I’ll Tell You What…

…for Introducing Legislation Favoring Vietnam After Vicious Crackdown On Christians

From News on Christian Persecution at persecution.org.

Reps. Betty McCollum (D- St. Paul, MN) and Phil Crane (R- IL) were blasted and denounced yesterday in Washington, D.C., by a coalition of protestors that includes taxpayers, students, veterans as well as Laotian and Hmong human rights and pro- democracy organizations. Demonstrators were opposed to tax and trade legislation recently re-introduced by Rep. Betty McCollum and Rep. Phil Crane in the U.S. House of Representatives on March 11th that seeks to grant the Lao communist regime a major tax cut on goods it imports into the United States. Demonstrations took place in front of the embassies of Vietnam and Laos.

From News on Christian Persecution at persecution.org.

Taliban insurgents have threatened to kill Afghans if they vote in September elections, an intelligence official said yesterday. The threats were carried in pamphlets distributed in Logar province close to the capital Kabul, the official said on condition of anonymity. “We advise all Afghans not to risk their lives for attending the elections,” the pamphlets warned, according to the official. “Women especially will face the death penalty if they try to take part in the elections. Husbands are responsible for the blood of their wives if they fail to stop them voting in elections.”

The predominantly Christian populations of Southern Sudan and Northern Uganda have been terrorised and traumatised over the past. 18 years by a blasphemous cult-militia called the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Whilst LRA atrocities have occasionally shocked the world, the world has, to its shame, largely ignored the immense suffering of the people…

From News on Christian Persecution at persecution.org.

The LRA abduct and terrorise children, converting them into traumatised and disturbed child soldiers and sex slaves. The LRA commits atrocities too evil and horrific to detail here. Their most well-known signature trademark is the mutilation of faces; removing lips, ears, noses - leaving their victims to live the rest of their lives as living monuments to LRA terror. The LRA has departed from its original political aims and today contemporary LRA terror is little more than the crippling persecution of a predominantly Christian people who have known revival. Priests, nuns, pastors, missionaries, churches, Christian activities (such as funerals), and Christian missions and services, are specifically targeted for terror. It is a persecution that is generated not by political or religious systems but by occult forces associated with LRA leader, spirit medium Joseph Kony. the light has finally gone for Christians in southern Uganda. Buwembo says that he attended services in several churches on Easter Sunday and the message was always the same - pray for Joseph Kony, pray for the suffering people of the north, pray for God to intervene in the situation in the north, pray for God to deliver peace.

Government issues order after luring parents into district program

Homeschooling parents in a Canadian province have been ordered to stop using religious-based materials or other “unofficial” resources when they teach their children at home…

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38192

Pamela Nagle, a Christian, is one of many angry parents in British Columbia who say they will not abide by the order, according to the Vancouver Sun.

“They can’t tell me what to do in my own home,” said Nagle, whose son is homeschooled but attends a public school one day a week.

Nagle told the paper the materials she uses should not matter as long as her son’s education meets British Columbia’s standards.

“I don’t like the fact that they believe they know what’s best for my child,” she said.

But Nagle is one of many parents lured into the public school system by a distance-education program, the Sun said.

Through the program, she received about $600, Canadian, from the Langley school district in suburban Vancouver, which supplements the hundreds she spends of her own money.

About 6,800 children are in the program after it started as a pilot project with just 2,200.

The parents say they enrolled in distance education after being promised they could continue as their children’s primary teacher.

The availability of teacher expertise, as well as funds, was the attraction for the parents, while the school district saw benefit from the increased accountability.

The children in the program also graduate with a provincial certificate, unlike the estimated 3,000 homeschoolers with no ties to the government’s education system.

Meanwhile the district receives the same amount of per-student funding for the homeschoolers as it does for regular students, $5,408, Canadian.

But many parents now appear set to quit. Anita Kosovic, with two-children in Langley’s U-Connect program, said she’s finished.

“I’m definitely not going back and I don’t know anyone who is,” she told the Sun.

Her family is not religious, she explained, but she does not want to be forced into using the province’s approved materials, some of which she says are awful.

“I don’t think anyone should be able to tell me what I can do in my own home and that’s what they’re telling us,” she told the Vancouver paper.

The British Columbia Education Ministry insists the order is merely a “clarification” of the rules it laid out in September 2002, which said distance-education students had to follow the same rules as regular students.

“If a district receives full funding for a student, the student is not being home-schooled,” the ministry stated.

With regard to faith-based resources, it stated: “Districts must ensure that students are not using religious materials or resources as part of the educational program and that parents are not being reimbursed for using religious materials or resources with students.”

A Langley school district spokesman said the district is concerned about the directive, but Education Ministry spokeswoman Corinna Filion said parents who want religion in education should go to the independent school system.

Stop Judicial Tyranny has a list of five amendments that would prevent “federal courts from adjudicating matters involving acknowledgment of God in the public square — matters, it is worth adding, not outlawed by the Constitution.“

Gov. Mitt Romney tells state workers they’ll have to resign if they won’t abide by the law.

It was a Saturday morning and my normal alarms had already been either turned off or expired. It was sometime during this time that I found myself in a dream socializing in a fairly large church. I wasn’t familiar with the layout but I felt at home.

A man who I didn’t recognize (yet knew somehow) approached me and said that another man (Charlie?) was looking for me and that he has something to tell me. God had told this man to tell me something. I told the first man that we should go find him.

I just knew that God was sending someone in my life to talk to me about my sin and, in fact, I could remember my real sins from the past week in my dream. This worried me but I tried not to show the anxiety.

For some reason, it was crowded at church that night. It was like a week night gathering after a church dinner. It felt very normal EXCEPT for that gnawing sin in my life and that strange foreboding anticipation of God’s revelation to me through another.

This other man and I found “Charlie” and I prepared for the worse. Especially when he told the first guy to excuse us because he needed to tell me something in private that God had told Him to tell me. My eyes started to tear up because I knew I was about to be chastised for my lack of obedience in the past week. We walked through the crowd and as we walked into a open area we stopped and he put his arm around my shoulders. He leaned towards me a little and in a voice that was approaching a whisper he told me that God wanted me to pray for a person. I think it was a political figure but I’m not too sure.

I was amazed because I believed that God was sending this guy into my life to expose my sin much the same way Nathan did to David after the Bathsheba incident. But that wasn’t it at all. God wanted me to pray for someone else! I should have felt relieved because my sin would continue to be be hidden but I think I was relieved because the misperception I had about the situation had exposed the sin to myself. This brought about an awareness of God, which brought about a call to repentance.

Back to the dream… “Charlie” and I made our way to the other end of the room and sat down in soft high-back chairs in front of a large brick fireplace. The first man joined us. The tears were streaming as I prayed:

“…And even though I feel ordinary I will do what you say…”

Isn’t that just what God does with each of us? Doesn’t He reveal our sin to us for the purpose of repentance so that He can use us for other purposes as in my dream?

How ordinary do you feel today? Can you honestly pray that prayer and mean it? If you’re not sure if you can, just try and see what happens. Nothing may happen from your perspective but if you’re sincere in your prayer, God will see it as obedience and will be pleased. And as you continue to pray in that way you will see that are becoming a different person. Your desires will be replaced with God’s desires. And since Christ’s desires are God’s desires we will become more like Christ. Isn’t that the goal of every believer?

I just finished creating a Bible reading area. There are currently two Through the Bible in a Year reading plans and two Through the New Testament in 86 Days reading plans. Plan 2 of the New Testament readings is only slightly different than the NT in 86 project we just finished (there are 5 chapters a day to read instead of four).



Let me know if you would like to see any other reading plans listed. For example, specific groups of books over a period of time.



I’d like some feedback on the layout, load times, etc of this new module as well as general likes and dislikes.



Enjoy!

“This little epistle of Jude was written under special constraint, as the writer himself tells us in verse 3. The constraint arose from a disturbing consideration of the apostasy which was blighting Christian assemblies through the subversive teachings of false brethren. It speaks with special force to our own times…”

“There is a clear orderliness of though it. Its central idea is that of contending for the faith, in accord with verse 3, which gives the key. The first sixteen verses tell us why to contend, i.e. because of apostate teachers. The remaining verses tell how to contend, showing our true resources.

First, then, in verses 3 and 4 we find that the subtle perverters were culpable of two basic denials: 1) denying grace by “turning” it into lasciviousness; 2) “denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

Next, in verse 5-7 we find their certain doom foretold and illustrated by three historic examples of a like Divine vengeance on such, i.e. Egypt, angels, Sodom.

Next, in verses 8-11 Jude describes in scathing terms the character and conduct of these false teachers whom he combats, comparing them with three historic figures infamous for their impiousness, i.e. Cain, Balaam, Korah.

Next, in verses 12-16 he exposes their utter falsity, dragging away all their deceiving draperies, in six awful metaphors, i.e. 1) “hidden rocks”; 2) exploiting “shepherds”; 3) “clouds without water”; 4) “trees without fruit”; 5) “wild waves of the sea”; 6) “wandering stars.” Then this section ends with the Enoch prophecy of coming destruction upon all such.

The remaining verses in the letter, which show us how to contend for the faith, break up equally clearly. First, we are to realize that such apostasy has been foretold (verses 17-19). Second, there is to be a “building up of yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit” so as to “keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ” (verses 20, 21). Third, we are to “show compassion” to certain who “doubt” or, more literally, “contend” (verse 22). Fourth, we are urgently to seek the rescue of others, but to keep our separation and purity in doing so, “hating even the garment spotted by the flesh” (verse 23).

The little epistle then ends with a prophetic doxology envisaging an ultimate heavenly consummation (verses 24, 25).” 1

24Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (ESV)

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1 J. Sidlow Baxter, Explore the Book (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervon, 1960) 314-315.

Luke 24:

1On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus…

4While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7’The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8Then they remembered his words.

9When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

On the Road to Emmaus

13Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles[1] from Jerusalem. 14They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16but they were kept from recognizing him.

17He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

18They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

19″What things?” he asked.

20″About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.”

25He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26Did not the Christ[2] have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
28As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. 29But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

30When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

33They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” 35Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

Jesus Appears to the Disciples

36While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

37They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

40When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43and he took it and ate it in their presence.

44He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

45Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things. 49I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

The Ascension



50When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. 51While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. 52Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 53And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.

Jesus and Paul - The Word and The Witness aired on ABC tonight and it was disappointing. Yet again, Peter Jennings relied on information obtained from a group of scholars called the “Jesus Seminar”.



James Dobson of Focus on the Family obtained an advanced copy of the ABC special last week and taped a special message preempting today’s show. If you missed his show today, you can listen over the Internet via OnePlace.com.



Also, there is an in-depth expose’ on the Jesus Seminar (requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader) at the Christian Research Institute, which gives some background on the group and how they operate.

The Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) www.persecution.org, has just become aware that on Thursday, March 25th, 2004, Mr. Brian O’Connor, a Christian ex-pat Indian national, was arrested by the Muttawa (religious police) on the streets of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. ICC is being told from a highly reputable source that the Muttawa abducted, imprisoned, and tortured him in a Mosque. Mr. O’Connor is presently being held at the Olaya police station in Riyadh.

Mr. O’Connor has received visitors and has communicated that his legs were chained and he was hung upside down and “they played football with me”. “The Muttawa came in turns of fours and kicked me in the chest and rib area, and this continued up to 2 AM on Friday morning”. He also says that he was whipped on his back and the soles of his feet by electrical wires and is in much pain as he walks. He also reports that he is in intense pain, and thinks that a rib may be broken.

The police at the Olaya police station state that he is being held on account of preaching Christianity, drug related charges, and for selling liquor. They went on to add that these charges were brought up by the Muttawa, and they have no direct proof of the claims made by them. It is typical for charges of drug dealing to be leveled at Christians suspected of spreading the Gospel. The Police also stated that the Muttawa were the ones who interrogated him and not the Police themselves. The Muttawas have informed Brian that he is to be formally charged on these 3 points and will be taken to court where the case would take about 6 to 7 months before a verdict is issued.

Brian O’Connor is known to be an upstanding citizen in the community and is a Christian. It is not known yet if the Muttawa have forced him to sign documents of admission to the crimes he is charged with. It has been common practice in Saudi that during torture, the Muttawas force Christians to sign documents in Arabic, which they were told are release papers. Later, they find out that they signed documents admitting to crimes of drug trafficking, etc.

ICC is very concerned that the Saudi’s, who claim to be the United States’ partners in the war on terror, have continued to imprison, torture and deport expatriate Christians workers in Saudi Arabia. We are asking that the United States take serious action in demanding not only the release of Brian, but a formal apology be made, and the immediate reinstatement to his position with Saudi Airlines. We are also very concerned about his present physical condition and are asking for an immediate report on his health, confirmed by a doctor.

Please contact the Saudi Embassy to voice your concern in a firm but polite manner.

ICC is a Washington-DC based human rights organization that exists to help persecuted Christians worldwide. ICC delivers humanitarian aid, trains and supports persecuted pastors, raises awareness in the US Church regarding the problem of persecution, and is an advocate for the persecuted on Capitol Hill and the State Department. For additional information or for an interview, contact ICC at 800-422-5441.