TEL AVIV’S BIGGEST EVER GAY PRIDE FESTIVAL (Friday Church News Notes, June 15, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Tel Aviv’s 20th annual Gay Pride Parade on June 8 was the biggest ever, with more than 250,000 in attendance. The Times of Israel reported, “Israelis and visitors celebrate freedom and tolerance at 20th annual event in self-styled ‘most gay-friendly city’ in world. Cafes, stores, and lamp posts were decked with rainbow flags across Tel Aviv, with tens of thousands of tourists visiting Israel specifically for the event. ... Perched on high heels and wearing a black skirt which is attached with a rainbow flag, a marcher calling himself Aldifrost, 30, sketched a few dance steps, shaking his long wavy and colored hair. ‘Tel Aviv is the big city of gays!’ he exclaimed, saying he was attending for the 10th year. ‘I come here to party and display my drag-queen show.’ ... Floats moved through the closed streets of downtown throughout the afternoon, including one sponsored by the British Embassy, and decorated under the theme of ‘Love is Great Britain.’ The UK ambassador to Israel is David Quarrey, an openly gay man” (“Over 250,000 revelers flood Tel Aviv,” The Times of Israel, Jun. 8, 2018). Since 2002, Jerusalem has hosted its own Gay Pride Parade. Last year, 22,000 people participated. The theme was “LGBTQ and Religion.” This is clear evidence that though Israel is back in her land, she is back in the spiritually dead condition prophesied in Ezekiel 37:8, which precedes her conversion -- “And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.” Israel is back in the land to prepare the Third Temple which will be occupied by the Antichrist as prophesied in Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:15; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12.

WHAT KIM IS (Friday Church News Notes, June 15, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “What Kim Is” National Review, Jun. 9, 2018: “Let’s remind ourselves of whom, exactly, President Trump [met in Singapore]. For Kim Jong-un is no ordinary man. The Dear Leader occupies the summit of a hierarchical system of some 25 million people whose lives are controlled by his central government in Pyongyang. Some years ago, Christopher Hitchens described the ruling juche ideology this way: ‘It is based on totalitarian “military first” mobilization, is maintained by slave labor, and instills an ideology of the most unapologetic racism and xenophobia.’ ... Kim, his father and grandfather, and the regime they direct have given no indication, ever, that they recognize the dignity and worth of human life. Some 36,000 Americans died fighting off the North and its Chinese ally between 1950 and 1953. The North Korean government caused a famine in the 1990s that killed somewhere between hundreds of thousands and more than 1 million people. Another hundred thousand or so are imprisoned, right now, in the North Korean gulag where slaves are starved, beaten, tortured, and killed. Even high-ranking officials are subject to ‘liquidation’ by sickening methods, including execution by a firing squad of anti-aircraft batteries. ... What Kim Jong-un is, is a monster. And that monstrousness informs his statecraft. It influences the means he adopts to remain in power. It leads him to deceive, dissemble, brutalize and build a nuclear deterrent. ... Singapore is an opportunity for Trump to size up an adversary. At best it will inspire Kim to take verifiable steps toward disarmament. ... But as you watch the proceedings, do not allow the following to happen: Do not permit the smiles and handshakes to obscure the evil reality of Kim Jong-un--or the memory of his victims.”

THE PHILISTINES AND THE PALESTINIANS (Friday Church News Notes, June 15, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Philistines originated from the cursed family of Ham’s son Canaan (Ge. 9:22-25; 1 Ch. 1:8-12). They occupied the land of Canaan and were Israel’s bitter enemies (Ge. 21:32; 26:1-18; Ex. 13:17; Jos. 13:2-3; Ju. 3:3, 31). In the King James Bible, the Hebrew word palesheth is translated “Palestina,” “Palestine,” “Philistia,” and “Philistines.” They violently stole a well from Abraham (Ge. 21:25). This context is the first time that “the land of the Philistines” is mentioned in Scripture (Ge. 21:32). The Philistines also stopped up Isaac’s wells (Ge. 26:14-18). The Philistines are mentioned 34 times in the book of Judges and 155 times from 1 Samuel through 2 Kings, as they opposed Israel from the time of Shamgar and Samson until that of Hezekiah (e.g., Jud. 3:31; 13:5; 1 Sa. 4:2; 13:5; 13:17; 31:1; 2 Sa. 5:18, 22; 21:15). The giant Goliath that David slew was the champion of the Philistines (1 Sa. 17:4). In the second century AD, the Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed the land of Judea “Syria Palestina” to celebrate his victory in the Second Jewish War (Bar Kokhba revolt). Jerusalem was converted into a Roman city and renamed Aelia Capitolina after Hadrian and his gods. (Aelia is derived from Hadrian’s family name Aelius, and Capitolina refers to the idolatrous cult of the Capitoline Triad in Rome, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva.) It was a brazen attempt to erase the memory of Israel from her land and give it back to the Philistines. After conquering the land from the Ottomans in the 1920s, England perpetuated the myth that the land of Israel is “Palestine.” The Palestinians, though of Arab stock, still hate Israel and have vowed to drive her into the sea, but Bible prophecy addresses the Philistines in three major passages and their defeat is sure. See Isaiah 28:14-32; Jeremiah 47; Joel 3:4-21. Israel is God’s chosen nation, and He gave the land to Israel as an eternal possession. “For the LORD hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure” (Ps. 135:4). God calls Himself “the God of Israel” 203 times and “the God of Jacob” 25 times. To Israel were committed the Holy Scriptures (“unto them were committed the oracles of God,” Ro. 3:2). Through Israel, the Saviour came (“of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever,” Ro. 9:5). Jesus told the woman at the well that “salvation is of the Jews” (Joh. 4:22). Sadly, Israel rejected her own God 2,000 years ago in the person of her Messiah, Immanuel (Isa. 7:14), but the same Bible that prophesied that rejection in Isaiah 53 prophesies Israel’s repentance and conversion in coming days (De. 30; Jer. 31; Eze. 37). “The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel” (Joel 3:16).

DNA TOURISM (Friday Church News Notes, June 15, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The cheap and easy availability of DNA genealogies is producing a new kind of tourism: DNA tourism, in which people travel to research their newly discovered family roots. 23andMe was the first company to offer direct to consumer genetic testing and interpretation, beginning in 2007 (23 stands for the 23 pairs of chromosomes in a normal human cell). By 2017, the company was valued at $1.5 billion and by 2018 they had tested five million individuals. Test results include a breakdown of the individual’s genetic ancestry (e.g., 57% Irish, 9% German, 3% Iberian, 1% Jewish). DNA tourism to some parts of the world is booming, and tour companies are designing tour packages specifically to cater to this market. It is estimated, for example, that 23% of visitors to Scotland travel there to track down their ancestry (“Is ‘DNA tourism’ the next travel trend for millennials?” The Telegraph, May 31, 2018). 23andMe genetics is based on evolutionary presuppositions. They even tell you how closely you relate to “Neanderthals,” which is nonsense. What you won’t learn from a genetics testing company is that you are a child of Adam and have inherited Adam’s fallen character and condemnation before God and that salvation is found only in Jesus Christ. “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Ro. 5:11-12).

THE MIRACLE OF BUTTERFLY METAMORPHOSIS (Friday Church News Notes, June 15, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from Seeing the Non-existent: Evolution’s Myths and Hoaxes, David Cloud, copyright 2011: “The monarch butterfly’s Latin name, Danaus plexippus, means ‘sleepy transformation,’ referring to its amazing life cycle. The butterfly goes through a four-stage process called metamorphosis: from egg, to larva, to pupa, to adult. It begins life as a tiny, brilliantly-designed egg that the female butterfly brilliantly attaches to the exact type of vegetation needed by the caterpillar when it hatches. It is attached with a special glue that hardens rapidly and holds the egg securely in all types of weather. The egg stage usually lasts a few days, but eggs laid before winter can enter a resting stage and hatch the following spring. Within this tiny egg is an entire world of genetic information. It contains the instructions for the construction of the caterpillar with the intelligence it needs to operate all of its organs (eyes, antennae, legs, etc.), to maneuver within its environment, to digest leaves, to avoid predators, to know when and how to molt, to pupate, etc. It contains the instructions for the incredibly complex process of the final molting and formation of the pupa, including the amazing cremaster mechanism. It contains the instructions for the death and dissolution of the caterpillar into a biological soup and the reformation of that soup into a beautiful butterfly. It contains the instructions not only to construct the butterfly in all of its mind-boggling complexity (e.g., its proboscis, its compound eyes, its intricately shingled wings, its sensory organs, its reproductive organs) but also to create the butterfly’s brain and the intelligence needed to thrive within its environment, to fly, to land, to avoid predators, to find the right plants and flowers, to drink and digest nectar, to keep its cold-blooded metabolism in balance, to reproduce. It contains the instructions for a bewildering multi-thousand mile migration to a place it has never been and in the absence of any earthly guide. It would seem, in fact, that the genetic code within that tiny monarch butterfly egg contains a map of a large part of the earth! And it contains the information for constructing hundreds of copies of itself. The change has been likened to a Model-T Ford forming its own garage and then within that garage disassembling itself and then reassembling itself into a high-tech helicopter and flying off. Even this would not be nearly as dramatic, though, as the real change that occurs through butterfly metamorphosis. Metamorphosis is described even by secular biologists as a ‘miraculous change of form.’ They admit that ‘there is no evidence how such a remarkable plan of life ever came about’ (Peter Farb, The Insects, Life Nature Library, p. 56). Science journalist Richard Milton says, ‘To say that this process is not understood ... means that no stage or aspect of this physical process can be accounted for or even guessed at with our current knowledge of chemistry, physics, genetics, or molecular biology, extensive though they are’ (Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, p. 220).”

CONCLUSION: The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, but this obviously does not imply an endorsement. We trust that our readers will not be discouraged. It is God’s will that we know the times (1 Ch. 12:32; Mat. 16:3) and that we be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. The News Notes remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the Lord’s coming. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you living for Christ? “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Rom. 13:11-14).