Per Fidem Intrepidus means "Fearless Through Faith". My courage isn't my own, it comes from the Holy Spirit, it's my faith in God and my personal savior Christ Jesus that calms my fears and allows me to move forward in this fallen world. Personally I'm afraid of a lot of stuff, but having the faith that Jesus adopted me as his little, sin filled, brother keeps me going.
It is with some joy but also with deep sadness that I now no longer feel compelled to wear orange on Sunday. Many of us wear orange to show solidarity with our Christian brothers and sisters in the middle east who were undergoing tribulation at the hands of ISIS.
My joy is with the news that the head of ISIS Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the most vicious terrorist on the planet, was killed in Syria by his own hand to avoid capture by US forces. Also his second in command, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, was killed in Aleppo province in a separate attack by U.S. forces. The next in line, Al-Haj Abdullah Qardash AKA "The Professor" and "The Destroyer" is rumored to have been "inhumed" (the opposite if exhumed) by US forces also.
Thus ends ISIS as a global force of terror. Their Iraqi stronghold, Mosul, was recaptured by Iraqi forces to end the ISIS caliphate back in 2007. (This victory was completely ignored by the US press in order not to shine any positive light on the Trump administration.) In the end ISIS was under attack by the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK, another terrorist organization, this one based on Sanders style communism rather than Islamic inhumanity.
Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. (Matthew 5:11)
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:43-45)
You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved. (Matthew 10:22) Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. (Matthew 24:9)
11When they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit.12 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and have them put to death.13 You will be hated by all because of My name, but the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. (Mark 13:11-13)
12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 13 But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:12-13)
1 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. (Romans 12:14)
We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:8)
“This is a new age of martyrs. It’s a time when those who believe in the transcendent generosity of Christ are driven from their homes to suffer exile. It’s an age of blood spilled at a ravaged cross.
Even Bethlehem, within living memory a majority-Christian city, has driven out the followers of Jesus until perhaps a dwindling eighth of the population is Christian.” - Col. Ralph Peters, US Army Retired
It's hard to believe but 90,000 of our brothers and sisters in Christ are gone just in 2016 alone. They were taken from us and taken to glory simply for their love of Christ. This is less than the 105,000 Christians that were slaughtered in 2015, That means 195,000 saints were taken in 2 years. This years total of 90,000 martyrs in 2016 is one Christian murdered for their faith every six seconds.
According to Professor Massimo Introvigne, director of CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions, approximately 70 percent of the martyred Christians were from "tribal villages" in Africa in tribal conflicts. There they are considered easy prey because they will not take up arms. The other 30 percent were Christians who fell victim to terrorism or governmental persecution.
Furthermore, there are between 500 and 600 million Christians who can not practice their own faith in complete freedom. (source). Think about it - we have 600,000,000 brothers and sisters who cannot even open a bible in a public space, that's almost twice the population of the United States. And now the rabble that slaughtered the Christians in the middle east are pouring into Europe, raping the women.
Bad times are coming for us, the fire that tests Christian's faith and love for Jesus Christ is slowly enveloping the world. When the fire reaches you, you are going to have two choices; deny Christ to save your hide or to proclaim your love for him and suffer here on earth. Are you anchored in your faith? Look around your church next Sunday, how many congregants in your church would be willing to profess their love for Jesus Christ if their lives were on the line? Draw close to them.
12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; 13 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. 14 If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; 16 but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name. (1 Peter 4:12-16)
Learn more about the persecution of Christians worldwide, and what you can do to help.
The coming persecution has already begun to one degree or another. Street preachers in South Carolina have been handcuffed and hauled off to jail due to "noise pollution." Christians in the Middle East are put to death in the name of Allah. Even a friend of mine, Wally Tope, was beaten into a coma by looters as he shared the gospel in Los Angeles during the riots. True, persecution has been the lot of the church since it's inception and books like "Foxe's Book of Martyrs" have testified of this fact down through the corridors of time.
The scriptures testify that persecution would increase in the last days due to the increasing lawlessness of mankind (2 Timothy 3:1-13). This coming persecution will be so intense that a worldwide mandate will go out in the name of the Antichrist to the effect that all who do not conform to the coming New World Order "must die."
"And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand, or on their forehead, and he provides that no one should be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of man. And his number is six hundred and sixty six" (Revelation 13:16-18).
Christians will have to face this intense persecution in what the Bible refers to as the "Great Tribulation." The word of God reveals to us that a "great multitude" of believers from "every nation" and "all tribes, peoples, and tongues" of the Earth will "come out of the great tribulation" (Revelation 7:9-14).
Many see the recent SCOTUS ruling as government permission to persecute the Christian church. They may be right, but is that a bad thing?
... persecution in the Christian church acts like a winnowing
fan to the heaps gathered on the threshing-floor. In these soft and
silken days any man may be a Christian professor. Oftentimes it pays
well to make a profession of godliness. Men think the better of you: it
brings customers to the shop. No one knows how many conveniences may
attach to the profession of religion: albeit, if it be pretense without
pretext, everlasting destruction awaits such violation of truth, for God
will surely avenge hypocrisy.
But in days of persecution, to profess
Christ is very inconvenient. Then to be baptised in water may involve a
baptism of blood. Then for the soul to burn with zeal for Christ would
probably be followed with the body being burnt at the stake. Then a word
for Jesus would bring a word of conviction from the judge's mouth, and,
close at the heels of that word, death. Then they who loved not Christ
betook themselves to the other side; the cowards and the spies shrunk
away. Demas went, and Judas went, and all of that brood, to their own
company, and then only the true and the brave, the regenerate, the elect
of God were left.
They stood fast and firm—all the stronger for losing
such ill company. Then in those days the church was like a heap of
golden wheat, all winnowed and clean grain, fit for a burnt offering to
the Most High, to be offered up as a meat offering upon his altar. Her
martyrs were amongst her noblest sons, the very glory of the church and
of the Lord Jesus Christ. - CH Spurgeon
ISIS has proudly released a new video touting their unheard of animalistic barbarity. ISIS had in their clutches sixteen men, all of which were accused of "spying".
By ISIS penal rules ISIS can "legally" execute people for Sodomy, Adultery, and Murder, along with the following "crimes": Blasphemy against Allah, Blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed,
Blasphemy against Islam, Apostasy, and Spying for Unbelievers. This means that IF they followed their own rules the men that ISIS murdered for spying were Jews, Christians, or Muslims that were working with Jews or Christians.
(Tim Challies is a husband to Aileen and a father to three children aged 9 to 15 and serves as pastor at Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto, Ontario (a long swim but a short drive from my home town in western New York) He is a a book reviewer for WORLD magazine and co-founder of Cruciform Press and has written three books; The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment (Crossway, 2007) Sexual Detox: A Guide For Guys Who Are Sick of Porn (Cruciform Press, 2010) The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion (Zondervan, 2011))
When I was growing up and still living with my parents, my family supported ministries based in the USSR, and on our fridge we had a big poster covered in photographs of Russian pastors who were imprisoned or endangered because of their faith. Every night in our devotions we would pray for one of them, that God would bless and protect him. Meanwhile we lived in middle-class suburbia in Toronto. We freely told our neighbors about Jesus, we went to church twice each Sunday, we read the Bible openly, and even went to Christian schools. It did not seem fair that we had it so easy.
And we still have it easy. It is still remarkably easy to be a Christian here in North America. We have never faced systemic persecution. We have laws that protect our freedom to worship and our freedom to believe what we believe.
That’s not to say, though, that we never suffer. We still do face scorn and mockery, and especially so as the culture around us proceeds farther and deeper into paganism. Though the burdens we bear are light compared to what some others have had to carry, they are burdens nonetheless. I was recently studying 1 Peter 4 and found 5 reasons that we can and should rejoice even now when we are persecuted, or even in that day when we face much greater persecution.
The year 2014 saw more global persecution of Christians than any other year in recent history, and can only be compared to the first centuries when Christians were hunted down as criminals in the Roman Empire. The policy of the Emperor Diocletian, in fact, who reigned from 284-305AD, was remarkably similar to that taken by the Islamic State and Boko Haram: “Convert or die.”
A look around the globe reveals an unprecedented pattern of persecution that has shifted from isolated incidents of hostility to a systematic campaign to exterminate Christians in places where they have lived peacefully for centuries.
From the kidnapped school girls and massacres in Nigeria and the displacement of thousands in the Central African Republic, to the believers arrested for having a Bible study in Central Asia, to Meriam Ibrahim being sentenced to death in Sudan, to the ISIS slaughters, to the couple burned alive for blasphemy and hundreds of girls kidnapped in Pakistan, Christians throughout the world saw a major escalation in persecution in 2014.
Officials in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, decided to force two ordained Christian ministers to perform wedding ceremonies for homosexual couples, threatening the ministers with prison for failure to comply with their order.
Donald Knapp and his wife Evelyn, both ordained ministers who run Hitching Post Wedding Chapel, are facing 6 months in jail and fines of up to $1000 per day for every day they choose to obey God's word on marriage rather than knuckle under to the demands of the government.
According to reports, a man called the Knapp's and asked about having a gay wedding there, he didn't even walk in. When the Knapps told him of their biblical convictions the City of Coeur d' Alene started their oppression. The Knapps have filed a counter suit but there's no evidence of any court in Obama's America to have found in favor of Christianity. Speaking of Obama, after the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013, President Obama called for the equal treatment of Americans, as well as a commitment to religious freedom.“How religious institutions define and consecrate marriage has always been up to those institutions,” Obama said. “Nothing about this decision – which applies only to civil marriages – changes that.” Looks like he was lying about that too.
So what is our biblical response to being treated like this?
We Rejoice!
11 Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11-12)
What is October without a horror story? As the month that the secular world celebrates Satan, the occult, and all things evil rolls on, I chose to follow suit and expose what is going on outside our fellowship. One tradition of the Halloween season is the good old fashioned horror story, and Texas has served one up for us.
Our story really begins in the dark past in 385 when the Roman emperor Magnus Maximus ordered Bishop of Avilia, Pricillian, to be tried by a council of his peers for heresy. Pricillian was guilty of heresy, that's a fact, his teachings were unbiblical, heretical, and just plain weird. The council of bishops was right in finding him guilty however the council went a bit further than anyone expected and he was beheaded. Pricillian is considered the first christian to be executed for heresy.
12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus
will
be persecuted.13 But evil men and impostors will
proceed from bad to worse, deceiving
and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:12)
"Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. (Matthew 24:9)
21 "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. 22 You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved. (Matthew 10:21-22)
A wave of people trying to unlawfully enter the United States is crashing against our shores. These people are ridden with diseases, lice and suffer from malnourishment, they've been assaulted and raped, and in their trek to America they left a trail of bodies of the weak and sick. As a history buff the sins of the past come to mind. One of the main components of Nazi Germany's Blitzkreig was to drive refugees before them overwhelming the defenders with noncombatants. Is this wave of refugees being driven toward us as part of a larger invasion?
Although they're invaders, they're still people, they have both physical and spiritual needs, both of which the Obama administration refuses to allow Christians to provide for as Fox News' Todd Starnes reports:
Pastors and churches have been banned from helping the thousands of
illegal immigrant children housed in border detention facilities run by
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, clergy in Texas and Arizona tell me.
“Border Patrol told us pastors and churches are not allowed to
visit,” said Kyle Coffin, the pastor of CrossRoads Church in Tucson,
Arizona. “It’s pretty heartbreaking that they don’t let anybody in there
-- even credentialed pastors.”
On April 14th Boko Haram Islamic terrorist network captured 234 Christian school girls from a northeast Nigerian school. The Nigerian government originally stated that there were 85 girls abducted but when the list of names of the kidnapped girls was tallied up the list came to 234.
The girls were forced at gunpoint onto an open truck, and several escaped by grabbing low hanging branches or jumping off the back of the truck when it slowed down and walked home.
Kano, Nigeria (CNN)-- Dozens of residents in northeastern Nigeria have been killed in two separate attacks launched by Boko Haram Islamists, according to officials and residents.
Scored of Islamist insurgents dressed in military uniforms stormed the Christian farming village of Izghe, in Borno state, late Saturday and opened sporadic fire on residents, killing at least 106 people in an attack specifically targeted at male residents.The gunmen, who arrived in the village riding in trucks and on several motorcycles, opened fire and hacked male residents they had assembled in the village square. They moved door to door in search of male residents who were hiding.
The attack prompted an exodus of hundreds of panic-stricken residents of nearby villages to the neighboring Madagali district in Adamawa state. "We suspect that the gunmen were members of Boko Haram. They have taken over the village," said Madagali local government chairman, Maina Ularamu.. The attackers looted businesses and food stores "and loaded all their spoils into vehicles owned by residents and fled into the bush," said Ularamu.
A survivor of the attack, farmer Barnabas Idi, said he scaled the fence of his house and crawled for about 40 minutes to safety. Idi said that security agents were not present during the attack. In the second attack early Saturday, suspected Boko Haram gunmen opened fire on Doron Baga, a fishing village along Lake Chad.
"They opened fire from all directions, forcing residents to jump into the lake in a bid to escape, and many drowned while others were gunned down," said Babagana Gwoni, a survivor of the attack. The gunmen looted fish and foodstuffs before setting houses on fire, Gwoni said. Lt. Col. Mohammed Dole, a military spokesman, confirmed the Doron Baga attack but declined to give details.
Gunmen suspected to be members of Islamist Boko Haram, Saturday night slaughtered several Christian villagers in a latest attack in Borno State. The local government Chairman, Maina Ularamu told newsmen that he got reports that over 50 people were killed in an attack launched Saturday night’s on Izghe village. One of the survivors who miraculously escaped the deadly attack said over 63 villagers were decimated in the renewed attack. It was learnt that the dare-devil attackers looted the village food stores and went away with about 10 vehicles.
Gunmen suspected to be members of Islamist Boko Haram, Saturday night slaughtered several Christian villagers in a latest attack in Borno State. The local government Chairman, Maina Ularamu told newsmen that he got reports that over 50 people were killed in an attack launched Saturday night’s on Izghe village. One of the survivors who miraculously escaped the deadly attack said over 63 villagers were decimated in the renewed attack. It was learnt that the dare-devil attackers looted the village food stores and went away with about 10 vehicles.
Gunmen suspected to be members of Islamist Boko Haram, Saturday night slaughtered several Christian villagers in a latest attack in Borno State. The local government Chairman, Maina Ularamu told newsmen that he got reports that over 50 people were killed in an attack launched Saturday night’s on Izghe village. One of the survivors who miraculously escaped the deadly attack said over 63 villagers were decimated in the renewed attack. It was learnt that the dare-devil attackers looted the village food stores and went away with about 10 vehicles.
As the backlash against A&E and GLAAD, The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against honest Discussion Discrimination, and their war against Christianity and their selective outrage grows across the country, the forces aligned against God realized that they need more ammo so guess what - they came up with even more contrived, imaginary charges against Phil Robertson.
Lost in the media hysteria about Phil Robertson's recent remarks about gays is one important thing; Phil Robertson's recent remarks about gays.
In an interview with Esquire magazine Phil Robertson was talking about sin, forgiveness and redemption, which GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against honest Discussion Discrimination, sees as an attack on gay people. I know how these people work, you can say anything about homosexuality, and it doesn't matter what you say, if GLAAD decides you are a homophobe, you're immediately under attack regardless of what you've actually said, and they will lie about what you said to validate their point. However if they think you are of any value, they will completely ignore what you said, and maybe even praise you for it.
I've been classified as a homophobe for the sin of (if you're easily shocked, please turn away) Telling People That John Shore Is Intentionally Misinterpreting The Bible. John Shore worships the words of Dan Savage more than the word of God, and that's his right, he can worship anything he wants, including Dan Savages bitter hate speech and child abusive rants. But because I pointed out the inaccuracies of Shore's message I am labeled a homophobe (and worse). However the gay community is utterly wrong, I'm not a homophobe, I fear no man, I fear God.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:7)
As Eternity Matters puts it: Wise as serpents, innocent as doves."
As we've heard, but not in the Lame Main Stream Media, Christian businesses are under attack by the forces of the enemy. Satan is using homosexuals to persecute Christian owned businesses simply for the act of being a Christian owned business. To me this makes sense as a strategy - the United States is a country based on business, so Satan will attack Christians based on business.
A Christian business in Iowa is under attack for turning down a gay wedding
A Christian bakery in Lakewood Colorado is under attack for turning down a gay wedding
A Christian florist in Washington is under attack for turning down a gay wedding
So how do we Christians handle these attacks? Simple - we act like Christ.
How bad is the Muslim persecution of Christians today? Are the reports of Christian persecution coming out of the Middle East, Asia, India, and Africa just over hyped hysteria? According to the International Society for Human Rights in Frankfurt, Germany, 80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed against Christians. German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, in November of last year, told a gathering of the
Lutheran Church that Christianity was “the most persecuted religion in the
world”. Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby said that there had been more than 80 Christian
“martyrs” in the last few days alone.
The Muslim persecution of Christians has reached such depths of depravity that the Pope stopped his romantic overtures toward the Religion of Peace and after hearing of the slaughter of 85 Christians bravely stood before a catholic audience and told Christians how to avoid gossiping.
"A Christian should bite their tongue before gossiping," he said. "That way the tongue will swell up and you can't gossip anymore!" (Source)
Note: I've had the honor and privilege of knowing Rob Morse and his beautiful bride for several years, meeting both on line and in person. Rob is a father, husband, rocket surgeon par excellence, sailor, glider pilot, heck of a shooter, and in both spare minutes can come up with each day he will expound on the (vastly superior) qualities of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors and write a blog calledSlow Facts. Rob published the following post on September 21 and I immediately begged permission to reprint his work here, to which he immediately agreed.
Who Defends Persecuted Christians?
This is a wake-up call. Christians are being killed around the world. That is important whatever your faith, and even if you lack religious faith. You’ve already heard about Christian persecution, or you should unless you’ve been hiding. Yeah, I know that real life places uncomfortable demands on us, but there is more to life than reruns on Hulu. Real life demands we get involved, that we become committed. Online life is easier, but that isn’t what life is for. Ask yourself why your church pastor isn’t shouting about Christian persecution for all to hear every day of the week. It is up to us to wake up our church. You don’t believe me?
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.20 For
since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal
power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from
what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For
although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave
thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts
were darkened.22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.27 In
the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and
were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts
with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their
error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.29 They
have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and
depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.
They are gossips,30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. Romans 1:18-32
