A youtube video showing you the Rapture and Tribulation. The end is nigh. Get right with Jesus if you have not already. Ask Him to forgive your sins. What you see in the video WILL occur, and soon. You can be with the traveling lights streaming off-earth seen at the beginning, or you can be among the people seen in the rest of the video…Jesus leaves it up to you.
Thousands besiege church where Christ allegedly appeared
Be very wary, Christian! The end time promised supernatural events are increasing, just as Jesus said they would, to deceive even the elect:
“If any man shall say to you, “Lo, here is Christ,” or, “There!,” believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before.” (Matt. 24:23-25)
The Nigerian Observer reported:
Christ’s apparition attracts thousands
Benin City, Nigeria: St Paul’s Catholic Church along Airport Road in Benin City, yesterday, turned into a mecca of sorts as people from all walks of life thronged the church to catch a glimpse of what has been literally described as an apparition of Jesus Christ. The uncommon but holy phenomenon according to catholic faithful and enthusiasts present at the church premises, came up early Wednesday morning immediately after the offering of adoration at the church.
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| The massive crowd halted vehicular traffic on the road for several hours, causing discomfort for travellers and road users |
The Nigerian Tribune reports:
Benin residents besiege church over appearance of Jesus
THOUSANDS of residents in Benin City, the Edo State capital, on Thursday, besieged the St. Paul’s Catholic Church, located on the Airport Road in the Benin metropolis, to catch a glimpse of Jesus Christ who was rumoured to have appeared to worshippers during the morning mass service. The Thursday appearance of the image of Jesus Christ to the worshippers at the church was reputed to be the first of its kind in the area. Francis Efe, 18, a mass server, said he actually saw the image of Jesus Christ in a form of the Divine Mercy image around 5.00 p.m on Wednesday, while preparing for mass after the prayer. He said after seeing the image, he went outside the church hall to call his fellow mass servers and that they all followed him to the altar to see the image before it receded into the monstrance in the form of the Divine Mercy image. “The priest came and we repeated the Divine Mercy prayer, followed by the Benediction, then the monstrance was reposed before we started the evening mass,” he added. Efe said it was the security man who was watching over the monstrance that first saw the apparition and ran away. While giving an account of what happened on Thursday, Efe said, “this morning after the morning prayer, the priest brought the monstrance back to the altar and the people that came for morning mass saw it and the people started shouting in amazement.” Describing the image he saw, Efe said “Jesus Christ came like a human. Only the body, the hand and the head showed. The feet did not show. He came in pure white gown with something like red rays in form of blood and sky blue rays radiating from the navel downwards in a triangular formation.” Below, a monstrance, a device used to hold the Holy Eucharist.
Test everything against the Word, for even the elect can be deceived. Did not Jesus promise “For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord”? (Mathew 23:39). How could He come back and break His promise?
Aren’t we told “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am”? John 14:3. How could He come back and not take us with Him?
It is wonderful that so many people are hungry for Jesus and thirsty for His presence. However, do not fail to test all things, and hold fast only to what is GOOD.
Taking credit for someone else’s work is plagiarism
National Geographic’s poster for documentary airing Sunday at 9pm. 2 Timothy 3:1-5 says men will be unholy blasphemers. I think this poster covers it.
Millions of dead fish, alligators, turtles, dolphins in Bolivian ecological disaster
Our world is complex and interbalanced. Soon, God will overtly interrupt that balance. We see the beginning of that upset now. In Revelation 7:1, we read “After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree.” Wikipedia explains sea breezes, for example, “The sea has a greater specific heat than land and therefore has a greater capacity for absorbing heat than the land, so the surface of the sea warms up slower than the land’s surface. As the temperature of the surface of the land rises, the land heats the air above it. The warm air is less dense and so it rises. This rising air over the land lowers the sea level pressure by about 0.2%. The cooler air above the sea, now with higher sea level pressure, flows towards the land into the lower pressure, creating a cooler breeze near the coast. The strength of the sea breeze is directly proportional to the temperature difference between the land and the sea.” No breeze means a still earth. And it will be HOT.
Now imagine no breeze. Heat. Drought, Smells, Dead animals… In an end time precursor to the strange weather non-believers will endure in the tribulation, we see that the northern hemisphere is experiencing an excessively hot summer and the southern hemisphere enduring an excessively cold winter- with deadly and unexpected consequences.
1 Million Fish Dead in Bolivian Ecological Disaster
“Over 1 million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles, dolphins and other river wildlife are floating dead in numerous Bolivian rivers in the three eastern/southern departments of Santa Cruz, Beni and Tarija. [now updated to 6 million] The extreme cold front that hit Bolivia in mid-July caused water temperatures to dip below the minimum temperatures river life can tolerate. As a consequence, rivers, lakes, lagoons and fisheries are brimming with decomposing fish and other creatures.”
Unprecedented:
“Nothing like this has ever been seen in this magnitude in Bolivia. Inhabitants of riverside communities report the smell is nauseating and can be detected as far as a kilometer away from river banks. River communities, whose livelihoods depend on fishing, fear they’ll run out of food and will have nothing to sell. Authorities are concerned there will be a shortage of fish in markets and are more concerned by possible threats to public health, especially in communities that also use river water for bathing and drinking, but also fear contaminated or decaying fish may end up in market stalls.”
6 Americans on medical team killed in Afghanistan for preaching Christianity
Please pray for missionaries, relief workers, and charitable organizations in the hot zones! Christians, we are hated, and it is only the start. “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.” (Matthew 24:9)
Stay strong! Every mention of the Gospel counts. As for these precious ones, they are in glory now…
From Yahoo Health News:
“Ten members of a medical team, including six Americans, were shot and killed by militants as they were returning from providing eye treatment and other health care in remote villages in northern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the team said Saturday. Dirk Frans, director of the International Assistance Mission, said one German, one Briton and two Afghans also were part of the team that made the three-week trip to Nuristan province. They drove to the province, left their vehicles and hiked for hours with pack horses over mountainous terrain to reach the Parun valley in the province’s northwest. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press that they killed the foreigners because they were “spying for the Americans” and “preaching Christianity.”
“Frans said the International Assistance Mission, the longest serving nongovernmental organization operating in Afghanistan, is registered as a nonprofit Christian organization but does not proselytize. “This tragedy negatively impacts our ability to continue serving the Afghan people as IAM has been doing since 1966,” the charity said in a statement. “We hope it will not stop our work that benefits over a quarter of a million Afghans each year.” The team, made up of doctors, nurses and logistics personnel, was attacked as it was returning to Kabul after the two-week mission in Nuristan, Frans said. They had decided to travel through Badakhshan province to return to the capital because they thought it would be the safest route, Frans said.”
More at link…
CIA thinks Israel will strike Iran this month
Interesting discussion about a CIA-and FBI drafted memo to Obama outlining likelihood of Israeli strike against Iran in August. We’ve heard for months that a summer strike is in the works. In May, Maj. General Paul Vallely was certain that a Mid-East regional war would come this summer.
In any case, the interview is fascinating. It’s worth 6 minutes of your time.
Ann Rice cannot leave Christianity
Ann Rice is famous for her vampire series of books, her bi-sexual erotica, and her very public conversion to Catholicism ten years ago. Her announcement this week that she is quitting Christianity is, of course, just as public. She said:
“Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out,” she wrote. “I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious and deservedly infamous group. For 10 years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else…. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”
Rice wrote that she cannot get behind a religion that is “anti-gay”. The culture of our times, here in the last days before the Time of Jacob’s Trouble, is such that man’s personal choices and ideas always trump God’s. His standards for morality and purity are that His men and women refrain from sexual indulgence until marriage, that they stay married, that they remain faithful until they die. This notion is mocked and scorned today. The literati firmly claim that it is hopelessly outdated. Even Federal Judge Walker said that the notion of opposite-sex genders as the only qualifiers for marriage is an “artifact from a past time” when he overturned the California constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
Equally, the notion that God renders consequences on those who choose to set aside His standards is anathema to today’s culture. No one wants to be held accountable and no one wants to think that anything they do has any consequences whatsoever. Ann Rice’s renunciation of the religion, the bible, yet claims of remaining faithful to Jesus are just another example of the tendency for fallen humans to pick and choose ideals with which they can remain fleshly and indulge in their favorite pastimes.
It is particularly poignant that she states that she remains “committed” to Christ but quits adhering to His standards, and in His name, no less. One cannot remain committed to someone or something after you selectively decline so many precepts the entirety looks like a foundation-less house. It is not possible to remain “committed to Christ” and repudiate His Word and His standards for purity, marriage, life, and culture. It is simply not possible.
Further, her statement reveals just how little she understood genuine conversion. Upon renunciation of your sins, seeking forgiveness of Jesus for them, and last, submitting to His will for your life, The Holy Spirit then enters and seals you. Thinking that even for a minute that man can tell the Spirit to come or go is ridiculous. Thinking for even a minute that man has the power to break a seal that God Himself set is even more ridiculous. And Jesus promised that the gates of Hades will not prevail against His church. Ann Rice never was a Christian. You can’t leave something you never went to. And sadly, Ann Rice believes she is a friend of God, has the power to break His seal, and can select at will the precepts to which she will adhere. This attitude is prevalent today, held not just by author Rice, but many, even most, Christians and non-believers.
Of course there is no such thing as an ex-Christian. But it speaks to how far we have fallen and how blinded we have become to even say such a thing with a straight face. The only thing left in Ann Rice’s spiritual landscape is the name of her Savior; the very God who hung on the cross so that she would be allowed to claim Him as savior- or reject Him. Unfortunately, Rice, and all of who believes as she does, will discover the devastating choice she made when Judgment Day rolls around. She can refuse to be anti-gay, anti birth control, anti-feminist all she wants. And she, and all who refuse the Way of Jesus will hear this: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’
Christian, if you have the Spirit in you, your walk should be closer each today to Him. If you wonder whether you are saved (or are considering “leaving Christianity”), then pray, pray hard and do a heart-check. Appeal to Him to forgive your sins and then repent, which means turn away from temptations and lifestyles that draw you back into lawlessness. It’s now, or then. And for eternity’s sake, turn from lawlessness NOW.
Homosexual marriage ban in CA (Prop 8) ruled unconstititional [UPDATED]
See bottom for the update
Last November in CA, citizens voted on a citizen-initiative at the polls defining marriage as only between one man and one woman in the state constitution. It passed. The amendment was immediately challenged legally, there was a trial, and it’s been in Judge Walker’s hands for consideration ever since.
Judge Walker sifted through evidence, heard arguments, reviewed the law, made a decision, and today he totally botched it. He ruled that homosexuals banned from marrying under the newly enacted, State constitutionally defined marriage definition was a contradiction against the US Constitution. He struck down the definition that only one man and one woman are qualified to marry in CA. The case marks the first federal court test of a state law banning gay marriage.
In one very real sense this in an interesting interplay with the MA law that was also recently struck down that stated the Federally defined marriage act stating one man and one woman are the only qualifiers for marriage, was unconstitutional because the Federal Government had no business defining marriage qualifications for the states. But in CA, the citizens did just that in their state, and and passed their definition. And it was struck down.
The Judge wrote that Prop 8 “unconstitutionally burdens the exercise of the fundamental right to marry and creates an irrational classification on the basis of sexual orientation.” God’s definition of marriage is not irrational. But to continue, the judge wrote, “[Prop 8] fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.” The freedom to marry is a fundamental right under due process, he said. Beginning on page 113 he outlines the criteria for marriage under our nation’s past legal history, traditions and practices and uses those criteria as the foundation to show that marriage between same sexes is a fundamental right, rather than a new right.
Walker said that characteristics of marriages in the US have included two parties, free consent, forming of a household, and mutual support of each other and dependents. Nowhere is the main characteristic of marriage in the US’s history mentioned, that those two parties have always been of opposite gender. As a matter of fact, he wrote, the institution of marriage has been moving away from a gendered institution as our understanding of gender increases and the two genders are now considered equal.
Moreover, the notion of two genders having distinct roles in society is an artifact of a time that has passed. (p 115).
Judge Walker could not be more wrong, about everything. The gender roles are just as distinct and in force as the day that God made them (Gen 2:20-25). It is man’s sinful and corrupt nature that has put aside the good and the perfect that God planned for us, including the structure of marriage and the functions of the husband and the wife.
Jesus said that the time immediately prior to His coming would be like the Days of Noah. (Matthew 24:37). The days of Noah were “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that <sup class="xref" value="(D)”>every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.”” (Gen 6:5-7)
Paul said the time of the end would be characterized by conditions where the majority of people will be “boasters, proud, blasphemers,… unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…” (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
Of the decision, the chortling and trumpeting of the ‘new day’ has already begun. Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote on Twitter, “Very joyful court ruled against #prop8, it is a stain upon the CA Constitution’…” Sean R. Simons wrote, “is a huge victory for all Americans who believe in equality for not just few, but for all. Today is a great day for our nation.” Lesbian talk show host Ellen DeGeneres said, “We’re all equal, and we should all have equal rights. I’m so grateful for today’s decision.” A Twitterer tweeted “If one should have faith in anything, it is that Love endures. In the end, Love will always win out over Hate.”
Understandably, the lost do not realize that God is love and satan is hate, and that they are actually working for satan and his hate against anything and everything God holds dear, including and especially marriage. Unfortunately, they will soon understand that, and more devastatingly, they will have an eternity to ponder its truth. Yes, Love will win, it already has, in the form of Jesus at the cross, dying for the very people who pollute His institutions today.
Christian, if your heart is heavy, and you see, listen to, and read the joyful chortles of mockers and scoffers of our faith, and more importantly, of God’s standards for moral purity, take heed that His wrath is coming and what the mockers and scoffers will endure will be far worse than anything we can say or do.
“It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. “It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. (Luke 17:28-30)
UPDATE: The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay.
Rockets hitting Israel in central and south, snipers killing soldiers in north
Rocket and sniper attacks over the last four days in Israel. More below
Lebanese snipers pick off IDF soldiers inside Israel’s border
Israel has confirmed that a battalion commander was killed in clashes with Lebanese troops that also claimed the lives of two Lebanese soldiers and a newspaper reporter. The casualties occurred after Lebanese and Israeli troops exchanged fire at a border location that the Israeli Defense Forces described as being west of the Israeli town of Misgav Am…. the Lebanese troops shot inside Israel without provocation. He said Lebanese snipers shot Israeli officers standing more than 300 metres from the fence, as opposed to the soldiers removing bushes by the fence.
Sderot children and veteran’s rehabilitation center decimated by rockets
The upgraded Kassam rocket on Sderot Saturday night scored a direct hit on the ceiling of a children’s hydrotherapy rehabilitation center in the heart of Sderot’s Sapir College, bringing to nearly 400 the number aerial attacks launched from Gaza since the ceasefire which halted Israel’s Cast Lead counter-terror campaign in Gaza in January 2009.
Rockets hit Southern Israel/Jordanian border towns, Egypt denies
Reuters reported from Radio Israel that preliminary information by Israeli police revealed that at least three rockets fell on the Israeli southern port city of Eilat and nearby areas on Monday morning, causing no casualties. A GRAD missile fell in the southern Jordanian port city of Aqaba Monday morning, injuring four people, Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications Ali Al Ayed said.
Of course, when rockets hit Israel, the world blames Israel. When one of them misses and hits Jordan, the UN calls it terrorism and demands justice. All week, Israel suffers attacks and the UN looks the other way. Snipers pick off soldiers well behind the border fence. UN looks the other way. Childrens’ hospitals are destroyed, and UN looks the other way. But a resort in Jordan gets one accidental rocket wandering over the border, once? Ban Ki Moon is all over it.
Secretary-General condemns deadly rocket attack in southern Jordan
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned this week’s rocket attack that killed one person in the southern Jordanian town of Aqaba and urged countries in the region to work together to bring those responsible to justice.
I hope the above map of Israel and the arrows showing rockets falling on the nation from top to bottom over the last 4 days makes an impact. The tiny, beleaguered nation, has the Almighty God behind her. O, if she will only look UP! Pray for the peace of Jerusalem
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May they prosper who love you.
“May peace be within your walls,
“May peace be within your walls,
And prosperity within your palaces.”
For the sake of my brothers and my friends,
For the sake of my brothers and my friends,
I will now say, “May peace be within you.”
For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,
For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,
I will seek your good.
Psalm 122:6-9
Wheat prices going through the roof
“There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.” (Luke 21:11)
Famines take a long time to emerge. They are a slow catastrophe, requiring years of drought and other adverse agricultural conditions to set them up. They are also complex, taking into account variables such as food distribution, crop type, agricultural failure, water conditions, population growth, stresses on land, development, and weather. In America, we have plenty of food, but increasingly, people are unable to afford it. In some African nations, donated food is plentiful, but it is not correctly or widely distributed. But simply put, famine is scarcity of food.
Not only will there be famines, because Jesus told us there would be, but Revelation shows us what some parts of that upcoming famine will look like. The Third seal is Famine itself, the first being the Antichrist and the second, War.
The Third Seal–FamineWhen He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come ” I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.” (Rev 6:5-6)
It will cost a day’s pay for bread, but the luxury items of oil and wine will still be available, indicating there will be people still able to afford it. This is confirmed in Revelation 18:3b
“the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries” and then a bit later in Rev. 18:12-13 those luxuries are listed:
cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and bodies and souls of men.
The Restrainer has been taken away (2 Thess 2:6-7). The one who Restrains is the Holy Spirit and though His ministry of restraint will end, He will still be present on the earth (Gen 6:3). However, because He no longer retrains, the rich hardly care that people are in such need that their children die from lack of bread (2 Tim 3:2-5).
We read the news today about an incredible and sudden jump in wheat prices.
Wheat Soars; Rogers Sees ‘Much Higher’ Food Prices
The July rise in wheat prices, the fastest in 51 years, indicates that shortages in agriculture are coming, Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, told CNBC.com Tuesday. Wheat prices in Europe hit their highest level in two years, rising almost 50 percent since late June as Russia’s wheat crop was affected by drought. “That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Rogers, who has been warning about shortages coming in the agriculture sector for a while, said in a telephone interview. “We’re going to have much, much higher prices over the next few years,” and this from the UK, BBC News: Wheat prices reach 22 month high. Or this headline also from today: Drought Strains Russian Wheat Supplies: “extreme heat and drought had decimated roughly 20 percent of the country’s winter crop…”
A denarius was about a day’s pay for Romans, or 22-25 USdollars. Are you ready to work all day for a loafof bread shared among your entire family? Because the conditions that will spring onto the scene after the rapture in the Third Seal of the Tribulation are coming. If you recognize that you are a sinner and worry about those sins, or wonder about after-death and accountability to God, then pray to Jesus. Ask Him to forgive your sins and to change your heart and your life. Make Him Lord in the sense that He knows best for you (after all, you sin, right? He doesn’t, so He knows better!) and allow yourself to be led by the Holy Spirit into a changed life. And the best part is you will be worshiping Him in person when the Tribulation unfolds down below, on a lost and dying world.
