8,000 MEMBERS OF CHURCH OF THE
BRETHREN IN NIGERIA KILLED BY BOKO HARAM
The following is excerpted from “Boko Haram Has Killed
8,000”, The Christian Post, Aug.
24, 2015: “According to Niaj.com, Samuel Dali, president of the Church of the
Brethren in Nigeria, said, 'Seventy percent of our churches have been destroyed
in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno states by Boko Haram; over 8,000 of our members were
killed; one hundred and seventy-six of the girls kidnapped in Chibok are our
members.' While Dali kept up hopes that the Nigerian military will be able to
finally defeat the terror group, which has waged war on the government and the
country's Christians since 2009, he noted that many church facilities across
Adamawa, Yobe and Borno states have been destroyed in various raids. With the
wide-spread destruction of churches and slaughter of church members, he added
that most of the pastors under his care have lost their jobs. Boko Haram's
fighters have been struggling for control of towns with the Nigerian military
in the northeast, and continue carrying out deadly acts of terror on villages
where they slaughter dozens, sometimes hundreds of people, and kidnap women and
children”.
MORE JEWS VISITING THE TEMPLE
MOUNT AND CALLING FOR THE THIRD TEMPLE
An increasing number of Jews are visiting the Temple
Mount in Jerusalem and calling for the building of the Third Temple. Elhanan
Miller reports, “More and more religious Jews are visiting the holy site, part
of a movement defying a centuries-old rabbinic ban and stoking tension with
Muslims who also lay claim to the esplanade” (“On Temple Mount, some see a dome
and imagine an altar, Times of Israel, Aug.
31, 2015). Visits by Jews to the Temple Mount have nearly doubled since 2009.
It is called “a new revival movement sweeping Israel's national religious
community”. Yehudah Glick, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, just
published Arise and Ascend, a
guidebook for Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount. (Glick survived an attempt
made on his life last October.) The book is endorsed by Minister of Jerusalem
Affairs Ze'ev Elkin and mainstream orthodox rabbi Shlomo Riskin. The Temple
Institute is preparing the articles for the temple, including a menorah
constructed of $2 million worth of gold, and is training priests in animal
sacrifices. When asked, “What about the Dome of the Rock?” Temple Mount
activist Elishama Sandman replies, “If a burglar entered your home and told you
that you don't own it, you wouldn't think about getting along with him. You'd
remove him and take the place. It's the same here: The people of Israel own
this place and it's not our duty to consider those who stole it from us” (Times of Israel, Aug.
31, 2015). Aviya Fraenkel, a doctoral student in Assyriology and Bible, says
she can't completely explain her attraction to the Temple Mount. “Part of it
has to do with the belief that there's a next stage, that our ideals aren't
limited to a state--which is a lot--but that the state must manifest our
religious yearnings of the past 2,000 years”. She doesn't know it, but the “yearning”
is God's Spirit which is drawing the Jews into the fulfillment of Bible
prophecy and the return of Christ Jesus, but first will come the Antichrist,
who will probably make the building of the next temple possible and will then
occupy it, setting himself up as God. “Who opposeth and exalteth himself above
all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the
temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4).
MORAL DANGER ON THE INTERNET
The Internet is a communication system like the world
has never seen, and it is a tool both for good and for evil. The moral dangers
are great and must not be discounted, and the danger is not only for youth; it
is for all ages. Recently the “cheating” web site Ashley Madison was hacked and
32 million names were exposed. One was Josh Duggar, the oldest of the 19
children of the Duggar family whose television program on The Learning Channel
made them famous representatives of the Christian faith. After R.C. Sproul,
Jr., son of the famous Reformed theologian and author, admitted that he visited
the site, he was placed under a one-year suspension from the ministry. He is a
father and grandfather. Southern Baptist leader Ed Stetzer said as many as 400
pastors and church workers could resign because of the exposure (“400 Church
Leaders”, Relevant, Aug. 27,
2015). The elderly father of a pastor friend recently committed adultery with a
younger member of the pastor's church. The two met when the father visited his
son's church and developed the relationship and planned their alliance on
Facebook. The father was caught when the son borrowed his cell phone and found
the illicit communication. In our new course The Mobile Phone and the Christian
Home and Church, we give many suggestions for how to protect
ourselves and our children in the smartphone age. This book will be published
in a couple of weeks, the Lord willing, and it will also be a part of the Youth
Discipleship Library we
are preparing to publish.
SOUTHERN BAPTIST LEADER SAYS CONTEMPORARY
WORSHIP DOESN'T AFFECT QUALITY OF CHRISTIAN LIVING
Southern Baptist leader Frank Page warns that
contemporary worship doesn't affect the quality of Christian lives. Page,
president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee, wrote the
following in the introduction to Hungry for Worship: Challenges and
Solutions for Today's Church: “[Worship] has become a big claim in
the twenty-first century church; but, based on the reality of people's lives,
the worship that we claim to be experiencing is not truly affecting the quality
of our lives, our families, and our witness”. Though Page identifies a major
reality and problem in regard to contemporary worship, he and the authors of
this new book don't have an inkling about the true cause or solution. The
reason that contemporary worship produces such poor fruit is that it is worldly
and fleshly. Though maintaining a “form of godliness”, it is fundamentally of
the world. Unlike “traditional” or sacred worship, contemporary worship, even
in its most conservative form with biblical lyrics, sounds like the world,
looks like the world, and smells like the world. Further, it is experience
oriented, being a product, largely, of touchy-feely charismaticism.
Evangelicalism has been invaded by the charismatics since the 1960s, and the
charismatic's unscriptural, sensual experience orientation has permeated even
the most staunchly Calvinistic evangelicals, such as John Piper's Bethlehem
Baptist Church in Minneapolis and John MacArthur's youth ministry. Any church
that wants to avoid the slippery slope of spiritual compromise will reject
contemporary worship as the exceedingly dangerous thing that it is, which is a
bridge to the world and the one-world “church”. The popular position that says
you can safely mess around with contemporary worship in its more “conservative”
aspects is unscriptural and will bring spiritual destruction to the next
generation.
MTV:
34 YEARS OF SPEWING MORAL FILTH INTO SOCIETY
MTV, which launched in August 1981, is a window into
the filthy Western pop culture that has spread across the world through the
electronic media to become a global culture. I have visited 36 countries, and
young people everywhere, from New York City or London to a village in Nepal or
South Africa, love the same music, movies, attitude, fashion, video games, etc.
There is the same “generation gap”, a foolish and ungodly thing that rock &
roll created in the 1950s. Youth in Bible-believing churches everywhere face
the same enticements. When measured by eternal biblical values, the MTV world
is empty and foolish in the extreme, but when measured by fleshly appetites it
is enticing. MTV has promoted and acclaimed every vile, anti-Christ thing that
has come on the music scene, including Madonna and her blasphemous “Like a
Prayer”, Marilyn Manson (an androgynous reprobate who rips up Bibles, burns
Bibles, and spits on pictures of Jesus), and Kurt Cobain (who spray-painted his
neighborhood with the words “Abort Christ” and “God is Gay” and later blew his
brains out with a shotgun). Cobain was honored with an MTV tribute in 1994. MTV
has championed homosexual rights. It basically created the annual orgy called “Spring
Break”. MTV has made a mockery of holy things, while justifying and glorifying
every sin against God's holy law, particularly fornication, lasciviousness,
adultery, homosexuality, divorce, lying, cursing, and blasphemy. “Woe unto them
that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for
darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).
THE ENTICING HOLLYWOOD PHILOSOPHY
There is spiritual and moral danger even in G- and
PG-rated movies and television programs that don't have open sex and filthy
language, because the following false, godless things are emphasized
continually and in the most subtle, enticing manner: Christians are depicted as
self-righteous, hypocritical, ungracious, selfish, lacking in practical wisdom,
weird, foolish, and fearful. Immoral people, agnostics, and atheists are
depicted as sympathetic, kind, understanding, reasonable, and wise.
Christianity is depicted as a religion that teaches salvation by good works and
self-righteousness. (Sadly, the vast majority of Christianity today fits that
description because it is false, but the difference between false and true
Christianity is never made clear by Hollywood.) According to Hollywood, the
purpose of life is self-fulfillment and fun (“eat, drink, and be merry”). The
pursuit of self-fulfillment justifies anything. Death is the end. If death is
not the end, heaven is for everyone. Hell, if there is such a thing, is only
for the most despicable. Salvation, if there is a need for such a thing, is by
good works, “sincerity”, and a “good heart”. No one can know for sure about
God, the true meaning of life, or what lies beyond death, so one shouldn't
worry about it (agnosticism). Live in the present and don't worry about the
future. A God of judgment is not a good God. The Bible is not always true, and
the wisest people don't believe it is. Morality is relative and situational.
Man is basically good. Wishing is powerful. Vengeance is good. There is such a
thing as good magic. Evolution is true. “Love” purifies and justifies any
sexual relationship. A major part of effectively discipling young people is for
Christian families to unplug from Hollywood. “Beware lest any man spoil you
through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the
rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Colossians 2:8).
WOMAN'S HIDDEN LIFE SAVINGS CRUMBLED INTO
PIECES
When an elderly woman in eastern China recently dug up
her buried 100,000 yuan (US $15,600) life savings, she found that the banknotes
crumbled into pieces when they were handled (South
China Morning Post, Aug. 31, 2015). Four years ago, she placed the
money in a plastic bag, put it in a metal box, and buried it under her kitchen
floor, but when she dug it up to help pay for her son's wedding, it was in a
clumped mess. A banknote expert at the People's Bank of China said there is
little chance to redeem the ruined banknotes. This reminds us of Jesus' words: “Lay
not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,
and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures
in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not
break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be
also” (Matthew 6:19-21).
—DC
