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.”
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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