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.

METHODIST BISHOPS COME OUT IN SUPPORT OF HOMOSEXUAL CHURCH MEMBERSHIP. Friday Church News Notes, November 11, 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 bishops of the United Methodist Church have issued a statement declaring that homosexuality is no barrier to church membership. The Council of Bishops said that “while pastors have the responsibility to discern readiness for membership, homosexuality is not a barrier” (“United Methodist Bishops Affirm Church Membership Open to All,” United Methodist Church News Service, Nov. 3). The bishops’ sorry and heretical decision was unanimous, thus exposing the deep apostasy of this denomination. When we look into the Scriptures, we find that while the Gospel is for everyone, church membership is only for those who have been born again through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, those whose lives have been converted to holy living by the power of the indwelling Spirit. “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such WERE some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11).

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS GAME DAY 2005. Friday Church News Notes, November 11, 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 Dungeons & Dragons Game Day 2005 was held on November 5 and drew participants in many countries. It was the 31st anniversary of the fantasy-sorcery warfare game, which was a predecessor to the even more demonic games that are popular today in electronic format. Scott Presley, a game player at The Fantasy Factory in Lakeland, Florida, said, “A lot of online gaming out there now owes a great deal of debt to the Dungeons & Dragons gaming system” (The Lakeland Ledger, Nov. 5, p. D1). The game is about casting spells, ghouls, goblins, pentagrams, and other things associated what the Bible describes as the demonic realm. Though promoted as innocent fun, it is anything but that. Graham Braddock of New Zealand warned: “Even in its most basic forms players are introduced to magic, the casting of spells, the use of magic circles, pentagrams and thaumaturgic triangles as protective psychic devices. Players battle or seek the aid of demons and pagan deities. Players are encouraged to align themselves with a deity or deities and even to worship them” (Maranatha Message #80, 1984). “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). “This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing” (Jer. 23:10).

EPISCOPAL CHURCHES LEAVING THE FOLD. Friday Church News Notes, November 11, 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) - Many congregations are leaving the Episcopal Church USA because of its support for the ordination and marriage of homosexuals. The Calvary Anglican Church held its first service in Jacksonville, Florida, on November 6 after splitting from the Episcopal denomination at the national and state level. Two other churches in Jacksonville, plus churches in Orange Park, Gainesville, and Tallahassee are following suit in January 2006 (“Calvary Anglican Prays in New Spot,” The Times-Union, Nov. 7). Some Episcopal congregations in other states had already jumped ship.

PASTOR ELECTROCUTED AFTER PRAYING “SURPRISE ME, GOD.” Friday Church News Notes, November 11, 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) - Pastor Kyle Lake was electrocuted on Sunday, October 30, minutes after the congregation had prayed, “Surprise me, God.” The pastor of the liberal University Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, was preparing to preach a strange New Agey-like sermon about living life to the fullest, in which he said: “Live. And Live Well. BREATHE. Breathe in and Breathe deeply. Be PRESENT. Do not be past. Do not be future. Be now. ... Get knee-deep in a novel and LOSE track of time. If you bike, pedal HARD… and if you crash then crash well. ... If you’ve recently experienced loss, then GRIEVE. And Grieve well. At the table with friends and family, LAUGH. If you’re eating and laughing at the same time, then you might as well laugh until you puke.” This Baptist church gets its name from nearby Baylor University, which is a liberal institution supported by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Professor Roger Olson of Baylor’s Truett Seminary has espoused the heresy of Open Theism, which claims that God does not perfectly know the future and makes mistakes. In March 2004 Baylor’s school paper came out in support of homosexual marriage and said it is wrong to “discriminate” against someone because of “sexual orientation.”  

CHRISTIAN GIRLS SHOT/BEHEADED IN INDONESIA. Friday Church News Notes, November 11, 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) - Two teenage Christian girls were shot in the head in Indonesia on November 8 and are in comas and three others were beheaded on October 29. The attacks occurred in Poso, which is about 900 miles northeast of the capital Jakarta. BosNewsLife reports that there have been 40 other attacks against professing Christians, including shootings, killings, and bombings. Fighting between Muslims and Christians took the lives of about 2,000 people in this region of Indonesia between 1998 and 2001. Hundreds of churches have been forced to close.

PASTOR STILL FACING TRIAL FOR SPEAKING OUT AGAINST HOMOSEXUALITY. Friday Church News Notes, November 11, 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) - Stephen Boissoin, a youth pastor in Alberta, Canada, is still facing a trial before the Human Rights Commission for speaking out against the dangers of homosexuality. As we reported in the September 16 Friday Church News Notes, the controversy began when Boissoin wrote a letter to his local newspaper, the Red Deer Advocate, denouncing homosexuality as immoral and dangerous. In the letter, published in the June 17, 2002 edition of the paper,  Boisson rightly lamented that “children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.” A complaint was subsequently filed by Darren Lund, an assistant professor at the University of Calgary. Boissoin will appear before the Commission at an as yet unnamed date, and if found guilty will be fined $7,000 ($5,000 of which is supposed to go Darren Lund and $2,000 to the pro-homosexual rights group EGALE Canada). Boissoin, who has two young children, said that he will not pay a fine to EGALE nor will he apologize for what he wrote, even if he has to go to prison. Good for him, but shame on Alberta’s so-called Human Rights Commission for persecuting this pastor just because some don’t like what he preaches. More information about this important case for religious liberty in Canada can be found at the following web sites: http://www.concernedchristians.ca/pages/campaigns/hrCommision/index.htm and http://www.businesshost.ca/freetospeak/.

CHARLES SPURGEON ON THE DANGER OF COUNTING UNHATCHED CHICKENS. Friday Church News Notes, November 11, 2005 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “It is a serious injury to a person to receive him into the number of the faithful unless there is good reason to believe that he is really [born again]. I am sure it is so, for I speak after careful observation. Some of the most glaring sinners known to me were once members of a church; and were, as I believe, led to make a profession by undue pressure, well-meant but ill-judged. Do not, therefore, consider that soul-winning is or can be secured by the multiplication of baptisms, and the swelling of the size of your church. What mean these dispatches from the battle-field? ‘Last night, fourteen souls were under conviction, fifteen were justified, and eight received full sanctification’. I am weary of this public bragging, this counting of unhatched chickens, this exhibition of doubtful spoils. Lay aside such numberings of the people, such idle pretence of certifying in half a minute that which will need the testing of a lifetime. Hope for the best, but in your highest excitements be reasonable. Enquiry-rooms are all very well; but if they lead to idle boastings, they will grieve the Holy Spirit, and work abounding evil. Do not aim at sensation and ‘effect’. Flowing tears and streaming eyes, sobs and outcries, crowded after-meetings and all kinds of confusions may occur, and may be borne with as [coincidence] of genuine feeling; but pray, do not plan their production. It very often happens that the converts that are born in excitement die when the excitement is over.”

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).