MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Iranian Christian News Agency, Mohabat News – “These threats remind us of the bitter events of last Christmas. On 26 December, 2010 when churches all around the world were praying, worshipping and celebrating the birthday of Jesus Christ, agents of the Iranian intelligence ministry attacked a number of house churches and homes of Christians in an organized fashion. They arrested hundreds of Christian converts, some of whom are still being held in prisons of the Islamic regime.

Again this year, as Christians and churches in Iran are preparing for Christmas and New Year celebrations, it seems that the security authorities are planning to repeat their violent and inhuman acts of last year to intimidate Iranian Christians. Reports received by Mohabat News from different cities of Iran indicate that security authorities are expanding their anti-Christian projects to exercise tighter surveillance of churches in order to crack down on Christians and attempt to terrorize them.

According to news published on 23 December, 2011, Farhad Sabokroh, the pastor of the Assemblies of God church of Ahwaz, as well as his wife and the members who gathered to worship and celebrate Christmas were arrested in a pre-organized attack on the church building by security authorities of the Islamic regime of Iran. All the detainees were then transferred to an unknown location.

This time, the security agents showed no mercy even to the children of the church and raided their Sunday School class with their faces covered. The security agents were shouting on children as they cried out in fear as a result of the attack. They then transferred these children to an unknown location together with other members present at the church. A question should be asked regarding this attack and it’s this. Is attacking children, frightening and treating them like criminals another tactic of the regime to oppose the growth of Christianity? Such violent and inhuman acts will only have a negative impression on these children and form a dire and evil image of these agents of the regime on their minds.

Reports sent to Mohabat News from Tehran also say that the sale of Bibles and gospels in the AOG church of Markaz in Tehran was banned two weeks ago. This prohibition shocked visitors to the library of the church. This report also states that security authorities have ordered all books stores around Enghelab Street in Tehran to unconditionally forbid the sale of Gospels and Bibles to customers.” Read more.

“A Christian couple and their one-year-old son have been shot dead by Muslim gunmen in a ‘religious attack’ in Nigeria, police said today.

The family were in a village near the the city of Jos on Tuesday evening when the killers – believed to be Muslim herdsmen – opened fire.

Plateau state spokesman Pam Ayuba said today that assailants shot the Christian couple and their child near their home.

The attack just two days after Christmas is the latest in a spate of religious violence in the country.

In a separate attack, extremists threw a homemade bomb into an Arabic school in Nigeria’s Delta state.

Seven people were wounded in the attack, including six children who were younger than nine.

The attack at around 10 p.m. on Tuesday came two days after a series of Christmas Day bombings on churches and other targets by Islamist militant group Boko Haram claimed around 32 lives.

Boko Haram, which means ‘Western education is forbidden’, wants the imposition of strict Sharia law in Nigeria.

‘Some men driving in a Camri car threw a low capacity explosive into a building where an Arabic class was taking place,’ police spokesman for the state Charles Muka said by telephone.

‘Children aged between four and nine were taking a lesson. Six children were injured and one adult (was),’ he added.

Hundreds have died in recent years in communal attacks and reprisal attacks in the Jos area in the nation’s ‘middle belt,’ where the largely Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south.

Around 90,000 people have so far been displaced during the clashes, according to the BBC.

Christians in northern Nigeria said yesterday they feared that a spate of Christmas Day bombings by Islamist militants could lead to a religious war in Africa’s most populous country.” Read more.

What has already begun will not cease from continuing until “The Redeemer will come to Zion” (Isaiah 59:20; Romans 11:26) …

Romans 8:35-37, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

Mark 13:13, “And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.”

By Terence P. Jeffrey – “(CNSNews.com) – Despite long-term U.S. military occupations aimed at establishing representative governments in Iraq and Afghanistan, Christianity now faces the real threat of eradication in those countries because of severe and persistent persecution of Christians there, according to the chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Similarly, despite the ‘Arab Spring’ rebellion in Egypt earlier this year, the survival of Christianity is also threatened in that country because of the escalating persecution of Christians.

‘We are looking at two different countries where the United States invaded, occupied, changed their governments in the last decade–Iraq and Afghanistan–where it’s possible Christianity might be eradicated in our lifetime?’ CNSNews.com asked USCIRF Chairman Leonard Leo in a video interview.

‘Yes,’ said Leo, ‘and, unfortunately, that is sort of the pattern throughout the Middle Eastern region. The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year. It’s a very, very alarming situation.’

In Egypt, according to Leo, anti-Christian violence and discrimination may inspire a mass migration of that nation’s Coptic Christian population, thus achieving a strategic goal sought by radical Muslims.

‘The radical Islamists would accomplish their goal, if they drove the Coptic Christians out of the country, absolutely,’ Leo told CNSNews.com…” Read more.

“Islamic extremists threw acid on a church leader on Christmas Eve shortly after a seven-day revival at his church, leaving him with severe burns that have blinded one eye and threaten sight in the other.

Bishop Umar Mulinde, 37, a sheikh (Islamic teacher) before his conversion to Christianity, was attacked on Saturday night (Dec. 24) outside his Gospel Life Church International building in Namasuba, about 10 kilometers (six miles) outside of Kampala. From his hospital bed in Kampala, he told Compass that he was on his way back to the site for a party with the entire congregation and hundreds of new converts to Christianity when a man who claimed to be a Christian approached him.

‘I heard him say in a loud voice, ‘Pastor, pastor,’ and as I made a turn and looked at him, he poured the liquid onto my face as others poured more liquid on my back and then fled away shouting, ‘Allahu akbar [God is greater],’’ Mulinde said, still visibly traumatized two days after the assault.

A neighbor and church members rushed him to a hospital in the Mengo area of Kampala, and he was then transferred to International Hospital Kampala.

‘I have to continue fighting this pain – it is too much,’ Mulinde said. ‘My entire body is in pain. Most of the night I miss sleep.’

His face, neck and arms bore deep black scars from the acid, and his lips were swollen.

‘The burn caused by the acid is so severe that there is an urgent need for specialized treatment,’ said area Christian Musa Baluku Symutsangira. ‘I suggest that he be flown outside the country as soon as possible; otherwise Mulinde might lose both of his eyes, coupled with the spread of the burns. The burns seemed to spread and go very deep. He might need some plastic surgery.’

A doctor told Compass that acid burns cover about 30 percent of his face and has cost him sight in one eye.” Read more.

John 15:18-21, “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you… If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you… But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.”

UPI – “LONDON, Dec. 27 (UPI) — The British government is deeply worried about the security of the Christian community in the Middle East, the foreign secretary said.

An opinion article published last week in The Daily Telegraph newspaper accused the British Foreign Office of viewing the plight of the Christian community in the Middle East as being ‘unworthy of diplomatic attention.’ British Foreign Secretary William Hague, the article added was seen as ‘unenthusiastic’ about the issue.

The Foreign Office, in a statement issued by British Minister for the Middle East Alistair Burt, said attacks on Christians in the Middle East were ‘deeply worrying.’

The Telegraph article paid special attention to violence targeting Iraqi Christians, one of the oldest Christian communities. The Christian population there is down substantially as its members flee violence targeting their minority religious community.” Read more.

How can we remain silent while Christians are being persecuted? – “Father Immanuel Dabaghian, one of Baghdad’s last surviving priests, is expecting a quiet Christmas. To join him in the Church of the Virgin Mary means two hours of security checks and a body search at the door, and even then there’s no guarantee of survival. Islamist gunmen massacred 58 people in a nearby church last year, and fresh graffiti warns remaining worshippers that they could be next. The Americans have gone now, and Iraq’s Christian communities – some of the world’s oldest – are undergoing an exodus on a biblical scale. Of the country’s 1.4 million Christians, about two thirds have now fled. Although the British Government is reluctant to recognise it, a new evil is sweeping the Middle East: religious cleansing.” Read more.

Genocide Warning – Urge America to Defend Mideast Christians – “‘We cannot accept and thereby facilitate what looks more and more like a particularly perverse program of religious cleansing in the Middle East.’ – French President Nicholas Sarkozy. ‘Massacres are taking place for no reason and without any justification against Christians. It is only because they are Christians. What is happening to Christians is a genocide.’ – Former Lebanese President Amine Gemayal… What is the President of the United States doing to prevent the eradication of Christian communities and other religious minorities in the Islamic Middle East?” Read more.

By Jon GamBrell – LAGOS, Nigeria— The Associated Press – “An explosion ripped through a Catholic church during Christmas Mass near Nigeria’s capital Sunday, killing at least 39 people, officials said. A radical Muslim sect waging an increasingly sophisticated sectarian fight claimed the attack and another bombing in the restive city of Jos, as explosions also struck the nation’s northeast.

The Christmas Day attacks show the growing national ambition of the sect known as Boko Haram, which is responsible for at least 495 killings this year alone, according to an Associated Press count. The assaults come a year after a series of Christmas Eve bombings in Jos claimed by the militants left at least 32 dead and 74 wounded.

The first explosion on Sunday struck St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, a town in Niger state close to the capital, Abuja, authorities said. Rescue workers recovered at least 25 bodies from the church and officials continued to tally those wounded in various hospitals, said Slaku Luguard, a co-ordinator with Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency.” Read more.

Nigerian Christians fear Islamic radicals will start religious war – “Northern Nigerian Christians said on Tuesday they feared that a spate of Christmas Day bombings by Islamist militants that killed over two dozen people could lead to a religious war in Africa’s most populous country. The warning was made in a statement by the northern branch of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), an umbrella organization comprising various denominations including Catholics, Protestant and Pentecostal churches… The Boko Haram Islamist sect, which aims to impose sharia Islamic law across Nigeria, claimed responsibility for the blasts, the second Christmas in a row it has caused carnage at Christian churches. Saidu Dogo, secretary general for the CAN in Nigeria’s 19 northern provinces called on Muslim leaders to control their faithful, saying Christians will be forced to defend themselves against further attacks.” Read more.