The following is another installment of the Friday Church News Notes designed especially for use in churches. It is published by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. For instructions on how to unsubscribe to this list or to change mailing addresses, please consult the information paragraph at the end.

HIGHLAND PARK BAPTIST CHURCH ROCKING ON WEDNESDAY NIGHTS. Friday Church News Notes, November 4, 2005 (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 October 29 issue of the Chattanooga Times Free Press (Chattanooga, Tennessee) featured a picture of Tennessee Temple University students worshipping to contemporary rock music during a Wednesday evening service. The accompanying article said: “Beneath the 90-year-old stained glass at St. Andrews Center, rock music blares as worshippers in jeans and T-shirts fill the sanctuary. The weekly Wednesday night church service has all the markings of traditional worship--music, preaching and praying. But the choir and organ have been replaced with drums and an electric guitar. ‘Each generation has different styles of music, and what churches have to realize is that we’ve got to meet those younger generations’ needs,’ said Dr. Danny Lovett, who preaches at the service and is president of Tennessee Temple University.” Where does the Bible say God’s people should use the world’s style of music? To the contrary, we are instructed to have spiritual music (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16), which means music that is set apart unto God from this wicked world. See 1 Jn. 2:15-17; Jam. 4:4; Tit. 2:11-14; Rom. 12:2. While it is a sad thing for older graduates of this school to observe, it is not surprising to see Tennessee Temple and Highland Park Baptist Church take such a dramatic turn to a worldly philosophy. Lovett recently came to Temple from Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Baptist University, and it is New Evangelical to the core. Billy Graham, the Prince of New Evangelicalism, has spoken at Liberty and has been praised by Falwell for his “faithful ministry.” Liberty students are not warned about the heresy of Graham’s ecumenical evangelism or of his unscriptural emphasize the positive, judge not philosophy. Liberty has hosted conferences for the radically ecumenical Promise Keepers as well as for Rick Warren. Biblical separation is rapidly fading from the agenda of a large body of former fundamentalist Baptists who are moving in the popular contemporary direction.

IRAN’S PRESIDENT SAYS ISRAEL SHOULD BE WIPED OFF THE MAP. Friday Church News Notes, November 4, 2005 (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) - At an October 26 conference in Tehran entitled “A World without Zionism,” Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, Iran’s president, said “Israel must be wiped off the map” (“Wipe Israel from Map,” Financial Times, Oct. 27). Ahmadi-Nejad was quoting the late Ayatollah Khomeini. He also said there was “no doubt the new wave [of attacks] in Palestine will soon wipe off this disgraceful blot from the face of the Islamic world.” That same day a suicide bomber killed five people in Israel. Two days later Ahmadi-Nejad was cheered by thousands during an anti-Israel rally in Tehran. He said he stands by what he said and added, “My words are the Iranian nation’s words.” Protesters chanted “death to America” and “death to Israel” and set fire to American and Israeli flags (“Iranian President Stands by Call to Wipe Israel off Map,” New York Times, Oct 29). “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins” (Rom. 11:25-27).

THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED FICTIONALIZES CHRIST. Friday Church News Notes, November 4, 2005 (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 following is from our friend Brian Snider of Huntsville, Alabama: “A new book by Anne Rice incorporates fictional scenes from the life of Christ, blaspheming the son of God and flirting with the curse of Revelation by adding to the word of God with her fables about the Son of God. Her new book is based on Biblical accounts of the Lord’s life, but fictionalizes much of the rest with imaginative accounts of events that never happened, and are incongruous with the life of Christ. In the opening pages, a 7-year-old Jesus kills a neighborhood bully with his powers, and then resurrects him from the dead. This sets the stage for the way that Rice continually fills in the blanks of the Lord’s life in her novel by creating scenes out of whole cloth. Rice is one of the most popular writers in America today, dishing up demonic, soft-porn books filled with vampires and Satanic imagery. Yet these books are popular with readers across the spectrum, including many Christians. America’s love for demonic literature and movies has never been higher, and Rice has ridden that wave to almost unparalleled heights. Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and Anne Rice have been some of the most consistent best-sellers in the last many years, and their themes are same: witchcraft, demonism and the dark side. Her latest book will bring even more confusion to an already confused world. Christian authors like Tim LaHaye have taken liberty with the Bible by mixing it with fiction, and Christian readers have made those books bestsellers. How can Christians complain when those outside the evangelical world take liberties with the Bible as well? In fact, Rice says she read the ‘Left Behind’ books in preparation for her new novel. Rice returned to her Catholic roots in 1998 after a serious illness. She had not been a practicing Catholic since the age of 18. And while her new book is a fictional account of Jesus’ life and thoughts, she has no problem criticizing what she terms ‘skeptical’ New Testament scholarship which discounts the authenticity of the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life. So that makes this Roman Catholic author of satanic/erotic novels an opponent of modern textual criticism.”

A CONGRESS “TOWARD A NEW ENLIGHTENMENT.” Friday Church News Notes, November 4, 2005 (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) - A congress of skeptical scientists, academics, and authors sponsored by the Center for Inquiry was held October 27-29. It was the Center’s 10th annual conference. The theme was “Toward a New Enlightenment” and the goal was to “respond to assaults on free inquiry that participants said threaten advances not only in science and medicine, but democracy itself” (“Skeptics Converge to Take on Religion and Morality,” AP, Oct. 27). The founder of the Center, Paul Kurtz, said, “Unfortunately, too many well-meaning people base their conceptions of the universe on ancient books, such as the Quran and the Bible, rather than going directly to the book of nature.” The participants of this conference are wise in their own eyes, but those who reject the Bible and Jesus Christ do not know even the ABCs of wisdom. There is no contradiction between the Bible and “the book of nature.” “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:18-21).

MAJORITY OF AMERICANS REJECT EVOLUTION AND BELIEVE IN HELL. Friday Church News Notes, November 4, 2005 (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) - According to a new CBS/Associated Press poll, 51% of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form (“Majority Reject Evolution,” CBSNews, Oct. 23). About 45% said they believe in evolution, with 31% of those claiming to believe that God guided the evolutionary process. The survey was conducted in early October and consisted of interviews with 808 adults. A Fox News poll published a week later found that 91% of Americans believe in God, 87% believe in heaven, 79% believe in angels, 74% believe in hell, and 67% believe in the devil (Foxnews.com, Oct. 28). It would be interesting to see what percentage believe that one can go to heaven only by being born again through personal faith in Jesus Christ.

NEW ZEALAND CHURCH TO REPLACE SUNDAY SERVICES WITH RUGBY SCREENINGS. Friday Church News Notes, November 4, 2005 (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 Greerton Bible Church in Tauranga, New Zealand, plans to temporarily replace its Sunday services with screenings of international rugby matches (New Zealand Herald, Oct. 28). New Zealand’s team will play against Wales, Ireland, England, and Scotland on successive Sundays beginning November 6. Sunday, of course, is commonly one of the biggest days for professional sports. The church plans to shift its regular Sunday services to Friday nights to make way for the rugby matches. The congregation has been encouraged to dress in “rugby supporters’ gear” for the screenings and rugby players will give their testimonies. The pastor said, “... we figured if we can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Somehow I can’t imagine the apostle Paul saying that. He also said, “We want to try and break the stereotype or caricature that people have in mind about church being staid and starchy and not enjoying life.” A Bible-based church will always be “staid and starchy” to the unsaved for the simple reason that they have no appetite for the things of God. “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). Pastors who turn the house of God into a worldly entertainment center that appeals to the unsaved have turned from the Word of God. There is not a hint of such a thing in the New Testament.

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? “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).