The Bulletin Board:(Please SCROLL DOWN this page to find the article titled on this post in LARGE CAPITAL LETTERS. Thank you.)
PRAY FOR AMERICA: THANK GOD for His many blessings on America throughout it's history. May we then ask that AMERICA once again be a blessing TO GOD, by once again submitting to HIS will in our affairs - both personal and national - that He may truly "heal our land." (2 Chron. 7:14)
WORLD-WDE PRAYER REQUESTS:
Friday, Sept. 26th - Two Year Anniversary of Pastor Saeed Abedini's Imprisonment in Iran! - [NOTE TODAY'S POST!]
We need to continue to pray for Pastor Saeed - that his health will improve and that he will be re-united with his wife and two young children who live in the United States. We also remain hopeful that in addition to getting the medical care he so desperately needs, that Iranian officials display the kind of humanitarian treatment that often accompanies the start of the Iranian New Year which began on March 21st. This is the time of year when the Iranian government frequently offers clemency to prisoners of conscience. [If you have not yet, please sign the petition for his clemency- http://beheardproject.com/saeed#sign]
"Not Everyone Happy with Religious Ambassador Pick," Caitlin Burke,July 29, 2014;
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2014/July/Obama-Taps-Rabbi-for-Religious-Freedom-Ambassador/ "..An estimated 76 percent of the world's population live in countries where religious freedom is restricted. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States must take a strong stand against those violations. "Around the world repressive governments and extremists groups have been crystal clear about what they stand against, so we have to be equally clear about what we must stand for," Kerry said. "We stand for greater freedom, for greater tolerance, greater respect, for rights of freedom of expression and freedom of conscience," he said A key development in the 2013 report is the large number of displaced members of religious communities, including entire Christian communities in Syria and Iraq that have been forced to flee their homes because of persecution."
SIGN A PETITION TO THE UN FOR THE PROTECTION OF CHRISTIANS :" The church in Syria has shone brightly for 2,000 years. But today violence and persecution threatens its survival. Thanks to an incredible response, Open Doors is helping 8,000 families in Syria survive each month. We believe the signatures and prayers of 500,000 people will encourage the UN to act and protect the rights and lives of all Syrians, especially the vulnerable Christian community." Go to: http://lp.opendoorsusa.org/emails/nov-13-action/save-syria.html?utm_source=action&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button&utm_campaign=november
UPDATE: "Second US Doctor Sick with Ebola; Crisis 'Out of Control'" - CBNNews.com, Sept. 02, 2014;
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2014/September/A-Losing-Battle-Ebola-Going-to-Get-Worse-CDC-Says/ "Another American doctor in Liberia has tested positive for the Ebola virus, according to the international Christian mission organization, SIM. SIM leaders report the American doctor was treating obstetrics patients at the organization's ELWA Hospital in Monrovia and not treating Ebola patients..."The epidemic is going faster than we are," he warned. 'We need to scale up our response. We can hope for new tools and maybe they'll come, but we can't count on them.' So far, the West African outbreak has killed more than 1,500 people in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria."
Of course, let's CONTINUE PRAYING FOR AN END TO THE EBOLA CRISIS IN WEST AFRICA AND THE HEALING OF ALL THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN INFECTED.
PRAY FOR THE CRISIS HAPPENING NOW IN IRAQ (see post #907) Pray that allied forces will be able to drive the group ISIS back (see post #964)
LATEST:"Christians in the Middle East Arm Themselves As Genocide Comes to Their Front Door" - Katie Pavlich | Sep 05, 2014;
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/09/05/christians-in-the-middle-east-arm-themselves-as-violence-rages-around-them-n1887849" Earlier this week the BBC and Al Jazeera both reported on armed Iraqi citizen volunteers who helped government forces fight off ISIS in Amerli. Today, the AP is out with a story about Christians in the Middle East who are arming themselves, carrying weapons with them during daily tasks and heading to the hills at night to defend their communities as violence continues to rage around them. Genocide is at their front door and they're doing everything they can to stop it from coming in... So far, the terror army ISIS has slaughtered and tortured thousands of Christians in Iraq and Syria."
/PRAYER ALERT- UKRAINE: As the Lord leads, please pray:
*For God to suppress President Putin’s ambitions to "restore" the Soviet empire.
*For the people of Ukrainen [esp. for the church 'to be THE church'] as they wait to see if the Russian troops will advance.
*About President Obama and to use wisdom in crafting our foreign policy, and wisdom for his advisers.
Continue to Pray for EGYPT - Continue to pray for the tense situation in Egypt and especially for the Christian believers who are being targeted with violence by Muslim Brotherhood members.]
--------------------------------------------------------
"The Unseen Pain behind 'Gay Marriage' - Victims of 'Happiness' "; By: John Stonestreet| Breakpoint.org: October 1, 2014;http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/26158?spMailingID=9576334&spUserID=MTMyMjM2ODE5OQS2&spJobID=400064857&spReportId=NDAwMDY0ODU3S0 [AS I SEE IT: Yes, the following is just ONE story but you can be sure it is but one of many. Also, the point is that one story alone is rare these days because the mainstream media shuts these kinds of stories out of their coverage of the same-sex "marriage" issue. May it serve as a light in the darkness of what really is the world of same-sex "marriage." (By the way, I put the word "marriage" in parenthesis in this context because I don't believe that such unions meet the Biblical definition of what marriage was meant to be.) Let me further say that I for one refuse to use the term "gay" when referring to anything relating to homosexuality in memory of someone I met 25 years ago who cried when sharing that it upset her that homosexuals were using her name (Gay) to describe their lifestyle. It should also be obvious (to Christians at least) that a lifestyle that God describes in His Word as sinful cannot have "happy, carefree" consequences. The homosexual lifestyle is no more "gay" than abortion is simply a matter of "choice." I refuse to use euphemisms created by our culture to re-define what God calls sinful. - Stan]
To make the case for same-sex marriage, advocates tell a lot of stories. But some stories are not being told, and they’re important too.
To judge by media coverage, the legalization of same-sex marriage is an unalloyed good. Pictures of happy couples kissing and otherwise celebrating leave the impression that the only people who are unhappy about all of this are bigots and grumps. Well, Janna Darnelle would beg to differ.
Seven years ago, Darnelle’s husband of ten years told her that he was gay and that he wanted a divorce. As she wrote in The Public Discourse, “In an instant, the world that I had known and loved—the life we had built together—was shattered.” She tried to persuade him to stay, and work through their problems and fight for their marriage. But, as she writes, “my voice, my desires, my needs—and those of our two young children—no longer mattered to him. We had become disposable, because he had embraced one tiny word that had become his entire identity. Being gay trumped commitment, vows, responsibility, faith, fatherhood, marriage, friendships, and community.”
And adding insult to injury, her soon-to-be ex-husband sought primary custody of the children. While he had to “settle” for shared custody, this still meant that their children, regardless of their desires, had to become props in the campaign for same-sex marriage.For instance, USA Today, in its cheerleading for same-sex marriage, ran a photo section on her ex-husband, his partner, and her children without her consent or even notice to her. Darnelle wrote, “Commenters exclaimed at how beautiful this gay family was and congratulated my ex-husband and his new partner on the family that they ‘created’ . . .,” even though, she continued, “there is a significant person missing from those pictures: the mother and abandoned wife. That ‘gay family’ could not exist without me.”
As Dan Weiss of the Brushfires Foundation said at the Breakpoint Blog, Darnelle’s story is “heart-crushing.” It’s a much-needed reminder that behind all the celebrations we see in the media, there’s often real suffering and heartache that goes unreported and even unnoticed. It’s also a reminder of the destructiveness of the idea that we have a “right to be happy.” People seeking to leave their marriages for whatever reason nearly always justify their actions on the ground that they have a right to be happy.
C.S. Lewis begged to differ. In an essay entitled “We Have No Right to Happiness,” he told the story of two neighbors each of whom had divorced their spouses and then married each other. Another neighbor, with whom he was discussing the situation, replied “they have a right to happiness.” Lewis noted that this neighbor would not say the same thing of a ruthless businessman who was happy when he made money by means fair or foul. Nor would she say the same thing about an alcoholic who was happy when he drank.
The happiness his neighbor was referring to was a right to “sexual happiness,” which, according to Lewis, meant the freedom to act on our sexual impulses without restraint. And it doesn’t matter if such restraint is good for us or for the society as a whole.
As he put it, “if we establish a right to sexual happiness which supersedes all the ordinary rules of behavior, we do so not because of what our passion shows itself to be in experience but because of what it professes to be while we are in the grip of it.” He wrote this more than fifty years ago! And Janna Darnelle’s “heart-crushing” story is yet another reminder of how prophetic C. S. Lewis could be.
As Sean McDowell and I make clear in our new book called “Same Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God’s Design for Marriage,” so-called gay-marriage isn’t the sole source of this kind of pain and brokenness; it’s the fruit of the sexual revolution—a revolution that has completely shifted not only the way we understand human sexuality, but also the human person. And no number of happy couples kissing outside a courthouse can disguise the wreckage that has been left in its wake...
[bold and italics emphasis mine]
FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION - There are victims whose voices are not being heard in the same-sex marriage debate. Read Janna Darnelle's moving article for a perspective you won't find in most media reports. And be sure to get your copy of John Stonestreet and Sean McDowell's new book, Same-sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God's Design for Marriage. It's a practical resource available at the online bookstore that will help you understand what's at stake and how you can respond in this ongoing discussion.
Same-Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God's Design for Marriage, Sean McDowell, John Stonestreet | Baker Books | July 2014; http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9780801018343
"Breaking the Silence: Redefining Marriage Hurts Women Like Me - and Our Children" - Janna Darnelle | The Public Discourse | September 22, 2014;
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/09/13692/?utm_source=The+Witherspoon+Institute&utm_campaign=65c760276b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_15ce6af37b-65c760276b-84113121
"Have We No Right to Happiness?" - C. S. Lewis, essay | Christianity Today; http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1985/issue7/733.html
Brushfires Foundation - website- http://www.brushfiresfoundation.org/
PRAY FOR AMERICA: THANK GOD for His many blessings on America throughout it's history. May we then ask that AMERICA once again be a blessing TO GOD, by once again submitting to HIS will in our affairs - both personal and national - that He may truly "heal our land." (2 Chron. 7:14)
WORLD-WDE PRAYER REQUESTS:
Friday, Sept. 26th - Two Year Anniversary of Pastor Saeed Abedini's Imprisonment in Iran! - [NOTE TODAY'S POST!]
We need to continue to pray for Pastor Saeed - that his health will improve and that he will be re-united with his wife and two young children who live in the United States. We also remain hopeful that in addition to getting the medical care he so desperately needs, that Iranian officials display the kind of humanitarian treatment that often accompanies the start of the Iranian New Year which began on March 21st. This is the time of year when the Iranian government frequently offers clemency to prisoners of conscience. [If you have not yet, please sign the petition for his clemency- http://beheardproject.com/saeed#sign]
PRAY ALSO : - For comfort and peace for Saeed’s wife and children here in the U.S.\
- For a strong witness and testimony from Pastor Abedini in the prison where God has placed him
- For Christians around the world who are being persecuted for their faith in Christ
- For leadership from the White House and State Department in defending the freedoms of Abedini and other Americans
- GO TO SaveSaeed.org to sign a petition over 600,000 others asking for his immediate release
"Not Everyone Happy with Religious Ambassador Pick," Caitlin Burke,July 29, 2014;
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2014/July/Obama-Taps-Rabbi-for-Religious-Freedom-Ambassador/ "..An estimated 76 percent of the world's population live in countries where religious freedom is restricted. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States must take a strong stand against those violations. "Around the world repressive governments and extremists groups have been crystal clear about what they stand against, so we have to be equally clear about what we must stand for," Kerry said. "We stand for greater freedom, for greater tolerance, greater respect, for rights of freedom of expression and freedom of conscience," he said A key development in the 2013 report is the large number of displaced members of religious communities, including entire Christian communities in Syria and Iraq that have been forced to flee their homes because of persecution."
SIGN A PETITION TO THE UN FOR THE PROTECTION OF CHRISTIANS :" The church in Syria has shone brightly for 2,000 years. But today violence and persecution threatens its survival. Thanks to an incredible response, Open Doors is helping 8,000 families in Syria survive each month. We believe the signatures and prayers of 500,000 people will encourage the UN to act and protect the rights and lives of all Syrians, especially the vulnerable Christian community." Go to: http://lp.opendoorsusa.org/emails/nov-13-action/save-syria.html?utm_source=action&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button&utm_campaign=november
UPDATE: "Second US Doctor Sick with Ebola; Crisis 'Out of Control'" - CBNNews.com, Sept. 02, 2014;
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2014/September/A-Losing-Battle-Ebola-Going-to-Get-Worse-CDC-Says/ "Another American doctor in Liberia has tested positive for the Ebola virus, according to the international Christian mission organization, SIM. SIM leaders report the American doctor was treating obstetrics patients at the organization's ELWA Hospital in Monrovia and not treating Ebola patients..."The epidemic is going faster than we are," he warned. 'We need to scale up our response. We can hope for new tools and maybe they'll come, but we can't count on them.' So far, the West African outbreak has killed more than 1,500 people in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria."
Of course, let's CONTINUE PRAYING FOR AN END TO THE EBOLA CRISIS IN WEST AFRICA AND THE HEALING OF ALL THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN INFECTED.
PRAY FOR THE CRISIS HAPPENING NOW IN IRAQ (see post #907) Pray that allied forces will be able to drive the group ISIS back (see post #964)
LATEST:"Christians in the Middle East Arm Themselves As Genocide Comes to Their Front Door" - Katie Pavlich | Sep 05, 2014;
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/09/05/christians-in-the-middle-east-arm-themselves-as-violence-rages-around-them-n1887849" Earlier this week the BBC and Al Jazeera both reported on armed Iraqi citizen volunteers who helped government forces fight off ISIS in Amerli. Today, the AP is out with a story about Christians in the Middle East who are arming themselves, carrying weapons with them during daily tasks and heading to the hills at night to defend their communities as violence continues to rage around them. Genocide is at their front door and they're doing everything they can to stop it from coming in... So far, the terror army ISIS has slaughtered and tortured thousands of Christians in Iraq and Syria."
/PRAYER ALERT- UKRAINE: As the Lord leads, please pray:
*For God to suppress President Putin’s ambitions to "restore" the Soviet empire.
*For the people of Ukrainen [esp. for the church 'to be THE church'] as they wait to see if the Russian troops will advance.
*About President Obama and to use wisdom in crafting our foreign policy, and wisdom for his advisers.
Continue to Pray for EGYPT - Continue to pray for the tense situation in Egypt and especially for the Christian believers who are being targeted with violence by Muslim Brotherhood members.]
"The Unseen Pain behind 'Gay Marriage' - Victims of 'Happiness' "; By: John Stonestreet| Breakpoint.org: October 1, 2014;http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/26158?spMailingID=9576334&spUserID=MTMyMjM2ODE5OQS2&spJobID=400064857&spReportId=NDAwMDY0ODU3S0 [AS I SEE IT: Yes, the following is just ONE story but you can be sure it is but one of many. Also, the point is that one story alone is rare these days because the mainstream media shuts these kinds of stories out of their coverage of the same-sex "marriage" issue. May it serve as a light in the darkness of what really is the world of same-sex "marriage." (By the way, I put the word "marriage" in parenthesis in this context because I don't believe that such unions meet the Biblical definition of what marriage was meant to be.) Let me further say that I for one refuse to use the term "gay" when referring to anything relating to homosexuality in memory of someone I met 25 years ago who cried when sharing that it upset her that homosexuals were using her name (Gay) to describe their lifestyle. It should also be obvious (to Christians at least) that a lifestyle that God describes in His Word as sinful cannot have "happy, carefree" consequences. The homosexual lifestyle is no more "gay" than abortion is simply a matter of "choice." I refuse to use euphemisms created by our culture to re-define what God calls sinful. - Stan]
To make the case for same-sex marriage, advocates tell a lot of stories. But some stories are not being told, and they’re important too.
To judge by media coverage, the legalization of same-sex marriage is an unalloyed good. Pictures of happy couples kissing and otherwise celebrating leave the impression that the only people who are unhappy about all of this are bigots and grumps. Well, Janna Darnelle would beg to differ.
Seven years ago, Darnelle’s husband of ten years told her that he was gay and that he wanted a divorce. As she wrote in The Public Discourse, “In an instant, the world that I had known and loved—the life we had built together—was shattered.” She tried to persuade him to stay, and work through their problems and fight for their marriage. But, as she writes, “my voice, my desires, my needs—and those of our two young children—no longer mattered to him. We had become disposable, because he had embraced one tiny word that had become his entire identity. Being gay trumped commitment, vows, responsibility, faith, fatherhood, marriage, friendships, and community.”
And adding insult to injury, her soon-to-be ex-husband sought primary custody of the children. While he had to “settle” for shared custody, this still meant that their children, regardless of their desires, had to become props in the campaign for same-sex marriage.For instance, USA Today, in its cheerleading for same-sex marriage, ran a photo section on her ex-husband, his partner, and her children without her consent or even notice to her. Darnelle wrote, “Commenters exclaimed at how beautiful this gay family was and congratulated my ex-husband and his new partner on the family that they ‘created’ . . .,” even though, she continued, “there is a significant person missing from those pictures: the mother and abandoned wife. That ‘gay family’ could not exist without me.”
As Dan Weiss of the Brushfires Foundation said at the Breakpoint Blog, Darnelle’s story is “heart-crushing.” It’s a much-needed reminder that behind all the celebrations we see in the media, there’s often real suffering and heartache that goes unreported and even unnoticed. It’s also a reminder of the destructiveness of the idea that we have a “right to be happy.” People seeking to leave their marriages for whatever reason nearly always justify their actions on the ground that they have a right to be happy.
C.S. Lewis begged to differ. In an essay entitled “We Have No Right to Happiness,” he told the story of two neighbors each of whom had divorced their spouses and then married each other. Another neighbor, with whom he was discussing the situation, replied “they have a right to happiness.” Lewis noted that this neighbor would not say the same thing of a ruthless businessman who was happy when he made money by means fair or foul. Nor would she say the same thing about an alcoholic who was happy when he drank.
The happiness his neighbor was referring to was a right to “sexual happiness,” which, according to Lewis, meant the freedom to act on our sexual impulses without restraint. And it doesn’t matter if such restraint is good for us or for the society as a whole.
As he put it, “if we establish a right to sexual happiness which supersedes all the ordinary rules of behavior, we do so not because of what our passion shows itself to be in experience but because of what it professes to be while we are in the grip of it.” He wrote this more than fifty years ago! And Janna Darnelle’s “heart-crushing” story is yet another reminder of how prophetic C. S. Lewis could be.
As Sean McDowell and I make clear in our new book called “Same Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God’s Design for Marriage,” so-called gay-marriage isn’t the sole source of this kind of pain and brokenness; it’s the fruit of the sexual revolution—a revolution that has completely shifted not only the way we understand human sexuality, but also the human person. And no number of happy couples kissing outside a courthouse can disguise the wreckage that has been left in its wake...
[bold and italics emphasis mine]
FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION - There are victims whose voices are not being heard in the same-sex marriage debate. Read Janna Darnelle's moving article for a perspective you won't find in most media reports. And be sure to get your copy of John Stonestreet and Sean McDowell's new book, Same-sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God's Design for Marriage. It's a practical resource available at the online bookstore that will help you understand what's at stake and how you can respond in this ongoing discussion.
Same-Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God's Design for Marriage, Sean McDowell, John Stonestreet | Baker Books | July 2014; http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9780801018343
"Breaking the Silence: Redefining Marriage Hurts Women Like Me - and Our Children" - Janna Darnelle | The Public Discourse | September 22, 2014;
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/09/13692/?utm_source=The+Witherspoon+Institute&utm_campaign=65c760276b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_15ce6af37b-65c760276b-84113121
"Have We No Right to Happiness?" - C. S. Lewis, essay | Christianity Today; http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1985/issue7/733.html
Brushfires Foundation - website- http://www.brushfiresfoundation.org/
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