All posts filed under: z424

The Warning Signs of Toxic Religion

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By J. Lee Grady

After Elisha watched Elijah ascend into heaven, the prophet went to the city of Jericho and performed his first miracle. The men of that city faced an environmental crisis: Their water was toxic, most likely because of the sulphur and other chemicals that had rained down upon nearby Sodom and Gomorrah years earlier. This poison had made the land barren (see 2 Kings 2:19-22) and it was probably affecting people and animals as well as plant life.

The Spirit of Anarchy Is Not from Above but from Below

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By Dr. Michael Brown

The Greek word anomia occurs 13 times in the New Testament and it literally means “lawlessness.” As defined in one major Greek dictionary, anomia means “to behave with complete disregard for the laws or regulations of a society — ‘to live lawlessly, lawlessness, lawless living” (Louw-Nida Lexicon). The spirit behind anomia is not from above, but from below.

School district pays $100,000 after banning a woman who exposed the sexually explicit material available in school libraries

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A Georgia school district will be paying the $100,000 in legal fees of Mother Bears, a local parent’s group, after it banned one of its members from attending board meetings, The Blaze reports. The group took legal action against the Forsyth County School District when Alison Hair was banned after reading sexually explicit excerpts from a book entitled, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” during a February 2022 board meeting. Mother Bears was attempting to sound the alarm about the type of materials available in public school libraries. During Hair’s first attempt to read from the book available at her son’s middle school, she was interrupted by a board member and stopped from reading the pornographic passage. After Hair attempted to read from it again at a second meeting, the school board sent a letter banning her from attending further school board meetings. This resulted in Mother Bears launching a lawsuit against the school board in July 2022. The Blaze provides more details of the successful lawsuit: “People cannot fairly pass judgment on books that they …

EU orders removal of TikTok app from gov’t phones effective March 15, 2023

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The European Union (EU) has just ordered all staff to remove the popular social media app, TikTok, from their government-provided phones by March 15th, Breitbart reports. In the email, sent out earlier this week, EU staff were also asked to remove the TikTok app from any personal devices, if they use them to conduct EU business. The removal is due to spying concerns because the Chinese company which owns TikTok, ByteDance, has close connections to the Chinese Communist Party. This follows a similar request by the Dutch government which asked bureaucrats to stay off the platform and is also considering banning the app for all government mobile phones. READ: EU Orders Commission Staff to Delete CCP-Linked TikTok From Phones by March 15th In early December, because of cyber-security concerns, Texas Governor Gregg Abbot ordered the removal of the TikTok app from all government-owned phones and devices, including computers. READ: Gov. Greg Abbott bans TikTok on state phones and computers, citing cybersecurity risks

How the Asbury revival is uniquely impacting ‘Gen Z’

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One thing that has struck me about the Asbury Revival is that by targeting this Kentucky university, the Holy Spirit has specifically chosen to move upon what some would describe as a lost generation, Gen Z. These are people born between 1997 and 2012, with many in the latter years attending colleges and universities. This was very similar to the Jesus Movement that also impacted Asbury University in 1970, which saw the Holy Spirit move upon the disillusioned hippies made up of people in their late teens and twenties. With many Gen Z abandoning the church, it is easy to look upon this generation as spiritually disconnected, but research shows that despite outward appearances, they are very open to spiritual things. In fact, polling reveals that they may be more spiritually open, than their older peers. The authors of a recent poll conducted by Barna stated, “Younger non-Christians are more than twice as likely to express a personal interest in Christianity compared to older non-Christians.” In an article for Denison Forum, Laurel Wood added that …

Illegal Communist China surveillance buoys removed from Canada’s arctic

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According to a report by the National Post, Canada’s military has removed several Communist China surveillance/spy buoys illegally floating in waters off Canada’s arctic. Though it is uncertain ,at this point, what type of scientific instruments the Chinese Communist Party installed in these buoys, one expert stated they are often used to chart the ocean floor in preparation for travel by nuclear subs. He also added they could be used to track American vessels and subs as well. This news follows the shooting down of a Communist China spy balloon that had targeted sensitive American military areas earlier this month. READ: Military says it has tracked, stopped China surveillance in Canadian Arctic Of course, it is reasonable to presume that the CCP felt it had permission to do this after Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, expressed his school-girl crush on Communist China’s political regime: And as well, Trudeau also forced Canada’s army to train the Chinese military in cold-weather fighting, READ: Canada Invited Communist China To Come To Country To Participate In Military Exercises: Reports. He also …

Asbury’s revival spreads to a secular university, Texas A&M

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According to a report by God TV, the revival that broke out at Asbury University in Kentucky, has now spread to a secular university, Texas A&M. Located in the city of College Station, Texas A&M has a student population of over 72,000. The Asbury revival had previously spread to several private Christian universities, such as Lee and Samford, and this is the first report of revival breaking out at a secular school, Charisma News reports. In a Facebook post, Texas A&M student, Grant Bynum, explained that the services are taking place in an area beside the university’s football field and that crowds are growing each night. He writes: “Student led spontaneous event next to Kyle Field, no leader wanted. Worship breaks out. Testimonies. Prayers for miraculous healings. Prayers for the lost and boldness to witness to the entire campus. This is a MIRACLE!” “Jesus is moving at Texas A&M. It’s real! No program. Closest things I’ve ever seen to ACTS. … SUPPPORT/PRAY for the Holy Spirit to lead and to continue this. Jesus is just …

Guard the Holy Flame!

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By Dr. Michael Brown When I served as a leader in the Brownsville Revival (which ran from 1995-2000), I started to write a book on hindrances to revival, laying out 20 ways to put out the Spirit’s fire. Put another way, if you do these things, the revival will come to a premature end. When I finished compiling my list, I was amazed to see how similar it was to Charles Finney’s classic sermons titled “Hindrances to Revival.” Some things never change! For a number of reasons, I did not finish writing my book, but several years after the revival, I got the strong impression that I would need to finish the book in the future. In other words, I would live to see another wave of revival. That wave, in its early stages, is already here in America, because of which I feel a real urgency to finish writing that book and get it out to the public. For the moment, though, let me share one of the principles I address in the book, …

California’s predicted massive budget deficit just got bigger

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California is in trouble financially. With ever-increasing government spending and shrinking tax revenues, as people flee the state, the inevitable has come home to roost. While California Gavin Newsom predicted a deficit of $22.5 billion for the upcoming fiscal year, Fox News reports that the shortfall may be far worse due largely to a decrease in tax revenues: The California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), a government agency that analyzes the budget for the state legislature, estimates in a report published last week that Newsom’s forecast undershot the mark by about $7 billion, thanks to about $10 billion less in tax revenues than expected. “In particular, using recent revenue collections and economic data, we estimate there is a two‑in‑three chance that state revenues will be lower than the governor’s budget estimates for 2022‑23 and 2023‑24,” writes Gabe Patek, the legislature’s budget analyst. “Our best estimate is that revenues for these two years will be roughly $10 billion lower — implying a larger budget problem by about $7 billion.” California receives 49% of its personal income tax revenues from 1% …

Another possible candidate for the Pharaoh of the Exodus: Thutmose III

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Dating the reigns of Egyptian pharaohs is extremely challenging with few archaeologists agreeing with each other on suggested dates. Though movies of the Exodus have traditionally pointed to Pharaoh Ramses (1303 BC to 1213 BC) as the Exodus pharaoh, there is agreement among Bible scholars that it definitely wasn’t him because the Exodus took place much earlier than that date. Perhaps the best evidence of this is the Merneptah Stele. Discovered in Egypt by Sir Finders Petrie in 1896, it contains the earliest known reference to Israel outside the Bible. It was erected by Pharaoh Merneptah (1213 BC to 1203 BC), the 13th son of Ramses, around 1208 BC. On the ten-foot victory stele, he describes his great, somewhat exaggerated, victory over Israel: “Israel is wasted, its seed is not; And Hurru [Canaan] is become a widow because of Egypt.” As many have pointed out, if the Exodus is dated to the reign of his father, Ramses, as some have suggested, there would not have been enough time for Israel to have developed into a nation. After …