Israel hits Hamas after a rocket launch from Gaza Sunday.
An unprecedented fish kill clogs the Yellowstone River, and a teen suicide bomber in Turkey
kills dozens at a wedding there.
This is Skywatch TV for Monday, August 22, 2016.
I'm Derek Gilbert.
Next up, breaking news this Monday.
The Obama administration's transgender policy for the nation's schools has been blocked,
at least temporarily.
A federal judge in Texas today issued a preliminary nationwide injunction in response to a lawsuit
filed by the state of Texas and 12 other states.
The suit argues that the White House policy for schools would in effect turn them into
laboratories for a massive social experiment.
As we discussed recently with Pastor Carl Gallops, the White House guidance was sent
in the form of a DCL or Dear Colleague letter from the Department of Education to the nation's
school districts in May, basically saying, this isn't the law, but this is how we interpret
the implementation of the law, and we will evaluate your request for Title IX funding
from the Department of Education according to how you respond to our guidance.
Well, the injunction means the status quo will remain in place while the suit makes its
way through the courts.
Louisiana is still recovering more than a week and a half after deadly flooding hit
the southeastern part of the state.
More than 60,000 homes damaged or destroyed, 102,000 people have applied for federal assistance.
Louisiana Governor John Bell Edwards is called the flooding unprecedented and historic.
That's remarkable.
The state that withstood a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina, this flooding event being
called the worst natural disaster in the United States since Hurricane Sandy four years ago.
I don't normally blame natural disasters like this on divine retribution, but there are
others who are making this connection, so I will report it to you.
Some are pointing out that the rain that led to this flooding hit just as the evangelical
Lutheran church in America held its triennial meetings in New Orleans where they passed
a series of resolutions condemning Israel for its occupation of the Palestinian territories
and calling on the US government to cut off aid if Israel keeps building settlements in
Judea and Samaria and demanding that the US recognize the state of Palestine.
Now I'm inclined to see this as coincidence.
There is plenty of anti-Israel sentiment in the United States to go around.
And the ELCA is not the first denomination to call for the US to withdraw support for
Israel or to lend support to the BDS movement, boycott, divest, and I forget what the S is.
But anyway, to essentially enact sanctions against the nation of Israel.
Plus there's just plenty of outright rejection of God going on in the United States.
Our first story is evidence of that.
If we're going to look for divine retribution every time somebody in this United States or
some Christian or nominally Christian denomination does something anti-Christian, well to quote
Billy Graham, if the US doesn't or if God doesn't punish America, he'll have to apologize
to Sodom and Gomorrah.
The Lutheran church in Norway is dealing with its own issues, mainly in Exodus.
The state church there set up an online registration system, something new for them.
But instead of people signing up to join the state church, people are leaving.
Nearly 11,000 people de-enrolled in the first 24 hours of the system going alive.
Now there are more than 3.8 million members of the Norwegian church.
The surveys show that only about 5% of them actually attend church on a regular basis,
and only about 20% of Norwegians say that religion is important.
On precedented seems to be the word of the day.
Nearly 200 miles of the Yellowstone River in Montana is closed to the public because
thousands of fish have unexpectedly died.
Officials in Montana think it may be a human-spread parasite that is attacking the fish.
It's estimated that tens of thousands of them have died over a 100-mile stretch of the Yellowstone
River.
Almost is often not good enough, and here is a classic example of that.
An ice wall that is being constructed around the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan is almost
watertight.
Almost of course means that groundwater is still seeping onto the grounds and coming
into contact with radioactive water leaking out of the damaged reactors.
TEPCO, the power company that owns the plant, says it hopes to have the water problem contained
by 2020.
Critics say that's way too optimistic.
They estimate that total cleanup of the plant won't happen for at least another 40 years.
In Washington, D.C., and there's a joke in here somewhere, but it's too easy, I'll leave
it to you.
The mysterious slime is growing on our national monuments.
The National Parks Service confirmed last week that a grayish black film is in fact growing
on the Jefferson Memorial and other national monuments in Washington, D.C.
This biofilm, which is alive, is composed of unknown organisms apparently feeding on
something in the stone.
The Parks Service is testing different compounds to see how they can kill the slime without
damaging the monuments themselves.
They say they have not ruled out the use of lasers.
Another hint that all is not well in the global economy.
Two major banks in the U.K., the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Ireland will begin
charging customers to hold their deposits.
Now not all customers, just some, the largest customers will receive negative interest rates.
They will be charged by the bank for the privilege of the bank holding their money.
RBS, which was bailed out by taxpayers during the banking crisis a few years ago, says it
will only apply the negative rates to a limited number of institutions that are required to
have money on deposit to complete futures transactions, purchases.
The Bank of Ireland says it will begin charging large companies for deposits of more than
10 million euros beginning in October.
The European Central Bank has been charging negative interest on corporate and bank accounts
since March.
The idea is to encourage these companies to put the money back into circulation to stimulate
the economy, but keep watch and be prepared because negative interest rates and bail-ins,
I predict, will be coming soon to a bank near you.
Now there's no surprise to this.
The State Department confirmed Thursday last week that the $400 million that the United
States sent on a secret flight to Iran was in fact contingent upon the release of American
prisoners being held by the Iranian government.
In other words, yes, it was ransom.
Regardless of what you call it, as I mentioned last week, it was still illegal under federal
law and the Obama administration ignored that law in order to do the deal.
Hillary Clinton spent Friday night in Martha's Vineyard celebrating Bill Clinton's 70th birthday
party.
It must have been quite a do.
President Obama was there in attendance.
He'll finally make his way to Louisiana, by the way, tomorrow.
Saturday morning, Hillary jumped into her private jet to fly to Nantucket, where the
Rothschilds were holding a fundraiser.
The event was open to the public.
Anyone who could afford $100,000 per person to get in, that is.
Now you should know, if you're not familiar with the geography there, Nantucket is 20
miles from Martha's Vineyard.
Private jet, 20 miles.
Now to be fair, they're both on islands and traveling the 20 miles on the ferry takes
about two and a half hours.
So I guess there's that.
But I guess if there's any good news in all of this, it's that if it's safe to fly a private
jet to get to an event 20 miles away, that must mean that we've defeated global warming
and there is no more threat of a man-made climate change apocalypse.
More serious news in Turkey.
A wedding turned into tragedy Saturday night.
Suicide bombing there.
Killed at least 50, wounded 94 others.
President Erdogan says the Islamic State is probably responsible, but that's not officially
confirmed.
The bomber is believed to have been about 13 years old.
The attack occurred in the southern city of Gaziantep, which is just north of the border
with Syria.
And so Roman Catholics are getting frustrated with Pope Francis and his rather lukewarm
response, responses to attacks like this.
The hashtag NotMyPope began trending in France and Belgium after the murder of a French priest
by an Islamic State militant earlier this month.
Pope Francis has said when asked by a reporter why he doesn't talk about Islamic violence,
quote, if I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence, end quote.
But the difference is when a Roman Catholic or Protestant commits an act of violence,
we do it in contradiction of what Jesus taught.
When a Muslim commits an act of violence, he's doing it in emulation of Muhammad.
May peace be upon him.
By the way, back to Turkey for a moment, they have officially approved reconciliation with
Israel.
The Turkish parliament voted Saturday to normalize relations with Israel.
This deal requires Israel to send Turkey $20 million within the next 25 days.
Turkey will drop all lawsuits against Israeli military personnel related to the raid on
the freedom flotilla ship, the M.V.
Mari Marmara, or Mavi Marmara, back in 2010.
Israel struck 50 targets of Hamas, 50 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip Sunday night.
This was in response to a rocket fired from Gaza into the southern Israeli city of Sterot.
No injuries in Sterot.
It was the 14th rocket fired from Gaza so far this year.
And finally, some words of wisdom for the Republican Party from the left.
Dump Jesus or become irrelevant.
This is the word of a columnist for the liberal online magazine Salon, Matthew Sheffield,
the columnist, says that the failure of Ted Cruz to win the nomination is a perfect window
into trends that will set the pace of American politics for decades to come.
Americans are moving away from Christianity, including people most likely to vote Republican.
End quote.
He says the reason Republicans have declined in popularity is because of the trend away
from religion.
Sadly, Mr. Sheffield is correct about the trend away from Christianity.
His advice, of course, to Republicans is to basically become Democrats.
But he's wrong about the trend away from religion.
The trend, yes, is away from Jesus Christ, but it is not away from religion.
It is just to paganism.
You can call it New Age or spiritualism or whatever, but it is not a trend away from
religion.
In fact, it's kind of comical seeing comments from progressives like Mr. Sheffield who seem
to be saying we're guided by reason.
We don't believe in religion.
Well, nobody believes in nothing.
If you say you don't believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, that just means you believe
in something else.
And if you can't put that something else into words, then you're a fool because what you
believe dictates how you live, how you define right from wrong.
What you teach your children.
So everybody believes in something.
If it's not Jesus, it's something else.
And if you can't define it, you need to reevaluate.
This week on Skywatch TV, we talk about music and the impact that music can have on helping
you define what it is you believe.
Music with a message.
Joe Horn and Broken for Good is the name of the band.
We're proud to have many of them as members here of the staff of Skywatch TV.
But that's not why we like the music.
It is powerful music, music with theology behind it, reflected in the title of the forthcoming
disc, Right Where You Stand.
That's where God will meet you.
If you ask Him, right where you stand, clean the inside first.
We'll deal with the outside later.
That's not as important.
We talk with members of the group this week.
On Skywatch TV, you'll see the program tonight at 8.30 p.m. Central Time on the Victory Television
Network.
Our friends down there in Arkansas.
Tomorrow, Victory Television again at 6.30 p.m. Central, WGGN TV in Sandusky, Ohio, WLATV
in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Coast to Coast on the Christian Television Network, 8.30 p.m.
Central Time Tuesday night, Direct TV Channel 376, Dish Network Channel 267, and the Glory
Star Satellite Channel 117, Wednesday afternoon, Coast to Coast on the Cornerstone Network
at 2.30 p.m. Central Time, World Harvest Television, Coast to Coast at 6.00 p.m. Central Time,
that's Direct TV Channel 367, and then again on WLATV in Kalamazoo, and then again Saturday,
Victory Television Network, 3.30 p.m. Central Time, and WCLF TV Saturday evening at 6.30
p.m. Central, and of course the program is available on demand now at the Skywatch TV
Channel on Roku, which is where you'll find our Skywatch TV web exclusives in addition
to the regular weekly program. You'll see these daily news updates, the weekly programs
that you get from Josh Peck into the Multiverse with Josh and his lovely wife Christina talking
about the very nature of reality from a biblical perspective. Science News of the Week, Sci
Friday with our science advisor, my best friend, my wife Sharon Kate Gilbert, that and more,
Skywatch Women and the forthcoming Teens Rock All available as web exclusives at SkywatchTV.com
and the Skywatch TV Channel on Roku. And of course we've got a portable version for you
if you'd just like to listen, or if you're doing something where being distracted by
video would be really bad, like driving or operating heavy machinery. Download the Skywatch
TV podcast, The Life You Save May Be Your Own, and I mean that in a couple of different
ways. You'll find the instructions on how to do that at SkywatchTV.com, look in the
top menu bar where it says podcast. Your support is key to us here at SkywatchTV and we want
you to know we always appreciate it. During the month of August, our thank you for your
gift of $20 or more, these books, A Place at the Table, 40 Days of Solidarity with
the Poor, and Powerful Moments in the Presence of God. We'll send those to you in the U.S.
or Canada for your donation of $20 or more for more information and to donate, log on
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You know those little buttons you see everywhere when you find us online that say share or
like? Click those. If you're watching YouTube, click subscribe. That's a big help to us.
And of course you'll find my stuff online here, my website, Twitter feed, Facebook
page, and my YouTube channel, where right now I've got an interview with John Haller
does a weekly prophecy update for Fellowship Bible Chapel in Columbus, Ohio. John and I
talk about why we Christians have this habit of turning the guns inward at one another
instead of keeping watch outward as Watchmen are called to do. That you'll find at my YouTube
channel there. My email address for your comments and questions, D. Gilbert at SkywatchTV.com.
And thank you for watching as we keep watch. I'm Derek Gilbert and this is SkywatchTV.
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