MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

“When hundreds of Tunisians drove through the capital sounding their horns and waving scarves this week to celebrate the election victory of an Islamist party, there was little jubilation in the Ennasr neighbosrhood.

With its chic boutiques and upmarket cafes, this suburb is a bastion of a segment of Tunisian society left feeling marginalized and even a little fearful by the election result.

Areas like Ennasr are home to middle-class, urban professional women who for decades have been living a lifestyle that in many ways has more in common with Europe than the Arab world. Now they worry that that is going to change.

In Sunday’s election, Tunisia, birthplace of the “Arab Spring” uprisings, handed the biggest share of the vote to Ennahda, a moderate Islamist party that was banned under decades of autocratic, secularist rule.

‘We’re afraid that they’ll limit our freedoms,’ said Rym, a 25-year-old medical intern sitting in ‘Gringo’s’, a fast-food outlet in Ennasr.

‘They say they won’t but after a while they could introduce changes step by step. Polygamy could come back … They say they want to be like Turkey but it could turn out like Iran. Don’t forget, that was a very open society too.'” Read more.

The Ennahda Islamist Party says that it wants to be like Turkey.  And how is that a good thing exactly? …

Flashback: Young Muslims in Turkey Murder Three Christians – “In a gruesome assault against Turkey’s tiny Christian community, five young Muslim Turks entered a Christian publishing office in the southeastern province of Malatya Wednesday and slit the throats of the three Protestant Christians present. Two of the victims, Necati Aydin, 36, and Ugur Yuksel, 32, were Turkish converts from Islam. The third man, Tilmann Geske, 46, was a German citizen.” Read more.

Flashback: Turkey’s Protestant Christians Face Wave of Attacks – “A Protestant pastor in the Turkish industrial city of Izmit woke up one morning last month to find a huge red swastika painted on his apartment door, with a handwritten hate letter shoved underneath… ‘Your efforts to wear us down—as the inheritors of a great race—and alienate us from our values will come to nothing,’ the writer declared… The Izmit Protestant Church was targeted in a violent attack the night after Christmas last year, when someone started a fire next to the outside wall of the building. ‘The aim was to burn the church down,’ Hade told Compass Direct… Simultaneously, the Turkish media has fanned intense criticism of Christian missionary activity. Even government ministers have spoken out, claiming that foreign missionaries had political motives aimed at ‘damaging the social peace and unity of Turkey.'” Read more.

Flashback: Turkey: One of the world’s earliest Christian cultures totters on the edge of extinction – “Syriac-speaking Christians in this area have persisted through more than a dozen centuries of Muslim, Ottoman, and now Turkish rule. They languish between the secularizing government of the Republic of Turkey and an Islamic culture that views them as heathen outsiders… In short, the government would be pleased to see the Christian communities quietly disappear altogether. Christians have been caught in the middle of a war between the government and the Kurds. Now it matters little to the government that the Hezbollah as well as the Kurds are harassing them. Christians abroad, meanwhile, know little of their life-and-death struggle.” Read more.

Matthew 24:22, “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.”

Colossians 3:12, “Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering …”

Acts 14:22b, “… we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.”

To all ‘pre-trib’ believers, it is time to think again …

By ELWOOD MCQUAID – “Christians are being killed by radical Islamists because of their beliefs. Why then, while the world celebrates revolution in the Arab world, are we standing silently while these atrocities are taking place in these democratically-liberated lands?

Israel has long been like the canary in the mineshaft. If the canary succumbs to the odorless, lethal gases of the depths below, the miners know it’s time to get out of the mine. Anti-Semitic militancy, like the canary in the mine, warns the rest of the world of what lies ahead. Now, however, there is strong evidence that there are two types of ‘canaries’ in the mine. Long-suffering Christians in the Middle East are being ravaged by merciless assaults that threaten their very existence.

Liberal elitists in Western politics, academia, and the news media collectively swooned when the mobs in Cairo’s Tahrir Square swept Western ally, Hosni Mubarak, out of the Egyptian presidency and into a prison cell to await trial. In the minds of so-called progressives, the ‘Arab Spring’ was precisely the balm of freedom for which the downtrodden had long been yearning. Democratic reforms were supposedly around the corner, swinging everyone into an era of prosperous camaraderie. That’s how delusional Western leaders saw things…

In America, Muslims are protected, much more so than evangelical Christians. Protecting Muslim citizens is an honorable pursuit that raises America’s standards far above those in so many other parts of the world. Yet why are the same leaders who so passionately protect Muslim rights in America doing nothing for Christians who are dying in record numbers? Why do so many of our leaders hold their tongues as the world turns a blind eye?

And there is another question—one we must all ask ourselves: Why has the church been virtually silent about the suffering of our brethren? We will meet them one day. What will we answer when they ask us, ‘Why?'” Read more.

Christians Under Threat as Radical Islam Spreads in ‘New Middle East’ – “Attacked by mobs and terrorists, repressed by the growing popularity of fundamentalist Islamic law and cut off from crucial business ties, Christians are fleeing the Middle East in an unprecedented exodus. More than half of Iraqi Christians — an estimated 400,000 people — have left that country over the last decade as power has fallen in the hands of increasingly hostile Shi’a Islamic leaders. In Egypt, home to at least 8 million Copt Christians — a number that exceeds the populations of Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, and Tunisia — at least 95,000 Christians have emigrated since March 2011. The number could reach 250,000 by the end of this year, reports the Egyptian Federation of Human Rights.” Read more.

“KHARTOUM, Sudan – Emboldened by government calls for a Sudan based on Islamic law since the secession of South Sudan, Muslims long opposed to a church near Khartoum have attacked Christians trying to finish constructing their building, sources said.

The Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) congregation in Omdurman West, across the Nile River from Khartoum, has continued to meet for Sunday worship in a building without a roof in spite of opposition from area Muslims and local authorities, the sources told Compass. Claiming that Christianity was no longer an accepted religion in the country, Muslims in the Hay al Sawra, Block 29 area of Omdurman West on Aug. 5 attacked SCOC members who were constructing the church building, the sources said.

‘We do not want any presence of churches in our area,’ shouted members of the mob as they threw stones at the Christians, the sources said.

Muslims in the north, where an estimated 1 million Christians still live following the secession of South Sudan on July 9, fear the potential influence of the church, they said.

‘They want to reduce or restrict the number of churches, so that they can put more pressure on believers,’ said a church leader on condition of anonymity.” Read more.

North Sudan: President Al-Bashir Moves Forward with Rewriting the Country’s Constitution to Implement Sharia Law – “Sudanese leader Omer Hassan Al-Bashir is moving forward with rewriting the country’s constitution to implement Shariah law, according to reports from organizations with links inside the Muslim-dominated nation. International Christian Concern’s North Africa specialist Jonathan Racho says that a Shariah-compliant constitution will mean more suffering for Sudan’s remaining Christians. ‘This new law (Shariah compliant constitution) is going to affect a significant number of Christians who live in places like Khartoum (the capital city). There are still a significant number of Christians in Sudan,’ Racho said.” Read more.

Isaiah 19:2-4, “‘I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian–brother will fight against brother, neighbor against neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom. The Egyptians will lose heart, and I will bring their plans to nothing; they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead, the mediums and the spiritists. I will hand the Egyptians over to the power of a cruel master, and a fierce king will rule over them,’ declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.”

By Leland Vittert – “In the eight months since the Egyptian Revolution, radical Islamic groups are rising to power, the army seems unwilling or unable to stop a growing rash of sectarian violence and the long-standing friendship between the U.S., Israel and Egypt is in serious question.

‘I am the enemy of democracy,’ Hesham al Ashry said in an interview with Fox News in his Cairo tailor shop. The devout Muslim is a main organizer in a group called the Salafists, which is working to bring Shariah law to Egypt. They, along with the Muslim Brotherhood, have risen quickly in the past eight months to fill the power vacuum left in post-Mubarak Egypt.

The massive change has billionaire tycoon and financier of the revolution Naguib Sawiris now calling Egypt’s future ‘dim … bad.’

Mubarak’s heavy handed security apparatus kept groups like the Salafis on a tight leash; now free to organize and recruit the Salafists and Brotherhood have quickly climbed to the top of the political food chain with organizational help and financing from supporters in the Gulf states.

‘This is a big opportunity and it’s not going to go back. This was mentioned by the Prophet Mohammed. Peace be upon him. He said this was going to happen,’ al Ashry said, speaking of the Arab Spring and the opportunity for groups like his to organize.” Read more.

Revelation 13:18 – Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the multitude of the beast: for it is the multitude of a man; and his multitude is χξς …

By Michael Carl – “Sudanese leader Omer Hassan Al-Bashir is moving forward with rewriting the country’s constitution to implement Shariah law, according to reports from organizations with links inside the Muslim-dominated nation.

International Christian Concern’s North Africa specialist Jonathan Racho says that a Shariah-compliant constitution will mean more suffering for Sudan’s remaining Christians.

‘This new law (Shariah compliant constitution) is going to affect a significant number of Christians who live in places like Khartoum (the capital city). There are still a significant number of Christians in Sudan,’ Racho said.

‘If Al-Bashir introduces this Shariah law and if he’s going to go ahead and adopt an entirely Islamic constitution, Christians and other non-Muslims who live in Sudan will be treated like second-class citizens,’ Racho said.

‘They will be dhimmis and they will not have full rights in the freedom of religion,’ Racho said.

Racho emphasized the reality of non-Muslim life under Islamic law.

‘Shariah law is incompatible with human rights and the human rights that are enshrined in many Western constitutions. So, we are really alarmed by the latest statements by the government of Sudan,’ Racho said.

Racho says Al-Bashir’s move towards Shariah shows that the government of Sudan hasn’t learned anything from its recent loss of the south.

“The government of Sudan should realize that the reason the south seceded and the war for secession was because of the Shariah law and now they’re repeating the same mistake,” Racho said.

Racho says its highly probable that Al-Bashir is moving forward because he believes most of the Christians have left the north.

‘Al-Bashir said that 98 percent of the country is Muslim so the new constitution will reflect this reality,’ Racho said…

‘The Islamization of Sudan (North and South and the rest of the African continent) has been the goal of Bashir’s government for years,’ Zurowski said.

Zurowski adds his concern that the newly independent South Sudan will still have to deal with al-Bashir.

‘I fear the south has not heard the last of him. As people leave the north and return to the south, the strength of Islam will only grow in Khartoum. This I guarantee,’ Zurowski said.” Read more.

Romans 8:35-39, “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 Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

“Plain clothes security officers arrested a Christian convert, thoroughly searched his house and transferred him into an unknown location. The interrogators of information ministry simultaneously questioned another Christian about his Christian faith.

According to the reporter of Christian News Agency, Mohabat News, Fariborz Arazm, a Christian convert who resides in the city of Robat-Karim was arrested by the Islamic republic officials.

On Monday, October 17, a group of four officers in a sudden attack raided into Fariborz house, arrested him and transferred him to an unknown location.

It was 7:30 in the morning and just before he leaves the house for work, the plain clothes officers attacked his resident without any proof of warrant.

The officers searched the house upside-down and made a mess out of it. They confiscated Fariborz’s computer’s hard disk, CDs, Pictures and a number of Bibles. The family also were threatened to remain silent and not to talk about this incident to anyone.

Fariborz Arazm, 44, is the father of two children. He has not been able to contact nor visit his family since the arrestment. This unclear situation has caused stress and anxiety for his family and friends.

According to this report, there is no information regarding Fariborz’s present location and his family is suffering from this uncertainty. They are also seriously concerned about his health. They have also tried to find out the reason of his arrest and charges but no information has been given to them until now. However, apparently the arrestment is related to his Christian faith.” Read more.

Iran: The Spread of the Gospel Among Iranian Youth and Families Sparks Islamic Authorities to Increase Suppression of Christianity – “The rapid growth of the Christian faith in Iran seems to have caused significant concern and even fear in the hearts of the leadership of the Islamic regime which has sparked increased suppression of Christians especially in the last year. After the Supreme Leader Ali Khameniei’s speech regarding the need to oppose and silence the home-based churches, a brutal and inhumane crackdown along with numerous arrests of Christians inside Iran has been witnessed. It is shameful to see the authorities show complete disregard for the sacred Scriptures of more than two billion Christians around the world, while burning those scriptures with disrespect.” Read more.

Islamic Militants Calling Themselves ‘The Unknown Soldiers of The Hidden Imam’ Threaten to Hunt Down and Execute Christians Who Flee Iran – “Islamic militants with suspected ties to Iranian security forces have been terrorizing evangelical Christians with threats to ‘repent’ or die, it was reported Sunday. Christian Solidarity Worldwide has reported that 11 Iranian Christians who fled Iran in the wake of a government campaign against Christianity have received threats via email to ‘repent’ or face extrajudicial execution, from a group identifying itself as the ‘The Unknown Soldiers of The Hidden Imam.’ The threatening emails that were sent to each individual on Sept. 14 aspired to extend the arm of Iranian Islamic militancy beyond the borders of Iran by implying that, although the recipients have left Iran, they have not escaped the ‘acute eyes of the unknown soldiers.’” Read more.