PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS AT RECORD LEVELS

Members of religious groups faced harassment by either governmental actors or social groups in a record number of countries and territories as a new Pew Research Center analysis finds acts of hostility against Christians are on the rise. 

The release of Pew’s report, “Government Restrictions on Religion Stayed at Peak Levels Globally in 2022,” marks the 15th time it has conducted research examining government restrictions and social hostilities toward religion in 198 countries and territories. Imagine what a 2024 report will show as persecution has escalated in 2023 and 2024. Significant other Biblical end-times prophecies have already been fulfilled particularly the re-establishment of Israel as a nation back in 1948 and now the falling away from Biblical faith by most of the institutional churches (apostasy).

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

The research revealed that in 2022, “harassment of religious groups by governments or social actors occurred in 192 out of the world’s 198 countries and territories.” This constituted “an increase by two countries from 2021 and a new peak level for the study.”

“Governments harassed people for their religious beliefs and practices in 186 countries in 2022, up from 183 in 2021,” the report states. “Social groups or private individuals harassed people due to their religion in 164 countries, the same number as in 2021. Governments and/or social actors harassed religious groups in 192 countries, including 158 countries where both governments and social groups or private individuals engaged in harassment.”

As has been the case in every installment of the study, Christians experienced harassment in most countries, reaching a record high of 166 in 2022. 

One example cited in the report was the arrest of a man whose son brought Bibles and other Christian literature across the border into Mauritania from Senegal.

Another example is a Syriac Catholic Church leader in Bartella, a historically Christian town in Nineva province rebuilding after the defeat of the Islamic State, who said militias “sought to ‘seize and occupy Christian properties’ in an attempt to drive out Christians and alter the religious composition of the town.”

The study identified property damage, assaults, detentions, displacements and killings as examples of physical harassment experienced by religious groups. It highlighted how at least one instance of physical harassment toward a religious group occurred in 145 of 198 countries, marking an increase from the 137 measured in 2021.

Governments used physical force against religious groups in 111 countries, while social groups or private individuals were determined to have engaged in such harassment in the same number of countries.

The most frequent form of physical harassment directed at religious groups was property damage, occurring in 61% of countries. Detentions occurred in slightly less than half (47%) of countries, while the share of countries where physical assaults, displacements and killings occurred were measured at 45%, 26% and 25%, respectively.

According to a detailed appendix accompanying the report, the only countries where absolutely no harassment of religious groups occurred at the hands of the government in 2022 were Cape Verde, Fiji, Grenada, Macao, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, New Zealand, Portugal, San Marino, Senegal and Suriname. The United States was listed as one of 110 countries where there was widespread intimidation of religious groups “by any level of government.”

Religious groups in the U.S. found themselves subject to property damage and physical assaults, while no displacements, killings or detentions were recorded. Another adverse experience faced by religious groups in the U.S. involves organized groups using “force or coercion in an attempt to dominate public life with their perspective on religion, including preventing some religious groups from operating in the country.”

HILLSONG

Hillsong Church’s International Ministry Director Darren Kitto claimed he would need to cover nearly $50,000 in pool expenses in 2018 as part of a $125,000 housing allowance for a Newport Beach, California, home he purchased in the Santa Ana Heights neighborhood for $1.85 million that features a “portable spa.”

The details on Kitto’s housing allowance claim for 2018 were highlighted in a trove of documents first made public on March 9 by Andrew Wilkie, an independent member of the Australian Parliament, thanks to the work of a whistleblower.

Last days church: what did Jesus have to say about the church that is left behind after the rapture of the Saints.

“‘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. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.Revelation 3:15-19

PUTIN ON RELIGION AND FAMILY

Putin claims West trying to destroy the family institution by normalizing gay marriage, ‘pedophilia’

Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a stark warning over what he called religious attacks from Western culture Tuesday as he suspended a landmark nuclear arms treaty and threatened to move forward with nuclear tests.

In his address, Putin leveled sharp criticism at Western values and said the U.S. and other Western nations were using “information attacks” to target youth, distort “historical truth,” and “attack our culture, the Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional religious institutions in our country.”

Putin appeared to suggest the advancement of same-sex marriage and other rights for LGBT-identified people are aimed at destroying the institution of the family and promoting pedophilia. Putin at least got this right.

“Look at what they’re doing with their own people,” he said. “It is all about the destruction of the family, of cultural and national identity, perversion and abuse of children, including pedophilia, all of which are declared normal in their life.”

As an illustration, Putin claimed priests are being forced to “bless same-sex marriages.”

After asserting that “people can live however they want” and that Russia has “never intruded into people’s private life,” Putin cited the definition of marriage found in the scriptures.

“Look at the holy Scripture and the main books of other world religions. They say it all, including that family is the union of a man and a woman, but these sacred texts are now being questioned,” Putin said.

Putin also cited a report stating the Anglican Church is considering the idea of a gender-neutral God, an apparent reference to a vote earlier this month by the Church of England to officially endorse plans for priests to offer prayers of blessing for same-sex couples.

“What can we say? God forgive them,” he said. “They don’t know what they’re doing.”

This is proof that God can use anybody to declare His truths. Just as God used leaders in the past such as Nebuchadnezzar and Darius the Mede he is using the most unlikely leader Vladimir Putin to declare the truth of what is really transpiring in the West.

ARE YOU PREPARED FOR WHAT IS ABOUT TO UNFOLD?

Satan has successfully deceived the world into believing that God did not judge the world with a worldwide flood just 4000 years ago now. He certainly does not want people to know that God will pour out His wrath again on a lawless unrepentant world in the not too distant future and yet that is exactly what God reveals will happen in His Word, the Bible.

The Judeo-Christian ethos, based on God’s absolutes which formed the basis of most Western nations, is fast being supplanted by a secularistic, humanistic, arrogantly arbitrary philosophy. This worldview is spreading rapidly. The legal system is a prominent perpetrator of it. The courts are dangerous because they pontificate arbitrarily on what they personally consider to be “good” for society, yet they demand – and aggressively enforce – absolute allegiance to their arbitrary decrees. But what did we expect? The humanistic, secularistic thinkers have merely carried their philosophy to its logical end. They have remained true to their worldview in both words and actions while, unfortunately, Christians have equivocated. They simply have not taken the Lordship of Christ seriously. Instead, Christians have largely shut up their spirituality into a small corner of life, Sunday church, or their Bible studies instead of realising that the Lordship of Christ is to permeate the whole spectrum of life. They have coasted along complacently, often serving up such dogmas as “you can’t mix religion and politics,” or “you can’t legislate morality,” or “we just need to pray and witness to people” – when what they really meant was we just don’t want to be disturbed.” They are content in their “comfort zone.”

Christians are now paying for their negligence. We have permitted the dominance of a philosophy that sanctions the killing of an unborn child for the mother’s convenience. A philosophy that can talk of euthanasia of the aged and a general devaluation of all human life. A philosophy that has euphemised wrong and self-destructive sexuality into “alternative lifestyles.” A philosophy that drives its proponents to unashamedly seek the banishment of all religious influence from the stream of public life, leaving a totally relativistic value system and law. This secularistic worldview has engulfed every area of society that Christians have chosen to ignore – the government, the courts, education, the media. And it is now threatening the areas that Christians naively took for granted as being beyond its reach: the family, the Christian school, and the church. More and more the state is opening the door to restrict the free exercise of our faith through increased regulation. Christians largely sleep on, as it unfolds.

Jesus told us that what we see unfolding in our day is exactly what it will be like before He returns. It will be like it was during the days of Noah, lawlessness will abound. Moreover, He warns us that intense tribulation is coming.

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

You should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 2 Peter 3:2-6

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Luke 17:26-27

And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will He delay long over them? I tell you, He will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Luke 17:8-9

DRAG QUEEN PRAYER HOUR

St Luke’s Lutheran Church of Logan Square in Chicago recently had a “Drag Queen Prayer Hour,” where a newly ordained pastor in a dress and wig led a service for children. The pastor, Aaron Musser, said: “Today, we consider what it might be like to have a dress for the kind of joy awaiting us on the other side of Advent. I have an awesome story to share with you today,” Musser told the children, flipping his long blonde hair off his shoulders. He asked the children if they’d ever seen a drag queen before, and they had not. He offered surprise at this fact.

Drag Queen Prayer Hour makes a mockery of the church

‘I am also a boy most of the time when I’m here,’ he told them, ‘but today,’ he said, flipping his hair back and forth, ‘I’m a girl.’ After reading, he led a prayer.”

Ruth Institute President Dr Jennifer Roback Morse, PhD, commented, “This is grooming.”

“The Sexual Revolutionaries seem to be daring us to say something,” she added.

“So, I’ll say something. This is wrong. If a man needs to put on a dress in order to be joyful, he is not well.”

“Anyone leading a prayer service should not be calling attention to himself. He should be calling attention to God. This man in a dress, in front of an altar, talking to small children about his feelings and how beautiful he is, is in every way, calling attention to himself. He is diverting attention from God and God’s truth.”

“Clearly, Aaron Musser rejects God and God’s creation, in favour of himself and his self-creation. This group of people that calls themselves a Christian congregation, in a building they call a church, has made a mockery of God, His church and His people.”

Morse added: “Some who hear of this travesty might say, ‘Oh, how cute.’ The proper response should be: ‘Oh, how sad. Oh, how sick. Oh, how blasphemous.’”

I believe this is further proof that we are in the Biblical prophesied end times that Jesus spoke of before He returns to put things right.

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 24:10-13

Before Jesus returns it is important to know God pours out His wrath upon an unrepentant world with the Trumpet and Bowl judgements. Jesus tells us that before His return the world will be like it was as in the days God poured out His wrath on the earth the first-time with Noah’s Flood, lawlessness will abound.

The apostasy that is occurring particularly in the institutionalised church that Jesus spoke of is very evident in the church as this story indicates. Time is short.

The Ruth Institute has opposed Drag Queen Story Hour in libraries and transgender indoctrination in children’s television. The Institute also has a Transgender Resource Center with more information.

AMERICA’S FUTURE IN BIBLICAL PROPHECY

David Reagan lines up America’s future with Biblical prophecy. He believes that America is in full scale rebellion against God and has past the point of redemption. God’s judgement is underway and His wrath will follow. This video reveals the truth. The facts David Reagan state are irrefutable. One statement made by a Harvard professor is powerful. “You take away religion and you cannot hire enough police.”

America’s future looks very dim as the forces advocating moral depravity and contempt for God’s Word prepare to take over the White House and Congress.