To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make both long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug-out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year. We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those — or excerpts thereof — in the Odds ‘n Sods Column or in the Snippets column. Let’s keep busy and be ready!
Jim Reports:
We are yet again helping one of our adult children make a household move. Because they’ve reached that stage of life, we’ve done this with four of our five kids in the past two years. Our fully-enclosed three-horse gooseneck trailer is often called into service. Helping out our son will keep us on the road a lot, in the next three weeks. Thankfully, his move was close enough that at least one of us will be able to get home each night, to feed and water our livestock.
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers:
This week started out with temperatures in the twenties for the highs with some sun. By the end of the week we had rain and temperatures as high as 38 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s good to get the rain. Our region is in drought again.
This week I cleaned out the hen house, and the cow shed. Meat and Fiber flock’s shed needs to be cleaned out again next week, because those girls are looking very pregnant. I suspect that we will have our first lambs in early to mid February.
I filled another eighteen three inch pots with soil and planted various tomato seeds in them. I also filled another tray with soil and planted a red onion in the tray. They are under the grow lights in the Guest bedroom.
I’m keeping the house very neat and clean and keeping up with the floors and the laundry, et cetera, which feels good.
We went to “towns” twice this week. The second trip brought us down to the Spokane Valley region where Number One son lives, to deliver the horse trailer to them.
We enjoyed our afternoon visit with Daughter-in-law and grandsons. The three older boys have received the assignments for the poems that they need to memorize for this semester for their Co-op Classical Education school. So I have volunteered to help them memorize them. I do so in person when we can visit and also on the telephone once or twice a week. Because they are moving and need to borrow the horse trailer for a couple of weeks, I was able to visit them and help them in person and on the phone. Plus, I am challenging myself to memorize their poems with them. Our Oldest Grandson is memorizing “The Hunting of the Dragon” by G.K. Chesterton, Second grandson is memorizing, “Try Again” by William Hickson, and Third grandson is memorizing “Furry Bear” by A.A.Milne. All three of those poems are new to me, so I have my work cut out for me. “Furry Bear”, is such a cute poem.
We also did some shopping and some stocking up on the way home. We stopped in at Costco and picked up canned chicken, canned tuna, Pistachios, Olives, and a lot of baking soda for cleaning, etc. I have been using just powdered baking soda on a green scrubby to wash dishes. It works quite well. And hopefully it is pure which means very few chemicals are being absorbed into our skin. Who really knows what is in the dish soaps these days? I also use baking soda, and vinegar for a lot of scrubbing jobs around the house, instead of “Comet” type powders.
We stopped in at Grocery Outlet and bought raw chicken (to cook for the dog and cats) and a few other things.
We ran in to Natural Grocers and bought sheep yogurt, dried Lavender flowers, and a few other things.
We also ran into WinterRidge on the way home to buy Sheep cheese. Yum. Because natural Grocers didn’t have pure sheep milk cheeses.
We recently bought two more broom scrub brushes for the ranch house’s tile floors. Now both Miss Violet and I can work together on sections of the floors together to get the job done faster. We used to use scrub brushes on our hands and knees, but that is so much work, very time-consuming, and I always procrastinated in doing it. So, now we are not procrastinating as much.
We cooked up the raw chicken breast on Friday morning. I chopped eight quart jars worth to freeze and Miss Violet chopped up four quart jars worth that was put in the refrigerator for the dog and the cats.
I have been jumping on our Rebounder mini-trampoline very regularly, walking and running sprints about the ranch, and doing Isometric exercises, planks, wall sits, stretching, sit-ups, hanging from a bar, sitting down and standing up multiple times, etc. I can feel my body continuing to grow stronger and more flexible all the time. That is very good. When the muscle pains heal up….I will be just about to the stage where I feel like I am sixteen, again. Almost!
I spent a lot of time working on fine-tuning my memorization of Exodus 20, Psalm 19, Psalm 1 and 2. Though I usually read the King James version, this week I read the Douay-Rheims version of the Holy Bible with the Latin Vulgate next to each chapter. I chose to read the Book of Wisdom of which I had not ever read before. Thusfar, I’ve read the first eleven chapters. I was not as studious this week as I wanted to be. There seemed to be a lot of distractions that interrupted me from making that deep dive into studying.
I want to show you how to read the book of Revelation. It is very easy to understand this book if you understand the Hebrew Poetic Concept of Parallelism.
Parallelism is the concept of repeating the same information or events; and in repeated tellings, it elaborates or addresses different aspects in more detail, after giving a basic overview first. It builds on a concept to support it in synthesis or it states a concept and then states the antithetical side of the concept.
Hebrew Parallelism/poetry is not generally understood to be in the writing of the Old Testament prophets, but it is there in a much broader sense. I will attempt to demonstrate this in the following paragraphs in the simplest and most concise manner possible. Please get your Bible out and open to the book of Revelation and follow along.
We start in Chapter six. Chapters 6:1-11:17, Is the First telling of all of these endtime events. The perspective of these event is what one from heaven would see when looking down upon the earth. The first telling is the big picture that explains all Seven Seals in Chronological order. The first six seals are Satan’s Wrath against mankind. It is the conquering, war, famine, pestilence, persecution, Mark of the Beast, etc. It is the Age of Grace coming to the end. It is the Tribulation and the Great Tribulation which is also known as the time of Jacob’s Trouble. The Age of Grace comes to an abrupt end when Jesus returns in the air during the Sixth Seal on the Last Day, and takes up his own, “Raises up his own” in the “rapture”, The dead in Christ are raised first and then those who are alive and remain at the end of the Age of Grace. Because those who have accepted Jesus’ blood atonement for their sins and did not take the mark of the Beast are not destined for the Wrath of God. He takes us out before He pours the Wrath out on all who have rejected Him and followed Satan’s Mark/Economic system.
In chapter 7:1-17 144,000 of the twelve tribes of Israel are sealed to go through the Father’s Wrath on Earth and then rapture takes place.
Then in Chapter 8:1-9:13 the Seventh Seal is opened, by Jesus and the Trumpet Judgements/HIS WRATH (The Day of the LORD) are poured out on all of mankind who took the Mark of the Beast. At the end of His Wrath is Armageddon when all the nations gather to fight Jesus. Then he wraps this up with the thunders Seventh Angel and Mystery of God is Finished, The little book, the measuring of the Millenniel Temple, Two witness mentioned, (The two witnesses are martyred just before the Day of the Lord and are raised up in the same Day that all are Raised up, the Day of the Rapture) and the Great Earthquake. The last verse of the First telling of this narrative ends with the scripture 11:17 that says that “God Reigns”.
Then the next Scripture 11:18-19 circles back to the Sixth and Seventh Seals, and is the Second telling of the events and concentrates on other aspects of the time period during the Sixth and Seventh Seals and is from the Earth’s perspective, as events are seen by those on Earth. We know the circling back takes place with the Words, because these words describe the coming back of Christ again at the Sixth Seal when He is going pour out His Wrath on mankind. The Words “the Nations were angry, Thy wrath has come, Time of the dead, Destroy the earth, Temple opened, lightening, voices thunder, earthquake, Great Hail. These are Sixth Seal words that show Jesus returning.
The second telling is in verses 11:18-16:17.
The second telling in the Sixth Seal returns to speak about the Woman and her offspring, (Israel and Christians) the war in heaven, Michael and his angels, The beast from the Sea, The False prophet, The Mark of the Beast, again, the Lamb with the 144,000, 1st Angel, that preaches the gospel one last time, 2nd angel announcing Babylon Falling and the Third Angel, “Don’t take the Mark”, then at the end of the Sixth Seal the First Sickle Rapture of the Saints.
Then verses 14:14-16, goes into the 2nd Sickle harvest which is God’s Wrath, 14:14-16:16 which are the Seven Vials/Bowls which are the same as the Seven Trumpet judgments spoken of previously.
Chapters 15:7-16:12 list the Seven Vial Judgements. If one were to list both the Trumpet and Vial judgements side by side one would see that they really are the same except for the first ones listed. But with Hebrew parallelism, it works because they build on each other and add intensity and detail to broaden the picture that is trying to be conveyed.
Verses 16:16 is talking about Armageddon, once again when the nations rise up to fight against Jesus.
This Second Telling ends when Verse 16:17 Says “It is Done”, which means all the Wrath is completed and Jesus now Reigns on earth and The Millennium begins
The Third telling begins in Verses 16:18-21 when we return to the words, “Voices, thunder, Great Earthquake, city divided, Cities of nations fall, Babylon Remembered, Islands flee, mountains leveled, 100 pound hail, Men blaspheme God.” Which is the return/circling back to the Sixth Seal of which these events signal Jesus’ return in the air. Then in verses 17:1-19:1-3 still the Sixth Seal, we look more indepthly at The Great Whore upon many waters, the Beast-7 Heads and 10 Horns, 10 Horns hate the Whore and Destroy her for God put it in their hearts to destroy her. Babylon has Fallen…Come out of her my people. Chapter 19:&-9 Alleluia-God judged the Great Whore which did corrupt the earth.
Verses 19:7-9 Speak of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb which occurs right after the Rapture of the Saints and before and during the Seventh Seal Wrath.
The third telling skips a retelling of the Wrath/Seventh Seal and moves right onto the end of the Wrath at which Armageddon is occurring in verses 19:11-17 when Jesus is on the white horse Faithful and True and wages war against all the nations that come up against him and Jerusalem, He is the King of Kings, The Supper of the Great God. (The supper of the Great God and the Marriage supper of the Lamb are two separate meals. One takes place before the Wrath and is Jesus and the Saints meal while Jesus goes and pours out His Wrath. The other supper is at the end of the Wrath and is for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. Then Jesus reigns and he tosses the Beast into the Lake of Fire 19:20 and 20:1-3 Satan is bound. Then Jesus’ Millenniel rule begins. And we see the New Heavens and Earth and Temple which comes after the Millennium.
Ezekiel 30-39 describe Armageddon/The Day of the LORD/Wrath. They are all the same event. The burning of the chariots and the burial of the bodies and body parts go seven years into the Millennium. As well as Isaiah, Joel, Amos, Zechariah 12-14. Matthew, Mark and Luke.
They all explain the same events leading up to the coming of Jesus and of His pouring out his wrath and fighting the nations and subduing them during Armageddon. Finally, there are two wars of Armageddon: at the end of the Age of Grace and at the end of the Millennium.
Zechariah 12-14, describes Armageddon and His judgment on the nations that God causes them to gather up around and about Jerusalem to go up against Jerusalem so that He can destroy them because they rebel against him and follow Satan, Attack His city Jerusalem, Take the Mark of the Beast and Destroy the earth. His destruction of them which is at Armageddon. and His coming to the earth to destroy them to protect Israel, whe the tribes recognize who He really is they weep and mourn as though for a lost son. They are the Tribes of Israel who had not accepted Jesus during the Age of Grace, yet they did not take the Mark of the Beast. Because they were not believing on him they therefore were not raptured/saved from His wrath when He came in the air to take those of us who believed on him and had their sins covered by him, and had to go through it. Yet these survive through Armageddon, God’s Wrath and live in physical bodies through the Millennium.
I hope this explanation helps you to understand how simple the book of Revelation is to grasp, if you understand its poetical structure. Truly, if you believe in Jesus, the Seventh Seal Judgements hold no fear for you, since you will not be here to experience them. You will be Raptured after Satan’s Tribulation but before Christ’s Wrath, if one is still alive when he returns, or will be taken up from the grave if already dead in Christ. We just have to get through Satan’s Tribulation and refuse the Mark of the Beast that is very shortly coming upon the Earth.
Pray up and Stock up, since you will not be able to participate in the new economic system that will rule the Earth. That might be in just three or so years leading up to Jesus’ return. We have to try to survive, as the Lord so determines for each of us, for three and half years at the most once the system in inaugurated. Most likely a shorter period of time, since Jesus says he will cut it short, lest no flesh survive.
The war drums are beating even louder this weekend. Perhaps this is the time Israel and USA strike Iran? Continue to prepare and try to get the last of your preps in place. Do the best you can.
May You All Remain Safe, Blessed, and Hidden in Christ Jesus,
– Avalanche Lily, Rawles
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As always, please share and send e-mails of your own successes and hard-earned wisdom and we will post them in the “Snippets” column this coming week. We want to hear from you.