Some see God’s divine intervention in an earthquake that struck southern Syria and Lebanon on the very day an attack by Iran and Hezbollah against Israel was anticipated.

Israel has been bracing for an attack by Iran and its proxy Hezbollah ever since the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran on July 31.

“Although the strike on Haniyeh was widely assumed to have been carried out by Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government made no claim of responsibility and said it would make no comment on the killing,” Reuters reported.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Israel to expect “harsh punishment.”

Some have felt the delay in a response may have been because the Islamic State wanted to wait for the Tisha B’Av, or the 9th of Av on the Jewish lunar calendar, which began on Monday evening and continued until nightfall on Tuesday.

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However, the Associated Press reported that a 5.5 magnitude earthquake struck the city of Hama at 11:56 p.m. local time Monday night. The official Syria state news outlet said it was a 4.8 magnitude quake. Aftershocks continued into Tuesday morning.

“In Damascus and Beirut — the capital of neighboring Lebanon, where the earthquake was also felt—residents descended to the streets fearing a stronger quake that would collapse buildings,” according to the AP.

Duvi Honig, CEO of the Jewish Chamber of Commerce, authored an opinion piece for the Jerusalem Post, titled, “Heaven Sent: Is Lebanon’s Earthquake a Testament to Divine Protection?”

“In our collective memory, Tisha B’Av has always been a solemn day, marked by the destruction of the First and Second Temples. This year, however, the day bore witness to what many of us view as a modern-day miracle—a testament to divine intervention that could not have come at a more crucial time,” he wrote.

Dallas Theological Seminary professor Mark Hitchcock, explained on his weekly podcast “Marking the End Times” on Aug. 15, that the 9th of Av, which usually falls in early August on the Gregorian solar calendar, is the date Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. and the second temple was demolished by the Romans in A.D. 70.

So God was showing that His hand was behind the destruction to send a message to the Jewish people He was punishing them for their disobedience, Hitchcock said.

Later in 1492, on the 9th of Av, the Spanish king expelled the Jews from his realm, a place where they had been flourishing for over a thousand years.

Honig wrote in the Post that the earthquake that struck Lebanon and Syria, where Hezbollah is based, flipped the script on what Tisha B’Av has traditionally commemorated.

“It may have served as an unanticipated yet divine act that thwarted a grave threat against the Jewish nation,” he argued.

“Hezbollah, an established proxy of Iran, had been preparing to launch an attack on Israel—a direct affront planned deliberately for Tisha B’Av. Many of the group’s underground tunnels, teeming with armaments, may have been reduced to rubble by an act of God to protect His children, which could effectively halt Hezbollah’s nefarious plan before it could materialize,” Honig wrote.

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“It is hard to perceive it as mere coincidence that the earth shook on the very day Hezbollah had intended to send Israel into mourning once more. With tunnels collapsing and their arsenals buried, what could have been a devastating assault turned into a day of bewildering relief and gratitude,” he said.

Honig concluded, “Tisha B’Av, usually a day of sorrow and reflection, was transformed into a moment where we could see the hand of God in action, turning our potential despair into potential reassurance.”

Hitchcock agreed saying the timing of the earthquake likely encouraged Israelis and gave Hezbollah pause.

He saw it as an example of God, who is often operating behind the scenes in a less obvious way, showing His hand more openly.

“One thing is sure in all of this: God is in control of the time table and the scope of any attack by Iran and Hezbollah against Israel,” Hitchcock said.

The Bible teaches that Iran will be involved in a major end-times battle against Israel.

Persia (modern day Iran) is specifically named as a nation that will attack Israel in the battle of Gog and Magog, which will include a coalition of other countries thought to include present-day Russia and Turkey, among others. Both countries have come into alignment with Tehran in recent years.

Hitchcock exhorted, “We have to remember that whatever happens in the Middle East and in fact whatever happens in our lives, God has the last word.”

This article originally appeared on The Western Journal, and is reposted with permission.

Randy DeSoto has written more than 3,000 articles for The Western Journal since he began with the company in 2015. He is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book “We Hold These Truths” and screenwriter of the political documentary “I Want Your Money.”

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She should have just kept her mouth shut about the economy. I know that sounds harsh, but it is true.

The best chance that Kamala Harris had of winning was to stand for nothing. I am being completely serious. For the first few weeks of her campaign, she was being showered with positive coverage by the mainstream media even though she had not come forward with any serious policy proposals. She could have probably continued doing that all the way to election day in November, but now she has ruined her campaign by telling us what she actually plans to do if she becomes president. As you will see below, even the mainstream media hates her economic plan.

Right now, 59% of Americans believe that we are already in a recession. Most of us detest what has happened to the economy, and so Harris should not be talking about this if she plans to win. Unfortunately for her, that is precisely what she has been doing. For example, she uttered a soundbite during one recent speech that will be played millions of times between now and election day.

“A loaf of bread costs 50% more today than before the pandemic. Ground beef is up almost 50%.”

Why would she say something like this? Does she actually want people not to vote for her?

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Now that the government has created the cost of living crisis, Harris plans to fix it by imposing price controls. Needless to say, that idea went over like a dud.

Harris announced Wednesday that she would institute a “federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries” as president in an attempt to stop “big corporations” from taking advantage of consumers, and outlets like the Washington Post, CNN and Newsweek published reports shredding the idea.

“Whether the Harris proposal wins over voters remains to be seen, but if sound economic analysis still matters, it won’t,” the liberal-leaning Washington Post editorial board wrote on Friday.

The Washington Post editorial board actually compared her plan to the failed price controls that President Nixon imposed in the 1970s.

The Post’s editorial board took Harris to task on the idea, stating it’s not even clear what her plan is. “Ms. Harris says she’ll target companies that make ‘excessive’ profits, whatever that means.” It also expressed relief that the plan was getting pummeled out of the gate.

“Thankfully, this gambit by Ms. Harris has been met with almost instant skepticism, with many critics citing President Richard M. Nixon’s failed price controls from the 1970s.”

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In a different piece, a Washington Post columnist named Catherine Rampell stated that it is “hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is.”

It’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is. It is, in all but name, a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food. Supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels. Some far-off Washington bureaucrats would. The FTC would be able to tell, say, a Kroger in Ohio the acceptable price it can charge for milk.

At best this would lead to shortages, black markets and hoarding, among other distortions seen previous times countries tried to limit price growth by fiat. (There’s a reason narrower “price gouging” laws that exist in some U.S. states are rarely invoked.) At worst, it might accidentally raise prices.

And to close out her article, Rampell actually suggested that Harris is acting like a “communist.”

If your opponent claims you’re a “communist,” maybe don’t start with an economic agenda that can (accurately) be labeled as federal price controls.

This is the Washington Post! I can’t remember the last time the Washington Post criticized a Democratic candidate for president this harshly.

Harris is not a serious candidate, and so she should stop trying to be one. Just smile and wave at the cameras. A lot of voters will like that. There is no way that Harris is going to win over voters with her ideas, because her ideas are terrible.

On Saturday, Elon Musk retweeted an outstanding post by Robert Sterling that summarizes what widespread price controls would do to our food industry. Because Sterling’s social media post is so good, I have reproduced the entire thing below.

1. The government announces that grocery retailers aren’t allowed to raise prices.
2. Grocery stores, which operate on 1-2% net margins, can’t survive if their suppliers raise prices. So the government announces that food producers (Kraft Heinz, ConAgra, Tyson, Hormel, et. al.) also aren’t allowed to raise prices.
3. Not all grocery stores are created equal. Stores in lower-income areas make less money than those in higher-income areas, as the former disproportionately sell lower-margin prepackaged foods (“center of the store”) instead of higher-margin fresh products like meat (“perimeter of the store”). Because stores in lower-income areas aren’t able to cover overhead (remember, even if their wholesale costs are fixed, their labor, utilities, insurance, and other operating expenses aren’t fixed… yet), grocery chains start to shut them down. Food deserts in rural areas and in low-income urban areas alike become worse.
4. Meanwhile, margins for food producers are also quickly eroding. Their primary costs (ingredients, energy, and labor) aren’t fixed, and their shrinking gross profits leave less cash flow available to cover overhead, maintain facilities, and reinvest in additional production capacity.
5. Grocery chains, which have finite shelf space, start to repurpose their stores (those they didn’t have to shut down, I should say) to sell more non-price-controlled items—everything from nutrition supplements to kitchenware to apparel—and less price-controlled food products. Your local Kroger or Safeway starts to look and feel more like a Walmart.
6. Food producers stop making products with lower margins. Grocery chain start competing with each other to secure inventory. Since they can’t compete by offering stronger prices (remember, producers aren’t allowed to raise prices here, and, even if they could, grocery chains no longer have the gross profit to bear price increases), they compete on things like payment terms.
7. Small grocery chains start to shut down entirely, or get sold to larger chains like Kroger. In addition to not being able to cover fixed costs, a major reason for this is because they can no longer reliably secure delivery of products, due to producers prioritizing sales to larger customers, which are able to leverage their stronger balance sheets to offer superior payment terms.
8. Smaller food producers—which typically sell via distributors, rather than directly to grocery chains—start to go out of business. Because these producers have an additional step their value chains, and because they have lower volumes over which to spread their fixed costs, their cost structure is inherently disadvantaged compared to major food producers. When grocery stores aren’t able to raise prices, cutting product costs becomes all the more important, and deprioritizing purchases from smaller producers is an easy way to do so.
9. As supply chains break down, lines start to form outside grocery stores every morning. Cities assign police officers to patrol store parking lots, and food producers draft contingency plans to assign armed escorts to delivery trucks.
10. The federal government announces a program to issue block grants for states to purchase and operate shuttered grocery stores. The USDA also seizes closed-down production facilities.
11. The government announces that prices for all key food costs—corn, wheat, cattle, energy, etc.—are also now fixed, to stop “profiteers” from gouging the now-government-operated food industry.
12. Shockingly, the government struggles to operate one of the most complex industries on the planet. The entire food supply chain starts imploding.
13. Communism, mass starvation, and the end of America quickly ensue.

I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

Harris also wants to distort the housing market with all sorts of crazy government interference. The following comes from CNN…

• Up to $25,000 in down-payment support for first-time homebuyers.
• To provide a $10,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers.
• Tax incentives for builders that build starter homes sold to first-time buyers.
• An expansion of a tax incentive for building affordable rental housing.
• A new $40 billion innovation fund to spur innovative housing construction.
• To repurpose some federal land for affordable housing.
• A ban on algorithm-driven price-setting tools for landlords to set rents.
• To remove tax benefits for investors who buy large numbers of single-family rental homes.

All of that sounds expensive.

Harris also wants to cut taxes for lower-income workers and families with children.

Harris’ campaign said Friday morning that she’s in favor of permanently expanding the Child Tax Credit to up to $3,600 per child and cutting taxes for lower-income workers without children by $1,500. Families with newborns would be eligible for a $6,000 tax credit under the Harris plan.

This is one thing that Harris is being widely praised for, because everybody likes lower taxes. Copying Donald Trump’s idea, Harris is proposing that there should be no tax on tips. She is also promising to pay off student loan debt and some medical bills.

Basically, she is promising lots and lots of freebies. But how in the world is she going to pay for all of this? We are already 35 trillion dollars in debt.

Needless to say, Harris never intends to actually implement most of this stuff. Back in 2021, the Biden administration promised to construct 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations. So far, the grand total that they have actually built is just eight.

As WaPo reported, Biden-Harris has long vowed to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations in the United States by 2030.

In 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act included $7.5 billion to build 500,000 public charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs) nationwide. This was an effort to encourage people to switch to clean energy, as they wrote rules to force them to switch.

As Reason reported in December, not one charger funded by the program had yet come online. Six months later, the number of functional charging stations ticked to eight.

Politicians make all sorts of promises, but delivering on them is another matter entirely.

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Are U.S. voters buying what Kamala Harris is selling? According to the latest numbers from Rasmussen, Donald Trump still has a narrow lead.

Former President Donald Trump continues to lead Vice President Kamala Harris, although the Democrat has slightly narrowed the margin.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that, in a two-way matchup, 49% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for Trump, while 45% would vote for Harris. Three percent (3%) say they’d vote for some other candidate and two percent (2%) are undecided. These findings are just slightly changed from a week ago, when Trump led by five points, with 49% to Harris’s 44%.

This has already been such a chaotic election season, and I am expecting much more chaos during the months ahead.

It appears that this is a race that is going to go down to the wire, and at this point both sides are fully expecting to win.

If Kamala Harris ultimately loses, it is going to feel like the end of the world for many on the left, and we will witness a temper tantrum of absolutely epic proportions.

Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on , and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at .

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Get ready for four bright celestial events in the coming months as the season of the supermoons kicks off next week. It’s a quartet of supermoons that includes a partial lunar eclipse, coming during a year where the U.S. already paused to mark a rare solar eclipse.

Earth’s constant companion will put on a show, growing brighter and brighter starting Monday as it draws closer to our planet than normal.

According to NASA, the August full moon is a supermoon – and in this case, it’s a “Blue Moon”. It happens on August 19 at 2:26 PM EDT. At that point, the Moon will be 224,917 miles away from us.

The Moon will appear full for three days, from Sunday morning through early Wednesday morning.

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“The first recorded use of ‘Blue Moon’ in English dates from 1528. Speculations on the origin of the term include an old English phrase that means ‘betrayer Moon’ (because it led to mistakes in setting the dates for Lent and Easter). Or it may be a comparison to rare events such as when dust in the atmosphere makes the Moon actually appear blue,” NASA explains.

Then the string of lunar spectacles extends to September when a supermoon will coincide with a partial lunar eclipse. The Moon will be nearly 3,000 miles closer to Earth the night of September 17.

During that September supermoon, you’ll be able to see the mini-eclipse in much of the Americas, Africa, and Europe. Earth’s shadow will cover part of the Moon, looking like someone took a small bite from a round cookie.

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Then, in October, the Moon will appear to be bigger and brighter than at any other time this year. It will be 222,055 miles from Earth.

The supermoon spectacle concludes with one more appearance in November, shortly after the presidential election.

These events occur on schedule due to the Moon’s shifting, oval-shaped orbit. For some skywatchers, you might only see the moon as an ordinary-sized full moon. But it will be closer than normal.

It’s actually more about the brightness of the moon than a major increase in the visible size – a supermoon can be 30% brighter than average.

To read the full story, visit our content partners at CBN News.

Reprinted with permission from . Copyright © 2024 The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. All rights reserved.

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Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo is behind bars for something many do every day: he posted on Facebook.

Abdo, a Yemini asylum seeker, has been in prison for two-and-a-half years because — after converting from Islam to Christianity — he began discussing theological matters in a private Facebook group with other recent converts to Christianity.

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This week, the Alliance Defending Freedom International, the religious liberty advocacy group representing Abdo, announced the persecuted believer has declared a hunger strike in a recent letter sent to his wife and family.

Abdo was reportedly arrested by Egyptian authorities in 2021 for participating in a Facebook group, answering questions for and fostering conversations with people who had converted from Islam to Christianity. All of this happened as Abdo was living in Egypt after registering with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as an asylum seeker who fled Yemen after becoming a Christian.

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The bogus charges the 54-year-old believer is facing, according to Amnesty International, include “joining a terrorist group” and “defamation of the Islamic religion.”

In the letter, originally written in Arabic before being translated into English by ADF, Abdo expressed how much he loves and misses his wife and family, writing, “I pray to God that he will protect you and make you successful in all your situation[s] of your life. And my prayer is that God will unite us together soon.”

He went on to inform his loved ones that he has started a hunger strike over the persecution he’s facing.

To read the full story, visit our content partners at Faithwire.

Reprinted with permission from . Copyright © 2024 The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. All rights reserved.

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This article by S.A. McCarthy was originally published by Harbinger’s Daily (), and is republished here with their permission. Please see Harbinger’s Daily Editor’s Note. 

Mainstream media outlets have been running cover for Democrats for years, but now a top Democrat is faking endorsements from prolific newspapers and networks. According to multiple reports, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign has been editing Google Ads to give the impression that major media outlets are endorsing or supporting her policies and presidential campaign. The Harris campaign has attached its ads to news sources which appear in Google searches and edited the attached text to make it appear as though the targeted news sources are supporting the Harris campaign, although once the links are clicked, they redirect internet users to the original news articles.

Axios reported that “the ads mimic real news results from [Google] Search closely enough that they have news outlets caught off guard.” It further noted, “The ads say that they are sponsored, but it’s not immediately clear that the text that accompanies real news links is written by the campaigns and not by the media publication itself.”

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Media bias watchdog group AllSides reported, “The Harris ads masquerade as news articles [with] a clear pro-Harris slant. The Harris campaign has changed the actual headlines and preview text to make it appear the news outlet is explicitly supporting her candidacy.” AllSides added, “Beguiling voters with fake endorsements from major news sources seems to be a new political campaign tactic. Keep an eye out for the ‘Sponsored’ label on Google search results to avoid being misled.”

Axios found that nearly a dozen news organizations have been co-opted for the Harris campaign via Google ads, including major outlets like the Associated Press, USA Today, The Guardian, The Independent, Time Magazine, NPR, PBS, CNN, CBS News, and others. A spokesman for The Guardian said, “While we understand why an organization might wish to align itself with the Guardian’s trusted brand, we need to ensure it is being used appropriately and with our permission. We’ll be reaching out to Google for more information about this practice.” Other targeted news organizations have responded similarly, saying that they were unaware that their news articles, logos, and brands were being used by the Harris campaign in that way.

The Harris campaign is reportedly not breaking Google’s rules and such ploys have been used in political advertising in the past, but both Axios and media bias watchdog AllSides noted that former President Donald Trump’s campaign is not running similar ads. Harris, on the other hand, has spent at least $750,000 on Google Ads just in the month of August, mostly targeting swing states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona.

Although Google says that its rules are not being broken by the Harris campaign, the tech giant has a long history of election interference. A recent report revealed that Google has “interfered” in elections over 40 times since 2008. Google worked closely with then-Senator Barack Obama to assist his presidential campaign and, later, his reelection. In 2016, Google rigged its programs to hide search results related to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s crimes. For example, autocomplete would correct searches for “Hillary Clinton indictment” to “Hillary Clinton Indiana,” and searches for “Hillary Clinton crime” to “Hillary Clinton crime reform.” Google also earned a reputation for overrepresenting news outlets ranked by independent watchdog agencies as left-wing or left-leaning, ensuring that the majority of search results came from left-wing sources, while conservative news sources became increasingly rare.

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In 2020, multiple Google executives admitted that the tech giant was actively attempting to “prevent” Trump’s reelection. Google executives hand-picked news results to promote in searches, often suppressing or hiding factually accurate reports that did not align with the corporation’s editorial designs. Websites like the Daily Caller, The Christian Post and [others] were blocked from appearing in search results on Google apps, while websites like Breitbart News, Human Events, The Federalist and Gateway Pundit were blocked from Google search results regardless of the app or platform used to access Google. The corporation also marked campaign ads and emails from Republican candidates as spam, reportedly blocking over 22 million emails from the Republican National Committee.

Over the past four years, Google has also suppressed the campaign websites of Republican candidates, increased the percentage of search results that come from news or opinion sources with a left-wing bias, and trained its artificial intelligence programs to disparage Republican candidates for office (including Trump) and promote Democrats.

More recently, Google drew criticism for seemingly blocking news of the assassination attempt against Trump from appearing in autocomplete in searches. It wasn’t even weeks after the former President had been shot in the head that Google’s autocomplete returned any results for “Trump assassination attempt.”

Please see Harbinger’s Daily Editor’s Note.

Editor’s Note: Why Is This News Biblically Relevant?

Christian author David Fiorazo, during the last election cycle, highlighted studies which overwhelmingly found that Americans believe corruption and bias from mainstream media, Google and others is a “danger to democracy.”

“For decades, Americans’ distrust of the media has constantly fallen along party lines. Why? I often suggest the root of the problem is the one-party big-tech media conglomerate,” he explained. “Democrats own all major purveyors of information across the country, they share the same godless worldview, and they overwhelmingly donate to Democrat candidates and liberal causes.”

“What we do know is the leftists in big tech, social media and mainstream media are doing their best to control information to help Democrats,” Fiorazo, host of Worldview Matters, warned. “This is another reason why we need more true conservatives and people of faith must flood the polls… and vote biblical values!”

“Our nation is in decline and the church must have a sense of urgency!” he urged. “We are in desperate need of another awakening. The great Charles G. Finney (1792-1875) once declared: ‘The time has come that Christians must vote for honest men, and take consistent ground in politics or the Lord will curse them… Christians have been exceedingly guilty in this matter. But the time has come when they must act differently… God will bless or curse this nation, according to the course Christians take.’”

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The annual conference put on by Gateway Church, Gateway Conference has officially been canceled.

As the fallout from the shocking revelation of former lead pastor and founder Robert Morris’ sexual abuse of Cindy Clemishire, who was 12 years old at the start of the abuse, the Conference leadership explained in a public statement why they felt it was in the best interest of everyone to cancel.

“We want to let you know that after much prayer and consideration, we have decided not to hold Gateway Conference in 2024. Our congregation and staff are in the midst of navigating Robert Morris’ resignation and the emotions surrounding it. We are deeply sorry for the pain this situation caused the survivor, other survivors of abuse, and the Church at large.

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“As we seek to navigate this season in a healthy way and in a manner that promotes healing for everyone affected, we believe it best to not hold Gateway Conference this year. We are sincerely sorry for any inconvenience or disappointment this causes. For those who have already registered, we will be issuing full refunds on the tickets.

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“We are overwhelmed by the love and support we’ve received from many of you for our congregation, volunteers, and staff who serve this church. Thank you for your partnership and support through this season, and thank you for your love and prayers.”

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With Gateway Church still reeling from the ordeal, interim teaching pastor Max Lucado has stepped in to help guide and right the ship of the Dallas-area congregation and bring about healing and restoration to the community.

“My desire is simply this — love God’s hurting people. I see this as an opportunity to do just that,” Lucado previously stated.

Pastor Joakim Lundqvist has also temporarily joined with Gateway to help in a pastoral role for those still on staff at the megachurch while also occasionally giving sermons.

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James Lasher is Staff Writer for Charisma Media.

Are we not supposed to notice that something big is going on?

Literally just one day after the World Health Organization classified the monkeypox outbreak in central Africa as a “public health emergency of international concern,” a confirmed case of the new mutant strain of monkeypox was confirmed in Sweden. Did the WHO know about this case before they made their announcement? Somebody really needs to be asking that question. And as you will see below, one expert is now telling us that there are “almost certainly” cases in the UK already. Will we soon see cases of the new mutant strain of monkeypox popping up all over the world?

Whenever I write about anything, there are people out there that get upset. This seems to be particularly true when I write about diseases. After what we have been through in recent years, there are a lot of people that never want to hear the word “pandemic” ever again. I can definitely understand that. But I am not here to write what people want to hear and make them feel all warm and fuzzy. In Matthew 24, Jesus specifically told us that there would be multiple “pestilences” in the days just before His return. Is Jesus a liar? Of course not. At this point, we simply do not know if monkeypox is one of the “pestilences” that Jesus warned us about, but I think that it is worth watching because the World Health Organization is certainly making a big deal out of it.

One day after this new mutant strain of monkeypox was designated as a “public health emergency of international concern” by the World Health Organization, we received shocking news that a case had been confirmed in Sweden.

Sweden on Thursday announced the first case outside Africa of the more dangerous variant of mpox, which the WHO has declared a global public health emergency.

The country’s public health agency confirmed to AFP that it was the same strain of the virus that has surged in the Democratic Republic of Congo since September 2023, known as the Clade 1b subclade.

I didn’t expect to see a case in Europe so soon. In fact, I was hoping that I wouldn’t be writing about Monkeypox for quite some time. But now that this new strain is on the loose, it could become an enormous global story.

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We are being told that the infected person in Sweden had recently been to an area in Africa where this new strain is spreading.

The person was infected during a visit to “the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of mpox clade I,” state epidemiologist Magnus Gisslen said in the statement.

The patient “has received care,” Gisslen said. The agency added that Sweden “has a preparedness to diagnose, isolate and treat people with mpox safely.”

Hopefully they were able to isolate this individual in time. But even if they did, the chapter of the World Health Organization in Europe is expecting that there will be more “imported cases of Clade 1 in the European region over the coming days and weeks.”

WHO/Europe said it was actively engaging with Sweden’s health authorities on “how best to manage the first confirmed case of mpox Clade 1b.”

It urged other countries to act quickly and transparently like Sweden, as there were likely to be further “imported cases of Clade 1 in the European region over the coming days and weeks”.

And an expert in the UK says that he believes that there is “almost certainly” cases of this new strain in the UK right now.

Meanwhile, Microbiologist, Professor Paul Hunter from the University of East Anglia told Times Radio the new variant of MPox is “almost certainly” in the UK already.

When asked about the chances of the disease being in the UK already, he said: “Almost certainly. We saw with the 2022 pandemic of Mpox, with the clade 2, that once it gets into sexual networks, it can spread very rapidly around the world and it’s actually very difficult to control that spread.

“So yeah, I think it’s not surprising that we’ve had a first case in Europe, and I think we’re going to see more. I think we will undoubtedly see cases in the UK over the coming weeks.”

In 2022, monkeypox was primarily being spread through sexual contact.

But now the BBC is reporting that it can be spread by “talking or breathing close to another person.”

Mpox, which was previously known as monkeypox, is transmitted through close contact, such as sex, skin-to-skin contact and talking or breathing close to another person.

That is news to me. I had not heard that you can catch monkeypox by talking to someone. Has something changed?

There is still so much about this new strain that we do not know.

When monkeypox spread all over the globe in 2022, the death rate was very low. But the death rate for this new strain is much, much higher.

The current strain causing concern among scientists is known as clade 1b and kills one in 20 adults. Its fatality rate in children is higher – one in 10. The virus is also believed to cause miscarriages in pregnant women.

The Swedish public health agency said Clade 1 was likely to be linked to “a higher rise of a more severe course of disease and higher mortality.”

Even if you don’t die, if you get infected it may be an experience that you will never forget for the rest of your life.

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When a 35-year-old charity worker named Harun Tulunay got infected, the pain that he experienced was unlike anything he had ever felt before.

His test confirmed he had monkeypox, and only then did lesions often associated with monkeypox begin to appear on his hands, legs and feet. ”My throat was covered,” he said, explaining that the lesion on his nose was bigger and had become infected. “I was scared I would die alone in my hospital room,” he said. “I’d never been in so much pain in my life.”

Another monkeypox victim, 29-year-old Luke Brown, says that nothing that the doctors gave him even dented the pain.

For the next few days, I was in excruciating pain—the worst pain of my life. I’ve been in a car wreck. I’ve had sinus surgery four times. I’ve had wisdom teeth out. I’ve had COVID-19 and mono. I’ve broken my hand, and the pain was nothing like this. Doctors put me on gabapentin [a medication used to treat pain from shingles], and I was also on ibuprofen and acetaminophen, but nothing even dented the pain.

What these people went through is very real.

You definitely do not want this disease.

This new mutant strain has already killed hundreds of people in Africa, and health officials seem to believe that it is probably just a matter of time before it spreads all over the globe.

Once again, I want to stress that I do not know if this is one of the “pestilences” that we should be watching for, but without a doubt we live at a time when great pestilences are coming.

Just like everyone else, I am watching global events and trying to figure things out the best that I can. So let’s watch and see what happens. Over time, it will become clear whether this new strain of monkeypox is a major threat to us or not.

But sticking our heads in the sand and ignoring global events as they spiral out of control isn’t going to do anyone any good.

Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on , and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at .

The Bible’s interwoven narrative is essential to understanding God’s redemptive plan for humanity, but not everyone who goes to church has proper awareness, particularly when it comes to Old Testament stories.

According to newly released data from LifeWay Research, more than one-in-10 (11%) of Protestant churchgoers accidentally offer a New Testament story when asked to share their favorite Old Testament narrative, showcasing a notable level of confusion among some believers.

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In addition to that statistic, 7% offer no story and 3% simply don’t know.

This accounts for a relatively sizable percentage of people who are in churches yet remain unfamiliar with how the Bible is divided, presented, and intertwined.

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“While churchgoers may open a Bible at church, at least 1-in-5 may not be familiar with how it’s organized and what distinguishes the New Testament from the Old Testament,” Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, said in a statement.

He continued, “Some of these attendees may have spent less time in the Bible while others may not know the Bible for themselves, because someone else has always been their GPS for navigating it.”

To read the full story, visit our content partners at Faithwire.

Reprinted with permission from . Copyright © 2024 The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. All rights reserved.

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A string of rural Ohio church fires has left both parishioners and investigators with many questions and few answers.

“We haven’t had…a graffiti situation, we haven’t had anything left at the scene that would say that there’s hatred toward the Church, or hatred towards God. We don’t have any of those factors,” said Josh Hobbs, Chief of the Ohio Fire Marshal’s Fire and Explosion Investigation Bureau.

Hobbs tells CBN News they are now confident these are all acts of arson and were likely committed by the same person or group of people.

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“So a couple of these churches, perhaps, were unoccupied at the time of the fire and had no electric service…so we knew there was a human act involved. And then when you have other fires in that area, you know, you start putting two and two together…you have a pattern,” Hobbs explained.

The first fire happened at Kokeen Enterprise Baptist in April of 2022. Then nothing for two years, until May, July, and August of this year, when three more churches were set on fire, all in close proximity to the first.

“The timing and geography of these fires, the type of churches, all those things, they’re all very similar in appearance, very similar in nature, where they’re at, the desolate nature of the churches. You know, when you look at the map, although it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere, they almost make a little triangle,” said Chief Hobbs.

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Churches in America are experiencing record levels of violence and hostility. A Family Research Council Report shows incidents have more than doubled since 2022, with a majority reported as vandalism or arson.

Hobbs says, that with such a high threat level, awareness of what’s happening around your building is key.

“Now, in 2024, the ability to have some surveillance, some sort of surveillance equipment is…whether it’s just a Ring type camera…if you have something on the front, the back, you know, you’d be amazed what they catch,” Hobbs said.

To read the full story, visit our content partners at CBN News.

Reprinted with permission from . Copyright © 2024 The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. All rights reserved.

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On July 24, a significant anti-Israel demonstration took place in Washington D.C., where protesters raised a Palestinian flag and defaced monuments in response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress. Now, the focus shifts to Chicago, which is set to host the Democratic National Convention.

Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez and some fellow city council members have expressed concerns about potential unrest. Lopez said, “All I have to think about are the 2020 riots that happened after the murder of George Floyd. Our police department was caught completely off guard by the organized chaos that descended upon our city.”

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Chicago resident Angel Ramos reflected on the riots, saying, “They let them destroy the buildings and steal whatever they wanted.”

Alderman Nicholas Sposato also voiced his apprehensions, saying, “I’m scared to death, to tell you the truth. I am very concerned, very worried. I believe there are going to be professional anarchists coming into this city who are planning on doing nothing more than wreaking havoc upon us.”

Most of the convention activities will occur within the security perimeter of Chicago’s United Center, where Vice President Kamala Harris will rally delegates in person. A virtual roll-call vote earlier this month made her the Democratic presidential nominee.

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Nathan Gonzales of Inside Elections noted, “Democrats have gone part of the way down this path before with Hillary Clinton, but this has a very different feel to it. There is a bit of whiplash. The Democrats went from almost the depths of despair with Biden at the top—even though they liked him—to now such high energy and optimism about what is possible.”

Gonzales explained that the focus of the campaign will shift with Harris as the nominee, moving away from concerns about President Biden’s age and ability to concentrate on the opposition. “Now that Harris is at the top of the ticket, it allows for a normal conversation or exchange of ideas in a campaign about who might be too liberal or too conservative or too MAGA. It’s just more normal than it was when Biden was running for reelection,” Gonzales said.

To read the full story, visit our content partners at CBN News.

Reprinted with permission from . Copyright © 2024 The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. All rights reserved.

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