A little bit of politics

First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, (1 Tim 2:1-3).

In America, the presidential inauguration is tomorrow. For some of you reading this on the other side of the world, it already happened. There are a lot of ideas about this election and upcoming president. As Christians, we do not put our trust in men, in presidents and politicians, but if God granted us the freedom to live in a free country where we can vote, I believe we should use those civil liberties to further the Kingdom of Christ on Earth till His coming. Just as Paul the apostle used his civil liberties as Roman citizen often, I think it is Biblical to do so. God can also use people in power to bring temporary relief and benefit to the Church in the world. But we must sustain the blessings of freedom and peace through prayer. 

So I wanted to share this article that shows exactly why the Lord used Trump’s election as a blessing to America and the nations around her.
I pasted the article here, because I don’t trust you will click the link to view it 😉
Plus, it’s short and very well written!

Thank God for Barack Obama (he cleared the field for Donald Trump)
By Arthur Herman

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/01/19/thank-god-for-barack-obama-cleared-field-for-donald-trump.html

As America watches Donald Trump take the presidential oath on Friday, it’ll be worth taking a moment to think about what the future will show was a truly providential moment in our history: the presidency of Barack Obama.

It’s time to realize that the eight years of Obama were a gift that kept on giving, one that has cleared the field for Trump in ways we can’t see.

Why? Because in his eight years in office, Obama managed to expose the intellectual bankruptcy of liberalism. He revealed once and for all that it’s an ideology based on a flawed view of reality and of human nature, and that it has been a destructive force in our country going back to the New Deal, and going forward to ObamaCare.

Obama exposed the bankruptcy of the mainstream media and its bogus claims to be an objective information filter, when, in fact, outlets like CNN, NBC and the New York Times are mouthpieces for the Democratic Party.

He exposed the political bankruptcy of the so-called civil rights movement and groups like Black Lives Matter and showed that, instead of trying to improve the lives of African-Americans, they are geared to raise racial tensions for political gain.

He exposed the bankruptcy of Keynesian economics. After eight years of trying to use government borrowing and spending to grow the economy, Obama and his advisers have left us poorer, less competitive and with more adult Americans not working than at any time since the days of malaise in the 1970s.

Four years weren’t enough to expose these truths. It actually took eight years and Obama’s reelection in 2012 to fully reveal the lies, deceptions and fallacies on which his presidency was based.

Eight years for him to hollow out the Democratic Party at the national and state levels, so that Trump enters the White House with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress and with only four states out of 50 with Democratic governors and Democratic majority legislatures. The Democratic national leadership has been reduced to a politburo of septuagenarians and refugees from the SDS.

In the perpetual divide between liberalism and conservatism, Obama has shown us which is on the side of law and order, and which is not. He showed us side which cares about our veterans, and which does not.

He showed which supports our allies like Britain, Japan and Israel, and which does not.

He showed which side cares about national security, and which does not — and which feels free to let a traitor like Chelsea Manning go free.

He showed which is more concerned about protecting terrorists from Americans, including springing them from Gitmo, than protecting Americans from terrorists.

He showed the American people that federal agencies like the IRS, EPA and CIA have become politicized to a degree that makes them ineffective and even hostile to American interests.

He showed this nation and the world that appeasement of our foes, like China, Russia and Iran, doesn’t work, and that when America fails to lead, we are all put in peril…

Finally, after eight years in office, Barack Obama has left official Washington broken, exhausted and paralyzed by partisan rancor. Even Washington now recognizes it’s time for new blood and new ideas, and that whatever happens it’s bound to be better than what we’ve suffered since 2009.

All in all, it’s an opening for our new president like none since Ronald Reagan, or even going back to 1832 and the inauguration of Andrew Jackson.

And let’s face it. After eight years of Obama, Donald Trump has nowhere to go but up.

14 People in Your Community You Should Share the Christmas Message With

 

 

Christmas is the best time to share the Gospel message! People are in a cheery festive mood and more willing to receive anything. Here are some very practical ways you can spread the Christmas message in your own community! 

Supplies: 

 

• A quality Gospel tract. Our favorite is Ultimate Questions by John Blanchard. You can purchase it on Amazon. On this website you can find the content inside the tract, so you know what you’re buying. 
• Add a label sticker on the back of the Gospel tract with the name of a good local church they can visit. On that sticker include resources like a link for “Creation Science for Students and Beyond” sending them to Institute for Creation Research
• A treat/gift. Always give the Gospel tracts with a little treat like a candy cane, some cookies, a soda, a mandarine etc.
• Pray for all the people you give to, that God would use this to touch their heart and change their lives! 

People that are neglected in ‘random acts of kindness’

When you spread the Christmas message you are somehow doing ‘random acts of kindness’ as some people like to call them. The people that get the most attention are the postman or firefighters, but there are several other people who work just as hard and are overlooked. I wanted to show where you can spread the Gospel this Christmas in your community! 

The Grocery Store Cashier 

Get your cashier a chocolate or a bag of mandarines, and include a Gospel tract. Tell them “Merry Christmas and thank you for your excellent work!” I tell you they will be so pleasantly surprised and touched. Make it even more special if it is a cashier/clerk you are familiar with! They will remember you for a long time.

Community College Police 

This is for all the college students out there. With all the hatred we’ve seen against police lately (here in America at least), this will be a great way to reach out to them and show your support. Get something store-bought and sealed so it doesn’t look suspicious to them, and add a Gospel tract and card. Go to their office and thank them for their service, tell them how much you appreciate that they keep your campus safe! 

Alternatively, if you feel led, bring some store-bought cookies to your local police department and thank them for their service. 

The Janitor 

If you are in a large corporation or work for a company, you can spread the Christmas cheer to the janitors. You can also do this for the janitors at church, at school- anywhere. Give them something home-made or store bought and a Gospel tract. They will be so surprised! If they speak another language, try to find a Gospel tract in their language. 

The Bank Teller

I think bank tellers usually get something special from customers during the holidays, but still- give them a little treat with a Gospel tract and thank them for their service! 

The Nurse

Nurses work super hard- I can tell you from experience. 12 hour shifts are no joke. They don’t often get the ‘random acts of kindness’ either. So find a nurse somewhere in your community- either at a hospital, nursing home or somewhere, and give them a treat and a Gospel tract. 

The Garbage Man

If you are ever home when the garbage man comes around, make sure you give them something special too! They do a hard job and probably never get anything special. Remember to include a Gospel tract! 

Roadworkers/Construction workers

If you have road workers or construction workers in your area, you may try to find a way to share a Christmas treat with them too- homemade treats are awesome for them! They will be giddy as little children I guarantee you. Get your dad, husband or man in your life to hand it to them or to accompany you so you will be safe and try not to step into the construction zone, but get their attention and call them over to where you are. Make sure you have plenty of Gospel tracts so they can share.  

Hotel Maids, Gas station service-person, Bus driver

If you’re traveling this Christmas, you may be staying at a hotel, or going in states where they have gas station service-people (and the cashier at the gas station). Make sure you spread the Christmas cheer by giving them a little treat and a Gospel tract! Or if you commute regularly to work with public transportation, you can give a treat+Gospel tract to the bus driver, taxi driver, etc. 

The pizza delivery person 

If you have a milkman that brings milk or a pizza delivery guy, remember to give them a Gospel tract and treat also! 

Families & single mothers in poor trailer-home neighborhoods

Seek out a poor neighborhood like a trailer home park or an apartment complex where you know honest but poor people live and bring them a basket of goodies with a Gospel tract, and maybe a gift card to a grocery store so they can do some shopping. And please- no canned foods. I don’t believe canned foods are really “our best”- give them (for maybe once in their life), some quality food.

Senior citizens

Go to a nursing home and do some Christmas caroling and hand out a treat with a Gospel tract to the elderly people. 

Additionally, organize a Christmas card event for the elderly in your church who may be lonely. Get their mailing addresses and share them with church members encouraging them to send a Christmas card to a lonely elderly person in your church. 

So basically look around you and have an open eye for regular people who need the gospel message! 

Who else would you recommend? I’m curious to hear! 

The other Reformation you never heard about- Eastern Orthodox Reformation

Let me tell you the story of a Reformation just like that of Luther, but one that many people have never heard about. It continued through the years, and the evangelical church that emerged from that Reformation still exists today. 

Who: Tudor Popescu, Eastern Orthodox priest &  Dumitru Cornilescu another priest and friend of his
When: 1920-1924
Where: A small and beautiful country in Eastern Europe, called Romania. It is land of mountains, plains, marshlands and sea. 

Tudor Popescu as a priest

Tudor Popescu was born in a family of Eastern Orthodox priests, the third of ten children. His father and grandfather were priests and he was expected to follow in the same honorable service although Tudor wished he could choose a different path in life. Tragedy struck when Tudor was a teenager. His older brother Ion (John) died of tuberculosis. This left Tudor heartbroken because Ion had been his closest friend. That was when Tudor started thinking about eternity and life after death. Although he had grown up in the Eastern Orthodox church, as the son of a priest, Tudor did not understand much about God. The liturgy of the church made it hard for him to understand the Bible. He had many questions. Where was his brother now? Was there life after death? 

Tudor hoped his questions about life, God and eternity would be answered by studying theology at the seminary in Bucharest, the capital city of Romania. He was going to become a priest. But life in the seminary did not help. The seminary taught very little of the Bible to the students, and most of Tudor’s classmates were rowdy and sinful. After they finished their studies many of the priests became atheists. 

Tudor went on to take his doctorate at the University of Bucharest and additionally mastered the German and French languages. But his questions remained unanswered. Soon he married a beautiful young lady named Athena Ionescu, the daughter of a priest. When his father-in-law died, Tudor took over the priestly duties of Stork’s Nest Orthodox Church in Bucharest. 

The Stork’s Nest Church

 

Dumitru Cornilescu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Serving in the same church was a deacon named Dumitru Cornilescu. Like Tudor Popescu he wanted something deeper and he was passionate about faith and God. Together they made a dynamic duo, doing their best to help people live to please God. But they did it all by human works of righteousness and according to Eastern Orthodox liturgy. They were discouraged when they saw no results of spiritual growth in their church members. They realized there must be more to Christianity than liturgy and religion. The Eastern Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe was in darkness and bankruptcy during that time. Many priests were worldly and didn’t know much Scripture. Dumitru Cornilescu soon started working on translating the Bible in a more easy-t0-read form of the Romanian language because all they had until then was a Bible translation in Old Romanian which was difficult to read.  

 

The turning point 

Tudor’s beloved wife Athena died suddenly in the prime of her youth leaving him with three young children. Tudor felt like he fell in an abyss of grief. The questions he had about eternity intensified. His friend Dumitru Cornilescu sent him the newly translated copy of the Bible and Tudor absorbed it. Like Luther, his eyes started to open and he slowly began to understand the futility of religion without regeneration. He started preaching directly from the Bible, stopped mentioning Mary, the saints. After hearing Biblical preaching, many church members started changing and turning away from sin. Attendance grew. 

 

Expelled- A Reformation within the Eastern Orthodox Church 

Other priests grew envious and started accusing Tudor of deviating from tradition and liturgy. Soon he was officially expelled from the Eastern Orthodox church. With some converts from his former parish, Tudor left and started his own ministry- a reformed church, an evangelical church out of Eastern Orthodoxy. Tudor Popescu the priest was now a pastor.  A whole reformation was begun in the Eastern Orthodox church. The new believers called themselves “Christians according to Scripture”. They embraced the Gospel of Grace and Salvation through Christ alone, and they put aside all the liturgy and traditions of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

A rich young woman from a noble family who appreciated the work of Tudor, decided to give them her mansion to use as the new church building. The church was established there, and over the years, many new churches spread all across the country of Romania. 

The Mansion turned Church Building on Carol Davila Street in Bucharest, Romania 

 

Where are they today? 

You will still find the Christians according to Scripture gathering in the same church building even today, decades later. It is the only Reformation that took place in Eastern Orthodoxy in all of Europe. God’s hand moved in Eastern Europe just as he did centuries before with Luther, and opened the eyes of a priest, Tudor Popescu to realize the true Gospel of Grace.

Hold Your Nose and Vote, America!

That is exactly what Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham said recently on the news: “Hold your nose and vote!”  (Video below). 

Yes, I am writing a political post. I would like to encourage my fellow countrymen to go out there and exercise their duty as a citizen of this great country- and vote. This election is of tremendous importance, one that will affect a lot of things in this nation and your own future. For my friends in other countries, I say pray for us! Pray that God would grant wisdom to the evangelical community to take action and face facts. 

I find it very disturbing that many evangelicals, especially well known pastors such as Al Mohler and other leaders are going on TV and confusing the population, implying that we should abstain from voting or vote with a third party. Why is that wrong? Here is why: 

• One of the two presidential candidates will win whether you like it or not: Trump or Clinton, there is no third party, that candidate from the third party has virtually 0% chance at the Presidency 

• You cannot be “neutral” by staying home. That action automatically gives a vote in one direction or another. 

• If you vote for a third party, your vote will automatically allow the wrong candidate to win. And it is like voting in vain.  

• Many well known pastors are decrying the moral problems of candidates like Trump while they allow blatant immodesty, worldliness and sin in their churches and do not address specific sins from the pulpit. The evangelical church (and pastors) are plagued by divorces, pornography and other sins! Pastors should start correcting the church first, but they choose to point the finger at non-Christians.

• Why were pastors so willing to vote for a Mormon candidate (Mitt Romney) in 2012, and encouraged evangelicals to vote for him when Mormonism is a dangerous cult that is not at all Evangelical?! It is better to vote for a secular non-believer than a candidate from a cult. 

• We are not voting for a pastor-in-chief,  or a Pope, we are voting for a political candidate. A huge majority of America’s presidents had moral problems, including famous Thomas Jefferson who lived in immorality, as well as Andrew Jackson, so why do Trump’s moral problems surprise us, when he is a non-believer? Here’s what the Bible says: “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.” (1 Corinthians 5:9-11)

• The candidates are not Christians/believers, so we are not holding them to the same standards as we would Christians. Also, voting for a candidate like Trump under no circumstances means that we are excusing, endorsing, condoning or overlooking his behavior 

• When we vote, we are not voting for the candidate’s personal moral standards- but for how fit they seem to be president, and the policies they promise to uphold.  

• The other candidate (will not state her name) stands for absolutely everything that is anti-Biblical and anti-christian, but most evangelicals don’t seem to realize the danger that candidate poses. She betrayed our troops and did many other grievous things that disqualify her

• The candidate you vote for now will decide what justices are put in the Supreme Court (and those justices can stay there for 3 decades!) and will have a lot of power on lawmaking in the United States 

By voting for the main Republican candidate it does not mean we totally trust that he will keep his promises and do exactly what he said. We know he may backtrack. But at least we did our duty and voted for one who claimed he will support the right policies, versus one who blatantly says she will enforce policies that are anti-Christian. 

 

Biblical examples of those who had to join with secular people
to preserve freedom for God’s people 

Esther was called to marry a King who was a pagan. She could have refused and had her head chopped off- but she married him and then rose up to save her people
“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14) 

Here are other Biblical examples that brother Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis gave on his Facebook Page: 

 

More reasons why you should vote

Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.
– Franklin Roosevelt

Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don’t vote. -William E. Simon

 

Franklin Graham’s Video

Franklin Graham’s logical, straightforward, patriotic response to these elections was a breath of fresh air! 

Victory! He Sets the Captives Free!

It looks like I’ve fallen off the planet because I have not been my usual self and have not regularly posted. Although this corner has been quiet- my life has been far from quiet- it’s been bustling by at a rapid pace and I have exciting things to announce- I graduated college by God’s grace! I am also planning changes for this blog- which hopefully will be coming up sooner than later. 

But I have a marvelous victory to tell! Remember the Bodnariu case that I wrote about several months ago?

Read: In Norway It is a Crime to Sing

Short recap of the story: The CPS in Norway snatched 5 children from this family without any evidence and kept them in custody trying to find evidence of problems in the family. The CPS (called Barnevernet) in Norway has a long complicated history of horror stories against human rights, family rights and children’s rights.

There was a global movement of support of the Bodnariu family with hundreds of protests all around the world, and even a BBC documentary done on the Bodnariu case in Norway. The Barnevernet system was flooded with letters daily from people who supported the Bodnarius and their case went viral on social media, and many news stations reported on the case as well. Even the European Council ruled against Norway’s Barnevernet system and condemned it. After a long and hard battle- an official statement says that the Bodnariu children will be returned to their parents!! 

Read: The Bodnariu Family Reunited 

Glory be to the Lord! What a triumphant Victory! Let us all rejoice! 

To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners;
To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,…
Isaiah 61:1