ELCA Lutherans Oppose Marriage Amendment

To anyone who has been following the ELCA Lutheran church and its slide into relativism and biblical unbelief....this should come as no surprise.

Minneapolis-area Lutherans on Friday went on record against changing the state Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

Their vote made them one of the largest faith groups yet to formally oppose the amendment that will go before voters Nov. 6, which would ban same-sex marriage in Minnesota. Close to 700 Lutherans, representing congregations in the Minneapolis Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, voted on a resolution opposing the amendment at the group's annual assembly at a Prior Lake church.

"What we've heard today is the Lutheran Church is about welcome, and we proved that with the statement we made," said Lauren Morse-Wendt, a mission developer with Edina Community Lutheran Church and one of the resolution's authors. "I believe the people of Minnesota need to know that people of faith stand up for all families. This marriage amendment to define marriage between a man and a woman is a discriminatory amendment which would deliberately deny justice to a portion of the population of Minnesota."

The Minneapolis synod is the nation's largest ELCA synod, with approximately 188,710 baptized members. In 2004, its assembly opposed "any effort to amend the United States federal or Minnesota state Constitution to forbid the creation of legally recognized relationships between persons of the same sex."

The ELCA nationwide also changed its policy in 2009 to allow for openly gay and lesbian pastors in committed relationships.

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/139536313.html?page=1&c=y

Remember that in 2009?...when the Lutherans voted to ordain practicing gays?  They were at Convention Center in downtown Minneapolis on a sunny clear day.  The vote was being called for and out of the blue one big cloud formed south of town, it got darker and dropped a tornado that went into downtown and bent the cross off the top of Central Lutheran which is right across the street from the Convention Center.  There was not even a call for a cloud in the sky in the morning news, forget about a tornado watch.

The vote went on to pass by one vote.

But I guess that's all just a really big coincidence.

The Gun Now Settles Disputes in Libya

We watch Libya because they are a named player in Ezekiel 38. 

Last year their fearless leader, Moamar Gaddafi,  was hauled out of a sewer pipe by his own people and somehow got shot in the head before they could get him to court.

So, now the people have got their wish...courtesy of the United Nations who sent bombers to take out Gaddafi's military....has peace, love and democracy broken out in this land filled with the descendants of Ishmael?

Hardly.

In towns and cities across Libya, celebrations took place marking the first anniversary of the uprising that led to the overthrow of Col Gaddafi, but hundreds of former rebels are still armed and many believe in settling disputes with a gun.

Benghazi is a city on edge. The flood of adrenalin that powered the revolution has ebbed away, exposing frayed tempers and short fuses.

It is a place where the "kateeba" rules supreme. This country is run by a patchwork of former rebel fighting brigades.

Like the kateeba (man with a gun) at the hospital, most of these brigades are answerable to no one but themselves. Each rules over its own little territory, whether it is a hospital, an airport or a few city blocks.

It is at the edges of these small fiefdoms that the trouble starts.

Here;  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17063509

"He will be a wild donkey of a man:  his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand will be against him. and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers."  Genesis 16:12

It makes me wonder what may be the issue that unites the people of Libya?  What is it that could get them all on the same page?

Here is one idea that they might all agree on......destroy Israel and kill the Jews!

And Russia could be the country that leads them!

Syria Could Attack Israel Soon

I just got done watching NBC Nightly News and saw the reports coming out of Syria that appear to show open civil war.  Of course the UN has called for Assad to be removed from power. 

So what do you think may happen if Assad feels he is going down and thinks he has nothing to lose? 

The Jerusalem Post reported on Thursday that there is growing concern in the Israeli army that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad could attack the Jewish state as pressure mounts for him to step down.

Assad is currently facing a revolution in his own country that he has sought to quell with brutal military force. Those bloody tactics have resulted in a good portion of the Syrian army joining the opposition, and Syria is nearing the point of full-scale civil war.

The situation has prompted the Arab League and Western powers to consider injecting their own military forces into Syria with the aim of ending Assad's rule. But before that happens, Israeli military officials believe Assad would lash out at Israel, both to divert Arab attention on Syria's internal struggle and to establish a lasting legacy for himself.

What has made this prospect all the more worrying is that recent reports suggest Assad has been using chemical weapons against the Syrian opposition, including civilians. If he attacks Israel, it is believed Assad would have no problem using those same weapons against the Jewish state.

Syria reportedly has the most extensive chemical weapons arsenal in the world.
Here;  http://www.israeltoday.co.il/tabid/178/nid/23119/language/en-US/Default.aspx

Did you catch that phrase about a "lasting legacy for himself"?

Regular readers of this blog won't need to be reminded that Isaiah 17, which speaks of a time when Damascus will be forever destroyed, has not yet been fulfilled.

But think about what may happen if Syria decides to unload thousands of missiles on Israel...with some of them being chemical weapons....I'm guessing Israel would silence Damascus VERY quickly...even going so far as to use a nuclear weapon.

Please be in prayer for the leaders of Israel.  This has to be an intense time for them.

Today's Headlines On Iran

The plot continues to thicken between Persia and Israel.

2 Iranian warships on their way to Syria

Here;  http://www.agi.it/english-version/world/elenco-notizie/201202172035-pol-ren1094-2_iranian_warships_on_their_way_to_syria

Germany warns Israel not to strike Iran

Here;  http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2012/02/17/Germany-warns-Israel-not-to-strike-Iran/UPI-95701329491458/

Pakistan vows support to Iran in case of U.S. attack

http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/94368/

Iran and al Qaeda’s Shadowy Relationship Could Firm Up This Spring

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/17/iran-and-al-qaeda-s-shadowy-relationship-could-firm-up-this-spring.html

Greece Spiraling Into Catastrophic Depression

The headline alone qualifies this article for blogger material.

Greece spiralling into catastrophic depression

Greece is expecting to agree the terms of European leaders for a rescue package this evening as the country seeks to avoid a default on its international debts. But Greeks fear that the cuts, imposed on them in return for a €130bn bailout, is sending the country spiralling into a catastrophic depression.

The Greek press is referring to the tough terms and the grudging and sceptical approach of eurozone leaders to giving Greece the money as “Chinese torture”. But, deep though the resentment is, few Greek leaders or even protesters have been able to propose an alternative to the agreement that, in addition to providing the €130bn loan, would reduce Greece’s debt to its private bondholders by €100bn.

The mood in Athens is a mixture of fatalism and gloom. Dmitris Kakomitas, a pensioner, said “My pension has fallen from €600 a month to €300. If I didn’t own my own house I’d have difficulty surviving.” He was standing across the street from three red fire engines that were keeping watch on the smouldering wreckage of a 19th century block of shops burned out by protesters last Sunday. He said he didn’t agree with what had happened, suspected criminals were involved, but added that “it wouldn’t be difficult to find an angry pensioner willing to throw a petrol bottle through a window of one of those shops.”

Many Greek politicians and economists have convincing ideas of what should be done to save the country. But, however correct their diagnosis of Greece’s problems, their solutions tend to be long or medium term and are not directed at how to avoid imminent disaster. Many commentators have horror stories about the excessive size and dysfunctional nature of the state with its hundreds of thousands of ill paid employees.

Most striking in Greece is the extent of the social disaster. “The middle class is being wiped out,” says Fotis Kouvelis, the leader of the newly formed Democratic Left party that is doing well in the polls. “Some 30 per cent of Greeks now live below the poverty line.” Though the state sector may be bloated, the safety net for the poor is limited.

Here;  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greece-spiralling-into-catastrophic-depression-6939037.html

Now go through this article and where you see the word "Greece"...replace it with "America".  When you see the word "pension"...replace it with "Social Security".  Are these going to be our headlines in another few years?

As we have said all along....everyone loves a good party.  It's the hangover and clean up that no one likes.  And with Washington D.C. proposing another $1.7 trillion budget deficit over the next year...it appears that America is still in the party mode...figuring that we will deal with the hangover....later.

Kid Quits Choir

Let the religous wars begin...right here in Colorado.

Of course many of us that participated in High School choir sang Handel's Messiah at some point, which sings of events that are yet to happen at Christ's 2nd coming.  And there was a time as recently as 20 years ago that this grand musical event was attended by all the parents and grandparents of the kids who were singing it...and no one thought anything of it.

But how about if your kid in public schools has to sing a song that sings praises to Allah and/or Muhammad?  Would you be upset?

A Colorado high school student says he quit the school choir after an Islamic song containing the lyric "there is no truth except Allah" made it into the repertoire.

James Harper, a senior at Grand Junction High School in Grand Junction, put his objection to singing "Zikr," a song written by Indian composer A.R. Rahman, in an email to Mesa County School District 51 officials. When the school stood by choir director Marcia Wieland's selection, Harper said, he quit

"I don’t want to come across as a bigot or a racist, but I really don’t feel it is appropriate for students in a public high school to be singing an Islamic worship song,” Harper told KREX-TV. "This is worshipping another God, and even worshipping another prophet ... I think there would be a lot of outrage if we made a Muslim choir say Jesus Christ is the only truth."

"It is unfortunate that the student in Colorado misinterpreted the intention of the song," Rahman said. "I have long celebrated the commonalities of humanity and try to share and receive things in this way. While I respect his decision for opting out, this incident is an example of why we need further cultural education through music.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/15/colorado-student-reportedly-quits-choir-over-islamic-song/?cmpid=NL_FNTopHeadlines_20120215#ixzz1ma1TIEeF

So what would you do?  What will you do if your child in public schools is encouraged to practice YOGA in class, or forced to walk a labyrinth because of the calming affect it may have, or is forced to sing praises to Allah or Buddah or any other pagan God?  How about Halloween parties that now seems to have morphed from kids dressing up as hobos and clowns into kids dressing up as ax murderers, vampires and slutty nurses?

Are we going to far in our zeal?  Or are our eyes simply being opened in these last days to make us realize how far we have fallen?

President Obama and the Prophet

Many of you probably are aware that Obama attended and spoke at the National Prayer breakfast last week.  Many of you are probably also aware that Obama declared he was a Christian and proceeded to mis-represent a Bible verse, "To whom much is given, much will be expected", to make a claim that his Socialist agenda would have been supported by Jesus.

The part that you probably DON'T know is that it appears that The Lord had some other plans for Obama's speech that day.  And it is appearing that He planned to trump Obama BEFORE he could even speak.

The speaker directly before Obama was Eric Metaxas who was a writer for Veggie Tales and also has written an AMAZING book about Bonhoeffer.  What Metaxas couldn't have known is that his speech was going to take apart Obama's speech...before Obama could even speak it...as well as making a case against abortion right in front of the Pro-abortion President, Vice President and former Speaker Pelosi.

But Metaxas’s most blistering attack, albeit sheathed carefully in good humor and rapier wit, was still to come, for next on his agenda was his careful but dogged determination to link previous attitudes among churchgoers toward slavery and Nazism with those of some present day churchgoers toward abortion. Surrounded by three of the most powerful supporters of the right to choose, Obama, Vice President Biden, and former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi — two Catholics and a Protestant — Metaxas said:

“Wilberfoce suddenly took the Bible seriously that all of us are created in the image of God, to care for the least of these.”

After carefully describing the inhumane treatment of both Jews and Africans by those claiming to be Christians, he asked then answered a question:
“You think you’re better than the Germans of that era? You’re not,” adding: “Whom do we say is not fully human today?”

See article here;  http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/290393/president-prophet-obama-s-unusual-encounter-eric-metaxas-mark-joseph

See video of speech here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jotOExbddI4&feature=related

Hat tip to Jared F. and Christine P.

Planned Parenthood Hunts Your Kids

Planned Parenthood makes its money by selling abortions, birth control and STD check kits.  So it would only stand to reason that they need to get kids started in unhealthy and ungodly behavior at a young age.

You really do need to watch this video and see what they are doing in the name of "education" to our children as young as 10 years old.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/hooking-kids-on-sex-graphic-new-vid-report-shows-how-planned-parenthood-is-creating-future-customers/

I also heard today on Focus on the Family that the average American boy is now exposed to pornography at age 8.

So friends, we really do have a perversion problem in this nation.  Porn and perversion are now actively hunting down our children.

Satan is prowling around like a hungry lion looking for whom he may devour....and our Federal tax dollars are going towards the funding of Planned Parenthood.

$800 Million for Arab Spring

Remember the folks in Egypt that keep chanting, "Death to America!" and who voted in the Muslim Brotherhood, whose number one goal is the destruction of America and Israel?

It appears that Obama's budget is going to give them some money to help their cause.

(Reuters) - The White House announced plans on Monday to help "Arab Spring" countries swept by revolutions with more than $800 million in economic aid, while maintaining U.S. military aid to Egypt.

In his annual budget message to Congress, President Barack Obama asked that military aid to Egypt be kept at the level of recent years -- $1.3 billion -- despite a crisis triggered by an Egyptian probe targeting American democracy activists.

Here;  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/13/us-usa-budget-foreign-idUSTRE81C1C920120213

Well...that's nice.  I sure hope the money that we give them will finally make them like us!

Boy oh boy....that "reset" button that Obama has been pushing for the past 3 years...it must not be functioning correctly.  Oh well...just keep pushing it!!

Hat tip to Tom F.

Google Message

Of course it is Valentine's Day today.  And Google has a message for you about who can be special friends on this special day.

Go to google.com and click on the play button in the header.  You will see a little cartoon video of a girl jumping rope.  Near the end of the video get ready with you pause button so you can see the other special relationships that they support for this special day.

You will see a human space man and an alien.  A black woman and white woman.  Two gay men in tuxes.  A dog and a cat and a few others.

Can't a man and a woman just have their special day without everyone else feeling they have to be involved?

And what's up with all the alien references?  I guess the message is that when aliens do show up on earth...we should be ready with a Valentine card.  How's that for tolerance?

Hat tip to Jared F.

What's Left?....Television and Football

Greece continues to burn.  We are pretty sure this unrest is not going to quiet down any time soon.  You simply can't give people a lifestyle that they grow used to and then take it away.  It doesn't matter that you should have never given that lifestyle to them in the first place.

A LANDMARK Athens cinema lay in ruins yesterday as stunned Greeks surveyed the damage of widespread riots.   

Officials say 45 buildings were wholly or partly destroyed by fire as violence erupted during demonstrations while parliament voted on Sunday for tough new austerity measures aimed at averting national bankruptcy.

"It's culture that has gone up in smoke," filmmaker Nikos Kavoukidis lamented as he shot footage of the crowd gathered at the ruins of the Attikon cinema. "What do we have left? Television and football?"

Overall, 170 businesses around the city centre sustained damage, including banks, bookstores, jewellery shops, home appliance stores and supermarkets, the Athens chamber of commerce said.

The government, neck-deep in debt, said it would seek a way to help out.

Here;  http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/riots-leave-athens-smouldering/story-fn6e1m7z-1226270276396

So again, we have to ask....how is Greece substantially different than America when it comes to balance sheets and borrowing?  Will we come to a time when Occupy Wall Street turns into Occupy Every City...and the fire bombs, riots, and anarchy pour across this nation?

Will a reporter one day ask an U.S. citizen why the anarchy is happening...to which the citizen will reply, "what else do we have left, but television and football?"

Violence in Syria Spills Into Lebanon

Hezbollah is alive and well in Lebanon so the fact that violence from Syria has spilled in should come as no surprise to anyone.

In Lebanon, two people died and 24 were wounded in fierce clashes between Sunnis hostile to Syria’s regime and Alawites who support it, a security official said.

“A Sunni and an Alawite were killed and 24 people were wounded in clashes that continued since Friday between people from the neighbourhoods of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tebbaneh” in the northern city of Tripoli, he told AFP.

Ten of the wounded were Lebanese soldiers, including a sergeant in critical condition.

The two sides fired guns and rocket-propelled grenades at each other in the bloodiest clashes since June, when six people died in the wake of demonstrations against Syria’s government.

Sunni-majority Tripoli has in the past few years been the scene of intense clashes between Sunni supporters of the anti-Syrian opposition and Alawites loyal to a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Iran and Syria.

Assad hails from the Alawite community, an offshoot of the Shia sect. Syrian state media blamed “terrorists” for Friday’s double car bomb attacks on security posts in Aleppo.

Here;  http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5C02%5C12%5Cstory_12-2-2012_pg7_9

Just imagine if you were the leaders in Israel today as you watch the violence, unrest and mayhem spread all across the lands on your borders....and KNOW that those regimes are filled with people who want nothing more than to destroy your country and kill all your people.

These are some serious times for Israel...and for all of us.

Muslims Claim Jews Planning Third Temple

Here is more evidence that we must be approaching the very last days...because talk of a Jewish Third Temple built on the Temple Mount is increasing.

Let's remember that the 2nd Temple was the one that Jesus stood in when he was in Jerusalem.  That one was destroyed about 35 years after Jesus' death and resurrection and there has never been a temple there since.

When the Muslims showed up centuries later they knew that the site was a Jewish Holy site and since they claimed that Allah was greater than any other god they chose to build two mosques on the exact site and claim it as their own.  This Muslim practice is a little bit like a dog raising it's leg to mark its territory.

Israel is planning to build a new structure on the Temple Mount, adjacent to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency reported on Saturday.

The report cited the Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage, which claimed that a committee within the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem has submitted plans for the new structure.

According to the foundation, the 3,700-square-meter structure will be built near the Mughrabi Gate. It will consist of five floors, two of which will be underground.

The building will reportedly be designed to include a Jewish museum, lecture halls, exhibition halls, a library and archives center, and a center for information.

Ma’an quoted a statement by the Al-Aqsa Foundation, which claimed the structure would be built on Islamic and Arab ruins.

“The building will serve settlers and foreign tourists who visit the square,” the foundation said. “The Israeli archeology department has been digging and excavating for about five years demolishing structures that date back to different Arab and Islamic eras.”

Israel has not officially responded to the claims, a report on Israel’s Channel 2 News on Saturday said.

Last week, the Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation’s website featured photos of IDF soldiers touring the Temple Mount. The foundation claimed that two photos are of a Jewish man urinating on a wall within the Temple Mount compound.

However, the website did not provide any evidence that the man is indeed Jewish or that he was indeed engaged in the act they claim he was engaged in. Nor is there any account or documentation that he was approached by anyone following his supposed act of sacrilege, as one would have expected to happen.

Here;  http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/152649

Remember friends, we need to have a 3rd Temple to fulfill prophecy because this is the Temple that the Antichrist will sit at 3 1/2 years into the 7 year peace agreement signed between Israel and its enemies....and he will declare himself to be god.

When this happens...all hell will break loose on earth.

Thanks you Jesus that you promised to come and receive us unto yourself so that we will not be witnesses to this horrible time.