Friday Church News Notes
Volume 19, Issue 9 - March 2, 2018
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.
Billy Graham
BILLY GRAHAM DEAD AT AGE 99 (Friday Church News Notes, February 23, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Evangelist Billy Graham died on February 21, 2018, at age 99. He has been called “America’s Pastor” and was consistently voted one of the world’s most popular men. This reminds us of Jesus’ words in Luke 6:26, “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” For the pragmatic objective of gaining a wider audience, Graham compromised endlessly. He largely invented “ecumenical evangelism,” which has done so much to build the apostate “one world church.” He turned thousands of converts over to wolves in sheep’s clothing in heretical churches. Refusing to obey Jude 3 and earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, he pampered and praised every type of false teacher, including theological modernists who deny Christ’s divinity, virgin birth, and resurrection, and Roman Catholics who trust Mary to get them into heaven. For example, in his 1959 San Francisco Crusade, Graham honored the notorious Episcopal Bishop James Pike by having him lead in prayer. In an article in Christian Century, Pike declared that he no longer believed the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. Refusing to obey Acts 20:27 and declare all the counsel of God, Billy Graham narrowed his message to a pathetically small element of truth and focused on the “positive.” He promoted all sorts of unscriptural things, including Pentecostalism, Christian rock music, and corrupt Bible versions, such as the Today’s English Version, which twists every major text dealing with Christ’s deity. By 1966, Graham said belief in the virgin birth is not an essential doctrine and claimed that it is possible that Adam was an “ape-man” (United Church Observer, July 1966). By 1988, Graham told U.S. News & World Report that theology no longer meant anything to him: “World travel and getting to know clergy of all denominations has helped mold me into an ecumenical being. We’re separated by theology and, in some instances, culture and race, but all that means nothing to me any more” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 19, 1988). (Extensive documentation of these things can be found in Billy Graham’s Sad Disobedience, available as a free eBook from www.wayoflife.org.)
KNOWLEDGE SHALL INCREASE (Friday Church News Notes, March 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - About 2,500 years ago, during the Persian Empire, an angel told the prophet Daniel, “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased” (Daniel 12:4). We are seeing a dramatic fulfillment of this in our day. Recent inventions and discoveries include the following: Scientists have transformed a spinach leaf into a sheet of beating human heart cells (“Spinach Leaf Transforms,” ARSTechnica.com, Mar. 28, 2017). “By peeling away the cells from a spinach leaf and seeding the cellulose matrix left behind with heart cells, researchers were able to create a beating sheet of human heart tissue--complete with a functional vascular system. The proof-of-concept experiment, appearing in the May issue of Biomaterials, provides an intriguing plant-based approach to generating realistic tissues for grafts and transplants. ... Though the vasculature of plants is fundamentally different from that of animals, the structures and cell access are similar. Plus, cellulose--the main organic polysaccharide left standing in de-celled leaves—is known to be biocompatible, that is, it’s safe in humans and already used in other tissue-engineering applications, such as wound healing. This sparked ideas in the study’s authors, led by bioengineers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.” Microsoft is planning to store data on DNA in the next three years. DNA is so efficient that “it’s theoretically possible to store all of the information humans have ever recorded in a space roughly the size of a double garage (“Microsoft Plans,” sciencealert.com, May 27, 2017). Recently scientists recorded 215 petabytes (215 million gigabytes) of information on a single gram of DNA, and progress is being made to speed up the recording process and lower the cost. It’s amazing how that the blind forces of evolution could produce ultra-complicated DNA while harnessing DNA for computer data storage requires the application of intelligence. I speak tongue in cheek, of course. Israeli researchers at Hebrew University in Jerusalem have invented a process to detect landmines by using a combination of lasers and molecularly engineered bacteria that glow in proximity to the explosives (“Shining a Light: Glowing Bacteria Helps Find,” NoCamels.com, Apr. 25, 2017). The process can be used to detect and clear landmines, 100 million of which are buried in over 70 countries.
MULTITUDES OF AMERICAN BABIES BORN TO UNMARRIED MOTHERS (Friday Church News Notes, February 23, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Babies Born to Unmarried Women,” CNSNews.com, Feb. 21, 2018: “In three states--Mississippi, Louisiana and New Mexico--a majority of the babies born in 2016 were born to unmarried mothers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In another 19 states, more than 40 percent of the babies born in 2016 were born to unmarried mothers. Only three states in the union had fewer than 30 percent of the babies born to unmarried mothers. Mississippi led all states in the union for the percentage of babies born to unmarried mothers in 2016. There were 37,928 babies born in the state during the year, according to the CDC, and 20,173--or 53.2 percent--of them were to unmarried women.”
CHRIST’S WONDERFUL INVITATION (Friday Church News Notes, March 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:25-30). This invitation is issued by the Trinity. When we examine the context, we see the amazing fact that the Son of God is inviting sinners into the intimate relationship that He has with the Father. The invitation is a revelation of God’s marvelous character. How incredible that the Almighty God would care whether His fallen, unholy creatures know and love Him! Even after redemption, we are pathetic sinners who fail continually to come up to the glory of God, yet God desires our love and is keenly aware of whether we love Him and how much we love Him (e.g., Revelation 2:4). Salvation is coming to a person, knowing a person, having an intimate relationship with a person. And the rest in the Christian life comes by an intimate personal walk with Christ. This is the path of no “burn out.” The believer has a yoke to wear and a service to render, but it is not a yoke of drudgery, of religion, of mere duty. It is a restful, enjoyable yoke. It is not a heavy yoke that is held by a cruel taskmaster; it is a light yoke that binds me to a loving Saviour. He is in the yoke with me, and He does the heavy pulling.
THE POWER OF THE DESIGN ARGUMENT FROM NATURE (Friday Church News Notes, March 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The design argument from nature can be a powerful tool in evangelism. Consider the case of Dr. Jobe Martin: ‘In the fall of 1971 I went to Baylor University in Dallas and gave my first lecture. It was on the evolution of the tooth. I talked about how these fish scales gradually migrated into the mouth and became teeth. A couple of students came to me after the class that day and said, ‘Dr. Martin, have you ever investigated the claims of creation science?’ I had never even heard of it. So I said, ‘Sure, I’ll look into this with you.’ And I’m thinking, kind of as a cocky young professor, ‘I’ll blow these guys away.’ Well, they asked me to study the assumptions that the evolutionists make. In all of my eight years of scientific education, I had never had a single professor tell me about an assumption. So we started looking at the assumptions. I began to realize that evolutionists are making some claims that are based on assumptions that aren’t valid, when they tell us that rocks are so old and these kinds of things. Then they asked me to start studying some animals and see if I thought that animal could have evolved. The first thing that we studied together was this little bug called the bombardier beetle. This little insect, which is about a half inch long, mixes chemicals that explode. I began to think, O.K., how would that evolve? If evolution is true it had to somehow evolve that. Let’s assume it is evolving this defense mechanism, but the first time that it finally produces the explosion, what happens to the bug? Well, it is destroyed by the explosion, and we know that splattered bug pieces don’t evolve. So I thought, how could this have happened? Well, [because of the intricate way it is built] it doesn’t blow itself up. It has another little factory inside itself and it manufactures a chemical that acts as a catalyst, so when it squirts that chemical into these other chemicals that are in a suspended state it produces the explosion. And it has an asbestos-lined firing chamber to protect itself. And it has two little twin tail tubes, and it can aim these tubes out the side, even out the front. Let’s say a spider is coming up toward its side and it doesn’t have time to turn around and shoot. It can just take its little gun turret, aim it out to the side, and shoot. If you are listening to the explosion all you hear is a single pop, but scientists have now put that sound into slow motion, and it is like about a thousand sequential little explosions that are so fast that all we hear is one pop. So you think, why would that be? It was a curious thing for the scientists that are studying this little bug. A lot of them are at Cornell University and some other places. What they discovered was that if it were just one big explosion, the little bug would be jetted away by the force! But as long as it is a sequential explosion, the bug with his little legs can hang on. How would evolution explain a sequential explosion? This little bug messes with all of the theories of evolution. There is no way a slow, gradual process is going to produce this bug. There is no way, even, that the newer theories, such as punctuated equilibrium, can explain this bug. I began to realize that this little bug needed to have all of its parts there at once or you just don’t have the animal. And my stomach started to churn. My wife will tell you that my stomach churned for five years. It took a five-year struggle for me to begin to flip the way I think, from thinking in an evolutionary way to thinking that this creature was created fully formed just like it is. That went against everything I had ever learned” (Jobe Martin, Incredible Creatures that Defy Evolution 1, ExplorationFilms.com).
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).
KNOWLEDGE SHALL INCREASE (Friday Church News Notes, March 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - About 2,500 years ago, during the Persian Empire, an angel told the prophet Daniel, “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased” (Daniel 12:4). We are seeing a dramatic fulfillment of this in our day. Recent inventions and discoveries include the following: Scientists have transformed a spinach leaf into a sheet of beating human heart cells (“Spinach Leaf Transforms,” ARSTechnica.com, Mar. 28, 2017). “By peeling away the cells from a spinach leaf and seeding the cellulose matrix left behind with heart cells, researchers were able to create a beating sheet of human heart tissue--complete with a functional vascular system. The proof-of-concept experiment, appearing in the May issue of Biomaterials, provides an intriguing plant-based approach to generating realistic tissues for grafts and transplants. ... Though the vasculature of plants is fundamentally different from that of animals, the structures and cell access are similar. Plus, cellulose--the main organic polysaccharide left standing in de-celled leaves—is known to be biocompatible, that is, it’s safe in humans and already used in other tissue-engineering applications, such as wound healing. This sparked ideas in the study’s authors, led by bioengineers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.” Microsoft is planning to store data on DNA in the next three years. DNA is so efficient that “it’s theoretically possible to store all of the information humans have ever recorded in a space roughly the size of a double garage (“Microsoft Plans,” sciencealert.com, May 27, 2017). Recently scientists recorded 215 petabytes (215 million gigabytes) of information on a single gram of DNA, and progress is being made to speed up the recording process and lower the cost. It’s amazing how that the blind forces of evolution could produce ultra-complicated DNA while harnessing DNA for computer data storage requires the application of intelligence. I speak tongue in cheek, of course. Israeli researchers at Hebrew University in Jerusalem have invented a process to detect landmines by using a combination of lasers and molecularly engineered bacteria that glow in proximity to the explosives (“Shining a Light: Glowing Bacteria Helps Find,” NoCamels.com, Apr. 25, 2017). The process can be used to detect and clear landmines, 100 million of which are buried in over 70 countries.
MULTITUDES OF AMERICAN BABIES BORN TO UNMARRIED MOTHERS (Friday Church News Notes, February 23, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Babies Born to Unmarried Women,” CNSNews.com, Feb. 21, 2018: “In three states--Mississippi, Louisiana and New Mexico--a majority of the babies born in 2016 were born to unmarried mothers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In another 19 states, more than 40 percent of the babies born in 2016 were born to unmarried mothers. Only three states in the union had fewer than 30 percent of the babies born to unmarried mothers. Mississippi led all states in the union for the percentage of babies born to unmarried mothers in 2016. There were 37,928 babies born in the state during the year, according to the CDC, and 20,173--or 53.2 percent--of them were to unmarried women.”
CHRIST’S WONDERFUL INVITATION (Friday Church News Notes, March 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:25-30). This invitation is issued by the Trinity. When we examine the context, we see the amazing fact that the Son of God is inviting sinners into the intimate relationship that He has with the Father. The invitation is a revelation of God’s marvelous character. How incredible that the Almighty God would care whether His fallen, unholy creatures know and love Him! Even after redemption, we are pathetic sinners who fail continually to come up to the glory of God, yet God desires our love and is keenly aware of whether we love Him and how much we love Him (e.g., Revelation 2:4). Salvation is coming to a person, knowing a person, having an intimate relationship with a person. And the rest in the Christian life comes by an intimate personal walk with Christ. This is the path of no “burn out.” The believer has a yoke to wear and a service to render, but it is not a yoke of drudgery, of religion, of mere duty. It is a restful, enjoyable yoke. It is not a heavy yoke that is held by a cruel taskmaster; it is a light yoke that binds me to a loving Saviour. He is in the yoke with me, and He does the heavy pulling.
THE POWER OF THE DESIGN ARGUMENT FROM NATURE (Friday Church News Notes, March 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The design argument from nature can be a powerful tool in evangelism. Consider the case of Dr. Jobe Martin: ‘In the fall of 1971 I went to Baylor University in Dallas and gave my first lecture. It was on the evolution of the tooth. I talked about how these fish scales gradually migrated into the mouth and became teeth. A couple of students came to me after the class that day and said, ‘Dr. Martin, have you ever investigated the claims of creation science?’ I had never even heard of it. So I said, ‘Sure, I’ll look into this with you.’ And I’m thinking, kind of as a cocky young professor, ‘I’ll blow these guys away.’ Well, they asked me to study the assumptions that the evolutionists make. In all of my eight years of scientific education, I had never had a single professor tell me about an assumption. So we started looking at the assumptions. I began to realize that evolutionists are making some claims that are based on assumptions that aren’t valid, when they tell us that rocks are so old and these kinds of things. Then they asked me to start studying some animals and see if I thought that animal could have evolved. The first thing that we studied together was this little bug called the bombardier beetle. This little insect, which is about a half inch long, mixes chemicals that explode. I began to think, O.K., how would that evolve? If evolution is true it had to somehow evolve that. Let’s assume it is evolving this defense mechanism, but the first time that it finally produces the explosion, what happens to the bug? Well, it is destroyed by the explosion, and we know that splattered bug pieces don’t evolve. So I thought, how could this have happened? Well, [because of the intricate way it is built] it doesn’t blow itself up. It has another little factory inside itself and it manufactures a chemical that acts as a catalyst, so when it squirts that chemical into these other chemicals that are in a suspended state it produces the explosion. And it has an asbestos-lined firing chamber to protect itself. And it has two little twin tail tubes, and it can aim these tubes out the side, even out the front. Let’s say a spider is coming up toward its side and it doesn’t have time to turn around and shoot. It can just take its little gun turret, aim it out to the side, and shoot. If you are listening to the explosion all you hear is a single pop, but scientists have now put that sound into slow motion, and it is like about a thousand sequential little explosions that are so fast that all we hear is one pop. So you think, why would that be? It was a curious thing for the scientists that are studying this little bug. A lot of them are at Cornell University and some other places. What they discovered was that if it were just one big explosion, the little bug would be jetted away by the force! But as long as it is a sequential explosion, the bug with his little legs can hang on. How would evolution explain a sequential explosion? This little bug messes with all of the theories of evolution. There is no way a slow, gradual process is going to produce this bug. There is no way, even, that the newer theories, such as punctuated equilibrium, can explain this bug. I began to realize that this little bug needed to have all of its parts there at once or you just don’t have the animal. And my stomach started to churn. My wife will tell you that my stomach churned for five years. It took a five-year struggle for me to begin to flip the way I think, from thinking in an evolutionary way to thinking that this creature was created fully formed just like it is. That went against everything I had ever learned” (Jobe Martin, Incredible Creatures that Defy Evolution 1, ExplorationFilms.com).
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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