Showing posts with label THIRD TEMPLE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label THIRD TEMPLE. Show all posts

Friday, September 4, 2015

CHRISTIAN NEWS NOTES


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