Standing in support of Israel, Jews, and believers in all the nations, in the name of Jesus (Yeshua). Sharing biblical truth, encouragement, news and prophecy.
An Iraqi Christian police attends the first Sunday mass at the Grand Immaculate Church since it was recaptured from Islamic State in Qaraqosh, near Mosul in Iraq. (REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah)
Christians Claim Significant Victory Against Radical Islam in Biblical Homeland
Join us on our podcast each weekday for an interesting story, well told, from Charisma News. Listen at charismapodcastnetwork.com.
Surrounded by charred walls and in front of a ruined altar, dozens of Iraqi Christians celebrated mass at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Qaraqosh on Sunday for the first time since it was recaptured from Islamic State.
Church bells rang out in the town on the southeastern approaches to Mosul where Iraqi troops, backed by U.S.-led air and ground forces, have been driving back the Sunni Muslim jihadis ahead of a battle for the city itself.
"Today Qaraqosh is free of Daesh (Islamic State)," Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Mosul Butrus Moshe told worshippers.
Islamic State has targeted the adherents and religious sites of minority communities in both Iraq and Syria. When it seized control of Mosul two years ago it issued an ultimatum to Christians: pay a tax, convert to Islam or die by the sword.
Most abandoned their homes and fled toward the autonomous Kurdish region, abandoning one of Christianity's earliest centers.
"Our role today is to remove all the remnants of Daesh," the archbishop said. "This includes erasing sedition, separation and conflicts, which victimized us," said the archbishop, who was born in Qaraqosh.
"Political and sectarian strife, separating between one man and another, between ruler and follower, these mentalities must be changed," he said.
Christianity in northern Iraq dates back to the first century AD. The number of Christians fell sharply during the violence which followed the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and the Islamic State takeover of Mosul two years ago purged the city of Christians for the first time in two millennia.
It was from a Mosul mosque that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a "caliphate" in 2014, spanning northern Iraq and eastern Syria. The recapture of the city would mark the effective defeat of the Iraqi wing of that domain.
3 Reasons Why you should read Life in the Spirit. 1) Get to know the Holy Spirit. 2) Learn to enter God's presence 3) Hear God's voice clearly! Go deeper!
Has God called you to be a leader? Ministry Today magazine is the source that Christian leaders who want to serve with passion and purpose turn to. Subscribe now and receive a free leadership book.
Finally, the battle to liberate Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, from the bloodthirsty clutches of the Islamic State is underway.
With Iraqi Christians, Yazidis and other minorities suffering nothing short of genocide, the Iraqi military is currently engaged in a serious, systematic, albeit long-overdue campaign to crush ISIS and restore safety and stability to northern Iraq once and for all. Baghdad is working with a coalition that includes Iraqi Kurdish paramilitary forces known as the Peshmerga, backed up by U.S. intelligence, air support, special forces and tactical advisors.
This is good news, and I'm encouraged by early reports of progress, as this is a strategy to defeat ISIS that I've been advocating for some time (see here, here, and here).
The big question, as I see it, is not whether this coalition will ultimately be successful in liberating northern Iraq from ISIS (I believe they will be), but what happens the day after ISIS is gone. How will order be restored? How will the Christian community begin to rebuild their lives? And how will Baghdad help, rather than harm?
To this end, I wholeheartedly support an initiative by senior Iraqi government leaders to create a new province in northern Iraq -- including the Nineveh Plain -- that would specifically serve as a safe haven for Iraqi Christians, Yazidis and other minorities.
There once were some 1.5 million Christians living in Iraq. Today, after so many years of war and terrorism and now a systematic effort by ISIS to annihilate the Christian community, there are today fewer than 350,000 professed followers of Jesus Christ in the country that was the birthplace of Abraham and Sarah and the home of many Biblical prophets, from Daniel and Ezekiel to Jonah and Nahum, to name just a few.
To their credit, a number of current Iraqi leaders are being clear that they don't want their Christian community to have to flee to Europe or America to find protection from ISIS. They don't want ISIS to be successful in their declared mission to "break the cross" and annihilate Christ-followers in Iraq. What's more, some of them have come to recognize that the only way to build a stable, healthy, lasting republic is to help Christians there not only survive but thrive. Among other things, that means giving Iraqi Christians a real stake in governing themselves.
The creation of a new province in northern Iraq has been a topic of discussion for several years within the upper echelons in Baghdad. With the liberation of northern Iraq finally underway, the discussion is now picking up tempo, as is international support for the idea.
Last month when I was in the States, I had a very encouraging phone conversation with Congressman Jeff Fortenberry who has spent a great deal of time examining the issue. He recently introduced a bipartisan resolution towards this end and is urging both Congress and whomever is elected the next President of the United States to support a new Iraqi province to protect the Christians.
Fortenberry has impressive street cred on the issue. Earlier this year, the Kansas Republican led the effort to persuade Members of Congress to officially define the ISIS slaughter of Christians as genocide. In March, the House passed Fortenberry's resolution by a unanimous vote of 383-0. Two days later, the Obama administration finally agreed to formally define the actions of ISIS as genocide.
Working closely with Fortenberry and his colleagues on these matters is Robert Nicholson, an Evangelical Christian and public policy specialist based in Manhattan. Nicholson has written and spoken extensively on the subject of protecting and strengthening persecuted Christians in the Middle East. After talking with him at some length, and reading a good deal of his work, I believe Nicholson is making a principled and effective moral and strategic case for the U.S. fully backing the creation of such a new province. I especially commend his most recent article, "The Strategic Case For A Safe Haven In Northern Iraq," to your attention.
"This province would not be an externally created construct," Nicholson wrote with several colleagues earlier this year. "It would be a political recognition of the province’s underlying ethnic and cultural makeup, building on what has already been taking place. Indeed, on January 21, 2014, Iraq’s Council of Ministers 'agreed, in principle, to turn the districts of Tuz Khurmato, Fallujah, and the Nineveh Plains into provinces,' pursuant to Articles 61 and 80 of the Iraqi Constitution. What remains is for the United States, its allies in the coalition against ISIS, and regional partners to support the Iraqis as they begin a transition toward greater federalism and greater protection for the country’s most vulnerable communities."
I agree, and I'm committed to doing everything I can to encourage more support in the House for Rep. Fortenberry's resolution, and to create a Senate version, too.
Four times in recent years, I've had the opportunity to visit, preach and teach in northern Iraq. I've traveled twice across the Nineveh Plain, and had the honor of meeting with persecuted Christians there. Indeed, it has become a great passion of mine to find ways to support and encourage and even fund the pastors and Christian leaders of Iraq. I don't believe the creation of a new province and thus a safe haven will solve all their problems. But I do believe it's vital that Western Christians stand with our brothers and sisters, especially as they face genocide. We should do everything we can to help them recover from the tyranny of ISIS, and to help the Iraqi Church be a witness and blessing to their Muslim and Yazidi neighbors who have suffered so greatly under ISIS, as well.
[This column is based on my personal beliefs and opinions. I share them in my personal capacity as an American citizen and an author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of The Joshua Fund, which is a non-profit organization and takes no political or legislative positions.]
Posted: 01 Nov 2016 Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG
A couple of weeks ago, it looked like Hillary Clinton was all set to cruise to victory, but now the FBI has delivered an election miracle in the nick of time. A few of my readers had criticized me for suggesting that Trump might lose, but I don’t know who is going to win the election, and so all I had to go on was the cold, hard numbers. And a couple of weeks ago the cold, hard numbers were telling me that Hillary Clinton was going to win. Of course it is entirely possible that the national polls might have been seriously wrong, but even the state polls in the most important battleground states consistently had bad news for Trump. So things didn’t look good for Trump at the time, but now that the FBI has renewed their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails the poll numbers have shifted dramatically in Trump’s favor. As I write this article, the national polls have really tightened up. In fact, the latest ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll puts Trump 1 point ahead of Clinton. Trump has all of the momentum at the moment, but that does not mean that he is going to win. As we have seen already in this race, one day can literally change everything. And as I noted yesterday, more than 23 million Americans have already voted, and most of that voting was done during a period of time when Hillary Clinton was doing very well in the polls. So we shall see what happens. But if Trump does win on November 8th, there is a fact about his birthday which will start to get a lot of attention. Donald Trump was born on June 14th, 1946. If you move ahead 70 years from that date, that brings you to June 14th, 2016. Moving forward another 7 months brings you to January 14th, 2017, and moving forward another 7 days brings you to January 21st, 2017. And if Donald Trump wins the election, January 21st will be his first full day in office. Of course Trump would be inaugurated on January 20th, but he would only be president for part of that day. So that means that Donald Trump would be 70 years, 7 months and 7 days old on his first full day as president of the United States. And this would happen during year 5777 on the Hebrew calendar. These amazing “coincidences” were first pointed out on Facebook by a user named Alyson Kelly. Some may take these numbers as a sign that Donald Trump is supposed to become the next president, but I want to make it exceedingly clear that I do not know what is going to happen, nor am I making any sort of prediction about what is going to happen. I just thought that this information was “interesting” and so I thought that I would share it. Someone that does believe that Trump is going to win is Glenn Beck. He was been virulently anti-Trump throughout this campaign, but now he is convinced that Clinton will be unable to overcome this new email scandal, and he is calling this renewed investigation by the FBI “the greatest gift given to any candidate of all time in the history of America.” Beck also says that if Clinton wins now it will be evidence that “magic exists”, and he is currently projecting that Trump should win the national vote by 5 points…
“Let’s just say he was 8 points, that was fair to say, 8 points behind last week,” Beck said, according to a transcript posted on his website. “He should win by 5 points.” Beck later added: “How can the next president face a possible collapsing economy, possible war with Russia, and a current war with ISIS? Oh, and also, be under FBI investigation and indictment? Can’t. Can’t.” The conservative personality called the latest FBI revelation “the greatest gift given to any candidate of all time in the history of America” and added that if Clinton still managed to win, it would be akin to proof “magic exists.”
Hopefully Glenn Beck is right, because none of us should want to see Hillary Clinton in the White House. She is the most evil, corrupt and scandal-ridden politician of this generation, and I can’t understand how any American in their right mind could possibly vote for her. And the hits just keep on coming. Wikileaks has just released an email in which John Podesta told Clinton “fixer” Cheryl Mills that they were “going to have to dump all those emails so better to do so sooner than later”…
It was not entirely clear what Podesta meant by that phrase, but it could potentially be smoking gun evidence of obstruction of justice. Back in 2008, Barack Obama was new, intriguing and mysterious. We didn’t know a lot about him, and so one can almost understand how the American people could have been fooled by him. But in 2016, Americans know more about Hillary Clinton than they have ever known about any candidate in modern American history. The Clintons have a history of crimes and scandals that goes all the way back to the 1980s, but about half the country is choosing to ignore all of that history and vote for her anyway. I believe that this election is America’s final exam. Originally there were 17 Republicans and 5 Democrats running for the presidency. When you throw in the major third party candidates, that brings us to a total of approximately 25 people that the American public could have chosen from. If the American people willingly choose the most wicked candidate out of all of them after everything that has been revealed, I don’t think that anyone will be able to say that we don’t deserve the bitter consequences that follow that decision. The time for talking is almost over, and shortly we shall find out which path the American people have chosen. If that choice turns out to be Hillary Clinton after everything that we have seen during this election cycle, I truly believe that we will have reached the point of no return as a nation.
She is a smooth criminal. She is the consort of a sex addict. She is chugging the longest train of scandal and lawlessness in history toward the White House. Box cars overflow with federal crimes, defilement, unexplained deaths, pathological lies and an insatiable lust for power. She wants the savagery of late-term abortion. She believes marriage is between a man and anything.
However, the greatest horror resides in the caboose: She will feed and expand the cancer of Obama's policies. Thus, she will turn up the blood-letting of government spending and doom our children. Our foreign policy will be one big blazing Benghazi. Our Supreme Court will become a left-wing meat grinder. Obamacare is dead; no mind, she will manage the morgue so the corpse putrefies our health care system indefinitely.
Say you wanted to craft the quintessential anti-Christian candidate. Monger a politician that is the most anti-Bible, anti-church, anti-Israel, anti-God human being on the planet: Thy name is Hillary Clinton.
Yet, with all of this, millions of born-again, holiness, tongue-talking, Bible-thumping Christians are dutifully and catatonically pulling the lever for her. She has also said that religious beliefs need to be changed. Think of that, she would change Christian beliefs and millions of Christians will help her do it.
Maybe you'll do it because you are more feminist, union or minority than you are Christian.
The article in Dallas Morning News reads: "I am a pro-life Christian woman voting for Hillary." The author Shannon Dingle says, "So buckle up, y'all. We're in for a ride." Sadly, I took the ride, and it was even murkier by the end than it was at the beginning.
The polls say 80 percent percent of all African-Americans will vote for Hillary. Thirty-eight million live in the U.S. Do you think for a moment, 80 percent of the black Christians you know are anti-Bible?
We also know that many Christian white women are for Hillary. Women who listen to Joyce Meyers, women who attend prophetic conferences, women who pray in tongues, yet still, they will vote Clinton.
One of the biggest reasons for this breathtaking contradiction will shock you: It is modernpreaching. Have you even wondered why your pastor is not warning you that we are about to lose our nation forever? Have you not noticed the blinding contradiction when your pastor says he believes in the Word of God and then tells you to vote for Hillary?
The preaching that allows believers to act in opposition to their faith comes in many packages. But they all carry these traits.
1. It teaches there is a higher standard than the Bible. This comes at you in all kinds of ways. There is the preaching that omits Scripture. There is the preaching that magically mixes opposing ideas so they fit together in blissful repose, i.e. Chrislam. You don't even notice the teaching is not anchored to the Bible.
The Bible may be diminished by a pastor. They say things like: "I still revere Scripture but the modern mind finds it objectionable, so we must downplay it."
Then there are Spirit-filled teachers who imply—or outright say—that personal prophetic words or supernatural encounters trump the Bible.
Is there any wonder millions of Christians sitting under such verbiage lack the moral clarity to do the right thing in this election?
2. It desperately wants cultural acceptance. So much of the confusing waffling you hear from celebrity pastors is not a conviction; it is a need for acceptance from the culture. When virtually every news outlet, Hollywood, pop stars and secular universities are in lockstep with Hillary, the pressure to conform is overwhelming.
A pastor tosses his Bible values and suddenly becomes a darling to millions who declare that pastor open-minded, inclusive and tolerant.
Regardless of how glaring the evil, this preaching refuses to offend. Joel Osteen said to Larry King, "I know homosexuality is a sin, but I am not going to preach it."
Here is preaching that calculates truth with a wet finger raised to cultural breezes instead of a heart that discerns the wind of the Holy Spirit.
Moral clarity is almost nonexistent. If it is gone from the sermon, small wonder it is gone from the voting booth.
3. It teaches elitism that exempts Christians from consequences. This pernicious teaching places the Christian above Scripture, above consequence and even above God.
It begins with true statements about the authority of the believer or the wonders of the love and grace of God. The teacher, seeing the delight he awakens in his audience, increases the dosage beyond Bible limits.
Soon you are hearing that you never have to repent of sin. You hear of astounding dominion you have over all of the earth. You are fed a constant diet of how God is so, so into you.
You are too valuable to suffer (like other Christians around the world). No matter how bad it looks, you do not have to worry or take action because God will simply take care of it all.
Revival becomes "if God wants it" and not "if My people."
Will Christians be judged by God for voting for Hillary? Eric Metaxas not only thinks so, but he also makes a compelling appeal for voting for Donald Trump:
"How do I squirm out of this horrific conundrum? It's unavoidable: We who can vote must answer to God for these people, whom He loves. We are indeed our brothers' and sisters' keepers.
We would be responsible for passively electing someone who champions the abomination of partial-birth abortion, someone who is celebrated by an organization that sells baby parts. We already live in a country where judges force bakers, florists and photographers to violate their consciences and faith—and Mrs. Clinton has zealously ratified this. If we believe this ends with bakers and photographers, we are horribly mistaken. No matter your faith or lack of faith, this statist view of America will dramatically affect you and your children.
For many of us, this is very painful, pulling the lever for someone many think odious. But please consider this: A vote for Donald Trump is not necessarily a vote for Donald Trump himself. It is a vote for those who will be affected by the results of this election. Not to vote is to vote. God will not hold us guiltless."
Hillary just said this about the new FBI investigation of her: "People Have Already 'Factored' in Emails in How They Think about Me." She also believes this is true of millions of born Christians. They have factored what she is, but they will vote for her anyway.
Mario Murillois a California-based evangelist and an author.
This article was originally published at mariomurillo.org. Used with permission.
3 Reasons Why you should read Life in the Spirit. 1) Get to know the Holy Spirit. 2) Learn to enter God's presence 3) Hear God's voice clearly! Go deeper!
Has God called you to be a leader? Ministry Today magazine is the source that Christian leaders who want to serve with passion and purpose turn to. Subscribe now and receive a free leadership book.
TV: Israelis Thank Christians for Visiting on Feast of Tabernacles
Wednesday, November 02, 2016 | Israel Today Staff
The Bible says that all nations will one day be required to "come up" to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. Israelis are thankful for those Christians who are already doing so.
You won't believe what an orthodox Jewish man said to me!
Shalom!
Last week something really amazing happened and I wanted to share it with you. We were filming Out of Zion in the Old City, right next to the Western Wall. Suddenly I felt the presence of God like I have not felt since we started filming. I was sharing, but it was like I was in another dimension. A small crowd gathered and then an Orthodox Jewish man said something to me I never expected.
One of the things I am really enjoying about this program is that I am getting to meet many new Israelis and share my faith. One orthodox Jewish man (not the one above) followed me out of the Western Wall Tunnels. He was also an American immigrant to Israel and married to a native Israeli. He was so excited about our program until I told him I was a believer. Stunned, he stared at me and then said, "Nice to meet you," shook and my hand and then fled as if he was talking to someone with the plague.
It breaks my heart that these precious people can sense something of God, but are so programed to fear Yeshua, that they immediate close up. I get it. So much has been done against the Jewish people in the name of "Christianity". But we hold on to the promise of Romans 11:26, that "all Israel shall be saved." We await that great revival.
We were filming the fourth episode of a series on the Six Day War for #OutofZion, when I began to read a powerful and long quote from Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who gave an amazing speech as Israeli Soldiers took Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in 1967. Suddenly, I felt God’s presence in a powerful way. Deep emotion welled up and I spoke with passion. We were in the Western Wall Plaza and a small crowd formed around us. While we had already filmed three episodes, this was clearly different.
When I finished speaking, I noticed an Orthodox family. The father told me how powerful the message was and asked me if I would come give sermons at his Orthodox synagogue. He said that had been looking for someone to bring messages. He hung around while we finished a small video clip. After I finished, I thanked him for his encouragement but told him, “You might not want to invite me to share sermons, as I am a Messianic Jew. I believe Yeshua is the Messiah.”
He responded, “You just lost a job.” And then added I could still do t’shiva—repentance and become orthodox. I told him I repented when I found Yeshua and added that it was nice to meet him.
The point is that he and his family felt the presence of God, but his bias towards Yeshua quickly closed him off. Of course that is why I wrote Identity Theft—so people like him can see that believing in Yeshua is perfectly Jewish.
Yigal, one of our cameramen, said that it reminded him of when the people said of Yeshua, “he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.” Of course, it wasn’t me, but any New Testament communicator under the anointing would have been just as effective. It is the Presence of God.
Please pray for him and his family.
Here is the quote I was reading as the first Jewish soldiers entered the Western Wall Plaza towards the end of the Six Day War:
“I am speaking to you from the plaza of the Western Wall, the remnant of our Holy Temple. ‘Comfort my people, comfort them, says the Lord your God.’ This is the day we have hoped for, let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation. The vision of all generations is being realized before our eyes: The city of God, the site of the Temple, the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, the symbol of the nation’s redemption, have been redeemed today by you, heroes of the Israel Defense Forces. By doing so you have fulfilled the oath of generations, ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning.’ Indeed, we have not forgotten you, Jerusalem, our holy city, our glory. In the name of the entire Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora, I hereby recite with supreme joy, Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who has kept us in life, who has preserved us, and enabled us to reach this day. This year in Jerusalem – rebuilt!”
Eleven days prior to the election the FBI acted in confirmation of what Donald Trump prophesied.
I've said all along that Mr. Trump is uncannily prophetic! He calls it "instincts." I introduced this in my book God's Chaos Candidate and listed several instances when he predicted things before they happened. This is the kind of executive acumen we need in the coming chaos that is coming to America.
Here's the latest!
Trump predicted that Anthony Weiner would expose all the Hillary secrets to the world.
Here's what he said on social media in August!
In fact, back in 2013, he said that "Huma should dump the sicko Weiner" because he's "a calamity that is bringing her down with him." He saw the national security implications of Abedin's close relationship with Clinton.
I wish the Christian community had ears to hear—Trump is a "Cyrus" ruler who is under the anointing of "Common Grace."
I heard the Lord tell me this after I read about Cyrus in Isaiah 45. The Lord spoke two words: "Common grace ... Common grace!" This is a term used by reformed theologians and first introduced to me while reading Chuck Colson. Ever wonder what keeps fallen man from total self-destruction? Common grace comes down upon a fallen world to keep in check the forces of anarchy. It stirs in man the ideals of virtue and justice.
It is the grace that comes upon all (Christian and non-Christian) to help them affirm the good and resist the bad, personally and in institutions. It is the hidden hand of God that works to promote justice and order in a world where selfishness could produce societal collapse. "Saving grace" is what gets you saved and "common grace" is the special influence of God that comes upon man to keep society from imploding.
Lance Wallnau is a catalytic thought leader. An internationally recognized speaker and business consultant, he is one of the premiere speakers on the subject of cultural transformation and the seven mountains. Find him online atlancewallnau.com.
3 Reasons Why you should read Life in the Spirit. 1) Get to know the Holy Spirit. 2) Learn to enter God's presence 3) Hear God's voice clearly! Go deeper!
Has God called you to be a leader? Ministry Today magazine is the source that Christian leaders who want to serve with passion and purpose turn to. Subscribe now and receive a free leadership book.
A man clears notes placed in the cracks of the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, to clear space for new notes ahead of the Jewish New Year, in Jerusalem's Old City. (Reuters/Ronen Zvulun)
What Donald Trump's Prayer in the Western Wall Really Says
Join us on our podcast each weekday for an interesting story, well told, from Charisma News. Listen at charismapodcastnetwork.com.
Hoping for divine intervention—or Jewish votes—Donald Trump wrote a short prayer to be inserted in between the stones of the Western Wall.
Trump's team photographed and sent a copy of the handwritten prayer to Ynet News and Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli sister publications. The original was handed to David Faiman, a Trump adviser, who was heading to Israel, the news outlets reported.
"May you bless the United States, our armed forces and our allies. May your guiding hand protect and strengthen our great nation," the GOP presidential candidate's prayer said.
It is traditional for visitors to the ancient Western Wall to insert prayers and messages into the cracks between its stones. Known in Hebrew as the Kotel, the wall is holy to Jews because it is a remnant of the retaining wall that once surrounded the Second Temple, destroyed by the Romans in the year 70.
Those who cannot go to the wall sometimes ask friends or family to deliver their prayers. Various Israeli non-profit organizations run free delivery services.
Trump, a Christian, decided to write the note following a conversation with his daughter Ivanka, a modern-Orthodox convert to Judaism, according to Ynet.
His presidential campaign has been flagging for weeks and a majority of U.S. Jews favor his challenger, Hillary Clinton. The Republican candidate has also been criticized for failing to disavow anti-Semitic statements by some of his followers.
But David Weissman, an American citizen and Trump supporter who lives in Israel, believes the note shows that Trump "respects Jewish tradition and prayer, and acknowledges the Kotel belongs to the Jewish people and he believes in God."
3 Reasons Why you should read Life in the Spirit. 1) Get to know the Holy Spirit. 2) Learn to enter God's presence 3) Hear God's voice clearly! Go deeper!
Has God called you to be a leader? Ministry Today magazine is the source that Christian leaders who want to serve with passion and purpose turn to. Subscribe now and receive a free leadership book.
