SAVING POWER OF JESUS CHRIST – POWERFUL TESTIMONY

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As the victorious South African national rugby team prepare to return home to a hero’s welcome, one player’s life story has captured the world’s imagination.  Captain, Siya Kolisi has been on an extraordinary journey.  Growing up in an extremely poor township outside Port Elizabeth, his mother died when he was just 15 years old and his family struggled to get him a decent education.

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  Captain, Siya Kolisi

 “Sometimes we didn’t have enough money to pay my primary school fees of R50 ($4) a year,” Siya said.  Relying solely on his talent and a relentlessly positive attitude, Siya was eventually scouted for his athletic talent after being spotted playing a sports game with his friends.

He earned a scholarship to the prestigious Grey High School in Port Elizabeth.  The rest was history.  Fast forward to Tokyo and this extraordinary player, the first black man to captain the South African national team, was lifting the Webb Ellis trophy aloft, his proud family watching on.  

Speaking to SportGo Mag just prior to the World Cup, the rugby star opened up about how the Lord had been getting him ready for the big stage by refining his character.  “God has been preparing me for such a time as this,” he said.  “While struggling with a lot of things personally, temptation, sins and lifestyle choices, I realised I wasn’t living according to what I was calling myself: a follower of Christ.  I was getting by, but I hadn’t decided to fully commit myself to Jesus Christ and start living according to His way.”

Kolisi continued: “Something I was struggling with in my personal life was suddenly exposed to the public (God will do this to cause us to make a decision). I knew I either had to change my life, or lose everything. Up until then everything I was fighting against was hidden, but when my sin was exposed I decided to lose my life and find it in Christ.  Walking alongside a spiritual mentor, I’ve been able to discover the saving power of Christ in a whole new way.  This new life has given me a peace I’ve never experienced before.  Now that I have given everything to God, nothing else affects me.  I now live and play with the freedom of knowing His plan will always happen, and at the end of the day, that’s all I care about!”

A PROPHETIC WORD FOR OUR TIME PENNED IN 1984

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Francis Schaeffer wrote these words in The Great Evangelical Disaster (Crossway Books, 1984)

The Scriptures make clear that we as Bible-believing Christians are locked in a battle of cosmic proportions. It is a life and death struggle over the minds and souls of men for all eternity, but it is equally a life and death struggle over life on this earth… Do we really believe that we are engaged in this cosmic battle?… Why has the Christian ethos in our culture been squandered? Why do we have so little impact upon the world today? Is it not because we have failed to take the primary battle seriously? And if we have failed to take the battle seriously, we have certainly failed to use the weapons our Lord has provided….

The primary battle is a spiritual battle in the heavenlies. But this does not mean, therefore, that the battle we are in is otherworldly or outside of human history. It is a real spiritual battle, but it is equally a battle here on earth in our own country, our own communities, our places of work and our schools, and even our own homes. The spiritual battle has its counterpart in the visible world, in the minds of men and women, and in every area of human culture. In the realm of space and time the heavenly battle is fought on the stage of human history.

We must ask where we as evangelicals have been in the battle for truth and morality in our culture. Have we as evangelicals been on the front lines contending for the faith and confronting the moral breakdown over the last forty to sixty years? Have we been aware that there is a battle going on – not just a heavenly battle, but a life-and-death struggle over what will happen to men and women and children in both this life and the next? . . Truth demands confrontation. It must be loving confrontation, but there must be confrontation nonetheless. Sadly we must say that this has seldom happened. Most of the evangelical world has not been active in the battle, or even been able to see that we are in a battle. And when it comes to the issues of the day the evangelical world most often has said nothing; or worse has said nothing different from what the world would say. Here is the great evangelical disaster – the failure of the evangelical world to stand for truth as truth. There is only one word for this – namely accommodation: the evangelical church has accommodated to the world spirit of the age…

Indeed, we have accommodated to the world spirit of the age, exactly as God’s Word said it would in the last days before he returns, to rapture the saints, and pour out His wrath on an unbelieving/unrepentant world.

The Great Evangelical Disaster - Francis A. Schaeffer

GREAT OUTCOME FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN OZ

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Israel Folau says he has been “vindicated” by Rugby Australia’s apology and says he is now “looking forward” to the federal government enacting legislation protecting the right to religious expression. 

In the video below posted to his website, Folau appeared with his wife Maria beside him and spoke of his reaction to the confidential settlement with Rugby Australia on Wednesday.

“We are extremely pleased with the settlement reached today,” he said.

“With today’s acknowledgement and apology by Rugby Australia we have been vindicated and can now move on with our lives to focus on our faith and our family.”

Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) played a significant role in the settlement and Martyn Isles in particular is proving to be God’s man for this time in leading ACL.

God has used Israel Folau and this incident with Rugby Australia to achieve two of His purposes.

The first to get Scott Morrison in place as the Prime Minister of Australia. The Folau incident occurred just prior to the election. It galvanised Christians and some non Christians to vote for the conservative party. The fact that Israel, possibly the best rugby player on the Australian team, could be sacked because he quoted Scripture on Facebook about God’s position on gay marriage, made many realise that it was wrong, and they could not support the opposition party that supported it.

The second is the vindication received today just before the government enacts legislation to protect the right to religious expression. It must influence the government to ensure others like Folau are not persecuted for their faith.

I hope this demonstrates to all Christians the importance of standing up publicly for Christ and His values regardless of the cost.

NICK WITNESSING IN PRISON

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What amazing ministry God has given Nick Vujicic, the man with no arms and legs. He has brought more people into God’s Kingdom than many denominations.

Watch and be encouraged and hopefully challenged about what God’s call is on your life, particularly in these last days when persecution will intensify for those that stand up for God and His values.

CHURCHES MAKE DISCIPLES

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The Importance of a Disciple-Making Movement (DMM) – Communities of Disciples.

Paul was able to win the city not by joining a political party, but by making disciples and releasing these disciples to turn the world upside down.

“Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.
So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.” Acts 2:44-47

There was a healthy fear of the Lord in the community after the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira.

Paul did not attempt to plant mere churches, but founded communities of disciples—which formed a kingdom ekklesia which can turn a city upside down!

They were not event-driven, but process-driven.

In his epistle, Paul wrote to explain to the Ephesian church (about four years after Acts 19) how they transformed Asia Minor and wrote in chapter 4 that the ekklesia is equipped by the five fold ministry to become a mature man—as the expression of the fullness of Christ and corporate son—who will manifest the government of God increasingly on the earth.

In Ephesians 4:12 we see both an inward and outward focus: one is missional and the other is focused on building the body of Christ.

The missional purpose of the apostles was to equip the saints to minister in every aspect of culture, according to Genesis 1:28, as His ekklesia, so the earth would be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

The focus to edify the church is seen in Ephesians 4:12-16 when it speaks about the church growing into the fullness of the stature of Jesus. This passage shows what the ultimate goal of discipleship is: to be like Jesus as a corporate community (a nation within nations that disciples every people group and subculture).

Consequently, to the extent the kingdom ekklesia looks and acts like Jesus, it will have governmental authority and influence because the government is on His shoulders and because it was He who defeated the powers of darkness!

Isaiah 9:6-7 says: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end.”

Ephesians 4:11-13 says: “He gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of service, and for the building up of the body of Christ, until we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, into a complete man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

As His corporate body, He called us to manifest His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven according to Luke 11:2. Moreover, Jesus made it possible for our Heavenly Father to send the third person of the Trinity to be our Counsellor, Teacher and Comforter and therefore enable us to do the job He has called us to do. The Holy Spirit enables us to overcome the powers of darkness and manifest the fruit of the Spirit and operate in the gifts of the Spirit.

To those who have an ear to hear and a heart to understand, let me leave you with this quote from Rene Bates book God’s Glory: And the Exhortation: “What we begin to see now is the deathwatch of the gloomy, deceptive, organised religious system. It gave birth to nothing but a dearth of life, religious institutes (mistakenly called churches), and canons of human pride, turning many toward insincere piety. May the Lord Jesus Christ forever be praised within your hearts as He delivers us from the people-pleasing business.”

EVIDENCE RADIO ACTIVE DECAY NOT PROOF OF BILLIONS OF YEARS

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From the work done by the Rate team it is clear that the assumption of a constant slow decay process was wrong. There must have been speeded-up decay, perhaps in a huge burst associated with Creation Week and/or a separate burst at the time of the Flood.

The RATE project began as a cooperative venture between the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), the Creation Research Society (CRS) and Creation Ministries International (CMI).

As a result, there is now powerful independent confirmatory evidence that at least one episode of drastically accelerated decay has indeed been the case, building on the work of Dr Robert Gentry on helium retention in zircons. The landmark RATE paper – Humphreys, D. et al., Helium diffusion rates support accelerated nuclear decay, though technical can be summarised as follows: (www.icr.org/pdf/research/Helium_ICC_7-22-03.pdf)

  • When uranium decays to lead, a by-product of this process is the formation of helium, a very light, inert gas which readily escapes from rock.
  • Certain crystals called zircons, obtained from drilling into very deep granites, contain uranium which has partly decayed into lead.
  • By measuring the amount of uranium and ‘radiogenic lead’ in these crystals, one can calculate that, if the decay rate has been constant, about 1.5 billion years must have passed. (This is consistent with the geologic ‘age’ assigned to the granites in which these zircons are found.)
  • There is a significant amount of helium from that ‘1.5 billion years of decay’ still inside the zircons. This is at first glance surprising for long-agers, because of the ease with which one would expect helium (with its tiny, light, unreactive atoms) to escape from the spaces within the crystal structure. There should surely be hardly any left, because with such a slow buildup, it should be seeping out continually and not accumulating.
  • Drawing any conclusions from the above depends, of course, on actually measuring the rate at which helium leaks out of zircons. This is what one of the RATE papers reports on. The samples were sent (without any hint that it was a creationist project) to a world-class expert to measure these rates. The consistent answer: the helium does indeed seep out quickly over a wide range of temperatures. In fact, the results show that because of all the helium still in the zircons, these crystals (and since this is Precambrian basement granite, by implication the whole earth) could not be older than between 4,000 and 14,000 years. In other words, in only a few thousand years, 1.5 billion years’ worth (at today’s rates) of radioactive decay has taken place. Interestingly, the data have since been refined and updated to give a date of 5680 (+/- 2000) years.

The paper looks at the various avenues a long-ager might take by which to wriggle out of these powerful implications, but there seems to be little hope for them unless they can show that the techniques used to obtain the results were seriously (and mysteriously, having been performed by a world-class non-creationist expert) flawed.

CALL TO JOIN UK CHRISTIANS IN PRAYER OF REPENTANCE

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Dear Christian Warriors:

Let us look at what the Bible says about “defending the Faith?”  

JUDE: “Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people.” Jude 1:3

PETER: “Honour the Messiah as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” 1 Peter 3:15 

PAUL: “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5 

DAVID: “Who will rise up for me against the wicked? Who will take a stand for me against evildoers?” Psalm 94:16  

PAUL TO TITUS: “He must be devoted to the trustworthy message we teach. Then he can use these accurate teachings to encourage people and correct those who oppose the word.” Titus 1:9

PAUL TO TIMOTHY: “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage-with great patience and careful instruction.” 2 Timothy 4:2 

PAUL THE THE PHILIPPIAN CHURCH: “The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defence of the gospel. Thus each of us believers in Jesus Christ as Lord is to be a defender of The Faith . There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” Philippians 1:16 

PAUL TO THE CHURCH AT EPHESUS: “Thus each of us believers in Jesus Christ as Lord is to be a defender of The Faith . “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” Ephesians 4:4-6

Let us look at what the founders of the English monarchy expected of their King or Queen: One of the Queen’s titles is “DEFENDER OF THE FAITH.” Here are portions from the oath that she took at her coronation:

Archbishop of Canterbury: “Madam, is your Majesty willing to take the Oath?”

Queen Elizabeth II: “I am willing.”
Archbishop of Canterbury: “Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgements?”

Queen Elizabeth II: “I will.”
Archbishop of Canterbury: “Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel?“

Queen Elizabeth II: “All this I promise to do.”
The Queen then moved from the Coronation chair to the altar of Westminster and, kneeling, with her right hand on a bible, said:
“The things which I have here before promised, I will perform and keep. So help me God.”

You and I owe a great debt to the Godly roots planted centuries ago in England.   From the Venerable Bede to Hugh Latimer’s preaching and ultimate witness burned at the stake, Tyndale, Wesley, Whitefield, Wilberforce, Livingstone, and C.S. Lewis, the deep roots of Christianity have been furthered and spread globally by devoted English Christians. Perhaps, apart from Israel, no other nation has been as foundationally influential. Even to its role in the reestablishment of Israel as a nation with the Balfour Declaration in 1917.

Despite these Godly roots, today in the United Kingdom there is an anti-Christ, anti-Israel, rebellious spirit growing. These Godly roots are threatened. Church attendance continues a decades long decline; Christians are being removed from party tickets, dissuaded from running for office; there are more Muslims than Methodists. 

Thus an event set for Noon, next Friday, December 6, 2019 in London’s Parliament Square could not be more timely. A shofar will be blown before and after a 30-minute silent “Prayer, Repentance Vigil.” Together with prayers from many other UK Christians the event will constitute a statement of repentance for the United Kingdom’s historic abuse towards Israel and a dedication to restore England’s Godly roots. 

This is a critical time as it is being held days prior to the British election.  Recent terror activity in London underscores the urgency of this hour.   You and I are part of the global Bride of Christ. Repentance is a key cleansing agent to present ourselves without spot or wrinkle awaiting the soon-returning Bridegroom.

Howard Barnes, leader of England’s Call2Come ministry leading the repentance vigil declares: “The urgency of our times is for the Bride to get ready.” 

Interceding with our brothers and sisters in the UK today and through next Friday’s event is one step towards getting ready. To intercede and to repent ourselves during that half hour will add to our unity in Christ and that Bridal cleansing process. Given the 17 or more centuries of Christian witness coming from England, planting Godly roots in our nations, it’s also the least we can do.
Please join us at NOON LONDON TIME next Friday, December 6th.  May God’s roots be restored in the United Kingdom as we REPENT and commit to defending the Faith! 

 IN CHRIST’S NAME, 
Pastor Jeff Pastor Founder/Director National Day of Repentance www.repentday.com

END TIMES: WARS AND RUMOURS OF WARS

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Jordan – military maneuvers simulating war with Israel

“And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” Matthew 24:6

Jordan conducts military maneuvers simulating war with Israel

The maneuvers, conducted in the presence of Jordan’s King Abdullah II, were named “Swords of Karameh” in an apparent reference to the 1968 Battle of Karameh, in which Jordan and Fatah fought together against Israel.

from World Israel News Nov. 29th, 2019

The Jordanian Army conducted a series of military maneuvers this week simulating an attempted invasion of the kingdom, but which also appeared to be a message to Israel.

The maneuvers, which took place on Nov. 25 in the presence of Jordan’s King Abdullah II, were named “Swords of Karameh,” in an apparent reference to Israel’s 1968 military operation against Fatah near the Jordanian village of Karameh, in which the Jordanian Army fought alongside the Palestinian group.

Jordan’s official Petra news agency and the Jordanian media reported that the maneuvers involved large numbers of ground and air vehicles, and were aimed at “destroying the vanguard of the enemy and the bridges that can be used as crossing points” into Jordanian territory.

While the official Jordanian reports did not explicitly mention Israel, the reference to the Battle of Karameh and that fact that the drill focused on an invasion via bridges—that is, bridges over the Jordan River that forms the border between the two countries—strongly implies a connection.

IS YOUR CHURCH FILLED WITH HOLY SPIRIT EMPOWERED PEOPLE?

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Listen to this testimony and be challenged. The Gospel must transform lives so that they start to obey Christ and begin to share the Gospel and therefore complete the Great Commission.

In these “last days” as the world, exactly as prophesied, more and more rejects God and His word, God is raising up the Torben Sondergaads (The Last Reformation) and the Francis Chan’s of this world, to start churches exactly as those described in the Book of Acts. Churches that are actually raising up disciples of Christ.