NEWS NOTES 10/29/2004

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MICHAEL W. SMITH INCLUDES SECULAR ROCK SONG ON NEW ALBUM. Friday Church News Notes, October 29, 2004 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org, http://www.wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Contemporary Christian Music breaks down the walls of biblical separation from the world, and this is evident in the close affiliation between CCM and secular rock. One of the first things the Lord dealt with me about when I was saved in 1973 was my love for sensual, rebellious rock and roll. I put it out of my life in obedience to Scriptures such as Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 7:1; Gal. 5:16-17; Eph. 5:11; 1 Thess. 5:21-22; Titus 2:11-15; Jam. 1:27; 4:4; and 1 Jn. 2:15-17. Contemporary Christian musicians have no such conviction. Michael W. Smith’s new album, Healing Rain, includes the song “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel. There is no excuse for promoting this rock duo. Two of their greatest hits were associated with the wicked movie The Graduate, about an immoral affair between a college graduate and his married neighbor. The Simon and Garfunkel song “Mrs. Robinson” from that movie mocks the things of Jesus Christ. One website notes that Simon and Garfunkel “helped to fashion the outlooks and attitudes of the era [the 1960’s] as much as Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and many others.” That is exactly right, and the outlook and attitude of the 60’s was that of moral and religious relativism, which from the perspective of God’s Word is damnable. God’s people should have no association with these evil things. “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Eph. 5:11).

FAMOUS ROCKER TURNS 60. Friday Church News Notes, October 29, 2004 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org, http://www.wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Jimmy Page, guitarist for the drug-crazed rock group Led Zeppelin, is 60 years old. Page was known for “touring transvestite clubs in Nazi uniform in search of cross-dressing drug buddies.” John Bonham, drummer for Led Zeppelin, died in September 1980 at age 32 after drinking more than 40 shots of vodka in 12 hours. Page somehow survived the debauchery of that era to become a multimillionaire “family man,” but the price was high. He has five children from three different girlfriends. In a recent interview, Page said, “Every Christmas we are all together, all the mums and all the children” (“The taming of the beast,” The Australian, Oct. 19, 2004, p. 16). He calls this illegitimate muddle “a close-knit family.” In the 1970s, Page was a follower of Satanist Aleister Crowley. He purchased Crowley’s estate on the shores of Loch Ness. Page had Crowley’s statement “Do What Thou Wilt” inscribed in the plastic surrounding the label of Led Zeppelin III. Looking back over his long career in rock music, Page is pleased that it “made people happy and inspired some of them to pick up a guitar.” He failed to mention that it also inspired drunkenness and drug abuse and fornication, which in turn has resulted in devastating automobile crashes, violence, poverty, insanity, venereal disease, overdoses, spousal abuse, neglect of children, and destroyed marriages, to mention only some of the consequences of the “rock lifestyle.” Even worse, rock & roll has influenced large numbers of people to become involved in occultism and pagan religions. The tale of sorrow that can be traced to the influence of rock groups such as Led Zeppelin is incalculable. The Led Zeppelin song “Stairway to Heaven” is one of the most popular rock songs of all times. The lyrics say: “Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on...” The Bible does not promise anything more than “today,” and there is no more time for those who have been killed by the rock & roll lifestyle. Further, there is no Heaven waiting those who follow the Led Zeppelin gospel.

JET GUITARIST SAYS ROCK IS THE DEVIL’S MUSIC. Friday Church News Notes, October 29, 2004 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org, http://www.wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - While accepting one of six awards given to his rock band at the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Awards show on Oct. 18, Jet guitarist Cameron Muncey quipped, “I’d like to thank God but I can’t because rock and roll is the devil’s music.” The awards went for the band’s album “Get Born.” Muncey was apparently joking or mocking, but the wickedness of rock music is a serious matter. The Bible says the devil is the “god of this world” and “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2). According to the Bible, the devil is intimately associated with men’s activities when they walk in sin, “fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind” (Eph. 2:3). Rock has been the devil’s music since its inception, and that is no joke.

GRAHAM SCHOOL MARKS 10TH ANNIVERSARY. Friday Church News Notes, October 29, 2004 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org, http://www.wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Billy Graham School of Evangelism at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary marks its 10th anniversary this year. It was founded by one of the leaders of the SBC conservative renaissance, R. Albert Mohler, Jr., and it illustrates the New Evangelical compromise that permeates the SBC at even the most conservative levels. No man in this generation more epitomizes theological compromise than Billy Graham. Christianity Today observed: “It would be difficult to overestimate Billy Graham's importance in the last 50 years of evangelicalism. ... Graham personally embodied most of the characteristics of resurgent evangelicalism. ... de-emphasizing doctrinal and denominational differences that often divided Christians” (“Can Evangelicalism Survive Its Success?” Christianity Today, Oct. 5, 1992). This is open disobedience to the Bible, which nowhere de-emphasizes doctrinal differences. Graham established close relationships with Roman Catholics and theological modernists in the 1950s. Ecumenical unity of the most radical kind is his working philosophy. By the end of 1950, In 1956 Graham said, “THEN WE’LL SEND THEM TO THEIR OWN CHURCHES--ROMAN CATHOLIC, PROTESTANT OR JEWISH” (New York Evening Journal, Sept. 18, 1956). The next year he told the same thing to the San Francisco News (Nov. 11, 1957). The Graham Association has turned the names of tens of thousands of people over to Roman Catholic and modernistic Protestant churches. The vice-chairman for the Graham 1984 Vancouver, British Columbia crusade stated: “If Catholics step forward there will be no attempt to convert them and their names will be given to the Catholic church nearest their homes” (David Cline, Vancouver Sun, Oct. 5, 1984). The names of 2,100 Catholics who came forward during 1989 London crusades were referred to Catholic churches. It is commendable that the lead Southern Baptist Seminary desires to promote evangelism, but to honor an unscriptural ecumenist like Billy Graham is inexcusable.

SATANIST WELCOME TO PRACTICE ON BRITISH NAVY SHIP, BUT THERE IS “NOTHING DARK ABOUT IT.” Friday Church News Notes, October 29, 2004 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org, http://www.wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The captain of HMS Cumberland has given permission for a Satanist, Naval technician Chris Cranmer, to practice his “faith” aboard ship. Cranmer is petitioning the British Ministry of Defence to make Satanism a registered religion in the armed forces. Cranmer became a Satanist when he “stumbled upon” the Satanic Bible some years ago (“Satan’s Welcome Aboard,” The Australian, Oct. 25). This perverted book was written by Anton Lavey, late founder of the Church of Satan. Followers live by the “Nine Satanic Statements,” including “Satan represents all of the so-called sins,” “Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence,” and “Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek.” A Navy spokesman said, “Nobody is suggesting there is anything at all dark about this” (“Devil worship OK aboard navy ships,” WorldNetDaily, Oct. 24). If Satanism is not darkness, nothing is. In His great mercy, God protected England from the Spanish Armada and from Hitler’s intended invasion, but I wouldn’t want to go to war in a ship that gives official sanction to Satanism.

MAN’S UNDEPENDABLE PREDICTIONS. Friday Church News Notes, October 29, 2004 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org, http://www.wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - There have been many predictions about the future in the last century. Predictions have been made, for example, about world peace. World War I was called “the war to end all wars.” The League of Nations was formed, and it was supposed to be the end of war, but that turned out to be a false hope. Other predictions have pertained to a resolution of the mid-east crisis. There have been many agreements, such as the Camp David Accord, that were supposed to have resulted in peace between Israel and her neighbors, but all have turned out to be false hopes. Other predictions pertain to ecological disasters. The book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, which I read in Vietnam in 1971, predicted global ecological disaster, but it proved to be bogus. A few years ago many scientists and ecologists were predicting an ice age, but those predictions have been given up in favor of a “global warming” that might, they say, result in widespread flooding and chaos. An article in the Guardian for Sept. 24, 2004, titled “China’s Glaciers Pose Eco Threat,” warned, “The world’s highest ice fields are melting so quickly that they are on course to disappear within 100 years, driving up the sea level, increasing floods, and turning verdant mountain slopes into deserts.” That is an amazing prediction, but will it turn out to be true, or false? Man’s predictions are undependable at best; but when it comes to the Bible, we can have perfect confidence, because the Bible’s prophecies have always been true.

CONCLUSION: Friends in Christ, do not be discouraged by any of this. 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. These things remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the coming of the Lord. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you living for Christ day by day? Are you in the perfect will of God for your life and bearing fruit for His glory? “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).