(no title)

48 years apart: Lightning strikes kill dad, son

Posted on July 15, 2011 by elizabethprata

It might be time to review what God has to say about lightning…

“HAMMONTON, N.J. – July 14, 2011 (WPVI) — The story seems almost unbelievable, but the bark blown off an old sycamore tree is a reminder this tragedy is all too real. It was in a Hammonton backyard that 54-year-old Stephen Rooney was struck by lightning at a family barbeque July 3rd as he stepped away from the crowd to light a cigar. The party host, Rooney’s cousin and next door neighbor, Funzi Digerolamo, says a giant bolt shook the yard. “Hit the tree, went up the tree. It electrified all through the root system of the tree at that time so he was standing right in the electric field,” Digerolamo said. Digerolamo’s son Scott was blown right off a bench, but survived. Steve Rooney died five days later.”

“Just before he was hit, Rooney downplayed concerns about the lightning. “He had just said that lightning doesn’t strike two people in one family right before it happened, not long before it happened, he said that,” neighbor Paula Weisbecker said. Lightning is not supposed to strike twice, but in this case it did.”

“Steve Rooney’s father George was also killed by lightning 48 years ago when Steve was just a 5-year-old boy. The odds of this happening to a father and son are astronomical. Everyone is stunned that a bolt of lightning could claim them both, almost 5 decades apart.”

Why TV cooking shows have morphed into adventure programs

Posted on July 15, 2011 by elizabethprata

I’ve been talking about two things lately. First, are the increasing superlatives that must be attached to describe the events we’re seeing in the world. Because Jesus likened the time to birth pangs, we know that birth pangs get worse and worse, more and more painful as the big event nears. The weather is record shattering, this flood is the worst ever, this tornado outbreak is the biggest in history. Yet the superlatives keep getting attached to the events in ever bigger form as the events grow larger and records keep getting shattered. It is an upward spiral that eventually will bring everyone down.

The second thing I’ve been mentioning is ever-deepening sin. Sin’s depths know no bounds. In 1969, Charles Manson was discovered to have led a bevy of mind-controlled females and males into committing the Tate/LaBianca murders in California. Nine people died and it absolutely shocked the country. Nowadays if there aren’t at least nine killings on a television show the ratings dip. As one sin becomes passe, another worse one has to take its place. There is simply no where else to go for the rush except to top it and try and repeat the rush next time.

This deepening of sin and its combined adrenaline rush is played out in television show titles. I was noticing on the television listings about the nature of the titles of reality shows. The Food Network for example. In decades past, the shows used to feature gourmet chefs who were galloping, or were frugal. The titles were benign, inoffensive, charming. The very first cooking show on television was James Beard in 1946. (no, not Julia Child, she came along more than a decade later, in 1962). Beard’s show was simply called “I Love To Eat.”

Nowadays we have gone from:

Top Chef … to … Chopped …to… Iron Chef …to… Extreme Chef. Where once upon a time, people were content to simply sit still for half an hour and watch a competent chef teach them something new, we watch quick-edits of chefs running in the desert and dodging hailstones while extracting ingredients from a block of ice or using a Swiss Army knife as a lone cooking utensil, being are pushed to their physical and mental limit. All for a good pasta.

In 2003 “The Restaurant,” a reality show featuring two owners at odds with each other, was compelling enough to spawn more restaurant shows, each with a more adrenaline-rush name:

Hell’s Kitchen … to … Restaurant Nightmares… to …Restaurant Battle …to … Restaurant Impossible. Impossible! As each television season unveils a new show, the names have to be tougher, the people participating in them have to be rougher, the fights bigger, the injuries worse. And these are the cooking shows. In order to lure increasingly jaded audiences, they entice them with teasers promising blood, crashes, fisticuffs. Again, I’m talking about cooking shows.

In 2000, The History Channel aired a 46-minute episode titled “Ice Road Truckers” as part of the ‘Suicide Missions’ series. The IRT episode became a break out show on its own. After four years, Ice Road Truckers alone wasn’t good enough (not enough of them sank beneath the cracking ice to drown their drivers in a frozen lake?) so we got IRT: Deadliest Roads in the Himalayas with constant quick-cuts to crushed vehicles at the bottom of precipitous inclines.

The shows titles and of course their material are getting more extreme. I think if we looked at a prime time television line-up schedule from 1965 and then looked at one now we’d be shocked at the mentions of extreme, death, deadly, etc. Like this- What’s after ‘Fear Factor’? “Terror Factor”?

The only place to go is down. Television is rapidly becoming more and more shallow, nasty, and polluted. However, being a mirror for our culture, it is only reflective of the people who watch it and our descent into sin is also rapid, polluted, and nasty. It is a progression James 1:15 aptly describes: “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” The lust he describes is not just a sexual lust, it is a coveteousness, desire, sensuality that seeks to fill the emptiness inside. That emptiness is a place just waiting for Jesus, His light, His holiness, His righteousness. But if they do not accept Jesus, they continually seek to fill it with ever deepening poisons and perversions.

Unbelievers say that they are free. They are not, they are slaves to their lusts. The television schedule shows us that, plainly. But Jesus is the INSTANT answer to the need for that emptiness to be filled. He is waiting to fill it. You will be a participant in His plan to regenerate you from the inside out. He replaces lusts and poison and depravity with light and holiness and righteousness. You feel fresher. You no longer seek and seek and seek the next high, because you have finally found the ultimate High: Jesus.
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bible jesus, end times, pelosi compares obama to job

Pelosi says that Job is nuthin’ compared to Obama

Posted on July 14, 2011 by elizabethprata

And the biblical allusions just keep on coming. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today in referring to the debt limit talks, that Obama has more patience that Job. Really, WAY more. Her transcribed comments:

“I want to commend the president – I have never seen – Job is no place compared to this president in terms of patience,” said Pelosi at a press briefing on Thursday. “He [Job] doesn’t even begin because this president has demonstrated a level of patience, not only during the meetings but as respect, respectful of the suggestions that are made by all parties at the meeting, in his preparation for the meeting, and his coming back to address concerns that are expressed by others.”

Article here, at CNS, and video below

So Job doesn’t even begin to compare to Barack Obama. Wow. Just wow. Well, maybe she’s right. Let’s check

Obama sat through four meetings, feeling attacked by Republicans. Job was attacked by satan, the most evil being in heaven or earth.

Obama lost time on the golf links, and planning his birthday bash.
Job lost all his herds and all his children in one day.

Obama goes home to a loving and supportive wife.
Job went home to a wife that urged him to “curse God and die.”

Obama has all the possessions he wants or needs.
Job lost everything he had.

Obama worries about graying hair.
Job worried about finding enough potsherds to scratch the pus-filled boils on every inch of his body.

Obama has friends who say he is the greatest man alive.
Job’s friends told him he was a scummy sinner that deserved what he got, including dead children.

I could go on but you get the idea. Let’s cut to the chase. Here’s the truth. Obama has petulance. Job had patience. Obama has the spirit of antichrist. Job has eternal glory in the bosom of God. I guess Pelosi is right. Obama and Job do not compare.
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earthquake english channel, end time

Earthquake hits English Channel

Posted on July 14, 2011May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

I’d written a couple of weeks ago of a bizarre tsunami that occurred along the southern English coast, accompanied by widespread reports of static electricity. It was said at the time, “Experts said the phenomenon, which was felt from Penzance in Cornwall to Portsmouth, was likely to have been caused by a landslide on the continental shelf under the sea.”

Today an earthquake hit the English Channel. BBC reports:

“An earthquake with a magnitude of 3.9 has struck in the English Channel, the British Geological Survey (BGS) said. The quake had a depth of 10km and its epicentre was south of Portsmouth, according to the BGS. Residents in parts of West Sussex reported buildings shaking for a few seconds at about 0800 BST. Sussex Police, Solent Coastguard and West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service said they had not been called out to any incidents related to it.”

‘Largest since 1734’
“David Kerridge, from the BGS, said it was the biggest incident of its kind in the area for nearly 300 years. He said: “This is the largest earthquake in this area since a magnitude 4.5 event in 1734. “Historically, there have been two other significant events nearby – a magnitude 5.0 earthquake in 1878 and a magnitude 4.3 earthquake in 1750.” It should be noted that French seismos have the magnitude at 4.6, which WOULD make the quake the biggest in that area and almost the biggest ever.

Think about all those people in the English Channel train tunnel when an earthquake hits. Here is a seismic map:

I have no idea if the English tsunami two weeks ago and the Channel earthquake today are related. But I thought they were interesting, happening in nearly the same location and within a two-week time frame of each other. And here we have yet another superlative: the ‘largest in 300 years’. These birth bangs will progressively get bigger, worse, taller mightier than the one happening before, until they run out of superlatives because the event will exceed man’s ability to comprehend it. (Luke 21:26, Revelation 15-16).

Denver had a terrible storms last night. I read the twitter stream of people talking about it. They were terrified, many natives noting they had never seen the like. Here are the results from today’s news:

“Boulder Creek surge sets off sirens as latest storm wreaks havoc
“Sirens blared and Boulder residents were ordered away from the creek as a 4-foot surge of water rolled into town Wednesday night, part of another wild weather night in Colorado. The Front Range, from Pueblo to Wyoming, roiled amid thunderstorms, lightning, hail and flooding for the second night in a row — and the eighth straight day of heavy rain. Most parts of the metro region have recorded at least three times their normal rainfall for this point in July.”

But that was only the water. Let’s talk about the hail. The hail was so bad it damaged 12 planes and they shut down the airport, stranding 1000 people.

“More than 1,000 airline passengers — including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — were forced to spend the night at Denver International last night after a severe storm forced numerous flight cancellations. The storm brought a 15-minute period of golf-ball-sized hail, which damaged some aircraft at the airport, The Denver Post reports. Some of the damaged planes had to be taken out of service, which complicated efforts to accommodate disrupted passengers.”

You may not know that this was the 8th day in a row such storms plagued the people in Colorado.

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crime, end of days, end time, holy spirit, prophecy, restrainer

Copper thievery and sinful conditions

Posted on July 14, 2011 by elizabethprata

Sin doesn’t end. Sin doesn’t settle. Sin doesn’t shrink. It expands, creeping bigger, more, deeper. A lie in your mind changes to a lie out loud, to two lies, to a tangled web … There is no end to Jesus’ love and conversely, there is no end to sin. The heights of Jesus love are mirrored by the depths of sin, and sin can go pretty deep.

Jesus, Paul, and Peter outlined the specifics of what was to come at the end of the age (in the Tribulation). But they all also taught about moral conditions that would be upon humanity. Jesus said “love will wax cold”, (Mt 24:12); Paul said they will be brutal, unloving, and without self-control (2 Timothy 3:3); Peter said the truth will be blasphemed and covetousness will rule (2 Peter2:2-3) just to give a few examples.

Jesus also said that the Tribulation will be a time like the days of Noah. In the days of Noah, the evil of man was so great that he only had evil thoughts, continuously. (Gen 6:5) That is 100% sin saturation! We are not at 100% saturation of evil now, but we are sliding down the hill quickly. After believers are removed from the earth at the rapture (Gen 6:3) and the ministry of restraint of the Holy Spirit is removed, (2Thessalonians 2:6) evil will have free reign to unleash whatever it will. It will be pretty bad. Jesus said that unless He cut short the days, no one would be left alive on the earth, it will be so evil and violent. (Mt 24:22).

So let me give you an example of the descent of sin. We are not in the Tribulation now, but we do have to move from the level of earthly sin we’re in now toward that 100% mark and I believe we are seeing the speeding up of it now, in this time just prior to the rapture.

The metaphor of deepening sin is encapsulated in an example of the copper thieves.

Copper thievery is a sin that has always plagued us. But it has spiked exponentially, said police in Alabama. “Record copper prices have caused a surge in U.S. copper thefts, plaguing law enforcement and local governments and prompting states to pass new laws. “Since the beginning of the 2004 spike in copper prices, copper theft and copper prices have been directly linked,” a 2010 U.S. Department of Energy study on copper wire thefts said.”

Thieves used to take coils from constructions sites, empty houses, when no one was around. Then they began stealing copper from churches. They graduated to gutters, and these kind of bandits are called “gutter grabbers.” Most often the house is occupied, the thieves not caring if people are about. They they moved on up to larger booty: transformers. In this article titled, “Antioch Copper Wire Thieves Reach New High – Or Low” you see, the lows just keep getting lower. “Just days after Pacific Gas and Electric lamented the ongoing and widespread theft of copper wire from its Antioch power poles, the utility is now revealing that a particularly brazen thief – or thieves – stole an entire transformer from a power pole.”

The booty is getting bigger, and so is the personal risk, both to the owners of the copper and to the thieves. More of them who attempt to steal copper from live wires are getting fatally electrocuted.

So then they ‘graduated’ from transformers to whole air conditioning units, attached to houses where the people are living. Stealing the unit puts the people inside at risk, of course. In a heat wave people die. Stealing the scrap metal or copper from live gas lines means houses explode, sometimes with the people inside them. These thieves sunk even lower, stealing the AC unit from an animal shelter, putting all the puppies and kittens at risk.

So in a short time we have gone from a constant of petty wire thievery at abandoned homes or constructions sites, to huge AC units attached to homes, churches and non-profit centers, and from pipes to gutters to entire transformers that black out whole neighborhoods. But we don’t stop there.

These thieves stole an entire irrigation system in Modesto CA. “Thieves crushed a grape crop when they took off with the tools that help a local vineyard to grow. Grape grower Frank Rashid was on track for a record-breaking year. “See how beautiful?” said Rashid, gesturing toward his grapes.But in an instant, thieves crippled all of his hard work. “A lot of trouble for me, [and] the grapes; I can lose the crop, you know,” said Rashid. Bad guys stole the grape irrigation system worth more than $10,000.”

Copper thievery has gotten so persistent and so bad that there are states proposing laws regulating the sale of the metal. Copper thievery has risen sharply in Winston-Salem, with “more copper thefts in Winston-Salem in the first six months of 2011 than there were all of last year, city police said.”

The boldness of the copper thieves, the size of the booty, the heightening of danger, are examples of a downward progression in sin and evil in these last days. This progression is in all sins and crimes of course. We’ve gone from child abuse, to child abuse and kidnapping, to child abuse, kidnapping and murder, to child abuse, kidnapping, murder and dismemberment. Embezzlement is no longer perpetrated by a furtive, mealy-mouth man in some back cubicle at a tiny company. That sin’s depths were revealed to us in the Bernie Madoff schemes where he boldly made off with billions. Petty shoplifting is a thing of the quaint past, now we have whole mobs storming stores in full view of security guards and grabbing all that they can. Each and every sin on earth is getting deeper, worse, more corrupt.

The point is, you don’t want to be here when there is NO restraint. Things are this bad now but soon there will be free reign to plunder, steal, be brutal and selfish and the sanctity of life will mean nothing.

By His grace He died to save us from our sins. He will forgive you your unholy crimes if you ask him with penitent heart. He is sending these signs and warnings to us now to let us know the era is drawing to a close. He will remove His bride from the earth, He will send the Holy Spirit into retreat, He will allow satan full capacity to do his worst. You really don’t want to be here when that happens. And you don’t have to be. Just turn to Jesus.
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fibonacci

Glory Window in the Thanks-Giving Square Chapel

Posted on July 14, 2011 by elizabethprata

The “Glory Window” of the Thanks-Giving Square Chapel in downtown Dallas, Texas:
photo source here

“The most prominent and recognizable feature of Thanks-Giving Square is the Chapel of Thanksgiving, a small, spiral tower that features an enclave for prayerful thanks. Inside the chapel, the spiral is topped with stained glass “Glory Window”, one of largest horizontally mounted stained-glass pieces in the world. The window was designed by Gabriel Loire of Chartres, France to feature brighter colors as the spiral reached its apex, becoming brighter as it reaches the center. Philip Johnson and Burgee Architects designed the Chapel of Thanksgiving in 1976. The spiral shape of the window is inspired by the spiralled shape of the chambered nautilus.”

Glory Window in the Thanks-Giving Square Chapel

What is it about the chambered nautilus that makes it so beautiful, compelling, and sought-after? The BeachChair Scientists says:

“Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.”
Oliver Wendall Holmes (1804-1894)

“The above is only an excerpt from the poem, “The Chambered Nautilus” by Holmes published in 1858. But, it begins to hint at the marvel of this magnificent cephalopod. The chambered nautilus has become breathtaking subject matter for generations of artists and has become a commodity on the commercial trade industry.”

“The chambered nautilus is a squid that lives inside a shell marked with a brown and white zebra pattern. As the squid grows, the shell grows with it and creates compartments which are used as gas chambers and help the cephalopod rise or sink in the water column. The inside of the shell is lined with an iridescent pearl. In the last chamber of the shell are almost 90 tentacles and large eye peering out. Predators of the chambered nautilus include sharks, turtles and octopus.”

“What makes the chambered nautilus so mysterious and sought after?”

“Is it is mother of pearl that line the inside of this creature’s shell?”

“Is it that it represents a far off species only found tropical Indo-Pacific?”

“Most likely, I think it is that the inside compartments of the nautilus each mirror its smaller and larger part exactly and the animal is an example of the golden rectangle found in nature.”

“This harmonic progression is an illustration of Fibonacci’s sequence. This is a sequence where the first two numbers in the series are added to create the third number for a series of number that begins 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 and so on forever. This proportional pattern can be seen all over in nature: flower petals, pinecones and even galaxies. Below is an illustration of the proportion as it relates to the chambered nautilus.”

Image – http://2muchfun.info

See, when we respond to the beauty of the interior of the chambered nautilus we are responding to the orderliness and beauty of God’s creation. He patterned it. He ordered it. He made it lyrical, poetic, beautiful. This beauty is not only captured in the iridescence of the shell, or in the stateliness of a pine tree, or the symmetry of a wave, but in the math behind these exterior aesthetic qualities that please us. Oftentimes we don’t know why we like them so well, but we do. There is an orderliness in the Fibonacci sequence that satisfies, somehow. We are responding to this:

“because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,” (Romans 1:19-20)

We are responding to God when we acclaim the beauty of the orderly creation.
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eu recognize palestinian State, Israel coast, prophecy, unilateral

"Palestinian envoy to UN: European states will recognize Palestine before September"

Posted on July 14, 2011 by elizabethprata

Here is an article for your consideration. Please read it in its entirety. I know it’s long but there is nothing more important these days in our Christian lives than the welfare of Israel, the lostness of the Arabs, and prophecy being laid bare before us. Pray.

The following article from last night’s Haaretz is extraordinary, and it resolved for me the feeling of imminence and burden I’d had all day. We know that in September, the United Nations may declare Palestine a sovereign state whose territory includes all of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem during its annual General Assembly meeting. Things are coming to a head with Israel, and the prophesied Psalm 83 war may be the result. It could be as soon as this fall. Let me give some background.

Psalm 83 is an intercessory prayer for success in a war that hasn’t happened yet. It involves Israel and her neighbors. Here is more information about it.

Over the last two years the Palestinian Authority has been engaging in successful shuttle diplomacy, jetting around the world to pitch their notion that the Palestinians deserve a state with actual land and borders. Adding to the mix was a new idea: to leave the negotiating table with Israel and go directly to the UN and ask the UN to unilaterally vote a Palestine into being, and be done with it. This isn’t unprecedented, that’s how Israel got their state when General Assembly resolution 181 passed on November 29, 1947.

The PA shuttle diplomacy has paid off, though they are not a nation now, they have gotten over 100 countries to formally and diplomatically declare recognition of any such future Palestinian State.

Meanwhile Palestinian Authority has been working with the UN on the criteria for being “allowed” to be a state. They must prove to the UN that they have competency in 6 major areas, education, infrastructure, governance, economy and the like. Recently, the UN declared that the PA has achieved those criteria and were ready to become a nation if the UN Security Council voted so and the General Assembly followed up with a 2/3 affirmative vote. You’ll read the Palestinian representative speaking to that in the news article below.

The UN itself has no authority to make this place or that place into a nation, but they lay the groundwork. After Israel was voted a nation in November 1947, the UK- which had occupied Palestine since 1917, gathered its forces and on May 13, 1948 moved out. The next day, Israel declared its independence.

So back to the present. The PA has threatened to bring a resolution to the Security Council on making them a state. Here is how it is supposed to work as this UN fact sheet outlines: “The application is considered first by the Security Council. Any recommendation for admission must receive the affirmative votes of nine of the 15 members of the Council, provided that none of its five permanent members – China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America – has voted against the application.” Though nine votes are required from the Security Council to pass, five of those must be from the five permanent members. One ‘no’ vote kills it. It will never see the light of day in the General Assembly. The US has stated that they plant to veto any such resolution. Personally, I have my doubts that the US would stick to her guns, but the PA isn’t taking any chances. The deadline for submitting any resolutions to the Security Council is Friday, July 15. That’s tomorrow.

I’d read last week that they may skip the Security Council and go straight to the UN General Assembly. How can they do that? I’d wondered. That isn’t the process. I searched and searched and kept my eyes and ears open, and finally found this article last night. In it, the PA explains how.

Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour told Haaretz reporter in an interview that they will go directly to the General Assembly and ask for a vote. They say they have the necessary 130 votes for passage. When that happens, “they” [meaning the US] wouldn’t dare withstand the will of 2/3 of the world. It seems that his reasoning is that it is easier to vote no when voting against 8 others, but they would not want to be the only naysayer against a Palestine state in the face of 130. It’s about pressure. And if anything, Obama has shown that he eschews pressure and prefers going with the majority because it’s less uncomfortable. That the Quartet failed this week to get both parties back to the negotiating table worked in the Palestinian’s favor as you’ll see near the end of the article.

The article is long but it is fascinating in the PA’s specificity and confidence regarding their tactics. Of course it could be bluster. The article mentions stalemate, but we know that at some point the stalemate is broken because Israel’s land is divided (Joel 3:2) and she gets her temple. (Dan 9:27; Mark 13:14). The pressure being brought to bear on this unbearable situation is heightening to where the Psalm 83 war seems likely in the next few months, in my opinion. IF this comes to pass as the PA suggests it will, Israel will not stand for the Arabs making themselves a nation on their land. There would be war, the Psalm 83 battle and perhaps also the fulfillment of the Isaiah 17:1 prophecy. If the situation does NOT come about as the PA states, the Arabs could be so upset that they could spark an ‘Arab Summer’ and simply revolt, as we have seen happens so easily in the region these days. Any way you slice it, the tension is ratcheting up to a level where it seems inevitable that armed conflict would be the result to break this stalemate. Psalm 83 could be that conflict.

Palestinian envoy to UN: European states will recognize Palestine before September
Riyad Mansour tells Haaretz that the Palestinian Authority’s UN bid is last chance for a two-state solution.
By Barak Ravid

BUDAPEST − The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, is in the forefront of the Palestinian diplomatic move − now gaining momentum − before the General Assembly meet in September. In the coming weeks, Mansour will submit to the UN secretary general an official request for Palestine to be accepted as a full member of the world body. Mansour hopes that September will see more than 130 countries voting in the General Assembly in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state, even if it does not receive full membership status.

What do you think about the fact that the Quartet [United States, Russia, the European Union, the United Nations] has not published a statement?

The Quartet decision to send envoys is a fancy way to say they failed. The Americans just could not deliver the Israelis.

Don’t you think that the Palestinian move in the UN is just symbolic and will not change anything on the ground?

The Israeli government is fighting us, saying that the international community should not let us do that. If it is symbolic, why are they fighting it so hard? It is definitely not symbolic.

What will happen if you don’t get the 130 votes that you are expecting?

If we go to a vote tomorrow, we will get two-thirds of the General Assembly. We have the votes. The significance of the number of votes is to maximize the pressure on the Security Council. What will be the argument of anyone to deprive us of the right to join the community of nations?

Do you think you will be able to get any EU member states to recognize the Palestinian state?

Just hold tight. You will be hearing interesting news soon about it before September.

Are you going to apply to the UN on July 15 and ask to become a full member?

We will apply when we are ready. Israel submitted it’s application in 1948 on the last week of the General Assembly session. They asked the Security Council to suspend the articles that dealt with time regimentation because of their special situation. It took Israel seven months to become a full member in May 1949. Look at South Sudan. It will take them two weeks to become a member, so the time procedures are not rigid.

But what will happen on the next day − after the UN resolution?

It is similar to [General Assembly] Resolution 181 in 1947. The following day nothing happened, but was Israel able to declare independence without 181? I don’t think so. We are going through the same process right now. The next day, the sun will rise from the east but the resolution will be historic and will lead the way for a declaration of independence. Huge things take time. Things will not change in 24 hours. All those who wish for a silver bullet, there is no such thing. But there is accumulation.

Do you see a Tahrir Square scenario in Ramallah?

It is not for me to decide but for the Palestinian people. Our people have a rich tradition of struggle and collective wisdom in doing what is proper. If they will believe and come to the conclusion that this battle is their battle, and not only the battle of Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] or Salam Fayyad, that will reflect itself. The Palestinian people are like the Egyptian people and are capable of doing remarkable things. But these things you don’t give orders for. If the Egyptian people managed to change the U.S. position in 18 days so that Obama told his ally Mubark to leave, what will the position of the international community be if the Palestinian people will say we what independence − and we want it now? We learned our lesson, and this is why our struggle will be peaceful, peaceful, peaceful. Why would anybody stand in our way?

You are not afraid to find yourselves in a third intifada?

I don’t want to give it names. It is just the will of the Palestinian people. If it exhibits itself in a peaceful way, it will enter the configuration of the dynamics of how to solve this situation. If the international community will not step up to the plate, as it should, and the Quartet is not doing anything, the Palestinian people who live under occupation might contribute in their own way.

You think that the Palestinians will conclude that the only way to change the situation is to resort to violence?

If there is violence, it is from the Israeli army. Our people in Bil’in demonstrated peacefully against the [separation] wall, and they have with them Israelis and internationals [foreigners]. Those who brought violence there was the occupying army.

You think that the lessons of the first intifada were learned?

Our actions speak for themselves. Take Bil’in as an example. Those who oppose our move in the UN are coming every week with a new story. The Palestinian people do not need credentials to prove that they are struggling peacefully to put an end to the occupation.

Are you worried from what might happen if the stalemate continues?

This is the last chance for the survival of the two-state solution. Israel will be responsible for what will come later. By going to the UN, we are trying to save the two-state solution. The danger is that we will get to the extreme possibilities of the one-state solution that is suicide for Israel. Something has to give. Israel can’t continue holding the stick at both ends.

Why are you going for a unilateral move, and not going back to the negotiating table?

Our independence is not a matter for negotiation. The Israelis in 1948 did not seek permission from anyone to declare their independence. We are no different. The negotiation should be on the six core issues − not on our right to a state and independence. Everyone is telling us that we have done a great job building our institutions, and that we are ready to govern ourselves. Should we wait until Netanyahu is ready to negotiate with us?

This is not a unilateral action. We engaged many countries bilaterally, and they recognized us. One hundred and twenty-two states and very soon we will have more than 130. This recognition is an investment in peace, not a unilateral action.

We are going for a multilateral action. When we go to the UN and we want to legislate the results of what we have done in the last two years, how is that unilateral?
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bible jesus, conforming to the world, end time, liberal theology

An example of what happens when seeking crumbs from secular tables

Posted on July 14, 2011 by elizabethprata

Wow, I was excited when I read a tweet from a Christian College Academician who recommended a secular article about the Bible. He titled his tweet and the introduction to the essay, “Well, Well, The HuffPo Finally Gets an Essay on Scripture Right!” It had been retweeted by a twitter pal who is in seminary. Wow, I thought, two bigwigs! They should know! This article ought to be good, and how wonderful an accurate and respectful secular article is in the Huffington Post! I clicked and read. The Seminary Professor’s introduction to the Huffington Post’s essay on the bible went like this:

“David Lose does a good job in analyzing the common misrepresentations of ‘how we got the Bible’ and then he does an even better job of describing how the process of ‘scripturalization’ (my word, not his) worked. Give it a read. I know, I was apprehensive too at first given the fact that the Huffington Post doesn’t usually do accuracy when it comes to Bible related stuff. But they managed to get an informed essayist this time.”

Okey dokey. I plunged on. The HuffPo article begins by offering the three most common cultural misconceptions of how the bible came to be, ‘Holy Dictation, Imperial Decree, and Forgeries and Falsehoods.’

Here is the Huffington Post explanation about what the secular world thinks of Holy Dictation:

“A: Holy Dictation. Promoted by conservative Christians, this view stresses the inerrancy — that is, the factual accuracy in all matters of faith, history, and science — of the Bible. Authors, in the grip of the Holy Spirit, received a divine revelation directly from God that they transcribed without error. So while the biblical authors may have written in their own voice and style, the contents of their compositions were nevertheless divinely inspired and controlled. For this reason, there are no errors of any kind in the Bible; hence, if the Bible says the world was created in seven days then, indeed, it was created in seven days.”

True enough! Next came the essayists’ discussion of it. He said that the answer of where the bible came from is not ‘A. Holy Dictation,’ nor ‘B. Imperial Decree’, and not ‘C. Forgeries and Falsehoods’, either. It’s ‘D. ‘None of the above.’ He wrote, “All of the “possibilities” are flawed”. In fact, the author of the essay wrote: “In fact, the theory of inerrancy — a word never used in the Bible — was only coined only a century ago by fundamentalist Christians seeking to defend the Bible from recent discoveries about its historical origins and fallible conclusions in the realms of history and science.”

Christians have come to expect this kind of thought about our bible from secular essayists. That he didn’t deride the bible nor the “option A. Divine Inspiration” is to his credit. We usually see much more hostile treatment from the secular crowd and worse from liberal media like HuffPo. I don’t take issue with the HuffPo author.

Of course, I take issue with the secular essayist’s proposition that the bible’s delivery by Divine Inspiration is a possibility and not a fact. Of course I take issue with the notion that the doctrine of Divine Inspiration is flawed. I don’t take issue with the author, though. That’s to be expected from Christians, but we don’t bark up every secular tree, because the world is fallen. They can’t help but believe these things.

But Christians should know better.

I take issue with the Christians who make a public claim that the article is an “informed answer”. I take issue with Christians who make public statements about how the essay promoting the notion that the bible’s inerrancy doctrine is flawed. I take issue with Christians who say that essays promoting these things is “is a good job”. I take issue with Christians who state that their apprehensions of yet another mischaracterizing bible Christian representation disappear when reading that the bible ISN’T Divinely Inspired.

I am making two points here.

The first is that Christians of today have a tendency to attach to the world. They want the world’s approval. They get tired of always defending, contending, fighting the good fight. They compromise on small things, then larger things. They accept leaven with the dough and pretty soon their entire doctrine is polluted. Attaching to the world skews a Christian’s perspective. Satan influences Christians by incremental degrees. A jot here, a tittle here. If he was to burst in on the scene and say that the entire book of Ephesians was non-inspired, or something egregious like that, we’d know the force behind the sentiment is satan. But he creeps. He slouches toward the goal line stealthily and subtly. (Jude 1:4; Gen 3:1). But we are not unaware of his schemes! (2 Cor 2:11).

We are in a war. (Ephesians 6). It’s WAR. In war do you let down your guard? Sleep on patrol? Give ground to the enemy just because he pleased you? Accept his compliments because you would rather not carry your battle armor any more and just want to go home? We all want to go home. But we’ll go home when the LORD calls the battle-weary up to heaven and until then, don’t give the enemy one inch of ground.

Brethren, it is tiring to be Christian. We stand, we walk, we race. We fight, we run, we go. It’s all active, every day. Christians who get tired are called liberals. Soon after, they are called apostates. Does one think it pleases the Holy God for Christians to be so attached to the world that they are grateful for a secular crumb in an online blog that besmirches Holy Scripture? Have we become that pathetic? Yes. Revelation 3:14-15 tells us that through Christ’s rebuke to the lukewarm Laodicean church, AKA the apostate church. We’re supposed to be separate from the world, as God told Ezra as the model of separating so as not to be polluted:

“Now make confession to the LORD, the God of your fathers, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives.” (Ezra 10:11). Haggai 2:12-13 has something to say about it, too. So the first point is that by conforming to the world we soon seek the world’s approval and not God’s. Christian, beware! It’s a sly and subtle process.

Secondly, the point also is that academia these days seems especially polluted. I am not saying there aren’t good bible colleges. But most of them have compromised. For example, there are about 105 colleges in the Christian Coalition and only 6 adhere to a biblical, literal interpretation of the Genesis 6-day creation. Rather than being a bastion of free, conservative and staunch doctrinal thought, seminaries, Christian colleges and Christian Universities tend to the heretical rather than the biblical. I’ve noticed this in my own experience time and again. I know people who were hot to become missionaries operating under the Godly influence of the pure Holy Spirit but when they went to Christian Seminaries they came out academic gamesmen, pursuing academic thought in ever higher sheepskin degrees for its own sake, not the Lord’s.

My advice to you is to be wary and skeptical of Professors, Academic Theologians AND Seminary students and their doctrines than accepting of them. In all cases, even with the most conservative and proven pastors or professors, be a Berean and ask the Spirit to deliver wisdom to you in situations where you have a conflict between doctrines you’ve learned or a question about scripture. He leads into all truth, being the Holy Teacher. Also, ask for discernment. The scriptures are rife with Godly men asking for it, as David did here:

“Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments.” (Psalm 119:66). We have this promise, too:

“My son, if you receive my words,
And treasure my commands within you,
So that you incline your ear to wisdom,
And apply your heart to understanding;
Yes, if you cry out for discernment,
And lift up your voice for understanding,
If you seek her as silver,
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will understand the fear of the LORD,
And find the knowledge of God.
For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;
He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; ” (Proverbs 2:1-7a)

Be very, very careful these days. And for heaven’s sakes, don’t read Huffington Post!
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bible jesus, end of days, end of days. prophecy, God

Glory be!

Posted on July 13, 2011May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Jesus came for God’s glory. (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus said this over and over. He came for us, of course, to seek and save the lost, but Jesus came to increase God’s glory. God is passionate about His glory, “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.” (Isaiah 42:8)

God’s glory is increased when He redeems sinful man to Himself. It is the single greatest act of a Holy God. Redeeming. Sinful. Man. THAT is the expression of His highest glory in the most glorious act, and that His Son would incarnate (not just for 33 years, but forever) and live a human life and die a horrendous death, and in between would seek God’s glory at every moment. This is something admirable to ponder.

Philippians 4:8 – “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Think on the admirable things.

1 Corinthians 10:31 – “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” This verse is saying that even if we are not missionaries leading thousands to Christ, even if we are not fiery preachers speaking before thousands, even if we are not teachers publishing hundreds of books, we, the small and mundane, should do everything we do for the glory of God. The small tasks, the routine, the everyday, are glorious to Him if performed with Him in mind as the utmost audience. Do all with an awareness that you are doing it for God. And it will be a fragrant aroma unto Him.

“and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.” (Ephesians 5:2).

So think on the admirable things:

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economy, end of days. prophecy, end time, global economic crash, one world government

Economic crash dead ahead: prophetic fulfillments one after another

Posted on July 13, 2011May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

The economy around the world is in a shambles. The US has a debt limit ceiling of August 2. However, by that time they must have already come to an agreement on whether to raise it or not because any proposal to raise it must have gone through Congress first, and that takes a minimum of two weeks or so. The talks on the debt ceiling are breaking down like a shreds of a popped balloon. Anger, threats, and inability to come to a conclusion have been the hallmark of these talks, with the world watching and getting more fearful and angry by the minute.

US default is inevitable, says CNBC analyst. Just a few years ago just saying default and US in the same sentence would have evoked laughter. Now they are talking about its inevitability, the only question remaining as to what KIND of default the US will have.

“It is inevitable that the US will default when the debt ceiling deadline on August 2 comes around, David Murrin, chief investment officer at Emergent Asset Management told CNBC. “It’s inevitable that the US will default – it’s essentially an empire which is overextended and in decline – and that its financial system will go with it. The question is: does it default when it is forced to by the outside world, probably the Chinese, or does it take the option to default on its own terms in such a way that it may have a strategic advantage,” he said.”

I’m flabbergasted that just four years ago America seemed to be on top of the world in every arena, including economic, and now we are taking of not only the inevitability of default, but of what KIND of default. Sovereign default is what we used to make fun of in the Banana Republics, but now Obama is vehemently denying that we are one. In high finance, vehement denials always come just before the thing that is being denied comes about.

The ‘Eurozone’ also has difficulties, worse ones actually. While the US has been staying the execution of our economic system by printing more money, Europe can’t do that. Those in the zone, the EU, have one currency. One nation just can’t go off and print more drachmas, because there is no such thing any more as drachmas. Or Lira. or Escudo. There was an emergency meeting on Italy’s looming default that ended with no solutions. There is a meeting scheduled for this Friday about Greece that is already in disarray. Ireland was cut to junk status. Italy is coming apart like a $20 suit.

Greece is rumored to be preparing to leave the Eurozone, but denies it vehemently. Remember the truism that in economics the more vigorous the denial, the more true the thing is that they are denying. The Eurozone crisis is growing larger while stocks dip and slide, and it is reaching a critical point with Italy’s cracks being added to the already crumbling foundation.

Those are some of the details of what is happening in the economy and how close we are to total collapse. A US default, and/or Greek, Italian or Irish would pull everyone else down with them. And I haven’t even mentioned Spain and Portugal.

Now for the bigger picture. These meetings in the US and Europe are held with the greatest minds on the subject. They are the top officials. They have the most experience, the longest resumes, the most power. In some cases, they are the people who put the economic system together, and have intricate understanding of how it works, and therefore should have intricate understanding of why it isn’t working. But they don’t. They try and try and fly here and there and go to and fro and meet and meet and still things are worsening.

This situation of economic gridlock causing so much consternation is exactly the beginning of fulfillment of prophecy. In Luke 21:25 it says: “There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves.”

Barnes Notes explains the state of distress from the Greek word used: “The word translated “distress” denotes anxiety of mind – such an anxiety as people have when they do not know what to do to free themselves from calamities; and it means here that the calamities would be so great and overwhelming that they would not know what to do to escape. There would be a want of counsel, and deep anxiety at the impending evils.” Is that now, or what?!

Further, the roaring of the waves does not denote tsunamis or hurricanes but is parallel to this scripture from Isaiah 17:12 “Oh, the raging of many nations–they rage like the raging sea! Oh, the uproar of the peoples–they roar like the roaring of great waters!” Is that happening now, or what?! The ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings, the anger of the people everywhere at the leaders who can’t and won’t and don’t fix this, Greek and UK riots on austerity measures…Just now there have been successive bomb blasts in Mumbai, killing many.

I personally think the remainder of the summer will be really interesting prophetically. Between the deadlines regarding Israel and dividing of her land, either through the peace process or a unilateral vote at the UN, and the deadlines for resolving the debt before it crushes us, and continuing natural disasters hammering away at the economy, I don’t think we will have much longer before the cracks in that old foundation give way to a heap of rubble that used to be our economy. And prophecy students know that at the middle of the Tribulation, the antichrist has gained so much power that he can monitor every single person on the planet and include them or exclude them from buying or selling. (Rev 13:15-17). For there to be so much power and capability on one person’s hands there must have been a reformation of the economic system to allow it. I think we’re on that brink.
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