Many times Christians in America speak of the persecution that is coming someday.  But the truth is that intense persecution of Christians is already here.  According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, two out of every three people in the world now live in countries where religion is highly restricted.  Governments around the globe are regularly killing Christians, torturing Christians and imprisoning Christians in absolutely horrific conditions.  But it isn't just governments that are persecuting Christians.  Jihadist groups throughout the Islamic world have taken it upon themselves to slaughter those who commit "blasphemy" by preaching the gospel.  The truth is that it is a very dangerous time to be a Christian, and things are only going to get even more intense as we get deeper into the last days.

Things are really getting frightening out there.  Just consider a few of the recent reports of Christian persecution from around the globe....

*Christian organizations around the world are expressing outrage over the killing of ten Christian medical workers who were serving the poor in the northeastern province of Badakhshan in Afghanistan.  According to reports, the Christian medical workers were killed by jihadists for "spying for the Americans" and for "preaching Christianity".

*An out of control Muslim mob in Jhelum, Pakistan slaughtered the wife and four children of a prominent Christian a number of weeks ago, but local authorities were too intimidated by the local Muslim leader to file charges.

*Two brothers were recently shot dead by Islamic extremists outside a courtroom in the Pakistani's Punjab province.  The brothers were facing blasphemy charges after allegedly distributing gospel pamphlets.

*Jihadist organizations in Indonesia have declared their intention to establish paramilitary units in local mosques to fight "ongoing attempts to convert people to Christianity".

*A Christian pastor in the Russian republic of Dagestan known for founding the biggest Protestant church in the region and for successfully sharing the gospel with Muslims was recently shot and killed by unidentified gunmen.

*Christians in Bhutan were disheartened to learn that the government there has proposed the kind of "anti-conversion law" that other nations have used as a pretext for persecuting Christians and shutting down the sharing of the gospel.

*In North Korea, you are likely to get thrown into prison for the rest of your life or tortured to death just for trying to bring a Bible into the country.

But it just isn't in other areas of the world where Christianity is being persecuted.  The truth is that Christians are now being heavily persecuted inside the United States itself.... 

*A federal judge recently recently ruled in favor of a counseling program at Eastern Michigan University that kicked out a master's student who refused to affirm the morality of homosexuality.

*A newly filed lawsuit against Augusta State University in Georgia alleges that university officials essentially gave a graduate student in counseling the choice of either giving up her Christian beliefs or being expelled from the program.

*Pastor Ronnie Wallace was recently placed under arrest in Charlotte, North Carolina for preaching the gospel in front of an abortion clinic.

*Two other Christians were arrested recently for sharing the gospel and singing hymns on a public sidewalk outside an Islamic mosque in the city of Philadelphia.

*One North Carolina pastor is demanding an apology from lawmakers in his state after he was dismissed from his chaplain duties for praying in the name of Jesus.

*Four Christians face fines of up to $500 each and up to 93 days in jail for sharing the gospel with Muslims on a public sidewalk outside of an Islamic street festival in Dearborn, Michigan.

So would you continue preaching the gospel if it meant that you would be put in jail?

That is something to think about.

The sad thing is that most American Christians don't preach the gospel anyway.

In fact, for most Americans, God is not a very important part of their lives at all.  According to a brand new study by the Barna Group, only 12 percent of American adults say that faith is a top priority in their lives.

Only 12 percent?

Unfortunately, even many of those Americans that do consider faith to be important have been completely lulled to sleep by their "shepherds".

All over the United States, Christians are being taught by their "life coaches" to "live their best lives now" while millions of other Christians throughout the world are literally risking their lives to advance the gospel.

Christians across America better start waking up.  The last days are upon us and a time is coming when Christians are going to be killed in staggering numbers.  We all need to decide right now what we are willing to give up for the sake of Christ. 

You better get ready.

Hard times are coming.

An event has just occurred that the rest of the world has not taken much notice of yet, but it is one that will soon have Bible prophecy students buzzing with anticipation.  There has been a major discovery of oil in Israel.  An Israeli oil prospecting and production firm has formally announced the discovery of a "commercially sized" oil field in central Israel.  Ever since it became a nation again in 1948, Israel has been importing all of the oil that it needs, so needless to say this is potentially an incredibly exciting development.  For years, many Bible prophecy teachers have believed that oil would be discovered in Israel in the last days, but up until now there hasn't been much to report.

Now there is. 

A recent article in Haaretz provided some more details on this new discovery.... 

Givot Olam Oil Ltd notified the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange of the find in its "Megev Five" drill near the town of Rosh Ha’ayin, saying it can produce 470 barrels of oil a day.

But this has not been the only major discovery in Israel in recent years.  In January 2009, Nobel Drilling announced that they had found a massive natural gas field approximately 60 to 90 miles offshore from Israel.  The firm says that the field contains enough natural gas to supply everything that Israel needs for the next 10 or 20 years.

Things are changing.

So will these new discoveries fundamentally change the politics of the Middle East?

Are we seeing Bible prophecy being fulfilled right before our eyes?

For years, there have been some Bible teachers that have pointed to scriptures such as Deuteronomy 33:24 as evidence that Israel would someday be blessed with oil....

"And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil."

The truth is that there is a lot of debate about the "oil" passages throughout the Bible, but these new discoveries are certainly strengthening the case of those who strongly believe there is a lot of oil in Israel.

So could the discovery of oil in Israel end up being one of the things that sparks the next war in the Middle East?

Only time will tell.

But one thing is for sure - we certainly do live in extraordinary times.

The Scriptures tell us that in the last days there will be wars and rumors of wars, and that is certainly true of the times that we are living in today.  Iran's nuclear program continues to advance, and world leaders around the globe are becoming increasingly alarmed.  In fact, even Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is now warning that Iran is close to having the potential to build a nuclear weapon.  For years, Russia has been one of Iran's most vigorous defenders on the world scene, but now even the Russian government is expressing reservations about what is going on in that country.  That should set off alarm bells for all of us.

Not only that, but now even Arab nations are expressing concern about Iran's nuclear program.  For example, the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States recently said that it would be extremely difficult for his nation to coexist with a nuclear Iran and that it would support any actions the U.S. took to prevent such a possibility.

The UAE would support a U.S. military strike on Iran?

Yes, you read that correctly.

It is even being reported that both Egypt and Jordan are growing increasingly concerned with Iran's nuclear program.

It looks like Iran is running out of friends.

But Iran continues to recklessly push forward with their nuclear ambitions.

Just this past week, Iran announced that the Bushehr nuclear power plant would be ready for operation in just two months.

But does being able to produce nuclear power mean that Iran is also planning to develop nuclear weapons?

The truth is that we all know the answer to that question.

In fact, a former of Iran's Revolutionary Guard who relayed its secret operations to the CIA for 10 years says that Iran will commit the "most horrendous suicide bombing in human history" if it is not stopped from developing nuclear weapons.

So who is going to stop them?

The United States?

That seems quite likely as long as Barack Obama is running things.

Israel?

Perhaps.

For now, Israel has been trying to talk peace with the Palestinians, but they are also preparing for war.

The world has certainly been trying to push Israel and the Palestinians to the negotiating table, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed interest in sitting down with them.  Netanyahu says that he believes that direct talks with the Palestinians will begin very soon and he recently predicted that they will be "very, very tough".

But on another occasion recently, Netanyahu said that he does not envision actually reaching a negotiated Middle East peace settlement within the next two years, despite his Palestinian counterpart's declared intentions to set up infrastructure for a state by 2011.

So it looks like Netanyahu expects peace talks with the Palestinians to begin soon, but he is not anticipating that they will bear any fruit in the foreseeable future.

Not that any of the other "peace agreements" with the Palestinians have ever worked out.

In the end, war always ends up breaking out again.

And war tensions are certainly on the rise in the region once again.

Debka is reporting that 20,000 Hezbollah troops have advanced and are dug into 160 new positions in South Lebanon.  Israel is believed to be "preparing something" for Lebanon and Hezbollah is on high alert to prevent it, unnamed sources in the group were quoted by London-based newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat as saying recently.

In addition, according to the Palestinian Authority daily newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas recently told Arab leaders that the PA is ready to wage war on Israel if the rest of the Arab world does.  The following is what Abbas reportedly told them....

"If you want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor.  But the Palestinians will not fight alone because they don't have the ability to do it."

To the world media, Abbas talks about peace, peace, peace, but to his fellow Arab leaders he says that the Palestinian Authority is ready for war with Israel.

What a hypocrite.

The truth is that even if a "peace agreement" is reached, and even if a "Palestinian state" is created, more wars in the Middle East are inevitable.

These are the last days, and wars are going to continue until the end.  The only time that there is going to be true peace is after the King of Kings, the Messiah, returns to this earth and sets up His kingdom in Jerusalem.

Right away it is important to warn you that the premise of this article is highly controversial.  Throughout history, God has always dealt very harshly with anyone who has turned their backs on Israel.  In fact, as we will document below, God has dealt very harshly with the United States on a number of occasions when the U.S. has been involved in the dividing of the land of Israel.  God gave the promised land to the people of Israel forever, and nobody has the right to give one inch of that land away.  But the Scriptures tell us that in the last days that is exactly what is going to happen.  The truth is that world leaders never learn.  They are still messing with the land of Israel just like they always have throughout history.  However, those nations who do mess with Israel have often found themselves cursed.  So is the Gulf of Mexico oil spill a curse that has been brought upon us because Barack Obama is trying to divide the land of Israel?

The truth is that we don't have a definitive answer for that question.  Only God can tell us exactly why something happens.  But below we will detail the evidence for why these two things may be connected.

Barack Obama And The Division Of The Land Of Israel

Barack Obama has rapidly become the most anti-Israel president in U.S. history.  In fact, it was reported in the international media on April 30th that Barack Obama had already decided that if Israel and the Palestinians have not agreed to a peace agreement by the end of the year, the Middle East peace process will be handed over to the international community and a final solution will be imposed on both parties.

In fact, Haaretz reported on April 30th that Barack Obama had already conferred with "several European leaders" at that point and that it had been decided that the "international peace conference" would be run by the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - and the goal would be to forge a united global front for creating a Palestinian state.

So if this was being reported on April 30th, and Barack Obama had already spent a good amount of time talking with European leaders about this plan prior to that date, then it seems quite likely that Obama had started implementing this new Middle East strategy at least a week or two earlier.

Coincidentally, BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded on April 20th, 2010.

Before you convince yourself that the two events are unrelated, keep reading the rest of the article.

The truth is that God does not like it when anyone tries to take the land of Israel and give to to someone else.

And that is exactly what Barack Obama's plan would do.

If Obama's plan is implemented, the international community will almost certainly come up with the "final solution" that the UN, the EU and Barack Obama have been seeking all along - a Palestinian state along pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

So now the Palestinians have absolutely no incentive to negotiate with Israel at all.

The reality is that the Palestinians can just sit back, allow the negotiations to fail, and still get a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem just like they always wanted anyway.

The truth is that Obama's grand scheme undermines the entire peace process as one Israeli official recently explained....

"If you enforce a time limit and then introduce an imposed solution if they don't succeed after a period, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: you're going to guarantee the talks won't succeed."

Not that Israel should be considering giving away one single inch of the promised land anyway.

But now the Palestinians will just sit back and wait for the international community to give them the state that they have been promised along with a capital in East Jerusalem.

The sad truth is that Barack Obama has been promising them a Palestinian state for a long time. According to WorldNetDaily, Barack Obama told the Palestinian leadership all the way back in 2008 that he supports a Palestinian state with a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.

So why in the world would the Palestinians be willing to accept anything less from Israel?

Meanwhile, Barack Obama and his administration are bringing a curse on to the United States of America.

Examples Of Horrific Disasters That Have Occurred At Times The U.S. Has Been Involved In Dividing Up The Land Of Israel

In a previous article, we detailed what has happened before when the U.S. government has tried to divide the land of Israel....

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In the Scriptures, we are warned that the city of Jerusalem would one day become a huge stumbling stone for the nations in Zechariah 12:3.....

"On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves."

Is that not what has happened?

The truth is that God gave that land to Israel long ago, and now that He has started to bring His people back to the land, anyone who tries to give it away is going to be under a curse.

So is there any evidence of a curse on those who try to divide the land of Israel today?

Yes.

Consider these examples.....

#1) On April 30, 2003, America was positioned to be the catalyst for the so-called "solution" to the Middle East crisis. As Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas was sworn in, the "Road Map" peace plan was set in motion.

The very next day began the worst month of tornadoes in United States history - more than 500 in a single month. Under normal conditions, 1,000 tornadoes hit the United States each year, but in just eight days that May, 375 twisters ripped across the heartland of America.

#2) May 9, 2003, President Bush addressed students at the University of South Carolina. Bush called on the Palestinians to embrace the roadmap to peace, and Bush expressed his desire to see the flag of Palestine raised over a free nation.

Hours later, tornadoes returned and Oklahoma City again became the target for deadly twisters, reducing many businesses and homes to splinters and bricks. The tornadoes of May devastated the Midwest with the third worst property damage in American history.

#3) On October 30, 1991, in a meeting scheduled by George H.W. Bush, Israelis and Palestinians discussed ways to achieve peace in the Middle East. Opening talks focused on trading parts of Israel for a peace agreement.

That same day, thousands of miles away, a powerful storm was brewing off of the coast of Nova Scotia. On October 31st, what would be known as "The Perfect Storm" smashed into New England, pummeling the President's Kennebunkport, Maine home with waves 30 feet high. It was a storm so rare that the weather patterns required to create it only happen about once every 100 years.

#4) On August 23rd, 1992, Middle East peace talks resumed in Washington, D.C. with hope that there would be a great breakthrough. These talks focused on surrendering the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria in exchange for peace. Hundreds of miles south of there at the same time, Florida was the target for one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. Hurricane Andrew ripped through the state with an eye more than 30 miles wide and winds up to 178 miles per hour leaving behind a 32 billion dollar disaster.

#5) Between August 16th and 30th, 2005, Ariel Sharon expelled 9,480 Jewish settlers from 21 settlements in Gaza and four settlements in the northern West Bank.

On January 4th, 2006, Sharon had a stroke, and he fell into a coma and is now in a persistent vegetative state.

#6) The U.S. had strongly pressured Sharon to evacuate those settlers from Gaza.

On August 29th, 2005 the storm that would become Hurricane Katrina formed, and it devastated New Orleans and the surrounding areas to such an extent that they still have not recovered. That devastating storm caused at least 200 billion dollars in damage.

#7) In June of 2001, George W. Bush sent CIA director George Tenet to Israel in an attempt to implement the Mitchell Plan. The Mitchell plan called for, among other things, the cessation of new building in the Jewish settlements.

On the same day that Tenet met with Israeli and Palestinian officials, tropical storm Allison formed in the Gulf of Mexico and moved over Texas, the President's home state, and dropped over 28 inches of rain over the Houston area alone, causing over $4 billion dollars in damage. The storm then moved to Florida and up the east coast causing damage as far as Pennsylvania. The meteorologists called Allison the "worst tropical storm in history".

There are many more examples of this phenomenon here:

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1055/1055_01.asp?wpc=1055_01.asp&wpp=b

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In the book of Joel, God warns specifically against dividing the land of Israel.

Joel 3:1-2 states, "...I will enter into judgment with them there on behalf of my people and my inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations; and they have divided up my land."

You just cannot go against the Word of God and win.

So is the Gulf of Mexico oil spill a curse on the United States for trying to divide up the land of Israel?

Or could it just be a coincidence?

Could all of the examples cited above just be a string of coincidences?

You make the call.

****UPDATE****

A YouTube video has been posted by Carl Gallups of Hickory Hammock Baptist Church in Milton, Florida that examines this same idea.  A copy of the video is posted below.  In the video, Gallups points to April 19th as being the key date, which is very interesting.  

"April the 19th, Israel celebrates its independence in 2010," Gallups explains in the video. "On April the 19th, Fox News reports that the U.S. will no longer automatically support Israel in the United Nations. The next day, on April the 20th, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explodes. Coincidence? Or the hand and judgment of God?"

So is this even more evidence that our treatment of Israel is linked to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico?  Watch the video for yourself and decide....

God is doing amazing things in these last days!  The Scriptures tell us that the gospel of Yahshua (Jesus) will literally be preached to the ends of the earth, and that is happening right in front of our eyes.  Some time ago, the Lord laid a tremendous burden for the African pygmies on Dr. Bree Keyton's heart while she was in prayer.  She did some research and she discovered that the indigenous pygmies of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are literally being eaten out of existence.  Yes, it is actually happening.  Anti-government rebel forces that hide in the jungle, particularly the Movement for the Liberation of Congo, consider the pygmies to be animals and they hunt them for food.  In fact, they have been using them for food so much that the pygmies are threatened with extinction.

Unfortunately, cannibalism is alive and well in 2010.

The Lord God has always had a heart for "the least of these", and in Africa, the pygmies are really treated as the lowest of the low.

The truth is that the pygmies are hated by even their fellow Africans throughout much of Africa. Many Africans actually consider the pygmies to be directly related to monkeys, and most of the time the pygmies are treated little better than animals.  In fact, in some areas of Africa, pygmies are actually openly owned as slaves.

In Congo, the pygmies are caught in the middle of a brutal civil war, and they are being systematically wiped out.  Both sides in the conflict consider the pygmies to be subhuman and as noted above, the anti-government rebels regularly eat them.

Other Africans actually believe that the flesh of the pygmies can confer magical powers, and so sometimes pygmies are being killed for that reason as well.

So needless to say, something urgent needs to be done to save these precious pygmies.

That is where Dr. Bree Keyton comes in.

Bree Keyton is an on-fire Christian evangelist who is waging a one woman crusade to rescue these pygmies.

She has already made a couple of trips into the areas where the pygmies live and she has been able to rescue some of the pygmy tribes and bring them to a location where they will be safe.  It is incredibly dangerous work, but God has kept her and her team safe.

The truth is that God loves the pygmies as much as he loves anyone else.  Dr. Bree Keyton is doing  wonderful thing.  More pygmy tribes have learned about what Bree Keyton is doing and now they want to be saved as well.

To learn how you can get involved in this outreach, please visit Dr. Bree Keyton's official website:

http://www.breekeytonministries.com/

The most wonderful thing in all of this is that as a result of Dr. Bree Keyton's rescue missions, entire tribes of pygmies are receiving Yahshua (Jesus) as Savior and Lord.  These are now our brothers and sisters in Christ and we will see them in heaven someday. 

For more on Dr. Bree Keyton's outreach to the pygmies, check out the video posted below.... 

At a time when the U.S. economy is dying and the U.S. national debt is exploding at an unprecedented rate, Barack Obama has announced a brand new 400 million dollar "aid package" for the Palestinians.  Considering the fact that some cities American cities such as Detroit are such an economic mess that they literally look like war zones, and considering the fact that the U.S. government is literally drowning in debt, it seems inconceivable that Barack Obama would even consider sending 400 million U.S. taxpayer dollars to terrorists that have sworn to destroy Israel.  But that is exactly what Barack Obama plans to do.   

A White House statement said that the new 400 million dollar gift is "a down payment on the United States' commitment to Palestinians in Gaza, who deserve a better life and expanded opportunities, and the chance to take part in building a viable, independent state of Palestine, together with those who live in the West Bank".

And do you know who runs Gaza?

Hamas.

The same Hamas that is obsessively committed to wiping Israel off the face of the earth.

That is who we are sending 400 million dollars to.

It is utter insanity, but God warned us that things were going to get really strange in the last days.

But the reality is that the U.S. should not be sending 400 million dollars to anyone.

The truth is that the United States is flat broke.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, on June 1st the U.S. National Debt was $13,050,826,460,886.97.

In case you aren't used to reading such large numbers, that is over 13 trillion dollars.

In fact, according to a recent U.S. Treasury Department report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015.

19 trillion dollars in debt by 2015?

Do you have any idea how much money that is?

If you were alive 2000 years ago and you started spending one million dollars every single day when Jesus was born, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now.

And yet somehow the U.S. government has gotten all of us 13 trillion dollars in debt.

As bad as the debt already is, it is rapidly getting even worse.

Based on data from the International Monetary Fund, it is now being projected that the national debt will exceed the gross domestic product of the United States in 2012.

We have piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and yet the U.S. government continues to spend our money as if there is an endless supply of it.

But it is not just U.S. government debt that is the problem.

In fact, the total of all government, corporate and consumer debt in the United States is now equal to 360 percent of GDP.  That is a far greater level than the U.S. ever approached during the Great Depression.

Are you starting to get the picture?

The United States is a complete and total economic disaster.  A financial collapse is only a matter of time.

But you can help out.

Okay, try not to laugh.

The U.S. government is now actually taking online donations that will go towards paying off the national debt.

So are you feeling generous today?

Perhaps the U.S. government will send your donation to the Palestinians as well.

The truth is that any nation that comes against Israel is not going to be blessed.  Hamas has never renounced their goal of wiping Israel off the map, and yet the United States is giving them hundreds of millions of dollars.  We are cursing ourselves by giving them this money.

What we should be doing is taking care of our own.  Already, 40 million Americans are on food stamps.  1 in 5 U.S. children now live in poverty.  The U.S. economy is coming apart at the seams.

But Barack Obama feels it is much more important to send hundreds of millions of dollars to the sworn enemies of Israel. 

We all knew that things like this were going to happen in the last days, but to see what the United States is becoming is incredibly sad.

The Scriptures tell us that "the love of most will grow cold" in the last days and that wickedness will greatly increase.  But still, the complete lack of respect for life around the world that we are now witnessing is absolutely stunning.  An increasing number of governments around the globe seem to have no problem killing "unwanted" babies and killing elderly people once their "usefulness" has ended.  The truth is that the world is becoming a cold, cruel place where human life is not valued. 

Most Americans know that China only allows couples to have one child, but what most Americans do not know is that China conducts a ton of forced abortions to make sure that extra children are not brought into the world.

How many forced abortions? 

The truth is that every 2.4 seconds, a woman in China undergoes a forced abortion because of the one child policy.

The following is a brief excerpt from a recent newspaper article about this horrific policy....

"Over 400 million children are not living in China because of the one-child policy," said Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women's Rights Without Borders. "That's more than the population of the United States."

Can you imagine?

400 million dead babies?

Not that the 40 million plus babies that the U.S. has killed since 1973 is small potatoes either.

The truth is that there are real, legitimate reasons why the wrath of God is coming to this world.

But not only are we killing tens of millions of babies, the reality is that governments all over the world have become increasingly comfortable with killing off old people.

"Non-voluntary" euthanasia is becoming increasingly common in European nations such as Belgium and the Netherlands.

So exactly what is "non-voluntary" euthanasia?

It is killing an old person off without their permission.

Once upon a time that would have been unthinkable.

But that is the direction that the world is moving in.

And that is the direction that the United States is moving in as well.

A newly produced document from the Clinton archives has revealed that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan defended ex-President Bill Clinton's veto of a bill to ban partial-birth abortions.

If Elena Kagan is confirmed, the truth is that she might just be the most radical anti-life justice that has ever been on the Supreme Court. 

The reality is that Kagan would move the Supreme Court radically to the left, and that would have huge implications for issues such as abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage.

Not that anything is going to stop America's slide into the moral toilet anyway.

But for those in a position to do so, please speak out against Elena Kagan.  She would be a total disaster for the pro-life movement if she is confirmed.

What is with all of the giant pagan idols that are suddenly popping up all over the United States?  The latest example of this is a seven ton, 26 foot tall concrete sculpture of an Egyptian god that is being installed at Denver International Airport.  The giant statue being constructed at the south end of the DIA terminal is of Anubis - the Egyptian god of death and the afterlife.  So why is this being done?  Well, it is apparently being put there to advertise the Denver Art Museum's King Tut exhibit that is about to open up.  That exhibit will go from June 29th through January 9th, 2011.  The plan is for "Anubis" to remain in place at Denver International Airport the entire duration of the exhibit. 

But this is not just an isolated incident.  Suddenly it has become "trendy" to set up giant statues of pagan gods.  We recently reported on a 26 foot tall Buddha weighing almost fifteen tons that has been installed across the street from the city hall of San Francisco and that will remain there through 2011.

Most people would say that these statues are just "art" and that they are perfectly harmless.

In fact, most Christians would insist that there is nothing wrong with these statues.

But what does God think about all of this?

The truth is that idolatry is loudly denounced by God throughout the Scriptures.  In fact, according to the Bible, it does not matter what "significance" one places on an idol.  What matters is that God wants no idols to ever be set up.

In fact, we are told in Revelation 9:20 that there will still be widespread idolatry in the last days....

The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk.

We just can't resist setting up idols, can we?

After all of God's warnings we just have got to tempt fate.

So now the hundreds of thousands of people who visit Denver International Airport will have one more thing to creep them out.

The weirdest airport in America just got a little weirder.

Those who have studied the Biblical festivals in the Torah understand that God has always had all of His most important events fall on those days.  Many students of Bible prophecy are beginning to understand that this is going to be true during the last days just as it has been throughout history.  For example, Yahshua (Jesus) was crucified on the eve of Passover at the same time that the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in Jerusalem in preparation for the festival.  In fact, during the original Passover the people of Israel were instructed to place the blood of their lambs on the doorposts of their home.  Why?  It was to foreshadow the Messiah.  The vast majority of doorposts, even today, are made of wood.  Wood comes from trees.  So by putting the blood on the doorposts, the message to the people of Israel was that the blood of the lamb on the tree covers them from the wrath of God.  That was prophetic of what the Messiah would do for all of us one day.

Not only that, but if you do a careful study you will find that so many of the important events in the Scriptures fell on these festival days.  The 10 Commandments were given to Moses on Shavuot (Pentecost) and on that exact same day the Holy Spirit was poured out on the early believers in Yahshua (Jesus).  In the gospel of John it tells us that the Word became flesh and "tabernacled" among us, and that is exactly what happened when Yahshua (Jesus) was born during Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles).  In fact, for over a thousand years before Messiah came, God had his people live in humble temporary structures during that time of the year to wonderfully foreshadow the way that His Son would come into the world.

So how do some of these festivals pertain to the last days?

Well, in Christian circles a lot of speculation has centered on Rosh Hashanah (the Feast of Trumpets), but in this article we are going to focus on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). 

God instructed the people of Israel to observe Yom Kippur on the 10th day of the 7th month of the Israelite calendar.  Even today it is regarded by the Jews as the most solemn day of the year.  On that day the people of Israel were instructed to "afflict their souls" (humble themselves and fast) and it was the only day of the entire year in which the High Priest could enter into the Holy of Holies.

In Leviticus 23:26-32, we read what the people of Israel were instructed to do on that day....

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD. And ye shall do no work in the same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God. For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people. And whatsover soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people. Ye shall do no manner of work: it shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.

In Leviticus 16, the Scriptures describe for us the duties of the High Priest during the time of Yom Kippur, and in Hebrews 9:24-28 we are told how Yahshua (Jesus) is now our High Priest and how He fulfilled what Yom Kippur had foreshadowed for so many generations.... 

For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

In verse 28, it talks about how the Messiah will appear a second time to bring salvation for those who are waiting for Him.

So are there legitimate reasons to believe that the moment when the feet of Yahshua will touch down on the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14) will be on Yom Kippur?

Well, we believe that there is.

In Zechariah 14:1-4, this moment is referred to as the "day of the Lord"....

A day of the LORD is coming when your plunder will be divided among you.  I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city.  Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle.  On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south.

So do we have any clues as to when the "day of the Lord" will be?

Yes.

In Joel chapter 2 there is a lengthy description of the "day of the Lord", including this notable portion of Scripture in Joel 2:15-16....

Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly.  Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast.  Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber.

We are told by Joel that it is a time when the bridegroom and the bride will leave their chambers.

So why is that significant?

Well, in Revelation 19:7-9, we are told that the marriage of the Lamb occurs just before the glorious return of Yahshua (Jesus) to this earth later in the same chapter.... 

Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.  And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.  And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.

Please take special note of the "fine linen, clean and white" mentioned in the passage.

On Yom Kippur even today, many married men wear a kittel, a white robe-like garment on Yom Kippur.  In fact, this garment is used by some Orthodox males on their wedding day.

Not only that, but when the Temple was still standing, on Yom Kippur the High Priest would change into special linen garments at one point during the ceremonies of the day.

In addition, even today it is customary for all Jewish people to wear white on Yom Kippur.

So the fact that the saints are given "fine linen, clean and white" to wear on that day may be a little more prophetic than we may have realized.

In fact, in Revelation 19:14, this fine linen is mentioned once again....

And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

Another detail from Revelation 19 to take note of is found in verse 13....

And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

Blood was a key feature of the celebration of Yom Kippur.  It was the one day during the year when the High Priest could enter into the Holy Of Holies.  The High Priest would take the blood from the bull that had been sacrificed and would sprinkle it on the mercy seat. 

In Revelation 19, Yahshua returns in a robe that has been dipped in blood, signifying that He was the true atonement for our sins.

So can we 100 percent prove that Yom Kippur will be the day when Messiah returns to the city of Jerusalem?

No, but as with so many other things in the Scriptures about the last days, we can try to put the pieces of the puzzle together.  And the pieces of the puzzle seem to indicate that Yom Kippur could very well be the day when Yahshua returns to the Mount of Olives.

Not only that, but many believe that there are other references to Yom Kippur in the book of Revelation as well.

For example, many scholars believe that there is a Yom Kippur service going on in Revelation chapters 5 and 6.

For now, we just wanted to point out that almost all of the key events throughout Scripture took place on one of the festival days, and that Yom Kippur seems to be a likely choice for the day on which Messiah will return to Jerusalem at the end of the Tribulation period.

In addition, it is important to note that we are NOT setting dates.

The truth is that nobody knows when Messiah will return.

However, considering the Biblical pattern, it seems virtually certain that He will return to Jerusalem on one of the festival days.

We believe that it will be on Yom Kippur in some year in the future.

So are we right?

We will just have to wait and see.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the world community will accept no peace plan for Israel that does not include a Palestinian state.  In fact, at this point the creation of a Palestinian state is a foregone conclusion in most diplomatic circles.  The only question seems to be what the exact dimensions of that state are going to be.  The Scriptures have long foretold the division of the land of Israel in the last days, but to see it play out in front of our eyes is absolutely stunning.  Virtually the entire world is united behind the idea that a Palestinian state is a great idea, and the pressure for Israel to accept one will continue to grow in the coming days.   

Robert Serry, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, was recently asked if there is an alternative to a Palestinian state during an appearance at the Hebrew University's Truman Institute. 

His response? 

"No." 

In fact, he made it clear that the UN is not even considering any other alternatives when he made this statement....

"I don't know of any alternatives."

So that is what Israel is faced with.

Accept a Palestinian state or nothing.

In essence, a Palestinian state is Plan A and there is no Plan B.

Meanwhile, it is being reported that the Obama administration's plan for Israel includes stationing international troops along Israel's border with a future Palestinian state.

Apparently the idea is that by deploying international soldiers along the Palestinian side of a future border with Israel, there would be a "buffer" that would keep peace between the two sides.

Of course we have all seen how well UN troops "keep the peace" in other areas of the world.

So what is the main obstacle to a Palestinian state at this point?

Well, it is the fact that the Palestinians want East Jerusalem for their capital.

Benjamin Netanyahu and the current Israeli government are not about to accept that.

But we were warned in Zechariah 12:3 that the city of Jerusalem would one day become a huge stumbling block for the nations.....

"On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves."

So how will all of this play out?

We will just have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, the entire region continues to prepare for war.

*The president of Syria is openly accusing Israel of trying to start a war.

*According to one new report, Syria has approximately 1,000 ballistic missiles zeroed in on Israeli targets.

*Egyptian military forces recently concluded maneuvers in the Sinai Peninsula that simulated an invasion of southern Israel.

*The National News Agency reported this week that the Lebanese Armed Forces fired anti-aircraft artillery from the town of Shebaa in South Lebanon at Israeli warplanes flying over Lebanese territory around 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

*A top IDF Home Front Command officer said on Tuesday that Israel is not sufficiently prepared for a chemical missile attack.

*Israel recently kicked off a five-day nationwide defense drill with the goal of preparing civilians for rocket attacks.

*It is being widely reported that teams of American special forces have been authorized to conduct spying missions intended to pave the way for a military strike on Iran in case Barack Obama orders one.

The truth is that tensions continue to rise in the Middle East and war could break out at any time.

So will a Palestinian state come before or after the next war?

There is quite a bit of debate about that among Bible prophecy scholars.

The truth is that we will just have to wait and see.

But let us pray that the division of Israel and of Jerusalem does not happen, because if the U.S. has a hand in that, God will not be pleased at all.

An umbrella organization in Pakistan that includes more that two dozen fundamentalist Islamic groups plans to formally ask the United Nations to enact a global law against blasphemy that would include the death penalty for anyone who blasphemes the Prophet Muhammad.   Yes, unfortunately this is actually true.  The formal name of the umbrella organization is Jama'at-ud-Dawa (JuD) and according to IndianExpress.com, the leadership of the JuD has decided to contact the UN and ask them to implement a global law "against blasphemy of prophets and awarding death penalty to violators." 

So what types of things would be considered blasphemy?

Well, according to Wikipedia, the following are just some of the things that are considered blasphemy in Islam....

-to speak ill of Allah.
-to find fault with Prophet Muhammad.
-to slight any prophet who is mentioned in the Quran, any member of Prophet Muhammad's family, or any cleric.
-to speculate about how Prophet Muhammad would behave if he were alive.
-to draw a picture to represent Prophet Muhammad or any other prophet, or to make a film which features a prophet.
-to write Prophet Muhammad's name on the walls of a toilet.
-to name a teddy bear Muhammad.
-to state facts such as: Prophet Muhammad's parents were not Muslims.

So is there any chance that the UN will grant their request?

Well, there are over 40 Islamic countries in the UN, but there is no chance at all that the other members of the United Nations are going to go for something like this.

But what this does demonstrate is the dangerous mindset of radical Islamic organizations around the globe.  They are determined to impose their radical agenda on us however they can.

In this case, these radical Muslims in Pakistan are trying to make it sound like it is all about their hurt feelings....

The following is an official statement from the JuD that followed the meeting where it was decided to go to the UN on this issue....

"The ambassadors of Muslim and non-Muslim states will be told that blasphemy against prophets not only hurts the feelings of one religion but also sows a seed of hatred against the people of other religions."

So because someone hurt their feelings that person deserves the death penalty?

No, this is not about hurt feelings.

This is about the desire to use force and violence to advance the cause of radical Islam.

But we have seen this pattern repeated over and over for centuries.

The followers of radical Islam are just not pulling this stuff out of thin air.  They are getting it right out of the Quran.  In Sura 9:29-31 it says the following....

"Fight those who believe not in God nor the last day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of truth, (even if they are) of the people of the Book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

The reality is that the vast majority of radical Muslims have no problem using violence to get their way.  Just check out a few examples of violence commited by radical Muslims recently all over the globe....

*A Christian man in Pakistan's Punjab province was literally fighting for his life after radical Muslim leaders, backed by police, burned him alive for refusing to convert to Islam while his wife was raped by police officers.

*A horde of radical Muslims recently stormed into a central Nigerian town and slaughtered about 500 Christian villagers - most of which were women and children.

*A World Vision mission office in Pakistan was recently assaulted by Islamic gunmen, leaving at least five of the staff members dead.

*In broad daylight and in full view of witnesses, a group of 4 Islamic radicals in the southern Egyptian city of Attaleen fired 31 bullets into the head of a Coptic Christian before beheading him.  The dead body was then dragged through the streets accompanied by shouts of victory.  Later, an Egyptian court acquitted the four Muslim men accused of committing the crime.

*Two Islamic suicide bombers in Lahore, Pakistan killed at least 43 people and injured at least 100 others in a high-security area with a dense military presence.

The truth is that wherever radical Islam encounters any other kind of culture all over the world there is violence.

But it is not going to just be Islam that becomes very violent in the last days.

In Matthew 24:9, Yahshua (Jesus) told us that the entire world will hate Christians and will want to kill them in the last days....

Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.

So the truth is that hate is going to continue to grow and massive persecution of Christians is coming.

The world is rapidly changing, and we are all going to have to get much closer to God in order to be able to handle the days that are ahead.

As the Obama administration continues to stumble about as if they have absolutely no idea how to conduct foreign policy, Russia and China are busy running around making deals and treaties with the rest of the world.  The United States is becoming increasingly isolated as nations around the world seem more eager than ever to reach out and deal with other major powers rather than with America.  Most serious students of Bible prophecy realize that the U.S. will experience a rapid decline in the last days, but there are times when watching it happen seems almost surreal.  Russia and China are rising.  They are quickly making friends and the influence of both superpowers is dramatically expanding.  Meanwhile, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the other dunces in charge of U.S. foreign policy insist on pushing friends like Israel around while showing no ability to make friends or protect U.S. interests around the globe whatsoever.

The sad thing is that the United States is heading for a very serious confrontation with Russia and China, and the Obama administration (along with the vast majority of the American people) has absolutely no idea what is coming.

Geopolitics is not checkers. 

It is chess.

And right now, Russia and China are wiping the floor with the United States.

Just consider a few of the recent deals that Russia and China have been busy making....

*Russia has signed major arms deals with Syria under which it will sell it warplanes, anti-tank weapons and air defense systems.

*After Russian President Medvedev's historic visit in Damascus, Russia's energy minister says that his country is "studying the question" of building a nuclear power plant in Syria.

*The U.S. government says that it is carefully reviewing a Chinese decision to build two nuclear power plants in Pakistan.

*Nigeria and China have signed a tentative deal to build three oil refineries in the West African state at a cost of 23 billion dollars.

*Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says that Russia and Turkey are becoming key strategic partners.

*According to a new report, China, Iran and North Korea have established a strategic alliance that focuses on missile and nuclear technology development.

*The Russian government has agreed to a raft of new accords with the new government in Ukraine.

*South Africa’s second-biggest lender, has completed its first transactions in Africa with China Construction Bank Corporation after the two agreed to cooperate last July.

*Russia had been busy selling high tech weapons to Iran.  Gary Samore, the White House coordinator for arms control, weapons of mass destruction proliferation and terrorism, says that he would be surprised if Moscow shipped the S-300 anti-aircraft system that Iran has ordered.  But that just shows how clueless the Obama administration actually is.

*A China-led consortium has sealed a deal with the Iraqi government to develop a prized cluster of three oil fields in the country's south, bringing China closer to becoming the dominant foreign player in Iraq's recovering oil sector.

Now wait a second.

I thought it was the U.S. and the U.K. that liberated Iraq.

So the Iraqi people are so grateful that they are letting China come in and be the dominant player in the Iraqi oil industry?

What in the world?

We are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to keep Iraq secure so that China can swoop in and get all the oil?

Does anyone else see something wrong here?

U.S. foreign policy is a mess.

The Obama administration is beyond clueless, and Russia and China are rapidly getting their chess pieces into position.

In a few years when things with Russia and China take an ugly turn and the U.S. is facing a major crisis with them, remember where you heard it first.

The United States should not be taking their eyes off of Russia and China.

But as long as we have complete incompetents running U.S. foreign policy things are going to continue to deteriorate.  Russia and China are more powerful than they ever have been before, and they aren't going anywhere.  It is a whole new ballgame, and the U.S. is losing.

Let us pray for our leaders, because they sure need it.

As if California didn't have enough problems, a 26 foot tall Buddha weighing almost fifteen tons has been installed across the street from the city hall of San Francisco and will remain there through 2011.  This piece of "art" is a sculpture by Zhang Huan entitled "Three Heads Six Arms".  This piece is Zhang’s largest sculpture to date, and the San Francisco art community is extremely excited that this piece is going to be displayed in their city.

In fact, on the website that has the official announcement about the dedication of this "sculpture", San Francisco May Gavin Newsom sounded absolutely thrilled to have this idol sitting directly across from city hall....

"The installation of Zhang Huan’s spectacular sculpture in the Civic Center marks a high point in the Shanghai-San Francisco Sister City 30th Anniversary Celebration and a milestone for the San Francisco Arts Commission," said Mayor Gavin Newsom. "By bringing this incredible work of art to the City, we underscore Shanghai and San Francisco’s bond as two of the world’s most important centers for arts and culture."

Hopefully at this point alarm bells are going off for you.

Is there a problem when a city puts up a 15 ton Buddha right across from city hall?

Yes, of course there is a problem.

But shouldn't we appreciate art?

Isn't a statue okay as long as we don't worship it ourselves?

Well, no.

Absolutely not.

So what does God think about San Francisco putting up a 26 foot tall Buddha in the center of the city?

In the Scriptures, we find that God severely denounces idols all the way from Genesis to Revelation.

It doesn't matter if you worship the giant Buddha or not.  Any idol is an abomination in the eyes of God.

In fact, we are told in Revelation 9:20 that there will still be widespread idolatry in the last days....

The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk.

But today, it has become so "fashionable" to put up little buddhas in your home.

In fact, you can find little buddha statues in stores all across America.

And Christians act as if they could care less about all these idols.

But God cares.

What in the world is happening to this nation?

It seems like California almost revels in the fact that they are leading the way into moral depravity.

For example, the San Francisco Chronicle the other day ran an article about what a great thing it is that more lesbian couples are choosing to become "moms".

Not only that, but Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (from California) is now claiming that it is cheaper to treat teens for drug use than it is to interdict drugs being smuggled across the border.

What?

Seriously?

But this is what we have come to expect from the state of California.

Hollywood is a cesspool of godlessness and sin.  The television shows and movies that are being produced there are leading the whole world into wickedness.  In addition, California has produced more pornography than anywhere else in the world for decades.

California just keeps piling up sin after sin after sin after sin as if none of it will ever catch up with them.

But perhaps someday it all will. 

The number of earthquakes greater than magnitude 4.0 in Southern California has increased significantly in 2010.  In fact, there have been 70 earthquakes of magnitude 4.0 or greater in the region so far in 2010.

That is extremely troubling, because there were only 30 such earthquakes in all of 2009 and only 29 such earthquakes in all of 2008.

So considering the fact that we have already had 70 this year and it is only April is a really troubling sign.

California should be repenting for their sins, but instead they are setting up a 26 foot tall statue of Buddha and they are pumping out record setting amounts of pornography.

We will all just have to wait and see how all that ends up turning out.

Recently, Comedy Central started censoring episodes of South Park after the network and the producers of the series received a large number of violent threats from radical Muslims.  In fact, in one recent episode every instance of the words "Prophet Muhammad" was bleeped out by the network, and whenever the character of Muhammad appeared in the episode it was covered by a large block labeled "censored".  The producers of South Park were upset about this censorship, but apparently Comedy Central is taking no chances when it comes to dealing with Islamic extremists.  However, apparently making fun of Jesus is still fair game on Comedy Central.  In fact, Comedy Central is developing an entire animated series that mocks Jesus Christ.

Yes, that is right.

An entire animated series that does nothing but mock and degrade and make fun of Jesus Christ.

The working name of the show is  "JC", and it is scheduled to be a half-hour show about Jesus wanting to escape the shadow of his "powerful but apathetic father" and live a "normal" life in New York City.

What in the world?

It is being reported that the show will depict God as being preoccupied with playing video games while Jesus tries to adjust to life in the big city.

How disgusting is that?

How dare they openly mock the God of the universe?

But that is exactly what they plan to do.

They are scared to death to make fun of Muhammed, but Comedy Central's head of original programming Kent Alterman considers making fun of Christianity to be "comedy in purist form"....

"In general, comedy in purist form always makes some people uncomfortable."

Yes, I am uncomfortable with someone mocking my God. 

But this is not new for Comedy Central.

Jesus has been openly mocked on South Park and on other Comedy Central shows for years and years.

But still millions of Christians have no problem watching that filth.

But we should expect that the mocking of Christianity will get even worse.

In Matthew 24, Jesus told us that in the last days "you will be hated by all nations because of me" and that "the love of most will grow cold", so we should not be surprised when these things happen.

By the time all of this is over, Christians and Christianity are going to be greatly hated around the world.

If you watch carefully, you can see the persecution starting to grow around the world.  You can see hearts growing cold from the hardness of sin. 

God is being pushed out of all aspects of public life in the United States, just like He is in most other nations around the globe.

In fact, Franklin Graham recently said that he believes that Christians in America may lose the right to preach the gospel outside of the walls of a church during his lifetime....

"I think its coming to this country where we (will) have the freedom to preach inside a church wall, but we will lose the freedom to do it outside. That day will probably come – maybe in my lifetime."

The truth is that things are going to get a whole lot worse than even Franklin Graham is imagining.  Those who follow Jesus Christ and stand up for righteousness are now commonly depicted as "evil" or "deluded" or "morally wrong" on television, in movies, in our popular music and all over the Internet.  Standing up against abortion and homosexuality and sex before marriage will now get you labeled as being part of a "hate" group.

The sad thing is that Christians have participated in constructing this godless society, and now we are so amazed when our children grow up completely godless.

But we should not be surprised that record numbers of  young people are turning away from the Christian faith.  We recently examined how young people are dramatically leaving Christianity and are rapidly being secularized on our sister site.... 

Our public schools teach our children day after day after day that they evolved from monkeys, that abortion, sex before marriage and homosexuality are perfectly moral and that anyone who disagrees is a bigot.  Then they go home and they are surrounded by entertainment for the rest of the day (television, radio, video games, Internet, movies) and the overwhelming message regarding the Christian faith in these forms of entertainment is that either Christianity is irrelevant, not true or should be openly mocked.

The tide of public opinion is radically shifting against the Christian faith.  Those who still hold to Biblical Christianity should expect that persecution will only get a lot worse as time rolls forward. 

It is time that we started learning from the great martyrs of the past in order to start preparing ourselves for what is coming.  One great book that we recommend is Extreme Devotion by The Voice Of The Martyrs.  That book contains a ton of amazing testimonies from persecuted Christians that have gone before us.  There is a lot that we can learn from them. 

Since the first century, millions upon millions of Christians have been slaughtered for their faith, and Christians all over the world are being killed for their faith today.

While persecution in the United States is not that bad yet, the truth is that the Scriptures promise us that the persecution of Christians will be absolutely horrific in the last days.  Now is the time for all of us to start preparing ourselves mentally to be able to endure whatever persecution we are to face while we are still on this earth.

Barack Obama has reportedly decided that if Israel and the Palestinians have not agreed to a peace agreement in the next few months, the Middle East peace process will be handed over to the international community for a resolution.  So what would be the result of handing over the peace process to the international community?  Well, the international community would almost certainly come up with the solution that the UN, the EU and Barack Obama have been seeking all along - a Palestinian state along pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. 

According to Haaretz, Obama has agreed with leading European allies on a secret plan to convene an "international peace conference" by the end of the year if Israel and the Palestinians are not able to work out an agreement.

This "international peace conference" would be convened under the auspices of the Quartet for Middle East peace.  The membership of the "Quartet" currently includes the United States, the EU, the UN and Russia.

So if Israel does not act quickly they could very well soon find the rest of the world imposing a Palestinian state on them.

What in the world is Barack Obama thinking?

Well, apparently he wants to be the "great Middle East peacemaker" and he is willing to throw his weight around in order to get it done.

But the truth is that this could end up being one gigantic mess. 

The Telegraph recently quoted Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat close to the Obama administration, regarding his opinion on what an "international peace conference" would mean....

"An international conference involving the EU, China and Russia is more of a recipe for chaos than a practical political blueprint," he said. "But anything is better than the status quo."

No, anything is not better than the status quo.

The truth is that the Palestinians now have no incentive to negotiate with Israel.  They can just sit back, allow the negotiations to fail, and still get a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem just like they always wanted anyway.

The reality is that this whole plan by Obama undermines the entire peace process as one Israeli official recently explained....

"If you enforce a time limit and then introduce an imposed solution if they don't succeed after a period, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: you're going to guarantee the talks won't succeed."

Not that Israel should be considering giving away one single inch of the Promised Land anyway.

But now the Palestinians will just sit back and wait for the international community to give them the state that they have been promised along with a capital in East Jerusalem.

The reality is that Barack Obama has been promising them a Palestinian state for a long time.  According to WorldNetDaily, Barack Obama told the Palestinian leadership all the way back in 2008 that he supports a Palestinian state and a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.

So why in the world would the Palestinians be willing to accept anything less from Israel?

By doing his best to divide the land of Israel, Barack Obama is directly coming against the Word of God.

In a previous article, we explained why this is a very, very bad idea for any U.S. administration to do....

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In Genesis 12:3, God warns that those who curse Israel will be cursed when he promised this to Abraham:

"I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

In the book of Joel, God warns specifically against dividing the land of Israel.

Joel 3:1-2 states, "...I will enter into judgment with them there on behalf of my people and my inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations; and they have divided up my land."

Bill Koenig, the author of "Israel: The Blessing or the Curse", has said this:

"We know for a fact that God gave this land, through the Abrahamic covenant, He gave the land of Israel to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants, and this land is God's land."

In the Scriptures, we are warned that the city of Jerusalem would one day become a huge stumbling stone for the nations in Zechariah 12:3.....

"On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves."

Is that not what has happened?

The truth is that God gave that land to Israel long ago, and now that He has started to bring His people back to the land, anyone who tries to give it away is going to be under a curse.

So is there any evidence of a curse on those who try to divide the land of Israel today?

Yes.

Consider these examples.....

#1) On April 30, 2003, America was positioned to be the catalyst for the so-called "solution" to the Middle East crisis. As Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas was sworn in, the "Road Map" peace plan was set in motion.

The very next day began the worst month of tornadoes in United States history - more than 500 in a single month. Under normal conditions, 1,000 tornadoes hit the United States each year, but in just eight days that May, 375 twisters ripped across the heartland of America.

#2) May 9, 2003, President Bush addressed students at the University of South Carolina. Bush called on the Palestinians to embrace the roadmap to peace, and Bush expressed his desire to see the flag of Palestine raised over a free nation.

Hours later, tornadoes returned and Oklahoma City again became the target for deadly twisters, reducing many businesses and homes to splinters and bricks. The tornadoes of  May devastated the Midwest with the third worst property damage in American history.

#3) On October 30, 1991, in a meeting scheduled by George H.W. Bush, Israelis and Palestinians discussed ways to achieve peace in the Middle East. Opening talks focused on trading parts of Israel for a peace agreement.

That same day, thousands of miles away, a powerful storm was brewing off of the coast of Nova Scotia. On October 31st, what would be known as "The Perfect Storm" smashed into New England, pummeling the President's Kennebunkport, Maine home with waves 30 feet high. It was a storm so rare that the weather patterns required to create it only happen about once every 100 years.

#4) On August 23rd, 1992, Middle East peace talks resumed in Washington, D.C. with hope that there would be a great breakthrough.  These talks focused on surrendering the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria in exchange for peace. Hundreds of miles south of there at the same time, Florida was the target for one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. Hurricane Andrew ripped through the state with an eye more than 30 miles wide and winds up to 178 miles per hour leaving behind a 32 billion dollar disaster.

#5) Between August 16th and 30th, 2005, Ariel Sharon expelled 9,480 Jewish settlers from 21 settlements in Gaza and four settlements in the northern West Bank.

On January 4th, 2006, Sharon had a stroke, and he fell into a coma and is now in a persistent vegetative state.

#6) The U.S. had strongly pressured Sharon to evacuate those settlers from Gaza.

On August 29th, 2005 the storm that would become Hurricane Katrina formed, and it devastated New Orleans and the surrounding areas to such an extent that they still have not recovered. That devastating storm caused at least 200 billion dollars in damage.

#7) In June of 2001, George W. Bush sent CIA director George Tenet to Israel in an attempt to implement the Mitchell Plan.  The Mitchell plan called for, among other things, the cessation of new building in the Jewish settlements.

On the same day that Tenet met with Israeli and Palestinian officials, tropical storm Allison formed in the Gulf of Mexico and moved over Texas, the President's home state, and dropped over 28 inches of rain over the Houston area alone, causing over $4 billion dollars in damage. The storm then moved to Florida and up the east coast causing damage as far as Pennsylvania. The meteorologists called Allison the "worst tropical storm in history".

There are many more examples of this phenomenon here:

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1055/1055_01.asp?wpc=1055_01.asp&wpp=b

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But America never seems to learn, eh?

Barack Obama is absolutely determined to divide up the land of Israel.

Let's just hope that it does not happen.

Did the headline above get your attention?  It should.  The truth is that approximately 400,000 U.S. nonprofit organizations, including thousands of Christian ministries, are just weeks away from losing their tax exemptions.  Why?  Well, a very sneaky provision buried in a 2006 pension reform bill required all nonprofit organizations to file tax forms the following year.  Prior to that, only nonprofit organizations that had revenues of $25,000 or more had to file tax returns.  The problem is that hundreds of thousands of nonprofit organizations did not realize this.  This new provision, which was deeply embedded in the 393 pages of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, also instructed the IRS to revoke the tax exemptions of all nonprofit organizations that failed to file tax returns for 3 consecutive years.

Well guess what?

The three years are just about up and hundreds of thousands of nonprofit organizations are about to experience a financial doomsday.

The New York Times recently quoted Diana Aviv, the president of the nonprofit trade group Independent Sector, as saying the following about the impact that this deadline is going to have....

"It’s going to be an unholy mess once these organizations realize what’s happened to them."

And that is what this is.

A gigantic mess.

Have the Christian ministries and organizations that you are affiliated with been filing tax returns with the IRS?

Are you sure?

If not, they may be about to lose their tax exemptions.

The reality is that many politicians in Washington have been trying to figure out for a long time how to start sucking some revenue out of the nonprofit world.  In particular, many liberals have long resented the tax exemptions that churches and other religious organizations have enjoyed.

But coming out and openly proposing a repeal of the tax exemptions for churches and religious organizations would not be popular at all.

So they have to find backdoor ways to do it.

The truth is that it would be really easy for Congress to repeal this stupid provision so that hundreds of thousands of nonprofit organizations do not suddenly lose their tax exemptions.

But they aren't going to do it.

They have got thousands upon thousands of unsuspecting victims in their legislative trap and that is just where many of the folks in Washington want them.

The reality is that we have become a nation that has so many thousands upon thousands of laws that it is literally impossible to comply with them all.

Trust me on this - I went to law school. 

So what should a ministry do that finds itself trapped by this situation?

Well, you need to contact the IRS immediately and try to get this straightened out.

For those individuals who are very upset about this, you can try contacting your representatives in Congress, but with Barack Obama and the Democrats in control, the odds that this provision will be repealed are somewhere between very slim and none.

The truth is that this is yet another example of how the U.S. government is literally getting their fingers into every aspect of our daily lives.  But as we move into the last days things are going to get far worse.  Right now in America we are only facing "soft" persecution.  In other areas of the world they are already facing torture and death for the cross, and that will happen in this country some day as well.  But in the midst of the persecution millions will turn to Yahshua (Jesus) and be saved.  This is going to be one of the most exciting times in all of history to be alive, so let us be thankful and let us take the gospel forward no matter what the opposition is.

Israel is making it very clear that the next war with Hezbollah will also be a war against Syria.  For years it has been an open secret that Syria was funneling arms and sophistical weapons systems to Hezbollah in Lebanon, but now Israel is on the record as saying that they consider Hezbollah to be a division of the Syrian army.  So what does this mean?  It means that war between Israel and Syria is now closer than it has been in decades.  Just recently, Israel delivered a secret warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad that it will respond to missile attacks from Hezbollah by launching immediate retaliation against Syria itself.

No longer will Syria be able to use Hezbollah to fight proxy wars against Israel.  If a repeat of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah happens, this time Israel says that it will directly strike Damascus. 

In fact, a major U.K. newspaper recently published the following "off-the-record" comment from an Israeli minister....

"We’ll return Syria to the Stone Age by crippling its power stations, ports, fuel storage and every bit of strategic infrastructure if Hezbollah dare to launch ballistic missiles against us."

What is raising tensions even further in the region are reports that Syria has been arming Hezbollah to the teeth in preparation for the coming war.

Just consider the following description by Debka of the kinds of advanced weaponry that Syria has been supplying to the terrorist organization....

"Surface-to-surface missiles able to reach as far as the Dimona reactor in southern Israel: They include Fajr-5, which has a range of 33 km, and the M-600, developed by Syria from the Fateh-110, whose range is 250 km. Both are precise, propelled by solid fuel and carry 500-kilo warheads of conventional explosives, as well as being able to deliver chemical, biological and radioactive materials.  This dangerous new arsenal which tops up the 40,000 rockets Hizballah was allowed to pile up since the 2006 Lebanon war."

The reality is that Syria and Hezbollah between them now have the capability of striking every single inch of Israeli territory with missiles.

No target is out of range anymore.

With all sides on edge in the region, even King Abdullah of Jordan is warning that the next war in the Middle East could break out as soon as this summer.

Meanwhile, there are increasing calls from world leaders for Israel to join the NPT and quit producing nuclear weapons.  In fact, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallem is calling on all NPT member countries to sever their diplomatic relations with Israel unless it joins the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Of course Syria would love not to have to worry about Israel's nukes during the coming war, but that is not going to happen.

But even Barack Obama is pushing Israel on this issue.  Last week Barack Obama publicly declared that he is calling upon all the nations of the world to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including Israel.

But what Barack Obama should be really concerned about is trying to figure out what to do about Iran.

It is being reported that Robert Gates, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, warned President Barack Obama in a secret "wake-up call" memo that the White House has no effective policy for dealing with a nuclear Iran.

But at the same time, the Pentagon itself does not seem to have a sense of urgency when it comes to Iran's nuclear program.  Top U.S. military officials told Congress last week that it would take Iran at least a year to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb.  Not only that, but Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently said that that a U.S. strike against Iran would go "a long way" to delaying its nuclear program but that he considered doing so his "last option" right now.

Meanwhile, top Iranian officials are running around making declarations about how advanced Iran's nuclear program is.

Needless to say, Israel is not going to let Iran go down this path indefinitely.

But even before things with Iran come to a crisis point, war could break out between Israel and Syria.

Is the time soon coming when "Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins" (Isaiah 17:1)?

We will just have to wait and see.  Certainly all sides are preparing for a devastating regional war.  So let us pray for the peace of Israel and let us trust that God knows what He is doing.

For years there has been a raging debate among Christians who study Bible prophecy.  Many have believed that the coming Mark of the Beast will be an implantable microchip that is inserted into the right hand or the forehead.  Many others insist that the coming Mark of the Beast will be a tattoo of some sort.  Well, perhaps it may be a tattoo that utilizes RFID technology.  A start-up company developing "chipless RFID ink" has already tested its product on cattle and laboratory rats.

Now, it is important to state at the outset that this is NOT the Mark of the Beast.  However, this may represent yet another step towards the technology that someday will be used in the Mark of the Beast.

The name of the company developing this process is Somark.  The RFID tattoo is applied using a geometric array of micro-needles and a reusable applicator with a one-time-use ink capsule.

It takes approximately five to 10 seconds to tattoo an animal (or a human), and there is no need to remove any fur or hair from the recipient of the tattoo.  Once it is applied, an RFID reader can detect the tattoo from up to four feet away.

Somark co-founder Mark Pydynowski says that the ink does not contain any metals and that it is 100% bio-compatible and chemically inert.

He also claims that is is 100% safe for animals and for people. 

Initially, the executives of Somark hope to market this technology to those who wish to track cattle.

However, it does not take a lot of imagination to think up many other applications for this technology.

Once again, it must be stressed that this is NOT the Mark of the Beast.

However, this is a disturbing development.

The Scriptures tell us in Revelation 13 that someday all of humanity will be forced to take a "Mark" on the right hand or on the forehead by the Antichrist.  Nobody will be allowed to buy or sell without it.

So could this "Mark" end up using RFID tattoo technology?

Perhaps.

We will just have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, for those who want to learn much more about the Mark of the Beast, we encourage you to check out this article: "What Is The Mark Of The Beast?"

More than ever, the word "nuclear" is on the lips of world leaders around the globe.  It seems like everyone is either "going nuclear" or is talking about nuclear weapons.  The truth is that the world has been extremely fortunate that nuclear weapons have not been used to destroy an entire city since the end of World War 2.  But with tensions escalating dangerously in the Middle East and around the world, how much longer will it be before nuclear weapons are used by someone to wipe out large numbers of people? 

In fact, for many terrorist organizations around the globe, the thought of going nuclear is the ultimate dream.  A handful of terrorists really can't do that much damage on their own, but one terrorist with a nuke can take out an entire major city in the blink of an eye.

Many jihadists speak openly of nuclear weapons as being the means by which they will take down the United States and Israel.  There are many jihadists who would set off a nuke in a major city today if they were able to.

And with nuclear weapons technology spreading to places such as North Korea, Iran and Syria, how much longer do you think it will be before a terrorist organization is able to get their hands on a nuclear weapon?

The truth is that nuclear weapons will almost certainly be used in the last days.  Entire cities will probably be destroyed.  Whether it is terrorists or governments who use them, the reality is that when they are used it will change the world forever. 

Leaders around the globe know how dangerous these weapons are.  Many of them understand that once Iran gets their hands on nukes it will be extremely hard to ever put the "nuclear genie" back in the bottle.  If radical Islamic terrorists are able to acquire nuclear weapons through Iran (or by any other source), all of our lives are going to change permanently.   

The threat of rogue nations and terrorist organizations going nuclear has made a lot of headlines just this past week.  Just check out some of them....

*Barack Obama said that the possibility of terrorists getting a nuclear device is the "single biggest threat" to U.S. security as he opened the international nuclear summit that included 46 world leaders from around the globe.

*Hillary Clinton said that she fears al-Qaeda is gathering material for nuclear weapons.

*According to a top Iranian nuclear official, Iran will join the "nuclear club" within a month.

*Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled a new generation of domestically made nucelar centrifuges in a ceremony in Tehran marking national nuclear day.

*It is being reported by international news sources that Iran's bomb-making plutonium facilities are close to completion.

*French President Nicolas Sarkozy is warning global leaders that if the world doesn't act to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear arms, it could be responsible for a war between Israel and the Islamic republic.

*An Iranian who once worked as a spy for the CIA is saying that the only way to avoid a nuclear war with Iran is to attack them now.

*Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is warning Israel against a military strike on Iran, saying that it might lead to a global nuclear war.

*The Turkish Prime Minister is urging other world leaders to start criticizing the Israeli nuclear arsenal.

*Hillary Clinton claims that North Korea now has as many as six nuclear weapons.

We live in very dangerous times.  We all take the peace and safety we are enjoying right now for granted.  But a time is coming when that will fundamentally change.

Nations that absolutely hate the United States and Israel are arming to the teeth and are developing nuclear weapons.  Just one suitcase nuke could decimate an entire city.  We often forget about how blessed and how protected we have been, but someday that could all change in the blink of an eye.

Let us pray for peace and hope that somehow nuclear weapons can be kept out of the hands of radicals and lunatics.

Have you ever heard of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child?  If you are an American parent, it could soon dramatically affect your parental rights.  A new optional protocol has been approved that will create an international tribunal that will receive complaints from individual children.  Parental rights under the U.S. Constitution will not trump the ruling of this tribunal.  The implications of this are staggering.  For example, if a "children's rights" group finds out that you are spanking your child, they can file a complaint with this U.N. tribunal on your child's behalf, and before you know it your child could be taken away from you forever. 

The ironic thing is that negotiations for this new protocol were spearheaded by the nation of Maldives, which has a horrific record of human rights.  When Maldives signed and ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child back in the early nineties, it specifically rejected the religious freedom section found in the CRC.  You see, the constitution of the Maldives requires that all citizens be Muslims.  So when they "opted out" of the religious freedom portion of the document, they explained themselves this way: "The Government of the Republic of Maldives expresses its reservation to paragraph 1 of article 14 of the said Convention on the Rights of the Child, since the Constitution and the Laws of the Republic of Maldives stipulate that all Maldivians should be Muslims."

Regardless, due to the efforts of the Maldives and others, this new protocol has been approved.

So exactly what will this new protocol do? 

Well, according to one Maldivian news agency, the "protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), will create a procedure whereby children who are being abused or their representatives (such as national child protection NGOS, lawyers, and doctors) could seek assistance from international human rights protection mechanisms when domestic institutions are failing to offer protection."

These words are chilling.

Can you imagine some radical leftists coming in to your home and dragging your kid before an international tribunal just because you were trying to raise your child in a Biblical manner?

Don't laugh.

It could happen.

We didn't think our health care system would ever be socialized either.

The good news is that this new protocol is optional.

The bad news is that Barack Obama is in the White House and the Democrats control Congress.

The Obama administration has publicly announced its desire to see the U.S. ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In addition, those spearheading the push for the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child to be adopted in the United States have announced their support for this new optional protocol.

So the threat to parental rights is real.

Please share this information with as many Christian parents as you can.

The world is dramatically changing and international institutions are taking over.

Now is the time to stand up and say something about it.  Later will be too late.

When it comes to geopolitics, it is much more important to watch what the various players do rather than listen to what they say.  This is especially true in the Middle East.  While many leaders in the region are saying all the "right" things, the reality is that there are indications that all sides are preparing for war.  In fact, there are signs that war in the Middle East may be imminent.  The reality is that Israel is simply not going to let Iran continue with their nuclear program forever, and Iran is showing no indications that they plan to discontinue it.  So a showdown is inevitable at this point.  Tensions are rising and preparations are ramping up. 

The following are ten recent signs that war in the Middle East is getting closer than ever.... 

#1) On Tuesday, Israel began distributing millions of protection kits against biochemical warfare.

#2) The Tel Aviv municipality has unveiled a massive new public bomb shelter built directly under the new Habima Theater.

#3) According to a senior PA negotiator and sources in the Israeli government, the U.S. has actually been conducting negotiations with Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.  Since when did the U.S. government become the representative of the Palestinians?  Things have gotten really weird since Barack Obama got in the White House.

#4) In recent weeks the Obama administration has stepped up its monitoring of Jewish construction projects in eastern Jerusalem.  In fact, if anyone picks up a hammer in east Jerusalem these days the Obama administration flies into a tizzy.

#5) The Obama administration is now rejecting all visa requests from all Israeli nuclear scientists who work on Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona and is now imposing severe restrictions on Israel with regard to the purchase of nuclear-related products.  Wait a second - isn't Israel supposed to be our friend?

#6) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cancelled a planned trip to Washington next week for Barack Obama's 47 country nuclear security conference.  So why did he cancel his trip?  Perhaps #5 was a big reason.

#7) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is claiming that Israel plans to start a war this upcoming Spring or Summer, and that this will be a chance for the surrounding nations to "finish" Israel.

#8) A senior cleric within Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard has reiterated warnings that Tehran would strike Tel Aviv immediately if Israel and its Western allies attacked Iran.

#9) Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi says that "no trace of Israel will remain" if Iran is attacked.

#10) Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is promising that the Palestinian people will celebrate the Holy Fire vigil next year in the "true Palestinian capital" of Jerusalem.

If you listen to the major Islamic leaders in the region, it sounds like they are very much looking forward to war.  That may seem strange to those of us with a western mindset, but you have to realize that these Islamic leaders have had the "glory of jihad" pounded into their heads since they were knee-high to a grasshopper (as they say in the South).

The radical Muslims in the region are thirsting for a war with Israel, and Israel cannot allow Iran to continue developing a nuclear program indefinitely. 

Trouble is on the horizon.

The Obama administration is totally inept and seems to be becoming increasingly anti-Israel.

Now is the time to be praying for Israel and for the peace of Jerusalem.

The persecution of Christians in Pakistan is becoming very brutal and very deadly.  The truth is that it is no longer safe to be a Christian in Pakistan anymore.  A Christian man in Pakistan's Punjab province is literally fighting for his life after radical Muslim leaders, backed by police, burned him alive for refusing to convert to Islam while his wife was raped by police officers.  This incident, which took place on March 19th, is just the latest in a series of deadly attacks on Christians in Pakistan.

The name of the man is Arshed Masih, and according to reports Islamic radicals tried to burn him alive right in front of a police station in the city of Rawalpindi.

So did the police do anything to protect the Christian man?

No, the police were too busy raping his wife.

Now 80 percent of his body is burned and he is struggling to stay alive.

One of the saddest things is that their 3 children (ranging in age from 7 to 12) were reportedly forced to watch the attacks on their parents.

So how did this all come about?

Well, it is alleged that in January Islamic leaders in the area asked Arshed to convert to Islam with his whole family.  

After Arshed refused their request, the group of Islamic leaders reportedly threatened him with "dire consequences".

Apparently they were quite serious.

But this is just the latest in a serious of vicious attacks on Christians in Pakistan recently.

For example, a World Vision office in Pakistan was attacked by Islamic gunmen recently, leaving at least five staff members dead.

Another example made world headlines a while back.  A Christian couple in Pakistan was sentenced to 25 years in prison for touching the Quran without properly washing their hands first.

Radical Muslims in Pakistan are quite serious about their desire to eradicate Christianity from their land.  Their Scriptures call for all infidels to either convert or to perish.  Pakistan is not a safe place for Christians any longer, and it most likely will not be ever again until Yahshua (Jesus) returns.

But Yahshua (Jesus) told us that there would be tremendous persecution of His followers in the last days.  In Matthew 24:9-14 it tells us this....

"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."

The reality is that the persecution of the last days is only just beginning.  Millions more Christians will be tortured and millions more will be killed before all of this is over.

Are you ready to give your life for the Messiah?

There may come a day when someone will kill you if you do not deny your faith.

Now is the time to decide what you will do when faced with that choice and now is the time to get yourself mentally prepared for what is coming.

Are home Bible studies slowly being made illegal in many areas of the United States?  Unfortunately, the headline above is not a joke.  It is actually happening in many areas of the country.  Many of you who are reading this have already seen some of the headlines.  It just seems so bizarre that authorities are spending their time and resources going after home Bible studies when there are so many other problems out there right now.  But it is happening.

Ever since the United States was created, people have gathered in their homes to study the Bible and worship God together.  There has never been a time when such meetings in homes have been against the law.

Until now.

For example, it is being reported that a home Bible study group in Rancho Cucamonga, California must have a "Conditional Use Permit" by Good Friday, April 2nd, in order to continue gathering.

This is for a Friday Bible study that only has an average of 15 people attend.

Do the authorities there really need to spend time, money and resources to stop a 15 person Bible study?

No wonder this nation is spinning wildly out of control.

But sadly there are more examples of this phenomenon.

One town in Arizona has actually banned absolutely all church meetings in private homes.

Seriously.

The pastor of the Oasis of Truth Church received a cease and desist letter ordering him to terminate all religious meetings in his home, regardless of their size, nature, or frequency.

So how many members does this horribly threatening church have?

7 members.

But apparently the town of Gilbert, Arizona is prepared to go all out to keep these 7 adults and their children from having Bible studies in their homes.

What in the world has happened to the United States of America?

The truth is that we need to be able to meet in our homes.  The home church movement in America is growing, because most of the "establishment churches" have sold out and have abandoned the gospel long ago.

But in the new America the churches that sell out and conform to worldly standards are the ones that get approval from the establishment.

For example, many national leaders are absolutely thrilled that the Episcopal Church has confirmed the election of an Annapolis, Maryland priest as the first openly lesbian bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

But churches and Christian organizations that try to live according to God's standards increasingly find themselves being persecuted.

In fact, a new bill before Congress would prohibit Christian adoption agencies from refusing to adopt to gay and lesbian couples.

So would that cause a large number of Christian adoption agencies to shut down?

Of course.

But they don't care.

The truth is that America is increasingly becoming a hostile place for Christians.

But America is not alone.

The world is becoming an increasingly hostile place for Christians, but this is exactly what Yahshua (Jesus) told us would happen in the last days.

Persecution of Christians is only going to get worse from here on out, so you better buckle up and get ready.

This is going to be quite a ride.

Much of western civilization is still in complete denial about how incredibly dangerous radical Islam is.  The truth is that those who are committed to "jihad" have a mindset that is totally and completely different from you and I.  There is no compromise, no negotiating and no lasting peace with radical Islam.  Yes, radical Muslims may make a temporary treaty in order to improve their strategic position, but it will never result in lasting peace.  To them, there are really only two alternatives for "infidels" like us - either submission to Islam or death. 

Another huge misconception about radical Islam is that it is a "Middle Eastern" thing.  As we have seen in Africa, Indonesia, the Phillipines and India, wherever radical Islam encounters modern civilization violence is likely to erupt.  This violence against Christians is likely only going to get worse as we get even deeper into the last days.

The truth is that radical Islam would be more than glad to take over the entire world.  Christians are regularly being tortured and killed by Islamic militants all over the globe, and yet these incidents get very little attention in the U.S. media.  The following are ten examples from just this past week that show how dangerous radical Islam truly is....   

#1) Thousands of Nigerian Christian women dressed in black and carrying Bibles, wooden crosses and pictures of victims marched in a central Nigerian state on Thursday to protest the slaughter of about 500 Christian villagers (mostly women and children) by Islamic radicals.

#2) A World Vision office in Pakistan was attacked by Islamic gunmen on Wednesday, leaving at least five staff members dead.

#3) Two Muslim suicide bombers in Lahore, Pakistan killed at least 43 people and injured at least 100 others on Friday in a high-security area with a dense military presence.

#4) Some time ago there was an incident in Egypt that was extremely disturbing.  In broad daylight and in full view of witnesses, a group of 4 Islamic radicals in the southern Egyptian city of Attaleen fired 31 bullets into the head of a Coptic Christian before beheading him.  The dead body was then dragged through the streets accompanied by shouts of victory.  But now an Egyptian court has acquitted the four Muslim men accused of committing the crime.

#5) The government of Morocco is attempting to fend off criticism regarding its decision to expel 20 foreign Christian aid workers it accuses of trying to convert Muslims.

#6) A Pennsylvania woman known as "Jihad Jane" has been indicted for conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and of attempting to kill a person in a foreign country.

#7) On Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised that the state of Israel "will be annihilated" before too much longer.

#8) It is being reported that Iran is constructing a new rocket launch facility that could eventually accommodate an intercontinental ballistic missile carrying a nuclear warhead.

#9) In an almost unbelievable story, the opening prayer at the opening session of the Virginia General Assembly was delivered by a radical imam.

#10) A Christian couple in Pakistan has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for touching the Quran without properly washing their hands first.

It seems with each passing week, the European Union bureaucracy gets even more power.  Now, the European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly in favor of a new tax on financial transactions which will be paid directly to Brussels.  Of course this new tax could still be vetoed by one or more of the national governments in the EU, but this is still a stunning development.

Taxes directly levied by EU headquarters?

The European Union is very quickly becoming "The United States Of Europe".

As we reported previously, the brand new "President of Europe", Herman Van Rompuy, has been pushing the notion of a "Euro tax" that will go directly to the European Union.  Needless to say, he must be delighted by this move by the European Parliament.

As students of Bible prophecy, we understand that all of this centralization of power will one day culminate in a world government.  So we are likely to see even more moves towards shifting power to regional "unions" and world governmental bodies as time moves along. 

But as exciting as it is to see Bible prophecy being fulfilled, we must always realize that one day the Antichrist will use the power of world government to ruthlessly persecute those who do not serve him.

Let us get the gospel out to as many people as we can now, because time is short and it will only get more difficult to spread the good news in the times ahead.

The story of Mosab Hassan Yousef has been making headlines all over the world in recent weeks.  He was literally born into the deadly terrorist group Hamas.  His father is Sheikh Hassan Yousef - a founding member of Hamas and one of its most prominent leaders.  Mosab was raised to hate Israel and everything that it stands for.  He was groomed to become his father's successor from an early age.  He was deeply trusted by the Hamas hierarchy and participated in the Intifada.  He was even held captive deep inside Israel's most feared prison facility.  But something happened.

God got a hold of Mosab Hassan Yousef.

Mosab became one of the most important spies that Israel ever had.  For years he risked his life by spying for the Israelis while pretending to be on the side of the Palestinians.  If he had been caught he would have surely been killed.

But that is only part of his extraordinary story.

You see, Mosab eventually found the true meaning and purpose that he had been searching for all of his life.

He found Jesus Christ.

So how does a son of one of the key leaders of one of the most radical Islamic terror groups of all time become a Christian?

We encourage you to get Mosab's new book and read all the details.  His story is truly amazing: Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices

Meanwhile, check out the recent video interview with Mosab posted below....

"For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.  All these are the beginning of sorrows."
-Matthew 24:7-8

What in the world is going on with the earth?  The number of major earthquakes that we are experiencing is absolutely unprecedented.  So just what in blazes is going on?

Well, the reality is that Yahshua (Jesus) told us that there would be earthquakes in the last days.  He told us that this would be a sign that His return was getting closer.  In fact, the earthquakes and the other signs of His coming are supposed to be like birth pains - getting stronger and more intense as we get closer to the day.

And the truth is that earthquakes certainly are getting stronger and more intense.  Just consider the following examples from just this year....

*On January 12th, Haiti was devastated by a magnitude-7.0 earthquake that claimed the lives of over 200,000 people.

*On February 27th, Chile was rocked by a magnitude-8.8 earthquake that was one of the largest in recorded history.

*A pre-dawn 5.9-magnitude earthquake collapsed homes and killed more than 50 people in a mountainous region of southeastern Turkey on Monday.

*Seven intense aftershocks hit Chile on Friday morning, including one that measured 6.6 on the Richter scale.

*The city of Taiwan experienced a 6.4 magnitude earthquake on Thursday.

*Japan is bracing for the worst after dozens of rare giant oarfish - traditionally the harbinger of a powerful earthquake- have been washed ashore or caught in fishermen's nets.

*The Irazú volcano in Costa Rica sent panic through neighboring communities recently, as residents reported at least 9 tremors from the volcano during one 30 minute period.

*The U.S. has not even been exempt from the recent spate of earthquakes either.  A 4.6-magnitude earthquake early Saturday morning off the northern California coast rattled residents in that region.

Things are getting crazy out there.  In fact, I would not want to be living in California right about now.  Scientists tell us that they are way overdue for a major earthquake.

But the truth is that there will be very few places that are totally safe before this is all over.  People who think that they are safe because they live in the middle of the United States might want to check to make sure that they don't live in the New Madrid fault zone.  There are many scientists who believe that an absolutely massive earthquake will completely rip up that region one day.

Plus, anyone who lives on any coast in these days and times is at risk for a tsunami.  The reality is that the earth is packed with major fault lines and volcanos and so the areas that are "completely safe" are very few and far between.

Unfortunately, it is likely that geological activity will continue to only get worse as we get even closer to the return of Yahshua. 

But for those of us who know the Lord, this world is not our home.  We belong to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and it is in Him that we will find our refuge.

In a recent article, we postulated that Iran actually wants a war with Israel in order to prepare the way for the Mahdi to return.  Well now it looks like Iran is doing more than ever to tempt Israel into starting a war.  In fact, even Haaretz is publishing articles about how Iran is "goading" Israel into striking its nuclear program.  So what is causing so many people to come to the conclusion that Iran wants Israel to start a war?  Well, Iran recently moved almost its entire stockpile of low-enriched nuclear fuel to above-ground plants.  This makes the stockpile much, much easier to strike.

Many analysts have been absolutely puzzled by this move.

They are amazed that Iran would make it far easier for Israel to strike their stockpiles of enriched uranium.

Haaretz described the recent events in Iran this way.... 

According to the New York Times, which quotes the latest International Atomic Energy Agency report, on Feb. 14 nuclear inspectors watched as Iran transferred about 4,300 pounds of low-enriched uranium from deep underground storage to the small plant Iran has declared it will use to re-enrich the fuel to 20 percent purity. It takes 80- to 90-percent enrichment to make a nuclear weapon.

This seems to be a fundamental shift in policy for Iran.  Just last September, Iran was caught constructing a major underground enrichment facility at a military base near the Iranian city of Qom.  At the time Iran explained that the risk of attack by the U.S. or Israel forced them to build underground facilities. 

So why the change?

Well, some analysts claim that Iran is "inviting" an attack because it would unite the Iranian people against a common foe.

But the truth goes much, much deeper than that.

Iran does not just want to unite their own populace.

Iran wants to unite the entire Islamic world for a war that they hope will wipe Israel off the map.

After all, it seems like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks of the ultimate destruction of the nation of Israel at almost every public appearance now.

He is obsessed with it.

But if Iran strikes Israel first, he knows that Iran will be regarded as the enemy.

However, if Israel hits Iran first, world opinion will dramatically swing in Iran's favor, and Iran could potentially unite all of the Islamic nations in the region for a war against Israel.

In fact, as we described in our last article, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes that such a cataclysm is necessary in order to prepare the way for the return of the Mahdi.

Considering the fact that Ahmadinejad believes that his life purpose is to usher in the return of the Mahdi, many believe that Ahmadinejad is actually looking forward to the coming war with Israel.

But he doesn't want to start the war.

He wants Israel to start it.

So what does Israel do?

Take the bait and start a cataclysmic war that could unite all of the Islamic nations in the Middle East against them?

Or continue to watch Iran get closer and closer to developing nuclear weapons which they would certainly end up passing along to terrorists and to other enemies of the Jewish state?

Israel is truly between a rock and a hard place - just where Ahmadinejad wants them.

"Today, we should define our economic, cultural and political policies based on the policy of Imam Mahdi's return."
-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Does the government of Iran actually want war with Israel so that the Mahdi can return?  As insane as that sounds, the truth is that the vast majority of people in the United States and Europe simply do not understand how absolutely obsessed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others in the Iranian government are with their form of radical Islam and with the return of the Mahdi.  It surprises many to learn that Iran's official state websites are filled with information about the Mahdi.  In fact, Ahmadinejad actually believes that he was born to be "the great jihadist" that would prepare the way for the twelfth Imam.  But in order for the Mahdi to return, the belief is that there must first be a great cataclysmic event.  So is Iran's nuclear weapons program designed to facilitate this cataclysmic event and hasten the return of the Mahdi?

That seems to be the most rational explanation for Iran's current behavior.  The government of Iran knows that Israel and the United States will never let them develop nuclear weapons and will go to war if necessary to prevent Iran from getting them. 

But they seem bound and determined to get nuclear weapons anyway.

In fact, Iran just announced that it plans to start constructing two new uranium enrichment facilities next month in the heart of the Iranian mountains.

But doesn't the Iranian leadership fear a war with the United States and Israel?

Perhaps the Iranian government should, but they understand that if the United States and/or Israel strike first, they will be viewed as the aggressors by the rest of the globe.  World opinion would swing dramatically in favor of Iran.

But that is only part of the equation.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others among the Iranian leadership also believe that they are setting up the great cataclysm which will bring about the return of the Mahdi.  Many of them seem perfectly willing to die in order to fulfill this purpose.

During a speech in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly stated that his primary purpose in life is to "pave the path for the glorious reappearance of Imam Mahdi, may Allah hasten his reappearance."

So just who is this "Mahdi" supposed to be?

According to Wikipedia, Shi'ite Muslims "believe that the Mahdi is the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, the Twelfth and last Imam, who was born in 868 AD and was hidden by God at the age of five."  It is believed that the Mahdi will one day return during a very cataclysmic time in human history and will establish the rule of Islam around the world in the last days.

So now, many of those in the Islamic world who believe in the Mahdi are looking for that cataclysmic event to occur.

For example, AwaitedMahdi.com states that the "Last Hour" will not come "unless the Muslims fight against the Jews".

Ariel Sharon understood these radical Islamic beliefs very well.  Sharon is quoted as saying the following about Iran's obsession with the Mahdi....

"How will they bring him? Through an apocalypse. He (the Mahdi) needs a war. He cannot come into this world without an Armageddon. He wants an Armageddon. The earlier we understand this the better. Ahmadinejad wants nuclear weapons for this!"

So was Sharon just exaggerating when he said this?

Not at all.

In fact, check out the following quote from Ahmadinejad about how he believes that the United States is actively trying to prevent the return of the Mahdi....

"They have devised all these plans to prevent the coming of the Hidden Imam because they know that the Iranian nation is the one that will prepare the grounds for his coming and will be the supporters of his rule".

Most Americans and Europeans simply cannot conceive of a government that makes all major decisions based on an obsession with religion, but that is exactly what is going on in Iran.  The government of Iran believes that the Mahdi is really going to return and that they are the ones who are going to pave the way for it to happen.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to prepare for war.  Israel's air force has introduced a fleet of huge pilotless planes that can remain in the air for a full day and could fly as far as the Persian Gulf.  In fact, each one of these "super drones" is reportedly as wide as a Boeing 737. 

Israel's government understands what is happening in Iran and they know that a showdown is on the horizon.

Iran continues to recklessly pursue a nuclear program as Israel continues to prepare to neutralize it.  It appears as though it is more likely than ever that war between Israel and Iran is inevitable.  Let us pray that war can be averted if possible, and if not, that God's will be done.

"We must prepare ourselves to rule the world and the only way to do that is to put forth views on the basis of the Expectation of the Return."
-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

What in the world is happening to public schools in the United States?  Once upon a time they were safe and peaceful institutions where our young people could get educated and prepared for their future lives as adults.  But in today's "security conscious" America, many public schools are on the verge of becoming literal prison camps, with students regularly being handcuffed, arrested and charged with crimes.  Is this the new "Amerika" where even our schoolchildren have to be ruled with an iron fist?  What does this say about our society as a whole?  Are we witnessing the last days of the open society?

The introduction of "zero tolerance" policies in many areas of the United States has led to some absolutely ridiculous outcomes.  Just consider the following examples....

*A 6-year-old girl was recently handcuffed and sent to a mental facility after throwing temper tantrums at her elementary school.

*One 12-year-old girl in New York was recently arrested and marched out of her school in handcuffs because she doodled on her desk.

*One middle school student was arrested on Thursday for starting a fire in a restroom trash can.

*One teen in Georgia was recently arrested after he got into a fight with another student while waiting for a bus after school.

*One eighth-grade teacher in the U.S. has accused her students of committing a "hate crime" because they left a Bible on her desk and a Christmas card with the word "Christ" underlined.

*A while back, a 6th-grader's teacher told him that Jesus could not be mentioned in a Christmas poem that he was writing for class.

*A bill introduced in the Iowa House would require "age-appropriate" comprehensive sex education beginning in kindergarten.

*In Florida, students have been arrested for bringing a plastic butter knife to school, throwing an eraser, and drawing a picture of a gun.

Just what in the world is going on here?

If this is what our public schools are becoming, who in the world would want to send their kids there?

Of course not every public school is like this yet, but this is clearly the direction that the country is moving in.

If you know of more examples like this, please submit a comment and share them with us.

America is quickly changing, and unless we wake up and start speaking out now, the American we all remember may be lost forever.