Wearing Down The Saints - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

Wearing Down The Saints

- Now Think On This

by Steve Martin

“'He will speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One…”

Daniel 7:25 NASU

The devil is constantly directing his henchmen to use any means possible to wear down the saints of God, the believers in Jesus Christ (Yeshua HaMashiach). Their goal is to get us to quit the fight, to lay down our weapons, and to take us out from fighting the good fight that rages on in the spiritual realm. They will use both natural and spiritual weapons of war to push us down, cause us to grow weary in doing good, and keep us from standing strong on the solid, eternal foundational truths of God’s Word.

I became even more so aware of this during a time of personal sickness. The constant coughing that nagged me for days, both day and night, wore me out in my mind, my emotions and my physical being. During a particular night of constant coughing, robbing me of valuable sleep, the Lord was making me even more so aware of the same tactics which the enemy of our soul does use to wear us out. It can be that ongoing pounding at our beliefs, which brings such weariness at times that we become discouraged in the fight and want to give up. That is what the lying accuser of the brethren confronts us with as we chose daily to walk in faith.

In the 2014 movie Unbroken, which portrays a portion of American Louis Zamperini’s World War II endurance – surviving first a plane crash, enduring 47 days in the Pacific Ocean lifeboat, and then living through brutal captivity in the Japanese POW camp - brings a stark demonstration of being beaten down, to wear one out, in the attempt to break the spirit and bring mental surrender. But from a strength that had to come from the Lord, Whom He ultimately accepted as His deliverer, Louis survived.

Today, as the world around us continues in its fast moving plunge into darkness, we see the rise of evil realities being exposed through godless forces. Believers are being left homeless, tortured, raped and murdered, as they will not bow down to the false, wicked god of the destroyer. These martyrs are choosing life over death.

We have these Scriptures from our Lord to stand on from Matthew 24:7-14 (NASU).

"For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another.  Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”

Our faith will be tested. The enemy is increasing his attacks against the Lord’s anointed, to wear us down. But by the grace of God we can endure to the end, and see our God’s kingdom come.

Now think on this,

Steve Martin

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Now Think On This #166 - “Wearing Down The Saints” by Steve Martin 

Date: In the year of our Lord 2015 (01.11.15) Sunday at 11:30 am in Charlotte, NC

All previous editions of Now Think On This can be found on this Blog, and on our newest website: Now Think On This

Pause to Say Goodbye: Christians Who Died in 2014 - J. Lee Grady

Pause to Say Goodbye: Christians Who Died in 2014

12/30/2014 J. LEE GRADY  charisma magazine

Some well-known Christians died this year—along with many nameless believers who were martyred. (J. Lee Grady)

At the close of every year I always look back to see which members of our Christian family passed away. I don't have room to include everyone, but here are some believers who left behind a special legacy.

1. Louis Zamperini. I'll start my list with this army hero, since his amazing story of courage was immortalized this year in the movie Unbroken. During World War II the Olympic runner-turned-soldier survived 47 days on a raft in the Pacific, then endured two horrific years in a Japanese prison camp. Unfortunately he died (at age 97) five months before the movie hit theaters. An Italian immigrant, he came home after the war and embraced faith in Jesus at a Billy Graham crusade in 1949—and this led him to seek out his Japanese captors so he could forgive them. (A documentary about Zamperini's faith, Louis Zamperini: Captured by Grace, will air Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 on Fox.)

2. S. Truett Cathy. He was not your typical billionaire. The Southern Baptist entrepreneur, who grew up poor, began his Chick-fil-A restaurant chain with one odd-shaped diner in Atlanta called the Dwarf House. Today the company's tasty boneless chicken sandwiches are sold in 1,800 locations—with $5 billion in annual sales. Cathy's Christian faith not only shaped his store policies (always closed on Sundays) but also his giving: He donated millions to build foster homes for kids and launched a scholarship program to provide career opportunities to underprivileged youth. Cathy was 93.

3. Ann Kiemel Anderson. With her hippie hairdo, maxi dresses and chirpy, high-pitched voice, Ann Kiemel was an unlikely evangelist in the 1970s. But she personified the simplicity of the Jesus Movement when she took to stages all over the United States and challenged young people to serve Jesus. "I am just one young woman ... but one plus a giant of a God can do anything," she said. Her 18 books, including I'm Out to Change My World, sold 28 million copies. Later in life she developed a drug dependency because of medical problems, but she talked openly about her weakness and always pointed people to Christ. She died of cancer at 69. (You can see her speaking at a youth rally here.)

4. Steve Hill. Pentecostals knew him as the voice of the Pensacola Revival, a marathon series of meetings hosted by the Brownsville Assembly of God from 1995 to 2000. A former drug addict who was discipled through the Teen Challenge rehab ministry, Brown brought a folksy Alabama drawl to his famous pulpit in Florida. But he aimed for the jugular vein when he gave altar calls. Never afraid to confront sin, he spoke several times a week in Pensacola and saw hundreds of thousands of decisions for Christ in meetings that attracted more than 4 million people over the course of five years. He and his wife, Jeri, later moved to Dallas to plant Heartland World Ministries Church. He battled cancer for years and died in March at age 60. The Dallas ministry is now raising funds to create a digital library of Hill's sermons.

5. Myles Munroe. The world-famous Caribbean faith preacher died with his wife, Ruth, and seven other members of their church when their ministry plane crashed in severe weather in November. Munroe became a hero to many Christians in the developing world because he rose from poverty in his native Bahamas to attend Oral Roberts University. He later planted a thriving church, Bahamas Faith Ministries, in Nassau and began authoring motivational books such as Releasing Your Potential. The prime minister of the Bahamas, Perry G. Christie, told reporters that Munroe "was indisputably one of the most globally recognizable religious figures our nation has ever produced." Munroe was only 60. Dave Burrows, a Bahamian who also graduated from ORU, will reportedly replace Munroe as pastor.

6. Stanley M. Horton. Some people make a big splash in life. Others spread their impact more quietly over decades. That was true of Horton, a Harvard graduate who became the most respected Pentecostal theologian of our lifetime. Author of What the Bible Says About the Holy Spirit and many other books, he served as professor of Bible at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri, from 1978-1991. He then continued to travel and speak until he was 92. An expert in Greek, he most recently worked on the Modern English Version of the Bible, which was released this year by Charisma House. He died at age 98.

7. Ann B. Davis. The world knew this ditzy actress as the housekeeper Alice Nelson on ABC's 1970s sitcom The Brady Bunch. Few knew that she was also a charismatic Episcopalian who shared her testimony wherever she went. When she retired from show business she fully dedicated her life to ministry at a time when many Episcopalians were being baptized in the Holy Spirit. She told People magazine: "I'm convinced we all have a God-shaped space in us, and until we fill that space with God, we'll never know what it is to be whole." In her later years she led a Bible study at her home church in Texas. Unlike the maid she played on TV, she did not enjoy childcare or cooking. She died after a fall at age 88.

8. Richard Dobbins. He was both a Pentecostal and a psychologist—terms that do not often go together. But Dobbins, an Assemblies of God pastor and prolific author, believed that Pentecostals should do a better job addressing mental health challenges. He started a nonprofit Christian counseling ministry, Emerge, in 1973 after he realized there were few counselors who integrated faith and psychology. Also a local church pastor in Akron, Ohio, he broke new ground by offering counseling resources to ministers—who are often expected to have no emotional problems of their own. Dobbins was 86.

9. Maria Von Trapp. The last survivor of the seven Von Trapp children portrayed in The Sound of Music, Maria was called Louisa in the film to avoid confusion with her famous stepmother. When she contracted scarlet fever as a child, her father, Georg, decided to employ a governess, Maria, who was played by Julie Andrews in the film. The musical family fled the Nazis in Austria and came to the United States in 1938, where they purchased a lodge in Vermont and made it their base. Like her famous stepmother, Maria was influenced by the Catholic charismatic renewal movement of the 1970s and spent 30 years as a missionary in Papua New Guinea. She was 99.

10. The martyrs of 2014. Perhaps the most "famous" people on this list are the ones we forget. In November, Sajjad and Saima Massih, a Christian couple in Pakistan, were beaten and then thrown alive into a brick kiln near the city of Lahore. They were falsely accused of blaspheming Islam—and incinerated. Hundreds of thousands of people like the Massihs were killed for their Christian faith in 2014 in places such as Nigeria, Syria and Iraq—where 40,000 have reportedly died at the hands of ISIS terrorists. Mark Arabo, a spokesman for Iraqi Christians, told CNN in August that Islamic militants were beheading children of Christian parents. "The world hasn't seen an evil like this for a generation. There's actually a park in Mosul that they've actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick," Arabo said.

All of these people made a mark on the world because of their faith. I pray you will do the same in 2015. Happy New Year.

J. Lee Grady is the former editor of Charisma. You can follow him on Twitter atleegrady. His newest book is The Truth Sets Women Free (Charisma House). You can learn more about his ministry, The Mordecai Project, at themordecaiproject.org. 

Angelina Jolie Dropped to Her Knees in Prayer While Directing 'Unbroken'

12/29/2014 DIANA TYLER  charisma news

Angelina Jolie, the director of 'Unbroken' (YouTube/Screengrab)

There's little doubt that the heavily anticipated movie Unbroken will greatly impact and inspire audiences worldwide when it hits theaters Christmas Day. It tells the incredible, true story of World War II prisoner of war survivor Louis Zamperini and his unimaginable journey of hardship and suffering that he endured only because of his steadfast refusal to back down, his dogged determination to hang on to hope and ultimately his insistence on forgiving those who sought to break both his body and spirit.

With such an epic, heartrending tale to envision and recreate for the big screen, even the movie's director, Angelina Jolie, found herself face to face with the power of prayer during production.

Zamperini's daughter, Cynthia Garris, recalled a particularly stormy day in New South Wales, Australia when sunlight was desperately needed to shoot an important scene.

"[Angelina] said, 'I don't know what I'm going to do, so I'll do what Louie would do,'" Garris said at a recent press conference. "She got on her knees, and she prayed for a miracle ... everybody saw it. It stopped raining. The sun came out, a rainbow came out. She said, 'Let's get this take,' [and] they shot the take. When she said 'cut,' it started to rain again."

Jolie, said Garris, was moved by Zamperini's faith. Garris believes it was part of God's plan for Jolie "to find Louie and make this movie to find her way to a life that would encompass the Almighty."

In an exclusive interview with Movieguide® TV co-host Evy Baehr, Angelina said, "We are all searching for what is it that's going to pull us through. This film speaks of that. It speaks of how to overcome, of how to face obstacles."

When Evy asked Angelina how Unbroken will reach the faith community, Jolie said, "Faith is very present in our film. Sometimes we represented it with very obvious symbols, and sometimes it's the light. It's the darkness and the light."

For those of us who have been walking with God for some time, we know that the Lord speaks to us in myriad ways. Sometimes, it's a sermon that feels as though it was prepared just for us, or a timely Scripture that practically jumps off the page and into our hearts. Other times, however, the Spirit's voice is soft as a spring rain; we only hear it if we're expecting to hear it. This latter still voice seems to be what Jolie heard that day on set, when the clouds rolled away, sunlight poured out of heaven, and a rainbow framed the scene in a way no cinematographer could imitate.

While no one can know for certain what, if any, impression Angelina Jolie's answered prayer may have made on her beliefs regarding salvation through Jesus Christ, her humble act of supplication represents so many on this planet who are, as she said, searching. Christians should feel encouraged to pray that Jolie's beautiful experience while filming Unbroken, as well as her relationship with Zamperini, will remain with her, speak to her and help guide her to invite Jesus to become her personal Lord and Savior.

Movieguide® believes Unbroken to be a movie well worth seeing this Christmas season as it possesses a very strong biblical worldview that extols courage, forgiveness, sacrifice and the importance of clinging to hope in the midst of life's bleakest moments. Though the movie doesn't follow Zamperini's life after the war (the time during which he became a Christian leader), the final titles do reveal his eventual faith in Christ, a fact that, in our eyes, makes him even more of a hero.

This article originally appeared on movieguide.org. Want to know what God's doing in Hollywood?

Unbroken: POW Set to Capture Hearts on Big Screen

Louis Zamperini with Billy Graham

Unbroken: POW Set to Capture Hearts on Big Screen

By Efrem Graham

News Anchor & Reporter

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

NEW YORK CITY -- Louis Zamperini'sincredible story of courage has captured hearts and minds around the world. The Olympian and former prisoner of war shared his faith on The 700 Club and in his biography, Unbroken which became a bestseller.

Zamperini's remarkable life story is now hitting the big screen in time Christmas, and just five months after the 97-year-old WWII veteran died of pneumonia.

Hollywood heavyweight Angelina Jolie directed the epic drama.

"What we tried to do was the themes of Louis's story; we would put into this dramatic period of his life, but make sure all of the themes were present," Jolie told CBN News.

Survival, resilience, and redemption are themes Jolie aimed to capture in the film that takes viewers on a journey from Zamperini's troubled childhood to his Olympic journey to his time as a soldier.

During his time in the military, Zamperini's plane crashed and left him stranded him for 47 days on a raft in the Pacific. Following that time, he became a prisoner of war when the Japanese Navy captured him.

He then faced years of unspeakable torture.

British actor Jack O'Connell plays the role of Zamperini in the film. O'Connell spoke with CBN News about how he prepared for the role.

"I just had to know him. I felt like I had to at least connect with him once. And the rest was the result of Laura Hillenbrand's very informative book," O'Connell said.

"And so I wasn't short of resources," he continued. "And Angelina knew him. So, she was able to constantly refer back to the man himself. And we could make decisions based on whether that was Louis or wasn't Louis basically."

Hints of Faith

"Unbroken" is an adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand's best-selling book of the same name.

But Jolie ends her cinema story with Zamperini's return home at the end of the war. That was a year before the war hero became an alcoholic and before he met a then-popular young evangelist, Rev. Billy Graham.

Still, Jolie hints at Zamperini's faith in the film.

"That is what we tried to get into the film. We wanted people to understand that it is not that you suddenly realize there is something beyond you in the world," Jolie told CBN News.

"That man is not alone is something we wanted to say from early on in the raft to the prison camp, that there is this, whatever your faith, there is something there," she added. "And whether you choose to see it is your choice and when you come to it and when you feel it, it is there for you."

"And so, it was very important to us that sometimes in the mother praying, sometimes in the sunrise, there is always what we would refer to as the light in the film," she said.

Unbroken Spirit

There is also darkness in the film.

Jolie tapped Japanese singer and guitarist Takamasa Ishihara, whose stage name is Miyavi, to play Mutsushiro Watanabe. Watanabe was also known as "Birdman" and he made it his mission to break Zamperini's spirit.

Miyavi had to learn English for this intense role, which was also his acting debut.

"Actually I was so nervous and hesitant to tackle this role," Miyavi told CBN News. "But I met Angelina in Tokyo and she said she wanted to make a creation that could be a bridge between America and Japan, countries that have had similar issues in conflict."

"So, even as Japanese I was scared, but I thought it was really meaningful," he explained. "It is not about the war. It's not about the conflict between America and Japan. It's about forgiveness and an unbroken spirit."

Jolie: 'He Inspired Me'

Zamperini met the cast before Jolie wrapped production of the film in in February. He also saw the film before he died.

Angelina showed it to him on her computer. It's a film and a relationship that deeply touched the Academy Award-winning actress.

"It made me, it made me a better person," Jolie told CBN News. "It reminded me, re-inspired me in my faith in the human spirit and the power of brotherhood and love and family and faith that we often, many people don't lean on enough in life, and we often lose and forget that it is there."

"And in Louis' story, I think and we hope that when people leave the theater, they hold themselves a little higher," she said. "And they face their next challenge with a little more strength."

Watch CBN interview: Unbroken

'Unbroken' completes epic journey to screen

 Andrea Mandell, USA TODAYDecember 21, 2014

(Photo: Universal Pictures)

LOS ANGELES — Forty-seven days wasting away on a bobbing raft in the Pacific Ocean. Two years of torture in Japanese prison camps. Fifty-seven years of life rights languishing in Hollywood. A 400-page epic by Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand. And one international movie star/director.

That's Unbroken in shorthand. The story of Louis Zamperini (played by Jack O'Connell), whose World War II bomber crashed in the ocean in 1943, is astonishing: a reckless child-turned-Olympic athlete-turned soldier who endured shark attacks and unspeakable acts of torture, yet ultimately achieved forgiveness for his most violent captor.

USA TODAY

Angelina's 'Unbroken' takeaway: Embrace every day

Hollywood initially jumped at the rights in the 1950s, with Tony Curtis signed on to play him — but the film remained stuck in development. Decades later, Angelina Jolie, bitten by the directing bug after her 2011 debut feature In the Land of Blood and Honey, got wind of the tale. She fell for the story, and Zamperini, her unlikely neighbor in the Hollywood Hills, hard.

USA TODAY

Pitt fills in for 'scratchy' Jolie at 'Unbroken' premiere

"I remember while we were waiting (for a green light), which seems very sad in retrospect, (Zamperini) sat me down and said, 'Let's not take forever, girl. I'm not 20 years old. I really want to see this one,' " says Jolie, surrounded by O'Connell, Garrett Hedlund (as POW John Fitzgerald) and Japanese rock star-turned-actor Miyavi (who takes on the ruthless guard known as The Bird).

Director Angelina Jolie, with actors Garrett Hedlund, Jack O’Connell and Miyavi Ishihara, brings to the screen a story that Hollywood first wanted to make back in the 1950s.(Photo: Todd Plitt, USA TODAY)

"In some beautiful way, so much of his life was spreading the message of his story. And maybe in some way, that's what he felt — it's the last thing he wanted to make sure happened before he could let go."

Before his death in July at age 97, Jolie showed Zamperini the film in the hospital on her laptop. She says she was careful balancing the wrenching war tale with warm elements from his youth, including his achievements on the track.

"We didn't want to torture the audience, we wanted to help the audience through the experience of the film and help them take the journey with us. But we wanted it to be real and we wanted to pay respect to the men who suffered through this," she says.

USATODAY

War hero, Olympian Zamperini dies at 97

How did Zamperini react to finally seeing his story on screen?

"I spent most of my time watching his eyes," says Jolie. "I was watching this extraordinary person at the end of his life, reflecting on the friends that have all since passed. He was the last one alive. And coming to terms with preparing to leave this life. So really, I just felt honored to be in the room."

'Unbroken' is based on the true story of Olympic athlete Louis Zamperini who survived a near-fatal plane crash in WWII only to be caught by the Japanese navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp. VPC

How Billy Graham's Ministry Impacted Louis Zamperini's Life (Movie: UNBROKEN)

How Billy Graham's Ministry Impacted Louis Zamperini's Life

12/12/2014 TREVOR FREEZE   CHARISMA NEWS

Billy Graham's ministry altered the life of former Olympian Louis Zamperini. (Billygraham.org)

Louis Zamperini, World War II prisoner of war survivor, Olympic distance runner and personal friend of Billy Graham, has died at age 97.

Zamperini's gripping story, including how he survived 47 days at sea on a raft after being shot down over the Pacific during Air Force duty, became well known in Laura Hillenbrand's 2010 New York Times best-seller, Unbroken.

The book also talks about the influence Billy Graham's ministry had on Zamperini's life. During the 1949 Los Angeles Crusade, Zamperini, who was struggling with alcoholism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and on the brink of divorce, gave his life to Christ at one of Mr. Graham's tent revival services at Washington Boulevard and Hill Street.

More than 60 years later, Mr. Graham was compelled to write Zamperini a letter after hearing a more detailed account of his 1949 life-changing conversion to follow Christ in Unbroken.

"Dear Louis," wrote Billy Graham, "My associate read me parts of the new book about you yesterday. What a life you have lived. What a description you have in the book of your conversion to Christ in 1949, and the great part that [your wife] Cynthia played in it, which I was aware of, but not in such detail. I had tears in my eyes and praise in my heart for what God has done through you."

Louis Zamperini speaks at the 1963 Billy Graham Crusade at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

Zamperini visited Mr. Graham in June of 2011 at his home in Montreat, North Carolina, and also visited the Billy Graham Library where he held a book signing at age 94. Zamperini was an inspirational speaker and teamed up with Mr. Graham at several of his Crusades, including San Francisco (1958) and Los Angeles (1963).

Before his conversion, Zamperini was a 5,000-meter runner for the U.S. Olympic Team in the 1936 Berlin Games. He enlisted in the Air Force in 1941, before getting shot down, along with 10 others, in April of 1943.

Eight other men did not survive that crash 850 miles west of Oahu and only Zamperini and one other lasted all 47 days adrift, using two albatrosses to catch fish, while fighting off shark attacks. They were caught by the Japanese Navy and spent over two years at various prisoner-of-war camps.

Read the original article on billygraham.org.

Unbroken: What the Movie Doesn't Say about Louis Zamperini

Unbroken: What the Movie Doesn't Say about Louis Zamperini

By Heather Sells

CBN News Reporter

Monday, November 24, 2014

Just days before his death this summer, Olympic track athlete and former WWII prisoner of war Louis Zamperini  finished his final race: the completion of his book, Don't Give Up, Don't Give in.

In it he chronicled lessons he learned during the war and what he learned after he surrendered his life to Christ.

It's a life that made even Hollywood take note. On Christmas day this year "Unbroken,"a movie about Zamperini's life, opens in theaters nationwide. It was directed by actress Angelina Jolie.

Louis Zamperini

The epic feature will focus on Zamperini's childhood, Olympic adventures, and survival as a POW during WWII. It does not portray his salvation experience during a 1949 Billy Graham crusade in Los Angeles.

Billy Graham

How did Zamperini come to know Christ? CBN News' Heather Sells spoke with Zamperini's son Luke about the film, his dad's salvation, his ability to forgive, and God's timing in his father's life.