The following articles are compiled by:

Leo Wong

Leo@WatchmenWatching.com

 

 

Christians worldwide mark Good Friday

Source: Associated Press

 

April 6, 2007 -- Some in agony, others in ecstasy, Christians around the world marked Good Friday with prayer, processions and pleas for peace.

 

Thousands of pilgrims, some carrying large wooden crosses and others holding candles, wound their way through the narrow lanes of Jerusalem's Old City, retracing the route the Bible says Jesus took on the way to his crucifixion.

 

And in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI carried the cross at the beginning of the traditional Way of the Cross procession at the Coliseum.

 

He described the procession as, "a journey into pain, solitude and cruelty, into evil and death."

 

"But it will also be a path trod in faith, hope and love, because the tomb which is the final stop on our way will not remain sealed for ever," the pope said of Easter Sunday, when Jesus is believed to have risen from the dead.

 

Benedict handed over the cross to Rome Cardinal Camillo Ruini, his vicar for Rome. Other faithful, including a young Congolese woman and a family from Rome, took turns carrying the cross for a few steps.

 

In Mexico City, meanwhile, more than 500,000 people turned out for the annual Passion play in the capital's working class Iztapalapa neighborhood. Thousands participated in the procession, many lugging heavy crosses through the streets.

 

Officials said it was the 164th year that the Passion play has been enacted in the neighborhood, although there are references to earlier performances in Mexico City going back to the 16th century.

 

In the Mexican silver-mining town of Taxco, hooded men belonging to a Catholic brotherhood slapped their backs bloody with nail-studded whips and dragged their shackled bare feet across rough cobblestone streets. Others carried thorny blackberry branches tied across their outstretched arms.

 

On Jerusalem's Via Dolorosa - or Way of Sorrows - visitors from the United States, India, South Korea, the Philippines, Russia and many other countries followed the traditional route of Christ's final walk, stopping at 14 stations, each marking an event that befell Jesus on the way to his death.

 

Comments:  Poor deluded souls snookered by Roman Catholicism.  Like Catholic filmmaker Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” film which emphasized solely on man’s cruelty toward Jesus (the inhumane whipping and scourging heaped upon Christ) and completely missed the real message which was God’s forsaking of His Son on the cross for 3 darkened hours in which Jesus bore God’s Holy wrath due to our sins, these uneducated souls sincerely believe that the same inflicting of physical pain will somehow appease God.  Nothing could be further from the truth!  Some males have actually had spikes driven through their hands and nailed to a cross just like Jesus.  Then there’s the procession of people carrying a large wooden cross paralleling Jesus’s slow march toward Calvary.  There’s no forgiveness of sins for such public display of martyrdom and parade.  Only confess your sins to Jesus and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and avail of His shed blood for the forgiveness of your sins which nailed Him to the cross. Mark 15: [33] And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. [34] And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

 

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Commentary: What would Jesus really do?

Source: By Roland Martin, CNN Contributor

 

April 6, 2007 -- When did it come to the point that being a Christian meant caring about only two issues,­ abortion and homosexuality?

 

Ask the nonreligious what being a Christian today means, and based on what we see and read, it's a good bet they will say that followers of Jesus Christ are preoccupied with those two points.

 

Poverty? Whatever. Homelessness? An afterthought. A widening gap between the have and have-nots? Immaterial. Divorce? The divorce rate of Christians mirrors the national average, so that's no big deal.

 

The point is that being a Christian should be about more than abortion and homosexuality, and it's high time that those not considered a part of the religious right expose the hypocrisy of our brothers and sisters in Christianity and take back the faith. And those on the left who believe they have a "get out of sin free" card must not be allowed to justify their actions.

 

Many people believe we are engaged in a holy war. And we are. But it's not with Muslims. The real war -- ­ the silent war ­-- is being engaged among Christians, and that's what we must set our sights on.

 

I'm looking for the day when Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Joyce Meyer, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, James Kennedy, Rod Parsley, " Patriot Pastors" and Rick Warren will sit at the same table as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Cynthia Hale, Eddie L. Long, James Meek, Fred Price, Emmanuel Cleaver and Floyd Flake to establish a call to arms on racism, AIDS, police brutality, a national health care policy, our sorry education system.

 

If they all say they love and worship one God, one Jesus, let's see them rally their members behind one agenda.

 

Comments:  It’s Roland Martin who has his priority all wrong.  If he really loves people and the Lord like he said, he would give people the Gospel of God and not the social gospel which only benefits them temporarily.  If a person dies without Christ and goes to Hell, what good will the shelter over his head, a better job, and higher income do for him then?  Do you know any liberal Christian who preaches the Good News?  It’s all about saving the environment and bettering the lives of the common folks.  Feed their bellies, but forget that they have an immortal soul that needs to be saved.  So many modern missions are about building schools, homes, irrigation systems to till the land and feed the famished.  You never hear about preaching how souls can come to Jesus to be saved.  This is reprehensible and shows a real lack of concern for souls!

 

Abortion is the deliberate killing of the unborn, little ones whom Jesus loves.  Homosexuality is a gross sin and places a soul in grave danger of being eternally lost.  It’s the Christian’s duty to highlight these two abhorrent sins before the world.  To remain silent is to be in complicity with the sinners.   Liberal Christianity marches to the tune of the Devil.

 

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Why are Christian men avoiding marriage?  

Source: usreligiousnews.com

 

April 7, 2007 -- Pastor Jerone Davison is the Author the popular book "The Spiritual Fragrance of a Woman , the Fragrance that Attracts the Right Man". Pastor Jerone is a young man who loves the people in his church and prays that their hearts desires will be meet. He is passionate about the futures of single women in the church and prays to see them happily married. "The question in our churches is why aren't our daughters getting married? Why aren't the men who come to church and get saved choosing to marry the single saved women in the church? Are the women doing something wrong? I don't think so. Are all of our men going Gay, DL, Thug Life or Crazy Coo Style? I pray not."

 

Davison says that one of the reasons why he feels men don't marry is because most have grown up in single parent, illegitimate homes or bad marriage homes. Most have never seen a good marriage first hand leaving no desire for marriage. Marriage for most of today's men is nowhere on the list of life's priorities. This is a major issue and is growing uglier by the generation. Which is why the women in our Churches must be more demanding of a marital commitment from their boyfriends before sex? Challenge them to be responsible men by making them wait and make a decision. Premarital sex changes everything it changes his feelings about the woman which is why most of the time it's a hit and quit situation.

 

Secondly, most of today's men don't understand the spiritual or natural significance of marriage and the impact it has on our children thinking that marriage is only a piece of paper. This is where the Church comes in. We've got to preach about marriage. After all car registration is paper, a driver's license is paper covered by plastic, a receipt is paper etc and without most of these you would be consisted illegitimate just as illegitimate as shacking up and pretending to be married.

 

Lastly, the Fear Factor. Men have a fear of losing sexual excitement, thinking the more the merrier; they fear that one woman can't satisfy. Not knowing that sex in marriage is the greatest love of all because God's blessings are on marriage and marriage has the big three love, commitment and trust anything else is uncivilized. Marriage is a true gift from God and it's a shame to see it go to waste. "The Spiritual Fragrance of a Woman the Fragrance the Fragrance .”

 

Comments:  With the divorce rate among Christians the same as the unsaved, it’s no wonder Christian males have cold feet.  Who wants to fall in love, date for 2 blissful years, get married, go on a dream honeymoon, enjoy 2 or 3 years of good married life, settle down into a routine, and then take each other for granted for the next 5 years or so?   This seems to be the progression of a typical marriage these days.  Blame much of it on Hollywood which glorifies “having an affair” and “there can be many soul mates and not just one only”.  Then there’s the Devil tempting married Christian men into adulterous affairs with the cute “thang” in the office or worse, a pretty attentive single female in the same church congregation.  The Devil’s purpose is to destroy the family institution and especially Christian marriages.  The recent failings of Christian public figures such as Ted Haggard and Newt Gingrich only add to scare off Christian young single men.  Lastly, some Christian men believe that one can serve the Lord unhindered by the responsibilities of marriage and children just the Apostle Paul. 1 Corinthians 7: [32] But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: [33] But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.

 

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Disney opens weddings to gay couples

Source: Associated Press

 

April 7, 2007 -- Same-sex couples who want to exchange vows in front of Cinderella's Castle now have the chance.

 

The Walt Disney Co. had limited its Fairy Tale Wedding program to couples with valid marriage licenses, but it is now making ceremonies at its parks available to gay couples as well.

 

"We believe this change is consistent with Disney's long-standing policy of welcoming every guest in an inclusive environment," Disney Parks and Resorts spokesman Donn Walker said Friday. "We want everyone who comes to celebrate a special occasion at Disney to feel welcome and respected."

 

The company said it made the change after being contacted by a gay couple who wanted to use the wedding service, which offers ceremonies at Disneyland in California, Walt Disney World Resort in Florida and Disney's cruise ships.

 

The service offers flowers, dining, music and many optional Disney touches, from ceremonies in front of the parks' iconic attractions to having Mickey and Minnie Mouse in formal wear as guests. The packages start at $8,000 and can cost more than $45,000.

 

Comments:  Who would have thought that once family oriented Disney Corporation would now go out of its way to accommodate gays and lesbians?  The late Walt Disney would have none of this if he were still alive.  But since Disney was run by Michael Eisner, things have changed for the worse.  Sure, magic and fairy tales defined Walt Disney’s shows and his Disneyland and Disney World; that we can’t deny have had a bad influence on young children.  Some Christians don’t think that stuff is all that bad since C.S. Lewis used magic extensively in his “Chronicles of Narnia” and his friend  J.R.R. Tolkien employed it extensively in the “Lord of the Rings”.  To each his own I suppose.

 

Disney’s embracing of the alternative lifestyle is a barometer of just where we are in the prophetic timeline.  Evil men and waxing worse and worse.  The Sodomites are taking over much of Western society just like it did in Sodom of old just prior to God sending fire and brimstone and destroyed that wicked city and all its inhabitants.  The 7-year Tribulation Period looms in the immediate horizon.

 

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Which of the following do you believe is MOST likely to occur in 2007?

Source: raptrurealert.com

 

1.         The Rapture of the Church.

2.         Israel will be attacked by Syria.

3.         Peace will come to the Middle East.

4.         A terrorist attack involving a nuclear weapon.

5.         Israel will attack Iran.

6.         China will attack Taiwan.

7.         A bird flu pandemic will erupt.

8.         The United States will attack Iran.

9.         Iran will attack Israel.

10.       The Gog-Magog attack will occur.

 

Comments:  The above Top 10 events are a good indicator we’re indeed living in the last days.  The Rapture of the Church is imminent; it can happen at any moment and then prophetic events will really heat up.  This world will see another world war; it’s just a matter of when.  Iran is itching for a fight and the U.S. and Israel look like they’re on the verge of attacking Iran’s suspected underground nuclear facilities.  China is poised to invade Taiwan and may use the U.S.‑Israel joint attack as a smoke screen.  Syria and Hezbollah will surge against Israel either this Spring or Summer.  Osama bin Laden is believed to have his cohorts smuggled suitcase nukes into major U.S. cities.  Russia is flexing its muscles once again and its growing Muslim population is restless to take on the infidel Americans and Israelis.  The world situation is getting bleaker and bleaker yet there are liberal Christian groups getting on their soap boxes and declaring that Mother Earth is on the precipice of attaining universal peace and brotherhood/sisterhood.

 

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Warning of bad hurricane season  

Source: BBC.com

 

April 8, 2007 -- Experts are again predicting a busy Atlantic hurricane season, with up to 17 named tropical storms forming - nine of which could become hurricanes.

 

At least one major storm is expected to make landfall in the US during the 1 June-30 November season, Colorado State University forecasters said.

 

Last year, leading forecasters wrongly predicted a bad hurricane season.

 

However the record-breaking 2005 season saw 15 hurricanes, including Katrina which devastated New Orleans.

 

Another forecaster, London-based Tropical Storm Risk, has likewise predicted 17 tropical storms, nine of them hurricanes, for the 2007 season.

 

'Very active season'

 

"We have increased our forecast for the 2007 hurricane season, largely due to the rapid dissipation of El Nino conditions," Colorado experts Philip Klotzbach and William Gray said in a statement.

 

"We are now calling for a very active hurricane season. Landfall probabilities for the 2007 hurricane season are well above their long-period averages," they said.

 

Comments:  Luke 21:[25] And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring.  America got a reprieve in 2006, but will get a double dosage of hurricane battering in 2007 to make it for it.  Yes, the winds will howl and the seas will rage and surge.  The flooding of New Orleans is a harbinger of things to come for the North American coastlines.  Jesus foretold that killer storms would be prevalent in the last days prior to His return to Earth.  It’s God’s warning to the earth dwellers that this life is only temporal; you can’t hunker down and live here forever.  Life is just a dress rehearsal for the hereafter.  After death, there will be either the Judgment Seat of Christ (for believers) or the Great White Throne Judgment (for the unsaved).  Hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis are God’s way of getting the attention of Earthlings.  But, how many are listening and taking stock of God’s intentions.  Most just clean up after and rebuild and life goes on.  A few do heed God’s warning and get saved.

 

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Muslim influence growing in Russia: A new Islamic power?

Source: The Economist

 

April 8, 2007 -- Muslims in Russia -- or at least the politically active among them -- are rejoicing. On March 30 a human-rights case that had become a touchstone of Muslim concerns was dramatically resolved.

 

The story concerned a Russian who had adopted Islam, prefixing his Slavic name of Anton Stepanenko with a Muslim one, Abdullah. Thriving in his adopted faith, he became an imam in the south Russian town of Pyatigorsk. But in January 2006, say friends, he was arrested on sham charges of kidnapping and theft.

 

Senior Muslims across Russia used their access to the pro-government press to make a public appeal to President Vladimir Putin for his release. Suddenly, just as Muslims were about to celebrate the Prophet's birthday, the imam's fortunes changed: the charges against him were reduced and he was freed.

 

His release came just in time for this "exemplary, heroic figure for all the nation's Muslims," as one report called him, to go to the mosque and lead his flock in Friday prayers.

 

The imam's travails, and ultimate release, exemplify two features of Muslim life in Russia. One is the state's pragmatic combination of authoritarianism and flexibility towards minorities. Another is the emergence within Russia of an active but ultimately loyal Muslim community. Muslims want a fair deal and growing influence to match their rising numbers.

 

Whatever the Stepanenko case was about, it had nothing to do with the bloody war for the independence of Chechnya, which most people outside Russia -- including many Muslims -- see as the biggest quarrel between the Russian state and Islam.

 

Not that Chechnya is easy to sweep aside. For the world's Muslims, the troubled region is usually listed with Palestine, Kashmir and Bosnia as one of the places in which Islam has been under attack. The repression of the Chechens, as well as sputtering violence in the entire neighbourhood, is the biggest albatross around Putin's neck in his efforts to cultivate Muslim countries.

 

Yet in most of Russia a quite different contest over the future of Islam is going on. All of its participants insist that they have no desire to live under a ruler other than Putin. But they differ on how, and how far, to hold him to a promise he first made in Malaysia in 2003, when he declared that Russia was a Muslim power, which hoped to play a role in global Muslim affairs.

 

A Muslim power? It sounds bizarre. But Russia has more Muslims than any other European state (bar Turkey); and the Muslim share of the population is rising fast.

 

The 2002 census found that Russia's Muslims numbered 14.5 million, 10 per cent of its total of 145 million. In 2005 the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, put the number of Muslims at 20 million. Ravil Gaynutdin, head of Russia's Council of Muftis, talks of 23 million, including Azeri and Central Asian migrants.

 

Moreover, the Muslim population of Russia is rising even as the country's overall population falls. Many Muslim communities long predate Russian rule. Shamil Alyautdinov, the imam of the newest and most dynamic of Moscow's four mosques, insists that the very word "minority" should not apply to a faith "which emerged on Russia's territory far earlier than Christianity did."

 

Comments:  Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union (the Evil Empire as coined by the late President Ronald Reagan), the former Muslim Soviet Republics have made inroads into the Russian Federation.  The cross border immigration makes the American illegal immigration problem look pale by comparison.  Also, Muslim couples are having many more babies than the typical Russian couple.  Russia males are dying younger and Russian females are being exported to Asia, Europe and America as brides because they can’t find mates within Russia.  In due time, Russia could be a Muslim state as much as it is hard to fathom.

 

With this specter of an Islamic Russia becoming a possibility in short order, is it not surprising then that Ezekiel 38 describes Gog (leader of Russia) leading a host of Muslim nations to invade Israel in the last days?  The growing Muslim population in Russia will demand that Russia join Persia (Iran), Libya, Sudan and others to exact vengeance on Israel for destroying Iran’s nuke program.  Bible prophecy is remarkable.  Ezekiel 38:[2] Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, [3] And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: [4] And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:[5] Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: [6] Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.

 

 

 

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Keep watching (Matt 24:42)!

 

Until next time,

Shalom!

 

 

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