You see, Voice of the Martyrs has been sending gospel messages to as many fax-linked telephone numbers inside North Korea as they possibly can.
"We know who you are," an English translation of the North Korean fax says. "We warn you that if you send this kind of dirty fax again something very bad will happen to you. Don't do something you will regret."
Todd Nettleton, the director of media development for Voice of the Martyrs saw this fax as a good sign: "This means that (our) faxes are getting through, and they are being read. It is highly unlikely that this type of response would have been made from an embassy without some approval from Pyongyang."
So is this threat likely to intimidate the Voice of the Martyrs?
Not likely.
Voice of the Martyrs recently released a statement on this incident which said this:
"The Christian teaching is clear. Communists are men and Christ loves them. So does every man who has the mind of Christ. We love the sinner even though we hate the sin. We know about the love of Christ toward the Communists by our own love toward them. There are Christians in Communist prisons with fifty pounds of chains on their feet, tortured with redhot iron pokers, in whose throats spoonfuls of salt had been forced, being kept afterward without water, starving, whipped, suffering from cold – and praying with fervor for the Communists. This is humanly inexplicable! It is the love of Christ, which was poured out in our hearts."
Evolutionists are hailing the discovery of "Ida" as the "missing link" that they have been looking for all this time.
But wait a minute.
Didn't they already tell us that evolution was a proven fact?
Didn't they tell us that they tell us that they already had all the evidence that they needed?
Well, they are now admitting the truth that they did not have the transitional forms they needed for their theory, but now they say that they have found one.
Oh goody!
Well, on closer examination, it appears that this "lemur-like" creature is not such a great find after all. Just check out this YouTube video.....
As other scientists have been given the opportunity to study this "great discovery", the reality is that there are serious doubts about whether it supports the theory of evolution at all.....
One thing that sets Christianity apart from all other religions is the signs, wonders and miracles that follow the preaching of the gospel.
In the Scriptures, Jesus said that we should expect that signs, wonders and miracles would accompany the preaching of the gospel.....
Mark 16:15-20
He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well." After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.
So, if the Bible is true, extraordinary signs, wonders and miracles should be following the preaching of the Word of God.
So do we find this happening in most churches?
It either is happening or it isn't.
Do you see the power of God demonstrated where you worship?
If not, why not?
Unfortunately, you WON'T find miracles happening in most churches.
In fact, most churches believe that signs, wonders and miracles can't happen today.
But miracles ARE happening.
Below is a link to a video about a man who was raised from the dead by the power of God after being dead for 3 days. It contains testimony from numerous eyewitnesses:
Prophet Tom Deckard is the controversial prophet who has been stunning the Christian community in the United States with the truly amazing miracles that he has been performing, and he has a prophetic track record that is 100 percent accurate that stretches back over 30 years.
Prophet Deckard has prophesied to presidents, prime ministers, and leaders all over the globe.
These are just a few of the major events that Prophet Deckard has prophesied that have come to pass.....
*He prophesied 9/11 two years in advance.
*He prophesied the end of the Cold War a year before it happened.
*He prophesied the coming of the AIDS epidemic two years before it hit.
*He prophesied both Iraq Wars two years before the first one even began.
*He prophesied the fall of the Berlin Wall in advance.
*He prophesied the Indonesian Tsunami and told the people living there to move from the coast while they could.
*He prophesied the economic collapse of the United States many years in advance and most people laughed and said that it could never happen. They aren't laughing anymore.
Not only that, but God confirms the message that Prophet Deckard speaks by the signs, wonders and miracles that God works through him.
The Lord God heals the blind, the deaf, the lame and those with terminal cancer through Tom Deckard. Children with autism are completely healed and restored to full health. In one crusade in Africa alone, hundreds of people were healed from AIDS and went back to the doctor and were medically certified as having been healed. He has even seen three people raised from the dead during the course of his ministry.
Come and see.
Prophet Deckard will be in Raleigh, North Carolina on June 6th and 7th. You can get full details here:
Come and be a part of the greatest move of God of this generation.
God is getting ready to do something so big that it will shock the world.
God has commissioned Prophet Deckard to gather the ten lost tribes of Israel (Ephraim) and to take them home to the land of Israel.
After the reign of King Solomon, the land of Israel was divided into two kingdoms - the northern kingdom (also known in the Scriptures as Ephraim) and the southern kingdom (also known in the Scriptures as Judah). Those two kingdoms existed side by side for several hundred years.
However, the northern kingdom (Ephraim) turned away from the Lord God and he allowed them to be invaded. Over 700 years before Jesus was born, the Assyrian empire invaded the northern kingdom and carried away the people into exile.
The northern kingdom has not been heard from since.
The southern kingdom (Judah) was later invaded by Babylon and also taken into exile, but later they were allowed to return to their land. The Jews (Judah) lived in the land of Israel until 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed the Temple and scattered the Jews to the four winds.
There was no nation of Israel from 70 A.D. until 1948 when the modern nation of Israel was established and millions of Jews (Judah) starting returning to the land of their ancestors.
But what about the northern kingdom?
What ever happened to the ten lost tribes of Israel?
Did you know that the Scriptures very clearly teach that in the last days the southern kingdom (Judah) and the northern kingdom (Ephraim) will be reunited in the land of Israel once again?
Ezekiel 37:15-23
The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, take a stick of wood and write on it, 'Belonging to Judah and the Israelites associated with him.' Then take another stick of wood, and write on it, 'Ephraim's stick, belonging to Joseph and all the house of Israel associated with him.' Join them together into one stick so that they will become one in your hand. "When your countrymen ask you, 'Won't you tell us what you mean by this?' say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am going to take the stick of Joseph—which is in Ephraim's hand—and of the Israelite tribes associated with him, and join it to Judah's stick, making them a single stick of wood, and they will become one in my hand.' Hold before their eyes the sticks you have written on and say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God.
So has this happened yet?
Of course not.
So that means that this prophecy is still yet to be fulfilled.
Either it will happen or God is a liar - and we know that God is not a liar.
Ephraim and Judah will be reunited once again.
Could it be possible that God is calling you to be part of this movement?
Could it be possible that you are part of the ten lost tribes of Israel?
Watch the following video with an open heart. If you get a hold of this it will radically change your life.....
You always knew there was more, didn't you?
You always knew that the power of God was still real today, didn't you?
Come and see.
Drive, fly, take a train, run, catch a ride with a friend.....do whatever you have to do to get there to Raleigh on June 6th and 7th. If God is tugging on your heart as you read this, then make sure that you get there. It's a free conference. God is moving and you don't want to miss this.....
After all, you don't hear the vast majority of Christians talking about it anymore.
You certainly don't hear about it from most of today's television preachers. Mostly they seem to be concerned about "living your best life" and getting as many "blessings" as possible.
So is the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful God that will ultimately judge all of humanity a concept that society is now moving past?
Certainly atheists, skeptics and other critics of traditional Christianity point to a "judgmental, wrathful god" as one of the most objectionable points of the Christian faith.
Would a loving God pass judgment on someone?
Would a loving God punish someone?
These are some pretty heavy questions to think about.
So let's think about them for a bit.
First of all, I would like you to imagine a scenario with me.....
Imagine a society where the police always caught the criminals. But after catching the criminals, the justice system of that particular society lets those criminals go every single time with absolutely no punishment for their crimes.
What kind of society would that be?
Would that be a just society?
Would that be a fair society?
What would it be like for criminals and murderers and rapists and child molesters to be running around knowing that even if they did get caught there will never, ever be any penalty for any of the crimes they are committing?
Would that be a society that you would want to live in?
What would you call a justice system that had results like that?
Even though justice in our current society is far from perfect, at least there is an attempt to catch criminals and bring them to justice.
But you know what?
A large percentage of Christians in America today believe that God is just like that justice system that never, ever punishes the criminals.
Today many Christians believe that God would never punish anyone for anything.
After all, "judgment" was an "Old Testament" thing, right?
Wrong.
The truth is that God is a God of perfect love AND of perfect justice, and according to the Bible the judgment of God is very real.
In 2 Timothy 4:1, the apostle Paul tells us that God will judge the inhabitants of this world:
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead
In 1 Peter 4:5, the apostle Peter echoes the same sentiments:
But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
In Hebrews 13:4 it tells us that God will judge those who are sexually immoral:
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
In Revelation 11:18 we are told that God will destroy those who destroy the earth:
The nations were angry; and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great— and for destroying those who destroy the earth.
In Hebrews 9:27 we are reminded that we only get one life (no reincarnation) and after that we face judgment:
Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment
Well, what about Jesus?
Wasn't his message all about peace and love?
Well, yes it was.
But also there was NOBODY in the Bible who talked about hell more than Jesus did. Just consider a few examples.....
Matthew 5:29
If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
Matthew 23:33
"You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?
Luke 12:5
But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.
The reality is that the Scriptures consistently tell us that a judgment is coming. In John 3:36 it says this:
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.
The Bible consistently teaches that without Jesus to pay for our sins that we remain under the wrath of God. The love of God is very powerfully portrayed in Scripture, but also the perfect justice of God is also very powerfully portrayed. Just consider the picture of God's justice that is painted in the following passage of Scripture.....
2 Thessalonians 1:6-10
God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
But most people today do not like to hear about God's justice. They don't WANT to hear that judgment is coming. In fact, the people of today sound very much like the people that the apostle Paul was describing in Romans 2:5.....
But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.
The reality is that most people today are terribly stubborn.
They think that they don't need God.
They think they can do whatever they want.
Even many people who "believe" that God exists think that He would NEVER judge them.
However, if we turn to the end of the book we read about the final judgment of humanity, and it should be sobering for all of us when we read what is to happen.....
Revelation 20:11-15
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
So is there any good news? Yes, there most definitely is.
Remember, God is a God of perfect love AND of perfect justice.
We stand guilty before God because of our sins, but God loved us so much that He sent His only Son to die on the cross to pay the penalty for OUR sins.
In John 5:24 it describes the destiny of those who are willing to accept Jesus into their lives and receive that forgiveness.....
I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
If you are interested in learning more about how you can receive Jesus Christ into your life, then we would encourage you to read the following information.....
If Christianity is real (and it most definitely is - just read the rest of this blog), then the decision that you make about Jesus Christ is the most important decision that you will ever make in your life.
Remember, God is a God of perfect love and of perfect justice.
We all have violated God's laws over and over and over and those sins must be paid for.
Jesus paid for those sins on the cross and so you have two choices.....
#1) You can accept the payment Jesus made on the cross for your sins and ask Him into your life as your Savior and Lord.
A science professor down in New Orleans says that he can prove that God exists by using science. I wish this short news report had gone into much more detail about his theories.....
Happy Passover to everyone! Today is a day of great celebration. On this day we remember the exodus of the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
More specifically, the term "Passover" recalls the time when the people of Israel put the blood of a lamb on their doorposts so that the death angel would pass over their homes. Because Pharaoh would not let the people of Israel go, God sent a plague which killed all the first born sons, but those from the people of Israel who had their doorposts covered by the blood of a lamb were spared from the plague. It was a time of great deliverance for the people of Israel that we remember down to this day.
So what is a site about Christianity doing wishing everyone a happy Passover?
Well, because we celebrate Passover and not Easter.
Does that shock you?
Perhaps we should take a closer look at the two holidays.
Which holiday is actually more "Christian": Passover or Easter?
On first glance that might seem like a completely ridiculous question.
Isn't Passover a "Jewish" holiday and Easter a "Christian" holiday?
Well, not exactly.
The earliest Christians did not celebrate a holiday called "Easter" at all.
They kept Passover.
After all, when did Jesus die on the cross? (On the eve of Passover)
When did Jesus rise from the dead? (During the Feast of Unleavened Bread)
What holiday foreshadowed the sacrifice of the lamb of God for centuries before it happened? (Passover)
So why do Christians celebrate a holiday called Easter?
Do you even know what the word "Easter" means?
Have you ever wondered where that word originated?
That is something I always wondered about when I was growing up.
However, it was not until I started doing some research that I began to learn the truth about Easter.
Many of our old reference books actually told us the truth about these things.....
The Britannica Encyclopedia (1934) defined Easter this way:
"EASTER (es’ter). Ostara, or Eastre, was the goddess of Spring in the religion of the ancient Angles and Saxons. Every April a festival was celebrated in her honor. With the beginnings of Christianity, the old gods were put aside. From then on the festival was celebrated in honor of the resurrection of Christ, but was still known as Easter after the old goddess."
So why do we celebrate "Easter"?
Well, the story goes back a long way - to the ancient Middle East.
Have you ever heard of "Ishtar" or "Ashtoreth"? Most of you probably have. They are ancient names of the same pagan fertility goddess. In fact, if you trace the various pagan fertility goddesses back far enough, they all trace back to Semiramis of ancient Babylon.
Over time, "Ashtoreth" and "Asherah" became "Ishtar" which eventually became "Eastre" and then finally "Easter", but it is all the same pagan fertility goddess.
Some other names of "Easter" over the centuries included Aphrodite from ancient Cyprus, Astarte from ancient Greece, Demeter from Mycenae, Kali from India and Ostara, a Norse goddess of fertility.
Easter "eggs" and bunny rabbits are pagan fertility symbols that celebrate this pagan fertility goddess, and they have been used as symbols for her for thousands of years.
So why do Christians celebrate "Easter"?
Jesus did not die on "Easter".
Do you want to know when Jesus died?
He died on the eve of Passover.
You see, in the "Old Testament", God had His people come up to Jerusalem three times per year. One of those times was for Passover.
During the very first Passover, God had the Jews take the blood of a lamb and put it on their doorposts so that the death angel would pass over their houses.
And do you know what doorposts are most commonly made of?
Wood.
And do you know where wood comes from?
From a tree.
So the message of that very first Passover was that the blood of the lamb on the tree covers us from the wrath of God.
Does that sound familiar?
It should.
It is the message of the cross - the blood of the lamb on the tree covers us from the wrath of God!
So for hundreds upon hundreds of years, God had His people gather in the exact city where Christ would die, at the exact time of the year when He would die, and He had them celebrate a holiday that perfectly foreshadowed the sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah.
So why do Christians not celebrate the holiday of Passover?
Did you also know that Jesus celebrated Passover? The Last Supper was actually a Passover meal (just look it up in the Scriptures).
During the Last Supper Jesus said to do this meal in memory of Him.
And did you know that all of humanity will celebrate the Passover during the 1000 year reign of Christ? If you don't believe me, just read Ezekiel chapters 45 and 46.
Did you know that "Easter" was celebrated by ancient civilizations such as the Assyrians, the Phoenicians, and the Philistines? Did you know that ritual pagan sex acts were involved with the celebration of "Easter"?
So why have we all forsaken a holiday which predicted the sacrifice of Jesus, which is full of symbolism about Jesus, which is during the precise time when Jesus died and rose again and which God tells us in the Scriptures to remember?
Why have we instead been celebrating a pagan fertility festival that is named after a pagan fertility goddess and is filled with pagan symbols and traditions?
The YouTube video below contains even more information on Easter and Passover.....
Perhaps it is time to reconsider a lot of the things that we have taken for granted.
The Bible has nothing to say about Easter.
But it has a ton to say about Passover.
If you do not know much about Passover, I would encourage you to pick up your Bible and to read about it. Passover is a truly extraordinary holiday that perfectly foreshadowed the sacrifice of Christ every year for over a thousand years before Jesus arrived on earth.
So is Passover more Christian than Easter?
The truth is that there isn't even a comparison.
We wish you a truly happy Passover and today we join together with believers all over the world in recognizing one of God's amazing holidays.
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Today atheists, skeptics and opponents of Christianity believe that they have the intellectual high ground when it comes to matters of logic, reason, science and faith. The reality is that the exact opposite is true, but our churches are doing a miserable job of equipping us to defend the faith. Hopefully blogs such as this will change all that. If you like what you see here, then please help spread the word about this site.
