Scenes from the Passing Madness

North Korea -- Axis of Evil?

07/07 Assist News | Filled with dramatic scenes based on real-life tragedies that North Koreans face daily, I'll Cross the River addresses issues such as religious persecution and life under the rule of a communist dictator who is deceiving and starving the population to death.

Based on true and current circumstances, C. Hope Flinchbaugh, the author, has sat with North Korean defectors at Congressional hearings in Washington, DC, as they wept when telling the horrors of starvation, deception, and brainwashing inside North Korea. I'll Cross the River is brutally honest about how North Korea is home to countless children whose shiny black hair is brittle and reddish from malnutrition, children who eat rats to survive

How God Teaches the Deep Things of His Word

06/07 Pastor John Piper | The reason Psalm 119 has 176 verses is that the Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters. The psalmist exults in the multifaceted preciousness of God’s word by taking each letter of the alphabet and writing eight verses of exultation, each verse beginning with that letter. It’s like saying: “The word of God is precious in every way from A to Z—beyond perfection.” (Eight is one more than seven, the number of completeness and perfection.)

Ordinarily in each group of eight verses, the psalmist uses mostly different words that start with the letter for that section of the acrostic. For example, the verses beginning with the letter heth (verses 57–64) use eight different words beginning with that letter. But verses 65-72, that start with the Hebrew letter teth, stand out, because they begin with the same word five times—the word good (tov). This makes us sit up and take notice.

Grace Works!

05/07 Pastor Francis Frangipane | Whether we realize it or not, most Christians of Protestant lineage carry in their doctrinal heritage the revelation of Martin Luther, that "the just shall live by faith." For whatever flaws may have otherwise been in Luther's life, his contribution remains a living revelation in the consciousness of the modern Church.

Today, we know we are saved by grace and justified by faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ. The Lord's grace remains a consistent, liberating power in our lives. If I fall, grace does not retreat; rather, it lifts me up. If I become virtuous, I know virtue is truly the result of grace working in me. .

Zimbabwe: "We are being Persecuted"

WALL-E: A Robot with a Heart

Five young men, five church fellowships and five streams of Christianity

26/06 Michael Ireland for Assist News | Five young men in the 1970’s and 80’s changed the religious climate, not only of London,England, but the entire United Kingdom and beyond.

Disillusioned with traditional British church life they, eventually, started what became known as the "New Churches" in Britain. Those five fellowships became five streams of Christianity, the influence of which is still being felt worldwide, more than thirty years later.

Those five men were: Terry Virgo, who founded what is now known as New Frontiers Churches, Colin Urquhart, founder of Kingdom Faith Ministries and Churches, Roger Forster, who founded the Ichthus churches, the late Bryn Jones, founder of what is now know as Abundant Life Church in Bradford, England and led by vibrant Pastor Paul Scanlon, and Gerald Coates who founded the Pioneer group of churches.

Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe says only God will remove him from office

26/06 Michael Ireland for Assist News | Since the elections in Zimbabawe on March 29, 2008, more than 80 people have been murdered, including opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leaders and other supporters, by Mugabe's ZANU PF.

And the country's embattled, but defiant, President, Robert Mugabe, has said that "Only God will remove me."

Hollywood Productions Friendly to People of Faith

Over 300 Clergy at Anglican Conference in Jerusalem

26/06 Ron Ross in Jerusalem | Anglican bishops and clergy converged on Jerusalem June 22 in what they describe as ”a pilgrimage back to the roots of the Church’s faith.” The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) is an eight-day event. More than three hundred conservative clergymen gathered to consider issues which threaten to split the 55 million-member church.

Ordination of homosexuals, same-sex marriages, and what is perceived to be threats to the Gospel of Jesus Christ energized the conference. .

Obama accused of 'dragging biblical understanding through gutter'

24/06 American Family Association | As Barack Obama broadens his outreach to evangelical voters, one of the movement's biggest names, James Dobson, accuses the likely Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible and pushing a "fruitcake interpretation" of the Constitution. The criticism, aired Tuesday on Dobson's Focus on the Family radio program ... The conservative Christian group provided The Associated Press with an advance copy of the pre-taped radio segment, which runs 18 minutes and highlights excerpts of a speech Obama gave in June 2006 to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal. Obama mentions Dobson in the speech.

Dobson took aim at examples Obama cited in asking which biblical passages should guide public policy -- chapters like Leviticus, which Obama said suggests slavery is okay and eating shellfish is an abomination, or Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, "a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application." "Folks haven't been reading their Bibles," Obama said.

Dobson and Minnery accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus' teachings in the New Testament. "I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology," Dobson said. Added Minnery: "... He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter."

Jesus Goes Anime

Here I Am to Worship

A Vision for the Lost

by William Booth (1829 - 1912) | I saw a dark and stormy ocean. Over it the black clouds hung heavily; through them every now and then vivid lightening flashed and loud thunder rolled, while the winds moaned, and the waves rose and foamed, towered and broke, only to rise and foam, tower and break again. In that ocean I thought I saw myriads of poor human beings plunging and floating, shouting and shrieking, cursing and struggling and drowning; and as they cursed and screamed they rose and shrieked again, and then some sank to rise no more.

And I saw out of this dark angry ocean, a mighty rock that rose up with it’s summit towering high above the black clouds that overhung the stormy sea. And all around the base of this great rock I saw a vast platform. Onto this platform, I saw with delight a number of the poor struggling, drowning wretches continually climbing out of the angry ocean. And I saw that a few of those who were already safe on the platform were helping the poor creatures still in the angry waters to reach the place of safety. .