RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil is witnessing a seismic shift in its religious landscape that’s rapidly reshaping the country’s spiritual and social fabric. As  News discovered, evangelicals are poised to outnumber Catholics as the largest faith group there.

In the heart of Brazil, amidst the rhythmic beats of samba and the vibrant colors of carnival, something spiritually profound is unfolding. “We are on the verge of a religious change in Brazil’, said Brazilian sociologist Dr. José Alves.

If there’s one image that symbolizes Catholicism’s influence here, it’s Rio de Janeiro’s 98-foot-tall Christ the Redeemer. Inaugurated in 1931, the iconic statute celebrated the country’s rich Catholic heritage. There’s also the beautiful blue Cathedral of Brasilia – one of the largest Catholic churches in Brazil’s capital city. But despite these historical landmarks, Alves says the faith’s dominance is rapidly declining.

“In 1950, 93 percent of Brazilians identified as Catholics. The Church was losing about 1 percent of followers every decade,” said Alves. “However, from 1991 onwards, the Catholic Church started to lose 1 percent of followers every year, resulting in a dramatic drop.”

Evangelical Christianity, once a minority faith here, is now growing at unprecedented levels. The surveys show that what was once the world’s largest Catholic nation, will be overwhelming evangelical by 2030.

Signs of this growth are everywhere—mega-churches dotting the landscape, filled with thousands of worshippers each week. That includes Andre Fernandes’ church in São Paulo.

“We are living in the fulfillment of a promise,” said Fernandes, who pastors Lagoinha Church. “For many decades, we have heard that Brazil would experience a wave of revival that would be exported around the world, and I believe that this is what we are experiencing at this moment.”

It also includes Lourival Pereira’s congregation in the Amazon region—boasting more than 10,000 members across roughly 600 cell groups.

“The foundation of our growth is these cells,” said Pereira, pastor of a Foursquare Church in Belem. “The real revival is taking place outside the church walls. Every day, people are meeting in small groups in homes; it’s the biblical model.”

Then there’s J.B. Carvalho’s church in the capital city of Brasília.

“We started the church in 2003 with only 25 people. Today, we have about 12,000 people in Brasília alone,” said Carvalho of Community of the Nations Church. “We also have another 15,000 people in Fortaleza. Our churches are spread throughout Brazil.”

And Silas Malafaia’s church in Rio de Janeiro is one of the largest and most influential Pentecostal churches in Brazil with more than 100,000 members.

“In the next seven years or so, we will be the majority in the country,” declared Malafaia of the Assembly of God Victory in Christ church. “Today, we make up about 35% of the population, and God’s Kingdom has influence in every corner of Brazilian society.”

Marcelo Crivella, a well-known evangelical pastor turned politician, once served as mayor of Rio de Janeiro. He says that, years ago, evangelical Christians hesitated to get involved in politics—but that’s no longer the case.

More than 30% of the country’s legislators are now evangelical. “We are more than 140 deputies and more than 20 senators,” said Crivella, a Brazilian Congressman.

Many of them gather each Wednesday in the halls of Brazil’s Congress for worship and prayer.

Celina Leão, the vice governor of Brasília, tells CBN News that God is also at work in other branches of the government.

“I used to participate in those prayer meetings when I was in Congress,” Leão told CBN News. “Now, every month in the governor’s office, we meet for prayer, and people come to my office. It’s a wonderful time to see friends and be in communion.”

The country’s first evangelical church opened in 1922. By 1990, the number had grown to more than 7,000 congregations. Nearly 30 years later, it grew to almost 110,000.

The growth is so staggering that one study found 17 new evangelical churches opening every day across Brazil.

“Now in Brazil we have 550,000 – 550,000 churches,” declared Crivella.

Ezenete Rodrigues says this dramatic transformation began, as in many great movements, with the most profound of practices: prayer.

“I’ve always believed that prayer is like planting: You plant, plant, plant, and at some point, it will sprout, and then the explosion will come,” Rodrigues told CBN News.

Rodrigues is one of the country’s most well-known intercessors. She has organized countless prayer rallies nationwide, urging her fellow countrymen to turn to God.

“Brazil has been hungry and thirsty for God, and the key has been intercession—bending our knees, seeking God, and letting the Spirit of the Lord guide us in everything we do,” said Rodrigues. “Today, we can look back and see so many beautiful fruits of this commitment.”

Those who have been tracking the explosive growth of the evangelical movement here in Brazil say worship has also played a monumental role in the church’s growth. And one Christian artist, above all, has been at the center of it all.

Her name is Ana Paula Valadao.

“Even growing up, I had glimpses of crowds, of multitudes worshipping the Lord,” Valadao told us.

From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, her group’s music became synonymous with a powerful worship movement that emphasized intimacy with God, passionate worship, and personal revival.

“As I was songwriting, the Lord always made me very intentional,” Valadao said. “The whole idea was about transformation, was about changing the nation.”

Paula’s songs played across Brazil, helping many experience a deeper connection to their faith. “It was about healing the land, and we started seeing amazing salvation numbers,” said Valadao.

She held concerts in strategic locations, drawing millions of people, many of whom were Catholics.

“Like the carnival sight in Rio de Janeiro and in the soccer stadiums, Jesus broke every record, gathering more people than any soccer tournament,” Valadao recalled.

Because of her songs, many Catholic services in Brazil today—like one CBN News attended in São Paulo—have embraced a more evangelistic style of worship, shifting away from traditional liturgies to incorporate contemporary music.

Father Antonio Luiz Catelan Ferreira, who leads the Cathedral of São Sebastião in Rio de Janeiro, says the change is part of an effort to encourage former Catholics to ‘come home.’

“People are attracted to environments where worship celebrations and moments of prayer are done in a more charismatic way,” Ferreira told CBN News. “Today, a growing number of Catholics are returning precisely because prayer meetings are conducted in a more Pentecostal style.”

Still, for Brazil’s Catholic majority, the question is no longer whether they will lose their dominance, but how quickly.

The answer? Probably, faster than anyone ever expected.
Sources:faithwire

http://theendtimeradio.com

Author and speaker Jennie Allen is witnessing what she calls a real-life “miracle.”

Allen told CBN News she was absolutely astounded last Wednesday night, when UniteUs, a ministry serving young people, arrived at the Rupp Arena at the University of Kentucky and saw thousands of students show up to praise the Lord.

“This is this is just all a miracle,” Allen said. “We are on our 12th University. Next week, we will go to 13th at Ohio State, and, in every single case, it has been miraculous.”

Images and photos show hordes of young people engaging in praise and worship, with many coming forward to accept the faith and get baptized.

“So many kids come forward, confess sin, follow Jesus, and we’re baptizing usually into the morning,” she said. “And it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s unlike anything I’ve even been bold enough to pray for … until recently.”

Allen continued, “You can just see all over the stadium, huddles of kids, wiping tears, nodding, praying, holding each other. I mean, it’s so precious and brave.”

After the event, four people baptized droves of young people for around an hour and a half, showcasing the full impact of these events. Allen mentioned one young man who was lost and not living right whose friend had been praying for him.

“He said, ‘I’m tired of living the way I was living and I want something to change,’” she said. “And he goes, ‘I’ve been going this way and now I need to go this way.’”

It was incredible for the man’s friend, who had been praying for him, to see him change right before his eyes.

“It can only be God,” Allen reiterated.

Despite never dreaming such events could be possible, Allen has been blown away by all God has done. It’s especially remarkable because these campus events are organized by local student teams who do all the fundraising and work to make it unfold.

The young team responsible for the University of Kentucky event had prayed fervently beforehand, doing a massive, 42-mile prayer walk around their campus.

Allen, who is gearing up for her own event, Gather25 — a “25-hour global broadcast event telling the inspiring stories of the global Church, by the global Church” — said it’s remarkable to see these revival-like moments unfolding on campuses across the globe.

Ultimately, she believes these simultaneous spiritual revivals are all God-ordained.
Sources:CBN News

http://theendtimeradio.com

Let’s face it, there are some scary stories in the Bible about God bringing His hammer down on people who do wrong.

In the Old Testament, you have stories like the one about Korah (see Num. 16), a guy who rebelled against Moses. Things didn’t go as planned, though, and his end was something out of an IMAX horror movie: “As he [Moses] finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under them split open; and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men who belonged to Korah with their possessions” (Num. 16:31–32).

When you look at the New Testament for an example, you’ve got the story of Ananias and his wife Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11) who told just one lie about how much money they got for selling some real estate and then, “Ananias fell down and breathed his last” (vs. 5) followed by “she fell at his feet and breathed her last” (vs. 10).

These stories, and similar ones in Scripture, remind us, as C. S. Lewis said, that Aslan is not a tame lion.

That’s why we’re told “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23) with the cross showing how seriously God takes sin. The cross is the only vehicle allowing Him to destroy sin and evil without destroying us in the process.

That said, today you don’t see the ground opening and swallowing those who thumb their nose at God’s authority or people who misrepresent their good deeds dropping dead at church. But that doesn’t mean a clear and present danger doesn’t exist for anyone who consistently traffics in sin.

Those that do rarely get a lightning strike from above, but instead something much worse in the long run. The Bible tells us over and over what that is and says it so much that if I were to quote all the places it’s mentioned, we’d be here for hours going over it all.

The enemy within

When talking about his previous drug addiction, actor Robert Downey Jr. said: “It’s like I have a loaded gun in my mouth, and I like the taste of metal.”

That pretty much sums up how God punishes us for our continuous sins — He gives us over to something our old nature likes the taste of and lets it eat us alive.

Paul talks about this process in Romans where he writes three times that, when people turn away from God, He “[gives] them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper” (Rom. 1:28). What follows afterward is a train-wrecked life for the unrepentant individual and, sadly, oftentimes also for those around them.

Legion is the tragic story of the impenitent thief, adulterer, liar, abuser, and power-hungry who seem to have it all on the outside, but are rotting away on the inside, which sooner or later externally manifests. Isaiah describes God’s judgment on our sin like this: “You have hidden Your face from us and have delivered us into the power of our iniquities” (Is. 64:7).

The Hebrew word used for “delivered” here is very descriptive and literally means “melted”, which conveys the idea of our sins dissolving us (shudder). But we shouldn’t be surprised because we’re told, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Gal. 6:7).

The Old Testament character Job knew a little about ending up “howling and insufferable,” which is why he wrote: “According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble harvest it” (Job 4:8), and added that continuous sin causes people to be “delivered … into the power of their transgression” (Job 8:4).

And that’s a pretty terrible place to be.

Even non-Christians realize this. In their song, King Nothing, which describes the emptiness that accompanies a reckless self-indulgent life, the rock group Metallica warns, “Careful what you wish, you may regret it; Careful what you wish, you just might get it”.

Indeed.

So, while God may not open up the earth for us or send a massive coronary on the spot when we sin today, that doesn’t mean consequences don’t exist in this life for believers who constantly traffic in wrong with a clear conscience. God has hardwired the grief and pain experienced from sin into the sin itself.

That being true, we should remember a quote that’s typically attributed to Charles Spurgeon and do our best to avoid such error: “Sin will take you farther than you ever wanted to go, keep you longer than you ever wanted to stay, and cost you more than you ever wanted to pay.”
Sources:Christian Post

http://theendtimeradio.com