Christians Beware Of The FBI Muslim Terrorist Arrests!

A series on persecution and suffering by the Desert Pastor’s Wife got me thinking about all of these arrests of alleged terrorists by the federal government. Let me tell you something: these arrests are shams. As a matter of fact, the whole “war on terror” thing is a sham. For instance, how can we be involved in a war on terror when Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s biggest sponsors of terrorism, is a key ally and trading partner? We have a base in Saudi Arabia, and we force our servicemen stationed there to obey shari’a law. Also, how can we be in a “war on terror” when we are pressuring Israel to give up half its land to terrorists, thereby rewarding the PLO, Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, Iran, Syria and all those other entities for their decades of slaughtering Israelis and Americans? One does not have to be a “dispensational Christian Zionist” to recognize that madness, or to ask ourselves why a nation committed to a “war on terror” is so bent on creating a nation in such a strategically vital area that will be governed by either the P.L.O. or Hamas. And those are just a few examples.

And that brings us to these domestic “Muslim terrorist” arrests. The issue is that the people that they are arresting aren’t terrorists. Oh, of course, I am not denying that there aren’t violent Muslim terrorist sleeper cells in this country. It is that the government isn’t going after them. Instead, in order to make it LOOK like they are doing something about terrorism, they are scouring the prisons and the Internet for disaffected Muslims, sending undercover government agents to fill their heads with ideas of jihad, even supplying them with terror plots, plans, weapons and materials that these fellows would have never had the ability or initiative to come up with on their own, keep prodding and pulling them when these ne’er do wells lose interest or get cold feet, and then once these government-recruited guys take their government-provided weapons to carry out their government-provided plans, the government arrests them. And these are “investigations” that take years of planning, huge sums of money, and a boatload of manpower to carry out, all to catch people who would have never gotten anywhere near committing a terrorist act were it not for their being strung along by the government, and this does nothing but divert law enforcement (and the media and the citizenry) from real threats, which includes but is not limited to the actual trained terrorists filtering across the Mexican border. So it is not only entrapment, but politically motivated and pernicious entrapment.

The worst part is that nobody cares about our entrapping Muslims that are no threats while ignoring Muslims that are. One side, I guess you can call them conservatives, is simply glad that we are arresting Muslims. Their goal is deporting as many of the several million Muslims from this country as possible and going to war with as many of the 1 billion Muslims in the world as is necessary to preserve western civilization. So, even though they know that these arrests are sham ones that ignore actual terrorists, they figure that the media publicity generated by each arrest brings us that much closer to electing politicians willing to wage a global war against Islam. The other side is strange. Under normal circumstances, liberals would protest entrapping even people who are likely to commit crimes, but in this instance they are largely silent concerning people who lack the ability, means or motivation to become a terrorist. Perhaps their silence is due to feelings that the Obama administration’s arresting these people helps undermine the idea that Obama is a Muslim plant sent to take over our country. I do notice when I peruse the left-oriented news sites more than a little bit of “see right wingers, Obama IS dedicated to fighting the war on terror!” whenever these arrests take place. It makes one wonder:  if Obama were anything other than a Democratic president accused of being a Muslim traitor, would the left be more vocal about these “law enforcement” practices, especially those targeting (religious and racial) minorities? In any event, the result is both the right and the left being silent in the face of the pervasive misuse of government power to suit their own agendas.

An even more revealing fact is that the government is not denying that they are practicing entrapment. Now when the government does things that they shouldn’t – whether by accident or policy – they instinctively lie, obfuscate, stonewall and cover up. But in several of these cases, including this one in particular, the government all but admitted going after people not so much for their crimes as their thoughts.

Not even the prosecutors contend that Sadequee was close to committing a terrorist act or that he ever joined a terrorist organization. The trial — like that of co-defendant Syed Haris Ahmed, who was convicted in June — illustrates prosecutors are focusing on potential threats as well as real ones, lawyers said.

“The real issue in this case is where is the line between First Amendment speech, however disquieting, and real criminal activity,” said Jack Martin, who defended Ahmed and says the two cases are almost identical. “It is hard to say where that line is drawn. … There is always the issue in any conspiracy case of what is talk and what is an agreement to take action.”

U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said after Ahmed’s conviction that the case didn’t involve an imminent threat because the idea was to arrest terrorists before their attacks succeed.

“In the post-9/11 world we will not wait to disrupt terrorism-related activity until a bomb is built and ready to explode,” Nahmias said then. “The fuse that leads to an explosion of violence may be long but once it is lit — once individuals unlawfully agree to support terrorist acts at home or abroad — we will prosecute them to snuff that fuse out.”

That really is not much more than saying that this fellow was arrested for thought crimes, of having radical, violent views and inclinations. Because of the “war on terror”, it is now acceptable to bait people based solely on what they  believe – not because they pose any actual threat – and then arrest them. So what is going on here?

Realize that in this country, radical changes in government policy, including law enforcement, cannot happen quickly. (Or at least they cannot change quickly right now.) You have to spend years, decades even, laying the groundwork. So law enforcement has to be allowed to engage in a particular practice over a long period of time before it becomes accepted law enforcement procedure, and the courts similarly have to go along to establish precedents. However, the police and courts can’t do this uniformly against the general population, because A) it would cause a massive public outcry and B) the tactics would not withstand a legal challenge. Instead, the government has to use a tiny segment of the population to make certain police tactics acceptable and to establish precedents in the courts. Once that is done, they are basically free to use those tactics on the general population.

A good, recent example? Government seizure of private property. It was almost unheard of a mere few decades ago, now it is routine and goes on unchallenged. What happened? “The war on drugs.” After it became acceptable for law enforcement to routinely confiscate the private property of “suspected drug dealers” and the courts let them get away with it, now the government has wide latitude to grab or freeze land and assets. Now it is basically unconstitutional, but the crisis of drugs and drug crimes made it acceptable to set the constitution aside in order to fight the drug war, and after it was set aside with respect to suspected drug traffickers and the precedent established, it was set aside for everyone. As a result, the government can now seize or freeze mostly anyone’s property or assets at any time, and in many cases the person has no real recourse.

Now that the government has largely eliminated the existence of private property, private speech and thought are now on the agenda. We are now a few years into investigating and arresting Muslims who express hostility towards our government and its policies, and have also gotten the first batch of successful convictions. So, the “thought crime entrapment” law enforcement practices are already on their way to becoming accepted, and the successful convictions establish the precedent that despite the bill of rights,  it is acceptable to go after people solely based on their views. It will only take about a dozen or so of these convictions to be upheld on appeal for the legal and law enforcement precedents to be ironclad, and since the federal government is handling these cases from the beginning, that will make the appeals process even faster (as the cases won’t have to go from state court to federal court).

Again, once the precedents are set the targets will be no more limited to Muslims than government property and asset seizures are to drug kingpins. Instead, people with views that the government doesn’t like can easily be labeled “dangerous”, “radical”, “extremist”, “subversive”, “fundamentalist” etc. and prosecuted. How long would it take before Christians are viewed this way by the government? In order to answer that question, one only need to look at the Huffington Post’s article on the recent arrest and killing of a “suspected terrorist“:

Exactly. Anyone who thinks this behavior is limited to Muslims hasn’t looked at a newspaper lately. In our country we bend over backwards to “respect the Faith” of Evangelical Christians from the South who do precisely the same thing.

Now, if this had been a white Christian evangelist militia, would the FBI gone in, guns blazing? Have they done anything like that recently, despite the proliferation of such groups?

This guy if not identified as ” a radical black extremist Muslim” one might think he was part of the gun toting, separatist, white wing nuts who would impose a Biblical theocracy in the USA and celebrate it all at tea parties.

And those were just the comments on the first page. And this is WITHOUT the government, media and schools bombarding the nation with propaganda on how Christian ideas are evil and Christians are untrustworthy, unpatriotic, violent, a threat to national security and our freedoms etc. Personally, I don’t think that it is going to happen anytime soon. However, I am certain that it will happen. And please, no partisan/ideological nonsense. Both parties support this just like they do everything else, because both parties are part of the worldly system that rejects Jesus Christ and similarly hates the church.

Women Do Have The Holy Spirit Gift Of Teaching! And This Is How They Should Use It!

Older Women Teaching Younger Women

Older Women Teaching Younger Women (Part 2)

Flee Fornication!

Pastor Foster’s outstanding efforts for justice on behalf of victims of church sexual abuse reminds me of 1 Corinthians 6:18. “Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.” This is relevant because sexual sin is rarely committed at the drop of a hat, almost at random. Going out and committing adultery, fornication, or homosexuality is not like tripping and falling down the stairs. It isn’t something that you do suddenly when you “snap”, “crack under the pressure”, or somehow lose control of your faculties, your ability to think and reason clearly or restrain yourself. It is rarely a sin that “just happens on the spur of the moment”, the result of a situation that rapidly spiral out of control.

Now perhaps there are sins that probably can happen that way, maybe including even murder, but they DO NOT include sexual sins. Instead, the idea that “it just happened” or “it was beyond my control” is a convenient reassuring lie that we often find refuge in after the fact. Truthfully, the only time that this explanation is even plausible is when abuse of alcohol or drugs are involved, and in those cases, rather than being excuses for sinful sexual behavior, drug and alcohol abuse are sins themselves. Instead, sexual sins are almost always sins committed after a time or incident of temptation, and the comission of said sin is thus the result of the failure of the Christian to remove himself from the temptation.

Let us be honest here. We aren’t simply walking down the street minding our own business when some unclean spirit seizes us and unwillingly forces us to do dishonor our bodies and abuse the bodies of others with this type of sinful behavior. And we also aren’t these naive souls that find ourselves manipulated and overcome by the wiles of a tempter or seductress. Plainly speaking, if it isn’t rape, then it is sexual sin. If it isn’t violent coercion, then it is sexual sin.

So why does it happen so often, even amongst the clergy? The reason is that we are like David as opposed to being like Joseph. Now consider Joseph. When Potiphar’s wife made her advance and grabbed hold of him, he didn’t trust his ability to resist the temptation or negotiate the situation. No, Joseph got out of there, leaving his clothes behind! And Joseph, being a very wise person, almost certainly knew that his running naked away from Potiphar’s wife and leaving her holding his clothes would leave him with absolutely no defense whatsoever. He knew that running off in that manner would result in any charge made against him being believed, and that any legal standing or credibility that he might have had – and being a Hebrew slave in Egypt he really had none to begin with – would have been forfeited. So in leaving his clothes behind, he was really abandoning all that he had. He was giving up every right, every privilege, every consideration that the world had to offer him. And why did he do so? Because obedience to God’s law was worth all the rights, privileges and recourses that the world had to offer. Joseph was going to obey YHWH even if it cost him everything, including his very life! Make no mistake, either way Joseph was going to be in a hard position. He either had to put himself in the position where he had to resist the seducing charms of Potiphar’s wife, or put himself in a position where he would have no defense against a false charge of attempted sexual assault by that same wife. As the Bible narrative tells us, Joseph chose the latter, and willingly bore the consequences! As was evident from the time that Cain slew Abel and was made manifest in the most supreme and extreme example by the rejection and death of the SINLESS Jesus Christ on the cross, true righteousness in this wicked world always comes at a price, and it was a price that Joseph was willing to pay.

But instead of being like Joseph, we are like David. David watched Bathsheba bathe. He could have easily avoided doing so. Some blame this on David’s not going out to battle, but one doesn’t even have to go that far. David could have simply closed or averted his eyes and gotten away from there as fast as he could; gone back inside his house. Instead, he allowed viewing the body of another man’s wife to please him, and from there it was simply James 1:14-15, which reads “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” So where Joseph fled fornication, David gave a place to the devil, and with the latter you saw the result. David “took Bathsheba and laid with her”, and it is still my opinion that the Bible does not state that David’s relations with Bathsheba were consensual on her part, but instead used language similar to Absalom’s rape of Tamar and Shechem’s rape of Dinah. In that light the contrast between Joseph and David becomes even more stark: where the former fled consensual sin with Potiphar’s wife,  the latter appears to have forced himself on Uriah’s wife.

So why are we so often more likely to choose the path of David over the path of Joseph? It appears to be a misunderstanding or misapplication of another verse from James, that being 4:7′s “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Actually, that is 4:7b. 4:7a, which reads “Submit yourselves therefore to God” is often ignored and omitted, and 4:7b is often quoted in isolation, usually as sort of a “Christian cliche’”, which of course increases its potential to be misunderstood and misapplied.

We often interpret “resisting Satan” to placing ourselves in compromising and sinful situations. We think of ourselves as spiritual athletes or superheroes. We tell ourselves that there is some great merit in putting temptation before our face and resisting it, that it is some mark of spiritual maturity and upright character. We think that because we are Christians indwelt by the Holy Spirit, that it means that we can trust ourselves and that we can be trusted. And the feelings of attraction or tension that we might have? We tell ourselves that they don’t exist because we are born again, and born again Christians don’t have those problems! Or we tell ourselves that because we are so strong and mature and are experiencing such victory that we can handle them without acting on them. We can just sweep them under our emotional, mental and physical rugs, we tell us, and we further deceive ourselves by telling ourselves that God will make it stay there. After all, we delude ourselves because of bad theology and teachings: it’s His job! It is one of His promises! To be able to stare temptation right in the face hour after hour, day after day, week after week and year after year without falling is one of the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit!

And Christians who reject this form of (let us call it what it is) NEEDLESS SELF-TORTURE, SELF-ABUSE AND SELF-ENDANGERMENT? We call them “legalists.” We call them “fundamentalists.” We even question their own salvation and Bible knowledge. We say “if they were REALLY saved, if they REALLY UNDERSTOOD GRACE, if they REALLY UNDERSTOOD VICTORIOUS CHRISTIAN LIVING, if they REALLY HAD THE SELF-CONTROL THAT CHRISTIANS ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE, then they wouldn’t need all these legalistic rules. They’d just trust themselves and each other, and above all trust God. Right?

Well, we see the result of this thinking. Having cast aside the rules designed to keep Christians pure as “old-fashioned”, “legalistic”,  “impediments to church growth” and “sexist”, we see that teen pregnancy, illegitimacy, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, divorce and pornography are huge problems in our churches, in some cases surpassing that of the general population, and that speaks nothing of the sex scandals among the clergy and other church leaders. And despite all this, we deceive ourselves as to the reasons why. Instead of separating from worldly practices and ideas, we tell ourselves that we can partake of those same practices, implement those same ideas and still not sin because we are Christians.

This is particularly absurd when the Bible itself explicitly calls it a lie. In a general sense, 1 John 1:8 says that any Christian who denies his capacity for sin deceives himself and rejects God’s truth. And in a specific sense, Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 promotes marriage as a way for Christians to avoid sexual sins. Again, 1 Corinthians 7 IS NOT DIRECTED AT UNBELIEVERS. Paul WAS NOT telling unbelievers to get married to avoid sexual sin! Paul was telling baptized, born again, Holy Spirit filled BELIEVERS to get married to avoid sexual sin! And of course, if avoiding fornication is an issue for single Christians, avoiding adultery is an issue for married ones. So if that was an issue for Christians in Paul’s time, what makes us think that it isn’t now? Is it because society has advanced? If so, in what way? Because we are so much more civilized thanks to our humanistic, rationalistic mindset that we are capable of more self-control than we could in Paul’s repressed, misogynistic social location? Such ideas are nonsense, a strong delusion.

So then, the mark of true Christian maturity is not to put temptation in your face so you can brag about how holy and righteous you are for not giving into it. Instead, the mark of true Christian maturity is to do whatever you can to avoid the temptation, and being willing to suffer the consequences. Again, consider Joseph. He was willing to go to prison – and he may well have been executed – over running away naked. But how many contemporary Christians are just as willing to turn down a situation at school, at work, or even at church that requires them to work long hours alone with an attractive member of the opposite sex? Or what about shunning the raunchy and prurient movies, TV shows and Internet websites, including those that may be harmless themselves but have racy advertiser content?

Again, that may sound anti-modern, antedeluvian, medieval, old-fashioned, legalistic, fundamentalist or whatever you want to call it. I call it not giving a place to the devil (Ephesians 4:27) and submitting yourself to God, of being more like Joseph and less like David. After all, what merit is there to imperiling yourself with temptation for its own sake? Does it make you a better witness for the gospel? Even if that were the case, when you contrast the high number of evangelical Christians who commit sexual sin (at least 60% and very likely higher) and the low number of Christians who actually evangelize (less than 10%) and being a better evangelist clearly isn’t the reason. Instead, being more like the world is the reason.

Also, let us have some consistency. Those of you who believe that you are such powerful, faithful bold victorious Christians that you can resist all this temptation, why limit it to that area? Expand your horizons. Go handle poisonous spiders and scorpions. Grab a rattlesnake by the tail. Make yourself a cocktail of household cleaners and drink it. Stand out in the middle of a freeway. Or take a boat out into deep water, the ocean or the middle of a swirling river, and step out and walk on water. You have faith, don’t you? You are a mature, strong Holy Spirit-filled Christian, aren’t you? Isn’t avoiding that behavior legalism? Fundamentalism? Old-fashioned? Is refusing to pick up a rattlesnake misunderstanding grace?

Of course, you won’t do that. Why? Because you value your life and health. And that is precisely the issue. You value your own safety and security over avoiding sin. You are much more willing to risk the chance that you might sin than you are to risk the chance that you might die. Therefore, you are willing to take a chance that you might sin and tell you that God will keep you from sinning, but you are unwilling to take the same chance with your life under the idea that God will save you from poison, drowning, or getting crushed by a car. But you might say “there’s no reason for doing those things.” Well, there was no reason for David to watch Bathsheba bathe, was it? The truth is that there is also no reason, no reason that will advance the kingdom of God, for Christians to sit around and unnecessarily tempt themselves with sin, and that is not just sexual sin but a great many other sins. But we actually have a Christian mainstream, an evangelical mainstream, that regards trying to separate from wickedness as sinful, hypocritical and Pharisaical, and the results are plainly exhibited before all. Many of the things that we tempt ourselves with we do so for no reason other than our own entertainment or to be like everyone else, and other times we do so because we are unwilling to make a real sacrifice to our lifestyles, to our comfort, to our aspirations. We don’t want to go to prison like Joseph. We don’t even want to miss out on a promotion, become a laughingstock at school, or be considered “extremist” by other churches. As a result of this carnality, this selfishness, we are much more willing to pollute our minds and bodies and offend God with our sin than we would ever be willing to put ourselves in harm’s way, and yes that does include put ourselves in harm’s way to actually spread the gospel. And the result is the Christian landscape in America that we see today.

Paul Washer does an excellent job of addressing this precise topic in the video below, which I really hope that you will view. In it he gives added emphasis to pastors who unnecessarily expose themselves to sexual sin, and that goes back to some of the topics that Pastor Foster regularly deals with on his site.

Mission Field America: You can live your whole life and die without hearing the gospel in New York City!

Church Planting in New York City

Roman Catholics Slowly Infiltrating The Evangelical Christian Publishing Industry

Please read

Is Your VBS Taking a Vacation from the Gospel?

How Willingly Do People Go to Hell?

Does Anyone Standing by the Lake of Fire Jump In? By John Piper

He Drank Your Hell

Five Views On Christian Sanctification: Which Is Yours?

Five Views on Sanctification: An In-Depth Analysis

Article On Eternal Justification

Eternal Justification by Berkhopf

New Testament Prayer: Acts 4:24-30

This appears to be a prayer for evangelism that perseveres and succeeds despite and in the face of persecution and adversity, both political and religious. Note that the prayer specifically asks that signs and wonders be done by God for the sake of evangelizing the lost. This prayer also centers around the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and how the coming, works and resurrection of Jesus Christ fulfilled Old Testament prophecies.

And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is: Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, By stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.

The results of this prayer are below, verses 31-34.

And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.

This would appear to be an empowering of the Holy Spirit – a filling of the Holy Spirit if you will (consider the empowerings or fillings of the Holy Spirit in the book of Judges that were not the indwelling Holy Spirit, but rather the empowering of the Holy Spirit that equips someone to serve God and perform His work) – that gave the believers the ability to share the gospel. The Holy Spirit gave them boldness to speak the gospel, and the words of the gospel message that were to be shared. It appears that the focal point of the true gospel message is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Another result of this prayer is that the believers began to behave as a corporate community. As a result, individualism – of which materialism and the desire to acquire, possess and retain worldly things – disappeared.

Let us consider this prayer, pray it in private and in gathered fellowship, and in the Name of Jesus Christ may this prayer have the same purpose and effect for us as it did for the believers in scripture! For we know that the word of God is true, and that it is the power of salvation for all who believe.

U.N. Considering Resolution That Would Create ‘Global Blasphemy Law’ Protecting Islam

I wonder how similar this is to the anti-evangelism laws (targeted towards Christians of course) that already exist in Israel.

Expert: U.N. Resolutions Would Create ‘Global Blasphemy Law’

America’s Occult Past And Present From Joseph Smith To Joel Osteen!

DUIN: Halloween spurs tales of the occult

Two key excerpts:

“Dubbed the Burned-Over District, the region was the perfect incubator for Mormon founder Joseph Smith, a well-known clairvoyant before his famous visions. His family owned magical charms, divining rods, amulets and other esoterica. “

Next …

“Plus, a lot of mystical subcultures have gone mainstream and have been Christianized. Mr. Horowitz did a brilliant job of tracking down how positive thinker Norman Vincent Peale borrowed his core self-help philosophy from a religious movement called New Thought.

“I listen to [megachurch preacher] Joel Osteen frequently on Sunday mornings,” the author said, “and he’s giving sermons that are discourses in positive thinking. He’s standing on the shoulders of an occult tradition.”"

Further proof that no nation, America included, can be a “Christian nation” for “founded on Christianity” or “founded on Christian principles.” The road to destruction is easy and wide and has many entry points, but the road to heaven is narrow and rough and can only be entered by the cross of Jesus Christ!

Zondervan Publishing Hippo Bible Commentary Series Authored by Africans

See link below.

New Commentary Series – by Africans

Also note this comment:

It is worth noting that the book is published in Africa by Hippo Press – a consortiu of African evangelical publishers that have combined under the facilitation of Langham Literature – one of the ministries of Langham Partnership International which in the USA is known as John Stott Ministries. This book is part of the fulfilment of the dream of John Stott himself to encourage indigenous scholars ans writers in the majority world countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. It is exciting to see this vision bearing fruit. Sam Ngewa is also one of the editors of the Africa Bible Commentary – which has sold over 80,000 in English in Afria, and is available also in French, Portuguese, and Swahili, with translations in Hausa, Amharic and Malagasi on the way. This too is entirely written by African evangelical scholars, some of whom got their doctorates through Langham – JSM. Check out the stories at www.johnstott.org