Please pray for the relief effort to help the people of the region of Palu, Sulawesi in Indonesia that was hit by a destructive tsunami caused by a 7.5 earthquake three days ago. Towns are cut off from communication and people are desperate for clean water to drink, food, and other aid. The streets are lined with outdoor, make-shift morgues and the death toll is likely to climb dramatically. The airport has been damaged, making it challenging to get relief to them. It is “an excruciating recovery effort that is just beginning to get underway as the death toll climbs. To date, more than1,000 people have died in the catastrophe, but a local report has described scenes of widespread tragedy, with "bodies everywhere."

Please see this link for more information:

https://abcnews.go.com/International/bodies-34-children-discovered-indonesias-sulawesi-volunteers-dig/story?id=58203430

• Please pray for Indonesia and the people affected by this disaster during this urgent time of recovery. 
• Pray especially for the effective coordination and distribution of aid in time to help those still alive. 
• Pray for God’s comfort for those who mourn the loss of their relatives and friends and for His redemptive working to bring good out of this awful situation.

Articles on different aspects of this troubling phenomenon

“Over the past few weeks, the Chinese government has escalated its persecution of Christians by destroying crosses, burning Bibles, confiscating religion materials, and closing churches.

This week the Beijing city authorities banned Zion Church, one of the largest unofficial Protestant “house” churches in the city and confiscated “illegal promotional materials.” The crackdown started in April, after the church rejected requests from authorities to install 24 closed-circuit television cameras in their building.

Bob Fu, president of China Aid and the recipient of ERLC’s Religious Liberty Award in 2007, told the Associated Press that the closure of churches in central Henan province and a prominent house church in Beijing in recent weeks represents a “significant escalation” of the crackdown.

“The international community should be alarmed and outraged for this blatant violation of freedom of religion and belief,” said Fu.

Fu also provided the AP with video footage of what appeared to be piles of burning Bibles and forms stating that the signatories had renounced their Christian faith. Fu said that marked the first time since Mao’s 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution that Christians had been compelled to make such declarations, under pain of expulsion from school and the loss of welfare benefits.

Chinese law requires Christians to worship only in congregations registered with the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, but many millions belong to so-called underground or house churches that defy government restrictions… 

Churches in China that are not part of either the state-sanctioned China Christian Council or the Three-Self Patriotic Movement are considered “house churches.” The term can be misleading, though, since it can refer to any unauthorized church, regardless of size or meeting location. Some “house churches” in China are mega-congregations. The Zion Church in Bejing had 1,500 members.

Freedom of religion is technically guaranteed in the Chinese constitution. The Constitution of the People's Republic of China of 1982 specifies that:

Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief. No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion. The state protects normal religious activities. No one may make use of religion to engage in activities that disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system of the state. Religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination.

The constitution protects the right to hold or not hold a religious belief, and protects "normal religious activities," that is, religion groups that submit to state control through the State Administration for Religious Affairs. China has five officially sanctioned religious organizations: the Buddhist Association of China, the Chinese Taoist Association, the Islamic Association of China, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement.

As Brian C. Stiller, the Global Ambassador of the World Evangelical Alliance, says, “The issue isn’t so much freedom of religion as it is freedom of assembly. The government seems not as concerned about what people believe, as they are over people gathering in large groups or by becoming too public.”

https://stream.org/brutal-truth-persecution-christians-china/

In recent months, there have been increasingly disturbing reports about the persecution of Christians in China…There were over 240,000 recorded examples of persecution in China in 2017, up from roughly 48,000 in 2016. This represents a very concerning spike in hostile activity…

Specifically, “By 2020, the Communist Party will attempt to monitor its citizens through a massive surveillance system called China Skynet.

“China’s Skynet combines mobile phone GPS tracking, text message collection, 170 million security cameras, to make sure everyone is harmonious to make sure no one does anything illegal.

“China also controls the media.  There is the state-run media but private networks are censored. So, while China, today, barely resembles the Communist State of the 1950s and 1960s in terms of economic structure, it still retains almost all if the other aspects of Communism.: state control, censorship and mass surveillance.”

The 14-Year-Plan

According to the detailed report sent to me, the government has implemented a three-phase, 14-year plan:

“During the first 2-year phase, 2012-2014, it further eased persecution of the underground church, enticing more of them to surface and be identified.”…

“During the second 2-year phase, 2014-2016, it invited and then pressured the identified underground churches to register and become Three-Self government churches.   

“In the current third, 10-year phase, the gloves have come off as both the remaining underground churches and even Three Self churches are being persecuted using Mao-era brute-force, as well as mass surveillance, artificial intelligence, and big data.”

The Persecution

What, exactly, has been taking place? According to the report:

• Over 2,000 crosses already have been burned or ripped down from church buildings.
• Many churches have been demolished.
• Thousands of pastors already have been arrested, beaten, tortured and/or sentenced to years in prison.
• By 2020, 600 million CCTV cameras – nearly one for every 2 Chinese citizens – will blanket China. They are being forcibly installed inside church buildings to record 24/7 the entrances, stairwells, offering boxes, and Bible counters to monitor who attends church, buys Bibles, and where those Bibles are taken.
• The Chinese government’s new “social credit system” has begun to assign social credit scores to its citizens for not loitering, not jaywalking and other compliant behaviors, which eventually will include not attending “illegal” underground churches.
• Chinese Christians will only be able to purchase the Communism-friendly version of the Bible that the Communist Party is presently translating.
• In February of 2018, the Chinese Communist Party also drastically increased its penalties and restrictions targeted against Christians. The government will also tighten up control over religious activities in schools, religious postings online, and trips overseas for religious training.
• Recently, the State Council endorsed the penalties, adding that anybody providing a venue for an “illegal religious event” will face a fine of between 20,000 yuan ($2,900.00 USD) and 200,000 yuan ($29,000.00 USD).

Also, in September of 2017, the Chinese government announced that: “Anyone who organizes an unapproved religious event will be fined 100,000 to 300,000 Yuan ($14,500 USD to $43,500 USD).” And, “Anyone who rents or provides the venue for such an event will be fined 20,000 to 200,000 Yuan ($2,900 to $29,000 USD).”

In addition to this, there are nationwide efforts to exalt the rule of President Xi (this has been reported in the west as well; see here), even in Mao-liketerms. Xi has said that religion must be guided by the party to adapt to socialist society, and with that, the government-run churches have announced plans for the “Sinicization of Christianity.” Specifically, this refers to “bending Christianity to submit to the will of the Chinese Communist Party.”

But what is clear is that millions of our brothers and sisters in that vast and important country are really suffering. Let us pray for them and for their government. And let’s ask our government to address this humanitarian crisis today.This is the very least we can do.”

But what is clear is that millions of our brothers and sisters in that vast and important country are really suffering. Let us pray for them and for their government. And let’s ask our government to address this humanitarian crisis today.This is the very least we can do.”
04 China’s Pastors Take Their Stand

“When thinking of the golden age of the Church, many of us hearken back to the book of Acts, when Peter and John stood up to the religious authorities, who told them to be silent about Jesus the risen Messiah. “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God,” they answered, “you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” Then they prayed for boldness, and the Church exploded across much of the ancient world.

But there’s a golden age for the church going on right now—with the same kind of courage, persecution, and Spirit-empowered growth. Where is it? In communist China.

World missions historians tell us that when all the foreign missionaries were kicked out of Mao’s China a few years after the Second World War, there were probably no more than 3 million believers in Jesus Christ in the whole, vast nation. But today, seven decades later, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life counts 67 million Christians of all kinds—35 million independent Protestants, 23 million Protestants in government-sanctioned churches, and 9 million Catholics. Other estimates go even higher.

Whatever the true number is, it’s almost as many as there are members of the Communist Party! Maybe that’s why the government is cracking down on Christians. According to Christianity Today and other news outlets, Under President Xi Jinping, China’s government has been tightening its grip on religious affairs.

In February, regulations aimed at religious groups have brought increased pressure on churches to be “Chinese” culturally and to submit to the authority of the Communist Party. Churches are being told to burn their crosses and replace them with Chinese flags and to display slogans praising the Communist Party. Some are being forced to join the government-sanctioned churches and permit video surveillance of their services.
Meanwhile, in Jiangxi province, authorities have forced at least 40 churches to display banners forbidding foreigners from preaching and anyone under 18 from attending. In August, they even published new rules stating, “Party members who have religious belief should have strengthened thought education.”

In the spirit of Peter and John, a group of at least 250 Chinese pastors has publicly signed a joint statement opposing the new regulations. In the statement they declare that Jesus is Lord of all, offering eternal life to anyone who will repent and believe in Him.

But they also say, in a challenge to the Chinese communists, “God hates all attempts to suppress human souls and all acts of persecution against the Christian church, and he will condemn and judge them with righteous judgment.”

Then, like Peter and John, they pledge obedience not to the earthly authorities but to King Jesus, no matter what. “We declare that in matters of external conduct, churches are willing to accept lawful oversight by civil administration or other government departments as other social organizations do. But under no circumstances will we lead our churches to join a religious organization controlled by the government, to register with the religious administration department, or to accept any kind of affiliation.”

They close their incredible joint statement with the bracing yet sobering words, “For the sake of the gospel, we are prepared to bear all losses—even the loss of our freedom and our lives.”
Friends, is it any wonder that the church in China has grown, and continues to grow? What we’re seeing before our eyes is the golden age of the church in China. How can we not pray for these wonderful brothers and sisters? And more than that, how can we not emulate their costly faithfulness in our own little corner of God’s world?”

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Please pray for the government of China and President Xi to repent of this new policy against religious believers and their gatherings. Pray that religious freedome can be restored and that in the meantime, Christian leaders and believers will be greatly strengthened to be bold like lions and continue their ministries across the land with its vast population still needing to come to Christ.

Articles on the history and nature of Islam, the Islamic Jihad, Islamofascism and the growing connection with Leftist Totalitarianism Excerpted from JihadWatch.org)

The History of Islamic Jihad

“For those who still think — and, alas, there remain many — that Islamic terrorism has emerged only in the last forty years or so, The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS, Robert Spencer’s carefully researched work on jihad from the beginning of Muhammad’s political and prophetical career to the acts of terrorism of September, 11, 2001, will be a salutary shock…

One of the chief merits of Spencer’s account of Muhammad’s career in this book’s first chapter is that he relies entirely on those earliest extant Arabic sources, and if the picture that emerges of the Prophet of Islam is far from flattering, Muslims, at least, cannot complain that it is a portrait painted by the enemy or infidels. Unfortunately, much of the subsequent bloody history of Islam that is recounted in this book can be seen to derive from the example set by its founder: his intolerance of non-Muslims, his anti-Jewish sentiments, his attitude to women, all are attested to in the Islamic sources.

Thanks to Spencer’s book, we can no longer pretend that Islamic fundamentalism is an aberrant form of Islam. The seeds of violence and intolerance are already there in seventh-century Arabia, and in the life of Muhammad..

Along the way, he shatters many myths, such as the myth of the Golden Age of Spain, a putative period of ecumenical harmony, a kind of perpetual medieval Woodstock Summer of love. He also puts the Crusades into perspective, and reminds us that the Crusades were a belated response to years and years of jihad, and persecution of Christians. Spencer brings the story up to modern times, not forgetting the Armenian genocides perpetuated by the Turks between 1915 and 1923.

Robert Spencer’s work is essential reading for all of us, for all those who want to defend our values from the relentless jihad that has not ceased for fourteen centuries.”

The threat of Islamicization coupled with Leftist totalitarianism

“As totalitarianism overshadows America, no one can say that they were not forewarned. Both Horowitz and Spencer have been sounding the alarm for years; the Muslim Brotherhood plan for North America has been public knowledge for years. Its Explanatory Memorandum is expansive and detailed in describing its mission:

“The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

9/11 “mastermind” Khalid Sheik Mohammed stated:

“We will win because Americans don’t realize . . .we do not need to defeat you militarily; we only need to fight long enough for you to defeat yourself by quitting.”

Mohammed was correct. Far too many citizens of the West have quit — they take their freedoms of granted and are in denial, having not learned the lesson of history that fascism is insidious and does not take control of societies suddenly, as many seem to think. Its invasion is methodical and gradual.

Some examples of how businesses have joined the totalitarian initiative:

Kellogg Co. announced on November 2016 its decision to pull ads from Breitbart “because its 45,000,000 monthly conservative readers are not ‘aligned with our values as a company.’” Here we see Kellogg’s attempting to control the thoughts of citizens and impose its values on consumers. Fortunately, Breitbart “launched a #DumpKelloggs petition and called for a boycott of the ubiquitous food manufacturer, which lead to plummeting stock and reported $53 million loss in the fourth quarter.” The arrogance of Kellogg Co. was astounding, with CEO John Bryant claiming that the company’s massive losses were just a “coincidence” and not due to the boycott.

In the three months following Kellogg’s war against Breitbart:

the company has faced allegations of racism toward factory workers and has been accused of allegedly profiting from the use of child labor. Its non-profit W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s ties to radical anti-American billionaire George Soros, hate group Black Lives Matter, and deceased Cuban dictator Fidel Castro have been exposed, and the Michigan-based company is set to shutter dozens of distributions centers and lay off more than 1,100 full-time employees…

These are but a mere few examples, but they go on and on. What normal citizen can point out the “hate” in exposing such news? Every single day, reports emerge from the four corners of the earth about human rights abuses committed in the name of Islam, Islamic supremacist incursions into once-peaceful countries, the slaughter and injury of innocent people committed in the name of Islam, and jihad attacks. If reporting and discussing these facts are an offense to Muslims and deemed to be “hateful” and “racist,” then we need to have serious open discussions about why and how this is so. But there is a strenuous effort to shut down all discussion of these matters…

It is by degrees that totalitarians manage to seize control. The establishment media becomes a mouthpiece of the people in power, and soon, the population becomes enslaved to their ideologies, as we see with Islamofascism. It is abusive, oppressive and aims to silence all dissent as it marches against the House of War in order to subvert it and bring it into the House of Islam. This 1,400-year-old doctrine has infiltrated the West in the private and public sectors, and the Muslim Brotherhood, in accordance with its memorandum, has managed to redefine “hate” to mean any criticism of Islam…”

The Success of Islam

SEP 15, 2018 9:00 AM BY AMIL IMANI

“The religious aspect of Islam played a minuscule role in the propagation of Islam, as evidenced by the fact that Muhammad’s preaching in Mecca for thirteen years converted only 150 followers. Keep in mind that this is the period when Mohammad was meek, powerless and a “crazed poet.” Nearly all his Mecca Quran dealt with mystical and religious type issues, with Allah’s hell and paradise.

It was during following nine years in Medina, where a religious-mystical preacher was replaced by a violent and combative activist, when tens of thousands flocked to his faith. The Arabs of the time lived with chronic violence, one tribe against another. Warring among themselves was a major way of gaining wealth and making a living. Hence Muhammad’s success against the Jews of Medina began to attract others in droves to the booty of wealth, women and children.

The success of Islam from the early days depended on war and violence. During thirteen years in Mecca, Islam expanded by about twelve followers a year. But the Islam of Medina, based on war and violence and the enticement of booty, expanded the rank of the creed exponentially. It is estimated that Islam’s numbers swelled to nearly 100,000 by the time of Muhammad’s death.

Clearly, Islam surged at the point of the sword, with the dictum of polarization. Muslims were considered righteous irrespective of their deeds, while the kefirs (infidels) were stigmatized as enemies of Allah and subject to maltreatment and death.

For a belief system with such lofty claims as the perfect prescription for eternal life authored by the creator of universe, Islam is anything but logical and consistent. It is more like sleight of hand. Now you see it, now you don’t. Situational ethics, contradictions, and outright errors are rampant in Islam’s scripture.

For example, Quran 2:219 admonishes the faithful to be forgiving and tolerant of Jews and Christians. Yet Quran 9:29 directs Muslims to attack them until they are humbled and made to pay the jizyeh, the dhimmi tax. And Muslims to this day do exactly that. They act tolerant toward the People of the Book until they gather enough power. Then they proceed full force to subdue, humble and make them pay backbreaking Islamic taxes and submit to Sharia.

It is instructive to note that much of the Meccan Quran, the mystical poetic and more gentle Quran, characterized by tolerance and acceptance of others, is overturned by the intolerant and combative Quran of later Medina. Powerlessness was accompanied by meekness, while power unleashed savagery and violence.

Another telling point about this Islamic expediency and hypocrisy is clearly seen in the two parts of the Quran. The gentle Quran of Mecca is very Jewish. It is full of accounts about Jewish figures such as Noah, Adam and Moses. By contrast, the brutal Quran of Medina is full of negative assertions, and is anti-Jewish…

Once in Medina, Muhammad hit on a most powerful formula for success. He justified everything by claiming that Allah wanted it this way. And Allah was nothing to trifle with. He held the key to the most magnificent paradise as well as to a dreadful hell. The duty of every good Muslim became unquestioning obedience to everything that Muhammad said and wished. Muhammad became Allah’s gatekeeper to paradise and hell.

Muhammad’s formula worked magic with the Bedouins of Arabia, who thrived on robbery and killing. His religion spread in no time at all.

As Muhammad gathered more and more followers, he turned on the Jewish community of Medina, killed the men, plundered their belongings, and captured their women and children as slaves. That was the birth of “Jihad.” Be meek and deceptive first, until you gather enough power then unsheathe the sword. It worked then and it is working today.

In no time, the savages of Arabia were lured by the win-win promise of Muhammad: you kill, you get the booty from your victims in this world, and if you get killed, your abode will be the unimaginably glorious sensuous paradise of Allah. Sword in hand, they sallied forth to lands near and far…”

Jihadwatch.org

Please pray for our government authorities in our various nations to clearly see the growing danger of Islamicization and its connection with the “politically correct” and insidious Leftist totalitarians who seek the overthrow of traditional values of limited government and the protection of religious and personal freedom for individuals.
Pray with the Lord’s delegated authority that the principalities and powers behind these false and deceptive and destructive ideologies will be bound and driven out of our nations and governments.