The following articles are compiled by:

Leo Wong

Leo@WatchmenWatching.com

 

 

Iraqi prime minister supports an Assyrian Christian province in Iraq

Source: ASSIST News Service

 

April 24, 2007 -- Assyrian Christians in Iraq have made a formal request for a Province of their own inside the war-torn country, and many see this as the only way to persuade thousands of refugees outside the country to return.

 

The Assyrian Province, under the same legal framework as neighboring Kurdistan, is seen as a key to bring the Northern part of Iraq into stability.

 

In a wide-ranging, exclusive interview in Tokyo for ANS with Ken Joseph Jr., Iraqi President Nouri al Malaki affirmed the Assyrian Christians' right to have a Province of their own, which could be provided for under the Iraqi Constitution.

 

Malaki said: "I have a bias towards the Assyrian Christians. They are the indigenous people of our country and our most nationalist and good people."

 

He added: "We want them to be inside the country and active and able to retake their rights. We will do all we can to help them. At the same time, if they feel they need an area, a province of their own as the Constitution provides, I support this fully"

 

Comments:  Hebrew 11:[8] By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. [9] By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: [10] For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

 

Christians are called by God to be pilgrims and sojourners while here on earth.  As such, settling down is contrary to that calling.  Our journey through this world of sin and woe is temporal.  Very soon, we’ll meet our maker God and His Son Jesus Christ, dwell in Heaven for a short time, come back to Earth with Jesus to reign with Him for 1,000 years and thereafter, dwell in the New Jerusalem.  Doesn’t this stir your heart with joy and anticipation?

 

We read of Lebanese Christians dwelling in southern Lebanon and in this news article that Iraqi Christians want their own province within Iraq and assert their rights.  When the media report a community of Christians, they really mean in name only.  Some, but not all people in that community are born again believers.  It’s just like Germany’s Christian Social Democrats, it’s a political party’s name.  It doesn’t mean they’re Christians in that they’ve declared their faith in Jesus Christ and are following him.  The classic example is the Roman Catholic Church calling itself the only true Christian Church on earth.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  These days, everyone is labelling themselves “Christian”.  True Christians would not want an earthly inheritance let alone land upon where they can settle down comfortably alongside the world’s own.

 

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Woman nominated to lead Anglican Church of Canada

Source: Associated Press/christianpost.com 

 

April 24, 2007 -- The Anglican Church of Canada could elect its first woman leader during a national assembly this summer.

 

Edmonton Bishop Victoria Matthews is among four nominees for archbishop, or primate, who were chosen Thursday by Canada's Anglican bishops during a private meeting in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The election is set for June 22 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

 

If Matthews wins, she will be the second woman elected to lead a national Anglican church in the nearly 500-year-old Anglican Communion.

 

Comments:  The Anglican Church of Canada is a dying mainline Protestant denomination.  God has stopped blessing the ministers and churchgoers in a collective sense.  They have adopted formalism and denied the power of the Holy Spirit in leading the church services and authority in their everyday lives.  Being liberal in its theology, the Anglicans have permitted the ordination of women ministers and bishops contrary to the New Testament teachings of the Apostle Paul.  Disobedience to God’s Holy Spirit inspired Word = powerless Christianity.

 

Nevertheless, the Canadian Anglicans are forging ahead in defiance of God.  In the midst of declining membership, they’re determined that female leadership is the way to go.  Never mind the humanistic teachings that emanate from the pulpits are a bunch of gobbledegook and hard to decipher and understand and does the soul more harm than good.  Never mind there’s no preaching about Jesus and His plan of salvation.  Those who aren’t fed God’s Word are leaving for other denominations that are on fire for the Lord.  Those remaining don’t leave because of tradition and misplaced loyalty to their church.  Revelation 3:[1] And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars;         I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.

 

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America's tallest tower to lift the Windy City

Source: independent.co.uk 

 

April 24, 2007 -- Developers behind what would be the nation's tallest building - a twisting, lakefront tower in Chicago - will this week discover whether they have crossed one of two final hurdles before proceeding with their record-breaking plan.

 

The city's planning board last week endorsed a plan for the 150-storey building, known as the Chicago Spire. This week the plan goes before the city's zoning committee and if that gives the green light, the full council is due to vote next month.

 

The 2,000ft tower featuring 1,200 residences, would top the city's 1,451ft Sears Tower and become the tallest building in the US. It would soar above the 1,776 ft Freedom Tower that is currently being constructed on the site of the World Trade Centre, which was destroyed in the September 11 attacks.

 

Comments:  Genesis 11:[4] And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. [5] And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. [6] And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. [7] Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. [8] So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. [9] Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

 

Modern day society is once again building the Tower of Babel in order to reach into Heaven to supplant God from His throne on high.  Man endeavours to build taller and taller towers to make a name for himself.  Human pride knows no boundaries.  If you build a tall one, I’ll trump you one.  Chicago’s Sears Roebuck skyscraper isn’t tall enough for Chicagoans.  They want one that’s even higher. If New York thinks it’s going to beat us, they have another thing coming.  The song `My Kind of Town Chicago Is` won’t play second fiddle to `New York, New York`.  No way!  `If you can do something, I do it do it better and taller` boasts the Windy City by the shores of Lake Superior.

 

Like Lucifer who boasted of dethroning God and was cast down by God, mankind’s pride will take a direct hit very shortly.  God cannot allow man to go unchecked.  The upcoming 7-year Tribulation Period will be man’s Waterloo just like Napoleon’s defeat at the hands of the British.  Proverbs 16:[18] Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

 

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Church planting leaders conference opens

Source: christianpost.com 

 

April 24, 2007 -- Some of the nation's most prominent church planting leaders are getting together to help inspire and challenge fellow leaders in the largest conference of its kind in North America.

 

Building from momentum from last year's gathering that had a sold-out crowd of around 1,000, the 2007 National New Church Conference opens Monday in Orlando, Fla., in an even larger venue to accommodate the growing number of participants.

 

Although new models, approaches and conferences have emerged over the last several decades, still the American culture is "less reached" and even those who go to church are "less committed," said Stetzer.

 

As churches adopt prevailing culture models, Stetzer believes church planters have a natural tendency to jump into cultural relevance more than biblical fidelity. Although that isn't a bad impulse, there needs to be balance, he noted.

 

The 2007 National New Church Conference, themed “Exponential: Moving Beyond Addition,” is scheduled for Apr. 23-27 with such speakers as Bill Hybels, Larry Osbourne, Jim Putman and Mark Driscoll, among others.

 

Comments:  The church in North America sure does need an injection of energy and zeal.  There’s a sense of apathy, comfort and a lack of fervency.  It’s the day of Laodicean lukewarmness; neither hot nor cold.  The church has settled down comfortably in the world among the multitude of lost and perishing souls who are headed for Hell.  Gospel witnessing one on one is practically non-existent.  Preachers no longer pummel sinners with fire and brimstone messages from the pulpits.  Young people don’t read their Bibles and have very knowledge of God’s Word.  The older folks are tired due to their long spiritual trek through this world.

 

At the 2007 National New Church Conference, what will come out of it?  Perhaps a call for revival, spiritual renewal, a re-commitment of self to the Lord, a concerted drive to further the social gospel?  Church growth will definitely be on the agenda.  Get more people into the churches; cram them in with a shoe horn if need be.  If the crowds are overflowing, build a new edifice elsewhere and vacate the old premises.  People must be spurred into action.  It’s no longer acceptable to remain a passive Christian.  Believers must put on their runners and do things for the Lord.  Let’s pray that everything will be in accordance with God’s Word, that the Holy Spirit will be allowed to lead the speakers, and that every attendee will be in tune with Jesus as to His specific instructions for believers as the age of God’s grace draws to an end.

 

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Israel at 59

Source: Jerusalem Post

 

April 24, 2007 -- Today, as we remember Israel's fallen, our thoughts go especially to the 233 families who have joined the circle of bereavement over the past year, including the 119 families who lost soldiers in the Second Lebanon War.

 

Since 1860, the year that the first Jewish settlers left the secure walls of Jerusalem to build new neighborhoods, 22,305 men and women have died in the establishment and defense of the Jewish state.

 

This is a staggering toll. It is hardly consolation that during the Holocaust more Jews were slaughtered over a few days than in this entire struggle, or that more Israelis have died on our roads than have lost their lives to war or terrorism.

 

Every life lost represents the destruction of a world. Yet life - impossibly, sometimes it seems - goes on, leaving the rest of us to remember, and to contemplate what such sacrifice means for us as individuals, as a people and as a nation.

 

It is this thread, from sacrifice to its objective - a country that is free, secure, and striving to be a light unto itself and the nations - that connects today's commemorations with the celebrations that begin tonight.

 

This year, as our 59th Independence Day begins, it is more difficult than usual to contemplate such lofty aspirations. We are in a strange and debilitating situation in which the government enjoys a large parliamentary majority and yet seems to have lost its popular mandate.

 

The combination of a drumbeat of police investigations of senior politicians, the perception of a failed war, and the sense that our leadership is defying the popular will by tightly gripping on to power is shaking confidence in our political system and the direction of our country.

 

Our leadership crisis is made worse by the fact that it does not come at a time of international stability, but of intensifying threat. Hamas, Hizbullah and perhaps even Syria are, according to security officials, preparing for the next war, while Iran is racing to achieve nuclear weapon capability.

 

Despite all this, it is neither healthy nor warranted to focus only on rot and weakness. Much needs to be done, but there is much to build upon. A rational observer would not choose the place of our enemies.

 

The war in Lebanon, for starters, did change the status quo ante, and in some aspects, so far, for the better. Before the war, Hizbullah was openly bristling with weapons on our border, and seemed, by holding much of Israel hostage to missile attack, to constitute an Iranian-controlled deterrent against any Israeli act of self-defense.

 

Today, the deployment of the Lebanese army and bolstered UNIFIL forces in the south have forced Hizbullah underground. Hizbullah's long-range missile arsenal has been destroyed and not fully replaced, and the UN has just voted to investigate Syrian weapons smuggling. Further, Hizbullah, which lost something like a third of its fighting force, cannot easily afford to plunge Lebanon into another war, even if its power seems to have increased within Lebanon.

 

Meanwhile, the Iranian threat looms, but we are not alone in confronting it. Unlike the run-up to the war in Iraq when America and Europe were on divergent paths, this time the UN Security Council has been slowly but significantly tightening sanctions on Teheran. The Sunni-led states of the Arab world, far from opposing this process, are quietly egging the West on.

 

Comments:  Israel is a baby boomer.  She’s leaner and meaner since her rebirth in 1948 although she’s a bit rough around the perimeter having continually rebuffed unwelcomed courtiers and (Hez) bullies.  She’s greying around the Temple Mount area with the bald Dome of the Rock reflecting the sunlight onto her Jerusalem City eyes.  Yes, she may have seen better days, but for her, life begins at 59 and there’s no end in sight for her.  Morticians have measured her just in case she faltered in war and died.  God has assured her that her that she will never see the inside of a casket.  She may be seriously wounded, but Jesus will preserve her to the end.

 

The Muslim world always gets agitated around Israel’s birthday.  Determined to push all Jews out of Palestine 59 years, they are out of their mind with frustration that Israel has not only turned back each and every military attack, but her population has exceeded 7 million.  It would be that much harder to exterminate the Jews.  Also, with each passing year, Israel’s military gets mightier with more advanced technologically superior armaments than the Arabs/Muslims.  But beware, Israel!  You’re going to face one of the most uncertain summers ever.  War drums can be heard in the distant from the north and east.  Get ready to rumble with Islam.

 

 

 

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Keep watching (Matt 24:42)!

 

Until next time,

Shalom!

 

 

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