Situations in Need of Prayer: Lots to Report
Pestilence: There’s strong evidence that the Enterovirus D68 virus which causes fever, cough and runny noses is linked to paralysis in children in the US, Canada and Europe. This has baffled scientists, and there’s no cure. The flu this year is killing people of all ages and is still raging.
Famine: In North Korea under Socialist dictator, Kim Jong Un, hungry soldiers are raiding starving people’s fields and homes for what food they can find. Yet NBC’s Lester Holt boasted on film at a ski resort full of people in N. Korea that they’re happy and prosperous, not starving – propaganda stunts by N. Korea—and NBC.
Terrorism: Barnes & Noble, for a long time offered al-Qaeda bomb instructions as a free download on its website, only taking it down after being exposed; yet during that time when Jihad Watch, a site against terrorism, applied to sell their books, they were refused. A suicide bomb in Kabul, Afghanistan has killed over 100 and wounded 235. Last week their hotel was attacked, killing over 30 and wounding many.
War/Rumors of Wars: The US Air Force is launching its largest ever 3-week air war drills, starting Friday and concluding Feb. 16.
In Isaiah 17 and Ezekiel 38/39 news: The Israeli Ambassador warned the UN Security Council that Iran has 82,000 fighters in Syria, attempting to transform it into the largest military base in the world. “We are releasing this classified information because it is vital for the world to understand that if we turn a blind eye in Syria, the Iranian threat will only grow,” Danon told the Council.
Turkey’s troops are wreaking havoc in Syria, causing Syrians to flee. Erdogan is determined to quash Kurdish forces there, who are successfully fighting ISIS, which is still not completely defeated. This is creating tensions with the US, who, because of this has resumed its presence there.
People are wondering what’s really going on regarding the false missile alert in the liberal state of Hawaii and then Japan several days later. These are not buttons, but computers with failsafe procedures to prevent this. Could it be a false flag? Mainstream media rushed to claim it’s Trump’s fault for Kim Jong Un’s behavior. However, Un has long been allowed to get to the point where he is now of endangering the world.
Fire: In South Korea, over 40 people are dead, over 150 injured in a hospital fire. The six-story hospital didn’t have a sprinkler system and wasn’t considered large enough to require one by law. Just weeks ago a fire killed 29 people at a fitness center there.
Natural Disasters: There were strong earthquakes this week off the coast of Alaska, Japan, Indonesia and California (which is also having many smaller quakes). A sudden volcano explosion in Japan caused an avalanche, killing one and injuring 16. The Philippines volcano continues to pose danger, with 50,000+ people in shelters. Now it’s feared that mudslides caused by heavy rains will bury communities.
California is in danger of more wildfires starting up due to high winds. Riverside homes and businesses in Paris are on high alert, as the swollen River Seine has already caused flooding and may cause more. Also, an unusual amount of rainfall in central Israel caused serious flooding in major cities. In Capetown, South Africa which is surrounded by ocean, three years of drought has devastated water supplies. Taps are within several weeks of running dry.
Lawlessness and Violence by Parents and Children: A mother of five adopted children in Iowa was found guilty of starving three of the teens, whom she locked in a bedroom for months with no furniture, little food and no access to a bathroom. They escaped from time to time through a window to seek food from neighbors, who reported this to child welfare, as did school officials concerned about the 16-year-old. Yet child welfare did not remove the children. The 16-year-old who weighed 85 pounds died of cardiac arrest, lying in feces on the linoleum floor of the bedroom.
At Butler Intermediate School in Pennsylvania, three students aged 13 and 14 planned an attack on another student, knowing she was severely allergic to pineapple. The school doesn’t allow pineapple for that very reason. A student rubbed pineapple on her hand and deliberately high-fived the allergic classmate, sending her to the hospital.
We’ve all heard of the school shootings this week. In Kentucky, a 15-year-old shot and killed two students and wounded 18. State lawmakers want school districts to appoint campus staff members as armed guards. In Texas, a 16-year-old student shot a girl multiple times that broke up with him; she survived. He fired at the boy near her, but missed. The shooter had been removed for previous incidences of violence, but was allowed back. In New Orleans, someone in a vehicle fired at a crowd of students; no one was injured. Parents must lock up guns even if their children are mid-teens and older and they think theirs would never do such a thing. The main problem is spiritual in these last days.
In Arizona, a Mexican ex-police officer (in the country illegally as it turned out) was speeding and caused his car to crash. As a trooper who stopped to help was setting out flares, the man said something in Spanish then shot him, and then tried to beat him to death. A motorist shot the man to incapacitate him when he refused to stop beating the trooper. As the motorist tended to the trooper, the man resumed beating him, forcing the motorist to fatally shoot him. The trooper is still alive, thanks to the motorist, but suffered multiple injuries. The passenger in the car wreck later died of her injuries.
Big Brother: AT&T is arguing for a fairer standard to replace the Obama Administration’s George Soros-backed “net neutrality” rules that the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal. They say Net neutrality should also include Google, Twitter and Facebook (who censor the net, especially conservatives), and not just limit Internet Service Providers (ISP) whose major function is to connect users to the Internet.
The East German secret police agency, the Stasi, one of the most reviled and feared institutions of its Communist government, is back, “in spirit.” A new oppressive law requires social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to censor users on behalf of the government.
Persecution of Christians: In North Korea, Christian parents keep their faith a secret from their children due to fear, waiting till they’re grown to tell them. Atheists in the US are suing chief of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson, due to his weekly Cabinet-level Bible studies. The Satanic Temple in Missouri is suing over a law requiring women seeking abortions to receive a booklet that says life begins at conception. The Satanists complain that it promotes Christian beliefs.
Immorality: There was little to no mention by mainstream media of the pro-life march, yet praise and much coverage of the other where there were vagina costumes, nasty drawings with the P-word, and F-words signs (a child old enough to read was seen holding an F-word sign). Town Hall reported: “Truth is always a threat to liberalism…The Women’s March, led by Muslim Linda Sarsour, who “praises and promotes” the most oppressive form of patriarchy humanity has ever known—Islamic Sharia, had wall-to-wall front-page coverage…oh, the irony!”
A German children’s channel for ages 3 to 13 encouraged child marriage between an adult migrant and a naïve German teen girl. Then they aired a segment showing three young migrant boys how to open a bra. You would think they’d be tired of all the migrant rapes and murders. Germany ought to consider removing the original “Seat of Satan” altar and the “Ishtar Gate of Babylon” which they moved there in pieces a century ago, reconstructing them and placing them in their Pergamon Museum.
Apostasy: At a rapidly growing number of proudly “gay-friendly” Catholic parishes, same-sex couples exercise leadership roles and receive Communion with encouragement from priests. The LGBT agenda is also being promoted at Catholic schools and colleges. As we know, the same can be said of some mainstream Protestant churches and also in preschools through college.
At United Church of Canada, “minister” Greta Vosper is a self-proclaimed atheist. The spokesperson said: “We’ve moved away from language that references God to create an environment without barriers…Services are themed around love, justice, compassion, care, responsibility and living in a right relationship with ourselves.” The committee mostly agreed she wasn’t fit to be the minister, but atheists and agnostics in the congregation support her.
Love and compassion? Without the Truth of God’s Word, it is neither.
“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Tim. 4:1-2).
Jude 1 in the Bible speaks of such times as these with complainers and mockers walking according to their own lusts, using swelling or flattering words to gain advantage, and those who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality, denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. It tells us to witness to others, showing compassion to some, while with others do so with fear, lest we get involved in the sin that infects their lives. www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jude+1&version=KJV