Before getting to the news of the day - we see an article from Joel Rosenberg which outlines several Christian based movies that are coming out in early 2014 and all of them appear to be worth seeing.
In the article, you can click on the titles and see the trailer for each but I have them linked below as well:
I can’t vouch for the theology of each of these films based solely on the trailers. But I can say their production values are top notch and just seeing these sneak previews (especially amidst trailers for other soon-coming films that are violence- and sex-ridden trash) was both surprising and encouraging. It got our family talking about this intriguing moment in which so much of our culture seems vehemently opposed to Biblical faith, yet man other Americans seem truly curious, and at times even hungry, to know if the Bible has answers to life’s deepest and most important questions.
In The News:
Security officials said a total of four rockets were launched from southern Lebanon, but two failed to make it across the border, landing inside Lebanon. The report was followed on Sunday morning by a Lebanese report of two rocket falls near Sarda, a village some 10 kilometers from Marj Ayoun near the border with Israel. Lebanese Army troops deployed to the area to investigate.
The IDF said in a tweet on its Hebrew-language Twitter feed that it retaliated for the rocket attack with “massive artillery fire of dozens of shells targeting the source of the [rocket] fire.” Lebanese sources disagreed on the number and targets of the shells fired by the IDF, with Lebanon’s state news agency saying that over 20 shells hit the mountainous, rugged area around the southern Lebanese border area of Rashaya early Sunday.
IDF forces were sweeping the area to locate the fallen rockets.
“This attack from Lebanese soil is an inexcusable, unacceptable blatant breach of Israel’s sovereignty,” IDF spokesman to the international press Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said on Twitter Sunday.
“Launching rockets from Lebanon in to Israel jeopardizes thousands of civilian lives in the north, a reality no sovereign state would accept. The IDF maintains the right to self defense and will operate accordingly against the perpetrators,” he added.
Israel holds the Lebanese government and Hezbollah responsible for the Sunday morning rocket fire into Israeli territory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, and Israel will continue to respond “quickly and forcefully.”
“We hold the Lebanese government responsible for firing that is carried out from within its territory,” Netanyahu said ahead of the weekly cabinet meeting, and noted that Hezbollah, by ”stationing thousands of missiles and rockets in apartments… is thus perpetrating two war crimes simultaneously. It is organizing the firing at civilians, just as it did today, and it is hiding behind civilians as human shields.”
The Lebanese government and army, Netanyahu said, “are not lifting a finger” to prevent such attacks, and “Iran, of course, is behind this arming by Hezbollah.”
The IDF “responded quickly and forcefully to the rocket fire from Lebanon,” Netanyahu said, adding, “This is our policy regarding Lebanon just as it is with the Gaza Strip. We will not allow a drizzle and we will respond strongly, and if need be, will carry out preventive action.”
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned on Sunday that Israel “won’t tolerate being fired upon from Lebanese territory” and “won’t allow anyone to disrupt the lives of Israeli citizens.”
Ya’alon urged “that no one test our patience or our intention to protect the citizens of Israel.”
The European Union’s envoy to Israel warned that if peace talks with the Palestinians fail due to construction in West Bank settlements, Israel is likely to get the blame for it.
In a weekend interview with the Hebrew-language Walla News website, Lars Faaborg-Andersen laid out potential consequences of the government’s expected announcement this week of further settlement construction.
Faaborg-Andersen said he had made it clear to Israeli officials that such an announcement could seriously damage the US-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and in such a case Israel could expect to take the rap. The envoy added that a similar sentiment had been relayed by the ambassadors of the major European powers.
On Thursday, the head of Tehran’s nuke agency announced that Iran is working on developing a “new generation” of centrifuge equipment for enriching uranium — a move that pretty much puts them directly into conflict with the interim deal under which they promised not to bring new centrifuges into operation for six months in return for some limited sanctions relief. Evidently, this latest development hasn’t done much to quell the fears of the bipartisan group of senators pushing to legislatively impose the threat of new Iranian sanctions, despite the Obama administration’s attempts to quash that tactic, via Fox News:
One of the president’s top Democratic allies is leading the charge for Congress to pass sanctions legislation, despite the president’s pleas to stand down. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J., told Fox News that the “Iranians are showing their true intentions” with their latest announcement.
“If you’re talking about producing more advanced centrifuges that are only used to enrich uranium at a quicker rate … the only purposes of that and the only reason you won’t give us access to [a military research facility] is because you’re really not thinking about nuclear power for domestic energy — you’re thinking about nuclear power for nuclear weapons,” he said. …
The only surprising thing here is that the Iranians are so confident about how supine Obama is on this. They stick a finger in his eye and announce it publicly. There is nothing in the agreement that stops the Iranians from enriching more uranium and produce the machines that enrich the uranium. That was the problem at the beginning. That’s what made the agreement a farce at the start.
Also see:
I saw the trailer for "Heaven is For Real." The young lad said that he saw his grand father....and that all people in heaven are young. I just have one problem with that. As far as I know, no one has bodies...they're just spirits. The Lord hasn't returned, and bodies have not been resurrected as of yet. So how could he see people, when they're in a spirit form?
ReplyDeletePeople's spirits (or 'soul state) are recognizable in heaven.
ReplyDeleteI read the book " Heaven is for real". For me, I just like to think there are things in the Heaven realm that I'm unable to comprehend. And most likely I'm not supposed to comprehend it. Who knows how, a 5 year old would articulate what he saw. Or if its even possible. I talked to a renowned prophecy " expert" two years ago about the Colton Burpo experience. He ( Dr. Jimmy DeYoung) very quickly discredited the child's story..he said "do you really think that if he was in Heaven, in the presence of Jesus that he would be making him do homework"? I said I don't know. But since he's God, I'm pretty sure he could have him do whatever he wanted.
ReplyDeleteFor me his story gave me a sense of peace, in that the hope and the trust that I have in Heaven is real.
David P.