News

As this commentary is being written, an elected county clerk in Kentucky has been sentenced to jail due to the conflict she perceives between her duty as a public official and her personal religious convictions about same-sex “marriage.” This raises many vital, fundamental questions—and, for students of God’s word, it should bring to mind many dire prophecies.

This year is shaping up to be a record year for hurricanes or typhoons. “NASA’s Terra satellite saw Hurricanes Kilo, Ignacio, and Jimena, all Category Four Hurricanes, lined up across the Central and Eastern Pacific Ocean on August 29 at 22:25 UTC (6:25 p.m. EDT). This is the first time there have been three active hurricanes in the Eastern or Central Pacific Ocean this season, and they’re all major hurricanes” (NASA, August 30, 2015).

Tensions between Britain and Argentina continue to grow over the fate of the Falkland Islands, also known in Argentina as the Malvinas. “Britain has ordered £47 million of new mobile air defence radars to protect the Falkland Islands against possible attack by Argentine jets.

“Archaeologists think they may have discovered in Israel the home of biblical giant Goliath. The… Bar-Ilan University Expedition, led by Professor Aren Maeir, located the lost city of Gath during excavations of an area now divided between... Palestine and Israel… The recent discovery of the entrance gate of the biblical city has been the biggest finding” (The Daily Telegraph, August 13, 2015).

The New Yorker recently discussed the potential of a major earthquake in the Cascadia Subduction Zone—between northern California and Vancouver Island (July 20, 2015). The Zone packs far greater energy than the famous San Andreas Fault to the south. The author writes “An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest. The question is when” (ibid.). This overdue quake could range in magnitude from 8.0-9.2.