GREG LAURIE: HELL IS NO LAUGHING MATTER

A NEW BEGINNING

HELL IS NO LAUGHING MATTER

Exclusive: Greg Laurie notes how behavior worsens when eternal judgment is denied

There was a time when one of the criticisms of the church, and of preachers in general, was that there was too much hellfire-and-brimstone preaching. If this was referring to some guy getting worked up as he talked about judgment all the time with a twinkle in his eye, then I’m with the critics.

Here is my concern, however. Where are the hellfire-and-brimstone preachers today? When I turn on Christian radio or Christian television, I rarely hear a mention of hell, much less a sermon on the topic of hell. What I do hear is a lot of preaching on how to be successful, see your dreams fulfilled and be prosperous. But I don’t hear any sermons anymore about the subject of hell.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to start preaching or writing about hell every week. On the other hand, I’m not going to skip it because it is awkward or difficult or makes people uncomfortable. Jesus spent more time talking about hell than anyone else in all of the Bible.

It isn’t unloving to address this subject. Rather, it’s the most loving thing I could do. If you were asleep in a house that was on fire, and I walked by and did absolutely nothing to get you out of that potential disaster, what kind of neighbor or friend would I be? I would want you to wake up. I would want you to get out. And if Jesus, the very author of grace, spoke about hell more often than anyone else, then it must be a crucial truth. If Jesus took the time to elaborate on it, then certainly we need to know more about it.

One thing we can all agree on is that death will come to every person. The book of Ecclesiastes says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die” (3:1–2 NIV).

That time to die may come much later than you expected. Then again, maybe your life will be shorter than you had hoped for. We don’t know when our lives will end, but we do know this: Death is coming. Every second, three people in the world die. Every minute, 180 people die. And every hour, 11,000 people die. This means that every single day, 250,000 people enter into eternity.

Steve Jobs once said, “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.”

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After death we go to one of two destinations. Either we go to heaven, or we go to hell. Conventional wisdom is that most people are going to go to heaven, and very few people are going to go to hell. Yet that is the very opposite of what the Bible says. Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:14–14).

A lot of people use the word hell as a way to punctuate a sentence. And in 1841, some people in southeast Michigan chose to name their town Hell. A lot of people think hell is a big joke. But it’s no laughing matter. Hell is a real place in the afterlife that, tragically, is the future destination of far too many people. My desire is to point more people in the other direction, to point them to heaven and into God’s presence.

People criticize Christianity because we believe in hell. The late Christopher Hitchens stated, “Not until the advent of the Prince of Peace do we hear of the ghastly idea of further punishing and torturing the dead.” Actually, Jesus was not the first to speak on hell, though he elaborated on it. It is in both the Old and the New Testaments.

Bertrand Russell, an atheist, wrote, “I must say that I think all this doctrine, that hell-fire is a punishment for sin, is a doctrine of cruelty. It is a doctrine that put cruelty into the world and gave the world generations of cruel torture; and the Christ of the Gospels, if you could take Him as His chronicles represent Him, would actually have to be considered partly responsible for that.”

I beg to differ. Those would be compelling arguments if you were to ignore history, which shows that a lack of belief in God and the afterlife is the root of atrocity.

If the atheistic Stalin had believed in a future judgment for the wicked things he did, do you think he would have slaughtered so many people? If Adolf Hitler believed there was a final court of judgment, do you think he would have sent 6 million Jewish people to concentration camps?

Hell could be viewed as a restraint on cruelty. Dostoyevsky’s statement that “if God is not, everything is permitted” makes sense.

If there is no God, there is no afterlife, there is no future judgment, there is no right and wrong, there is no purpose … and there is no hope.

As pastor and author Timothy Keller has pointed out, “It is the lack of belief in a God of vengeance that ‘secretly nourishes violence.’”

Take, for example, the estimated deaths at the hands of atheistic, communistic regimes: China, 65 million; the U.S.S.R., 20 million; Vietnam, 1 million; Cambodia, 2 million.

It comes down to this: Belief in the afterlife, belief in God, as well as a heaven and a hell, affects the way we live this life.

You are on one of two roads today: You are on the broad way that leads to judgment, or you are on the narrow way that leads to life.

Which road are you on? If you are on the wrong one, then it’s time to hang a U-turn.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/hell-is-no-laughing-matter/#mkAuMC0yG9VWiH5G.99

AMERICAN MINUTE

MARTIN LUTHER WARNED ABOUT APPEASING ISLAM 500 YEARS AGO

Bill Federer remembers Augustinian monk's concerns about Muslims

On Oct. 31, 1517, an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther posted 95 debate questions on the door of Wittenberg Church, which began the movement known as “the Reformation.”

In 1521, 34-year-old Martin Luther was summoned to stand trial before the most powerful man in the world, 21-year-old Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Charles V of Spain’s empire spanned nearly 2 million square miles across Europe, the Netherlands, the Far East, Philippines, North and South America, and the Caribbean.

At the Diet of Worms, Charles V initially dismissed Luther’s theses as “an argument between monks” and simply declared Martin Luther an outlaw. Martin Luther was hid by Frederick of Saxony in the Wartburg Castle, where he translated the New Testament into German.

Charles V’s unruly troops sacked Rome and imprisoned Pope Clement VII for six months. He oversaw the Spanish colonization of the Americas, and began the Counter-Reformation. He eventually responded to the pleadings of the priest Bartolome’ de Las Casas and outlawed the enslavement of native Americans.

During this time, Muslim Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent invaded Europe on land and sea. In 1529, 35-year-old Suleiman the Magnificent sent 100,000 Muslim Turks to surround Vienna, Austria.

Martin Luther wrote: “The Turk is the rod of the wrath of the Lord our God. … If the Turk’s god, the devil, is not beaten first, there is reason to fear that the Turk will not be so easy to beat. … Christian weapons and power must do it…”

Martin Luther continued: “(The fight against the Turks) must begin with repentance, and we must reform our lives, or we shall fight in vain. (The Church should) drive men to repentance by showing our great and numberless sins and our ingratitude, by which we have earned God’s wrath and disfavor, so that He justly gives us into the hands of the devil and the Turk.”

Discover more of Bill Federer’s eye-opening books and videos in the WND Superstore!

In an attempt to unite the Holy Roman Empire against the Ottoman Muslims, Charles V agreed to a truce recognizing the Protestants, as Eric W. Gritisch wrote in “Martin – God’s Court Jester: Luther in Retrospect” (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983, p. 69-70): “Afraid of losing the much-needed support of the German princes for the struggle against the Turkish threat from the south, Emperor Charles V agreed to a truce between Protestant and Catholic territories in Nuremberg in 1532. … Thus the Lutheran movement was, for the first time, officially tolerated and could enjoy a place in the political sun of the Holy Roman Empire.”

As the Islamic threat intensified, reformer John Calvin wrote to Philip Melanthon in 1543 (“Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts & Letters,” I: 373): “I hear of the sad condition of your Germany! … The Turk again prepares to wage war with a larger force. Who will stand up to oppose his marching throughout the length and breadth of the land, at his mere will and pleasure?”

Followers of the reformers, who “protested” certain doctrines, were generally referred to as “Protestants.” Some Protestants refused to help Charles V who was defending Europe from the Muslim invasion. Finally, Charles V made a treaty with the German Lutheran princes by signing the Peace of Augsburg, Sept. 25, 1555, ceasing the religious struggle between Lutherans and Catholics. A line in the treaty, “cuius regio, eius religio,” allowed each king to decide what was to be believed in his kingdom.

A month later, Oct. 25, 1555, suffering from severe gout, Charles V abdicated his throne and lived the rest of his life secluded in the monastery of Yuste, leaving his son Philipe II to rule.

As different kings in Europe chose different denominations for their kingdoms, millions migrated from one country to another simply for conscience sake, and eventually spilled over into the colonies in America.

New York University Professor Emeritus Patricia Bonomi, in her article “The Middle Colonies as the Birthplace of American Religious Pluralism” wrote: “The colonists were about 98 percent Protestant.”

Of the 56 signers of the Declaration, most were Protestant, with the notable exception of Catholic Charles Carroll of Maryland.

British statesman Edmund Burke addressed Parliament, 1775: “All Protestantism … is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our Northern Colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion.”

Samuel Adams stated when he signed the Declaration of Independence: “This day, I trust, the reign of political protestantism will commence.”

Martin Luther, who died in 1546, wrote: “I am much afraid that schools will prove to be the great gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of youth.”

Brought to you by AmericanMinute.com.

Discover more of Bill Federer’s eye-opening books and videos in the WND Superstore!

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/martin-luther-warned-about-appeasing-islam-500-years-ago/#QR1oWFWdbusi3FvY.99

My comments: Luther was right, Islam is of the Devil, and is used by God to Wake-Up backsliding Christians. Today, an America in Overt rebellion against God and His Word, is subject to the"rod of the Wrath of God."  

ISIS CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR RUSSIAN JET CRASH

ISIS CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR RUSSIAN JET CRASH

Victims 'found over 3-mile radius' after plane with 224 on board crashes in Egypt

(Daily Mail UK) These are the first images of the mangled wreckage of the Russian passenger jet that crashed this morning, killing all 224 people on board.

The harrowing photos were released by the office of Egyptian Prime Minister Sharif Ismaile, who visited the crash site in the Sinai Peninsula.

They show the destroyed interior of the Irish-owned aircraft, which split apart upon impact, killing 200 adults, 17 children and seven crew members.

It comes as Egypt has recovered the aircraft’s black box from the tail of the plane, which is now being analysed by experts.

The Islamic State group affiliate in Egypt has claimed it downed the aircraft, but has not said how it might have done so.

Egypt and Moscow, however, have denied any possible terrorism link.

This evening, the prime minister’s office said: ‘The black box was recovered from the tail of the plane and has been sent to be analysed by experts.’

It added that more than 45 ambulances have been dispatched to the crash site, with rescuers having recovered 129 victims’ bodies so far.

The jet, which was leased by a Russian airline and carrying package holiday passengers back to St Peterburg in northern Russia, plummeted to the ground less than 25 minutes after it took off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik. It crashed in the Hassana area, south of Arish, officials said.

Security forces discovered the crash wreckage in a remote mountainous area in a region containing many ISIS-affiliated terrorists.

Read the full story ›

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/isis-claims-responsibility-for-russian-jet-crash/#xbRcfxDGbUk0sflq.99

WND EXCLUSIVE

ACTIVISTS PRESS FOR MANDATORY 'GAY' LESSONS FOR KINDERGARTENERS

Church officials call plan 'Trojan horse to impose ideological perspective'

Bob Unruh

A dispute has erupted across Scotland over a proposal by activists to impose mandatory LGBT training on children as young as 5 years old.

A homosexual-activist group called Time for Inclusive Education launched a petition demanding children in their earliest years of schooling “learn about homosexual, bisexual and transgender issues.”

But Rev. David Robertson, moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, calls the proposal a “Trojan horse to impose an ideological perspective on all pupils.”

His comments were reported by the Christian Institute, which has opposed such plans.

The proposal already has the backing of the National Union of Teachers, which has endorsed an “LGBT History Month” as well as an “inclusive” curriculum.

A spokeswoman for the group, Christine Blower, wants everyone to support the idea.

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“This includes making it compulsory for all schools’ sex education policies to include a positive portrayal of same sex relationships, promoting LGBT History Month in all schools, and encouraging schools to develop a curriculum that is inclusive of LGBT issues,” she said in the institute report.

In the U.S., California already has adopted demands to portray homosexuals only positively in class. Critics have pointed out the restriction makes it impossible for teachers to address the truth about a variety of homosexual issues, such as the high rate of HIV/AIDS in the community.

Simon Calvert, the Christian Institute’s deputy director for public affairs, warned the demand for such indoctrination “is itself an act of intolerance toward mainstream Christians and their beliefs.”

“I wonder whether Christian members of the NUT who have paid their dues can expect any help from the NUT when their jobs are on the line,” he said.

Robertson told the institute the plan would be a violation of the rights of Christian parents.

“Human rights legislation says that ‘the state shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions,’” he pointed out.

“The petitioner’s demand for statutory teaching of such topics without provision for parents and pupils who disagree is in direct conflict,” he said.

“We believe that the real object of the petition is to indoctrinate school pupils with one particular perspective on moral and sexual ethics and one which is contrary to mainstream Christianity. We believe this is a Trojan horse to impose an ideological perspective on all pupils, whether they want it or not.”

The Herald in Scotland quoted a homosexual activist saying he was victimized by “homophobic language” while attending class in a Roman Catholic secondary school.

His complaint made it clear that even church-sponsored schools would be required to teach only positive portrayals of behavior that the Bible defines as an “abomination.”

In an age when Christianity is openly under attack, one book that champions the Bible as absolute truth is surprising even longtime Christians with amazing facts many people simply don’t know are included in the pages of Holy Scripture. Get your copy of “Shocked by the Bible: The Most Astonishing Facts You’ve Never Been Told” at the WND Superstore!

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/activists-press-for-mandatory-gay-lessons-for-kindergarteners/#yuRWCc0xw6QKdk7i.99

My comments: Homosexual Activists are one wing of the godless, Socialist, Secular Humanist Movement, whose Objective is to tear down everything Christian within Society. This is in preparation for the Revealing of the Beast of Revelation 13. 

GLOBAL JIHAD

FENCES WORK: HUNGARY HAS HUGE SUCCESS BLOCKING MIGRANTS

10,000 Syrians per day last month now a trickle

Douglas Ernst

The U.S. can learn a lesson from Hungary: Border fences work.

Hungary declared a state of emergency in mid-September and began sealing off its southern border with Serbia. The result: Roughly 10,000 Syrian migrants pouring into the country per day last month has turned into dozens.

Dr. Gyorgy Bakondi, chief adviser for homeland security to prime minister Viktor Orban, announced on Hungarian television this week that illegal immigration is now below “peace time” levels, Breitbart London reported Thursday. Its efforts along the Serbian border were aided by a razor-wire fence along part of Hungary’s border with Romania.

Europe is struggling to absorb waves of migrants from the Middle East and Northern Africa who are fleeing Syria’s civil war and the Islamic State group. Germany expects to receive 800,000 by the end of the year.

Bakondi said its policy success depends on what he calls “triple defense” – the fence, police, and troops to back them up.

“House of War: Islam’s Jihad Against the World” conveys what the West needs to know about Islam and the violent, expansionary ideology that seeks the subjugation and destruction of other faiths, cultures and systems of government

Hungary’s news served as a backdrop to former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott’s criticism of Europe while speaking Tuesday at the Second Annual Margaret Thatcher Gala dinner in London.

“All countries that say ‘anyone who gets here can stay here’ are now in peril, given the scale of the population movements that are starting to be seen. There are tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of people living in poverty and danger who might readily seek to enter a Western country if the opportunity is there,” said Abbott, Breitbart London reported. “Who could blame them? Yet no country or continent can open its borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself. This is the risk countries of Europe now run through misguided altruism.”

Hungary’s decision to close its border has caused diplomatic angst with Serbia, which called the policy “unacceptable” in September.

“[Serbia] wants to be part of the solution, not collateral damage. There will have to be talks in the coming days with Brussels and other countries,” Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said Sept. 15 in Prague, CBS News reported.

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Serbian officials fear what will happen when migrants trying to enter from Macedonia and Greece reach the bottleneck.

“This is not only a Hungarian and Serbian problem. This is a problem for the whole of Europe. Europe has to find a solution fast before the situation escalates even further,” Aleksandar Vulin, the Serbian social affairs minister in charge of migrants, told the Associated Press Sept. 15.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/fences-work-hungary-has-huge-success-blocking-migrants/#qmTrwEEZfYoBzJlf.99

Muslim influence in America is on the rise. Above, a public street is closed for Friday prayers in Paris, France

WND EXCLUSIVE

VETS APPALLED AT 'MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD FLOAT'

City allows CAIR entry in Veterans Day parade

Leo Hohmann

Oklahoma’s Muslim community is breaking new ground.

For the first time, they will have a float in the Veterans Day Parade in downtown Tulsa, and a local newspaper reports that not all parade participants are happy about it. Namely, U.S. military veterans.

“It’s something we have been wanting to do for years,” Adam Soltani, executive director of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told the Tulsa World.

Soltani said the float is sponsored by CAIR-Oklahoma but will “represent the Oklahoma Muslim community, which is a very diverse community of people from all walks of life, immigrants, indigenous people.”

Like in most states, the vast majority of Muslims in Oklahoma are immigrants, not “indigenous people,” say those who follow the U.S. immigration and refugee trends.

Because of the U.S. refugee resettlement program, the Muslim communities are no longer concentrated just in large cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago. These communities are increasingly being “seeded” by the U.S. State Department in smaller communities in middle America such as Twin Falls, Idaho; Dodge City, Kansas; Spartanburg, South Carolina; Bowling Green, Kentucky; and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

According to U.S. government databases, 2,483 refugees from Muslim countries have been sent from United Nations camps directly to Oklahoma since January 2002, the earliest date for which data is available online. This also does not include any Muslim immigrants who have entered the U.S. on work or student visas, which likely would encompass several thousand more at major Oklahoma universities.

CAIR does its best to project an image of American Muslims being well integrated and loyal Americans.

“We support all veterans, and we support our country, so I don’t see why anyone should have any concerns about CAIR being involved (in the Veterans Day parade),” Soltani told the World.

“We are an American Muslim organization, and American Muslims support their government, support their country and definitely support our troops who are working to defend our constitutional rights and our freedoms,” he added.

Soltani said many U.S. Muslims have served in the armed forces and that two veterans are on the CAIR-Oklahoma board.

Veterans push back

But Larry Williamson, a member of the Tulsa 912 Project, a conservative organization, told the World it is “atrocious” to ask veterans to “march alongside people who represent our enemies in a current war.”

“I believe all American entrants who the parade is intended to honor should be made aware as soon as possible that they are being asked to share their honor with the Muslim Brotherhood, sworn enemy of the United States and our ally Israel and an enemy in our current war on the Islamic jihad in which American soldiers are fighting and dying,” he said in a letter to the Tulsa World.

Making matters worse for Williamson, he told the World his Tulsa 912 Project float is scheduled to be in line right next to the CAIR float in the parade.

“I’m not a spokesman for Tulsa 912, but I won’t march alongside the Muslim Brotherhood,” he told the newspaper.

Williams refers to CAIR as the “Muslim Brotherhood” because of documents filed in court records from the Holy Land Foundation trial naming CAIR as a Brotherhood front group.

The ‘Muslim Mafia’

Williamson told the World the FBI has identified CAIR as an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. CAIR has consistently stated it has no connections with any terrorist groups yet the United Arab Emirates and other Arab countries have included it on their terrorist watchlist and banned its members from entering their nations.

As WND has reported, 14 former CAIR officials have been investigated or charged in cases involving terrorist activity.

See WND’s Rogue’s Gallery of terror-tied CAIR officials.

As former FBI agent Mike Rolf acknowledges in his book, “Muslim Mafia,” “CAIR has had a number of people in positions of power within the organization that have been directly connected to terrorism and have either been prosecuted or thrown out of the country.”

According to another FBI veteran familiar with recent and ongoing cases involving CAIR officials, “Their offices have been a turnstile for terrorists and their supporters.”

Patsy Varnell, vice president of the Tulsa Veterans Day Parade Association, confirmed to the World that CAIR-Oklahoma’s application to be in the parade has been approved.

“The parade is nonreligious,” she said.

“We feel that we are exercising the rights established by the Constitution of freedom of speech, and this group has the right to participate. We do not want any problems, but we have to be fair to everybody,” Varnell said.

Ronda Vuillemont-Smith, president and founder of the Tulsa 912 Project, said the group is not asking that CAIR be removed from the parade but that parade organizers “be honest and open and let people know that they are in.”

“My concern is that the parade committee was trying to keep this information out of the public eye,” she said.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/vets-appalled-at-muslim-brotherhood-float/#QoeZRCA5qVUMQoMH.99

My comments: This is a Demonstration of the Ignorance of Americans to let the Muslim Brotherhood have a float in a Veterans Day Parade. The Religion of Islam is like a MAFIA, it is based on the Koran that Incites Violence against Everyone, including its own. It is a Religion bent on World Domination by Any Means.