Merkel seeks treaty giving EU more powers by 2009

 

The following articles are compiled by:

Leo Wong

Leo@WatchmenWatching.com

 

 

Pakistan successfully test fires nuclear-capable missile

Source: Associated Press

      

March 23, 2007 -- Pakistan successfully test-fired on Thursday a nuclear-capable cruise missile with the capability to avoid radar detection, the military said.

 

The missile, named Babur or Hatf VII, has a range of 700 kilometers (434 miles) and is capable of carrying various types of warheads, including nuclear, the military-run Inter-Services Public Relations Directorate said.

 

"The test is part of Pakistan's ongoing efforts at consolidating its strategic capability and strengthening national security," the directorate said in a statement.

 

Babur was first tested in 2005. It was test-launched again Thursday with an enhanced range, a military official said.

 

"Babur was tested successfully with new technical parameters and enhanced edge," said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the top army spokesman.

 

Neither Arshad nor the military statement specified site of the missile launch.

 

President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz congratulated the scientists and engineers for "this very important success" of the test, the military statement said.

 

Pakistan routinely tests various nuclear-capable missiles in its arsenal, believed to be designed mainly to match that of neighboring archrival India.

 

In February, Pakistan successfully test-fired a new version of its long-range nuclear-capable missile, Hatf VI (Shaheen II), which has a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,245 miles).

 

Comments:  Why all the commotion over Iran’s ambitious nuclear program when Islamic Pakistan already has nukes and no Western country is making a big stink over it?  Why focus on Iran?  Most Islamic nations are against Israel and the U.S.  However, Pakistan gets brownie points from the U.S. because Pakistan is assisting the American military in locating the fugitive Osama bin Laden who is believed to be holed up inside a mountain within Pakistan.

 

As far as Israel is concerned, all Islamic states are to be viewed with suspicion.  Even nuclear Hindu India can’t be trusted as India’s main ally is Russia which had supported Syria, Iraq and Egypt in the past.  Who’s to say that either India or Pakistan won’t help Iran out if Russia stops its shipment of nuclear fuel to Iran?  There are no guarantees and assurance in life other death and taxes.  India and Pakistan will comprise part of the kings of the east who will march west to Jerusalem toward the end of the Tribulation Period.  These kings and their armies of 200 million will meet at Armageddon and in concert with the Antichrist will attempt to obliterate Israel from the face of the earth.  Revelation 16:[12] And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.  [16] And He gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.  Revelation 9:[16] And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.

 

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"Bleeding" Jesus portraits draw crowds in India

Source: YAHOO NEWS!

 

March 23, 2007 -- Thousands of people are flocking to a policeman's house in India's remote Andaman Islands to pray in front of two portraits of Jesus Christ, which are said to have been "bleeding" for the past two weeks, police and witnesses said.

 

Eric Nathaniel, a police radio operator, found red fluid trickling down a portrait of Jesus in his house two weeks ago which he believed was blood.

 

"We lit candles and prayed all night and a little later the blood dried but it soon started trickling down from the hands and heart of another portrait in the house," Nathaniel told Reuters in the islands' capital Port Blair on Wednesday.

 

Officials said red paint used in the portraits could be melting in the extreme humidity, but islanders and priests were coming in boats from remote parts of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago to pray.

 

"This is indeed a miracle and shows that Jesus was in pain because of our sins," said John Chrysostom, a priest at the Anglican Church of Port Blair.

 

Comments:  2 Thessalonians 2:[9] Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.  The spirit of antichrist permeates this world.  Lying wonders such as Mary apparitions and now, bleeding Jesus portraits, are demonic deceptions devised to delude those who are religious (sincere as they might be) but lost.  Faith is believing and trusting God without seeing signs and miracles.  If you continually ask God for visible proofs, then it’s possible the Devil will step in to manipulate your mind through visual delusions just like a skilled magician.

 

God specifically forbids graven images (see Deuteronomy 7:25) and idols (see Leviticus 19:4 and 21:1).  Portraits of Jesus fit that description.  As noble as wanting to put Jesus on a piece of canvas, nobody presently living has seen Jesus when He walked this earth.  To worship a portrait of Jesus is idolatry, just as constructing a statute of Mary and revering her virginity.  They’re both wrong.

 

Jesus’s suffering at the hands of sinful men cannot save our souls.  That’s right.  Mel Gibson’s movie, “The Passion of the Christ”, showed the terrible mistreatment (scourging, whipping, driving of nails through flesh, spitting) Jesus underwent at the hands of cruel sadistic Roman soldiers.  The message was misconstrued and believed by many Catholics and Protestants alike that the physical sufferings of Jesus somehow have spiritual meaning.  The stark reality was that it was God’s forsaking His Son Jesus for three dark hours when God poured out His wrath on Jesus for sins committed by us (not Him) that was so all important pertaining to the forgiving of our sins.  That and Jesus’s shed blood alone will accord us eternal salvation if we believe by faith that Jesus died for our sins.  So, when you see poor misguided men around Easter time carrying huge wooden crosses for a long distance emulating Jesus prior to His crucifixion and then having their backs whipped and their hands and feet pierced with iron spikes, that kind of suffering will not earn those men everlasting life.  They’ve bought into the Devil’s delusion, that’s all.

 

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Invading Lebanon a mistake, Shimon Peres says

Source: Associated Press

 

March 24, 2007 -- Israeli Vice-Premier Shimon Peres told a panel investigating the government's handling of last year's war in Lebanon that Israel's decision to invade was a mistake, the military was unprepared and Israel's foe, the Hezbollah militia, did a better job than the Israelis of handling media coverage, according to testimony made public Thursday.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appointed the commission, headed by a retired judge, under intense pressure from a dissatisfied public because of the inconclusive war. Hezbollah rained almost 4,000 rockets on northern Israel, but Israel's military failed to achieve the war's stated aims -- smashing Hezbollah and returning two captured soldiers.

 

The country's army chief, Dan Halutz, resigned as a result of widespread criticism of his handling of the fighting, and there have been widespread calls for Olmert and Defence Minister Amir Peretz to follow suit.

 

"The greatest mistake is the very fact of war," he told the commission. "Whoever wants to avoid mistakes should completely avoid war... If it had been up to me I would not have gone into this war."

 

Comments:  Peacenik Shimon Peres has played the Beatles’ “Give Peace a Chance” so much that he’ll need to get a CD version once his 45 vinyl wears out from overplay.  What choice did PM Ehud Olmert have other than venture into southern Lebanon to confront Hezbollah?  4,000 rockets raining down on Israeli Jews living in northern Israel is a provocation that needed a military response.  To do nothing would be utter irresponsibility.  Yes, Israel’s military didn’t fulfill its mission, i.e. wipe off Hezbollah from the face of this earth.  With Iran rearming Hezbollah faster than cockroaches can multiply, the situation in southern Lebanon is worse than before the war of 2006.  Olmert’s and his defence minister’s poor execution demands a fall guy or two and Peres’ finger pointing away from himself just indicted the Kadima Party’s two brightest lights.

 

Peres, even at his advanced age, still wants to play a major role in dividing his country all for the sake of peace and security.  If God hadn’t remove Peres from the prime ministerial post twice, Peres would have sold the shop to the Arabs by now.  This dovish man really believes that appeasing the Arabs would lead to mutual respect and living side-by-side in the Holy Land within a dual-state solution.  The liberal left-wingers in Israel want peace at any price and they won’t stop at anything to accomplish that, even at the possibility of not going to war when war is the only available remedy to confront the terrorists.

 

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Ten Things Your Minister Wants To Tell You : (But Can't, Because He Needs the Job)

Source: Amazon.ca

 

March 24, 2007 -- Christianity, "like Islam, is in danger of being hijacked by a militant minority of fundamentalists," writes Thomas, a Southern Baptist minister and constitutional lawyer active in public debates about religion, science and education. In this short book, he takes on today's big religious questions: homosexuality, the place of women, evolution vs. creationism, the plausibility of miracles, religious pluralism, life after death and others. Thomas's writing is clear and engaging, if occasionally flip ("This book is written for all the people who want to live lives of purpose... without having to put their brains in their pockets"). Taking on popular religious writers like Tim LaHaye and Rick Warren, Thomas argues against many conservative interpretations of biblical texts and sides with those who understand them as written by humans in a particular time and context far removed from the 21st century. Little in the book will be new to readers of contemporary religious newspapers or magazines, who may find its brevity disproportional to its price tag. But for those who have not yet been exposed to the religious debates taking place in the public forum, this concise book serves as a good introduction.

 

Book Description

"How did it all begin?"  "What happens when we die?"  These are just two of the questions Reverend Oliver "Buzz" Thomas hears centrist Christians asking as he travels across the U.S. and he knows that their voices are not being heard.  They're people of faith, not of politics, and they want more from their religion than a voter's guide. In 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You: But Can't Because He Needs the Job, Rev. Thomas has written a book that will become the liberal Christian answer to The Purpose Driven Life. He writes sensitively about the reason we were put on this earth, the significance of the Bible and how one pleases God. He answers difficult, contemporary questions like "What about homosexuality?" and "What about other faiths?". In 10 Things, Rev. Thomas weaves a Christian theology for today that people will embrace as a guide to sensible, modern living.

 

Comments:  When Jesus said in John 8:[36] “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”, He wasn’t alluding to liberalism.  He meant freedom from the bondage of sin.  Liberal Christianity is about man’s thoughts overriding the Word of God.  It’s man centered theology which puts aside the leading of the Holy Spirit and says to believers, “.  Never mind what God said. This is our interpretation of the Bible.”  The result is that man in his finite wisdom determines that this or that passage of Scriptures is no longer applicable in the 21st century.  Women can preach freely from the pulpits, homosexuality is not a sin, nobody is right or wrong.  We can all please God our own way.   Carnality is based on each person’s definition.  We can’t confine God.  Evolution is on par with creationism.  It’s all relative.

 

In the past, Baptist churches were straight as an arrow when it came to Biblical concepts.  You could enter a Baptist church and didn’t really have to read their articles (statement) of faith and be confident that the pastor would teach out of the Bible and there would be no false doctrines or any such things.  Now a day, the American Baptist denomination is as liberal as many of the liberal mainline Protestant churches, i.e. Methodist, Lutheran, etc.  Even the Southern Baptists can no longer be trusted to maintain the truth.  This Rev. Thomas is an example of a Southern Baptist gone astray with his liberalism.  His attacks on Tim LaHaye (of the Left Behind series fame) and Rick Warren (a fellow Baptist but hardly a conservative thinker) are a good indicator that he reviles others who don’t put on their trousers the same way he does.  Liberals are fueled by Satan of which there is no doubt.  Titus 1:[9] Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

 

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Churches on mission to learn about Islam

Source: Brenda Suderman for the Winnipeg Free Press

 

March 25, 2007 -- Amidst bonspiels, hockey games, family commitments and unreliable spring weather, dozens of Christians from southern Manitoba communities recently wrote a chapter of our national history.

Four United Churches collaborated to learn more about Islam in an event thought to be the first of its kind outside a major city.

 

"I would like to congratulate all of you for opening a new chapter in Canadian history. Never before has such a dialogue taken place," Toronto-based Imam Abdul Hai Patel told about a hundred people assembled in a church hall here last Sunday.

 

Heavily involved in interfaith dialogue and activities in Toronto and the surrounding area, Patel said his first visit to southern Manitoba also coincided with the the first time he's participated in a Muslim-Christian discussion in rural Canada.

 

Held March 16 to 18, the weekend event included presentations by James Christie, dean of theology at the University of Winnipeg. The university was a co-sponsor of the event, along with United churches in Miami, Manitou, and Carman, and the Agassiz Presbytery of the United Church.

 

"What you're engaged in is really part of the worldwide communion of saints," Christie said. " This is a worldwide endeavour we're part of here today."

   

Last year, the same group of churches invited Rabbi Steven Garten of Temple Shalom in Ottawa for a Jewish-Christian dialogue. For 2008, the churches hope Garten, Patel and Christie will return for a three-way discussion, said planning committee member Beth Cruikshank.

 

Interfaith dialogue is critical in a country that is becoming increasingly diverse, said Patel, referring to the 800,000 Canadians who are Muslim, half of whom live in southern Ontario. Winnipeg is home to an estimated 8,000 Muslims.

 

"The need to understand another faith is as important as knowing the temperature outside," said Patel, who serves as co-ordinator of the Islamic Council of Imams and a volunteer Muslim chaplain at the University of Toronto.

 

That need for information motivated Miami resident Heather Lawson to attend all three weekend meetings, and inspired her to look for more information about Islam through courses or books.

 

"For me it is really exciting to learn about someone else's faith and have a better understanding of what it is to be a good neighbour," she said.

 

"I'm interested in learning about other faith," said Ray Froese, who attends a Mennonite church. "We hear about other faiths through the media. I think a lot of misconceptions were cleared up. People have a lot of misconceptions that Islam is all violence."

 

For Halstead, this sort of forum convinces her that Christians have a responsibility to understand other perspectives if they have are to have any sort of witness.

 

"For me, I think that people of faith have something to offer to the world. I think all people of faith should say something together to the world. But if I don't know them, I tend to assume or speak for them, or get annoyed when people assume or speak for me."

 

Comments:  Utterly blind is what these United Church and Mennonite Brethren believers are.  Islam’s aim is to take over this world by the sword and the so called “moderate” Muslims and Canada’s TV comedy “Little Mosque on the Prairie” are tools of Islam to try to snooker Canadians into believing that Islam is peaceful and there’s nothing to be afraid of Allah and the prophet Mohammed.  Absolutely nothing.  As a result, Canadians are flocking to universities, night schools and liberal churches to learn all they can about “peaceful” Islam.  It’s bad enough that the unsaved are being bushwacked by Islam’s brainwashing, but it’s reprehensible that so called Christians, under the guise of interfaith dialogue and tolerance, are promoting Islam as having something good to contribute to this world.  Ecumenism (the uniting of all Christian denominations) and the interfaith agenda are working in concert to bring about the One World Religion that’s on the fast track to the ultimate goal of Earth’s worship of Satan’s man of sin, the Antichrist.  Professing Christians are lending a big helping hand in bringing this about.

 

Where’s the preaching of the Gospel of God in all of this?  None to be found.  Instead, let’s learn more about the goodness that’s in Islam.  Let’s get along religiously.  What did the Apostle Paul say about the enemies of the Gospel?  We’re to have no fellowship with them.  But today, unlearned believers who either don’t read their Bibles or if they do, their ears are deaf to the Holy Spirit speaking to them about being unequally yoked to the works of unrighteousness. Where’s the separation?  There are more Islamic studies than Bible reading going on these days in many of the churches.  2 Corinthians 6:[14] Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?  [17] Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.

 

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Joel Osteen hits big on iTunes

Source: Christiantoday.com

 

March 25, 2007 -- America’s “Most Watched Pastor” Joel Osteen’s audio podcast hit #9 in the podcast charts on iTunes last week, Joel Osteen Ministries announced.

The dynamic pastor’s audio podcast has been near the top 10 on iTunes since the month of January. More than 1 million downloads were recorded in the month of February alone.

 

“We were very pleased to see the numbers spike when we began letting people know about the podcasts on Joel’s television broadcast,” stated Jeana Lawrence, Director of Marketing and Communications for Lakewood. “Based on the number of subscribers per day, Joel Osteen is one of the most popular podcasts in the world.”

 

Joel Osteen’s audio and video podcasts have consistently grown in popularity since they were first launched in early 2006 staying at or near the #1 spot in the iTunes inspirational category for the past six months. The audio podcast has consistently ranked in the top 20 overall and the video podcast in the top 40.

 

Comments:  2 Timothy 4:[3] For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.   Joel Osteen, the reluctant pastor (by default, he took over his father’s ministry upon his dad’s death although he had no seminary training), is not a pastor in the real sense of the word.  He doesn’t preach the Gospel (sin, repentance, God’s holiness and wrath, the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross, eternal life) of God to the thousands of his church members and to the TV viewers out there.  Instead, he’s more of an Anthony Robbins and Stephen Covey motivational speaker extolling the virtues of high self-esteem and how you can have “Your Best Life Now”.  He relieves the itching ears of his audience. That’s why people love him so much.  His messages are always positive and about getting the best out of life.  The unsaved know there’s only one life to live and that’s to live it up to the hilt.  The Christians also seek earthly riches in their quest to have their cake and eat it too.  Osteen is feeding them spiritual junk food full of calories but devoid of any godly blessings.  He appeals to all earthly minded people.  He doesn’t prick their consciences with guilt topics such as sin, Hell and the Lake of Fire.  Oh no!  That would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs (the continuation of his fame and his very lucrative ministry).

 

Osteen is smiling like a Cheshire cat as he mulls over his high rating on iTunes.  Of course, he wants to be #1 in a very short time.  Oh, how loves the adoration his fans freely heap on him.  He’s rich in this life, but when he stands before Jesus at the judgment seat of Christ, what good works will remain after the dross has been burned off?  2 Corinthians 5:[10] For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

 

 

 

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Keep watching (Matt 24:42)!

 

Until next time,

Shalom!

 

 

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