WINNING YOUTH TO CHRIST WITH VIOLENT VIDEO GAME (Friday Church News Notes, October 12, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Hundreds of churches are using the violent and addictive M-rated video game Halo to allegedly reach young people with the gospel. On “Halo nights” teenagers flock around big screen televisions and engage in violent virtual combat and then listen to a brief watered-down, no repentance religious message. Kids as young as 12 attend Halo night at Colorado Community Church near Denver and play the video game even though it is rated M for “mature audiences” and those buying it must be 17 years of age. Tim Foster, a 12-year-old who attends church-sponsored Halo parties, explained the allure: “It’s just fun blowing people up” (“Churches Lure Youth with Violent Video Game,” Edmonton Journal, New York Times News Service, Oct. 7, 2007). Contemporary churches are so in love with the world that they see nothing wrong with using the world to win people to their type of Christianity. They offer rock & roll worship and Halo youth outreaches and Hula dances and pool parties and poker nights and football baptisms. Once the wall of separation is broken down between churches and the world there is no end to the sinful insanity that will ensue. “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).

ANGLICAN LEADER SAYS HEAVEN NOT FOR CHRISTIANS ONLY (Friday Church News Notes, October 12, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Desmond Tutu, retired Anglican Archbishop of South Africa, says heaven is for Buddhists and all “good people.” Speaking at the Alliance of Civilizations awards ceremony in Cape Town on October 8 he said, “Most of us think God is a Christian, but if you think that God is going to tell the Dalai Lama ‘you’re a good person, but sorry you’re not a Christian’ then (I say) rubbish” (News24, South Africa, Oct. 7, 2007). This illustrious Anglican leader does not have the foggiest idea about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. No one will be in heaven by being a “good person,” for the Bible plainly states, “There is none righteous, no, not one” and “there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Romans 3:10, 12). The only way of salvation from God’s wrath is by being again through faith in Jesus Christ as the only Lord and Saviour. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). In August Tutu wrote an open letter to Anglican leaders urging them to put unity above their differences and to accept unrepentant homosexuals so that Jesus will smile at them (“Be United and Let Jesus Smile Again,” Church Times, Aug. 24, 2007). The Tutu gospel is a cheap gospel of license rather than the biblical gospel of conversion. “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. ... Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” (2 Timothy 3:1-2, 5).

CREATION CRISIS IN CHRISTIAN COLLEGES (Friday Church News Notes, October 12, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Creation Crisis in Christian Colleges,” by Dr. Kurt Wise, Answers In Genesis, Jan. 31, 2006: “Recently, both the Wheaton College student newspaper (this is a prominent Christian school near Chicago) and Chicago Tribune ran stories about the age of the earth in Christian colleges. ... With the exception of Seventh Day Adventist colleges, it’s virtually impossible to find young-age creation taught at denominational colleges (Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, Nazarene, etc.) ... the Tribune article mentions three biology majors at Olivet Nazarene College who entered the school as creationists, but who are now theistic evolutionists. As a further example, the Wheaton College newspaper shows the results of a student survey (42% of the students responded) which showed that whereas 47% believed in a young earth before entering Wheaton (the same percentage which Gallup finds for the population at large in its polls), only 27% believed in a young earth by the time of the survey. The same survey indicated that Wheaton professors were a greater influence on their age-of-earth belief than their parents were!” CONCLUDING NOTE: The Bible says the world was divinely created in six literal days, and that settles the matter for a Bible-believer. The only sure protection from the apostasy of these last days is for God’s people to have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with those who name the name of Christ but deny or question the Bible’s plain teachings. “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Romans 16:17).

CHE GUEVARA’S IDEALS LOSE GROUND IN CUBA (Friday Church News Notes, October 12, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from SwissInfo.org, Oct. 4, 2007: “Cuba will mark the 40th anniversary of Che Guevara’s capture on Monday in Santa Clara, the central city he captured as a guerrilla leader in 1958 and where a mausoleum was built for his bones when they were dug up from a secret grave in Bolivia and returned to Cuba a decade ago. Dissident economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe says Guevara remains well respected ‘for his courage as a guerrilla fighter’ but that no one advocates his economic ideas in Cuba today. ‘Cubans are having a very hard time because of the economic crisis. They are no longer motivated by these ideals. Their only worry is eating three meals a day,’ he said. ... When he set off to Bolivia in 1965 to start a new guerrilla insurrection, Guevara said in his parting letter to Castro that he was leaving behind his wife and four children with no material goods. ‘And I am not sorry: I’m glad it is that way,’ said Guevara, a Marxist who believed in building a ‘new man’ who would put community needs above personal interest. Besides the massive iron figure overlooking Havana's Revolution Square and the famous image of Guevara gazing into the distance from posters and banknotes, one former guerrilla fighter says little else remains of him in contemporary Cuba. ‘If the new man that Che wanted is what we have today, it has been a total failure,’ said Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, a leader of the Escambray front until Guevara showed up.”

BODY MODIFICATION PROFESSIONAL SAYS IT IS DARK AND REBELLIOUS (Friday Church News Notes, October 12, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - A former “body modification” professional resigned from the trade recently after reading David Kupelian’s “The Marketing of Evil” (“Body-piercing pro quits after reading book,” WorldNetDaily, Sept. 20, 2007). In an open letter to leading body modification websites, the man, whose name is not given in the WorldNetDaily article, admits that tattooing and body piercing is all about rebellion and observes that it is “getting darker and darker.” Following is an excerpt from this letter: “I’ve been a faithful student of the Body Modification lifestyle for a decade now. I have performed countless piercings, scarifications, brands, implants, and a host of other less ‘pop culture’ procedures. ... You see, it’s dawned on me that perhaps we (the Bod Mod culture) have become much darker than we intended. We all in some way or another come into this ‘tribe’ as it were, to rebel and fight on some psychological plane against someone or something, be it our individual parents, an establishment, or even society itself. ... I think back on some of the things I’ve been paid to do to people (and done to myself) at their own request and I think if someone accused me of doing these things to them without consent it would be undeniable torture. ... Self-inflicted castrations, lobotomies, amputations, disfigurement of every conceivable nature, suspensions--we do these things to each other and ourselves without a second thought. Could these acts truly be signs of a perpetually growing disease? Could the fact that our acts are becoming darker and darker, more and more grotesque be a sign that we are heading in the wrong directions? ... You see, it starts so innocently, so pure with a simple labret or cage in the ear, but in the tinniest increments it turns darker and darker until we are far beyond the innocence and purity of our beginnings.”

CHURCH LEADER ARRESTED IN CHINA FOR RECEIVING IMPORTED BIBLES (Friday Church News Notes, October 12, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “House Church Leader in Xinjiang Formally Arrested for Receiving Bibles and Abused in Jail,” ChristianNewsWire.com, Sept. 5, 2007: “China Aid learned that a well-known house church leader was formally arrested on August 31 for receiving 3 tons of bibles. Mr. Zhou Heng is also the manager of a registered bookstore which is called Yayi Christian Book Room which is used to sell some Christianity related books published legally and officially inside China. His bookstore was already forced to close after his arrest by the local authority. ... The Bibles were reportedly donated by South Korean churches and were intended for local believers free of charge. However, the Chinese government only allows officially sanctioned (state) churches to print and distribute a limited number of Bibles each year. If convicted of the charges, he faces a 15-year prison sentence. ... CAA China investigators spoke with a recently released inmate who shared a cell with Brother Zhou. The inmate reported Brother Zhou was beaten in prison severely by other inmates and prison guards.”

MENNONITES LEAVING QUEBEC FOR FREEDOM OF RELIGION (Friday Church News Notes, October 12, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Several Mennonite families have moved from Roxton Falls, Quebec, after the provincial government refused to allow them to educate their children according to their religious faith (“Mennonites Beginning to Pull up Stakes,” Montreal Gazette, Sept. 3, 2007). The Quebec government requires that all schools use state-certified teachers and the state-curriculum (which advances evolution and other humanistic errors). The Mennonite families closed their private school and relocated to Alexandria, Ontario, where the laws are friendlier toward private religious schools. Ontario has 69 Mennonite schools with an enrollment of more than 3,000 children.

THE BRIDE OF CHRIST AND CALVINISM (Friday Church News Notes, October 12, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In the book of Genesis, Rebekah is a lovely type of the Bride of Christ. Abraham, a type of the Heavenly Father, sent his servant, a type of the Holy Spirit, to fetch a bride for Isaac (Genesis 24). Rebekah was invited to be Isaac’s wife (Gen. 24:58), just as sinners are invited to come to Christ (Mat. 11:28), and she sweetly and wisely agreed. By faith she accepted the terms offered to her and believed in a man she had never seen. Likewise, the sinner must accept God’s invitation offered in Scripture and presented to the heart by the Holy Spirit and must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be saved (John 3:16). This disproves the “sovereign election” doctrine of Calvinism. If the Bride of Christ were “sovereignly” elected and irresistibly drawn, having had no choice in the matter, she would be a strange bride!

TRUTH WOULD NOT BE TRUTH IN THIS WORLD IF IT WERE NOT A WARRING THING (Friday Church News Notes, October 12, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from Charles H. Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Sermons, vol. 5, #24: “Truth could not be truth in this world if it were not a warring thing, and we should at once suspect it were not true if error were friends with it. The spotless purity of truth must always be at war with the blackness of heresy and lies. I say again, it would cast a suspicion upon its own nature; we should feel at once that it was not true, if it were not at enmity with the false. .... It is but a rule of nature that holiness must be at enmity with sin. That would be but a mock purity which could lie side by side with iniquity and claim its kinship. ‘Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee?’ ... If it were so, beloved, we might then not only suspect that the church was not the holy, universal and apostolic church; we might not only suspect it, but we might beyond suspicion pronounce a verdict upon her, ‘Thou art no more Christ’s bride; thou art an antichrist, an apostate, reprobate silver shall men call thee, because thou hast not learned to distinguish between the precious and the vile.’”