But we are somehow supposed to believe that “everything is going to be wonderful” even though we continue to kill babies on an industrial scale, just about every form of sexual immorality that you can possibly imagine is exploding all around us, our “entertainment” industry is an open sewer, and we lead the world in both legal and illegal drug use.

I’ve got dozens more facts that I could quote regarding our moral decay, but I think that you get the point. If we actually changed our behavior, I could understand why it would make sense for America to be blessed. But we haven’t changed our behavior, and there are no signs that this is going to happen any time soon.

As humans, we have the freedom to choose, but those choices inevitably have consequences. The same thing is true for our nation as a whole.  We have made a whole bunch of exceedingly bad choices, and those choices are going to result in some incredibly painful consequences.

In fact, as you will see below, something like this almost happened a little over a week ago at a hotel in South Dakota where approximately 500 people had gathered for a Christian conference.  This is a time when ministries are going to have to start paying extra attention to security, because Islamic terrorists are going to be specifically targeting Christians and churches.

Every year, the number of Islamic terror attacks worldwide just keeps rising, and according to one list there has already been 619 Islamic terror attacks in 2017. We are living at a time that is completely different from what previous generations had to face.  The threat of Islamic terrorism is growing all over the world, and Islamic terrorists have a special hatred for Christians and for churches.

We will not live in fear, but we will not stick our heads in the sand either.  Islamic terror is a threat that we are going to have to deal with, and those that are ignoring the warnings do so at their own peril.

The ruling was hailed as a victory by the city and liberal politicians, who said it was an important step against religious coercion. However, ultra-Orthodox officials railed against the ruling and vowed to fight it and bypass the court. “As I said already four years ago, the city of Tel Aviv-Jaffa was free and will remain free,” Ron Huldai, Mayor of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, said according to the Ynet news site.

But Interior Minister Aryeh Deri slammed the ruling as a change to the religious status quo in Israel and “a serious blow to the holy Shabbat and the character of the Jewish people,” the Haaretz newspaper reported. Deri said that he and other defenders of the Sabbath would meet with the prime minister soon to protest.

During the Association of Teachers and Lecturers conference this week, delegates were told that changing attitudes in society mean a “huge” increase in the number of transgender and non-binary people in classrooms, The Telegraph reported.

Terry Reed, a campaigner for transsexual rights, told the conference: “Five years ago, hardly anyone in school or in university would come across a young trans person, but it’s changed substantially.”

The campaigner advised teachers to send an “upbeat” message to transgender students and suggested schools should celebrate students’ transition with a “celebratory” event like baking a cake with their new trans name.

The comments made by the New York Times’ readers show emerging hostility among liberal women to the demands by gay and transgender activists that testosterone treatments and sex-change surgery be given to young girls who show typically boyish behavior and attitudes, such as avoiding dresses and long hair, or preferring contact sports or playfighting.

The April 18 article, titled “My Daughter Is Not Transgender. She’s a Tomboy,” was written by a liberal mother who supports legal rights for people who want to live as members of the opposite sex, but who also insists that girls who act like boys can still be girls:

My daughter wears track pants and T-shirts. She has shaggy short hair (the look she requested from the hairdresser was “Luke Skywalker in Episode IV”). Most, but not all, of her friends are boys. She is sporty and strong, incredibly sweet, and a girl. And yet she is asked by the pediatrician, by her teachers, by people who have known her for many years, if she feels like, or wants to be called, or wants to be, a boy… While celebrating the diversity of sexual and gender identities, we also need to celebrate tomboys and other girls who fall outside the narrow confines of gender roles. Don’t tell them that they’re not girls.

The article prompted an emotional response by liberal women who fear young girls are being pushed to either wear pink or face a lifetime of fertility-destroying male hormones and dangerous surgeries because transgender activists want to blur the legal and civic distinctions between males and females.

The news report claims a single Russian war plane flew several times around American destroyer the USS Donald Cook in the Black Sea several years ago, disabling its systems and leaving it helpless. The report also claims they are capable of creating electronic jamming domes over their bases that make them invisible on radar screens.

The propaganda piece even quotes top US General Frank Gorenc as saying: “Russian electronic weapons completely paralyse the functioning of American electronic equipment installed on missiles, aircraft and ships.” The reporter adds: “You don’t need to have expensive weapons to win – powerful radio-electronic jamming is enough.”

The news comes after US president Donald Trump dispatched the USS Carl Vinson, powered by nuclear reactors, carrying almost 100 aircraft and accompanied by destroyers, a cruiser and a submarine to the Korean Peninsula.

In an email interview, Tobias Bunde, head of policy and analysis at the Munich Security Conference and a researcher at the Hertie School of Governance, describes Germany’s evolving relationship with NATO and how Trump’s comments have shaped domestic political debates about defense spending.

While it is too soon to tell what the long-term consequences of Trump’s repeated criticism of European NATO members — and Germany in particular — will be, there already is a “Trump effect” in the German debate on security policy. Some politicians and journalists have initiated a discussion about a potential European — or even German — nuclear deterrent that would be independent from the US.

During Passover, Jewish activists held a ritual sacrifice in view of the Temple Mount as part of a larger effort to encourage the rebuilding of the Temple. Attending the ceremony was Yehuda Glick, an American-born Knesset member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party. The ceremony was held outside the Hurva Synagogue in what was widely perceived as a prestigious location that gave the ritual a certain amount of legitimacy. One of the activists involved predicted it would only be “a few more years” before sacrifices were held on the Temple Mount itself.

“In the Christian community many are waiting for the Temple to be rebuilt as a sure sign of the last days about to be fulfilled,” he said. “One thing we know for sure is history keeps repeating itself. We don’t know the form yet. Whether it’s a full-blown Temple or just a prefab one that can be thrown together quickly, we will have to wait and see. It may not be anything more than an altar doing Passover sacrifices [see Ezra 3:6]. But one thing is for sure. If the Temple is rebuilt and sacrifices are resumed, hold on to your shorts as the time is short!”