Trump didn’t make the world more dangerous. Obama did.

It started again after Trump ordered terrorist Qasem Soleimani killed.  Critics are falsely accusing Trump of making the world more dangerous.  The truth is, it was Obama—with his foreign policy of weakness and capitulation—that intensified international tensions.

Obama continually gave things away, getting nothing in return but contempt for America.

Trump on the other hand—by refusing to accept anything but victory—defused the danger level of the world.

Obama’s weak approach is the bane of liberal thinking.  Underneath, is the belief that victory is not possible. The best they can hope for is a tenuous treaty that they hope will avoid a confrontation.  Nothing is settled.  The undercurrent of defeatism ran through all of Obama’s policies, and he found a half-cure for everything.

Tragically, the church learned Obama’s way of making things more dangerous.  The trend in church is to get people to like us better.   Ironically, it has only made them hate us more.

Arthur Matthews was an amazing man.  Decades before American Pastors began imitating Obama apology tours, Matthew saw it coming:

“Old Testament examples of prayer at work portray most dramatically for us the believer’s authority over all the power of God’s enemies.  There is a finality that will not be gainsaid in the way the superior strength of alien armies is disposed of as God’s servants. This finality is not seen in the political bargaining that characterizes our day.  Compromises are made, peace treaties are signed, and the peacemakers move to other danger spots; but the fighting still goes on.  Are we allowing our disillusionment with the world’s acclaimed peacemakers to influence our thinking on spiritual warfare?  Are we really convinced our call is to spiritual welfare and peace through victory?”

It’s almost as if he is asking, “Are you acting like Obama in regard to the things of God?”

 Christian leaders need to examine themselves for this hypocrisy.   Ask yourself, “Have I condemned Obama’s defeatist approach while practicing my own version of it?”

Another area that requires examination should be centered around outcomes.  If the intended goal of the “user friendly church” was to reduce hostility, then why—under their watch—has hostility towards Christians and laws banning religious freedoms increased dramatically?

They didn’t hate us like this when we preached boldly.  It is possible they now instinctively feel contempt for our compromise?  They respectfully disagreed with us back then, but are repulsed by us now.

Nowhere is this defeatism more glaring than in the attitude of the church at large towards prayer and revival.

They don’t really believe prayer and revival can change our world.  They don’t pray as if prayer had power to change society.  They don’t preach revival because they can’t imagine it happening to their people. They see their congregations as coddled masses who are not willing to pay the price for revival.

Trump shows us that peace through victory means calling someone’s bluff.  Trump did that to Iran when they threatened us with the end of the world if we walked away from that hideous agreement Obama made.  But it turned out to be all talk.

Christian leaders must learn to do that with Satan.  Call his bluff.  Tell him he’s the defeated one!  Behave like Jesus won a total victory on the Cross.  Christian leaders must do that with culture.  Call the bluff of all those ‘experts’ who insist we must alter our message in order to change society.

Listen again to Arthur Matthews: “In any situation where Satan dominates and threatens, God looks for a man through whom He may declare war on the enemy.  He purposes that through this man Satan be served notice to back up, pack up, and clear out.”

Peace through victory calls the devil’s bluff on the highest level.  It declares that the Earth can still be enveloped by a massive act of God, as God said it will:

“For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea” Habakkuk 2:14.

By holding to a policy of peace through victory, Trump has already seen results no one could have imagined.  It is time for Christian leaders to repent of their defeatism and embrace the power of prayer to make tangible changes in the hearts of men and women and to impact world events.

Arthur Matthew said, “It is the man who prays who exercises supremacy even over international situations.  Men are going to have to acknowledge the peace will not be brought through politicians, but through the intercessor who has learned to wage spiritual warfare and wins peace over the principalities and powers in high places.”

Trump didn’t make the world more dangerous…Obama did. Here’s why it matters.

Critics falsely accuse Trump of making the world more dangerous.  The truth is, it was Obama—with his foreign policy of weakness and capitulation—that intensified international tensions.

Obama continually gave things away, getting nothing in return but contempt for America.

Trump on the other hand—by refusing to accept anything but victory—defused the danger level of the world.

He brought North Korea and South Korea together!  Yes, there is much to iron out with N.K. but there is no doubt that our president moved the situation further than all of his predecessors.   And, Trump offered nothing to North Korea.

Obama’s weak approach is the bane of liberal thinking.  Underneath, is the belief that victory is not possible. The best they can hope for is a tenuous treaty.  Nothing is settled.  The undercurrent of defeatism ran through all his policies…he found a half-cure for everything.

Tragically, the church learned Obama’s way of making things more dangerous.  The trend in church is to get people to like us better.   Ironically, it only made them hate us more.

Arthur Matthews was an amazing man.  Decades before American Pastors began imitating Obama apology tours, Matthew saw it coming:

“Old Testament examples of prayer at work portray most dramatically for us the believer’s authority over all the power of God’s enemies.  There is a finality that will not be gainsaid in the way the superior strength of alien armies is disposed of as God’s servants. This finality is not seen in the political bargaining that characterizes our day.  Compromises are made, peace treaties are signed, and the peacemakers move to other danger spots; but the fighting still goes on.  Are we allowing our disillusionment with the world’s acclaimed peacemakers to influence our thinking on spiritual warfare?  Are we really convinced our call is to spiritual welfare and peace through victory?”

It’s almost as if he is asking, “are you acting like Obama with the things of God?”

Christian leaders need to examine themselves for this hypocrisy.   Ask yourself, “have I condemned Obama’s defeatist approach while practicing my own version of it?”

Another examination should center around outcomes.  If the intended goal of the “user friendly church” was to reduce hostility, then why—under their watch—has hostility towards Christians, and laws banning religious freedoms increased dramatically?

They didn’t hate us like this when we preached boldly.  It is possible they instinctively felt contempt for our compromise?  They respectfully disagreed back then, but are repulsed by us now.

Nowhere is this defeatism more glaring, than in the attitude of the church at large, towards prayer and revival.

They don’t really believe prayer and revival can change our world.  They don’t pray as if prayer had power to change society.  They don’t preach revival because they can’t imagine it happening to their people. They see their congregations as coddled masses not willing to pay the price for revival.

Trump shows us that peace through victory means calling someone’s bluff.  Trump did that to Iran when they threatened us with end of the world if we walked away from that hideous agreement Obama made.  It was all talk.

Christians leaders must learn to do that with Satan.  Call his bluff.  Tell him he’s the defeated one!  Behave like Jesus won on the Cross.  Christian leaders must do that with culture.  Call the bluff of all those experts who insist we must alter our message to change society.

Listen again to Arthur Matthews: “In any situation where Satan dominates and threatens, God looks for a man through whom he may declare war on the enemy.  He purposes that through this man Satan be served notice to back up, pack up, and clear out.”

Peace through victory calls the devil’s bluff on the biggest level.  It declares that the Earth can still be enveloped by a massive act of God.

By holding to a policy of peace through victory, Trump has already seen results no one could have imagined.  It is time for Christian leaders to repent of their defeatism and embrace the power of prayer to make tangible changes in the hearts of men and women and to impact world events.

Arthur Matthew said, “It is the man who prays who exercises supremacy even over international situations.  Men are going to have to acknowledge the peace will not be brought through politicians, but through the intercessor who has learned to wage spiritual warfare and wins peace over the principalities and powers in high places.”

P.S  Pray for our president.

Report: 2015 Saw ‘Most Violent’ Persecution of Christians in Modern History

by THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D. 20 Jan 2016

The brutal, worldwide persecution of Christians during the past year makes 2015 “the most violent and sustained attack on Christian faith in modern history,” according to a watchdog organization that has been monitoring Christian persecution for decades.

Open Doors, an organization founded in 1955 to assist persecuted Christians, publishes an annual “World Watch List,” documenting attacks on Christians and ranking the most hostile national environments for believers.

“The 2016 World Watch List documents an unprecedented escalation of violence against Christians, making this past year the most violent and sustained attack on Christian faith in modern history,” Open Doors CEO David Curry said at the rollout of the list.

Persecution in “continuing to increase, intensify and spread across the globe,” he said.

At the top of the Watch List, for the 14^th consecutive year, stands North Korea, where an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Christians are imprisoned in labor camps. Carrying on as one of the last holdouts of Communist totalitarianism, North Korea bears a particular hatred for Christians, who are a constant reminder of accountability to a higher power than the state.

“Christianity is not only seen as ‘opium for the people’ as is normal for all communist states,” the report says. “It is also seen as deeply Western and despicable.” During 2015, thousands of Christians living in North Korea were forced to renounce their faith or flee under threat of death.

As in the case with last year’s report, the vast majority of countries experiencing acute Christian persecution are Muslim nations. In 2015, nine out of the top ten countries where Christians suffer “extreme persecution” had populations that are at least 50 percent Muslim, a phenomenon replicated in 2016.

The 2015 report found that “Islamic extremism is by far the most significant persecution engine” of Christians in the world today and that “40 of the 50 countries on the World Watch List are affected by this kind of persecution.”

The 2016 list places Iraq in second place, immediately after North Korea, with horrific Islamic violence dominating news headlines during 2015. Throughout the year, Christians were forced to flee their homes by the thousands or be killed.

Just this week, the United Nations released an extensive report on Islamic State violence in Iraq, and estimates that ISIS currently holds some 3,500 people, mostly women and children, in the country.

The report, jointly issued by U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq and U.N. human rights office in Geneva, declared ISIS atrocities in Iraq to be “war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide.”

Some of the crimes described in the report include executions by shooting, beheading, bulldozing, burning alive and throwing people off the top of buildings.

The other nations making the top ten in Christian persecution are Eritrea, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, and Libya, all of which have Muslim majorities.

The report underscores the geographical extent of Christian persecution, and Curry highlighted the global nature of the problem, noting that it has become more acute not just in a few isolated regions, but “in every continent in every country.”

“The levels of exclusion, discrimination and violence against Christians is unprecedented, spreading and intensifying,” Curry added. “Christians, longing to stay in their home countries, are being forced to flee for their lives and for their children’s lives,” he said.

Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter @tdwilliamsrome

Putin turns Obama into Jimmy Carter totally

Henninger: Putin Carterizes Obama, Totally

The Democrats are vulnerable again on handling the world.

By

DANIEL HENNINGER

March 5, 2014 7:11 p.m. ET

Air-dropping himself into Kiev Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the Russian seizure of Crimea is “not 21st-century, G-8, major-nation behavior.” He said Mr. Putin should allow “international observers” to enter Crimea.International observers?This calls to mind Humphrey Bogart’s Fred C. Dobbs facing the gang of Mexican bandidos in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”:Dobbs: “If you’re the police, where are your badges?”Chief bandido: “Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges!”We may assume Mr. Putin would say the masked Russians patrolling Ukrainian Crimea are “international observers.”As of this week, it’s official. Vladimir Putin has turned Barack Obama totally into Jimmy Carter.We may quibble over the timeline. Some might say it began when Mr. Obama whispered to then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev he’d have “more flexibility” after the 2012 election; others that it set in when the U.S. president took Mr. Putin’s offer to let Bashar Assad escape the bombing of his airfields for using WMD against his own people.

Enlarge Image

A Russian-style international observer at a Ukrainian air base in Crimea. Getty Images

“Carterization” has a specific meaning in American politics. In 1980, Ronald Reagan delivered an August speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Chicago, just as he was starting his campaign to unseat Jimmy Carter, trapped then in the Iranian hostage crisis.

“The response from the administration in Washington” to foreign threats, said Reagan, “has been one of weakness, inconsistency, vacillation and bluff.”

“Our allies are losing confidence in us, and our adversaries no longer respect us,” he said. Our partners “are confused by the lack of a coherent, principled policy from the Carter administration.”

The characterization stuck, helped by Mr. Carter’s foreign adventures after his presidency. And in truth, Mr. Carter’s team included sterner ballast in Defense Secretary Harold Brown and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. Nothing similar exists today in the Obama administration.

The consequences of Mr. Obama’s Carterization overseas are coming so fast it’s hard to keep track. Ukraine, though important, is the tip of the iceberg. Here’s what else happened in the week Mr. Putin captured Crimea.

-Israel on Wednesday intercepted in the Red Sea an Iranian shipment to Gaza of dozens of Syrian-made surface-to-surface rockets. These are our new Iranian negotiating partners.

–North Korea last Thursday test-fired four short-range ballistic missiles and another this Monday. Then on Tuesday it deployed a new multiple-rocket launcher that fired four missiles with enough range to hit American and South Korean military bases near Seoul.

-In Moscow last Wednesday,Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia plans to use military bases in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua for its navy and to refuel strategic bombers.

-Three months ago, Secretary Kerry ostentatiously announced in a Washington speech, “The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.” Naturally the Russians took this as a green light to return to one of the Soviet Union’s favorite playpens. The next day, a Russian spy ship, the Viktor Leonov SSV-175, slipped unannounced into Havana Harbor.

-Then this Wednesday, a news bulletin: “China announces 12.2% increase in military budget.” That boost comes within 24 hours of the Obama budget proposing a decline in U.S. defense spending.

This is all in one week!

Ah, one more thing happened. With Ukraine, in Vladimir Putin’s word “stabilized,” Mr. Obama went to Connecticut to campaign for an increase in the federal minimum wage and from there to Boston for a Democratic fundraiser. What, me worry?

Our allies have noticed. In December, Saudi Arabia separated itself from a decades-long alliance with the U.S. to arm the Syrian opposition because the Obama administration would not. That same month Vice President Joe Biden made a trip to Asia to reassure our allies there that the U.S. “pivot” to the Pacific is real. In February Secretary Kerry went to Asia to say it all again. This is unprecedented. Until now.

Democrats spent years trying to dig out from under the Carter foreign policy image and the blame-America-first Vietnam Syndrome. Because of the Obama determination to lead from behind—which is modern Democratic foreign-policy doctrine, not just one man’s whim—they are politically vulnerable again on handling the world.

But Hillary Clinton, who has managed never to articulate anything resembling a strategic vision, may get lucky. Because opinion polls say Americans have foreign-commitment fatigue (the actual number in the oft-cited Pew poll is 52%), Republicans have gone into a defensive crouch over the U.S.’s world role. Every prominent Republican commenting on Ukraine felt obliged to disavow military action. That disavowal is dangerous. Any Republican thinking of being a successful U.S. president should read that Chicago speech.

A realistic hope for peace, Reagan said, is possible only if the U.S. maintains “the vital margin of safety.” The margin of safety wasn’t about public threats of war. It is about the marginal advantage gained when an adversary negotiating with a strong U.S. believed we might act militarily. If friends and foes conclude no one in the U.S. believes this in 2014, the margin of safety is gone.

Triumph and Glory by Billy Graham.

Peace and Joy When the World is Falling Apart.

 

One of the greatest mistakes that modern preaching made was getting us all to seek peace and joy.  Peace and Joy are not things we are to go after.  They are things that God adds to those who are going after the right things.

Let me make the case by using the story of the Wise Men.  Imagine the world they knew.  Tradition says they were from the school of the Magi in Persia.  They were Kings and likely billionaires.

They came under the influence of Judaism because of Daniel centuries before and because an edict from Solomon that the whole world should have knowledge of the Lord God Jehovah.

Let’s imagine the turmoil in their souls when they saw the star.  They knew it signaled the birth of the King of Kings because they had long before come under the Spirit’s influence.

Should we go or not?  How do you prepare your kingdom for a prolonged absence?  What if our enemies invade?

Then the real question hit them.  “What if we do not go?  Imagine living out the rest of our days knowing that we were invited to the greatest event in history and we stayed home.”

They found profound peace because they said yes.  Isaiah 26:3 says,  “You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.

The person kept in perfect peace is not focusing on peace, they are focusing on God and in trusting God.

The Wise Men learned that God gives peace to those who willingly endanger themselves in a divine quest.  Peace has no place with bored believers seeking escape.  Matthew Henry said, “we cannot be safe so long as we are secure.”  No matter how hard you try to secure yourself against the upheaval in the world you will still battle anxiety.  You cannot ask life to leave you alone and think God will add peace.

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Peace is clearly a byproduct in this verse.  It comes from believing in what Christ did on the Cross and what He did before His Father.

Here is the danger of seeking peace while ignoring God’s call:  Luke 19:41 “Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, ‘If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”  Let that be a warning to us all.  We must pursue the things that make for our peace.

Joy overtakes those who obey orders.  Matthew 2: 9 “After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”

Again, joy is not a feeling you work up but a gift God adds to those who are walking by faith and not by sight.  Two years before the star rose signaling the location.  It was their duty to get there and then they could see the star once more.

1 Peter 1:8 says, “whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.”  Loving Him even though you cannot see Him releases joy.

Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

Never forget: Peace and Joy are not things we are to go after.  They are things that God adds to those who are going after the right things.