MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Anugrah Kumar – “An Iranian court is likely to delay its verdict in a case concerning Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who is facing death penalty for converting to Christianity, to allow authorities to further coerce him to convert to Islam as he remains in jail.

The evangelical pastor’s lawyer has learned that the head of Iran’s judiciary, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, has asked the presiding judge over the trial, Ghazi Kashani, to delay the pending judgment and keep him in prison for another year, Present Truth Ministries said in a statement Thursday.

Nadarkhani, a 32-year-old house church leader from the Church of Iran denomination, was convicted of apostasy last year and was sentenced to death by hanging. However, the Supreme Court of Iran asked for the retrial of his case by a lower court in the city of Rasht in northern Gilan Province.

The deliberate delay is meant to let the case ‘slip away from international attention’ even as the authorities continue to ‘use whatever means necessary to cause him to convert to Islam,’ said Jason DeMars, the founder of the ministry that was first to report on the pastor’s arrest two years ago.

It was earlier learnt that the court in Rasht had asked Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, the highest ranking political and religious authority in Shi’a-majority Iran, to rule on whether the pastor should be put to death.” Read more.

“MacArthur Arbado, an elder at the Bible Baptist Church in Carmen, Cotabato, was murdered on November 10 as he returned to his farm. The attackers shot him in the leg, back and abdomen before decapitating him with his own machete. MacArthur leaves behind his wife, Lolita, and 13 children.

Although his farm was surrounded by land owned by Muslims, he had a good relationship with his neighbours. He learned to speak their language and was called ‘uncle’ by many. Often his Muslim friends tried to convert him to Islam, but he stood firm in his faith and talked with them about Christianity. MacArthur’s killers are thought to be members of a separatist Muslim group in the area. VOM has met with MacArthur’s family and provided some assistance.

Please pray that God will comfort Lolita, her children, and the church. Pray that, as sufferings overflow, their comfort in Christ will be more than enough for them (2 Corinthians 1:5). Pray that the perpetrators of this attack will repent and turn to Jesus Christ.” Read more.

Sura 8:12b, “… terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an.”

“JOS, Nigeria, December 15 (CDN) — Joshua Dabo, like other young Christians in this city in central Nigeria, had dreams for his life. He had graduated from a Christian high school, Mt. Olives Secondary School, and at 31 was finally looking forward to attending university.

Apart from commitment to his fellowship at Nasara Baptist Church at Tirji Junction near the University of Jos, Dabo ran a barbershop to earn income as he awaited admission to college, and he was an ardent soccer player and fan.

As such he made sure to be among the 120 people from the Christian community on Bauchi Ring Road who paid to watch a classic soccer rivalry, Barcelona FC v. Real Madrid, on TV at an outdoor bar (called a ‘viewing center’ in Nigeria) on Saturday night (Dec. 10). A few minutes into the match, televised in the hall of corrugated sheet metal at Yangwava Television Viewing Center at Ukadum village, a bomb went off.

‘It was shocking for me,’ said viewing center owner Emmanuel Exodus Nimkun, 30, of the Ukadum congregation of the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN). ‘I saw Joshua Dabo standing without a head. I have never seen a thing like this – a human being standing but with his head blasted off, and he was struggling to move.’

Dabo was the lone fatality in three bomb blasts targeting viewing centers in predominantly Christian areas of Jos during the Spanish soccer match; at least 10 others were injured in the blasts, leaving four in critical condition, including two in a coma.

Nimkun told Compass that he was bleeding and his back was hurt after the explosion, but he held Dabo and brought him down.

‘I began to cry, and suddenly there were shouts that another bomb was hidden in a bag beside the viewing hall that had not exploded,’ he said. ‘We all ran out, and then a policeman came to the scene. He picked up courage and went to check the bag, and the device was intact.’…

‘This is a person killed not because he has done anything wrong but because he is a Christian.’…

Danladi Dabo said that Christians in Jos have reached out to their Muslim neighbors, but Muslims seem uninterested in peaceful relations with Christians.” Read more.

“(AINA) — Two weeks after the murder of two Christian brothers by Muslims during the violence that swept the upper Egyptian village of elGhorayzat, the family of the murdered Christians has temporarily come out of hiding to speak of the terror they have been subjected to and decry the impunity enjoyed by the killers, who are walking freely in the village.

On November 28, the two Christian brothers, Kamel Tamer Abraham (55) and Camille Tamer Abraham (50), were killed in revenge for the death of the Muslim Mohamad Abdel-Nazeer, who was injured during an altercation with a village Christian over the building of a fence round the Christian’s house, and who later died in hospital. The Christian man fled from the village with his family.

Mahmoud Abdel-Nazeer, the brother of the dead Muslim, and a mob of Muslims, vowed to avenge his death from all village Copts. They went on a rampage, looting and burning Christian owned homes and businesses, and resulted in the murder of the two brothers and injury to several other Christians not involved in the altercation (AINA 11-30-2011).

Karam Tamer Abraham, the brother of Kamel and Camille, said that his two murdered brothers were killed in lieu of the life of the Muslim, explaining that the Muslims asked for the lives of his two brothers because they are ‘the Christian elders of the village.’ He said that the family is in no way related to and does not even know the Christian involved in the death of the Muslim.

The Tamer Abraham family refused any ‘reconciliation’ with the murderers, and insisted that the rule of law should prevail. ‘We will get our rights by law, and we will never accept reconciliation, whatever the consequences. We are not in a jungle.’ He said that all this happened to the family because they are Christians.

According to Karam, after the murders, Muslims looted three flats in the family house, and their shop, ‘while the security forces stood there watching.’

The three men who participated in the killings, according to eyewitnesses, were Mahmoud Abdul-Nazeer, Sabry Mohammad el-Sayed and a third man unknown to them.

‘Reconciliation’ sessions are usually arranged by the Egyptian security authorities, after every violence against Christians, and result in Christians being pressured to give up their rights.

Currently the entire Abraham family are on the run, after having received death threats from the son of the dead Muslim, Mohammad Abdul-Nazeer, who demands that all four family children also have to be killed.” Read more.