Friday Church News Notes
Volume 19, Issue 4 - January 26, 2018
Graphical Edition
The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, though this does not imply an endorsement.
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HILLSONG AT THOMAS ROAD (Friday Church News Notes, January 26, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, founded by the late Jerry Falwell, is hosting a Hillsong rock “worship” concert on April 20. Decades of disobedience and compromise have produced the frightful level of spiritual blindness required to accept Hillsong’s apostasy. Hillsong worship music began at Hillsong Church of Sydney, Australia, where the pastors are a husband-wife team, Brian and Bobby Houston, and where the worship leader was Darlene Zschech. Some years ago, Bobby published the video series “Kingdom Women Love Sex.” That was about the same time that Brian published his “You Need More Money” series on the subject of prosperity giving. Today Hillsong Church has branches in many parts of the world, and all of them are producing “worship” music. In 2014, the New York Times reported that Hillsong is “without a doubt the most influential producers of worship music in Christendom” (“Megachurch with a Beat Lures Young Flock,” Sept. 9, 2014). Hillsong is radically ecumenical, incredibly worldly, and totally committed to Pentecostal Latter Rain heresy (e.g., gibberish as “tongues,” spirit slaying, prophesying, word of faith, women pastors, ecumenical unity as a sign of end-time revival). In July 2015, Hillsong joined hands with Pope Frances at the Convocation of the Renewal of the Holy Spirit at the Vatican. Hillsong worship leader Darlene Zschech said on her Facebook page, “This is a celebration of unity and peace in the Renewal of the Holy Spirit. Amazing days for the Body of Christ.” Anyone who thinks that people who believe in baptismal regeneration and venerate Mary as the Queen of Heaven are in “the body of Christ,” doesn’t know the ABC’s of biblical truth. In May 2016, Hillsong New York City hosted a Women’s Conference that featured, among other things, scantily-dressed ‘cheerleaders,’ an Elvis impersonator, and a naked cowboy wearing only underwear, a cowboy hat, boots, and a guitar. The cowboy was Hillsong New York City’s own youth pastor, Diego Simla. Thomas Road Baptist Church, which is hosting Hillsong in April, is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention and was long affiliated with Baptist Bible Fellowship International. Its founding pastor, Jerry Falwell, broke ecumenical ground among Independent Baptists by his affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church, beginning in the 1970s. In 1986, he stated that Roman Catholics made up the largest constituency of his Moral Majority political organization. Falwell praised Pope John Paul II and endorsed Chuck Colson’s 1992 book, The Body, which considered the Catholic Church a part of “the body of Christ.” Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University are on the slippery slide of compromise that began under Jerry Falwell’s direction. His compromise started with small steps, as it always does, but the Word of God warns that “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump” (1 Cor. 5:6; Gal. 5:9). (For more on this see “Darlene Zschech and Hillsong” in the The Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians, a free eBook available from www.wayoflife.org.)

CHINA DESTROYS CHURCH BUILDING (Friday Church News Notes, January 26, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Bomb destroys persecuted church,” China Aid, Jan. 9, 2018: “An explosion rang through the air earlier today as authorities bombed and demolished a serially persecuted church in China’s northern Shanxi province. Golden Lampstand Church in Linfen, Shanxi was once a 17 million Yuan ($2,603,380 USD) unregistered church, paid for completely by the Christians who attended it. On Jan. 9, Chinese military police detonated explosives situated in underground worship halls beneath the church and proceeded to demolish its above-ground building, leaving it shattered. China’s military police has been under the direct control of the central government since the head of the public security bureau, which previously commanded it, was arrested last year. This indicates that the order to destroy the church came from China’s top officials instead of the less-powerful local authorities. This is not the first time the church has faced persecution, however. China repeatedly cracks down on house churches, which are churches that refuse to register, often to opt out of government monitoring. Officials often prosecute such choices, however, and some of Golden Lampstand Church’s leaders have been imprisoned for one to seven years, simply for serving at their church. The similar demolition of a Catholic church last year is prompting Christians to worry that the central government will begin ordering the mass destruction of church buildings nationwide as new religious regulations go into effect next month. These regulations grant the Chinese Communist Party increased power over religion, paving the way for escalated persecution. ... [The church’s leaders were arrested in 2009 and spent from three to seven years in prison.]”

TURKISH PROFESSOR CLAIMS KORAN FLOOD STORY COULD SUPPORT NOAH CALLING SON ON CELL-PHONE (Friday Church News Notes, January 26, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Turkish Professor,” BreakingIsraelNews.com, Jan. 11, 2018: “A Turkish professor has come up with an amazing theory about Biblical Noah based on his understanding of the story as related in the Koran: during the storm, conversation was impossible due to the thunder and lightning so Noah kept in touch with his sons via cellular phone. The professor reveals even more surprising details but the story is no joke and has become the focus of religious debate between secular and Islamic Turks. Yavuz Ornek, a lecturer at the Marine Sciences Faculty of Istanbul University, was invited to speak on Turkish state-owned TRT television channel last Saturday on the subject of the flood story, which has an entire chapter of the Koran dedicated to it. In most respects, it is identical to the story as it appears in the Bible, but Ornek’s take on the story differed greatly from both versions. Ornek was discussing the section of the Koran’s version of the flood story in which one of Noah’s sons, who was a disbeliever, refused to come aboard the Ark. The son climbed a mountain but as the floodwaters rose, he spoke to his father and repented.  ‘The Koran says the waves were as high as mountains, so if Noah spoke with his son, his son must be sitting on the top of another mountain,’ Ornek said in the televised interview. ‘The Koran says they spoke, but to talk between two mountains with hundreds of kilometers apart, they must have had mobile phones, and Noah’s son must have boarded an aerial vehicle to reach his father.’ Ornek explained his theory, saying that technologies were much more advanced 10,000 years ago than most people realize. Noah, referred to as Nuh ibn Lamech ibn Methuselah in the Koran, also used advanced technology to build an ark out of steel that was powered by nuclear energy. Ornek also claimed that instead of bringing live animals onto the ark, Noah stocked it with one male and one female egg from every living species.”

TRAFFIC IN ABORTED BABY ORGANS (Friday Church News Notes, January 26, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Government Raid Revealed Baby Bodies,” ChristianNewsWire.com, Dec. 27, 2017: “Government investigators found four bodies, appearing to be second-trimester infants, preserved in a Detroit cadaver warehouse owned by Arthur Rathburn. ... Liberty Counsel is calling for an investigation into how these babies were obtained by Rathburn. ‘Rathburn wasn’t running a charity,’ said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. ‘It’s possible these were aborted children. It is also very possible that the illegal profiting and trafficking of aborted human organs is much more widespread than the public knows. These four children deserve an investigation.’ ... Two other companies, DV Biologics and DaVinci Biosciences, agreed to settle a lawsuit earlier this month for illegally selling baby body parts supplied by Planned Parenthood to pharmaceutical companies and schools across America as well as 10 countries, making millions of dollars in profit. The companies avoided further investigation and discovery by settling out of court. The companies were forced to pay $7.785 million, turn over more than $10,000 in laboratory equipment and storage containers, and pay $195,000 in civil penalties. Both companies must cease doing business in California. These companies created catalogs of baby body parts and even ran ‘specials’ to sell to pharmaceutical companies and universities.”
The Ovitz Family

The Ovitz's. Perla Ovitz is on the right.

THE DWARFS OF AUSCHWITZ (Friday Church News Notes, January 26, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Giants: The Dwarfs of Auschwitz by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev is the fascinating account of the Ovitz family, the largest family of dwarfs ever recorded. A Jewish dwarf named Shimson Eizik (Samson Isaac) Ovitz (1889-1980) fathered 10 children, seven of which were dwarfs (five girls and two boys). The seven formed an entertainment group called the Lilliputs and made a living at this in Romania prior to World War II. In May 1944, the entire family was sent to the Nazi death camp, Auschwitz, and all of the dwarfs survived due to being singled out for research by the cruel Nazi eugenic doctor Josef Mengele. He is infamous for performing horrible and deadly experiments on his subjects, particularly twins, but his experiments on the Ovitz dwarfs, though painful and dehumanizing, were not ultimately deadly. Among other things, Mengele extracted bone marrow, drew dangerous amounts of blood, pulled out teeth and hair, poured hot and cold water in their ears, and temporarily blinded them with chemicals. Surrounded by unspeakable pain and death, they lived in abject fear until they were liberated by the Russian Army in January 1945. (Of the 3,500 Jews who arrived at Auschwitz on the evening of May 19, 1944, with the Ovitz family, 3,100 were dead by morning.) In May 1949, they immigrated to the one-year-old state of Israel. Perla, the youngest of the dwarfs, died in 2001. At a young age, she came to terms with her deformity. “Like every child, I expected to add a few centimetres every year and grow like a flower. But ... I’ve never fantasised about a good fairy coming to double my height. Being a dwarf is no punishment. The difference in height does not diminish my pleasure. Our life is as worthwhile as anyone else’s. ... Naturally we’d like to be no different than you, but if this is the shape God destined for us, we have no complaints against Him” (Giants: The Dwarfs of Auschwitz, Kindle loc. 299, 2972). Shimson Ovitz was a rabbi, and it is sad that his children remained committed to rabbinic Judaism with its dependency on the Talmud (Pharisaical tradition) and mystical Kabbalah. For example, they justified performing worldly pop tunes by the Kabbala’s teaching that “nizozoth, or divine sparks, fall down from the Spheres of Holiness and were scattered throughout the entire universe--even into non-Jewish music. Through singing, the sparks are released, to be lifted up and purified.”

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; Mat. 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” (Rom. 13:11-14).

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Distributed by Way of Life Literature., publisher of Bible Study Materials and reports for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Established in 1974, Way of Life Literature is a fundamental Baptist preaching and publishing ministry based in Bethel Baptist Church, London, Ontario, of which Wilbert Unger is the founding Pastor. Brother Cloud lives in South Asia where he has been a church planting missionary since 1979. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY (REPORTS AND FRIDAY NEWS) IS NOT DEVOTIONAL. IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR.

David Cloud, Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org

The Way of Life Literature preaching and publishing ministry is based at Bethel Baptist Church, London, Ontario, of which Wilbert Unger is the founding Pastor. A mail stop is maintained in Port Huron, Michigan.

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