be tolerated. The Beast insists all worship HIM and him alone. (Revelation 13:11-18).

But…since the antichrist will emerge from the revived Roman Empire, it behooves us to look at its capital, Rome and the nation nesting inside Rome, Vatican City.

The Fuel Project Series explores the coming New World Order from a Biblical perspective. In this part, it discusses how Catholicism was created by putting a Christian facade on Mystery Babylon paganism. This Fuel Project, Know Your Enemy, Part 23 is only 16 minutes long. It gives a great overview from Constantine onward to the solidification of Catholicism, its marriage to money, and its relation to Babylon.

FUEL Project part 23 transcript, excerpt beginning at ~7:00–
“Stanley’s history on page 40 says, The popes filled the vacant place of the Emperors at Rome, inheriting their power, their prestige and their titles from paganism Pope Damascus recognized the power inherent in his new title. He believed himself to be head over not just the Christian church, but also over the pagans in Rome. It meant complete authority and domination; both the secular and the sacred, under one system. So how was the Roman Church to consolidate this rule over the pagans and the Christians under one system? They needed to somehow iron out the differences between the Babylonian system and the Christian system to create a unity between all peoples… and that meant compromise. What the Catholic Church did was consistently compromise the Gospel message with pre-existing pagan beliefs and adapted it based on whatever form of Babylonian mysticism existed a culture held to.”

That melding of all the religious beliefs will find its ultimate expression in the first half of the Tribulation. This movement has already begun. It is called the Ecumenical movement

Ecumenical movement is a pursuit of a unity in and among all churches with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church began its modern pursuit of ecumenism in 1961, but actually it has always been its stated aim, since at least 1274 if not before. The Catholic Church believes that it is the identical Church Christ founded and that all others have wandered. Ecumenism is the pursuit of the wayward churches back to the Catholic fold.

“Ecumenism takes as it starting point that Christ founded just one Church, not many churches; hence the Roman Catholic Church has as its ultimate hope and objective – that through prayer, study, and dialogue, the historically separated bodies may come again to be reunited with it. Before the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church defined ecumenism as a relations with other Christian groups in order to persuade these to return to a unity that they had broken. Pursuit of unity, thus understood, was always a principal aim of the Church.” (source)

Knowing the past will help us identify the future when it arrives, as we see the pursuit of the folding-in of all religions into one.

A missionary couple our denomination supports recently came to speak of their work. They said that the Catholic Church’s influence and embeddedness in Guatemala makes their work in bringing the truth of the Gospel very hard. The Mayans in the area are completely melded to the Catholic Church, mainly because the Catholic Church allows them to retain their Mayan rituals. Outside one local Catholic Church, he showed us a photo of a cave kind of pit, where the indigenous Indians sacrifice to the Mayan god before entering the Catholic Church to worship. The Catholic Church built the sacrificial pit as an honorary understanding that both religions could be accommodated. Therefore the Mayans sacrifice outside and then enter the Church and leave their money tithe inside.

Vatican City is the smallest nation in the world. It is not just a city, it is its own nation. “The size of a golf course, the Vatican City  is the smallest country in the world. It’s basically a walled enclave inside of Rome, Italy. It’s so small that the entire country does not have a single street address.”

“Another unique thing about the smallest country in the world is that it has no permanent citizens. Citizenship of the Vatican City is conferred upon those who work at the Vatican, as well as their spouses and children, and is revoked when they stop working there. The Vatican City may be small, but it is very powerful. It is the sovereign territory of the Holy See, or the seat of the Catholic Church, its central government, which has over 1 billion people  or about 1 in 6 people on the planet as constituents. The Vatican City was created in 1929 by the Lateran Treaty, which was signed by one of history’s most repressive dictators, Benito Mussolini and is ruled by the Pope, a non-hereditary, elected monarch who rules with absolute authority. He’s the legislative, executive and judiciary all rolled into one. Indeed, the Pope is the only absolute monarch in Europe.”

Interesting, isn’t it?

“The country’s economy is unique: it is the only non-commercial economy in the world. Instead, the Vatican City is supported financially by contributions of Catholics worldwide (called Peter’s Pence – hey, even the Pope accepts credit cards!), the sale of postage stamps and publications, and tourism.”

I had shown through scriptures in Part 1 the tie-in between money and false religion. Being wealthy is not a sin. Abram was wealthy (Genesis  13:2). It’s doing wrong things with the money and for the money that brings judgment. Remember Elisha’s greedy servant Gehazi? “But Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, thought, “Behold, my master has spared this Naaman the Aramean, by not receiving from his hands what he brought. As the LORD lives, I will run after him and take something from him.” (2 Kings 5:15-27). He ended up a leper. Remember Ananias and Sapphira? They stole from the tithe by falsely holding back and lying to Peter? They ended up dead. (Acts 5)

Jesus reminds us that where vast wealth exists, falsity likely exists too. “And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:23-24). Jesus repeats His warning in the same verse.

How rich is the Catholic Church? Time Magazine wrote in 1965,

“Bankers’ best guesses about the Vatican’s wealth put it at $10 billion to $15 billion. Of this wealth, Italian stockholdings alone run to $1.6 billion, 15% of the value of listed shares on the Italian market. The Vatican has big investments in banking, insurance, chemicals, steel, construction, real estate. … Unlike ordinary stockholders, the Vatican pays no taxes on this income, which led the leftist Rome weekly L’Espresso last week to call it “the biggest “the biggest tax evader in Italy.”

That was in 1965. I wonder how much more wealth the Vatican has accumulated in the ensuing nearly 50 years? If I calculated right, and I may not have, 15 billion in 1965 dollars in today’s dollars would be 105 billion. The Catholic Church is the wealthiest organization on earth. Italian author Avro Manhattan wrote,

“The Catholic church is the biggest financial power, wealth accumulator and property owner in existence. She is a greater possessor of material riches than any other single institution, corporation, bank, giant trust, government or state of the whole globe. The pope, as the visible ruler of this immense amassment of wealth, is consequently the richest individual of the twentieth century. No one can realistically assess how much he is worth in terms of billions of dollars.”

Babylon the False Religion will be destroyed and its partner the Babylon the false economic system will also be destroyed. The Catholic Church has a role to play, whether it is prophetically the Babylon of the city on 7 hills or whether it is a part of the general destruction of all false religions.

The Harlot is mentioned again in the destruction of Babylon the false economic system. “For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.” (Rev 18:3). It’s called prostitution because of the addition of the exchange of morals, faith, and conscience for money. It is the money exchange that makes it the harlot.

The lesson for us is to heed Jesus’ warnings that vast wealth corrupts. In Revelation 18 when the Babylon economic system is destroyed, the woes that are heard from the crying participants only for the loss of the consumer goods, not the people. It is all about them, they are crying, ‘where will be get our luxuries from, now?’ (Rev 18:11, 14, 18-19).

The Son of Man had no place to lay His head, (Mt 8:20) but the King of Vatican City has golden monstrance, gold embroidered robes, gold jewelry, velvet garments and a satin pillow to lay his head…

Fornication with false religions and fornication as a greedy consumer and hoarder of wealth will find their ultimate whorish marriage both fulfilled in the Tribulation and judged in the Tribulation.

If you are blessed with wealth, that is wonderful. But take care to be a generous giver, (2 Corinthians 9:7), a diligent doer of the Word, (James 1:2) and pray always for the Holy Spirit to guard your heart from prostituting yourself for filthy lucre.
Babylon: The Spiritual and Economic Harlot, Part 1, here
Babylon: The Spiritual and Economic Harlot, Part 3 here

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Posted in babylon, false religion, revelation

Babylon: The Spiritual and Economic Harlot, Part 1

Posted on by elizabethprata

Babylon: The Spiritual and Economic Harlot, Part 2 here
Babylon: The Spiritual and Economic Harlot, Part 3 here

The most intriguing name in the bible may well be Babylon. (AKA Babel). It is mentioned over 300 times, more than any other name except Jerusalem. Babylon figures prominently in Genesis and in Revelation, illustrating to us the bookend of the false system that has bracketed mankind from the beginning to the end. It was with us after the flood (Genesis 10) and it never left the earth, but it will be addressed in the future. Just because the Lord has not yet judged Babylon the harlot religious system does not mean that He won’t.

Babylon is a false religious system, or spiritual harlotry. Revelation 17 is all about the evil thing that spiritual adultery leads to, and shows us the final judgment of it. Revelation 18 shows us the false political/economic entity Babylon will become and also shows us its final judgment. There is a third meaning of Babylon in Revelation, and that is the name of an actual city. From Revelation’s intertwining of spiritual adultery and economic adultery we can surmise that where one exists, the other follows. They are closely related.

SPIRITUAL HARLOTRY
Babylon’s full name is found in Revelation 17:5: “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth”. Pretty strong! So what exactly does spiritual harlotry look like?

Hosea was a prophet of God whom God commanded to marry a prostitute. (Hosea 1). As Pastor Weaver exposits, “At the beginning of Hosea’s ministry, the northern kingdom was seemingly prosperous under the stable reign of Jeroboam II. But though things appeared to be calm on the surface, underneath the torrents of the kingdom’s destruction were swirling. The nation had forsaken Yahweh. Though they retained allegiance to Yahweh with their lips, their hearts were far from Him. They had began to mingle elements of the Canaanites’ fertility religion with Yahweh worship by engaging in sexual rites and drunken orgies which were thought to secure the giving of rain and the fertility of the land for their crops.”

The first indicator of spiritual harlotry is unseen. It is a heart condition that God sees. Everything looks all right on the surface because people speak and act in ways that seem consistent with God. But everything is not all right. The second indicator of spiritual harlotry is when religious people incrementally meld pagan rituals and ideas and doctrines with the Truth as revealed from God. Today this can be seen when churches bring the world into the pulpit, such as promoting the latest popular book, following a worldly fad, or singing secular songs.

This is a process Paul described as gangrene. (2 Timothy 2:17). If not stopped immediately, the false practices and doctrines continue to infect the body.

Pastor Weaver continues,
“The book of Hosea is not primarily about Hosea and his marriage, it is ultimately about God and His relationship to His covenant people, Israel. Hosea was commanded to marry a prostitute because that is the kind of wife which Israel had become to Yahweh. By combining elements of Baal worship with the elements of Yahweh worship commanded in the Law, Israel was engaging in spiritual adultery – a religious syncretism which by combining true Yahweh worship with idolatry resulted in a perversion which God Himself viewed as spiritual adultery.”

Though the excerpt above characterizes idolatry as spiritual adultery, I prefer to use the term used in Revelation, prostitute, whore or harlot. While adultery to me is a setting aside of morals, prostitution has the additional component of money changing hands. We will see from scriptures below that money is always a large component to spiritual falsity.

The Tribulation’s Spiritual Babylon is the end result of man’s failure and inability to eradicate false religion from the flesh and the mind. Finally, they all just quit trying. The Holy Spirit’s ministry of restraining of sin and illuminating the Truth has slowed this gangrenous creep for the last 2000 years, but when the Restrainer is removed, (2 Thessalonians 2:6), Babylon as spiritual harlot will explode all over the earth. Almost everyone will be infected by it. The final result will be that the world worships satan. The exhortations to the Tribulation believers in Matthew 24:13 and Mark 13:12 show us how hard it will be to remain faithful in a fallen and perverted world.

ECONOMIC HARLOTRY
So Revelation 17 dealt with the harlot Babylon in religion and Revelation 18 deals with harlot Babylon as false economic system. To me, this illustrates how the two are closely related. Once the mind begins to allow the world in, then money follows. By reverse logic, the old adage to “follow the money” shows that when we follow money to the root, the person will be evil at root also. 1 Timothy 6:10 states that “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” That verse shows us that the love of money and false religious systems are intertwined.

Look at the cross references to the 1 Timothy 6 verse warning us about the evils of replacing God with the idol of money: Joshua 7:21, Psalm 62:10, Proverbs 15:27, Ecclesiastes 2:19, Matthew 6:19, Matthew 13:22, Mark 4:19, Colossians 3:5, 1 Timothy 3:3, 1 Timothy 6:9, 2 Timothy 3:2, James 5:19. NOT following the money is a huge theme in the bible, and the final end of such waywardness is shown to us in Revelation 18 when the Economic Babylon is destroyed.

Titus 1:11 warns us against false teachers who always do what they do for “filthy lucre’s sake”. Peter repeats this warning in 1 Peter 5:2: “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;” (KJV). So it is no wonder that Babylon the Spiritual Whore is joined to Babylon the Economic Whore.

Babylon was the first organized false religion, and she has many daughters. However, there is one daughter who can actually be stated to still be the mother. That is the Catholic Church. This will be explored in part 2 of “Babylon the spiritual and economic harlot”, and part 3 will look at the city of Babylon.
Babylon: The Spiritual and Economic Harlot, Part 2 here
Babylon: The Spiritual and Economic Harlot, Part 3 here
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Posted in theology

Happy birthday to me!

Posted on by elizabethprata

I was born again on December 3, 2003. I was raised in an atheist family in a Godless part of the country. I had no spiritual upbringing and no religious education. Yet Romans 1:20 lived in my heart:

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

In a back recess of my mind and in a small corner of my heart, I understood that there had to be God. God must exist. Nothing made sense without His presence. I understood this because He plants eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Romans 2:14-15 reminds us that we have the law written on our hearts and that our consciences as His moral barometer prick us. (2 Corinthians 1:12; 2 Corinthians 5:11). From birth, we all know He exists. How we respond to what is in us determines our destiny.

I remember being completely astounded by something that happened to me when I was in my twenties. I came across a bookmark that had the “Footprints” poem on it. Amazingly, I picked it up and actually read it. Usually I just skipped over anything that had Jesus name on it.

Footprints in the Sand
Mary Stevenson, 1936
One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was one only.

This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord,

“You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?”

The Lord replied, “The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.”

When I got to the last line I burst out crying. I was amazed first because I was even reading something that Had Jesus’ name on it, and secondly because I was so overcome by the beauty of the sentiment. Though I was not saved at that time, and I had no knowledge of who Jesus is, my spirit was responding to the simple truth written in my heart. The bible says “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” (1 Corinthians 2:14). Though my sinful mind could not accept Jesus, the law written on my heart cried out for Him. And in His power and omniscience, He heard they cry of my heart. In His timing, twenty years later, I was saved. I called out to Him, fully believing, and I was born again.

Thank you Lord Jesus, for
pursuing me
delivering me
forgiving me
saving me
loving me
growing me

It took 43 years, but I got there. If you have family and friends who are not saved, just keep trusting the verses that tell us He is implanted in us. Keep praying for an activation of the seed of truth that we all have deep in our souls, that Jesus is real, He loves us, and we can be reconciled to Him through His forgiveness of our sins.
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Posted in end time, prophecy

Sobering news today, and sobering future ahead

Posted on by elizabethprata

Here are a few random news nuggets that belie the danger to the lost and nearness of the time of Jesus’ judgments.

Of all the nations that recently endured an era of devastating hyperinflation, Zimbabwe is that nation. For a picture of what hyperinflation actually does to a nation, read this from Wikipedia, “Inflation rose from an annual rate of 32% in 1998, to an official estimated high of 11,200,000% in August 2008 according to the country’s Central Statistical Office. This represented a state of hyperinflation, and the central bank introduced a new 100 billion dollar note. As of November 2008, unofficial figures put Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate at 516 quintillion per cent, with prices doubling every 1.3 days.”

In other words, they should know the signs of hyperinflation. They now see it happening in America, and they warn to get out of the Dollar standard and switch to the Chinese yuan for the reserve currency. This is from CNBC:

Zimbabwe Bashes Bernanke—On Inflation!
“The central banker of the country most famous for hyperinflation, Zimbabwe, is warning that the US may be on the wrong path and urging his country to adopt the Chinese yuan as its currency. Gono says Zimbabwe should in fact be looking to the Chinese yuan as its main currency, while urgently seeking to restore its own currency which was abandoned in 2009 after a dramatic loss of its value.”

BBC: Katla volcanic eruption imminent, could have global impact
“Hundreds of metres under one of Iceland’s largest glaciers there are signs of a looming volcanic eruption that could be one of the most powerful the country has seen in almost a century. Mighty Katla, with its 10km (6.2 mile) crater, has the potential to cause catastrophic flooding as it melts the frozen surface of its caldera and sends billions of gallons of water surging through Iceland’s east coast and into the Atlantic Ocean. “There has been a great deal of seismic activity,” says Ford Cochran, the National Geographic’s expert on Iceland.”

Epic windstorm batters west, third of a million without power
“Hurricane force winds, some topping 100mph snarls traffic, downs trees, wreaks havoc. See this video of a huge pine tree downed by the wind.

Iranian and North Korean rocket experts hold Damascus meetings
“Dozens of officials from North Korea and Iran have conducted meetings with representatives of the Syrian government in Damascus to help president Bashar al-Assad obtain weapons following the implementation of sanctions by members of the Arab League and other countries.”

So now that the Arab League has sanctioned Syria, other rogue states will help Syria get weapons of mass destruction. Not good.

Ultraconservative Islamists make gains in Egypt
“Egypt’s ultraconservative Islamist party said Friday it plans to push for a stricter religious code in Egypt after claiming surprisingly strong gains in this week’s initial round of voting for parliament, the first elections since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster.”

Ultraconservative and Islam … also not a good combination.

From the natural disasters happening, to the economic failures, to the military buildup, it is all coming together. Two gentlemen write piercingly heartfelt essays this week, of which I’d like to share some excerpts. They said it all so well:

Ron Graham
“What mankind is witnessing today is only the “birth pangs” associated with the nearness of Christ’s return; certainly we’re not feeling the full on effects of what Jesus tells us is coming in the last days. Jesus’ return is close, and every Christian should reel with anticipation and excitement every time something out of the ordinary or unexplainable happens. But today’s Christians seem to be apathetic concerning the coming of their Lord; a lull between events allows apathy to creep into the Christian’s life lessening the anticipation of future events. Although many may read about the catastrophic occurrences around the world which have led to mass amounts of human death and suffering, there seems to be a sort of disconnect as people simply dismiss any possibility of such devastation occurring near them, or in their lifetime. Today most followers of Jesus Christ are unaware of the unimaginable magnitude of catastrophic events that are coming. Jesus warns the last remaining generation prior to His return that they will be overwhelmed by three specific ever recurring events, which are earthquakes, pestilence, and famines. Interestingly we’re all witnesses to the fact that all three are increasing in frequency and intensity just like birth pangs.”

John McTernan
“I have been warning for a long time for believers to be serious with God because huge trials were coming that were going to test our faith. It now appears that two huge trials are converging at the same time. The European economic meltdown along with war in the Middle East which are going to shake the entire world. Both converging at the same time are like a 10.0 earthquake. The effect is going to be enormous. The European Union meltdown is now heading into high gear as all the warning signs are now flashing of an imminent meltdown. There is not enough money in the world to bail out Europe along with all the debt that the US is creating. The debt monster is now loose and out of control. The collapse of Europe will send the world economy into uncharted waters. Look what happened in the Fall of 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed. Just imagine what is going to happen with the Euro along with multiple European nations collapse!

“There are all sorts of unconfirmed reports that Israeli Jericho missiles are being moved into firing positions in the West Bank. The Jericho is Israel’s long range missile which can reach Iran. This missile can be armed with nuclear weapons. [There are also unconfirmed reports that China is moving missiles into position, also.) Syria is degenerating in chaos and Assad said he will attack Israel if war breaks out. Israel said it will totally destroy Syria in the next war, so Syria can never again attack Israel! Lebanon said its army will back Hezbollah and Israel said it will destroy Lebanon in the next war! All the elements are now coming together for the all-out war that is described in Psalm 83, Obadiah and Isaiah 17.”

“How much longer can this war be held back? If it does not start by the end of this year, can an entire year go by without it starting? I doubt it. It appears that the time has now arrived for the war that will start the direct countdown to all the end-time prophecy, the Day of the LORD and battle of Armageddon which will usher in the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with His church! All the warning signs are now flashing. The sirens are blasting full power that God’s judgments on this world are about to begin as time is running out.”
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Posted in bible jesus, miami, prophecy

Disgruntled Municipal workers try to put black magic mojo on City Manager

Posted on by elizabethprata

North Miami Beach police employees in hot water over alleged Santeria birdseed plot
Two North Miami Beach police department employees allegedly tried to cast a spell over the city manager’s office.
A note to prospective municipal employees: If you’re looking for a way to help out beleaguered colleagues, casting a spell on your boss is probably not the way to go. Two North Miami Beach employees — one a police officer, the other a department office manager — are in hot water after trying to enlist some supernatural aid in the form of what they believed to be a Santeria practice.”

It all began over budget cuts. The city manager proposed them, the union opposed them, and two employees planned to dispose of him.

Miami is home to a large Cuban and African population, where Santeria flourishes as a mystical, cult voodoo religion that uses dead chickens, animal sacrifice, and black magic. Wikipedia describes Santeria as “Santería is a system of beliefs that merges the Yoruba religion (which was brought to the New World by slaves imported to the Caribbean to work the sugar plantations) with Roman Catholic and Native Indian traditions. These slaves carried with them various religious customs, including a trance for communicating with their ancestors and deities, animal sacrifice and sacred drumming.”

The article goes on, “While Santeria practitioners have argued that their practice constitutes a legitimate religion and bristle at depictions of the practice as black magic or witchcraft, they acknowledge that public displays of their traditions can spook non-believers. And both adherents and experts say that the Afro-Cuban religion, itself an amalgamation of Catholicism and African spiritual traditions, does not count malice — such as casting harmful spells — as one of its principles.”

Suuuuure.

Anyway, the non-union employee involved in the plot was fired and the union employee involved the plot is going through the process of being fired.
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Posted in bible, dignity, prophecy

Has today’s church said "dignity shmignity"?

Posted on by elizabethprata

I enjoy a good laugh as much as anyone. I love fun, a good time, being with friends, and yukking it up. However, I do not believe those things are appropriate for church, for bible study, for ecclesiastical conferences, or for prayer meetings. The call to dignity is both overt and inferred in the scriptures.

In the first essay I wrote about my concerns with Beth Moore’s teaching, I wrote that one of the issues is that she is not dignified on stage. I am not speaking of a personal preference, though I do have biases in this area. The scriptures in that piece speak to how we must act when in the position of teacher or elder. She uses signs, tricks, volunteers, personal anecdotes, jokes, innuendo, and more. When she teaches the bible, she is not dignified.

Mark Driscoll is pastor of the Mars Hill Church in Seattle Washington. He is well known for his casual approach to preaching the Sunday Services, in demeanor and in apparel. He readily admits that his sermon delivery is influenced by stand-up comedians like Chris Rock. I saw the first and only clip of Mr Driscoll a week or so ago. He was speaking of the Twilight novels and movie release in culture and how it is affecting the young girls of today, like his own daughter. I posted the 10 minute video on my blog here, and I fully admit that it is hilarious. He strode about the stage in tennis shoes, jeans, and untucked flannel shirt, making funny remarks and it was a good ten minutes of  punchline delivery that Chris Rock would envy.

I believe that demeanor is important when one is delivering a teaching on the greatest information ever imparted to Man. I am not a fuddy duddy, but the clear call to present the Gospel of Jesus and Him crucified means deliver it with dignity.

How many pastors today forgo a jacket and tie on Sundays anymore? How many over-rely on media such as video, loud music, dancing, casual attire, and any and all things that actually distract from the bible as the central focus?

Venerable evangelist Paul O. Nichols wrote in 1997,

“YOU ARE STANDING ON HOLY GROUND”
“Today if there is ever a time when a man is on “holy ground” it is when he is preaching Christ and Him crucified. Qualifications are specified. The inspired writer says, “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:2). Peter demanded, “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God” (1 Pet 4:11). Preaching and teaching the word of God is a serious matter. The pulpit is no place for frivolity and merrymaking. Theatrics and foolishness are as out of place in the pulpit as a cowbell in a musical concert, and beneath the dignity of a faithful representative of the crucified Christ. No man has a right to profane the pulpit while representing the Saviour of the world. Cuteness and slang may provoke a laugh from the less spiritual, but the more serious disciple of Jesus demands sincerity and evidence that Christ lives in us (Gal 2:20).”

Do you demand sincerity and evidence that Christ lives in us from your church, your pastor, your services? I hope so. Dignity is an old fashioned word these days, much maligned. But while there is a place for frivolity and fun, guffaws and jokes, there is also a place for dignity. The two places are not the same.

The lowering of standards of pulpit behavior is indicative of the lowering of the place of Jesus in the heart of one who is treating Him so casually. It belies an internal attitude that Jesus is lower than He is, which is consistent with the attitude of many of today’s pastors who preach man higher than he is. The lowering and heightening will eventually meet as level after the rapture. It will soon after that find its ultimate culmination in the Man of Sin. Finally, satan (for a little while) will live on earth as the king of earth where Jesus is below man. But not for long.

When the time is fulfilled and the transgression is finished, (Dan 9:24) Jesus will appear as KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS! “These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.” (Revelation 17:14)

There is none higher and all the enemies of Him are under Him at the footstool. “A Psalm of David. The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” (Psalm 110:1)

You can be a joint heir with Christ, (Romans 8:17) or under His feet when He comes. He leaves the position you want to occupy up to you. Repentance and belief brings the former. Rejection of His pardon brings the latter.
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Posted in media manipulation, prophecy, time magazine covers

Time covers show why Americans know nothing about the world

Posted on by elizabethprata

This is a link to Time Magazine’s covers this week. If you click on it, this is what it will show

Business Insider says, “These magazine covers who why Americans know nothing about the world;” I would have to agree. Click here to compare other recent covers published in America vs. covers printed abroad. For example,

While the rest of the world gets a thoughtful piece about Islam, the U.S. gets … chores!

“Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan may be the key democratically elected Muslim leader who stands at the crossroads between East and West, but hey! What about these inventions?!” Read more.

The Business Insider article comparing the Time Magazine covers is an eye opener, and shows in graphic detail, pun intended, just how manipulated by the media Americans really are.

Just as Paul noted the nobility of the Bereans for being diligent to check all the teachings they received against the bible, applauding them for their Christian responsibility in searching these things out to see if they are true, it is also the citizen’s responsibility to be aware of the world we live in, fully and objectively informed in the political and other spheres. As this personal diligence in both the Christian spheres and the political spheres decline, it just makes it that much easier for the antichrist to come along and manipulate the last vestiges of truth in a dying world to his advantage.
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Posted in back to basics, bible, jesus, salvation

What’s "The Gospel"?

Posted on by elizabethprata

I watched a good movie called Time Changer this summer. It was stodgy and slow, but I like stodgy and slow. It was set in 1900 and was about a junior seminary professor who writes a book saying that in some cases it is all right to preach living a good life without using Jesus as a moral absolute. A senior professor of the seminary objects to that section in the book and urges the young seminarian to use his secret time machine to go 100 years into the future to see where his beliefs will lead. He arrives in 2000 horrified to experience the cold and pale thing Christianity has become.

What I liked about the end was a scene where he is getting ready to return to the past. He says goodbye to a laundromat caretaker he had met, and gives him a bible. He says the following to the laundromat guy, named Eddie:

“Jesus is coming back soon to set up His earthly kingdom. The requirement, though, to enter this kingdom, is that we must be absolutely perfect, without sin.

Well, that leaves me out of that party.

No one is without sin, Eddie. Not one! All of us face eternal judgment and separation from God. This is why we must accept Jesus Christ into our life as Lord. He is the only one who lived a perfect life, and thus became the substitute for our sins.

For me, too?

Yes, for you too Eddie. He rose from the dead, proving He was God. And He wants to save us from the penalty of our sins, and give us eternal life. But we must first individually receive Him. This is what it means to believe in Jesus.

I never heard it explained so simple, preacher.

God wants us to be reconciled to Himself. So much so that He gave His only so to die for us. It’s all in the bible. I pray that you will consider what I’m saying.”

That is the Gospel. Here are some few scriptures that are proof texts for this Gospel:

Jesus and His kingdom: Revelation 20:4, Daniel 7:13-14, Zechariah 14:8-11
Requirements for entry: John 3:5, John 3:3, Titus 3:5
No one is without sin: Romans 3:10
We all face judgment: 2 Corinthians 5:10, Hebrews 9:27, Romans 2:16, Acts 10:42
Jesus is sinless: 1 Peter 2:22, 1 John 3:5, Hebrews 4:15, 2 Corinthians 5:21
Jesus is our substitute: Isaiah 53:4-6
He died for all: John 1:29, “The next day he saw Jesus coming to him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!'” and John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” 1 John 2:2, “and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
Jesus’ resurrection: Acts 13:33, Romans 1:4
Believe and you shall be saved: Acts 16:31, Romans 10:9
It’s all in the bible: 2 Timothy 3:16

Why was a sacrifice necessary? Why was it necessary that blood had to have been shed? The Gospel is that we believe Jesus the son of God is fully God and fully man, manifested in the flesh, who came to earth to seek and save the lost. He died on the cross, shedding His blood as the perfect, sinless sacrifice. He was buried and resurrected by the power of God three days later. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).

 Leviticus 17:11 says “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’ ” Hebrews 9:22 says “And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

I do not know why God set it up that the blood is the life, and is the mechanism for atonement, but it is so because we are told that by His word. God had to pour out His wrath for sin upon Jesus, whose shed blood was payment for the sins of the world. There had to be a sacrifice and it had to be pure. Jesus is sinless, and was therefore acceptable to God as that sacrifice. Jesus took on all the sins of the world AND all God’s wrath for it. He took our place so we do not have to endure God’s wrath, unless a person rejects Jesus. Then they are subject to wrath! Forever!!

That’s the Gospel. Please believe it. Your soul depends on it.
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Posted in mark of the beast

Mark of the beast is not just possible now, it’s here

Posted on by elizabethprata

Even atheists have heard of one of the bible’s most deadly and mysterious prophesies, “the Mark of the Beast”. This prophecy is found in Revelation 13:16-18. It says that the antichrist, also known as The Beast, will force everyone to worship him. To cement this worship all people on earth must receive a mark on their hand or forehead. If you don’t accept this mark, you can’t buy or sell (participate in the economy). Also, you will be hunted down and killed. (Rev 20:4).

The Lord gives us the prophecies but He does not fill in every single detail all the time. In this case, we are not told if the mark will be the currency or the mark will be the permission on which someone may buy or sell using their own national currency. Likely the former.

The interesting thing about the prophecy is that it presupposes that the technology available when the conditions are ready for fulfillment will be that every person in the world can be tracked from a central point. For many years during the modern era (after 1920 or so, since electricity and telephones etc) Christians who believe the bible believed the prophecy, but for the life of them could not figure out how it would be fulfilled. Then the space age came and satellites now orbit, and Global Positioning systems reveal just how easy it is to track people and objects.

Even at that, it’s hard to think of how a system can come together where every person who shows up at a cash register at some store can be immediately identified as a friend or a foe to the antichrist. It is hard to think of how each of the 7 billion people of the world can be tracked if they have the mark or hunted if they don’t.

This essay is not to say that the technology is coming soon, but that it is here and in place.

We don’t see technological infrastructure, so we don’t know the degree to which the world’s more advanced governments have pushed the envelope of personal invasion of privacy. But we are finding out, and quickly.

Michael Snyder wrote on his Economic Collapse blog, “If you live in the United States of America, you live in a giant prison where liberty and freedom are slowly being strangled to death. In this country, the control freaks that run things are obsessed with watching, tracking, monitoring and recording virtually everything that we do. Nothing is private anymore. Everything that you do on the Internet is being monitored. All of your phone calls are being monitored. In fact, if law enforcement authorities suspect that you have done something wrong, they will use your cell phone microphone to listen to you even when you think your cell phone is turned off. In many areas of the country, when you get into your car automated license plate readers track you wherever you go, and in many major cities when you are walking on the streets a vast network of security cameras and “smart street lights” are constantly watching you and listening to whatever you say. The TSA is setting up “internal checkpoints” all over the nation, Homeland Security is encouraging all of us to report any “suspicious activity” that our neighbors are involved in and the federal government is rapidly developing “pre-crime” technology that will flag us as “potential terrorists” if we display any signs of nervousness. If you are flagged as a “potential terrorist”, the U.S. military can arrest you and detain you for the rest of your life without ever having to charge you with anything. Yes, the United States of America is rapidly being turned into a “Big Brother” prison grid, and most Americans are happily going along with it.”

I’m sure you’ve seen the headlines that match and support the truth of the above. I have. Now there is another headline that today gives me pause. It is actually the basis for writing this piece.

Researcher’s Video Shows Secret Software on Millions of Phones Logging Everything
“The Android developer who raised the ire of a mobile-phone monitoring company last week is on the attack again, producing a video of how the Carrier IQ software secretly installed on millions of mobile phones reports most everything a user does on a phone. Though the software is installed on most modern Android, BlackBerry and Nokia phones, Carrier IQ was virtually unknown until 25-year-old Trevor Eckhart of Connecticut analyzed its workings, revealing that the software secretly chronicles a user’s phone experience — ostensibly so carriers and phone manufacturers can do quality control. But now he’s released a video actually showing the logging of text messages, encrypted web searches and, well, you name it.”

It gets worse. More from the article:

“Cringe as the video shows the software logging each number as Eckhart fingers the dialer. “Every button you press in the dialer before you call,” he says on the video, “it already gets sent off to the IQ application.” From there, the data — including the content of text messages — is sent to Carrier IQ’s servers, in secret. By the way, it cannot be turned off without rooting the phone and replacing the operating system. And even if you stop paying for wireless service from your carrier and decide to just use Wi-Fi, your device still reports to Carrier IQ.”

Now is it possible to see how quickly the prophecy from Revelation can be fulfilled? One inhibitor to the general populace accepting this was that the general populace rebelled against even the thought. Now we have gotten so used to invasive technology tracking our every move that we don’t even murmur when it pushes ever more deeply into our lives. It’s obvious that the people don’t care if they are tracked, and it is equally obvious that the technology developers and installers have no moral qualms about tracking. So as of this moment, there is means and opportunity, as they say in the crime shows. All that is left is the motive. And with the collapse of Europe and the global financial system likely upon our doorstep, motive will soon appear. Very soon. Jim Cramer of CNBC says that because of what is happening in Europe, the global financial system is at “DEFCON 3, two stages from a financial collapse that is so huge it’s hard to get your mind around.”

ANd one more item, also from Michael Snyder, about a new bill in the US Congress. “A new bill that is going through the U.S. Senate would allow the U.S. military to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without trial. This new law was recently discussed in an article posted on the website of the New American….In what may be a tale too bizarre to be believed by millions of Americans, the U.S. Senate appears ready to pass a bill that will designate the entire earth, including the United States and its territories, one all-encompassing “battlefield” in the global “war on terror” and authorize the detention of Americans suspected of terrorist ties indefinitely and without trial or even charges being filed that would necessitate a trial.”

So the world is a battlefield in which technology can and should be used to track people. They want to track Americans now but that could and soon will change to tracking everyone. How do I know this? The bible tells us. Revelation 13 and it is called The Mark of the Beast. It is here.

Means & Motive exist. Opportunity is knocking as we speak. The most sinful, evil person in the entire world will soon appear on the scene and soon after that, he will implement the Mark. Are you ready? You will have to ready yourself for that fateful decision, if you are not one of Jesus’ children right now, and among those therefore who will be raptured out of the world before all this begins. Repent of your sins, meaning, are you sorry for the sinful person that you are? If you believe you are a sinner and that Jesus came to earth in a body, lived a sinless life, died to become sin and take the wrath of God, and rose to life on the third day, then you are a believer in the Gospel. That’s the Gospel. That is what you need to escape all these things and be reconciled to Jesus forever. Consider it.
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Posted in prophecy

Wow the headlines are just so gripping!

Posted on by elizabethprata

I look at how the world is descending into chaos and I am simply amazed. The headlines today are so prophetic, and so cautionary.

The Economist today: “The euro: Beware of falling masonry“
“The crisis in the euro area is turning into a panic and dragging the zone into recession. The risk that the currency disintegrates within weeks is alarmingly high”

Weeks! The antichrist is prophesied to emerge from the revived Roman empire (Dan 9:26) and eventually install an economic dictatorship involving a mark without which no one may buy or sell. (Rev 13:16-17). That the currency of a swathe of nations who’d combined financially, comprising the a huge portion of the old Roman Empire, can’t be ignored in the face of prophetic economic and financial things to come.

Report: Explosion rocks Iran city of Isfahan, home to key nuclear facility
“Semi-official Fars news agency says blast heard distinctly in several parts of the western Iran city; a uranium conversion plant near Isfahan went online in 2004. An explosion rocked the western Iranian city of Isfahan on Monday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, adding that the blast was heard in several parts of the city. … The reported incident occurred about two weeks after Gen. Hasan Tehrani Moghaddam was killed together with 20 other Guard members Nov. 12 at a military site outside Bidganeh village, 40 kilometers southwest of Tehran.”

ABC reported of the explosion, “A major Iranian nuclear research centre is located near Isfahan city, although none of the Iranian reports of the blast said whether the explosion was near it. “In the afternoon, there was a noise like an explosion, but we don’t have any information from security forces on the source of the noise,” judiciary head Gholamreza Ansari was quoted as saying.Iranian media provided contradictory information about the incident, which came less that three weeks after a massive explosion at a military base near Tehran that killed at least 17 members of the Revolutionary Guard, including the head of its missile forces.”

Hmmm, the second mysterious explosion heard near an Iranian nuke facility in as many weeks.

NATO supply route through Pakistan stopped permanently
“Supply trucks for American-led forces in Afghanistan backed up on Pakistani roads near the border after Pakistan closed the routes following a NATO air strike that killed 24 of its troops.”

Pakistan is furious, actually. It seems that each nation is moving into the final geo-political positions…east against west, Muslim against Christian, Tribulation nations allied as per Psalm 83 and Ezekiel 38, world against Jerusalem…

In 2010 I wrote about how the lens through which God sees thew world is through Israel. We know this because in Genesis 12:3 God said to Abraham- “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Israel is the lens through which God judges nations. What happens to Israel affects the entire world. In that essay I included come ancient map images. Ancient cartography depicted Jerusalem as the belly button of the world, and Israel was always dead center on the map.

The net is drawing tight, and all things are almost in place. I hope you are born again, saved by faith in the work of Jesus on the cross. If not, think about it now.
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