Monday, April 8th, in the year of our Lord 2019
By Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com)
The Cancer Recurrence in Tony Evans’ Wife
Tony Evans, senior pastor of The Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, is asking people to pray for his wife after doctors informed them that they are facing another battle with cancer, reports The Christian Post.
Evans wrote on Instagram, “Friends, please pray for my wife, Lois. She has been a cancer-free patient under care for a while. However, her last routine scan revealed that her rare gallbladder cancer has returned. We are going to trust God in the dark for a solution, and we are asking you to fervently pray to that end.”
You can send a note of encouragement from your family to: Lois Evans, The Urban Alternative, PO Box 4000 Dallas, Texas 75208.
E. coli Outbreak in 5 States
A multistate outbreak of E. coli has raised alarms and questions: As of Thursday, 72 people in five states have become ill, yet the cause of their infection remains unknown, says the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reports MSN.com. The following states report sick patients: 36 in Kentucky, 21 in Tennessee, 8 in Georgia, 5 in Ohio, and 2 in Virginia.
Symptoms of this bacterial infection, which usually begin about three or four days after consuming the bacteria, can include watery or bloody diarrhea, fever, abdominal cramps, nausea and vomiting.
Eight people involved in the mysterious outbreak have been hospitalized. No deaths have been reported. People started becoming ill March 2, and the patients range in age from 1 to 74 years old.
Former Transgender “Woman”: Stop Experimenting on the Kids!
Walt Heyer underwent a sex change, lived as a transgender woman for eight years named “Laura”, regretted it, and has now de-transitioned. He’s urging people to resist transgender medicine and related therapies, saying we are medically “manufacturing” children as transgender and abusing them, reports The Christian Post.
Author of Trans Life Survivors and founder of SexChangeRegret.com, Heyer spoke on a panel at the Heritage Foundation last Thursday. He explained why so many children are identifying as transgender today.
HEYER: “Schools are giving them books. They’re indoctrinating them. Parents are encouraging them. Online they’re in chat rooms, suggesting groups of kids become transgender. It’s a fad!”
Heyer questioned the appropriateness of prescribing hormone blockers to confused kids.
HEYER: “I don’t believe that any doctor who injects young kids with hormone blockers should have a license to do so.”
He cited the American Psychological Association’s own research.
HEYER: “The APA, in their handbook in 2014, says, ‘Kids are not born transgender.’ And yet we’re treating them with medical treatment as if they were and trying to alter them. They are not born that way. We’re manufacturing transgender kids.”
Heyer described the root cause of transgenderism.
HEYER: “Over 50% of the people that I’ve worked with, hundreds of people in the last 10 years, were sexually abused. Boys who were abused at a young age come to the conclusion that the only way they can prevent themselves from being sexually abused again is to cut off their genitalia and become females. In their mind, that is their defense mechanism. Girls who were sexually abused want to be men as a way to fend off any intruder or sexual abuser because they will no longer be attractive for sexual abuse.”
Huckabee: Redefining Gender Is “Greatest Threat” to America’s Morality
In a related story, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee said redefining gender and sexual identity is the “greatest threat” to the moral fiber of America, and the fault lies with the Church, reports The Christian Post.
Huckabee said, “The biggest threat to biblical principles today is the failure to apply a biblical standard of maleness and femaleness. We are creating this illusion that there is no gender, there is no identity, and I’m blaming the Christian Church.
“The gender dysphoria we’re seeing today is largely due to the fact that the Church has failed to present very clearly the words of Jesus and Genesis 5:2: ‘Male and female He created them.’”
Psalm 86:11 says, “Teach me Your way, O LORD, that I may walk in Your truth.”
Huckabee now hosts a variety show that airs on Saturdays at 8:00pm eastern on TBN.
Key to Gospel: Power over Sin & Death, not Disease & Demons
McLean Bible Church Pastor David Platt denounced faith healing as a “false gospel” in a speech at an evangelical conference, explaining that the real Gospel is about Jesus Christ forgiving sins, reports The Christian Post.
Preaching on Mark 2:1-12, which recorded the gospel story of Jesus healing a paralytic who was lowered from a roof into a home, Platt explained that while the passage showed “two urgent needs” that Jesus addressed–the man’s lameness and his need for forgiveness–the two needs were not equal.
Platt argued that “our ultimate need is not to be rid of our maladies but to be reconciled to our maker and this is what Jesus has come to do.” He said people require a savior who does not just have power “over disease and demons,” but more importantly “someone with power over sin and death.”
Sneak Peek: How to Experience God’s Favor
Learn the keys to experiencing God’s favor in a World View Special Report immediately following the newscast.
North Carolina Couple Married 82 Years
And finally, D.W. Williams is 103, and his wife, Willie Williams, is 100. And they just celebrated 82 years of marriage in Charlotte, North Carolina, reports Good Morning America.
The couple enjoys spending time together and the simple things in life, saying, “We like to watch country westerns like ‘Gunsmoke’ and ‘Bonanza,’ and play crossword puzzles together.”
The key to their marriage? “We don’t argue or have any fights. If we have a misunderstanding, we just talk it over.”
Linda Reese, a friend of the family, said, “He is an honorable, God-fearing man and she is a gracious lady.”
And B.J. Williams-Greene, their granddaughter who threw them a party at their church, said, “They have had such a long, successful marriage because they put God first and are each other’s best friends.”
Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.”
Sign Up for the Generations Father/Son Retreat in Colorado
Join our annual Generations Father/Son Retreat in the Colorado mountains Thursday, August 29th through Sunday, September 1st.
Fathers and sons will enjoy quality time together in the beautiful Rocky Mountains with family-style meals, encouraging messages, and activities including an Alpine Swing, a ropes course, a zipline, and fishing.
You can register now and save $150 at www.ColoradoFatherSon.com.
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And that’s The World View in 5 Minutes on this Monday, April 8th in the year of our Lord 2019. Subscribe by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldView.com. Or get the app through Google Play or The App Store. I’m Adam McManus (adam@TheWorldView.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.
Special Report: In Trials, Remember God’s Faithfulness
Time now for a World View Special Report by Emily Swanson. I’m Adam McManus
By Emily Swanson.
No doubt you’ve heard of the book, The Cross and the Switchblade about the daring ministry of evangelist David Wilkerson who ministered to hardened New York City gang members.
The World View talked to one of David’s sons, Gary Wilkerson, who is a pastor in Colorado Springs, Colorado and the author of a new book entitled God’s Favor: Experiencing the Life God Wants You to Have.
In a world filled with messages of the “prosperity gospel”, Wilkerson “shows how your loving Father showers His abundant resources upon you through forgiveness, grace, restoration, peace, power and authority. God does so, not only to bless you with a favored, happy life, but also to make you a joyful demonstration of His favor to others–showing the beauty of His unearned grace to a hurting, unbelieving world.”
The World View spoke to Pastor Wilkerson about his own life story before writing the book.
WILKERSON: “I grew up in a Christian home. I’m a sixth generation pastor in our family, all the way back to my great-great-great-great grandfather. My father was a fairly well known Christian minister; his name was David Wilkerson. He wrote a book called The Cross and the Switchblade. So I kind of grew up in that environment, but kind of went through an experience myself where I just didn’t know if all this stuff was true or if it was just handed down to me because of culture and family heritage. Came out on the other side, whole-hearted, on fire for Jesus, wanting to share the gospel of His goodness.”
He told The World View that he noticed that Christians make Christianity a heavy burden, not the light one that Jesus promises.
WILKERSON: “One of the things I noticed in the Christian circles is that a lot of people are serving God more out of duty and obligation rather than joy and delight. And it was born out of a lack of understanding of the nature and character of God. So. I wanted to tell people how good He was. Kind of growing up understanding religion but coming first hand into relationship has been sort of my life message, my life theme, and this book is a reflection of that.”
Psalm 37:3-4 speaks directly to delighting in the Lord and trusting in His character. To His children He is a good Father. “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
Wilkerson gently addressed how Christians should approach the painful trials in their lives.
WILKERSON: “Realize that when you’re going through difficult things; you’re suffering, and you’re in pain, and you’re hurting, and there’s brokenness; it’s not a sign of God being against you or Him not being for you, it’s not a sign of punishment necessarily; we all go through hardship, and we all suffer, but the outcome of that could be for our good and help us to grow and become stronger. The analogy is that what we might be looking at as bad news, and something’s wrong, and why is this happening to me; is actually producing something in us that we would never have if we didn’t go through that experience.”
James 1:2-4 speaks directly to the trials that each Christian is walking through. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
He testified that in every trial we can look back and see God’s faithfulness, His holiness, and goodness.
WILKERSON: “You showed Yourself to be faithful. You showed yourself to be pure and holy and good, and we become thankful for it.”
Wilkerson said that young Christians today are facing a lot of pressure to despair, but he gave them this encouragement.
WILKERSON: “The generation we’re living in right now has a lot of abandonment issues, a lot of conflict with social issues, there’s a lot of pressures on young people in this generation. The good news is that God is with them, for them, faithful, and again, that’s why I wrote ‘God’s Favor’, to show people that He’s not a Zeus-like character up in heaven, with lightning bolts shooting from his fingertips to get at us every time we make a mistake. The opposite is true; He’s with us, and He’s loving on us to produce in us the highest calling, the greatest destiny, the greatest promises above all that we can think or imagine.”
Ephesians 1:3-5 speaks about our Heavenly Father’s blessings, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will.”
Wilkerson directly addressed the prosperity gospel that proclaims that you will have “no problems” when you become a Christian.
WILKERSON: “Something that’s very deceptive happens when we proclaim a ‘false gospel’ that says as soon as you come to Jesus you’ll have no more problems, you’ll get the girlfriend of your dream, the job of your dreams, all your cars will be paid for, your teeth will be perfectly straight; it’s this kind of fake sense of reality. I think it does harm, and so over the years I have learned to redefine certain kind of Biblical passages we all cling to, but then they challenge us.
“For instance, ‘abundant life’ (reference: John 10:10), ‘Jesus has come to give us life and life more abundant.’ Now if you define abundant life like we do in the American dream, abundant life means I’m going to get a mansion, a Rolls-Royce, a house, happy, all my kids are going to be totally content every day, all my kids are going to be well-educated.”
Wilkerson said that the “abundant life” needs to be Biblically understood.
WILKERSON: “And so if we define abundant life that way, and a large portion of the American culture is not getting that, then we’re going to get angry at God. We’re going to feel that maybe we did something wrong to lose the blessing. So, I believe the Holy Spirit would have me redefine what abundant life was; it’s not the American dream, it’s not just my personal preferences coming true for my life, but abundant life is that I can live no matter what. I can be in the worst spiritual warfare of my life and come through a victorious warrior, a soldier who doesn’t know what defeat means. There’s power in my life that can help me survive any test, any trial, any tribulation, come what may; I know that God’s for me.”
He said that if you define it any differently than that, Jesus Christ didn’t even live an abundant life.
WILKERSON: “If you define it differently, Jesus didn’t even live an abundant life. His friends left Him. He was abused, spit on, taken to a cross, and so abundant life for Him was, ‘I know I’m doing what my Father called me to do, and I know I’m pleasing my Father by doing it. And I know that the outcome of this is going to be good, victorious, and more powerful than anything the world has ever seen.”
“Think of Jesus’ words in John 17:3-5 when He knew He was about to accomplish the most glorious work in history, ‘And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”
Make sure to tune in tomorrow for part 2 of this World View Special Report, with more encouragement for weary Christians who are facing many trials.
To learn about Wilkerson’s ministry, go to his website at WorldChallenge.org.
This has been a World View Special Report. I’m Adam McManus.
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Unplanned Doubled Expectations over First Weekend
The pro-life movie Unplanned earned double the box office sales expected for its opening weekend, even while dealing with apparent censorship on social media, reports The Christian Post.
Based on the life of Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic worker turned anti-abortion activist, the movie raked in approximately $6.1 million over the weekend.
This was twice the expected ticket sales, and makes “Unplanned” the third biggest opening weekend film by Pure Flix, behind 2014’s “God’s Not Dead” ($9.2 million) and 2016’s “God’s Not Dead 2” ($7.6 million).
Deadline Hollywood labeled the success of the pro-life film “remarkable” since the movie was rated R and was not able to run ads on most of the major cable networks.