MAHDI TO RETURN BY 2016, FOLLOWED BY JESUS? Mainstream Muslim Website Makes Official Announcement

It’s not only evangelical Christians who are sensing that something has changed in the world, and that we may be entering the very last days.

Muslims are also eagerly awaiting their messiah.

In the latest evidence of this messianic fervor, a mainstream Sunni Muslim website has decreed that the Islamic messiah, called the Mahdi, will appear this year or in 2016 and that the Muslim Jesus will return in 2022 to conquer the world for Islam.

DiscoveringIslam.org and the End Times Research Center have calculated that the “first phase” of the end of time will begin soon and lead to the “Day of Judgment” in seven years.

The estimates were derived from “the latest research” into numerical analysis of the Quran, Hadith, Arabic words and historical events,” according to DiscoveringIslam.org.

“The Messenger of Allah [sallallahu 'alayhi wa-sallam] informed the Companions of everything that would occur until the Day of Resurrection,” the website reports.

“Based on our numerical analysis of the Quran and Hadith, the official beginning of the End of Time and the coming of the Imam Mahdi will most likely be in 2015 (or 2016) and Jesus Christ (p) will come down from Heaven to Earth in 2022, in-sha Allah (if Allah is willing),” the website reported.

The Quran and the Bible put forth end-times narratives that are similar but opposite. The Bible’s antichrist, for instance, resembles Islam’s messiah while Muslims view the Jesus of the Bible as their antichrist or “Dajjal.” The Quran teaches that Jesus returns to earth but for a very different purpose – to “break the cross” and convert the world’s Christians to Islam.

Bible teacher Joel Richardson underscores the inverted end-time views of the two faiths in his New York Times-best-selling book, “The Islamic Antichrist,” and his documentary film, “End Times Eyewitness.”

Richardson is an expert in eschatology, or the order of end-times events, as presented in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. He points to Jesus’ warnings in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 that false teachers and false prophets would arise in the last days to deceive many.

Richardson believes Muhammad is one of those false prophets. But the religion he founded, Islam, must be taken seriously because 1.4 billion people believe in its teachings, which are apocalyptic and getting more so, Richardson said. In fact, it’s impossible to understand what inspires and motivates Islamic radicals such as ISIS or al-Qaida if you aren’t familiar with their eschatology.

But it’s not just the radicals who believe in the Islamic teachings about the apocalypse, he said.

“It is frequently claimed that those who believe these things are but the tiny minority of radicals,” Richardson told WND. “But what the (Discovering Islam) article reveals, is that even many mainstream Muslims now believe that the last days are upon us.”

What is this Shemitah business all about? Sign up for WND’s free e-book primer on the significance of the seven-year biblical cycle that affects the world’s economies, the rise and fall of empires and more.

Many Muslims across the globe see the unfolding events in Syria and Iraq as proof that the prophetic traditions of Islam are coming to pass and will soon lead to the return of the Muslim Jesus and the Mahdi.

As previously reported by WND last October, an influential Turkish Muslim media personality and prolific author, Adnan Aktar, said he expects the Mahdi to appear in Istanbul.

Aktar said the Mahdi will communicate with spirit beings called the djinn, who will help Muslims prevail throughout the world.

ISIS expects a major battle to occur near the Syrian city of Dabiq between the soldiers of Allah and the “Romans,” who are seen as the leaders of the infidel Western powers fighting alongside apostate Muslims. Some analysts have said ISIS could be trying to hasten this battle by goading the U.S. into putting boots on the ground in Syria.

According to the Islamic view the soldiers of Allah will win this battle, ushering in a period marked by the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel and the dominance of Muslims globally.

Check out Joel Richardson’s two ground-breaking books, “The Islamic Antichrist” and “Mideast Beast,” which have won acclaim from Bible scholars the world over and led many to reconsider the view that the Antichrist will arise out of Europe.

“Even if none of these things are true, there is power in prophecy, and the sense of divine endorsement that this empowers many with will have horrific consequences in the days ahead,” Richardson said. “When Christians think about Jesus warning of the rise of false prophets in the last days, we often think of false voices within the church. No doubt, we have plenty of such voices, shouting ‘peace and security,’ ‘all is well,’ ‘thrive and prosper,’ etc. But rarely do many Christians think of the false prophetic traditions of Islam that are misleading a large segment of mankind.”

As novelist and filmmaker Joel C. Rosenberg recently noted, the greatest danger to the world is not merely radical Islam, but apocalyptic Islam.

“In Tehran, our own president has just agreed to allow the single most apocalyptic regime in the earth to attain nuclear weapons,” Richardson said. “Never before has the term ‘existential threat’ been so real.”

Read more at here

'ISIS Destroyed Christian Civilization and the World Watches'

Israel National News reports: “Waiting in an aid line outside Lebanon's capital Beirut, Assyrian Christian Francie Yaacoub remembers the well-stocked home she left behind in Syria as she fled advancing Islamic State (ISIS) group jihadists.

‘We left behind a house full of everything. Why do we now have to stand at the church door?’ she asked quietly as she waited to receive aid at the Assyrian diocese of Sid al-Boushriyeh, reports AFP.

She is one of hundreds of Assyrian Christians who have arrived in Lebanon in recent weeks after ISIS jihadists stormed their villages in Syria's northeastern province of Hasakeh.

Members of Lebanon's Assyrian community, many of them related to those who fled Hasakeh, are doing their best to welcome the new refugees, but the displacement has left them traumatized.

Yaacoub, in her fifties, now lives in a small house with her son, husband and five other Assyrian refugees. Her family fled their village, Tal Nasri, during a terrifying ISIS bombardment last week.

‘We left in our pajamas. My son walked barefoot, we left without our shoes on,’ she said. ‘The shells were falling all around us...We had to flee because the safety of your children is the most important thing.’

Yaacoub's family was not alone - thousands of Assyrians have been forced to abandon their villages along Hasakeh's Khabur river since ISIS jihadists began an attack there in February.

The group has seized at least 11 of the 33 Assyrian villages in the region, and kidnapped more than 200 members of the ancient Christian sect, which numbered around 30,000 in Syria before the war…”

Source

UN Report: ISIS May Have Committed Genocide

Israel National News reports: “Islamic State terrorists may have committed genocide in trying to wipe out the Yazidi minority in Iraq, the UN said Thursday in a report laying out a litany of atrocities, according to AFP.

ISIS ‘may have committed all three of the most serious international crimes - namely war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide,’ the United Nations human rights office said in a statement.

The agency published a horrifying report detailing killings, torture, rape, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers by the group.

All of these crimes, it said, were violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, and some may amount to ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘war crimes.’

The report, which is based on interviews with more than 100 witnesses and survivors of attacks in Iraq between June 2014 and February 2015, especially highlights brutal ISIS attacks on ethnic and religious groups, including Yazidis, Christians, Turkmen, Kurds and Shia.

ISIS, which controls a swathe of territory in Iraq and neighboring Syria, launched ‘a series of systematic and widespread attacks’ on the Yazidi minority's heartland in the northern Nineveh province last August.

According to the report, the attacks appeared intended ‘to destroy the Yazidi as a group,’ which ‘strongly suggests’ ISIS is guilty of ‘genocide’ against the Yazidi.

In numerous Yazidi villages, men and boys over the age of 14 were rounded up and shot, while the women and girls were abducted as the ‘spoils of war.'…”

Source

Malaysia Under Pressure to Implement Sharia Law Including Impalement and Crucifixion

ChristianToday.com reports: “Calls by Malaysia's Islamist opposition party for strict Islamic law that includes amputations and stonings is symptomatic of a drift to more conservative Islam in politics and could further strain relations in the multi-ethnic country.

The push by the Islamist Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS) for the laws, known as hudud, also threatens to split a fragile opposition coalition that has been challenging the long-ruling Muslim party and its allies.

The disparate three-party opposition alliance that includes PAS won the popular vote for the first time in Malaysia's history in a 2013 election.

While the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and its partners still won the most seats, they are more determined than ever to hold on to power which they have enjoyed since independence in 1957.

In February, the opposition alliance's leader, Anwar Ibrahim, was jailed for five years on a sodomy charge he said was cooked up to finish him politically and foil the opposition challenge…’

Source

The Drop Box: The Compelling Story of Saving Babies

The Drop Box, released by Focus on the Family and showing in various cinemas nationwide, is a stunning, compelling true story about Pastor Lee Jong-rak of South Korea who saves babies.

Together with his wife - and with the help of other loving Christians - Pastor Jong-rak works tirelessly day and night to take care of the abandoned babies that are dropped off in what is called "The Baby box" - a drop box where birth-mothers can place their babies and know they will be cared for and loved.

Jong-rak's journey begun through the birth of his own and his own handicapped son who, in essence, becomes the icon and centerpiece of the entire story.
Many of the babies who are dropped off are handicapped in some way of other, whether Downs syndrome, physical handicaps, or premature, they share complex issues.
But those issues do not hinder the outpouring of love and care Pastor Jong-rak and his team give them.

Pastor Lee with children. They quickly become members of a large family where love reigns.
Focus-on-the-Family partnered with Kindred Image and Arbella Studios to bring us The Drop Box with the purpose of not only sharing a beautiful true story, but of hopefully touching hearts to the core to choose life and to care for children.

The film highlights the need for global orphan care, adoption, and post-adoption support.
The Drop Box also shines a light on the deep love of God, the love that never forgets any child, the love that compels those who are open to it to act radically so others may see the Light.
Pastor Jong-rak is such a person - one who acts with radical love, no matter what it costs him.

Look for the film in a local theater, and be sure to bring a large box of Kleenex. You'll need them. The film is not the best cinematic production - some cartoon drawings interspersed in the documentary and a lot of sub-titles to read - but the story is so powerful, so life-changing, you hardly notice.

See more at: here

We Are More Than '21'

*Please note that the video referenced in the article is extremely violent, and should only be viewed by adults.*

Last week I saw something gruesome, but then something beautiful.

I forced myself to watch the execution of 21 Coptic men by ISIS members in Libya. It was one of the most nightmarish things I have ever witnessed. I did not do this because I relish violence in any way, but because I felt it was important to be reminded of what true persecution is. Contrary to the conception that I often hold, persecution is not when someone scoffs at my beliefs or smirks when I pray before a meal. That is “aggravation.” “Persecution” is someone pressing a knife to your throat because you follow Christ. And as much as it hurt my soul to watch that video, I needed that reminder.

But over the week that followed, I witnessed something truly beautiful take place. First, the Coptic church stood quickly in solidarity with their fallen sons. The men wereofficially canonized by the church as martyrs. One slain man’s brother thanked ISIS for including their final cries to Jesus in the video, saying that by doing so, ISIS had inadvertently “strengthened our faith.”

But these tributes were not limited to the Coptic church. From all around the world, Christians from diverse traditions stood in solidarity with those 21 men. Facebook and Twitter profile pictures were changed to the number “21,” honoring the 21 lives that were lost. Many Western evangelicals voiced their support, including Russell Moore and Ed Stetzer. Ann Voskamp wrote a powerful tribute and initiated a prayer campaign for persecuted Christians around the world. And Pope Francis gave this stirring statement:

“The blood of our Christian brothers is a witness that cries out. If they are Catholic, Orthodox, Copts, Lutherans, it is not important: They are Christians. The blood is the same: It is the blood which confesses Christ.”

What I found so moving about these tributes was that so few questions had to be asked. Coptic Christianity is not familiar to many, especially here in the United States. Few people can say they know anything about Coptic theology, have attended a Coptic church service, or personally know a Copt. In all honesty, a person who holds a Coptic understanding of salvation might not be allowed membership at many American evangelical churches. But none of that mattered, not this time. Despite our unfamiliarity with Copts and their beliefs, we all knew deep within our souls that they were our brothers.

Neither did we ask any questions about the men and their individual lives, their motivations, or their piety. We did not ask if they had been walking with God, or their political persuasions, or their stance on one issue or another. Again, none of that mattered. With their lips, these men cried out the name “Yeshua!” And that is all that any of us needed to hear, the only requirement that needed to be fulfilled for us to lament their death and identify ourselves with them.

Seeing the church stand up in solidarity with these men reminded me that we are one family in Christ. Yes, a broad, diverse, and incredibly fractious and quarrelsome family, but family nonetheless. There are surely significant and important differences among us, but persecution and suffering has a way of putting those differences into perspective and allowing us to recognize, even if momentarily, that what ties us together as Christ followers is far stronger stuff than we thought. And what binds us is nothing less than the name of Jesus, the name above all names, the name that these men uttered before they died as martyrs.

But perhaps there is a larger lesson we might glean from this. Our response to the death of the 21 clearly demonstrated that we share a profound connection with other believers despite the considerable geographical, cultural, and theological gaps between us. We have proven that we do not need to be in complete alignment with other followers of Christ to stand with them in their pain. We made a bold declaration that we are the “21” and have claimed Copts as our own brothers in Christ.

But why only “21”? Could we not make that number higher, and expand the circle further to include believers who are closer to home? What about the plight of undocumented people from Mexico and Latin America, so many of whom follow Christ faithfully but are faced with the prospect of being deported and having their families torn apart? Yes, many of us might be different from them in terms of our culture, language, and understanding of civil law. But is their “illegal” status more important to us than their status as “faithful and Spirit-led Christ followers”?

And what about our faithful brothers and sisters in the black church who cry out in lament for the death of children like Tamir Rice? Yes, for many of us there are sizable cultural and political differences between our communities. But are these differences greater than the name of Christ that we both honor? Do any of us truly believe that? Can we not simply say, as we do with our own biological family, and as we are commanded in Romans 12:15, “You are my brother and sister, and so no matter our differences, your suffering is my own”?

To be quite honest, we share far more in common with Latin American and African American believers in this country than we do with the Coptic church. Our theologies are more aligned, and we are physical neighbors with one another. So if we can rightly offer our full-throated support for the “21,” then I implore us to also stand with believers in our own country, not because we are culturally or politically identical to them, but because we are spiritually connected with them. In truth, we are not just the “21.” We are the “22” and the “23,” the “100” and the “100,000,000”. Persecution reminds us that the eternal family of Christ is unified not by uniformity, but by the name of “Jesús,” “Yeshua,” “예수,” the name which we hold above all other names. We should never forget this important, and costly, lesson.

Source

Report: 200,000 Christians “At Risk Of Slaughter” As Islamists Prepare Massive Assault In Nigeria

Nigerian Bulletin – “US intelligence officers say that the Boko Haram sect looks to be planning an attack on Maiduguri, a city with 2 million people in North-East Nigeria. This, it says, could mean 200,000 Christians could be at ‘risk of slaughter.’
J. Peter Pham said: ‘An attack on Madiguri is very likely,’ and he and a couple of experts believe that the terrorists have put ‘sleeper cells’ among refugees who have fled areas where the group attacked.
He also hinted that the sect may be planning to hoist its black flag over Maiduguri, which he says would be a big blow to the Nigerian government.” Source – Nigerian Bulletin.

John 16:2b, “… the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing a holy service for God.”

Flashback: Nigeria: Islamists Pull Over Bus Near Maiduguri, Kill All Christian Passengers, Embark On Door-To-Door ‘Islamisation Campaign’ At Gunpoint – “Release partners are reporting targeted violence against Christians in the northern state of Borno this weekend. Stefanos Foundation says that gunmen pulled over a bus near Maiduguri on Saturday, demanded passengers declare their faith and then killed the six people who said they were Christian. Meanwhile, in Gwoza, also in Borno state, Islamists are reported to have embarked upon an ‘Islamisation campaign’. Stefanos reports that gunmen are going from door to door demanding people profess allegiance to Islam at gunpoint.” Read more.

Flashback: Nigeria’s Christian President Warns That The Current Massacre Of Christians Means The End Times Is Upon Us – “In another deadly move portraying Nigeria’s Borno state as a killing field for Nigerian Christians, attackers have stormed a church service in Kiyak village in the outskirts of Chibok, killing another set of 15 worshippers. It was the second major killing of Christians in the Chibok area. Early in December, 10 Christians were also killed in the area… News of the killings emerged after President Goodluck Jonathan questioned whether deadly Islamist attacks on churches in his country and other violence worldwide could be signs of coming ‘end times’… The attack followed another gruesome killing Friday that saw attackers slit the throats of 15 Christians in a pre-dawn raid in Musari …” Read more.

Flashback: Nigeria: Boko Haram: Our Goal Is To Eliminate Followers Of Christ – “Terrorist organisation Boko Haram has issued a statement making clear that its goal is to eliminate followers of Christ from Nigeria and establish an Islamic state. ‘The Nigerian state and Christians are our enemies and we will be launching attacks on the Nigerian state and its security apparatus as well as churches until we achieve our goal of establishing an Islamic state in place of the secular state … We are responsible for the suicide attack on a church in Jos and also another attack on another church in Biu,’ a spokesman for the group, Abul Qaqa, is said to have told reporters in the northeastern city of Maiduguri over the phone.” Read more.

More Than 100 Killed by Boko Haram in Cameroon

Boko Haram fighters have killed more than 100 people in the north Cameroon town of Fotokol, murdering residents inside their homes and a mosque, a local civic leader said on Wednesday.

The massacre comes amid a major regional offensive against the Islamic group, which has kidnapped hundreds and killed thousands in neighbouring northern Nigeria and has mounted increasingly bloody cross-border raids.

"Boko Haram entered Fotokol through Gambaru early in the morning and they killed more than 100 people in the mosque, in the houses and they burned property," said the civic leader Abatchou Abatcha, reached by telephone.

The militants shot and killed one of his sons during the raid, he added.
Many of the dead were found with their throats slit, according to Cameroon's L'Oeil du Sahel newspaper.

Continued

Analysts Expect More Extreme Violence From Islamic State Militants

Voice of America News reports: “The fight between the extremist group Islamic State, and the Western/Arab coalition battling to defeat it has become a public showdown of horror. And analysts warn there could be more to come.

‘As soon as we get to the point where we think they can’t get any worse than they are, they manage to exceed the brutality of even what we have become accustomed to,’ said Mia Bloom, a professor of security studies at University of Massachusetts.

‘It’s not that we are immune to the violence, it’s just that they are pushing the envelope and engaging in more and more violence,’ Bloom told VOA.

Images of a young Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage by Islamic State militants shocked and horrified people around the world this week. Crowds took to the streets in Jordan demanding that Muath al-Kaseasbeh’s death at the hands of Islamic State extremists be avenged…”

Source

Franklin Graham to Obama: Muhammad Killed Innocents

WND.com reports: “Christian evangelist Franklin Graham on Thursday reminded President Obama, who discusses during one televised interview his ‘Muslim faith’ but otherwise has stated being a Christian, that Jesus Christ came to earth to die for the guilty, while Islam’s Muhammad killed the ‘innocent.’

The comment came in reaction to Obama’s speech during the National Prayer Breakfast, when he linked Christians to violence, by claiming that atrocities such as the Inquisition and the Crusades were done ‘in the name of Christ.’

Obama said, ‘Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. And in our home country, slavery, and Jim Crow, all too often was justified in the name of Christ.’

He condemned jihadists who are ‘betraying’ Islam with their slaughter of innocent people.

And he called out members of the Islamic State, who have ‘carried out unspeakable acts of barbarism.’

‘This is not unique to one group or one religion,’ Obama claimed. ‘There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency, that can pervert and distort our faith. And in today’s world when hate groups have their own Twitter accounts and bigotry can fester in hidden places in cyberspace, it can be even harder to combat such intolerance. But God compels us to try.’

While one Catholic leader called for Obama to apologize, pointedly noting that the Inquisition was political, and the Crusades were a defensive effort, and a Fox commentator blasted the president for having to go back ‘1,000 years’ to find some way to link Christians to violence, others noted that it actually was a largely Christian influence that drove slavery out of America and reduced Jim Crow laws to relics…”

Source