After 90-year-old is arrested, Florida judge halts law that restricts feeding the homeless: "It is no longer illegal to feed the homeless in Fort Lauderdale.... On Tuesday, a Florida circuit court judge temporarily halted a controversial ordinance that restricts charities from feeding the homeless in public. The ruling arrived several days after the most recent arrest of Arnold Abbott, a 90-year-old World War II veteran who has for years run a nonprofit devoted to feeding the city’s homeless population."

 

The New Nazism's First Victim: Truth: "When the Turkish neighbors of Leah Rabinovitch, a Jewish woman in Amsterdam, adorned their apartment with a Palestinian flag, she did the same with an Israeli flag. Leah lives in a neighborhood where 48% of the population is of non-Western origin – many of them Muslims. Stones were thrown through her windows, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at her balcony and an anonymous letter was put in her letter box. 'Hitler will be back. Death to the Jews,' it said.

     "Fifteen different policemen, Rabinovitch says, advised her to remove the flag. She refused....

     "Seraphina Verhofstadt, another Jewish woman in Amsterdam, also reacted to the many Palestinian and Hamas flags in Amsterdam by displaying the Israeli flag. She received threats that her throat would be slit. When she left her apartment, she was assaulted...

     "Asked in a television interview why she still displays the Israeli flag after being beaten up and whether it would not be wiser to remove it, Seraphina Verhofstadt said: 'If I do that, I will also lose my freedom of speech.' "First we lose truth, then we lose freedoms, and finally we lose life. Europe has seen it happen before. It is time to draw the line, and stand with Israel against terrorism."

Saul, Herod and Obama: "I read 1 Samuel 16:7, as part of my daily devotions. It’s a passage I’ve read countless times, but it reverberated anew in the wake of recent observations. The passage reads: 'But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature, because I have refused him; for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.'...

      "Why, you ask, am I mentioning this? I mention it because Obama’s outward appearance – specifically the color of his skin has blinded most blacks specifically, and others in general who claim to be Christians, while they ignore in Obama the very things that God spoke directly to pursuant to leaders and those who claim to be believers in Christ."

'I Am Not a Monster': "Castro, age 53, had kept three women imprisoned in his Cleveland home for a decade, treating them as sex slaves. All of the women were young when Castro abducted them; two were teenagers. ...He eventually pleaded guilty to more than 900 criminal counts, including aggravated murder, rape and kidnapping.... The aggravated murder count was tied to Castro’s brutal beating of one woman when she was pregnant with his child. The unborn child died and the woman miscarried." See Who shapes our conscience and defines right and wrong?

The family rescued by George Zimmerman after a rollover crash in Florida are terrified they will become targets for hate mobs: "Mark and Dana Michelle Gerstle told friends they do not want to talk publicly about Zimmerman for fear they will be accused of portraying him as a hero -- and face a backlash from those who consider he got away with murder. 'They are very grateful to Zimmerman for what he did, but they do not want to get involved,' said a friend."

Why the Western World is Deliberately Failing: "If we were to be honest with ourselves for just a brief moment, we would admit that Western society is deeply sinful (or in secular terms, unwholesome) ...even worships sin, celebrating it with carnivals and gay parades, and teaching young children how to perform sex acts in schools.... ... Romans 1:24-25 describes the Western world...

"...God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator." (Romans 1:24-25)...

     "Look around you. How do you like the results of Western secularist, humanist political, diplomatic, economic, social, military, etc, behavior? Vote for either candidate and you will get more of the same. Look at Europe. An entire continent that thinks it is smarter than God is now drowning in debt and fighting for its economic life....

     "So why is this explanation for Western civilization’s failure never raised in the churches of our nation? Perhaps because God is giving our most of our clergy over to the very same reprobate mind that Paul spoke of. They interpret the scriptures as though they were hopelessly outdated when in fact, these ancient writings offer the only glimpse of sanity." Yet...

"...in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:37-39

Elderly Christian florist faces thousands in fines for refusing to provide flowers for gay ‘wedding’: "Washington State Attorney General... filed charges today in Benton County Superior Court.... Barronelle Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers and Gifts in Richland, refused to sell flowers to Robert Ingersoll for his 'marriage' to Curt Freed.

     "'He said he decided to get married, and before he got through I grabbed his hand and said, ‘I am sorry. I can't do your wedding because of my relationship with Jesus Christ,’ Stutzman said. She said it was the only wedding she had declined in 37 years. But Ferguson said that stance violates the law." See His light in the darkness

The Silent Church: "So often we have heard the impassioned refrain, 'We can never let what happened in Germany ever happen again.' And with all of the Holocaust memorials, survivor testimonies, and multitudinous books on the subject, we have done a pretty good job of convincing ourselves that we will never make the same mistakes the German people did in allowing someone like Hitler to rise in their midst. We think that Americans would never stand by and allow something like that to happen here in our country. Our democratic processes and old-fashioned common sense would never allow it." See Bonhoeffer: Nazi Religion versus "Religionless" Faith

Following our God-given Conscience whatever the cost!  "The Founder of Hobby Lobby chooses to follow His Christian conscience rather than compromise his faith! May we follow His example!

     "David Green, the founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby Stores wrote, 'When my family and I started our company 40 years ago, we were working out of a garage on a $600 bank loan. ...but we had faith that we would succeed if we lived and worked according to God's word. From there, Hobby Lobby has become one of the nation's largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 locations in 41 states....

     "We keep our stores closed on Sundays, one of the week's biggest shopping days, so that our workers and their families can enjoy a day of rest. We believe that it is by God's grace that Hobby Lobby has endured.... [But] our government threatens to change all of that. ... Being Christians, we don't pay for drugs that might cause abortions....

     "The government is forcing us to choose between following our faith and following the law.... They have exempted thousands of companies but will not except Christian organizations...."

The Old Cross and The New - What changed? "Unannounced and mostly undetected there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental. From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique..." See His Word

Outside the Camp: "Let us go out to Him outside the camp." (Hebrews 13:13)

      "Jesus, bearing His cross, went forth to suffer outside the gate. The Christian’s reason for leaving the camp of the world’s sin and religion is not because he loves to be singular, but because Jesus did so; and the disciple must follow his Master. Christ was 'not of the world.' His life and His testimony were a constant protest against conformity with the world....

      "Christ’s people must 'go out to Him.' They must take their position 'outside the camp,' as witness-bearers for the truth.... You cannot grow in grace to any high degree while you are conformed to the world." See Suffering with Jesus

The Old Rugged Cross: “'O most merciful Christ,' wrote the faithful reformer Jan Hus as he waited for his execution in 1415 AD, 'give us a courageous spirit, so that it may be ready. And if the flesh is weak, may your grace go before it, for without you we can do nothing.'

     "In the eyes of the church establishment, Hus had committed heresy. He believed that everyone should be allowed to read the Bible in their own language -- an unthinkable notion in a culture that reserved God's Word for elite students of Latin. He also opposed the pope's money-raising efforts to sell indulgences (the false assurance that people could buy or earn pardon for sin instead of trusting in Christ's redemption through the cross)."

 "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter1:6-7

 

Video.  Wise words from an "old-fashioned, narrow-minded, fossilized person" (1879AD)

Testing the Genuineness of our Faith: "Untested faith may be true faith, but it is sure to be small faith, and it is likely to remain little as long as it is without trials. Faith never prospers so well as when all things are against her: Tempests are her trainers, and bolts of lightning are her illuminators.

     "When a calm reigns on the sea...the ship does not move to its harbor.... Let the winds rush and howl, and let the waters lift themselves, though the vessel may rock and her deck may be washed with waves and her mast may creak under the pressure of the full and swelling sail, it is then that she makes headway toward her desired haven."  

        "In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

The Village that Lived by the Bible: "It was early in 1945 when, as a war correspondent on Okinawa, I first came upon Shimabuku, the strangest and most inspiring community I ever saw. Huddled beneath its groves of banyan and twisted pine trees, this remote village of some 1000 souls was in the path of the 'American' advance and so received a severe shelling. But when an advance patrol swept up to the village compound, the soldiers stopped dead in their tracks. Barring their way were two little old men; they bowed low and began to speak....
      "I don't get it. Seems we're being welcomed as 'fellow Christians.' One says he's the mayor of the village..."

The world is not my home: [Good reminder in the midst of bad news]

His Wonderful Word - worth dying for! "In the sixteenth century, Spain's King Philip II took a hard line against those who would try to interpret Scripture for themselves. Anyone found studying the Bible during this time was hanged, burned at the stake, drowned, torn in pieces, or buried alive....

     "...they discovered a Bible. All present denied knowing anything about it. Then a young maidservant came in. When asked about the Bible, she declared, 'I am reading it!'.... She was sentenced to die by suffocation, sealed in the city wall. Just before her execution, she was asked by an official, 'So young and beautiful and yet to die?' She replied, 'My Savior died for me. I will also die for him.”

    "When finally one single brick remained to complete the wall, she was told again, 'Repent! Just say a single word of repentance!' Instead she voiced her single desire to be with Jesus and added, 'O Lord, forgive my killers!'”

"We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; ...perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken;  struck down, but not destroyed — always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body." (2 Corinthians 4:7-10)

The amazing grace of Christmas morn: "The authentic story of the redeeming power of the Christmas message is illustrated in the incredible life of an English slaver named John Newton....His mother was a godly woman who died when John was 7, and he recalled as the sweetest remembrance of childhood the soft and tender voice of his mother at prayer. His father married again, and John at 11 went to sea with him....

      "The captain of the Harwich traded him to the skipper of a slaving ship, bound for West Africa to take aboard wretched human cargo.... John fell ill, and when the captain sailed he left John in his wife’s care. The ship was barely over the horizon when he was thrown into a pigsty.... Word spread through the district that a black woman was keeping a white slave, and many came to taunt him.... When the captain returned five years later... [he] agreed to take him home to England. 'The voyage quite broke my constitution,' he recalled, “and the effects would always remain with me as a needful momento of the service of wages and sin.” Newton's best loved hymn:

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see!

How shall I serve You, Lord?  "It is not what I do for you but what You do through me. This is how I shall lay my life before You, my Lord and King."

My High Tower: Seeing the world from His perspective

Video: Street Witnessing with Gang Members: "Ray Comfort witnesses to gang members in south central Los Angeles."

Bright Hope in Dark Days: "Perhaps the Lord allotted you at first a smooth and unclouded path, because you were weak and timid. He tempered the wind to the shorn lamb. But now that you are stronger in the spiritual life, you must enter upon the riper and rougher experience of God's full-grown children. We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to tear off the rotten bough of self-dependence, and to root us more firmly in Christ. The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope." See Joshua 1:9

(Part 3) A Small Price to Pay - Misha's Choice: "This was during Stalin’s harsh reign over our country. He had designs to have all the houses of prayer closed and, after a time of respite during the war, his iron fist was coming down hard once more on the believers. Not only was he trying to annihilate the church, he was also trying to infiltrate the church by planting his own men in it to control its affairs. These men were not believers.

     "No one under thirty was allowed to be baptized. No one under eighteen was allowed to attend church services. The pastors were only to preach what was mandated by the Ministry of Religious Affairs. And these were only a few of the rules designed to scatter the believers....

     "I was at a loss for words. I had used up everything in my vocabulary that I could think of to ask God to come down and visit my soul. I felt completely empty."

(Part 2) A Small Price to Pay: "(Misha is now eleven years old) "I remember being hungry most of the time. All of us were. But we did not often talk about it....During all this time, Mama made sure our spiritual education did not suffer. She not only taught us the truth of God, she lived it. For several months, we lived in Kirghizia with an elderly woman we called Auntie Natasha....I remember something that happened one night while we were there..." The first part of this book would be good for family reading with children.

(Part 1) A Small Price to Pay: "There was a noise at the front door. The officer leapt to his feet...and grabbed Papa by his coat, jerking him into the room.... 'Ivan Khorev, you are under arrest.'...

     "I know God must have prepared my father for this time, because there was no panic, no alarm at all as he looked at the strange scene he had come home to after his long night at work. I am sure he had seen the Black Raven parked in front of our apartment building. Everyone in the city knew that when that vehicle was outside, someone was being arrested and taken to prison. His eyes rested on Mama for a moment, then he looked at us children. As the two soldiers moved toward him again, Papa held up his hand. “Wait! We will pray together before I leave with you.” See The School of Joyful Endurance 

"...let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross..."Hebrews 12:1-2

Leading Me Back Through the Darkness: "By the time I entered high school, I was a hardcore atheist. I quoted Richard Dawkins in papers of mine, and read religion message boards just so I could get in arguments with Christians. I was entirely certain that I was correct, that the notion of God, or any God, was impossible. At the same time, the message boards exposed me to many other religious traditions.... If there is one thing I’ve learned from my experiences of the past few years, it’s the importance of humility. Pride comes so easily to us..." Victory in Christ

Chilean engineer gives miners sermons, music: "...trapped miners in Chile [were] listening to recordings of sermons, Bible studies and Christian music a half-mile underground, thanks to the efforts of Chilean engineer Igor Bravo. Bravo has been part of the rescue efforts for 33 trapped miners in northern Chile for weeks....

     "I had to help in some Christian way,' Bravo said.... A partial collapse blocked the mine Aug. 5, leaving the miners trapped in a living room-sized chamber for more than two months." See Seeking God

The Victory of the Cross: "Few would have guessed that George Muller, a Prussian boy with a bent for trouble, would one day trust God to meet the daily needs of thousands of orphans. His early life showed no signs of such faith. Born in 1805, he made little effort to resist the temptations he faced during his first twenty years. He stole, lied, cheated, used forgery to prosper, and craved immoral thrills. Later he wrote in his diary: 'At the age of sixteen I became an inmate of a prison, dwelling with thieves and murderers.'" Then God changed his life! See Sharing His suffering

The Pursuit of God by Tozer, Chapter 9: Meekness and Rest: "A fairly accurate description of the human race might be furnished one unacquainted with it by taking the Beatitudes, turning them wrong side out and saying, `Here is your human race.' For the exact opposite of the virtues in the Beatitudes are the very qualities which distinguish human life and conduct....

vInstead of poverty of spirit we find the rankest kind of pride;

vinstead of mourners we find pleasure seekers; instead of meekness, arrogance;

vinstead of hunger after righteousness we hear men saying, `I am rich and... need of nothing';

vinstead of mercy we find cruelty;

vinstead of purity of heart, corrupt imaginings...

Into a world like this the sound of Jesus' words comes wonderful and strange Jesus says, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Matthew.11:28-29

The Desperate Cry of Robinson Crusoe: "Robinson Crusoe has been shipwrecked. Sick, feverish and miserable, he is left on the desert island alone. He has no one to help him—none even to bring him a drink of cold water. Accustomed to sin, he had all the vices of a sailor; but his troubles now prompt him to seek help from the God he had ignored.... He finds a Bible in a rescued chest, and he sees this passage: 'Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.'...
     "Daniel Defoe, who wrote the story, was a Presbyterian minister; and though not overdone with spirituality, he knew enough of religion to be able to describe very vividly the experience of a man who is in despair...."

Job, Suffering and Spiritual Warfare: "With ropes tied around the children's small necks, the officer again promised freedom if only the parents would deny Christ. None were willing to betray their Lord. The children were hanged. The officer then called for a massive steamroller and forced the adults to lie down in its path. The deadly machine soon arrived, and they were given one last chance: 'Deny this Jesus or you will be crushed.' Again they refused. They had already given up their children; there was no turning back....

     "Notice the VISIBLE foes in this North Korean drama. They were the blinded puppets of Communism -- indoctrinated in atheism and trained to hate God and His people. Meanwhile, the INVISIBLE foes were the 'spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms'.... Dedicated to the destruction of Biblical faith, they are now generally ignored in our post-modern culture....

     "As Pastor Richard Wurmbrand wrote in Tortured For Christ, '...there are no nominal, halfhearted, lukewarm Christians in Russia or China. The price Christians pay is far too great.... Communist persecution has backfired and produced serious, dedicated Christians such as are rarely seen in free lands.”

Testing the genuineness of our faith: "Untested faith may be true faith, but it is sure to be small faith, and it is likely to remain little as long as it is without trials. Faith never prospers so well as when all things are against her: Tempests are her trainers.... 

     "When a calm reigns on the sea, spread the sails as you will, the ship does not move to its harbor; for on a slumbering ocean the keel sleeps too. Let the winds rush and howl, and let the waters lift themselves, though the vessel may rock and her deck may be washed with waves and her mast may creak under the pressure of the full and swelling sail, it is then that she makes headway toward her desired haven."

 "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter1:6-7

How blessed we are to know that God reigns in the midst of America's rapid transformation:

Outside the Camp: "Jesus, bearing His cross, went forth to suffer outside the gate. The Christian’s reason for leaving the camp of the world’s sin and religion is not because he loves to be singular, but because Jesus did so; and the disciple must follow his Master. Christ was 'not of the world.' His life and His testimony were a constant protest against conformity with the world. Never was such overflowing affection for men as you find in Him; but still He was separate from sinners. In like manner Christ’s people must 'go out to Him.'”

Elderly woman witnesses to man trying to rob her: Video -- A wonderful story

I Found God in Soviet Russia: An Unexpected Opportunity: "Step by step, God’s plan in sending me to Russia was unfolding.... My own faith had been tested again and again; I had experienced what I had come to accept as miracles; I had found among the slave laborers a vast yearning for God....

    "...I had been at Vorkuta for two and a half years. For the first fourteen months, I had pushed the cars of slate [in the freezing arctic climate]. Then in January, 1952... I was assigned to the mine transportation brigade.... One day I saw a switch break open.... Praying desperately, I reached back and forth, keeping that switch closed while thirty cars passed over it. A slip of a fraction of a second and I would have had my fingers severed or been crushed by a derailed car. After such narrow escapes as that, I felt more certain than ever that the hand of God must be protecting me or I could not have survived unscathed....

     "Anyone who wants to understand the religious situation in Russia today [written in 1959] must try first to realize what happens to people under a government which for more than four decades has denied that God exists, has taught its children that Christianity is an old-fashioned superstition no longer acceptable to progressive scientific minds, and has set up the immediate, expedient objectives of the State as the only standard of morality." See Purging the Memory of our Christian Roots

I Found God in Soviet Russia (Introduction): "During the decade I spent in communist prisons and labor camps I saw many terrible things. I also saw some glorious ones.  ...secret worship services were held and converts won for Christ even in Vorkuta itself, one of the slave-labor camps in the Soviet Arctic.

      "...there is deep interest in the Christian religion among both groups. In spite of their forty-year exposure to official atheism, or perhaps because of it, they hunger for the spiritual values they have been denied.

      "This evidence I am able to bring back to the free world, and through it the glorious tidings of a faith that cannot be killed. I have seen Christianity under the most terrible persecution it has suffered since the days of Nero, and I have seen abundant proof that faith in Christ, the Saviour, is still alive in Russia today in the very places where the Communists have tried hardest to stamp it out, the concentration camps." See Endurance with Joy

The Way of the Cross: "Instead of returning in penitence to God, and relying upon Him in the time of their threatened trouble, [ancient Israel] sought to accomplish an expensive and profitless alliance with Egypt... It was not alliance they needed... but reliance; for 'Thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, 'In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength; and ye would not.'...

     "The great sin of man has always been in this direction, a preference of his own will to the will of God; a preference of his own inclinations for God’s obligations. It is the sin of the Church today, and the explanation of her enfeebled and pitiable position in the eyes of the world."

      The author of this precious little book died in 1925! Human nature doesn't change, does it?

God's Sovereignty: "...if all things are put under Jesus' feet, there cannot be a single circumstance over which He has not supreme control. Everything in providence and everything in grace are alike subject to His disposal. There is not a trial, a temptation, an affliction of body or soul... which is not put under Jesus' feet. He can manage them... and direct them for our good and His own glory."

A Mother's Prayers: "Dhanjoy had grown up among people whose only hope in life was to appease the anger of evil spirits. He was a mischievous boy, and he fought with his father and brother. He would even grab and pull his mother's hair or throw his sandal into the food she was cooking. Meena desperately wanted her son to grow up knowing the love of Jesus, and she prayed for him often.... Now, Dhanjoy is a Bible college graduate serving the Lord full-time in the mountainous Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. He has faced opposition several times from anti-Christian groups, but he continues faithfully. Dhanjoy asks for prayer that many people will receive salvation through his ministry." See Perseverance

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