Wednesday, January 3rd, in the year of our Lord 2018
By Adam McManus
Two Sisters in Laos Who Converted to Christianity Beaten by Their Family
Two teenage sisters in Laos who converted from animism to Christianity have shared how their family members beat them, tied them up, locked them out of the house, and then left them there for four days — but their faith remains unshaken, reports the Gospel Herald.
17-year-old Nani and 16-year-old Nha Phong converted to Christianity in the autumn of 2016 after hearing the truth of the gospel from a family member.
Nani said, “There is a Bible verse in Ephesians 6. When people fought in the past, they used a shield, and I want to have faith like a shield. When the evil one tries to shoot arrows at us, I will use the shield to protect me. So I have to put my faith in Jesus.”
Laos is ranked 24 on Open Doors’ World Watch List of countries where believers face the most persecution, and has received the maximum score in the violence category.
Buddhists make up more than 57 percent of the population of the Communist country, according to Operation World. About 35 percent of the population adheres to indigenous religions, and only 3.4 percent of the population is Christian.
People Presenting Themselves as Opposite Gender Officially Allowed in the Military
As of Monday, January 1st, those who present themselves as the opposite gender from the one God created them to be, are free to serve in the U.S. military, reports The New American.
While President Trump announced last July that transgenders would be banned from serving in the armed forces, in late November a liberal District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that her injunction meant the Defense Department must move ahead on the order given by President Obama in June 2016 which allowed transgenders to enlist.
The Trump administration opted not to challenge the ruling for now, waiting for a specific Dept. of Defense’s study.
Recruits who have gone through “sex reassignment” or “genital reconstruction” procedures must also certify that “a period of 18 months has elapsed since the date of the most recent surgery, no functional limitations or complications persist, and no additional surgeries are required.”
Deuteronomy 22:5 says, “A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this.” Not to mention having invasive surgeries.
Steve Bannon May Consider Running for President
Former White House advisor Steve Bannon might want to run for president in 2020, according to Vanity Fair.
In private conversations, Bannon believes Trump only has a 30 percent chance of serving out his term, whether he’s impeached or removed by the Cabinet invoking the 25th Amendment. That prospect seemed to become more likely in early December when special counsel Robert Mueller secured a plea deal from former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
However, according to a source who works with Bannon, CNN political reporter Rebecca Berg tweeted that “Steve Bannon is 100% not running for president.”
Matt Lauer Replaced by Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie on Today Show
The womanizing Matt Lauer has been officially replaced by Hoda Kotb alongside Savannah Guthrie at the NBC Today show anchor desk, reports The Daily Mail. Listen to how they made the announcement yesterday morning.
Guthrie: “Welcome to Today. It’s 2018 and we are kicking off the year right because Hoda is officially the co-anchor of Today. This has to be the most popular decision NBC News has ever made and I’m so thrilled.”
Kotb: “I am pinching myself. I think we should send some medics to Alexandria, Virginia, where my mom has likely fainted!”
Guthrie: “Hoda, you are a partner and a friend and a sister and I am so happy to be doing this.”
Kotb: “Well, there’s no one I’d rather be sitting next to in 2018.”
Kotb will continue to host the fourth hour of Today alongside Kathie Lee Gifford.
CNN Features Homosexuality and Marijuana Smoking on New Year’s Eve
As part of its annual New Year’s Eve coverage, CNN featured two homosexual men — Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen — who both marveled at the high-flying report from CNN correspondent Randi Kaye aboard the “Canni-bus,” a marijuana bus party in Denver, Colorado where recreational use is legal.
Not only was she inhaling vast quantities of second-hand pot smoke in the limo, but Kaye actually lit the bong of one pot smoker live on television. Journalism appears to have descended even further into the pit.
Special Report on the Church in Nigeria After the Newscast
Now that Nigeria is no longer under the sway of Boko Haram, how is the Nigerian church growing? What did God teach the church under an intense year of persecution?
Stay tuned for a World View Special Report featuring a Nigerian pastor immediately following today’s newscast.
Woman Receives Abortion Pill Reversal and Gives Birth to Healthy Daughter
And finally, Samantha, who already had three sons, was abandoned by the father of her next child in Attleboro, Massachusetts.
That’s why she turned to a chemical abortion pill as an easy way out of her predicament. But, almost as soon as Samantha had taken the first of two chemical abortion pills—which ends a baby’s life in utero ahead of the second and final pill, inducing labor—she changed her mind and reached out to the Abortion Pill Reversal hotline for help, reports Life News. The phone number is 1-877-558-0333.
Through the hotline, Samantha was connected to one of 350 providers in the nationwide Abortion Pill Reversal network trained in a life-saving protocol that starts with an emergency injection of progesterone used since the 1950s to prevent miscarriages.
Here at The World View, we thank God that Samantha ultimately chose life for her daughter born on December 1, 2017 whom she named Giselle. She weighed 6 pounds, 3 ounces and is in perfect health. And we also thank God for the compassionate ministry of Abundant Hope Pregnancy Resource Center which helped ensure Giselle made it.
The words of God about the prophet from Jeremiah 1:5 are just as true for Giselle. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.”
Closing Line
And that’s The World View in 5 Minutes on this Wednesday, January 3rd in the year of our Lord 2018. Subscribe by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldView.com. I’m Adam McManus. Seize the day for Jesus Christ.
Special Report: Nigerian Pastor Explains How the Church Was Strengthened Through Persecution
Time now for a World View Special Report by Emily Swanson. I’m Adam McManus.
By Emily Swanson
Over 700 people were rescued in the past week by the Nigerian military, two of whom were pregnant women.
The World View has spoken to Southern Nigerian Pastor Ani Ekpo several times over the past year. Ekpo addressed whether he believes the situation has changed for Christians who have faced Muslim persecution at the hands of both Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen persecution this past year.
“We are very grateful to God for the past year. You know Boko Haram was very much in location in the North, but in the south there was less of it. And up to this time, we have not any bombs by the Boko Haram this Christmas, and that’s a very good thing.”
He said that earlier in the year the situation was much worse for Christians.
“During the year, it would come as far as open fire in the churches. And they would destroy some farmland.”
Ekpo said that God used the Boko Haram persecution to cause many Christians to think harder about their faith.
“Many people are being made strong. Boko Haram, in the past year, has made many people begin to think, even down in the south. Because last time, like I said, I used it in my preaching, so people are being strengthened in their faith. And in the North I met one pastor who said that his church building had been burned down so many times that he was being to feel bad about it, but the Lord spoke to his heart that they are not burning down the church but a building. That the church is going on and it’s becoming stronger in the midst of the Muslims.”
Ekpo was grateful to report the military is overpowering Boko Haram more and more.
“It’s happening more now, that the military is overpowering Boko Haram. That’s why we have not had even one bomb this Christmas. They do happen every Christmas.”
He told of one situation where the Christians were praising God for this great gift of peace on Christmas.
“They were singing and rejoicing and thanking God. That is happening now, and that is credit to God!”
Ekpo testified that he has seen God’s great faithfulness to the Nigerian Church this year in people coming to Christ even in the midst of persecution.
“We have seen some backsliders come in back to Christ. We have seen many young people around us giving their lives to Christ, beginning their Christian lives.”
Ekpo said that the Lord is really bringing the children into the fold of Jesus Christ, reiterating that God has used the persecution to press pastors back to the Scripture.
“I think especially in Nigeria, it is really helping Christians to solidify their faith and stand firm. (Paraphrase) It has caused many of our pastors to go back to the Bible, to be able to teach their people, because many pastors have seen, ‘What if these people don’t love the Lord?’ Who will be held accountable? Something like that has really helped people to go back to the real faith of Christianity.”
Pastor Ekpo said that he has seen God’s sovereignty in bringing persecution, especially to northern Nigeria.
“We believe that that was sovereign in God’s way to bring this kind of persecution to Nigeria. When I travel to the north I see that Christians are more vibrant, more near the Lord, but here down in the south it’s nominal. So the persecution has come to check the nominalism in Nigeria.”
He asked that American brothers and sisters would pray that Nigerian Christians in the south and north would be more salt and light in this perverse and corrupt generation.
“We think that God has given a reprieve and peace to His church to go on and become more evangelistic because we blame the church that when there was no Boko Haram the Southern Christians could have taken the gospel to the North, but it seems that the church has become so contented and relaxed until this thing happens. And so now that this thing happens; so now that peace is settling in; I think that the church has to mobilize.”
Let’s remember our glorious calling, to serve Christ, whether in peace or in persecution, from Matthew 5:13-16.
“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under the foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
This has been a World View Special Report. I’m Adam McManus.
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Christian Man Tortured in Pakistan
A 44-year-old Christian Pakistani man named Nadeem Samson was picked up illegally by police on November 24, 2017, and transferred to an unknown place where he was brutally tortured, reports the Pakistani Christian Post.
Like many Christians before him, the Muslims did it all in the name of their claim that Samson was guilty of blasphemy against their false prophet Mohammed.
Gunman Murders Two Christian Brothers in Cairo, Egypt
A masked gunman who pulled up on a motorcycle with a rifle killed two Christian brothers at their shop south of Cairo, Egypt on Monday, reports The Christian Post.
That incident took place just days after attacks on a Coptic church and another Christian-owned shop nearby that killed more than 10 people, as the Arab world’s largest Christian minority came under increasing fire leading up to their Orthodox Christmas celebrations north of the remote Sinai Peninsula.
At Least 11 Christians in Iran Given Long Prison Sentences Since June
Despite a false claim by the Armenian-Orthodox Bishop of Tehran, Iran that followers of Jesus Christ are “not being persecuted in any way,” the New York-based Center for Human Rights In Iran reported last year that since June 2017, the Court in Tehran has issued long prison sentences to at least 11 Christian converts and counting.
Bishop Sibo Sarkisian demonstrably refutable assertion flies in the face of the first-hand reporting of Open Doors which ranked Iran as the eighth worst country when it comes to the persecution of Christians in its 2017 World Watch List.
At Least 16 People Killed by Gunmen in Nigeria on New Year’s Eve
But the death toll in Nigeria, Africa was worse.
According to the BBC, at least 16 people were killed as gunmen opened fire at churchgoers returning from a midnight service on New Year’s Eve in Omuku, Nigeria, reports the World Watch Monitor.
The New Year’s Eve fireworks initially made it difficult for people to realize that shots were being fired and people were being killed 85 kilometers from the state capital.
The incident was linked to growing tensions between rival gangs, who demand a greater share of oil revenues.
President Trump Has Had Success Confronting Threats, Though Many Still Persist
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton says President Trump did an excellent job of identifying and confronting the greatest threats to national security in 2017, but warns those threats still persist and Trump will likely have to make a fateful decision in the coming year, reports WorldNetDaily.com.
“Decertifying the Iran nuclear deal and the very tough line he’s taken with respect to North Korea are very important.”
Bolton stresses the decision is not just limited to North Korea. He says failing to check Kim now could have massive worldwide consequences.
Another major accomplishment in recent months is the rout of ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria at the hands of U.S. air power, American coordination on the ground and the fighting of Iraqi and Kurdish forces.
Bolton is dumbfounded at how little coverage this accomplishment gets in the mainstream media. Regardless, he says the impact of the military success is significant.
South Korea Offers to Talk with North Korea
Yesterday, a day after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he was open to negotiations but that his country would push ahead with “mass producing” nuclear warheads, South Korea offered talks with North Korea, reports Reuters.
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that sanctions and other pressures were starting to have a big impact on North Korea, but he withheld judgment on Kim’s offer to talk.
President Trump Bashes Hillary Clinton Aide on Twitter for Disregarding Security
President Donald Trump went after “Crooked” Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin on Tuesday, tweeting that she allegedly disregarded “basic security protocols. She put classified passwords into the hands of foreign agents. Remember sailor’s pictures on the submarine? Jail!” reports Fox News.
Trump was referring to U.S. Navy Sailor Kristian Saucier, who was put in prison for taking unauthorized photos inside a nuclear submarine. He seemed to suggest a double standard is at play, compared with the lack of punishment for Clinton and her aides.
Senator Orrin Hatch Announces Plans to Retire
Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the longest-serving Senate Republican, announced yesterday that he will retire at the end of the year, rebuffing the pleas of President Trump to seek an eighth term and paving the way for Mitt Romney, a critic of Mr. Trump’s, to run for the seat, reports the New York Times.
No Airline Accident Deaths Reported in 2017
Airlines recorded zero accident deaths in commercial passenger jets in 2017, making it the safest year in history for passengers around the world, reports The Aviation Safety Network.
Praise God for His protection!
Freezing Temperatures and Wind Chill Hit Over Half the U.S.
The National Weather Service issued wind chill advisories from Texas to New England yesterday, reports TheWeek.com. Temperatures in more than half of the U.S. won’t get up to 32 degrees.
Target About to Be Bought Out by Amazon
Amazon.com is set to purchase the troubled Target Corp., following their purchase last year of Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion.
Loup Venture co-founder Gene Munster said that “Target is the ideal offline partner for Amazon for two reasons, shared demographic and manageable but comprehensive store count.”
Vocal Opponent of Assisted Suicide, J.J. Hanson, Dies of Brain Cancer
J.J. Hanson, a 36-year-old vocal opponent of assisted suicide, died on December 30th, more than three years after receiving a terminal diagnosis for brain cancer, reports World Magazine.
Hanson’s cancer, glioblastoma, was the same aggressive type that has afflicted Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona. When the cancer first struck, Hanson had a seizure that took his ability to walk, talk, read, and write. He slowly taught himself to do all those things again, and over the last two years walked the halls of state legislatures with ferocity and a binder of data about assisted suicide under his arm.
After receiving a four-month prognosis in 2014, Hanson pursued experimental treatments, including immunotherapy, that prolonged his life and allowed him to become a powerful and successful voice against the legalization of assisted suicide.
Hanson made several arguments to legislators against legalizing assisted suicide.
First, the practice would target the disabled and the poor, who would feel heavier financial and social pressure to end their lives and unburden their families.
Second, Hanson argued that the practice would normalize suicide in general—and indeed, suicide rates are on the rise in the United States, and might be one factor behind the recent decline in U.S. life expectancy.
Third, he argued that doctors would struggle to find cures for cancers like glioblastoma if patients never tried treatments or entered clinical trials, as he did. The pool of patients who can participate in glioblastoma trials is already very small because those patients often don’t live long.
Fourth, Hanson described his own low moments during his treatments, when he felt depressed enough that he could imagine taking a fatal drug. Under assisted suicide laws, doctors prescribe fatal drugs to terminal patients, which the patients then take themselves at a time of their choosing. Hanson felt it would be easy to succumb at the nadir of sickness.
He is survived by his wife, Kristen, and two sons, a 4-year-old and a 6-month-old.
PetSmart Groomer Mauled by Pit Bull
A GoFundMe site has been set up to help finance the recovery of a Petsmart employee who suffered grisly injuries during an attack by a pit bull earlier this week, reports WorldNetDaily.com.
Sienna Bryden, 22, was mauled by the animal Wednesday while working as a pet groomer at the store’s Hyannis branch in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Barnstable police said, “While the dog was being moved, for no apparent reason and without warning, the dog attacked the victim and would not let go of her arm.”
The result were horrific wounds to Bryden’s arms, wrist and torso which included extensive tearing of the flesh, possible broken bones and a suspected dislocated shoulder. Major surgeries were required.
The owner of the dog had brought the animal in with a muzzle, but described it as “sweet as can be.” The owner claimed the dog was wearing a muzzle because it had previously attacked another dog, but did not disclose that it had, in fact, mauled a 62-year-old Forestdale woman and shredded her left hand in September.
The dog, Bubba, was voluntarily surrendered by his owners, and euthanized last Thursday.
Britain Threatens to Increase Taxes on Google and Facebook Unless They Take Down Terrorist Content
Britain may impose new taxes on tech giants like Google and Facebook unless they do more to combat online extremism by taking down material aimed at radicalizing people or helping them to prepare attacks, the security minister said on Sunday, reports The Sunday Times.
Facebook said it removed 83 percent of uploaded copies of terrorist content within one hour of its being found on the social media network. It also highlighted plans to double the number of people working in its safety and security teams to 20,000 by the end of 2018.
Man Behind Nigerian Prince Email Scam Identified and Charged with Fraud
No doubt you’ve received an unsolicited spam email that claims that a generous Nigerian prince has somehow selected you as one of a handful of beneficiaries in his will. All you need to do is divulge your personal information, possibly including your driver’s license number and Social Security number, to his designated representative.
According to WGNO, a 67-year-old Slidell, Louisiana man named Michael Neu is neither a “Nigerian prince” nor his representative. The scheme has netted millions of dollars each year. Thankfully, after an 18-month investigation, Neu has been charged with 269 counts of wire fraud and money laundering.
January 1st Was the 266th Anniversary of the Birth of Betsy Ross
A 3-cent stamp honoring Betsy Ross was issued in Philadelphia on January 2, 1952, commemorating the 200th anniversary of her birth. Born a day earlier, Jan. 1, 1752, to a Quaker family in Philadelphia, Betsy was the eighth of 17 children, writes Bill Federer for WorldNetDaily.com.
Betsy apprenticed as a seamstress and fell in love with upholsterer John Ross, son of an Episcopal rector at Christ Church and nephew of Declaration signer, George Ross.
As Quakers forbade interdenominational marriage, John and Betsy eloped, being married by the last colonial governor of New Jersey William Franklin, the son of Ben Franklin.
The Ross’ pew, number 12, was next to a column adjoining George Washington’s pew number 56 and not far from Ben Franklin’s pew number 70.