FOLLOW JESUS NO MATTER THE COST

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WASHINGTON — Religious freedom activists are encouraging Americans to learn from Christians who live in countries where they face persecution or death for their faith and develop a willingness to “follow Jesus no matter the cost.” 

The fourth annual March for the Martyrs was held in the nation’s capital on Saturday. The event, which drew hundreds of people to the National Mall, seeks to raise awareness of the plight of persecuted Christians worldwide. Following a rally featuring worship music and speeches from religious freedom activists, participants marched through the streets to the Museum of the Bible.

“What we’re really excited about is how many Christians from all denominations come together,” For the Martyrs founder Gia Chacón said in an interview with The Christian Post shortly before the event kicked off. “This is not just an event for Evangelicals or Baptists; this is an event for everyone who professes Jesus Christ as Lord, and that’s what we’re most excited about.”

“Christian persecution is a human rights issue, so not only are we coming together in prayer as the Body of Christ, but we hope to bring this … crisis to the forefront of the fight for human rights and demand action from the United States government in protecting Christians all over the world,” she added. “The spiritual component of the March for the Martyrs should not be underestimated. It is so powerful when Christians come together as one voice in prayer and to uplift human dignity and advocate for human rights.”

Chacón said March for the Martyrs is one way to advocate for “religious freedom and the protection of our brothers and sisters who are suffering for their faith in Christ.” During remarks delivered on stage, she elaborated on the hostile atmosphere Christians face in other parts of the world: “In places throughout the Middle East, Christians are suffering every day for their faith. Laying down their life is normal, not a rare occurrence.”

“Christian persecution has increased by 100 million people” since the first March for the Martyrs took place in 2020, Chacón lamented. “There are now over 365 million Christians around the world who are facing persecution because of their faith in Christ.”

During her speech, Chacón recalled a conversation she had with Egyptian Christians who lost loved ones as a result of Christian persecution: “They said, ‘We’re so proud of them, we’re so proud of them that Jesus meant everything to them.’”

“We need that witness here in the United States,” Chacón asserted. “We need the courage to lay down our life, to follow Jesus no matter the cost.”

CHRISTIANS EXCLUDED FROM JURY DUTY

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The nation’s finest legal minds warn that ongoing efforts to exclude Christians from serving on juries due to their biblical beliefs is part of a campaign “relegating Christians to second-class citizen status.” The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a Missouri case in which potential jurors were kicked off the jury after saying they went to a “conservative Christian church” that taught that having homosexual behavior is sinful – even after assuring they could properly apply the law. Barring Christians from serving civic functions based on their beliefs “exemplifies the danger that I anticipated in Obergefell v. Hodges,” the controversial 2015 Supreme Court decision that invented the “right” to same-sex marriage, wrote Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

The legal fracas began when a woman named Jean Finney, who identifies as lesbian, said the Missouri Department of Corrections fired her because she “presents masculine,” which she says violates statutes barring discrimination based on sex. The Obama-Biden administration significantly altered the judicial landscape by promoting a novel legal theory that landmark civil rights legislation intended to ban discrimination against women actually applies to people who identify as homosexual or transgender.

Finney’s attorney asked potential jurors if any of them “went to a conservative Christian church” where “it was taught that people [who] are homosexua[l] shouldn’t have the same rights as everyone else,” because “what they did” was “a sin.” One pastor’s wife reportedly told the lawyer that “homosexuality, according to the Bible, is a sin,” and “so is gossiping, so is lying.” Another agreed homosexual relations are sinful, because “it’s in the Bible,” but “every one of us here sins. … It’s just part of our nature.” Furthermore, whether someone sins “has really nothing to do with” the case at hand.

“The jurors specifically said, ‘We are Christians, we have some sincerely held Christian beliefs but can follow the law,’” Bailey told Hice. “Christians can follow the law just like anybody else.”

But Finney’s attorney insisted “there’s no way … somebody [who] looks at a gay person and says … ‘You are a sinner’” could fairly apply the law and denied the Christians their right to fulfill their civic duty.

The Missouri Court of Appeals upheld the Christians’ dismissal, saying the belief that sodomy is “sinful (meaning immoral and wrong)” gave Finney reason to believe “that they could not impartially and fairly decide her claim that she was unlawfully harassed due to her homosexuality — even if [they] claimed that their religious beliefs would not prevent them from serving.” The court said the Christians weren’t thrown off the jury because they’re Christians, but because their Christian church holds to traditional views of same-sex behavior.

The Supreme Court declined to hear the case, Missouri Department of Corrections v. Jean Finney, last Tuesday — a decision Alito reluctantly affirmed due to technical, procedural issues. But in a rare comment on the order, he wrote the case bore out concerns he identified nine years ago at the time of the ruling.

In his dissent to Obergefell, Justice Alito dismissed assurances from the court’s activist bloc that Christians’ “rights of conscience will be protected.”

“We will soon see whether this proves to be true,” wrote Justice Alito. “I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools.”

Since that time, left-leaning legal organizations and governments have targeted Christian photographers, bakers, florists, and adoption agencies to deny them their right to practice their religion in business, or in the raising of their children.

Justice Alito similarly warned Obergefell, like Roe v. Wade, constituted a raw exercise of judicial power. “If a bare majority of justices can invent a new right and impose that right on the rest of the country, the only real limit on what future majorities will be able to do is their own sense of what those with political power and cultural influence are willing to tolerate,” wrote Alito in the dissent. “All Americans, whatever their thinking on that issue, should worry about what the majority’s claim of power portends.”

Years later, he sees his warning coming to fruition. “I see no basis for dismissing a juror for cause based on religious beliefs,” wrote Justice Alito on Tuesday. “I am concerned that the lower court’s reasoning may spread and maybe a foretaste of things to come.”

“When a court, a quintessential state actor, finds that a person is ineligible to serve on a jury because of his or her religious beliefs, that decision implicates fundamental rights,” wrote Alito.

The Founding Fathers agreed. In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson listed “freedom of religion; freedom of the press … and trial by juries impartially selected” as part of “the bright constellation” of “essential functions of our government.”

“The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment,” he said.

Jefferson’s predecessor and political rival, John Adams, agreed. “Representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty. Without them we have no other fortification against being ridden like horses, fleeced like sheep, worked like cattle, and fed and clothed like swine and hounds, says Adamas.

Christian jurors grounded in the Constitution say they refuse to sit by as believers to be systematically stripped of their rights and excluded from a civic duty the Founding Fathers described as analogous to voting. “We’re not going to let radical left-wing progressives relegate Christians to second-class citizen status. … We can’t let that happen,” Bailey said. “The right to participate on juries is codified in the United States Constitution. And that’s a right of citizenship.”

“The only people being discriminated against when the states pass these anti-discrimination laws too often are Christians, Christians who believe in biblical truth.”

Fortunately, Jesus told us in advance that the persecution of Christians would escalate in the time before His return to restore righteousness. It will be a time when God refines His church. Sadly, we already see a great falling away in the institutional churches with them compromising with the world on gay marriage and transgender issues.

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:9-14

WHAT DOES THIS SAY ABOUT THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION?

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Despite 52,000 Deaths, Biden’s State Dept. Leaves Nigeria Off Religious Freedom Watch List for 3rd consecutive year.

The Biden administration’s Department of State has left Nigeria off of its list of “Countries of Particular Concern,” a list that catalogues the countries around the world that have perpetrated or tolerated “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” The move comes even though Nigeria leads the world in the number of Christians that have been killed for publicly practicing their faith.

The latest in a series of seemingly unending atrocities committed by Islamist terrorists in the most populous nation in Africa happened on Christmas Eve, when gunmen attacked as many as 20 villages in the central Plateau region of Nigeria, killing as many as 160 and wounding hundreds more. Islamist Fulani herdsman carried out the attack, burning whole villages to the ground and executing dozens with machetes.

According to a report from Open Doors, 5,621 Christians were killed around the globe in 2023. Distressingly, 90% of those deaths occurred in Nigeria alone. Since 2009, when the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram began its campaign of violence, approximately 52,250 Nigerians have been murdered for their Christian faith, far and away the largest number of Christians killed in any country in the world.

In 2020, during the Trump administration, in response to the rising anti-Christian violence in Nigeria, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo placed Nigeria on the list of “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPC) for the first time. The CPC list was inaugurated in 1998 as part of the International Religious Freedom Act, which gave the president the ability to declare countries that were egregiously guilty of perpetrating or allowing religious freedom violations as a CPC. This designation was designed to be accompanied by diplomatic and economic penalties. Perennial entries on the list have included countries like North Korea, China, and Iran.

But in 2021, under the Biden administration, Secretary of State Antony Blinken removed Nigeria from the CPC list without explanation. Notably, as observed by Family Research Council’s Arielle Del Turco, “the removal of Nigeria’s CPC status came one day before Blinken went to Nigeria to visit with state leaders, including President Muhammadu Buhari.”

The following year, despite the murder of approximately 5,068 Nigerian Christians and the abduction of over 3,000 more, Biden’s State Department again left the country off of the CPC list. The pattern continued for the 2023 list.

“The Biden administration is where religious freedom goes to die,” FRC President and former U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Chair Tony Perkins wrote on January 4 following the release of the list. “Unfortunately, thousands of people are dying too.”

Numerous other religious freedom experts have expressed grave alarm at Nigeria’s removal. Abraham Cooper and Frederick A. Davie, current chair and vice chair of the bipartisan USCIRF, stated, “Days before Christmas, hundreds of Christians were killed in Nigeria, along with their Pastor. This is just the latest example of deadly violence against religious communities in Nigeria that even the State Department has condemned. … USCIRF rejects the State Department’s decision to omit Nigeria … as [a] CPC.”

USCIRF, along with religious freedom advocacy group ADF International, have since called for a congressional investigation of the Biden administration’s State Department for the omission. “The United States should increase pressure on Nigeria for the blatant violations of religious freedom occurring in the country,” Sean Nelson, legal counsel for ADF International, argued. “More Christians are being killed in Nigeria for their faith than in all other countries combined.”

Del Turco, FRC’s director of the Center for Religious Liberty, expressed further outrage at Nigeria’s absence on the CPC list. “It is reprehensible that the State Department refused to name Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern on religious freedom,” she told The Washington Stand. “More innocent Christians are killed in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world. How many more lives have to be lost and how much more suffering has to occur before the Biden administration will condemn religious persecution there? The failure to call Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern is dishonoring to the vulnerable Christians who are suffering there.”

Del Turco continued, “The U.S. is somewhat unique in that Congress legally established a foreign policy apparatus to advance religious freedom around the world, and that includes Country of Particular Concern designations. However, if U.S. leaders are too cowardly to add countries to the list that clearly fit the criteria, then it doesn’t do any good.”

This post is taken from an article by Dan Hart, senior editor at The Washington Stand.

How foolish the Biden Administration is in acting as if God does not exist and does not judge nations. History tells us otherwise. God judged the nation He established for His purposes, Israel, repeatedly and He has judged the nations he has used to judge His own nation many times. They should read Revelation to discover that God is going to pour out His wrath upon the Earth, on a world that has rejected Him and given their worship to the Antichrist.

“Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”” Revelation 6:15-17

NIGERIAN CHRISTIANS NIGHTMARE: CHRISTMAS EVE SLAUGHTER

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Like mothers all around the world, Grace Godwin was cooking Christmas Eve dinner when life took a terrifying turn. Standing in her Nigerian kitchen, Grace’s husband ran into the room and shouted at her to take the children and run. Go to the bush, he ordered after an alarm spread that gunmen were in a nearby town. Everyone in the central Plateau knows what happens to Christians. In the time that it took her to gather her three little ones, they started to hear the unmistakable sound: rifle shots. 

With preparations for a festive night scattered everywhere, Grace and her family fled.

All across the region, villages that should have been celebrating the holiday were surrounded by armed men, tortured, and burned. The attacks lasted for hours, killing as many as 160 and wounding hundreds of others. Markus Amorudu told reporters that his family was sleeping in Mushu when the sound of shots rang out. “We were scared,” he admitted, “because we weren’t expecting an attack.” “People hid,” he explained, “but the assailants captured many of us. Some were killed, others wounded.” 

Magit Macham, who left the safety of the state capital to spend Christmas with his family, was talking to his brother outside the house when everyone heard gunshots. Within minutes, Magit was dragging his brother, who’d been hit in the leg, to the bush, where they hid for the night. “Those that could run ran,” he said. But “a good number of those that couldn’t run were caught and killed with machetes.” 

With eerie echoes of Hamas, terrorists slashed their way through as many as 20 villages, setting fire to everything in their path. The attack lasted for hours, survivors remembered. “We returned at six the next morning” — Christmas Day — “and found that houses had been burnt and people killed,” Grace lamented. “There are still people missing.” Even now, she said quietly, “There is no one in Mayanga. Women and children have all fled.”

The Fulani herdsman, along with the Muslim terrorist group Boko Haram, have been carrying out a bloody vendetta against Nigerian Christians for years. During this massacre, as in most, they took particular pleasure in targeting church leaders. “Some pastors were killed, and another pastor and his wife and five children were killed during these attacks,” Dawzino Mallau told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News by text. “These terrorists who attacked these Christian communities were in the hundreds, and they carried out the attacks as the hapless Christians were preparing for Christmas programs lined up by their pastors.”

When they couldn’t take lives, they destroyed homes — reducing “hundreds of houses” to ash. Worse, locals said it took “more than 12 hours before security agencies responded to their call for help.” Women, children, and the elderly were systematically slaughtered while the government sat on its hands, a revelation Family Research Council’s Arielle Del Turco found “deeply disturbing.”

“At best, this points to a grave and costly incompetence,” she told The Washington Stand. “At worst, it reveals that Nigerian authorities do not want to stop these attacks against vulnerable Christians and may be complicit in them. Either way, the Nigerian government must urgently institute changes to save innocent lives.”

Now, instead of celebrating Christ’s birth, Nigerians are burying their dead.

“This is unacceptable,” Plateau Governor Caleb Mutfwang insisted. “Enough is enough. These stupid, senseless, and unprovoked acts must stop,” he said before demanding more security measures. “… As I am talking to you, in Mangu local [district] alone, we buried 15 people. As of this morning, in Bokkos, we are counting not less than 100 corpses. I am yet to take stock of [the deaths in] Barkin Ladi. It has been a very terrifying Christmas for us here in Plateau.”

Living in fear has become a way of life for the country’s Christians, who’ve endure these waves of cold-blooded killings with shocking frequency since 2009. Now, even the simple act of going to church or gathering for Christmas can be a death sentence. 

“More innocent Christians are killed in Nigeria each year than anywhere else in the world,” Del Turco told TWS. According to Open Doors’ 2023 report, 5,014 were brutally murdered in 2022 alone. “This is a shameful distinction that the Nigerian government must immediately address,” she urged. 

With the nightmarish attacks of October 7 still fresh in everyone’s minds, this barbarism — some 3,500 miles from Israel — is another sad reminder of the persecution God’s people face in most corners of the world. But it’s also a powerful witness to Christians in the West, who’ve only experienced a taste of the hostility our brothers and sisters endure around the world. While we take our most basic freedoms for granted, believers from Afghanistan to China have no peace — not even on Christmas.

They’ve seen the deadly explosions rock their churches, they’ve cried at the funerals of loved ones gunned down during worship. They’ve lost their homes, buried their children, and looked martyrdom in the eye. And still, they are not deterred. Risking everything for Christ is a way of life. Fortunately, Jesus told us that Christians would face intense persecution in the last days before His return so are prepared to endure it for the eternal life that God has promised on the new Earth (Revelation 21 – The New Heaven and the New Earth).

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:9-13

But that doesn’t make the losses less painful. In Nigeria, where the situation for Christians is growing more treacherous by the day, we grieve for the hundreds of families whose Christmases will never be the same. 

In the meantime, Del Turco reminds the church, that we are not helpless. “We can pray for the comfort and peace for those who are mourning,” she offered, “that justice will be done in this situation, and the hearts of Nigerian leaders will be moved to stop the slaughter of Christians.” And thank God for the freedom to do so.

Topics: Nigeria, International Religious Freedom, Christian Persecution

GAY MARRIAGE HAS GIVEN OUR SOCIETY LITTLE TO CELEBRATE

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Great article in The Australian Saturday 19th November 2022 by Angela Shanahan

COLUMNIST: Angela Shanahan is a Canberra-based freelance journalist and mother of nine children. She has written regularly for The Australian for over 20 years.

This week marked the fifth anniversary of Australia supporting same-sex marriage in a postal vote. Now we are being reassured by same-sex marriage advocates that “society has not fallen apart”.

Think again. If the punitive ­coercion suffered by people who did not support gay marriage ­during the period preceding the vote didn’t convince you that this was not just about marriage, but about the gradual imposition of a radical agenda on the whole of ­society, then look what has happened since.

If the dissolution of society as we know it was an exaggeration, a furious expression of frustrated Christians angry at seeing the social verities of the past falling away, people might start looking at their local school and see what sorts of things are being taught to their children. The notion that our sexual identity is fluid and not fixed is now accepted in most government schools, and challenging that view is impossible.

It has already been raised as a problem if a religious anti-discrimination bill is ever passed, and activists are now fixated on making it harder to challenge the trans agenda even in private and systemic Catholic schools. In Canada, despite assurances and a preamble to the law, Catholic schools are having a very difficult time teaching Catholic precepts on marriage and sexuality, and in the US many individuals and groups are being punished for what amounts to thought crime, prompting a conservative backlash.

The real problem with the Marriage Equality fight was the fight itself. It was never a civilised discussion in a civilised environment. It was bare-knuckle and nasty from the Yes side, from daubing vile slogans on church walls to ridiculing and denouncing people on social media. I know, I went through it. And it goes on.

It has spread beyond marriage, to the trans agenda. I recently wrote a column about a woman who started an app for women and girls called Giggle. This woman was threatened with a human rights action over the very nature of the people for whom her app was intended, women, by a transsexual person who thought they should not be discriminated against because they identified as a woman. These are the two great mantras of the new society” “Discrimination” and “Identity”. It will only get worse.

Go back to the case of Israel Folau. Freedom of expression was not available to Folau who as a believing Mormon did not support same-sex marriage. Not only did he lose his job as Australia’s star rugby player but other players who supported him and did not support SSM were told not to say anything. Meanwhile, those who supported the Yes vote were allowed to speak out. Rugby Australia undermined their freedom of expression about conscientiously held views, becoming, in effect, the arbiters of their conscience.

An even graver case was Archbishop Julian Porteous who, as a preliminary salvo to the same-sex marriage vote, was dragged before the Human Rights board in Tasmania for disseminating a booklet outlining Catholic teaching on marriage to Catholic students. The complainant was not protesting about the church’s ban on remarriage after divorce or any of the teachings about marriage and fertility tied to the vows which married Catholics must make. No, this was an opener in the battle for same-sex marriage. The agenda of the Equality movement was not about equality at all: it was about trying to muzzle the view that the family, based on a generative relationship, is the bedrock of society which has been common to all societies of all religious persuasions since time immemorial.

Meanwhile, the trans agenda has inserted itself into the centre of right think. Who says society as we know it hasn’t declined?

Consequently, the number of cases of well-meaning ordinary people being denounced on social media, or to the human rights apparatuses and even pushed out of positions for stating quite ordinary views on marriage, the family, and sexual identity is increasing, and freedom of expression – and particularly of religious expression – is being undermined.

Andrew Thorburn is an ordinary man who happened to be at a church nine years before when his minister expressed moral views not in line with the Equality mantra. Thorburn is chair of the City on a Hill Church, which Essendon football club pronounced has views in “direct contradiction to our values as a club”. So, a football club, assuming a prior moral authority to the church, forced his resignation as the club’s CEO.

Not surprisingly, it was this case that awakened the general public to the danger that now awaits anyone. Not only could someone dig up a sermon a pastor gave nine years before and still hold you to account, but how long before, Torquemada-like, you are taken to the inquisitors of the board of the company for which you work, or the school where you teach, or any governing body?

It is well known that in most echelons of the public service various topics of conversation, especially those dealing with sex and family issues, are off the table. The endorsement of Thorburn’s removal by the AFL and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews highlights the frightening seriousness of this. It has made a mockery of the idea that we have equality of expression, and that the real fault line is freedom of religion.

FINNISH CHRISTIAN LEADERS NOT GUILTY OF HATE CRIME

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Dr. Päivi Räsänen, a medical doctor and member of parliament, and Rev. Dr. Juhana Pohjola, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland who were put on trial for teaching what the Bible says about homosexuality were cleared of all charges. I have posted previously about this case and am delighted to be able to report a positive outcome. This is a big win for religious freedom.

The district court in Helsinki has announced its verdict in the trial.  All charges were dismissed. The unanimous, 28-page decision, stated that “it is not for the district court to interpret biblical concepts.”  Furthermore, the defendants had sought to “defend the concept of family and marriage between a man and a woman.” Though some people might find that offensive,  “there must be an overriding social reason for interfering with and restricting freedom of expression.”

“I am so grateful the court recognized the threat to free speech and ruled in our favour. I feel a weight has been lifted off my shoulders after being acquitted. Although I am grateful for having had this chance to stand up for freedom of speech, I hope that this ruling will help prevent others from having to go through the same ordeal,” said Päivi Räsänen after her victory.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM TO DO WHAT?

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Pray for religious freedom so that we can love God and love our neighbour as we do ourselves. However, as the following Scripture makes clear, this does not necessarily mean loving people as they want to be treated. True love is leading people to the truth about God and His righteousness. This must be the ultimate purpose of our actions. People need to know the hard truths about God and themselves and particularly the need for repentance. Sadly, this is not what they want to hear. They want to hear we acknowledge and approve of their sinful behaviour. The result, they are the victims and we are the oppressors.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.” 1 Timothy 2:1-7

What we are experiencing should not come as a surprise, Jesus tells us that people will hate us when we stand up for the truth about God and His righteousness.

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets. Luke 6:22-23

This website Living Eternal Now is all about getting you into the scriptures that reveal the truth about God, this life and history of the world.

Are you born again with the Holy Spirit indwelling your spirit? Without Him you are not saved. Jesus made it possible for our Heavenly Father to send the Holy Spirit to be our counsellor, comforter, teacher. He is the one that produces the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, kindness and self control ) in our lives. He controls the sanctification process, He makes available the gifts of the Spirit for ministry (1 Corinthians 12:1-11). Without Him you can do nothing that has eternal value.

Jesus told the Parable of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25: 1-13) to reveal that half the church (people who believe they are Christians) in the “last days” do not have the Holy Spirit and He tells them to go ” I do not know you”.

Are you Holy Spirit empowered to Live Eternal Now?

Available on Amazon as ebook and trade paper back editions.

FRANKLIN GRAHAM SCORES A BIG WIN IN RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CASE IN UK

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After a legal fight lasting several years, evangelist Franklin Graham has won an important case for religious freedom in the UK. A County Court Judge Claire Evans has ruled that the 2018 Lancashire Festival of Hope was discriminated against when ads promoting the event were pulled from buses in Blackpool, in an effort to ban him from preaching. In 2018, the Blackpool Council and Blackpool Transport Services removed bus advertisements displaying the words “Time for Hope,” citing that members of the community complained about Graham’s association with the festival. The transportation company said they received feedback from members of the community who were concerned over the evangelist’s religious beliefs on marriage and sexuality. Complaints referenced Graham’s biblical views about LGBTQ matters like same-sex marriage.

Some falsely accused him of “preaching hate” or being “racist.” Jane Cole, managing director at Blackpool Transport said, “The removal of these adverts is as a result of us listening and acting on customer and public feedback which we aim to do at all times. Blackpool Transport is a proud ongoing supporter of the Pride and LGBT+ communities and in no way did we intend to cause any distress or upset.” After the decision was announced, additional complaints were made about the removal of the advertisements by members of the public who saw the move as bias against Christians, censorship, and a restriction of free speech. Moreover, the court concluded that the ads themselves were inoffensive and the transportation company had actually violated the UK’s Equality Act 2010. The law forbids discrimination against anyone because of religion or belief.

Judge Evans ruled “overwhelmingly in favour” of the Lancashire Festival of Hope, saying that Blackpool “had a wholesale disregard” for the Festival’s right to freedom of speech. It prioritized the rights and opinions of members of the LGBT community. “We thank God for this ruling because it is a win for every Christian in the U.K.,” Graham said. Despite removal of the ads, the Lancashire Festival of Hope brought 9,000 people together in Blackpool, garnered more than 50,000 online views worldwide, and saw more than 400 people commit their lives to Christ. “It is a significant day for religious liberty,” said James Barrett, chairman of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association UK. “The court recognized that Blackpool Council cared more about appeasing the LGBTQ community than upholding the rights of local churches to advertise a Christian festival.” He added, “The judge summarized it best in her ruling when she said, ‘This is the antithesis of the manner in which a public authority should behave in a democratic society.

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND LIBERTIES

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Rabbis blast US ‘Equality Act’ for calling Bible ‘bigoted’, attacking religious values

“It is outrageous that Congress would declare us bigoted for simply maintaining our time-honored traditions,” said Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer, chairman of the CJV Rabbinic Circle. CJV represents over 1500 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in matters of public policy.

The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), an American rabbinic group, called on Wednesday for the rejection of the Equality Act as “a direct attack on Jewish religious values and practices.” The Equality Act, H.R. 5, is slated to be voted on Thursday in the House of Representatives.

Rabbis blast US ‘Equality Act’ for calling Bible ‘bigoted’, attacking religious values

The Equality Act expressly declares that the Book of Genesis [see 2:24] and all of the Jewish laws pertaining to marriage as a sanctified union between man and woman (called “kiddushin” in Hebrew, from the word “kadosh,” Holy) are nothing more than engagement in discriminatory stereotypes. This is a disgraceful attack upon Jewish Biblical beliefs, rendered no more excusable by the fact that other traditional religious groups have similar tenets.”

“A law which would require recognition of the gender a person prefers to be… would demand we cease to operate in accordance with our sincerely-held beliefs, moral values and religious education — expressly violating our religious liberty,” the rabbis said.

“It is outrageous that Congress would declare us bigoted for simply maintaining our time-honored traditions,” said Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer, chairman of the CJV Rabbinic Circle. “And it is no mere insult; the law even explicitly rejects religious freedom as a defense, meaning it provides Anti-Semites with a new way to persecute the religious Jewish community,” Gordimer said.

Indeed, the Equality Act is the first time in history that legislation would deny protections found in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

The CJV letter concludes: “The Equality Act has the potential to bring the United States’ centuries-long history of respecting and providing robust protection for our religious beliefs and liberties to an abrupt and ignominious end.“

The church in the USA is yet to respond. It will be interesting to see which Christian organisations respond in like manner. Regardless, this just shows us how quickly once formerly God fearing nations are moving away from God’s values confirming Biblical end times prophecies.

Jesus said there would be a great falling away in the last days. I believe the Church of Laodicea is a description of much of the church in the last days before Jesus returns They are totally deceived.

‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Revelation 3:15-17

THE CHANGE OR SUPPRESSION (CONVERSION) PROHIBITION BILL 2020 PASSED IN LOWER HOUSE IN VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA)

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Prayer is urgently needed if Victoria is going to be stopped from going down a path that has very serious implications for the free practice of the Christian faith in that state.

To indicate what’s at stake, a child who is too young to drive or have a tattoo will be allowed to irreversibly change their gender. If a parent says no, they will be deemed ‘family violence offenders’ and will be subject to restraining orders and up to 10 years in jail.

Pastors will be severely restricted in what they can say or do when a LGBTQ person seeks their help. A same-sex attracted person who wants to live according to the Bible will not be able to request prayer or group support. “On what basis can the government impose restrictions on prayer?” Archbishop Comensoli rightly asks. Soon, praying for LGBTQ struggles could be a crime. The pretext for the bill is transphobia, a contagion for which the Andrews government believes the church is a super spreader. It will be illegal to counsel a person to change or suppress their chosen gender identity. Prohibited actions include “carrying out a religious practice, including but not limited to, a prayer-based practice”. The prohibition applies whether or not the subject consented to the prayer-based activity. The penalty is up to 10 years’ imprisonment or an enormous fine.

All Australians are asked to please pray that MPs, churches, and parents will have the courage to stand against the LGBTQ agenda and protect our freedoms.

The Premier’s rhetoric (“The Bill bans bigoted quackery” ) is extreme and insulting because the Bill clearly bans perfectly innocent conduct by Victorians, including parents who want what’s best for their kids.” “A Victorian parent who does not think irreversible hormone replacement therapy is best for their child is not a bigoted quack, yet that is what the bill bans, on the threat of jail. “A Victorian who prays for someone at their request is not a bigoted quack, yet that is what the bill explicitly bans, on the threat of jail” Martin Iles of ACL said. “If Mr Andrews wants to ban bigoted quackery, he should go back to the drawing board, this bill would jail parents, pastors and doctors for perfectly innocent conduct. If Mr Andrews truly believes what he says, then he must also believe that 73% of Victorians are bigoted quacks because polling is showing they do not agree with the bans imposed by this bill” said Mr Iles.