Iranian Pastor to be Executed

Please pray for this man and the thousands of persecuted Christians throughout the world.

(CNSNews.com) – An Iranian pastor who refuses to renounce his Christian faith could be hanged as soon as Wednesday, after a trial court ruling this week upheld his death sentence for “apostasy.”

Religious freedom advocates are calling urgently for governments to take up the case of Youcef Nadarkhani, a 32-year-old evangelical first sentenced to death late last year. If the sentence is carried out he will be the first Iranian Christian known to have been executed for his faith in 21 years.

Nadarkhani embraced Christianity at the age of 19, and since his Supreme Court appeal last June, proceedings focused on the question of whether he was a practicing Muslim at the time.

According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), although a court subsequently determined that he was not a practicing Muslim adult when he became a Christian “the court has decided that he remains guilty of apostasy because he has Muslim ancestry.”

Back in court on Sunday and Monday this week, Nadarkhani faced renewed pressure to disavow his faith, on pain on death. CSW cited sources close the case as saying two more sessions have been scheduled, for Tuesday and Wednesday – and “if he continues to refuse, he will be executed thereafter.”

Tim Tebow: as always, a class act

from: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/6974381/tim-tebow-thanks-fans-support-says-wait-turn-complaint

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- Save your bankroll and your breath Tim Tebow fans, the object of your desire and the target of your dislike both agree this is Kyle Orton's offense.

Tebow said Thursday that while he's honored his fans are cheering for him to take over as the Denver Broncos' quarterback, he trusts his coach and will bide his time without complaint.

"Well, I guess I appreciate the support, you know, but we got people in charge here that we trust and (I) trust they're going to do the right thing," Tebow said.

A group of Tebow supporters have said they'd like to buy two billboards in downtown Denver urging coach John Fox to bench Orton in favor of the former Florida star.

Tebow said he'd rather they donate the $10,000 to his charitable foundation.

Poll shows most People Believe in the Healing Power of Prayer

Nearly half of American voters believe in the Biblical account of creation, and even more think prayer can literally help people recover from medical problems.

A Fox News poll released Wednesday found 77 percent of voters believe prayers can help someone heal from an injury or illness, while 20 percent don’t believe that. The remaining 3 percent are unsure.

Click here to view the full Fox News poll results.

Those groups most likely to believe prayer literally heals include those who regularly attend religious services (93 percent), white evangelical Christians (91 percent), blacks (89 percent), conservatives (85 percent), and those who are part of the Tea Party movement (84 percent).

Women (82 percent) are more likely than men (71 percent) to believe in the healing power of prayer.

Some 45 percent of voters accept the Biblical account of creation as the explanation for the origin of human life on Earth, while 21 percent say the theory of evolution as outlined by Darwin and other scientists is correct. Another 27 percent say both explanations are true.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/07/fox-news-poll-most-believe-prayer-heals-45-believe-in-creationism/#ixzz1XIU2NPF6

Van Der Sloot Charged with 1st degree murder

No one--and I mean no one--gets away with anything in a world ruled by an all-seeing, all-just, all-powerful God. One may look like one has escaped for a time, but justice wins out eventually.

LIMA, Peru – Peruvian prosecutors have formally charged Joran van der Sloot with first-degree murder in last year's killing of a university student the defendant met at a Lima casino. They are seeking a 30-year jail sentence.

Van der Sloot was widely known before the May 30, 2010 killing of 21-year-old Stephany Flores as the prime suspect in the unresolved 2005 disappearance in Aruba of the American teenager Natalee Holloway.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/09/01/formal-murder-charges-for-van-der-sloot-in-peru/#ixzz1WkvMMa5E

Religion Determines View on President's Job Approval

from: http://visiontoamerica.org/3099/obama-receives-highest-approval-among-muslims/

Eighty percent of Muslim Americans approve of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president, according to a newly released survey conducted by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center, a partnership between Gallup and the Crown Prince Court of Abu Dhabi.

According to the survey, 65 percent of Jewish Americans approve of the job Obama is doing; 60 percent of atheists, agnostics, and those of no religion approve; 50 percent of Catholics approve; 37 percent of Protestants approve and 25 percent of Mormons approve.

"Brain Dead" Woman Wakes Up!!!!

Amazing story of our Amazing and unchanging God!

from: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/05/11/husband-celebrates-miracle-brain-dead-wife-wakes-hospital/#ixzz1M3vZejSJ

DARWIN, Australia -- A woman who was diagnosed as being brain dead has recovered three days after her husband begged doctors to put in a breathing tube before switching off a ventilator at an Australian hospital, the Northern Territory News reported Wednesday.

Gloria Cruz, 56, underwent brain surgery after a tumor was discovered when she suffered a stroke on March 7 and was rushed to the Royal Darwin Hospital in Darwin, Northern Territory.

Doctors told her husband Tani Cruz, 51, the case was “hopeless” and she would probably die within 48 hours following the surgery.

After two weeks, a breathing tube was inserted in Mrs Cruz's mouth and the ventilator was turned off. Hospital staff were stunned when she woke from her coma three days later.

When a doctor recommended that the ventilator be removed and Gloria Cruz be allowed to die, her husband told them, "I'm a Catholic -- I believe in miracles.”

“I told him that God knows how much I love her -- that I don't want her to suffer but I don't want her to leave us,” he said.

A doctor described her recovery as "a miracle."

Mrs Cruz is now alert and getting around in a wheelchair at the hospital.

"She's well on the way to recovery,” her husband said.

Steven Tyler: "Jesus, what have I done?"

from: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/266316/post-abortion-trauma-kevin-burke?page=1

Long before he won accolades as an American Idol judge, Steven Tyler was a bona-fide rock star, with all that that implied. In 1975, when he was in his late 20s and the lead singer for the band Aerosmith, Tyler persuaded the parents of his 14-year-old girlfriend, Julia Holcomb, to make him her legal guardian so that they could live together in Boston.

When Miss Holcomb and Tyler conceived a child, his longtime friend Ray Tabano convinced Tyler that abortion was the only solution. In the Aerosmith “autobiography,” Walk This Way (in which recollections by all the band members, and their friends and lovers, were assembled by the author Stephen Davis), Tabano says: “So they had the abortion, and it really messed Steven up because it was a boy. He . . . saw the whole thing and it [messed] him up big time.”

Tyler also reflects on his abortion experience in the autobiography. “It was a big crisis. It’s a major thing when you’re growing something with a woman, but they convinced us that it would never work out and would ruin our lives. . . . You go to the doctor and they put the needle in her belly and they squeeze the stuff in and you watch. And it comes out dead. I was pretty devastated. In my mind, I’m going, Jesus, what have I done?”

Amazing Video!

from: http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/videogaga/63710/the-davidcrowder-band-make-amazing-things-with-lite/

Contemporary Christian rockers the David Crowder Band have finally seen the light. The Lite-Brite, that is. The band's stunning new breakthrough video for "SMS (Shine)" just may do for Hasbro's beloved '70s electrical toy what the White Stripes' "Fell In Love With A Girl" video did for Legos or OK Go's "Here It Goes Again" did for treadmills.

Using stop-motion animation (with absolutely no computer graphics or effects), more than 700,000 vintage Lite-Brite pegs, and the help of 83 friends who'll probably never want to look at another Lite-Brite peg for the rest of their lives, the David Crowder Band created the video over the course of 2,150 hours and 148 pizzas. They literally made things with light, and the result--a 2D tale of true love--is electric indeed.

Dwight Howard, a Christian NBA player, blesses terminally-ill lady

Heart-warming story of how God wants to love people through Christians.

from:

Her bucket list included just one item.

Kay Kellogg didn't want to climb the Eiffel Tower. Or run a marathon. Or jump out of an airplane. She just wanted to have a nice conversation with her hero.

" Dwight Howard is just such a precious, wonderful kid," she says. "Whenever I watch him play, he just makes me feel good inside."
And for a woman who feels so bad inside most of the time, this is quite an accomplishment for Dwight.

You think leading the league in rebounding and blocked shots is difficult? Try leading the cancer ward in smiles elicited and hearts warmed.

Kay, 62, is sitting at her apartment Tuesday telling her story.

She's just finished yet another round of chemo. In her younger days, she was a ballet dancer, gracefully spinning and twirling as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker. Now, she slowly gets around with a walker.

She has Stage 3 Multiple Myeloma, an aggressive cancer that searches out and destroys the blood plasma in the bone marrow. Her disease is inoperable and incurable, but her demeanor is inspiriting and uplifting.

She lives on a fixed income, but two seasons ago she decided to treat herself to Magic season tickets in the upper level. Watching Dwight play is one of the joys of her life. She showed up at nearly every game that season wearing her blue No. 12 Dwight jersey.

"I was sitting way up in the cheap seats," she says, "but I felt like I was in heaven."

A few weeks ago, her daughter, Arian Clute, had an idea. She contacted the Magic and told them that her mother had but one wish before she died: She wanted to meet Dwight.

And, so, a few days ago, Dwight showed up at her door step. He was supposed to spend 30 minutes and ended up staying nearly two hours.

"He has become my 7- foot-tall bottle of medicine," Kay says

They laughed and talked and talked and laughed.

They talked about love and life — and death and divinity.

An Increasingly Large # of People Wondering...

...what religion is our president? I personally do not have enough information to make a judgement myself. I know this: I don't think the country would support a Muslim president at this time, we live in a society where lying is common place now (see Brett Favre: "I'm retiring, I'm not, etc"), and the whole birth certificate secrecy thing has made many people wonder. God is the Judge. I am praying that He will bring into the light what is hidden in the dark (if there is anything to hide). In the meantime, it is my job to honor him whom God has placed over me.

from: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/aug/19/white-house-says-obama-is-christian-prays-daily/

The White House insisted on Thursday that President Barack Obama is a Christian who prays daily as it looked to tamp down growing doubts among Americans about the president's religion.

White House spokesman Bill Burton made the remarks hours after a poll showed that nearly one in five people, or 18 percent, said they think Obama is Muslim. That was up from 11 percent who said so in March 2009. The survey also showed that just 34 percent said Obama is Christian, down from 48 percent who said so last year. The largest share of people, 43 percent, said they don't know his religion.

As Obama headed out for a vacation, Burton told reporters aboard Air Force One that most Americans care more about the economy and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and "they are not reading a lot of news about what religion the president is."

Burton added, "The president is obviously a Christian. He prays everyday."

The survey, conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center and its affiliated Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, is based on interviews conducted before the controversy over whether Muslims should be permitted to construct a mosque near the World Trade Center site. Obama has said he believes Muslims have the right to build an Islamic center there, though he's also said he won't take a position on whether they should actually build it.

In a separate poll by Time magazine/ABT SRBI conducted Monday and Tuesday _ after Obama's comments about the mosque _ 24 percent said they think he is Muslim, 47 percent said they think he is Christian and 24 percent didn't know or didn't respond.

In addition, 61 percent opposed building the Muslim center near the Trade Center site and 26 percent said they favor it.

Could this really be true?

from: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=166905

In the report, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit was quoted as saying during an appearance on Nile TV that, "The American president told me in confidence that he is a Muslim."

Netanyahu on Jerusalem in the Bible

from: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20100512/twl-oukwd-uk-palestinians-israel-jerusal-13abf6c.html

JERUSALEM - Beset by questions about Jerusalem's future in talks with the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached for the Bible on Wednesday to stake out the Jewish state's contested claim on the city.

Netanyahu told a parliamentary session commemorating Israel's capture of East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war that "Jerusalem" and its alternative Hebrew name "Zion" appear 850 times in the Old Testament, Judaism's core canon.

"As to how many times Jerusalem is mentioned in the holy scriptures of other faiths, I recommend you check," he said.

Citing such ancestry, Israel calls all of Jerusalem its "eternal and indivisible" capital -- a designation not recognised abroad, where many powers support Arab claims to East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

The dispute is further inflamed by the fact East Jerusalem houses al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third-holiest shrine, on a plaza that Jews revere as the vestige of two biblical Jewish temples.

Heckled by a lawmaker from Israel's Arab minority, Netanyahu offered a lesson in comparative religion from the lectern.

"Because you asked: Jerusalem is mentioned 142 times in the New Testament, and none of the 16 various Arabic names for Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran. But in an expanded interpretation of the Koran from the 12th century, one passage is said to refer to Jerusalem," he said.

Obama visits Billy Graham

Here's hoping that Billy had an effect on our president...

from: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/25/obama-visit-billy-graham-north-carolina-home/?test=latestnews

MONTREAT, N.C. -- President Obama made a pilgrimage Sunday to Billy Graham's mountainside home, concluding his North Carolina vacation with his first meeting with the ailing evangelist who has counseled commanders in chief since Dwight Eisenhower.
The 48-year-old president made the short drive to Montreat from Asheville, where he spent the weekend, to see the 91-year-old Graham and son Franklin, also an evangelist.
During the visit, which lasted about 30 minutes, Obama had a private prayer and conversation with Billy Graham. "He is extraordinarily gratified that he took the time to meet with him," White House spokesman Bill Burton said.

Netanyahu quotes Biblical Prophecy!

from: http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week traveled to to Poland to commemorate the 65th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz. Speaking on the actual site of the Nazi death camp, the Prime Minister warned the world of new genocidal threats against the Jewish people and the importance of acting early enough to prevent such threats from coming to pass. In a stunning and remarkable moment, Netanyahu also declared to the people of Europe and the world that the prophecies of Ezekiel 37 have been fulfilled. The Holocaust, he said, represented the "dry bones" and "graves" of the Jewish people, and out of that horror the State of Israel was resurrected, just as the Lord said would happen through the Hebrew Prophet Ezekiel. Rarely has any world leader given a major address on an international stage declaring End Times prophecies from the Bible have come true. But that is exactly what Netanyahu did.

Oral Roberts Joins His Lord in Heaven

Christianity lost yet another giant of the faith today. God used Oral to illuminate many Biblical passages that fly directly in the face of the naturalism of the 20th Century.

from: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580312,00.html?test=latestnews

TULSA, Oklahoma — Oral Roberts, the evangelist who rose from humble tent revivals to found a multimillion-dollar ministry and a university bearing his name, died Tuesday. He was 91.
Roberts died of complications from pneumonia in Newport Beach, California, according to his spokesman, A. Larry Ross. The evangelist was hospitalized after a fall on Saturday. He had survived two heart attacks in the 1990s and a broken hip in 2006.
Roberts was a pioneer on two fronts — he helped bring spirit-filled charismatic Christianity into the mainstream and took his trademark revivals to television, a new frontier for religion.

Albert Pujols: a Real Hero

More on Obama's gay pride White House event

from: http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=30803&ref=BPNews-RSSFeed0630

WASHINGTON (BP)--President Obama became the first chief executive to host a White House ceremony celebrating "gay pride" Monday, telling several hundred homosexual guests in the East Room that America still has what he called "old attitudes" about homosexuality but that they have "an ally and a champion" in the Oval Office...
...Conservative commentators were quick to note that the White House ceremony came only a month and a half after Obama chose not to host -- as was a custom under the Bush administration -- a White House event commemorating the National Day of Prayer...
..."There are unjust laws to overturn and unfair practices to stop," he said. "And though we've made progress, there are still fellow citizens, perhaps neighbors or even family members and loved ones, who still hold fast to worn arguments and old attitudes, who fail to see your families like their families, and who would deny you the rights that most Americans take for granted."Such language about "worn arguments" and "old attitudes" frustrated evangelicals, who say their views about the sinfulness of homosexuality are based on unchangeable biblical teachings. Bob Stith, the Southern Baptist national strategist for gender issues and representative of the denomination's Task Force on Ministry to Homosexuals (SBCTheWayOut.com), said evangelicals haven't "arrived at our conclusions on homosexuality lightly.""It isn't simply that we believe homosexuality is sin," Stith told Baptist Press. "We have wrestled with the texts, with the new apologetics of many activists and have come to a genuine, heartfelt belief that Scripture is clear on this."If "God says something is wrong," Stith said, then those who deviate from God's commands are missing "out on God's best" and are "in an adversarial relationship with God."

Presidential Quote of the Day

"I beseech thee, my sins, remove them from thy presence, as far as the east is from the west, and accept of me for the merits of thy Son, Jesus Christ, that when I come into thy temple, and compass thine altar, my prayers may come before thee as incense; and as thou wouldst hear me calling upon thee in my prayers, so give me grace to hear thee calling on me in thy word, that it may be wisdom, righteousness, reconciliation and peace to the saving of the soul in the day of the Lord Jesus. Grant that I may hear it with reverence, receive it with meekness, mingle it with faith, and that it may accomplish in me, Gracious God, the good work for which thou has sent it."

20 Year-old George Washington, later to become the 1st President of the United States of America

(Penned in his prayer journal)

Did you know that...

..."The heavens declare the glory of God" (Psalm 19:1) is engraved on a wall of the Library of Congress?
...A sculpture of Moses with the Ten Commandments appears over the east portico of the Supreme Court?
..."Holiness to the Lord" is engraved into a tribute block of the Washington Monument?
...a heartfelt prayer from President John Adams is carved into the stone fireplace in the White House State Dining Room: "I pray to heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that hereafter inhabit it"?

A slightly off-color...

...but full of historical truth article written by the out-spoken columnist Doug Giles. He was writing in response to President Obama saying the United States is not and has never been a Christian nation. Here's just a few of the parts I could include:

America’s not a Christian nation? Well, it’s not a Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim (yet) or Tai Chi nation. I know Barack is auguring for the USA to become an Obamanation, but heretofore from what I’ve read regarding our founders’ beliefs and original intent for this experiment in self-government, this Republic has a massive intentional Judeo-Christian bent to it and not a religiously neutral one. Stevie Wonder can see that.

Yep, our founding fathers liberally mixed our nation’s political cement with the rock-solid truths of the Judeo-Christian worldview. Christianity wasn’t the state’s declared religion, but our framers clearly stated that Christ and Moses were where this bad boy came from.

For example, Mr. President, consider this small little offering from a few of our founders regarding Jesus, Christianity and this archaic book called the Bible...
For instance . . .

John Adams

You remember John, don’t ‘cha? He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a judge, diplomat, signer of the Bill of Rights, and second President of the United States. Yeah, that John Adams. He said the following:

“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

“The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.” That’ll tick the UN off, now won’t it?

The above from Adams sounds kinda Christiany to me. Do you need another example? How about old JQA, John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the US, diplomat, Secretary of State, US Senator, and US Representative.

“My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ and I cannot cavil or quibble away [evade or object to]. . . . the whole tenor of His conduct by which He sometimes positively asserted and at others countenances [permits] His disciples in asserting that He was God.”

“The hope of a Christian is inseparable from his faith. Whoever believes in the Divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures must hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail throughout the earth. Never since the foundation of the world have the prospects of mankind been more encouraging to that hope than they appear to be at the present time. And may the associated distribution of the Bible proceed and prosper till the Lord shall have made ‘bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God’ [Isaiah 52:10].”

“In the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior. The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.”

Samuel Adams

Signer of the Declaration of Independence, “father of the American Revolution,” ratifier of the US Constitution, governor of Massachusetts, brewer of killer beer said the following . . .

“I conceive we cannot better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the Supreme Ruler of the world . . . that the confusions that are and have been among the nations may be overruled by the promoting and speedily bringing in the holy and happy period when the kingdoms of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and the people willingly bow to the scepter of Him who is the Prince of Peace.”

He also called on the state of Massachusetts to pray that . . .

• The peaceful and glorious reign of our Divine Redeemer may be known and enjoyed throughout the whole family of mankind.

• We may with one heart and voice humbly implore His gracious and free pardon through Jesus Christ, supplicating His Divine aid . . . [and] above all to cause the religion of Jesus Christ, in its true spirit, to spread far and wide till the whole earth shall be filled with His glory.

And lastly, for now, we have John Hancock, signer of the Declaration of Independence, president of Congress, Revolutionary general (you remember him, don’t ‘cha?) and governor of Massachusetts said the following, much to the secularists’ and wussy RINOs’ chagrin:

“Sensible of the importance of Christian piety and virtue to the order and happiness of a state, I cannot but earnestly commend to you every measure for their support and encouragement.”

He also called on the State of Massachusetts to pray . . .

“That with true contrition of heart we may confess our sins, resolve to forsake them, and implore the Divine forgiveness, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, our Savior. . . . And finally to overrule all the commotions in the world to the spreading the true religion of our Lord Jesus Christ in its purity and power among all the people of the earth.”

That’s just a smattering of quotes from a few founders regarding Jesus, Christianity and the Bible.