From HOPE to FEAR - again

via American Crossroads - the best part of the "Fear"video, nice and short!
Click the above link to see the whole video.

The REAL Obama

From HOPE to FEAR

A snippet of a the American Crossroads video - "Fear" 

A New Use For An Old "Hope" Poster - (cartoons)

J. Lee Grady - Don’t Let Delays Defeat You

A breakthrough is waiting for those who persevere. If you have stopped praying, receive fresh grace to pray again.

George Mueller, the great 19th-century British evangelist, prayed in more than $7 million during his lifetime to feed the thousands of orphans in his care. He didn't believe in telling people about his financial needs, yet he always had enough to pay his enormous grocery bill because God supernaturally provided.

But Mueller’s faith was stretched in other ways. He prayed regularly over a list of five people he wanted to see converted to faith in Jesus. The first man was saved after five years. The second and third men converted to Christ after 10 years. The fourth man was saved after 25 years of consistent prayer.

“Sometimes construction crews in my city erect large flashing signs along the highway near my house. All drivers groan when they see the message: ‘EXPECT DELAYS.’ Life is littered with these signs, and Jesus said they are part of our training process.”

But here’s the clincher: Mueller prayed for the fifth man’s conversion for a whopping 52 years. The friend made a profession of faith in Christ a few months after Mueller’s funeral!

This story challenges me to the core because I’m so impatient. I’m guilty of revving my engine at stoplights and tapping my foot when my Internet connection is slow. Technology is a blessing, but it has also spoiled me into thinking I can get spiritual results as fast as I want them.

Would you pray about something consistently for 52 years if there was no sign an answer was coming? I started praying about some big requests three years ago, and I realized recently that I had grown weary of the process. Prayer had become painful. Doubts began smothering my dreams. I felt like giving up, but God spoke three simple truths to my heart. They might help you:

1. God never said this would be easy. Jesus gave us many wonderful, rosy promises, but He also said: “In the world you have tribulation” (John 16:33, NASB). That’s not a Scripture you will find embroidered on a pillow or inscribed on a flowery greeting card. But it’s a guarantee. Anybody who attempts something great for God will face difficulties.

Sometimes construction crews in my city erect large flashing signs along the highway near my house. All drivers groan when they see the message: “EXPECT DELAYS.” Life is littered with these signs, and Jesus said they are part of our training process. If Abraham and Sarah had to wait 25 years for the birth of their promised heir, why do we think our answers should be instant?

2. You must persevere if you want to receive. Perseverance is one of those archaic words we’ve stripped from our vocabulary. Waiting is a weird concept for people in the 21st century who have movies-on-demand. If someone tells us to wait, we just find an app on our phone to speed up the process.

But there is no shortcut when it comes to receiving God’s answers. The definition of perseverance is "steady persistence in a course of action or purpose, especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles or discouragement." Faith is painful because God is stretching our spiritual capacity to receive. Press through the pain! There is gain on the other side.

Speaking of prayer, Jesus said: “Keep on asking and it will be given you; keep on seeking and you will find; keep on knocking [reverently] and [the door] will be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7, AMP). In other words, don’t stop praying no matter how long the answer takes.

3. The end result of faith is a larger territory. When Isaac sojourned in the land of Gerar, the Bible says he re-dug the wells of his father and then dug new wells. After he dug the first two, the Philistines quarreled with Isaac and tried to claim ownership of the water. But when Isaac dug a third time, the fighting stopped and he named the new well “Rehoboth,” which means “a broad place” (see Gen. 26:18-24).

Isaac could have become discouraged after the first well-digging fiasco. Many people back off at the first sign of a fight, but Isaac didn’t let the quarrels stop him. He dug a second time and hit yet another roadblock. But he kept on digging. When the breakthrough occurred, Isaac declared: “At last the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land” (26:22, NASB).

The lesson Isaac learned is still part of our faith curriculum today. There is no getting around it. We must keep on believing when circumstances tell us to quit. We must stretch our faith when it feels like we have no more stretch left. We must pray beyond the delay.

George Mueller said: “God delights to increase the faith of His children. We ought, instead of wanting no trials before victory, no exercise for patience, to be willing to take them from God's hands as a means. Trials, obstacles, difficulties and sometimes defeats, are the very food of faith.”

If you have grown weary, or even if you have quit believing, receive fresh grace to pray again. Let patience have its perfect work. God will fortify your faith and empower you to receive a miraculous breakthrough.

J. Lee Grady is the former editor of Charisma and the director of The Mordecai Project. You can follow him on Twitter at leegrady.

Michael Brown - Young Americans, Faithless and Fatherless

According to a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, almost one in three Americans under the age of 30 doubt that God exists, while, in contrast, the figure for Americans over the age of 65 is less than one in ten. Could there be a connection between the fatherlessness of this younger generation and their struggles with faith? According to a theory called “the psychology of atheism,” the answer might well be yes.
But first, some caveats. 1) There are many reasons why people struggle with the issue of faith, so it would be wrong to think that “one size fits all.” 2) The highest percentage of fatherlessness is found in the African American community, and yet African Americans tend to be more religiously oriented than other population sectors. 3) It cannot be denied that a large portion of contemporary American Christianity is often superficial, hypocritical, and powerless (in terms of radical life transformation), and these serious defects certainly account for some of the faith struggles experienced by American young people. That being said, it is important to probe the connection between fatherlessness and faithlessness.
In 1999, New York University professor Paul C. Vitz, a former atheist himself, wrote a book entitled Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism. In it, he argued that the absence of a father or the presence of a defective father (say, a weak, cowardly father or an abusive father) often played a major role in the development of the atheism of the child (or grownup). A similar argument was made by journalist John P. Koster, Jr., in his 1989 book The Atheist Syndrome.
To be clear, these authors are not denying that atheists claim to have strong, rational reasons for their atheism. Instead, Vitz and Koster argue that what lies at the root of atheism is often the lack of a solid father figure, thereby allowing unbelief to become dominant later in life (or even in childhood).
According to Vitz, “an atheist’s disappointment in and resentment of his own father unconsciously justifies his rejection of God,” a theory Vitz developed while reading the biographies of well-known atheists. He calls it the “defective father” hypothesis.
Under the category of “Dead Fathers,” Vitz lists famous atheists like Nietzsche, Hume, Russell, Sartre, and Camus; under “Abusive and Weak Fathers” he lists Hobbes, Voltaire, Freud, and Wells, among others. He then compares their stories with the stories of theists like Pascal, Wilberforce, Kierkegaard, Chesterton, Buber, Barth, Bonhoeffer, and others, before reviewing apparent exceptions to his theory.
Speaking of Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Vitz notes that her son, William, “claims that he did not know why his mother hated her father so much – but hate him she did. In the opening chapter of the book, he reports a very ugly fight in which O’Hair attempted to kill her father with a ten-inch butcher knife. She failed but screamed, ‘I’ll see you dead. I’ll get you yet. I’ll walk on your grave.’” Does this remind you of her desire to eliminate God from American life?
Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, “I have absolutely no knowledge of atheism as an outcome of reasoning, still less an event; with me it is obvious by instinct.” As a young boy, Nietzsche was very close to his father, who was a pastor, but he died shortly before Nietzsche’s fifth birthday, having suffered the previous year from a brain disease.
In his early teens, Nietzsche wrote about the agony he experienced when his father died, noting that, “In everything God has led me safely as a father leads his weak child. . . . Like a child I trust in his grace.” So, for the teenage Nietzsche, God was just like a loving father. Unfortunately, Nietzsche also remembered his father as weak and sickly, and it was this image, Vitz claims, that Nietzsche “also associated, naturally enough, with his father’s Christianity. . . . It is therefore not hard to view Nietzsche’s rejection of God and Christianity as a rejection of the weakness of his father,” a father who abandoned him by death when he was but a little boy.
As for H. G. Wells, he was raised by an irresponsible and often absentee father (named Joe) and by a mother whose faith collapsed when her 9-year-old daughter died suddenly from appendicitis two years before Wells was born. Vitz notes, “Whether it was Joe the father or God the Father who gave no answer seems to make no difference to Wells, because for him both were equally absent.”
Describing his mother’s faith struggle in his autobiography, Wells wrote, “My father was away at cricket, and I think she realized more and more acutely as the years dragged on without material alleviation, that Our Father and Our Lord . . . were also away, playing perhaps at their own sort of cricket in some remote quarter of the starry universe.”
Returning to our day, the U. S. Census Bureau reports that as of 2011, one third of American children are growing up without their biological father, and over the last 50 years, the number of babies born to unwed mothers has jumped from 5 percent to 40 percent.
Could it be, then, that there really is a connection between the lack of fathers and the lack of faith among young Americans?

via Townhall.com

Seems like Michael Brown is really getting to the core of what is really going on in our culture, especially lately. The Vitz book he mentions is excellent, by the way.  - Cliff @the Triangle

Why Obama Will Lose in a Landslide - by Wayne Allyn Root

Most political predictions are made by biased pollsters, pundits, or prognosticators who are either rooting for Republicans or Democrats. I am neither. I am a former Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee, and a well-known Vegas oddsmaker with one of the most accurate records of predicting political races.

Neither Obama nor Romney are my horses in the race. I believe both Republicans and Democrats have destroyed the U.S. economy and brought us to the edge of economic disaster. My vote will go to Libertarian Presidential candidate Gary Johnson in November, whom I believe has the most fiscally conservative track record of any Governor in modern U.S. political history. Without the bold spending cuts of a Gary Johnson or Ron Paul, I don’t believe it’s possible to turnaround America.

But as an oddsmaker with a pretty remarkable track record of picking political races, I play no favorites. I simply use common sense to call them as I see them. Back in late December I released my New Years Predictions. I predicted back then- before a single GOP primary had been held, with Romney trailing for months to almost every GOP competitor from Rick Perry to Herman Cain to Newt- that Romney would easily rout his competition to win the GOP nomination by a landslide. I also predicted that the Presidential race between Obama and Romney would be very close until election day. But that on election day Romney would win by a landslide similar to Reagan-Carter in 1980.

Understanding history, today I am even more convinced of a resounding Romney victory. 32 years ago at this moment in time, Reagan was losing by 9 points to Carter. Romney is right now running even in polls. So why do most pollsters give Obama the edge?

First, most pollsters are missing one ingredient- common sense. Here is my gut instinct. Not one American who voted for McCain 4 years ago will switch to Obama. Not one in all the land. But many millions of people who voted for an unknown Obama 4 years ago are angry, disillusioned, turned off, or scared about the future. Voters know Obama now- and that is a bad harbinger.

Now to an analysis of the voting blocks that matter in U.S. politics:

*Black voters. Obama has nowhere to go but down among this group. His endorsement of gay marriage has alienated many black church-going Christians. He may get 88% of their vote instead of the 96% he got in 2008. This is not good news for Obama.

*Hispanic voters. Obama has nowhere to go but down among this group. If Romney picks Rubio as his VP running-mate the GOP may pick up an extra 10% to 15% of Hispanic voters (plus lock down Florida). This is not good news for Obama.

*Jewish voters. Obama has been weak in his support of Israel. Many Jewish voters and big donors are angry and disappointed. I predict Obama's Jewish support drops from 78% in 2008 to the low 60’s. This is not good news for Obama.

*Youth voters. Obama’s biggest and most enthusiastic believers from 4 years ago have graduated into a job market from hell. Young people are disillusioned, frightened, and broke- a bad combination. The enthusiasm is long gone. Turnout will be much lower among young voters, as will actual voting percentages. This not good news for Obama.

*Catholic voters. Obama won a majority of Catholics in 2008. That won’t happen again. Out of desperation to please women, Obama went to war with the Catholic Church over contraception. Now he is being sued by the Catholic Church. Majority lost. This is not good news for Obama.

*Small Business owners. Because I ran for Vice President last time around, and I'm a small businessman myself, I know literally thousands of small business owners. At least 40% of them in my circle of friends, fans and supporters voted for Obama 4 years ago to “give someone different a chance.” I warned them that he would pursue a war on capitalism and demonize anyone who owned a business...that he’d support unions over the private sector in a big way...that he'd overwhelm the economy with spending and debt. My friends didn’t listen. Four years later, I can't find one person in my circle of small business owner friends voting for Obama. Not one. This is not good news for Obama.

*Blue collar working class whites. Do I need to say a thing? White working class voters are about as happy with Obama as Boston Red Sox fans feel about the New York Yankees. This is not good news for Obama.

*Suburban moms. The issue isn’t contraception…it’s having a job to pay for contraception. Obama’s economy frightens these moms. They are worried about putting food on the table. They fear for their children’s future. This is not good news for Obama.

*Military Veterans. McCain won this group by 10 points. Romney is winning by 24 points. The more our military vets got to see of Obama, the more they disliked him. This is not good news for Obama.

Add it up. Is there one major group where Obama has gained since 2008? Will anyone in America wake up on election day saying “I didn’t vote for Obama 4 years ago. But he’s done such a fantastic job, I can’t wait to vote for him today.” Does anyone feel that a vote for Obama makes their job more secure?

Forget the polls. My gut instincts as a Vegas oddsmaker and common sense small businessman tell me this will be a historic landslide and a world-class repudiation of Obama’s radical and risky socialist agenda. It's Reagan-Carter all over again.

But I’ll give Obama credit for one thing- he is living proof that familiarity breeds contempt.

via Townhall.com

Kingdom Quotes: God is there for every generation - Spurgeon

"We do our Lord an injustice when we suppose that He wrought all His mighty acts, and showed Himself strong for those in the early time, but doth not perform wonders or lay bare His arm for the saints who are now upon the earth...Surely the goodness of God has been the same to us as to the saints of old."

C.H. Spurgeon 

Ted Haggard, Larry Brinkin, And Glaring Media Bias

Ted Haggard, Larry Brinkin, And Glaring Media Bias

by Dr. Michael Brown

According to published reports, when Larry Brinkin was arrested two weeks ago, the police found “images of year-old infants subjected to sodomy and oral sex, and perverse racial comments (Brinkin’s email: ‘I loved especially the 2 year old n----- getting nailed. Hope you’ll continue so I can see what the little blond b---- is going to get. White Power! White Supremacy! White D--- Rules!’).” Yet the media has barely reported this terribly disturbing incident.

But, you ask, who was Larry Brinkin? He was “a central figure in the gay rights movement,” a man who was so influential that, “The San Francisco board of supervisors actually gave a ‘Larry Brinkin Week’ in February 2010 upon his retirement.” It was Brinkin who first used the term “domestic partnerships” in a legal dispute, marking a watershed moment in gay activist history, yet news of his alleged crimes against infants and children, not to mention his alleged White Supremacist leanings, has received very little media attention.

Is there a double standard here? Imagine what the media would be doing if Brinkin had been a conservative Christian leader.

When evangelical leader Ted Haggard fell, the media was quick to pounce, suggesting that this exposed the corrupt nature of evangelical Christianity as a whole. And media leaders have done this repeatedly whenever there has been a scandal connected to an evangelical (or Catholic) leader, and the news is blared from the headlines. But where, I ask you, is the outrage or the front page news when a gay leader commits atrocities such as those allegedly committed by Larry Brinkin? And why isn’t the media claiming that Brinkin’s transgressions expose the corrupt nature of gay activism as a whole?

The failure of a Christian leader is considered endemic and representative; the failure of a gay leader is considered an aberrant exception. Why the unequal treatment? more...

via townhall.com