Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

UN Halts Gaza Aid Over 'thefts'
Feb 7th, 2009
Daily NewsBBC News Feb. 6 2009
Categories: One World Church

UN trucks have been passing through Kerem Shalom crossing to deliver aid

The UN aid agency in Gaza says it has suspended all aid shipments, accusing the Hamas government of seizing hundreds of tonnes of food supplies.

Ten lorries carrying flour and rice were taken from the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, the UN's Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) said.

Hamas admitted a "mistake" had been made and says it will return the goods.

But Unrwa says deliveries will not restart until it has assurances that such seizures will not happen again.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Hamas must immediately release the seized aid shipments.

He also called on Hamas "to refrain from interference with the provision and distribution of humanitarian assistance in Gaza".

Gaza is facing a humanitarian crisis after Israel's recent three-week offensive.

About half the population is dependent on UN food aid.

Israel intensified a blockade on the territory 19 months ago when Hamas took over the territory.

The lifting of the blockade is among Hamas' demands for agreeing a long-term truce with Israel.

On Friday, the group's exiled leader, Khaled Meshaal, told a rally in Syria that Israel still had not given the necessary undertakings for such a truce.

Second incident

Unrwa said the food had been imported from Egypt, and had been due to be collected by its staff at the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza on Friday.

The UN had recently increased its food distribution to Gazans

"The food was taken away by trucks contracted by the ministry of social affairs," the agency said in a statement.

It said aid deliveries would only be resumed if Hamas returned all the aid and provided "credible assurances" that it would not happen again.

It was the second incident in three days. On Tuesday, 3,500 blankets and more than 400 food parcels were seized at gunpoint from a distribution centre in Gaza, the UN said.

The Hamas government's social affairs minister, Ahmed al Kurd, ordered "the aid to be returned to the agency if it turns out it is indeed its property", Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said, according to AFP news agency.

UN-Hamas tensions

Earlier in the week, Mr Kurd warned Unrwa not to "become a political player in Gaza". He said all aid should be distributed through Hamas.

But Hamas's rapid attempt to rectify the situation - at least once Unrwa announced its suspension of imports publicly - suggests it does understand how crucial the UN's aid work is, our correspondent says.

U.S. Seeks to Rework Foreign Ties
Feb 7th, 2009
Daily NewsBBC News Feb. 7 2009
Categories: Today's Headlines

But while the US was ready to do more, it would expect more from its partners.

The new US vice-president also warned no strategy in Afghanistan could succeed without Pakistan.

He said that the deteriorating situation in the region was a security threat for all countries, not just the US.

Mr Biden's wide-ranging speech to international leaders and security experts in Munich set out foreign policy directions for the Obama administration and also covered climate change and the global economic crisis.

Ambitious goals'

"I come to Europe on behalf of a new administration determined to set a new tone in Washington, and in America's relations around the world," Mr Biden said.

"We will engage. We will listen. We will consult. America needs the world, just as I believe the world needs America," he said.

"Our administration has set ambitious goals... to advance democracy not through its imposition by force from the outside, but by working with moderates in government and civil society to build the institutions that will protect freedom."

On Russia, Mr Biden said: "It's time, to paraphrase President Obama, to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should work together."

It would not be possible for the US and Russia to agree on everything "but the United States and Russia can disagree and still work together where our interests coincide and they coincide in many places."

He added that the US would continue with its plans for a missile defence shield in Central Europe.

Amid cool relations between the two states, Mr Biden is expected to have a challenging meeting in Munich with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov.

Analysts have portrayed Kyrgyzstan's decision this week to close the last remaining US air base in Central Asia - vital for operations in Afghanistan - as being the work of the Kremlin.

More diplomacy

On Iran, Mr Biden said: "We will continue to develop missile defences to counter a growing Iranian capability, provided the technology is proven to work and cost effective."

He added: "We will do so in consultation with our Nato allies and Russia."

He reiterated President Barack Obama's pledge to communicate with Iran, saying the US offered a clear choice: "Continue down your current course and there will be pressure and isolation; abandon your illicit nuclear programme and support for terrorism and there will be meaningful incentives."

Promising to consult with nations on a range of other issues, Mr Biden also said that the US would "ask for more from our partners", for example in taking former inmates from Guantanamo Bay when the US military prison is closed in a year.

Also at the forum, Nato's chief criticised European countries for not heeding the US call for more troops in Afghanistan.

Secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said European countries should "share the heavy lifting," Associated Press news agency reported.

'Poltical balance'

"I'm frankly concerned when I hear the United States is planning a major commitment for Afghanistan but other allies are already ruling out doing more," he said, without specifying which allies.

The French and German leaders both attended the forum

"That is not good for the political balance ... and it also makes the calls for Europe's' voice to be heard in Washington perhaps a bit more hollow than they should be."

His comments come as the BBC learns that the Italian government has decided to increase its contribution to Nato forces in Afghanistan by 800 to 2,800 troops this year.

Iranian delegate Ali Larijani earlier welcomed the new US government, saying it was a "golden opportunity" to improve ties.

But Mr Larijani, who is Iran's parliamentary speaker, warned it would take more than a change of tone and a few interviews from President Obama's government to mend the fractured relationship between Tehran and Washington.

Iranian delegate Ali Larijani earlier welcomed the new US government, saying it was a "golden opportunity" to improve ties.

But Mr Larijani, who is Iran's parliamentary speaker, warned it would take more than a change of tone and a few interviews from President Obama's government to mend the fractured relationship between Tehran and Washington.

The Unanswered Prayer of the Atheist
Feb 7th, 2009
CommentaryPull The Plug on Atheism Ray Comfort
Categories: Contemporary Issues;Creation - Evolution;Apologetics

The atheist has a problem with both answered and unanswered prayer. Here’s a scenario that no doubt happens daily somewhere in the world. A young boy becomes deathly ill. The entire family gathers for prayer. However, despite earnest and sincere prayer, the child tragically dies. Their explanation for the death is that God took him to heaven because He wanted the child there. That’s seen by the atheist as "unanswered prayer." Or the child miraculously makes a recovery, which the family hails as an evident miracle. God obviously answered the family’s prayers by saving the child from death. The atheist maintains that it wasn’t answered prayer but that the child recovered because his body healed itself.

Was the recovery a miracle? Perhaps. Then again, perhaps it wasn’t. Only God knows. The fact is that we have no idea what happened. However, one thing we do know is that answered or unanswered prayer has nothing to do with God’s existence. Let me explain.

My wife has a Dodge Caravan. Let’s say it has a problem. What would be my intellectual capacity if I concluded that it had no manufacturer simply because I couldn’t contact them about the dilemma? The fact of their existence has nothing to do with whether or not they return my calls. Neither does God’s existence have anything to do with the fact that there are those who have experienced miracles, seen visions, or supposedly heard His voice. The sun doesn’t exist because we see its light, or because we feel its warmth. Its existence has nothing to do with any human testimony. Nor does it cease to exist because a blind man is not aware of its reality, or because it becomes cloudy, or the night falls. The sun exists, period.

God’s existence isn’t dependent on the Bible or its authenticity, the existence of the Church, the prophets, or even creation. God existed before the Scriptures were penned, before creation came into existence, and even if the Bible was proved to be fraudulent, God would still exist.

Stimulus to Ban Religious Worship
Feb 7th, 2009
Daily NewsWND Feb.6 2009 - Bob Unruh
Categories: Today's Headlines;Persecution

'This isn't like a convenient oversight, this is intentional'

President Obama's proposed economic stimulus plan makes a deliberate – and unconstitutional – attempt to censor religious speech and worship on school campuses across the nation, according to a lawyer who argued related cases before the U.S. Supreme Court 20 years ago and won them all.

"This isn't like a convenient oversight. This is intentional. This legislation pokes its finger in the eyes of people who hold religious beliefs," Jay Sekulow, chief of the American Center for Law and Justice, told WND today.

His was the organization that decades ago argued on behalf of speech freedom on school campuses, winning repeatedly at the U.S. Supreme Court. Since then, the 2001 Good News Club v. Milford Central School District decision was added, clarifying that restricting religious speech within the context of public shared-use facilities is unconstitutional.

The problem in the proposed stimulus bill comes from a provision that states: "PROHIBITED USES OF FUNDS. - No funds awarded under this section may be used for - (C) modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities - (i) used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or (ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission."

The wording that specifically targets religious speech already has been approved by the majority Democrats in the U.S. House – all GOP members opposed it. In the Senate, Jim DeMint, R-S.C., proposed an amendment to eliminate it, but again majority Democrats decided to keep the provision targeting religious instruction and activities.

Critics argued schools would accept any money offered, then impose a ban on religious events.

DeMint warned organizations such as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Campus Crusade for Christ, Catholic Student Ministries, Hillel and other religious groups would face new bans on access to public facilities that would not apply to other organizations.

"This is a direct attack on students of faith, and I'm outraged Democrats are using an economic stimulus bill to promote discrimination," DeMint said. "Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for siding with the ACLU over millions of students of faith."

"These students simply want equal access to public facilities, which is their constitutional right. This hostility toward religion must end. Those who voted to for this discrimination are standing in the schoolhouse door to deny people of faith from entering any campus building renovated by this bill," said DeMint.

The senator said the stimulus bill now becomes an "ACLU stimulus" that has the goal of triggering lawsuits "designed to intimidate religious organizations across the nation."

"This language is so vague, it's not clear if students can even pray in a dorm room renovated with this funding since that is a form of 'religious worship.' If this provision remains in the bill, it will have a chilling effect on students of faith in America," he said.

DeMint cited Obama's statement at the National Prayer Breakfast this week that faith "can promote a greater good for all of us."

"This provision is an assault against both. It's un-American and it's unconstitutional. Intolerant and it's intolerable," DeMint said.

The ban on religious organizations is linked to the $3.5 billion intended for "renovation of public or private college and university facilities."

The ACLJ, which focuses on constitutional law, said the provision "has nothing to do with economic stimulus and everything to do with religious discrimination."

"The thing is I litigated these cases on these exact issues 20 years ago," Sekulow told WND. "Not only did we win, two of the decisions were unanimous and the other was 8-1.

"We're seeing a rollback to the 1970s regarding church-state relations," he said. "That's what is troubling. It is a complete rollback that now institutionalizes discrimination through targeting religion."

Sekulow said he already is drafting a complaint that will challenge the constitutionality of the provision, to be used if it isn't removed.

He said under current court precedents, it will be a open-and-shut victory.

However, he also warned that the problem is the damage that can be done within the probable four years it would take to get the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court and what that court would look like at that point.

Under Obama, he said, "there will be an ideology shift." New appointments to the bench by Obama, he said, would be "much more left of where Justices (Ruth Bader) Ginsburg and (Stephen) Breyer are."

On an online forums page, readers were incensed.

• "Here comes the assault against Christian churches … Looks like he's trying to see how much damage he can do in the briefest period of time."
• "Obama is the most dangerous man of our times, period. He will seek to overturn everything our nation was built upon, personal freedom, capitalism, even the rock of faith. And he will seek to do it from within, openly, overtly and boldly. Will Christians now respond to this dangerous man in a strong, unified way? Or will Obama succeed in destroying the fabric of the greatest nation in human history?".
• "He's just following the Saul Alinsky rule (in his book, Rules for Radicals) to 'clothe everything you do in morality' because this is what most effectively fools the 'middle class' into agreeing with what you want to do."

Persecution of Jews in Venezuela
Feb 7th, 2009
Daily NewsSimon Wiesenthal Center Feb. 6 2009
Categories: Today's Headlines;Anti-Israel

The Jewish world is still reeling from the shocking five-hour invasion of a Caracas, Venezuela synagogue by 15 armed thugs last Shabbat.

Desecration of synagogue in Caracas

One of our members from Caracas wrote us of his anguish, where in happier times, he celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. "We feel the national government has done nothing to stop actions like this one, on the contrary, it has scaled their derogatory speeches about Israel and Venezuelan Jews, in major communication channels. We knew that things have been getting worse in the past few years, but to get inside of our worship and sacred Temple, is like, what is going to be next?!”

This horrendous attack is just the latest and most horrifying incident in a building campaign against Venezuela’s Jews - a campaign fueled by President Hugo Chavez’s demonization of Israel, scapegoating of Jews and his embrace of the anti-American and anti-Israel regime in Iran.

Today, the situation for Venezuelan Jews is dire. We need you to act now by adding your voice to the Wiesenthal Center’s protest to the Organization of American States.

Netanyahu: Livni will Cede Golan
Feb 7th, 2009
Daily NewsJpost Feb. 8 2009
Categories: One World Church;The Nation Of Israel

"Jerusalem will not be divided and Gamla will not fall again," Likud chairman and prime ministerial candidate Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday during a tour of the Golan Heights.

Accompanied by Likud members Moshe Ya'alon, Yossi Peled, Bennie Begin and Efi Eitam, Netanyahu arrived in the North to participate in Tu Bishvat tree planting.

"If Kadima wins," he said, "we will not have the Golan Heights and will only continue ceding territory. Peace is made with the strong, not the weak. Israel with the Golan Heights is a strong state and not a weak state which gives away its assets."

Netanyahu was accompanied by his son Avner. Planting a eucalyptus spruce, Netanyahu said, "My son will bring his children here in a few years and tell them that their grandfather planted the tree that will grow and extend its roots for many years to come, just as we have been living in the Golan for many years."

Lawmakers in 20 States Move to Reclaim Sovereignty
Feb 7th, 2009
Daily NewsWND Feb. 6 2009 - Jerome R. Corsi
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

Obama's $1 trillion deficit-spending 'stimulus plan' seen as last straw

NEW YORK – As the Obama administration attempts to push through Congress a nearly $1 trillion deficit spending plan that is weighted heavily toward advancing typically Democratic-supported social welfare programs, a rebellion against the growing dominance of federal control is beginning to spread at the state level.

So far, eight states have introduced resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, including Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

Analysts expect that in addition, another 20 states may see similar measures introduced this year, including Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania.

"What we are trying to do is to get the U.S. Congress out of the state's business," Oklahoma Republican state Sen. Randy Brogdon told WND.

"Congress is completely out of line spending trillions of dollars over the last 10 years putting the nation into a debt crisis like we've never seen before," Brogdon said, arguing that the Obama stimulus plan is the last straw taxing state patience in the brewing sovereignty dispute.

"This particular 111th Congress is the biggest bunch of over-reachers and underachievers we've ever had in Congress," he said.

"A sixth-grader should realize you can't borrow money to pay off your debt, and that is the Obama administration's answer for a stimulus package," he added.

Israel Strikes At Gazan Tunnels
Feb 7th, 2009
Daily NewsBBC News Feb. 7 2009
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

The tunnels link Gaza with Egypt

The Israeli military fired missiles at four smuggling tunnels and a weapons depot in Gaza late on Friday, it said.

The attacks came after two rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel, the military said.

The tunnels link the Gaza strip with Egypt and are used to smuggle goods and weapons into Gaza.

The latest strikes come nearly three weeks after Israel ended a devastating 22-day offensive in Gaza where more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed.

During the fighting, 10 Israeli soldiers and three civilians were killed.

Friday's strikes come just days before Israel's general election on Tuesday.

Fall of America = Fall of the West
Feb 7th, 2009
CommentaryIsrael My Beloved Jan Willem van der Hoeven
Categories: Commentary

Woe unto you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets.  (Luke 6:26)

Despite the overwhelming and unbelievable euphoria accompanying the election of America's new president, the sad truth is that the very opposite of what the enthralled millions of Obama supporters - both in the United States and elsewhere - have hoped would happen as a result will actually become the reality.

This truth is too bitter for most of us. Even among many of those Christians who may have voted for the - to them - more friendly team of McCain and Palin, after all their hopes to the contrary, still do not really understand the utter seriousness of what has just taken place.

America has fallen, never to rise again to its former glory and strength. It is as what happened to the glory and splendor of Rome. I have wept about this, and reading now some of the Christian commentators trying to put the typical 'let's not lose hope' seal upon what has happened, I believe this will only speed up this degradation of America's society.

As a European, I years ago saw this same process happen to most of the Continent - today a pagan, self-centered, de-Christianized and heavily Muslimized continent that has hardly any moral or military strength left. As was the case when Hitler's Nazi hordes overran Europe in 1939, so now it lies nearly totally defenseless against the aggressive designs of both Putin's revived "Soviet" Russia or the deep and dangerous Jihadic infiltration of ISLAM.

Obama, as President of the United States, will not this time send his "Eisenhower-"led U.S. marines to save Georgia, Ukraine or any other Putin-threatened European country, EVEN THOUGH most of these Europeans, utterly blind to what is coming their way, voted in their hearts for Obama to be the next president - "their president" - of the free world.

Israel, in spite of some prominent Jewish and even Israel-linked Obama advisors, will practically, (for all practical purposes) find itself alone in its fight for mere survival as a nation against the horrendous threats of a soon-to-be nuclear-armed Iran and the increasingly armed and fanatized Muslim world that surrounds Israel on all sides.

All that the new, fully Democrat-controlled U.S. administration with its inbuilt anti-war bias will do to alleviate Israel's fears is talk and talk and talk, just as the Europeans have fruitlessly done these last years. Israel will literally be left alone and stark naked vis-à-vis their ever more ferociously armed enemies. If the Israelis want to do anything they will be on their own. Even requesting the approval of the new Obama-led administration will be a mistake. He will opt for more talk, more sanctions, until the time will have passed for Israel to act preventively.

It is all very sad indeed. Very sad because there will not be a reverse in all this.

For truly-concerned believers to think things will be able to change again by, for instance,  Sarah Palin running for president after four or eight years is fantasy. By then America will have, after four or eight years of Democratic rule, newly-placed and far more liberal judges on the Supreme Court; the country will have been so secularized and paganized that never again will there be enough of a conservative Christian bloc left among America's voters to even want a 'Christian president' back in the White House.

Thus America has fallen, never again to rise to its former height; and with her fall the whole free world will suffer. And only few understand and are weeping about this because most DON'T WANT TO SEE, or quickly search for a stereotyped word: Let's not lose hope. Hereby they precisely cause Christians not to hear the holy and fearful voice of God's Alarm, that it is all over now for the moment.

Jesus Himself spoke such words over His nation and city. No stone would be left upon the other. The prophets of old spoke the very same words about their own nation, words which few preachers today in the U.S. or the West would dare to preach!

Ezekiel 5:5-7   Jeremiah 4:19-21

It is because we have grown up in an often sugar-coated Christianity of 'God is love' that we nearly feel obliged to be positive in the end.

 Not that long ago, 60 percent of America's youth was still God-fearing, today that number stands at less than 10 percent! There are, in the upcoming next generations, not enough believers left to bring the change in America that "positive minded" Christians still want to pray for. It is finished, just as it was for Israel in days past and few, very few are willing even to face up to this sad and painful truth.

Already you can feel it in the air: the hatred, anger and intolerance of many who have reveled in the election of their messiah-like Obama, the man who promises them - the young and the old - change that is not based on personal change by repenting from sin and evil, but a deceitful promise of change, while every one can live it up according to his and her own desires without necessitating a change in their own, personal behavior.

Under Obama, nearly everything will go. The killing of the unborn, the perversion of sexuality, the very abominations that brought down the worlds of Sodom and Gomorrah, of Rome and the Greek civilization, will bring down America and, with it, the West.

Emerging Church Leader Denies Original Sin
Feb 7th, 2009
CommentaryWay Of Life Literature - Friday News Notes
Categories: Commentary;False Doctrine

In his “New Christians” blog for January 26, emerging church leader Tony Jones calls the doctrine of original sin “a depraved idea.” He says, “I have come to reject the notion of Original Sin. I consider it neither biblically, philosophically, nor scientifically tenable.” Jones testifies that he first began to doubt this doctrine while studying the “church father” Augustine. Jones calls him “the great father of Western theology,” but in reality Augustine was the great heretical father of apostate Roman Catholic theology. Many have been led into the steps of unbelief and even into the arms of Rome herself through studying the so-called church fathers. They are the ones that presumptuously introduced such heresies as infant baptism, veneration of relics, priestcraft, hierarchicalism, sacramentalism, and Mariolatry. As for the doctrine of original sin, philosophy and science are irrelevant. The only question is what saith the Scripture, and Scripture plainly teaches that mankind fell through Adam’s sin (Romans 5:12-19) and that all men are therefore born in sin (Psalm 51:5), spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1-2), unrighteous (Romans 3:10), with a darkened and deceitful heart (Jeremiah 17:9).

Editors Note.....Warning to believers!  The Emerging Church is Apostate, they have departed from the sound doctrine of God's word.

Australian Bush Fires Turn Deadly
Feb 7th, 2009
Daily NewsBBC News Feb. 7 2009
Categories: Today's Headlines

At least 14 people have been killed by wildfires in southern Australia, the deadliest in the country for decades.

The deaths occurred at four towns in Victoria state, state deputy police commissioner Kieran Walsh said. Police fear as many as 40 may have perished.

Firefighters are battling dozens of fires in parks and bush land, amid a heatwave, with temperatures set to reach 47 C (117F) this weekend.

Aircraft are dropping water bombs and thousands of firemen are on standby.

More than 100 homes have been destroyed in nine major blazes in Victoria.

"It's just going to be, probably by a long way, the worst day ever in the history of the state in terms of temperatures and winds"

He said that some 200 residents had taken refuge in a local pub and that no fire engines could get into the town.

Tens of thousands of firefighters are trying to contain blazes in two further states - New South Wales and South Australia - but blazes there were largely contained or burning away from residential areas.

However if winds pick up, the authorities fear that the fires could spread.