Billy Graham sounds alarm for 2nd Coming

Evangelist Billy GrahamBy Troy Anderson – World Net Daily – 23rd October 2013

Just as Noah did in ancient times, world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham is sounding the alarm that the Second Coming is “near” and signs of the end of the age are “converging now for the first time since Jesus made those predictions.”

Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the United Nations General Assembly “biblical prophecies are being realized.”

And last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., claimed the world has entered the last days.

“When you see up is down and right is wrong, when this is happening, we were told this: that these days would be as the days of Noah,” Bachmann said.

The remarks by Graham, Netanyahu and Bachmann come amid a steadily rising wave of public interest in the end times, as demonstrated by recent polls and New York Times and Amazon.com bestselling books such as “The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery That Holds the Secret of America’s Future,” by Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, and “Four Blood Moons: Something is About to Change,” by Pastor John Hagee.

In September, a poll by the Ventura, Calif.-based Barna Group found 4 in 10 Americans – and 77 percent of evangelical Christians – believe the “world is now living in the biblical end times.”

Now, a new wave of end-times predictions for 2014 and 2015 involving blood moons on Jewish holy days and prophetically significant events on the Shemitah – the ancient biblical year of the Sabbath – are igniting even more interest in humanity’s ultimate fate.

Throw in next year’s reboot of the “Left Behind” film featuring Nicolas Cage and the cinematic destruction of biblical proportions in “Noah,” starring Russell Crowe, and last-days fever is back with a mainstream vengeance.

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The Issue of the Heart

The Issue of the HeartPat Harrison © Peninsula Bible Church Cupertino

Proverbs 4:20-27

The heart is truly a wonder. It beats more than a hundred thousand times a day, pumping oxygen and nutrition through sixty thousand miles of arteries, veins and capillaries. The health of the whole body depends on the heart. It is strategically protected beneath the surface, and is central to our lives.

The condition of our hearts is of great importance to us, and it should be. We spend a great deal of time and money exercising to get our heart rate up, eating less fatty foods, etc. We are preoccupied with exercise and diet. We look at the heart symbols next to menu items. My wife has convinced me of the benefits of tofu, something I never thought possible. I found myself even ordering a tofu enchilada in a restaurant lately.

The Bible teaches there is a spiritual heart too. It too is central and interior to our being, critical to our life as God intended it to be lived, and is always active, receiving and distributing what we feed it. Our spiritual heart is the part that causes us to act the way we do. Our words, attitudes, and actions flow from it.

To care for our spiritual heart, we must understand some things about it.

The heart is the richest term in the Bible for the totality of man’s inner nature. It is the deepest core of our being which animates the rest of the body. It is the source of what makes us truly alive: our soul, emotions, longings, ambitions, thoughts, beliefs, and will.

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Atheists Continue Relentless Attack on the Ground Zero Cross

Ground Zero Cross

Matthew Clark (Oct 18, 2013)

Simply put, the Constitution is not an atheist manifesto.

Following a big victory for the Ground Zero Cross earlier this year, where a federal judge threw out an atheist lawsuit to tear down the Cross, angry atheists are now appealing that ruling to a federal appeals court.

The Ground Zero Cross, two intersecting steel beams found in the wreckage of the World Trade Center, became a symbol of hope and healing for first responders on the ground in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and for thousands of Americans across the nation.

Atheists, from the particularly vitriolic American Atheists, demanded that it be torn down. They attempted to make a federal case of their hurt feelings and lost.

The trial court correctly noted that the Cross was a historic artifact – an actual piece of 9/11 history. It really meant something to those affected. (more…)

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Arabs Realizing Israel Is Not the Enemy

Arabs Realizing Israel Is Not the EnemyRyan Jones (Oct 18, 2013)

“Many nations in the area have a strong desire to eliminate the influence of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaida. This is an important development, even historic.” –Benjamin Netanyahu

One of the very few positive outcomes of the regional crises engulfing the Middle East is that a number of Arab states are beginning to realize that Israel is not the true enemy.

“For the first time in Israel’s existence, there is an understanding in the Arab world, that Israel is not the enemy of the Arabs. On many issues, we are united,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the opening of the Knesset’s winter session earlier this week.

Netanyahu noted that the hijacking of pro-democracy revolutions in Egypt, Syria and elsewhere had turned many of the Arab states against the same Islamist regimes and groups that most threaten Israel.

“Many nations in the area have a strong desire to eliminate the influence of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaida,” the prime minister said. “This is an important development, even historic.”

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UK’s new Chief Rabbi: Bible clearly teaches marriage is between one man and one woman

by Thaddeus Baklinski

LONDON, September 4, 2013 (LifeSIteNews.com)

Orthodox Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who replaced Lord Jonathan Sacks as Chief Rabbi of Britain and the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth on Sunday, said he would maintain traditional Jewish values, including support for natural marriage, while stressing that he wants all Jews to find a home and feel comfortable in orthodox synagogues.

“We have a clear Biblical definition of marriage which is the union of one man and one woman and through that we value traditional family life,” Rabbi Mirvis told the BBC in an interview before Sunday’s installation ceremony.

“But I would like to reiterate our genuine sentiment to every single Jewish man and woman: you have a home in our synagogue and we will make you feel comfortable regardless of who you are.”

He added that while he wanted to offer women a greater role in Orthodox Judaism, he opposed female ordination. “Equality is what we strive for but when we talk about equality, it is not uniformity.”

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The Blood of Christians on Obama’s Hands

Townhall.com ^ | September 10, 2013 | Scottie Hughes

Thirty-five miles northeast of Damascus is a small Christian village built into the mountains of Syria. Until yesterday, the most interesting thing about this town called Maaloula was that its 6,000 residents are among the last in the world who still speak Aramaic – the language Christ spoke as a boy in a carpentry shop, as man giving a sermon from a mount, and on the eve of his death and resurrection when he broke bread and poured wine and said, “This is my body…. This is my blood.”

Yesterday, according to reports by eyewitnesses, the Christians of Maaloula were attacked by a vicious army with no respect for human life and a special hatred for the Christians it calls infidels. They were driven from their homes. They were murdered in their streets.

Based on the recent rhetoric from President Obama and his administration, you might at first assume that the Syrian dictator and his army were responsible for this hate crime against the innocent Aramaic-speaking Christians of Maaloula. But the truth is quite the contrary. As has been the case in many prior attacks on Syria’s Christian minority, the culprits were al-Qaeda-linked rebels – the very same rebels Mr. Obama is preparing to help by bombing the Assad regime.

This past Sunday, as President Obama and his administration ratcheted up the usual media spin machine to promote their agenda, I was hoping pastors across the United States would stand up with moral courage and tell their congregations the truth about the ethnic cleansing of Christians in Syria. I was hoping that they would ratchet up the calls for the truth about who our enemies are. However, this administration and their media puppets have done such a good job of confusing the situation, many of those pastors have no idea who our enemy is.

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Blunt words about Muslim backwardness

Mark Steyn – Jewish World Review Sept. 9, 2013/ 5 Tishrei, 5774

In 2010, the bestselling atheist Richard Dawkins, in the “On Faith” section of the Washington Post, called the pope “a leering old villain in a frock” perfectly suited to “the evil corrupt organization” and “child-raping institution” that is the Catholic Church. Nobody seemed to mind very much.

Three years later, in a throwaway Tweet, Professor Dawkins observed that “all the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.” This time round, the old provocateur managed to get a rise out of folks. Almost every London paper ran at least one story on the “controversy.”

The Independent’s Owen Jones fumed, “How dare you dress your bigotry up as atheism. You are now beyond an embarrassment.”

The best-selling author Caitlin Moran sneered, “It’s time someone turned Richard Dawkins off and then on again. Something’s gone weird.” The Daily Telegraph’s Tom Chivers beseeched him, “Please be quiet, Richard Dawkins, I’m begging.”

None of the above is Muslim. Indeed, they are, to one degree or another, members of the same secular liberal media elite as Professor Dawkins. Yet all felt that, unlike Dawkins’s routine jeers at Christians, his Tweet had gone too far. It’s factually unarguable: Trinity graduates have amassed 32 Nobel prizes, the entire Muslim world a mere 10.

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The war on Christians – The global persecution of Christians is the unreported catastrophe of our time

5 October 2013- The Spectator

Imagine if correspondents in late 1944 had reported the Battle of the Bulge, but without explaining that it was a turning point in the second world war. Or what if finance reporters had told the story of the AIG meltdown in 2008 without adding that it raised questions about derivatives and sub-prime mortgages that could augur a vast financial implosion?

Most people would say that journalists had failed to provide the proper context to understand the news. Yet that’s routinely what media outlets do when it comes to outbreaks of anti-Christian persecution around the world, which is why the global war on Christians remains the greatest story never told of the early 21st century.

In recent days, people around the world have been appalled by images of attacks on churches in Pakistan, where 85 people died when two suicide bombers rushed the Anglican All Saints Church in Peshawar, and in Kenya, where an assault on a Catholic church in Wajir left one dead and two injured.

Those atrocities are indeed appalling, but they cannot truly be understood without being seen as small pieces of a much larger narrative. Consider three points about the landscape of anti-Christian persecution today, as shocking as they are generally unknown. According to the International Society for Human Rights, a secular observatory based in Frankfurt, Germany, 80 per cent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed at Christians. Statistically speaking, that makes Christians by far the most persecuted religious body on the planet.

According to the Pew Forum, between 2006 and 2010 Christians faced some form of discrimination, either de jure or de facto, in a staggering total of 139 nations, which is almost three-quarters of all the countries on earth. According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, an average of 100,000 Christians have been killed in what the centre calls a ‘situation of witness’ each year for the past decade. That works out to 11 Christians killed somewhere in the world every hour, seven days a week and 365 days a year, for reasons related to their faith.

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Nick Vujicic Shares About ‘Divine Appointment’ With Limbless Girl in Malaysia

Charisma News – 9/5/2013 Gina Meeks

Evangelist Nick Vujicic shared an inspirational story of “divine appointment” on his Facebook page Tuesday.

Vujicic, who was born with no arms or legs, is in the midst of a two-week Christian outreach tour of several Asian countries.

With a photo of the family in the capital city of Malaysia, Vujicic begins, “Friends, I have an incredible story to share about a family I met in Kuala Lumpur.”

He goes on to say the family drove seven hours to meet him but found the event was filled when they arrived.

“After patiently waiting for more than 4 hours for us to leave the venue, they managed to track down which van I was in,” he continues. “That in itself was no easy task, as there was quite a bit of commotion exiting the event, and our convoy was made up of three different vans which carry the team and our gear.

“They followed behind us, planning on saying hello whenever we reached our destination. When we stopped for fuel, they came running out of their car. Our host, Joshua, saw them coming up to the van and said to me, ‘Wow, you’ll never believe what I’m seeing. There’s a family with a girl who has no arms and no legs, and they’re coming to see you.’

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For Richard Dawkins, ‘Muslim Bashing’ Is Different Than ‘Christian Bashing’

By Michael Brown, CP Op-Ed Contributor – August 12, 2013

Professor Richard Dawkins, known as the world’s most famous atheist, has risen to rock star status for his attacks on God and religion, in particular, his attacks on the God of the Bible. But when he recently criticized Muslims, he was in for a surprise.

Before looking at Dawkins’ rather mild criticism of Muslims, let’s remember the depth of his vitriol against Christians and the Bible, most of which has only enhanced Dawkins’ reputation.

In an April interview aired on the Qatar-based TV network Al Jazeera, Dawkins railed on the Catholic Church, saying that, as “Horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was [suffered by some children at the hands of deviant priests], the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place.”

Was Dawkins really serious? The interviewer, Mehdi Hasan asked: “You believe that being bought up as a Catholic is worse than being abused by a priest?”

Dawkins replied: “There are shades of being abused by a priest, and I quoted an example of a woman in America who wrote to me saying that when she was seven years old she was sexually abused by a priest in his car.

“At the same time a friend of hers, also seven, who was of a Protestant family, died, and she was told that because her friend was Protestant she had gone to Hell and will be roasting in Hell forever.

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My life of hell in an Afghan harem

By Phyllis Chesler – New York Post – September 21, 2013

Naive and in love, I married a man from Kabul — only to discover the horrible life of a fundamentalist Muslim wife.

Phyllis Chesler, 72, is a feminist scholar and a professor emerita of psychology and women’s studies at City University of New York. In her 14th book, “An American Bride in Kabul” (Palgrave Macmillan) out early next month, she shares for the first time the story of the five months she spent, as a young bride, held prisoner in a Afghan household. 

I once lived in a harem in Afghanistan.

I did not enter the kingdom as a diplomat, soldier, teacher, journalist or foreign aid worker. I came as a young Jewish bride of the son of one of the country’s wealthiest men. I was held in a type of captivity — but it’s not as if I had been kidnapped.

I walked into it of my own free will.

It is 1959. I am only 18 when my prince — a dark, older, handsome, westernized foreigner who had traveled abroad from his native home in Afghanistan — bedazzles me.

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‘Gay’ lawmaker to Christians: ‘We’ll take your children

by Matt Barber Aug. 27, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) 

Few people doubt that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hopes to become president in 2016. Unfortunately for him, he may have just signed away any chance of that.

On Monday, Christie signed A3371, a draconian piece of legislation that bars licensed therapists from helping children overcome unwanted same-sex attractions, behavior or identity. This law bans help for minors even when – as is so often the case – those same-sex attractions arise from childhood sexual abuse by the likes of a Jerry Sandusky.

This law will prohibit minors and their parents from receiving counseling they desire and will force counselors to violate ethical codes because they will not be able to help clients reach their own counseling goals. This law would enslave children – whether abused or not – to a subjectively determined sexual identity that they reject.

The connection between homosexual abuse and “gay identity” is undeniable. Consider this: Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have found that homosexual men are “at least three times more likely to report CSA (childhood sexual abuse)” than heterosexual men.

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Nairobi attack: Kenyan forces battle to clear Islamist terrorists from mall

  theguardian.com,

With 62 confirmed dead after al-Shabaab militants stormed the complex, it is unclear whether any hostages are still being held.

Kenyan security forces remain locked in a slow and bloody operation to clear Islamist militant hostage-takers from an upmarket shopping mall in Nairobi, as plumes of black smoke pour from the complex and sporadic gunfire and occasional blasts can reportedly be heard.

More than 48 hours after a heavily armed group from the Somalia-based al-Shabaab organisation killed at least 62 people in the Westgate centre, which was packed with shoppers and families, little is known about the situation inside.

The confirmed dead now include four Britons, along with nationals from another dozen countries, as well as Kenya.

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A Friendlier Australian Government

From Isi Leibler,  September 8, 2013

Australia’s election results are good news for the Israel-Australia relationship. Labor party incumbent Kevin Rudd, who held office for less than three months following a coup against former PM Julia Gillard, lost in a landslide, bringing an end to six years of Labor Government. Rudd is a political chameleon who abandoned Australia’s long-standing pro-Israel position when he previously served as Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010.

The victorious Tony Abbott of the center-right Liberal party is an outspoken friend of the Jewish State. He has pledged to improve relations with Israel, toughen the government’s approach toward terrorist organizations and end financial support for organizations connected to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign against Israel.

These results therefore represent a sea change in Israel-Australia relations. Before assuming office in 2007, Prime Minister Rudd portrayed himself as a Christian Zionist. But in office, he launched a campaign to downgrade Australia’s relationship toward Israel. He reduced Australian support for Israel at the UN and adopted policies akin to those of hostile European countries.

Julia Gillard, who displaced him in 2010, made efforts to revive the friendly relations with Israel. But after Bob Carr was appointed as Foreign Minister in March 2012, the relationship again began to decline.

Carr, a former State Premier, was a founding member of the parliamentary Labor Friends of Israel and had previously been considered a friend of the Jewish community. However, in 2003, he awarded the Sydney Peace Prize to Palestinian propagandist Hannah Ashrawi, and since then has become increasingly critical, insisting that he understood better than Israelis what was in their best interest.

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Erdogan’s Hate-Jew Fest

August 21, 2013 By Michael van der Galien

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been set loose by his fellow members of the Justice and Development Party (AK Parti). Instead of talking about the protests in Gezi Park (Istanbul) and the accompanying police violence, he has declared a war of words on two other enemies: the Egyptian military and Israel.

When Egyptian general Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi removed Morsi from power, Erdogan immediately defended the deposed president Mohammed Morsi.  The new de facto ruler, Al-Sisi, was, said Erdogan, an anti-democratic, ruthless dictator. A predator, if you will.

Morsi should immediately be restored to power. After all, he had won the elections. In Erdogan’s view of democracy, which boils down to majoritism, nothing else matters.

No, not the 22 million signatures collected by Morsi’s opponents calling on him to resign or the fact that attacks on Christians and their churches were on the rise from the very moment the Muslim Brothers came to power. Increasingly, more Coptic girls were – and still are – kidnapped, raped and forced to convert to Islam. After that horrendous ordeal they were (and again: are) forced to marry a Muslim, who makes sure they will never see their real, Christian family again.

Erdogan did not and does not care about any of that. He cares only – or so he says – about Morsi and his “democratic victory” and legitimacy.

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