REPLICA OF ARK OF THE COVENANT DISPLAYED IN ISRAEL (Friday Church News Notes, November 22, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - A replica of the Ark of the Covenant is being displayed in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel as part of the Third Temple movement. Weighing 85 pounds, the Ark was constructed of Egyptian Acacia and 23.75 carat gold by a team of 17 volunteers who labored three-and-a-half years. It has been fitted with a refurbished Torah scroll. When it was displayed at the King David Hotel on October 20, several members of the Knesset were present. It is slated to be displayed in Jericho, Israel’s first stop after crossing into the Promised Land, and Shiloh, the location of the Tabernacle for 369 years (“With eyes on winning war, building third Jewish temple,” World Israel News, Oct. 21, 2024). In a reminder of Israel’s current apostasy, the orthodox Jews involved in this project are steeped in rabbinical Judaism (Talmud and Kabbala) and incorporated Kabbalistic numerology concepts, which are occultic. (See Jews in Fighter Jets: Israel Past, Present, and Future, chapter 13 “Kabbalah,” www.wayoflife.org.)

TRUMP’S PICK FOR DEFENSE SECRETARY BELIEVES THIRD TEMPLE WILL BE BUILT (Friday Church News Notes, November 22, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary, has stated that the Third Temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem. He also believes Israel should annex the so-called West Bank (Judea and Samaria), which is claimed by the “Palestinians” but belongs to Israel by God’s eternal covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ge. 12:7; 13:14-17; 15:7, 18; 17:8; 24:7; 26:3; 28:4, 13). Speaking at an Arutz Sheva conference at the King David Hotel in 2018, Hegseth said, “1948 was a miracle; 1967 was a miracle; 2017--the declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel--was a miracle; and there is no reason why the miracle of the reestablishment of the temple on the Temple Mount is not possible. I don’t know how it would happen; you don’t know how it would happen; but I know it could happen.” He also said, “If you walk the ground today, you understand that there is no such thing as the outcome of a two-state solution. There is one state.” Hegseth has called for “a wholesale purge of military officials who have supported DEI policies,” has said that transgender soldiers are “not deployable” because they are “reliant on chemicals,” and has argued “that men are more capable in combat roles because of biological factors” (“Pete Hegseth’s plan to overhaul America’s military,” ABC News, Nov. 14, 2024). Hegseth has also called the United Nations a “farce.” The Bible tells us how the Third Temple will be rebuilt. Its measuring is described in Revelation 11 in connection with the beginning of the Antichrist’s reign as Mr. Peace when the Two Witnesses will testify in Jerusalem and performs signs. They will be killed at the 3.5 year mark of the Antichrist’s reign when his true character as the Man of Sin will be revealed and he will install himself in the temple as God. (See Understanding Bible Prophecy, a book and a Bible course, www.wayoflife.org.)

HARVARD CHURCH “READING TAYLOR SWIFT AS A SACRED TEXT” (Friday Church News Notes, November 22, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - On October 29, Harvard Memorial Church hosted a study of Taylor Swift lyrics as “sacred.” The church announced the event as follows: “Discover a new way to engage with the Taylor Swift canon that honors the important emotional and spiritual role her work plays in many peoples’ lives. Bring your favorite Taylor Swift song and we’ll bring the sacred reading practices!” (memorialchurch.harvard.edu). The gospel of Taylor Swift is the gospel of mocking holy marriage and thumbing the nose at the divine law “thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). A major theme of her “canon” is the pleasure and pain of serial dating (fornication). Consider the lyrics to “Blank Space” (1989): “Nice to meet you, where you been? I could show you incredible things, Magic, madness, heaven, sin ... Grab your passport and my hand, I can make the bad guys good for a weekend.” Harvard College was founded in 1636 with the motto Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae (“Truth for Christ and the Church”), and a major objective was training Christian ministers in the Bible, which was held to be God’s infallible Word. The first Harvard Chapel was built in 1744 as a non-denominational Protestant church. By then Harvard was already infiltrated by liberal theology and was on the path toward complete apostasy. Today Harvard Memorial Church claims to be “rooted in the good news of Jesus Christ,” but in reality it preaches the false gospel of Humanism which has no saving power. Harvard Memorial Church is a fulfillment of a 2,000-year-old prophecy: “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” (2 Timothy 3:5).

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY PRAISES HINDU FESTIVAL (Friday Church News Notes, November 22, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - On October 31, Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury (highest office in the Church of England), tweeted a praise of Hinduism, calling it “light.” “May the light of Diwali bring hope, peace, and unity to your homes and to our communities, reminding us all of the power of light to overcome.” In fact, there is only spiritual darkness in Diwali. It celebrates the false gods Rama and Ganesha (the elephant head god) and the goddess Lakshmi, the supposed benefactress of good fortune and wealth. God’s Word condemns every form of idolatry and identifies it as darkness. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is NO light in them” (Isaiah 8:20). The Church of England, never biblically sound in whole, is entirely apostate today and forms a major part of the rapidly forming one-world “church” in preparation for the final manifestation described in Revelation 17. “Evangelicalism,” with its renunciation of separation since the 1950s and subsequent lack of boundaries, is a path to this “broader church” with all of its heresies and spiritual/moral dangers. (See the report “Fifty Years of Anglican Liberalism” and the eBook The Treacherous Waters of Evangelicalism, www.wayoflife.org.)

DON JASMIN WITH THE LORD (Friday Church News Notes, November 22, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Don Jasmin, pastor, evangelist, author, and Bible conference preacher, went home to be with the Lord on Nov. 8, 2024. “He was called to the ministry in his youth while attending Van Dyke Baptist Church, Warren, MI, when it was pastored by Anton Behnken. His father, Frank Jasmin, was head deacon there for many years. Frank also had God’s gift of spiritual discernment, which is often so lacking in church leadership these days” (Harold Roberts, Nov. 17, 2024). He had a B.D. from BJU and an honorary D.D. and L.L.D. Jasmin’s ministry was based for some years in Maranatha Baptist Church of Elkton, Maryland, under Pastor Allen Dickerson. From 1986 to 1990, he was editor and research director of the FBF News Bulletin (Fundamental Baptist Fellowship), distribution about 2,000. In this capacity he issued well-documented, clear warnings about compromise and error. Dr. Jasmin was a gracious man of God who was also a spiritual warrior and didn’t refrain from naming the names of heretics and compromisers in a public magazine. This is a ministry that was modeled by none other than the apostle Paul himself. Jasmin was the editor of the bi-monthly Fundamentalist Digest, which was packed with sound biblical education and timely warnings. Brother Jasmin pastored churches for 27 years and labored in full-time evangelism for decades. The burden of his ministry was the Old Paths and the Old Book. He aimed to be “a Slave to Christ, a Pastor’s Helper, and a Servant to Local Churches.” In the Fundamentalist Digest for January/February 1995, Dr. Jasmin testified, “In 34 years of public ministry, both in the pastorate and full-time itinerant labors, he [Jasmin] has maintained an implicit confidence in the accuracy and reliability of the KJV text, NEVER wavering from that stance. He is NOT going to change that stance now simply to avoid the erroneous label and libel as a ‘Ruckmanite,’ whose heretical teachings he has vigorously exposed from their inception!” Dr. Jasmin was forced to cease publication of the Fundamentalist Digest a few years ago due to ill health and spent recent years in a special care facility in Bay City, Michigan. He is survived by his wife, Mary Cline Jasmin.

JOHN BUNYAN AND CHURCH MEMBERSHIP (Friday Church News Notes, November 22, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress, pastored a Baptist church but didn’t believe in the necessity of scriptural baptism for church membership or communion. Bunyan’s weak treatises defending this practice were answered by William Kiffen in A Sober Discourse of Right to Church-Communion (1681). Kiffen rightly argued that open membership and communion “destroys order and flatly contradicts the practice of the primitive Christians,” stating that “the right Gospel order” is found in Acts 2:41-42. Michael Haykin observes, “Although Bunyan is currently one of the most celebrated Christian authors of the seventeenth century, in his own day he had little influence amongst his fellow Baptists. His strong commitment to open communion and open membership put him out of step with most seventeenth-century Calvinist Baptists, who favoured closed communion and closed membership” (Kiffen, Knollys, and Keach: Rediscovering Our English Baptist Heritage).

LIVING IN ROCK AND LICHEN IT (Friday Church News Notes, November 22, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) The following is from CreationMoments.com, November 4, 2024: “Live things in Antarctica’s Victoria Land arctic desert must be very special indeed. The 2,000 square mile arctic desert appears to be home to no living things. There is neither soil nor plants. All that seems to exist there is lifeless, windswept, glacier scoured rock. On a warm day the desert may warm up to near freezing. During the perpetual darkness of winter, temperatures plunge to 158 degrees below zero. Yet, we know that there are very few places on Earth for which the Creator has not, in His unimagined wisdom, provided life. Scientists have now learned that there is indeed life in Antarctica’s desert. One tenth of an inch beneath the surface of the porous sandstone lives what biologists have called a miniature rainforest because of the various layers of life. A black zone made up mainly of fungi is closest to the surface of the rock. Just below that layer filaments of fungi and clusters of algae grow between the rock crystals. Several species of bacteria have also been found in this thin zone of life. They gain their food from the minerals in the rock as well as nitrogen released by the aurora australis, the southern lights. Together, these organisms provide a perfect ecological balance to continue life. When the Creator decides that there shall be life no matter how hostile the conditions, He is able to create not just life but a complete, working ecological balance. Notes: Bartusiak, Marcia, ‘Living in rock and lichen it,’ Science #83. p. 74.”

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; Mt. 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” (Ro. 13:11-14).