Below are this week's Articles of Interest as compiled by Mr. Van Baker. This collection of articles is cultivated by Mr. Baker with the goal of highlighting some of the trends, upheavals, and things to watch for in our society. These articles are not necessarily the express views of the United Church of God, Mr. Baker, or me as the pastor, but they are informative of what is occurring in our nation and culture. In accordance with Christ's warning to correctly discern the times (Matthew 16:1-4), it is wise to be aware of what is going on around us. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Increasing Instability of Our Planet Is On Full Display in 2025 – Once dormant volcanoes have been erupting all over the globe, Mt. Rainier has been rattled by more than 1,000 earthquakes this month [July 2025], one area of Japan has been getting hit by thousands of earthquakes, the largest supervolcano in Europe has been shaking like crazy, and a magnitude 8.8 earthquake just hammered the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. There have only been five earthquakes that have ever been recorded that have been larger than the earthquake that we witnessed on Tuesday [7/28]. 2025 has been “the year of the disaster”, and we just keep getting hit by one thing after another. The shaking that we are experiencing is not normal. We really are living in apocalyptic times. And yes, things are going to get a lot worse.
https://endtimeheadlines.org/2025/07/the-increasing-instability-of-our-planet-is-on-full-display-in-2025/

Christianity Liberated Women in the Ancient World – In the ancient world, everything was about men. Women were property to be used by men, so no one gave a second thought to a man having a wife (or wives) to produce legitimate heirs, concubines for sexual pleasures and female slaves for household chores. Greek philosopher Aristotle said “silence gives grace to a woman.” It was a man’s world in every respect. The very concept of women as individuals having rights that no man could violate without fear of punishment was totally foreign in every known culture for multiple millennia. Jesus Christ changed all of that. In fact, as evidenceunseen.com founder James Rochford explains in the following (5:36) video, the way Jesus and the early Christian church treated women was revolutionary. Why is this important today, more than 2,000 years later? Because one of the common myths about Christianity is that it treats women as inferiors.
https://www.hillfaith.org/myth-busters/myth-busters-christianity-liberated-women-in-the-ancient-world/

Does counting worship attendance still make sense for churches? The focus on worship attendance didn’t appear out of nowhere. It grew out of three overlapping waves in church history: Wave 1: The Sunday school movement (1800s)
https://www.christianpost.com/voices/does-counting-worship-attendance-still-make-sense-for-churches.html

Ancient Egyptian Inscription May Reference Moses, Sparking Debate – A controversial new reading of ancient Egyptian inscriptions may lend support to the biblical story of the Exodus. As reported by the Daily Mail, researcher Michael Bar-Ron said a 3,800-year-old Proto-Sinaitic inscription, etched into the rock at Serabit el-Khadim in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, could read “zot m’Moshe,” Hebrew for “This is from Moses.” The carving, located near Sinai 357 in Mine L, is part of more than two dozen Proto-Sinaitic texts discovered in the early 1900s. The findings have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, leaving the debate over whether the name of Moses is preserved in the world’s earliest alphabet unresolved.
https://charismanews.com/news/ancient-egyptian-inscription-may-reference-moses-sparking-debate-among-scholars/

Evidence of the Nephilim Found in Ancient Burial Sites Worldwide – For centuries, the mysterious figures known as the Nephilim, giants born from the union of the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men” in Genesis 6, have captured the imagination of Bible scholars and archaeologists alike. But are these colossal beings merely myth, or is there real-world evidence that suggests they once walked the earth, and may yet return? The biblical account says plainly, “There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that,” pointing not only to the pre-flood world but to a continued presence long after the deluge. And now, startling archaeological claims and suppressed reports are bringing this ancient mystery back into the spotlight.
https://mycharisma.com/news/world/shocking-evidence-of-the-nephilim-found-in-ancient-burial-sites-worldwide/

Microsoft just dropped the latest Pride flag design – This flag combines 40 different flags from LGBTQIA+ communities around the world, including: Abrosexual, Aceflux, Agender, Ambiamorous, Androgynous, Aroace, Aroflux, Aromantic, Asexual, Bigender, Bisexual, Demifluid, Demigender, Demigirl, Demiromantic, Demisexual, Gay/MLM/Vinician, Genderfluid, Genderflux, Genderqueer, Gender questioning, Graysexual, Intersex, Lesbian, Maverique, Neutrois, Nonbinary, Omnisexual, Pangender, Pansexual, Polyamorous, Polysexual, Transgender, Trigender, Two Spirit, Progress Pride, Queer, Unlabeled.
https://notthebee.com/article/microsoft-has-designed-the-latest-pride-flag-design-and-yes-its-real

Tyson Foods Confirms 'Protein Switching' Underway Amid Record High Beef Prices. – “Chicken continues to provide support to the business as the company continues to face beef headwinds,” analysts at brokerage Stephens wrote in a note to clients. Making sense of all this is simple: rising chicken demand alongside sliding beef demand is known as “protein switching.” This trend is driven by excessively high supermarket beef prices, prompting low- and middle-income consumers to seek cheaper alternatives like chicken and pork. This comes as the latest USDA cattle report shows America’s cattle and calves herd population has fallen to 94.2 million, its lowest mid-year level since 1973. The nation’s shrinking herd size has pushed USDA retail ground beef prices to record highs. [the US has 120 million MORE people than in 1973]
https://www.zerohedge.com/food/tyson-foods-confirms-protein-switching-underway-amid-record-high-beef-prices

When Your Power Meter Becomes a Tool of Mass Surveillance. – Simply using extra electricity to power some Christmas lights or a big fish tank shouldn’t bring the police to your door. In fact, in California, the law explicitly protects the privacy of power customers, prohibiting public utilities from disclosing precise “smart” meter data in most cases. Despite this, Sacramento’s power company and law enforcement agencies have been running an illegal mass surveillance scheme for years, using our power meters as home-mounted spies. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is seeking to end Sacramento’s dragnet surveillance of energy customers and have asked for a court order to stop this practice for good. For a decade, the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District (SMUD) has been searching through all of its customers’ energy data, and passed on more than 33,000 tips about supposedly “high” usage households to police. Ostensibly looking for homes that were growing illegal amounts of cannabis...
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/when-your-power-meter-becomes-tool-mass-surveillance

World's most premature baby defies 'phenomenal odds' to celebrate first birthday – In a testimony to the miraculous power of God, a baby born at just 21 weeks gestation has celebrated his first birthday — a milestone the world now recognises as record-breaking. Nash Keen, born on 5 July 2024, arrived 133 days sooner than anticipated, weighing just 10 ounces — comparable to the weight of a soap bar.
https://christiantoday.com/news/a-miracle-at-21-weeks-world-s-most-premature-baby-defies-phenomenal-odds-to-celebrate-first-birthday

The Mere Sight of a Sick Person Can Trigger Our Immune System – The mere sight of a sick person may set off an alarm system in your brain and body, even if they are too far away to infect you. A series of experiments using virtual reality headsets has now revealed just how "exquisitely sensitive" our brains are to symptoms of sickness.
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-mere-sight-of-a-sick-person-can-trigger-our-immune-system