It’s Thursday, July 11th, A.D. 2019. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard at www.TheWorldview.com. I’m Adam McManus.
By Jonathan Clark
Barnabas Fund provides help to persecuted believers globally
In March of this year, God brought an incredible deliverance to a group of 72 Nigerian Christian men, women, and children who refused to deny Christ in the face of death. You’ll hear the remarkable details of God’s supernatural intervention in The Worldview Special Report following today’s newscast.
We talked to Jeremy Frith of the Barnabas Fund about how to help these Christians who were delivered.
FRITH: “Again they wouldn’t be looking for pity. They would be looking for people to learn from them, all that is going on in the world. I think they would want people to realize the gravity of the situation in terms of persecution of Christians. We estimate that 1 in 10 Christians around the world are suffering persecution of some kind. This particular group in Nigeria, as we reported in our feature, is lacking Christian literature. They are lacking Bibles in their own language, and that’s one of the features of the story.”
Learn more at the website: www.BarnabasFund.org.
British Parliament vote for abortion, “gay” marriage for Ireland
On Tuesday, British members of Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of legalizing abortion and faux homosexual marriage for Northern Ireland if the devolved government of the province is not restored by October 21.
The murder of unborn babies is currently legal in the U.K. up to 24 weeks, but it has been illegal in nearly all cases in Northern Ireland.
Days before the vote, over 10,000 people joined the All-Ireland Rally for Life in Dublin, calling for the protection of unborn babies in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Australian Prime Minister takes a stand for religious liberty
The new Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, addressed the annual Hillsong Conference in Sydney this week. He said the country needed the love of God more than anything, and prayed for God to send rain in the midst of a withering drought.
Morrison also said his administration would be working to protect religious freedom in the country. This comes after former Australian National Rugby player, Israel Folau, was fired for opposing homosexuality with the Bible.
On Friday, Australia’s Attorney General announced a new bill designed to protect people from being targeted for their religious views.
BET founder: Democrat Party “moved too far to left”
In a CNBC interview, Black Entertainment Television Founder Robert Johnson, a Democrat, praised President Donald Trump for a strong economy.
JOHNSON: “I give the president a lot of credit for moving the economy in a positive direction that’s benefiting a large amount of Americans. I think the tax cuts clearly helped stimulate the economy. I think business people have more confidence in the way the economy is going. We still have some issues to deal with, with China trade negotiation issues. But, overall, if you look at the U.S. economy, and you look at the number of people who are no longer looking for jobs, but now seeing opportunities for job growth, you got to give the president an A+ for that.”
In addition, Johnson, who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, was not pleased with the 20+ contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination.
JOHNSON: “The party in my opinion, for me personally, has moved too far to the left. If a Democrat is going to beat Trump, then that person, he or she, is going to have to move to the center. And you can’t wait too long to do that because the message of some of the programs that the Democrats are pushing are not resonating with the majority of the American people.”
Trump ready to deport one million illegals
Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told CBS on Sunday that the Trump administration is set to deport one million illegal immigrants.
Cuccinelli said, “They’ve been all the way through the due process and have final removal orders.”
God spared the lives aboard Delta plane with faulty engine
Delta Flight 1425 headed from Atlanta to Baltimore with 150 passengers had to make an emergency landing on Monday in North Carolina.
JOSE BAHAMONDE-GONZALEZ: “The captain came on the loudspeaker and said that we had lost an engine and that they were making preparations to make an emergency landing.”
One of the plane’s engines began to fall apart.
AVERY PORCH: “After we heard the boom we just saw all this smoke come up into the cabin, and that’s when we really started freaking out. It started slowing down a little bit. It was getting hot, the air cut off.”
Passengers were praying and trying to text family members in the moments before the landing.
TYLER KRUEGER: “I just pulled out my phone and I knew I didn’t have service but I just texted my mom, ‘I love you’. I texted my Dad, ‘I love you.’”
Porch told CNN, “I’m so grateful for the crew and pilots for letting us land safely.”
Indeed, God spared the lives of those aboard.
Close
And that’s The Worldview in 5 Minutes on this Thursday, July 11th in the year of our Lord 2019. 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.
Special Report: How angels saved Nigerian Christians from execution
Time now for a Worldview Special Report by Emily Swanson. I’m Adam McManus.
It was miraculous.
God spared the lives of Nigerian, African women and children who were set to be executed by Muslim terrorists from Boko Haram in March. Jeremy Frith of Barnabas Fund, a group that funds persecuted believers globally, talked to The Worldview about how it began with a large worship service.
FRITH: “We have a lot of contacts in Nigeria, so one of those contacts came to us to tell us the story; about 500 Christians. We call them the Chebar tribe; now the Chebar has just gotten his name changed to protect them. But 500 Christians from the Chebar tribe in Nigeria, who were meeting together to worship, to have one of their regular services. Now that’s unusual. There was a large quantity of Christians because the idea was to minimize the risk of attack on the groups. So, large groups met together to have safety in numbers.”
He said that they were attacked by local Boko Haram Muslim militants.
FRITH: “One day they were attacked by local Boko Haram militants which is not unusual. Most of the group were able to escape — apart from 76 men, women, and children. Now they were taken to a camp where they were tortured, and the four male leaders of the group were asked to renounce Jesus as their Savior and to return to Islam, but they refused to do that and they were shot dead.”
Frith said the Muslim militants continued the terror with promising the execution of the children if they did not renounce Christ Jesus.
FRITH: “A few days later the wives of the male leaders were asked if they would renounce Jesus and return to Islam, or their children would be executed. Now they were given some time to think that over; I think it was overnight that they were allowed to consider their options. Obviously it was an excruciating decision as it would be for any one of us. But as they were considering their options, the children came running through from another room and said that Jesus had appeared to them and told them that all would be well.”
The experience of the group reminds us of Stephen in his most dire moment before his entrance into glory, but their story went a bit of a different way. Acts 7:55 says, “But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”
He said that the whole group testified to seeing Jesus assuring them not to fear.
FRITH: “Jesus then appeared to the group, all 72 women and children who were left, not to fear, and that He would protect them, and that they should not renounce Him, but to stay strong, and that all would be well.”
The soldiers lined up the women and children the next day for execution, but something extraordinary happened, according to Frith.
FRITH: “The next day the Boko Haram were lining up the children against the wall. And the women gave their answer that they would not renounce Jesus. They were asked once more if they would renounce Jesus and take Islam back as the true faith, and the soldiers cocked their guns to take aim at the children. But all of a sudden the soldiers started grabbing at their heads and started screaming, ‘Snakes!’ Some of them ran away. Some of them fell down dead on the spot.”
He said the children testified to seeing angels.
FRITH: “One of the soldiers fell down dead at the foot of a Christian Chebar. He reached for his gun and was going to take aim at the fleeing Boko Haram militants, and the youngest of the children, who is just 4, put her hand on his arm, and said, ‘You don’t need to do that. Can’t you see the men in white are fighting for us?’”
Revelation 12:11 says, “And they overcame [the devil] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”
Frith said that their contact asked a Chebar pastor about why these sorts of appearances of Christ happen to people in foreign countries, but not in America.
FRITH: “So, it’s a miraculous story of divine intervention. Just to follow up, our contact actually spoke with a Chebar pastor while he was in Nigeria and asked the pastor, ‘Well, why does Jesus not appear to us in such a miraculous way?’ And the pastor simply replied, ‘Jesus doesn’t need to appear to people who have over 200 versions of Scripture and many people to explain the Bible to them. But these people in Nigeria don’t have that, and Jesus chose to act in this way to give protection and guidance to His people.’”
He encouraged Christians to pray for these brothers and sisters and support them in any way possible.
FRITH: “But what we need to do is pray for our brothers and sisters and support them in any way we can, because they are suffering terribly, and organizations like Barnabas Fund. We try to help as many Christians as we can; we are limited obviously in the finances, but it’s a situation that affects each one of us as believers, that this is still going on in the world.”
To support these Nigerian, African believers by providing Bibles and financial aid, go to a special link in our transcript today at www.TheWorldview.com.
This has been a Worldview Special Report. I’m Adam McManus.