Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog

People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
Luke 18:15-17 (New International Version)

“This mural was inspired by the song lyrics: ‘Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.’ I chose to depict the children in modern clothing to symbolize the fact that the love of Jesus is still reaching out to children today.”
-Doug Westbrook, Artist of “Jesus and the Children - A Bible Story Mural”

See Mr. Westbrook’s Bible Story Murals here.

If your church is looking for a unique way to bring the Word of God to it’s children and young people, take a look at Doug Westbrook’s Bible Story Murals. Each wall sized mural is based on the hand painted originals Mr. Westbrook created at Central Baptist Church in Houston, Texas and represents a different well known Bible story.
They are available on durable vinyl wallpaper for easy installation.

As usual, we have the ever tolerant and loving Islamist accepting other religions…Not!! What we really have is the standard mantra of Islam: “Convert to Islam or die”. What a horrible situation to be placed in. Please continue to pray for these brothers and sisters in Christ. I hope that they will have the strength to say “Lan astaslem; I will not submit to Islam”.

JERUSALEM – Christians can continue living safely in the Gaza Strip only if they accept Islamic law, including a ban on alcohol and on women roaming publicly without proper head coverings, an Islamist militant leader in Gaza told WND in an exclusive interview.

The militant leader said Christians in Gaza who engage in “missionary activity” will be “dealt with harshly.”

The threats come two days after a church and Christian school in Gaza was attacked following the seizure of power in the territory by the Hamas terror group.

“I expect our Christian neighbors to understand the new Hamas rule means real changes. They must be ready for Islamic rule if they want to live in peace in Gaza,” said Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Jihadia Salafiya, an Islamic outreach movement that recently announced the opening of a “military wing” to enforce Muslim law in Gaza.

Jihadia Salafiya is suspected of attacking a United Nations school in Gaza last month, after the school allowed boys and girls to participate in the same sporting event. One person was killed in that attack.

“The situation has now changed 180 degrees in Gaza,” said Abu Saqer, speaking from Gaza yesterday.

“Jihadia Salafiya and other Islamic movements will ensure Christian schools and institutions show publicly what they are teaching to be sure they are not carrying out missionary activity. No more alcohol on the streets. All women, including non-Muslims, need to understand they must be covered at all times while in public,” Abu Asqer told WND.

“Also the activities of Internet cafes, pool halls and bars must be stopped,” he said. “If it goes on, we’ll attack these things very harshly.”

Abu Saqer accused the leadership of the Gaza Christian community of “proselytizing and trying to convert Muslims with funding from American evangelicals.”

“This missionary activity is endangering the entire Christian community in Gaza,” he said.

Abu Saqer claimed there was “no need” for the thousands of Christians in Gaza to maintain a large number of institutions in the territory.

About 2,000 Christians live in the Gaza Strip, which has a population of over 1 million.

Abu Saqer said Hamas “must work to impose an Islamic rule or it will lose the authority it has and the will of the people.”

His comments come after gunmen Sunday attacked Gaza’s Latin Church and adjacent Rosary Sisters School, reportedly destroying crosses, bibles, pictures of Jesus and furniture and equipment. The attackers also stole a number of computers.

The attack was the first targeting of Christian institutions since Hamas last week staged a coup against the rival Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, seizing all Fatah positions and security compounds, essentially taking complete control of the Gaza Strip.

Hamas officials in Gaza claimed to WND Fatah was behind Sunday’s church attack in an attempt to discredit Hamas to the international community.

Abu Saqer claimed he had “good information” the attack actually was a robbery aimed at the church’s school computers, even though Bibles and Christian holy objects were destroyed.

Christians, secular institutions targeted

Israel evacuated the Gaza Strip in 2005. Since then, there have been a slew of attacks there against Christians and non-Muslims.

A month before the U.N. school was targeted, Palestinians bombed a Christian book store in Gaza reportedly funded by American Protestants that exclusively sold Christian books. Two nearby Internet cafes also were bombed.

At the time, Abu Saqer, who didn’t take credit for the attack, told WND the Christian bookstore was “proselytizing and attempting to convert our people.”

“As a principle, we believe that Jews and Christians will always do everything in order to keep Muslims far from their religion,” Abu Saqer said.

Even before Hamas took over Gaza last week, some analysts here called the recent bombings of secular and Christian institutions in the territory indications Hamas may be seeking to impose Islamic rule on the Palestinian population.

Israeli officials said Hamas in 2005 established hard-line Islamic courts and created the Hamas Anti-Corruption Group, described as a kind of “morality police” operating within Hamas’ organization. Hamas has denied the existence of the group, but it recently carried out a high-profile “honor killing” widely covered by the Palestinian media.

A Hamas-run council in the West Bank came under international criticism last year when it barred an open-air music and dance festival, declaring it was against Islam.

Original Link.

Is it going to take a terrorist blowing up our super markets with us in them before we wake up to the threat that Islam poses to Western civilization?? I sometimes sadly think that it will.

Large teams of newly trained suicide bombers are being sent to the United States and Europe, according to evidence contained on a new videotape obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

Teams assigned to carry out attacks in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany were introduced at an al Qaeda/Taliban training camp graduation ceremony held June 9.

A Pakistani journalist was invited to attend and take pictures as some 300 recruits, including boys as young as 12, were supposedly sent off on their suicide missions.

The tape shows Taliban military commander Mansoor Dadullah, whose brother was killed by the U.S. last month, introducing and congratulating each team as they stood.

“These Americans, Canadians, British and Germans come here to Afghanistan from faraway places,” Dadullah says on the tape. “Why shouldn’t we go after them?”

The leader of the team assigned to attack Great Britain spoke in English.

“So let me say something about why we are going, along with my team, for a suicide attack in Britain,” he said. “Whether my colleagues, companions and Muslim brothers die today or tonight, every drop of our blood will invigorate the Muslim (unintelligible).”

U.S. intelligence officials described the event as another example of “an aggressive and sophisticated propaganda campaign.”

Others take it very seriously.

“It doesn’t take too many who are willing to actually do it and be able to slip through the net and get into the United States or England and cause a lot of damage,” said ABC News consultant Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism official.

Original Link.

It is sad to see how many churches are throwing away their Bibles in favor of a non-Biblical world view.
This is not surprising to those of us who study the Bible. We are told that churches will fall away and even the “select” can be deceived. See our articles “Falling Away” of the Church and Signs of Jesus’ Return.

Pastor and author John MacArthur says evangelical churches must be on guard against post-modernism and the emerging church. His new book says many church-going Christians are caught in a crossfire of teaching and writing that promotes alternative Christian histories and a push to eliminate absolute truth.

In his book The Truth War; Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception, Dr. John MacArthur sounds a warning about the growing influence of the emerging church movement. The battle for truth, he says, is raging not only in society, but throughout the church.

“I think the emergent church, at its foundation, is unwilling to acknowledge propositional truth,” MacArthur says. “And their spin is that the Bible is not that clear.

“We know there is absolute, objective, propositional truth. The fallout of rejecting that is pretty clear,” he continues. “The apostles in the New Testament said ‘We’re begotten again by the Word of Truth.’ If you don’t have the true gospel, you can’t be saved.”

He says the growing emergent church movement is in line with post-modernism. “Post-modernism simply is this idea that there is no absolute truth,” MacArthur explains. “If that comes into the church, then that’s not the church. That’s not Christianity.”

MacArthur says on the surface, the emerging church leaders seem sincere, with talk of reaching the culture for Christ. However, he says the underlying theology denies the truth of God’s Word. That is why MacArthur says Christians must know the Bible.

“I love the language of First John 2: 12-14,” he says. “We need to be spiritual young men, who are strong in the Word because the Word of God abides in us and we have therefore overcome the wicked one.”

MacArthur says while he has received criticism from some evangelicals for writing the book, Christians are called to contend for the faith. To do that effectively, he says, Christians must know how to identify and address errors and false teachings that he says are smuggled into churches.

Original Link.

From CNN: U.S. offers aid to Abbas-led Palestinian government.

The United States joined the European Union on Monday in announcing its willingness to resume hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the new Palestinian government led by President Mahmoud Abbas.

The commitment of financial and political support follows last week’s gunbattles between rival Palestinian factions that led to Hamas routing Fatah forces in Gaza loyal to Abbas and the crumbling of a Fatah-Hamas unity government.

In response, Abbas declared a state of emergency and appointed a new Cabinet of political independents based in the West Bank.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she spoke by phone with newly appointed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Monday. “I told him that the United States would resume full assistance to the Palestinian government and normal government-to-government contacts,” Rice said.

Rice added that the United States will give up to $86 million to help build the government infrastructure, such as improving roads and providing drinking water. …

President Bush called Abbas on Monday and pledged his support to the president and “those Palestinian moderates who are working to better the lives of Palestinians and work toward a Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel,” National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

“Palestinian moderates”? It was Fatah’s Abbas who refused to disarm Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas and the “armed wing” of his own party, even after continued terrorist attacks. It was Fatah terrorists who claimed joint responsibility with Hamas for the suicide-bombing mother who murdered four people. Abbas has called Israel the “Zionist enemy”. It is Fatah whose name means “conquest” and whose logo still includes an AK-47 and a grenade.

There’s so little difference between Hamas and Fatah that you can barely tell them apart: Fatah photo and Hamas photo. The only real difference is that Hamas is more open about its intent to destroy Isreal.

Original Link.

Please join me in praying for the families and friends of these firefighters.
Remember also to pray for the safety of our public service people everywhere.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Nine firefighters died in a blaze that swept through a furniture warehouse in a disaster the mayor described Tuesday as “difficult to fathom or quantify.”

“Nine brave, heroic, courageous firefighters of the city of Charleston have perished fighting fire in a most courageous and fearless manner, carrying out their duties,” Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley said at a morning news conference. “To all of their loved ones, our heart goes out to them.”

Overnight, firefighters saluted as the bodies of their colleagues were taken from the warehouse.

Riley said the county coroner planned to disclose the names of the dead. He said the cause of the fire was under investigation.

The fire broke out about 7 p.m. Monday in the Sofa Super Store and warehouse, forcing officials to close off part of a nearby roadway.

Witnesses said the store’s roof collapsed, throwing debris over about two-dozen rescue workers. Onlookers were hit with flying ash.

“It was like a 30-foot tornado of flames,” said Mark Hilton, who was struck in his eye.

Riley said he believed all of the store’s employees escaped. At least one worker and two firefighters were taken to the hospital.

Daniel Shahid, a salesman at a nearby car dealership, said firefighters came in asking for towels.

“The next thing you know, we were carrying hoses, directing traffic, everybody from the dealership,” he said.

Shahid said he saw firefighters rescue four people from the building. “They were struggling. They were covered in black soot. They looked scared out of their minds,” Shahid said.

Riley called the missing firefighters heroes. “This is a profession that we must never take for granted,” the mayor said. “There’s a fire raging and they go toward it.”

Original Link.

From the same folks who brought you “Israel must be wiped from the face of the earth” we bring you “Iran complains to UN over Israel’s ‘dangerous threats’”.
Can you say “duplicitous”. They really have no clue just how ignorant they sound.
But look for the U.N. to condemn Israel right away. They sat on their hands while Iran threatened Israel, but you can bet they will be rapidly forthcoming with a resolution against Israel.

Iran’s UN ambassador complained in a letter circulated Monday that the Security Council has done nothing to stop Israel’s “unlawful and dangerous threats” against his country.

Javad Zarif protested a recent statement from Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz that Israel has not ruled out military action against Iran to disable its nuclear program. He also referred to a similar statement that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made in April.

“I wish to inform you that, emboldened by the absence of any action by the Security Council, various Israeli officials have unabatedly continued to publicly and contemptuously make unlawful and dangerous threats of resorting to force against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Zarif said in the letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, dated June 11. He also sent a copy to the president of the Security Council.

Zarif faulted the council for not condemning the statements and “for pushing for statements against Iran based on various distortions and unsubstantiated allegations … in a failed attempt and tired smokescreen to distract the international community’s attention from the real and serious threats that the (Israeli) regime poses to international and regional peace and security.”

The Security Council imposed sanctions on Iran in December for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment, and modestly increased them in March after Tehran stepped up the program, which can produce nuclear weapons. Iran responded by giving the UN nuclear watchdog less access to its nuclear facilities.

In an interview on local Radio on June 9, Mofaz said, “I never said there is no military option, and the military option is included in all the options that are on the table, but at this time it’s right to use the path of sanctions, and to intensify them.”

Deputy UN Ambassador Daniel Carmon dismissed the letter as face-saving and said the international community should listen carefully to comments Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made.

“We hear the Iranian president doubting the Holocaust, denying the Holocaust and preparing for the next one through his nuclear development,” Carmon said.

“It should be condemned. It should be denounced,” he added, noting that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had expressed dismay at Ahmadinejad’s recent call for Israel’s destruction. Carmon said he knew the Security Council was considering a condemnation, which failed to pass earlier this month, and urged the body to act on it.

Original Link.

Many of you will not remember who Salman Rushdie is. For those who don’t, he is the author of a book called “The Satanic Verses”, published in 1988.
To make a long story short, a portion of the book has scenes in it concerning the Islamic “prophet” Mohammad. Many Muslims felt this was a affront to their religion and in the typical Muslim way, issued death threats and started killing everyone even remotely associated with the book.
The most famous of these threats was issued by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the then Supreme Leader of Iran. He issued a fatwa that called for the death of Rushdie and claimed that it was the duty of every Muslim to obey.
From the Wikipedia entry on “The Satanic Verses”:
On February 14, 1989, the Ayatollah broadcast the following message on Iranian radio: “I inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the Satanic Verses book, which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Qur’an, and all those involved in its publication who are aware of its content are sentenced to death.”[2]As a result, Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese language translator of the book was stabbed to death on July 11, 1991; Ettore Capriolo, the Italian language translator, was seriously injured in a stabbing the same month, and William Nygaard, the publisher in Norway, survived an attempted assassination in Oslo in October of 1993. On February 14, 2006, the Iranian state news agency reported that the fatwa will remain in place permanently.[3]

Now Muslims are outraged because Rushdie has been knighted. Also in the typical Muslim way, the Islamist are issuing threats of violence against anyone even loosely associated with the knighting. That includes the Queen of England and the U.K. in general. Of course Rushdie is still under a death sentence and this just reminds the typical Muslim that they are kill him on sight. Dead Man Walking. Or as it is, Sir Dead Man Walking.

Rushdie knighted in honours list

Salman Rushdie, who went into hiding under threat of death after an Iranian fatwa, has been knighted by the Queen.
His book The Satanic Verses offended Muslims worldwide and a bounty was placed on his head in 1989.
But since the Indian-born author returned to public life in 1999, he has not shied away from controversy.
A devout secularist, he backed Commons Leader Jack Straw over comments on Muslim women and veils and has warned against Islamic “totalitarianism”.
The son of a successful businessman, Sir Salman was born into a Muslim family in Mumbai in 1947.
He was educated in England at Rugby School and studied history at Cambridge University.

Pakistan condemns Rushdie honor

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan on Monday condemned Britain’s award of a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie as an affront to Muslim sentiments, and a Cabinet minister said the honor provided a justification for suicide attacks.

“This is an occasion for the (world’s) 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision,” Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, religious affairs minister, said in parliament.

“The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body, he would be right to do so unless the British government apologizes and withdraws the ’sir’ title,” ul-Haq said.

Iran condemns Rushdie knighthood

Iran has criticised the British government for its decision to give a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie.

His book The Satanic Verses offended Muslims worldwide and led to Iran issuing a fatwa in 1989, ordering Sir Salman’s execution.

Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the decision to praise the “apostate” showed Islamophobia among British officials.

The UK Foreign Office said Sir Salman’s honour was “richly deserved”.

‘Detested figure’

Mr Hosseini told a press conference: “Giving a medal to someone who is among the most detested figures in the Islamic community is… a blatant example of the anti-Islamism of senior British officials.

“The measure that has taken place for paying tribute to this apostate and detested figure will definitely put British statesmen and officials at odds with Islamic societies, the emotions and sentiments of which have again been provoked.”

He added that the knighthood showed that the process of insulting Islamic sanctities was not accidental but was being supported by some Western countries.

Salman Rushdie Wanted Dead

A so-called NGO of the Islamic regime of Iran will reward any one who would kill British author Salman Rushdie, with USD 150,000. Iranian regime’s Fars news agency quotes the head of the ‘Honoring the Martyrs of Islamic World Movement Foundation’ as saying:

“According to Imam Khomeini’s verdict, it is an obligation for all Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie even if he repents from the bottom of his heart and becomes the pious man of the time”

This is yet another evidence to prove the evil nature of the Iranian regime run by the Islamic clerics since 1979.