It’s Wednesday, August 5th, A.D. 2020. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard at www.TheWorldview.com. I’m Adam McManus.
By Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com)
Christian family expelled from village in southern India
On March 24th, a Christian family was expelled from their village for refusing to deny their Christian faith in the Bellary district of India’s Karnataka state, reports International Christian Concern.
After the expulsion, the Christian family was brutally attacked by radical Hindu nationalists and was unable to return to the village for months.
Surya Nayak, the family’s breadwinner, said, “I walked for nearly 30 miles, as the villagers chased me.” Nayak and his family converted to Christianity five years ago when the family experienced a miraculous healing. Due to their conversion, the family has faced severe harassment and a social boycott from other Hindu villagers.
Nayak said, “The religious fanatics stopped us from taking water from the village well and informed everyone in the village not to hire us for any work.”
For the last four months, they have depended on others for food and shelter. Nayak explained that “it has taught me great spiritual lessons. My faith in God has grown. I am clueless about what I should be doing to get things back to normal … I cannot leave Jesus. However, I also want to provide for my family. I need God’s grace.”
2 Corinthians 12:9 says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”
Massive explosion rocked Beirut
A massive explosion rocked Beirut on Tuesday, flattening much of the city’s port, damaging buildings across the capital and sending a giant mushroom cloud into the sky. More than 70 people were killed and 3,000 injured, with bodies buried in the rubble, reports the Associated Press.
The blast struck with the force of a 3.5 magnitude earthquake and was heard and felt as far away as Cyprus more than 180 miles across the Mediterranean.
Watch the video in a special link in our transcript at www.TheWorldview.com.
Initial reports suggested a fire had detonated a warehouse at the port.
COVID vaccine maker not legally accountable for side effects
Last week, Zerohedge warned readers to be cautious about new COVID-19 vaccines, highlighting how key parts of the clinical trials are being skipped as big pharma will not be held accountable for adverse side effects for administering the experimental drugs.
A senior executive from AstraZeneca, Britain’s second-largest drugmaker, told Reuters that his company was just granted protection from all legal action if the company’s vaccine led to damaging side effects.
Pastor Jentezen Franklin calls for 21 days of prayer & fasting
Pastor Jentezen Franklin of Free Chapel in Georgia is calling on Christians in America and around the world to turn to God for 21 days of prayer and fasting during these unprecedented times, reports ChristianHeadlines.com.
FRANKLIN: “Times like these always require action from the body of Christ. We can’t sit back and hope things get better. We’re in the middle of a global pandemic. Many parts of our nation are facing economic disaster and our country is more divided than it’s ever been. We’ve got an upcoming election, and it will determine much about the future of our nation and our children and children’s children.
“Beginning on August the first, we will be uniting together for 21 days of fasting and prayer. Join us throughout the fast for online prayer meetings every day. I’m going to be coming in leading prayer meetings for 21 days, every day.
“If My people, which are called by My name will humble themselves — that’s fasting and praying and call on God. We’ve got to see breakthrough. We’ve got to see it for our businesses, for our families, for our nation. Together, we’re going to break the power of the enemy through fasting and prayer and turning to God with all of our heart. Won’t you join me?”
Pastor Ed Young of Dallas: “It’s critical to reopen churches.”
Pastor Ed Young of Fellowship Church in Dallas and author of The Fear Virus is challenging churches across the U.S. to reopen their doors, warning that the spiritual ramifications of refusing to meet outweigh the hype of the coronavirus pandemic, reports the Christian Post.
Young said, “Look at our culture. There is so much going on right now spiritually, especially among young people facing depression, anxiety, and attempting suicide. I have counted the cost of not opening our church versus opening, and I believe that risk and faith go hand in hand. It’s critical to reopen churches.”
Hebrews 10:25 says, “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return is drawing near.”
John MacArthur: “Gov. Newsom is not the head of the church.”
And finally, appearing on Fox News Channel with Shannon Bream, Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church put the COVID lockdown into perspective, reports the Christian Post.
MacARTHUR: “In the state of California, the statistics are about 8,500 to 9,000 people have died out of 40 million. That means in California you have a 99.98% chance of getting through this without any final illness.
“So, the lockdown and the draconian things that have been going on to stifle this culture, to stifle it educationally, to stifle the businesses, to lock down people, and then to shut down churches is just not warranted by the reality of the virus.”
Pastor MacArthur, who refuses to shut his church down, despite a civil mandate in California to do so, explained that the civil magistrate does not have any jurisdiction over the church.
MacARTHUR: “Jesus is Lord. That is the Christian confession. He is the head of our church. Governor Newsom is not the head of the church. Mayor Garcetti is not the head of the church. When they move into the life of the church and tell the church what it can do, they’re usurping a role that they don’t have.
“Never before has the government invaded the territory that belongs only to the Lord Jesus Christ and told us we can’t meet, we can’t worship, we can’t sing. There’s no power given to the government to make those kinds of calls against us.”
You can watch the whole interview through a special link in our transcript today at www.TheWorldview.com.
Close
And that’s The Worldview in 5 Minutes on this Wednesday, August 5th, in the year of our Lord 2020. Subscribe by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I’m Adam McManus (adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.
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China rips cross from church, throws elderly man to the ground
On the heels of Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California praising China for becoming “a respectable nation” — a line trumpeted by Beijing — local government authorities in the communist country are continuing to ransack churches, tearing down crosses and other Christian symbolism, reports FaithWire.com.
According to a post from Bitter Winter, 100 Chinese Communist officials the Zhejiang province removed crosses from two churches in Yongfu village at 4:00 a.m. on July 7.
While officials were removing one of the crosses, they reportedly got into a scuffle with a man in his 80s. Ultimately, the elderly resident was pushed to the ground and injured.
Local believers said the two crosses removed in early July escaped the crackdowns on Zhejiang churches in 2014 and 2015, when Chinese authorities stripped the province of more than 1,700 crosses.
Venezuelan man arrested for video of ambulance ran out of gas
Venezuelan socialist authorities reportedly arrested Deivis Pacheco on Monday for filming firemen in the country’s Trujillo state pushing along an ambulance that had run out of gasoline, reports Breitbart.com.
Pacheco stands accused of having uploaded a video to social media July 31 showing a Trujillo Fire Department ambulance stuck on the road.
5 ways to conquer the Cancel Culture
In his Christian Post column entitled “5 Ways to Conquer the Cancel Culture”, Christian radio talk show host Michael Brown, wrote, “As expected, the Cancel Culture is already out of control, now devouring itself. One day it’s the statue of Teddy Roosevelt. The next day it’s the smash musical Hamilton. One day it’s J. K. Rowling. The next it’s a Vox editor who stood with Rowling.
How do we overcome this dangerous and self-destructive culture? Here are 5 simple steps.
- Speak louder
- Learn the principle of losing your life to save your life. This is something Jesus spoke of frequently, saying, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).
- We expose the folly of the Cancel Culture. Winston Churchill once said, “ “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile — hoping it will eat him last.”
We need to expose this reality, demonstrating how the Cancel Culture will ultimately cancel itself out. It must, since it will never be sufficiently woke.
To illustrate this point, on June 21, I tweeted, “In the spirit of pulling down historic statues and removing ‘racist’ brand names, should there be a move to cancel the Democratic Party, since the Democrats were the party of slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow?”
I even wrote an article as to why Charles Darwin should be cancelled because of his racist theories.
Where does it end? Who will be left standing?
- We learn to forgive from the heart.
- We make room for differing opinions. Another Pauline principle is this: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).
We cannot defeat the Cancel Culture by becoming like it. We must become the opposite of it.
Gold surpasses $2,000 per ounce for first time
Gold went up $27.50 per ounce, or 1.3%, hitting $2,013.60 an ounce, reports Market Watch.
Silver rose 4.7% to $25.56 an ounce.
NYC shootings up by 177%
Violence with firearms continues to rise in New York City this summer amid the global coronavirus pandemic and economic turmoil, according to statistics released by the New York City Police Department, reports Fox 5.
The NYPD recorded 244 shootings in July 2020 versus 88 in July 2019, which is a 177% increase. Shootings rose in July in every borough, police said. Through July 31, the city has experienced a 72% spike in shootings compared to the same time last year—772 versus 450 in 2019.