Thursday, March 31st, in the year of our Lord, 2016.
By Kevin Swanson
If you murder an unborn child over five months of age in Utah, you MUST use anesthesia. Governor Gary Herbert signed a bill, S.B. 234, on Tuesday requiring an anesthetic to eliminate organic pain to the unborn child during the abortion. Mary Taylor, president of Pro-Life Utah, sees this as a stepping-stone to banning abortion altogether in Utah: “The brutality of abortion—I personally know several people whose mind and heart has been changed due to this process. Of course, we’re not going to be happy until the barbarism comes to an end, but we do believe that a small step is better than no step.”
Religious liberty didn’t last long in Louisiana. The newly elected governor of Louisiana says he will rescind the executive order that former governor Bobby Jindal put in place. The order protects Christian businesses from being forced to approve of certain forms of sexual deviance.
The North Carolina attorney general said that he’s embarrassed by the law that forbids transgendered people from using whatever public restroom they want to use. He said further that he would not enforce the law. North Carolina faces lawsuits and boycott threats over these public bathrooms.
When President Barack Obama took office in 2009, he removed the requirement that able-bodied adults without children work at least twenty hours a week (or participate in a training program) to be eligible for food stamps. As of last year, forty states are not enforcing the work requirement, according to Fox News. Recently, Kansas and Maine have reinstated the work requirement.
The biblical principle applies: “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”
Senator Ted Cruz is well ahead of Donald Trump in recent polls in Wisconsin—a contest that will yield 42 delegates. Wisconsin’s Republican primary takes place next Tuesday.
GOP unity is fizzling fast among the candidates. During this week’s CNN’s Town Hall, Donald Trump backed away from his previous pledge that he would support the GOP presidential nominee in November. Ted Cruz also affirmed that he could not support Donald Trump as the nominee after Trump’s attack on his wife Heidi. Governor John Kasich was also hesitant. In his words, “If the nominee is somebody that I think is really hurting the country and dividing the country, I can’t stand behind him.”
Pakistan has arrested over 200 suspects in an anti-terror operation after the Easter Sunday bombing. Over 5,000 persons were investigated as part of the crackdown, and thousands of churches across Pakistan have increased their security after the tragedy.
Psalm 20:6-9 says, “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.”
North Korea is preparing for another famine as the nation faces more international sanctions. The last famine killed about 3.5 million people. Apparently, it is not affecting the President Kim Jong-un, whose weight has now topped 300 pounds, according to recent reports. An editorial from the state’s paper told the nation to prepare to “chew roots.”
Philippians 3:18-19 says, ”For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.”
The New Spring Southern Baptist Church in South Carolina promises to return your tithes if God doesn’t bless you with a good ROI within 90 days. The fundraising strategy seems to be working. In 2014, the church reported the receipt of $59.3 million from 1,600 people in a 90-day period, according to the Christian Post.
Here’s a helpful reminder for the folks at New Spring Church: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord your God.”
It was three years ago that two high school students came upon a homeless man in a blizzard. Ryan Kodat and Luke Arnold gave the man a jacket and a few dollars so the man could travel to visit with his ailing father. The man became the recipient of a large inheritance, and recently the boy’s school received a letter and a donation of $10,000 as an expression of his gratefulness.
Luke 6:38 says, “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over.”
And that’s the World View in Five Minutes.