Friday Church News Notes
Volume 19, Issue 32 - August 10, 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.
Richard Dawkins
DAWKINS TARGETING TEENS AND CHILDREN WITH ATHEISM (Friday Church News Notes, August 10, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Richard Dawkins, one of the leaders of the “new atheist” movement, is targeting teens and children with atheist propaganda. Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, said the book for teens will be titled Outgrowing God, while the one for children is yet to be named. The man is on a ridiculous rampage against the Creator, while admitting that he has no clue how life began. In an interview with Ben Stein that was published in the documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Dawkins said that life might have been “seeded on to this planet” by aliens. This is not science; it is science fiction; it is “Never-Never land.” The glorious gospel according to Richard Dawkins is that man is the product of blind chance, he has no ultimate purpose, he is bound by no absolute laws, and when he is dead he is dead. In Dawkins’ sad world, man is alone in a meaningless, dying universe; alone, without help and without hope. The gospel according to Richard Dawkins is a recipe for despair and suicide, and if it were true, the very act of writing and publishing books would be a meaningless exercise. If what Dawkins believes is true, nothing in life means anything, ultimately, and it does not matter what one believes. He has no dogmatic basis for saying that anything is true or that anything is wrong. As a mere animal, his opinion is no more significant than that of a worm. But Richard Dawkins is wrong. He is willfully blind. There is overwhelming evidence of an Almighty, all-wise Creator, and overwhelming evidence that the Bible is God’s compassionate revelation to man. Bible-believing homes and churches need to wake up and prepare their children to face the fierce skepticism of this age. I personally know of a pastor’s son who professed atheism by reading the deceitful musings of the “new atheists” online. The Bible twice says, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God...” (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). (We recommend An Unshakeable Faith: A Christian Apologetics Course and The Mobile Phone and the Christian Home and Church: A Youth Discipleship Course, both of which are available from www.wayoflife.org.)
POOR RICHARD DAWKINS (Friday Church News Notes, August 10, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - I feel sorry for Richard Dawkins. He is whistling in the dark. His conscience tells him there is a God. Creation tells him there is a God. And the Bible tells him there is a God. But he has willfully shut his eyes to the light and hardened his heart against the Creator. Now he has painted himself into a corner before the whole world. God loves him and would save him, but he must come on God’s terms, which is repentance and faith in Christ’s cross, and it is all too likely that he will continue to harden his neck until it is too late. This happened to his friend and co-conspirator in “the new atheism,” Christopher Hitchens. Dawkins has called God a “capriciously malevolent bully,” but in truth God is the most compassionate Person in existence, the source of all true love. God is love. At great cost God provided salvation for rebels. The Son of God suffered and died for rebels. I am thankful for the day when I came to my senses and humbled myself before this God and repented of my wicked sins against Him and put my faith 100% in Jesus as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).
THE NEVER-ENDING PUSH FOR UNITY (Friday Church News Notes, August 10, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - This is the era of the never-ending push for Christian unity. It is evident everywhere: in the World Council of Churches, in national councils, in global and national and regional “evangelical” organizations, in city clergy associations. Unity is promoted by parachurch organizations and is a major focus of evangelistic crusades. Unity is pushed by the Roman Catholic Church, by Protestants, by Pentecostals, by Charismatics, and by most Baptists. It is a major theme of contemporary worship music. It is the focus of global missions organizations. It is a principle held by most Bible colleges and seminaries. Separation has become a foreign concept to the vast, vast majority of professing Christians. Division is instinctively despised. Preachers who cause disunity by doctrinal dogmatism are considered enemies of Jesus Christ, who allegedly prayed for ecumenical unity in John 17. The latest ecumenical thrust, as if another were needed, is the formation of the Congress of Christian Leaders (CCL), a new “interdenominational body that will seek to foster unity.” Founded by “evangelical leaders” Samuel Rodriguez and Johnnie Moore, the inaugural board includes megachurch pastors Greg Laurie, Jack Graham, and Jentezen Franklin (“Greg Laurie, Jack Graham among Global Pastors Named to Board,” Christian Post, Aug. 5, 2018). The 16 leaders on the board “have collective influence exceeding many millions of Christians on six continents.” The founders state that a “key defining factor” of the CCL is that it “will not be exclusively for evangelicals.” Regardless of its popularity, ecumenical unity is contrary to the teaching of God’s Word, which forbids the unity of truth and error, light and darkness. God’s Word warns loudly and plainly of false gospels, false christs, and false spirits. It warns of end-time apostasy and spiritual deception. The unity of all denominations is heresy. It is disobedience to God and will produce a one-world “church” of the Antichrist. Those leading the unity are the blind leading the blind. It is impossible to obey the Bible and pursue Christian unity today. A clear choice must be made. Obedience to the Bible’s command to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints single-handedly destroys every type of interdenominational unity. One cannot pursue ecumenical unity while fighting enthusiastically for doctrinal purity. “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3).
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT BEGAN IN AMERICA 399 YEARS AGO (Friday Church News Notes, August 10, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Representative Government,” Fox News, Aug. 7, 2018: “If you were at Jamestown—the tiny English settlement on the banks of the James River in Virginia—399 years ago this week, you probably would have been aware that something unusual was happening. Over in the rough-hewn, thatch-roofed church building, 22 duly elected settlers, six councilors, and their newly arrived governor, all white males, were braving the intense summer heat to attend the first meeting of the ‘general Assemblie.’ A new English charter a year earlier had authorized formation of this first representative assembly in the dozen-year-old colony, and the new governor, Sir George Yeardley, had seen to the charter’s implementation. It was the beginning of representative democracy in America, the forerunner of our Congress, state legislatures, and other representative bodies. Planted in Virginia a year before the Mayflower arrived from England, representative government would take root firmly, blossom in 13 largely self-governing colonies, and after independence grow into the great tree of American liberty, inspiring similar plantings in much of the world. ... Next year will mark the 400th anniversary of this hugely important, if rudimentary and tragedy-laced, beginning. It will present an opportunity to reflect on how far representative democracy has come and how far it still has to go.”
DRONE FOOD DELIVERY IN ICELAND’S CAPITAL (Friday Church News Notes, August 10, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excepted from “Israel’s Flytrex,” The Times of Israel, Aug. 7, 2018: “The Israeli technology firm Flytrex, which is using drones to deliver sushi, hamburgers and beer to hungry Icelanders, said it is expanding its supply routes in the capital Reykjavik to a total of 13, from one. This will allow the Tel Aviv-based startup to service almost half of the Icelandic city with its autonomous on-demand urban drone delivery service, the firm said on Tuesday. The delivery will continue to be in partnership with Aha.is, Iceland’s largest on-demand supplier of restaurant food, with which the Israeli startup launched its first delivery route. ... The upgraded service will also include an advanced ‘InAir’ wire-drop system that will safely lower packages directly to consumers’ backyards, beginning with a limited number of addresses and expanding pending approval by property owners. ... Each unmanned aerial vehicle is approved to fly up to 700 meters off its path to make backyard deliveries in select, approved neighborhoods, the statement said, and Flytrex aims to extend home deliveries to every resident in Reykjavik in the coming months.”
DNA EDITING MACHINERY AND CHEMICAL PATHWAYS AND BARRIERS ARE NECESSARY FOR LIFE (Friday Church News Notes, August 10, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from Seeing the Non-existent: Evolution’s Myths and Hoaxes, David Cloud, copyright 2011: “The DNA copying and reading process has complex editing ability. Dr. Jonathan Sarfati writes, ‘The copying is far more precise than pure chemistry could manage--only about 1 mistake in 10 billion letters, because there is editing (proof-reading and error-checking) machinery, again encoded in the DNA. But how would the information for editing machinery be transmitted accurately before this machinery was in place? Lest it be argued that the accuracy could be achieved stepwise through selection, note that a high degree of accuracy is needed to prevent error catastrophe--the accumulation of ‘noise’ in the form of junk proteins. Again there is a vicious circle, a ‘Catch-22’ (more irreducible complexity)’ (By Design, p. 163). Chemical pathways and barriers are also necessary for life. Walt Brown, Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from MIT, observes: ‘Living cells contain thousands of different chemicals, some acidic, others basic. Many chemicals would react with others were it not for an intricate system of chemical barriers and buffers. If living things evolved, these barriers and buffers must also have evolved--but at just the right time to prevent harmful chemical reactions. How could such precise, seemingly coordinated, virtually miraculous events have happened for each of millions of species?’ (In the Beginning, p. 15). These are just a few of the terribly complex features of the living cell which point directly to an Almighty God.”
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).
POOR RICHARD DAWKINS (Friday Church News Notes, August 10, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - I feel sorry for Richard Dawkins. He is whistling in the dark. His conscience tells him there is a God. Creation tells him there is a God. And the Bible tells him there is a God. But he has willfully shut his eyes to the light and hardened his heart against the Creator. Now he has painted himself into a corner before the whole world. God loves him and would save him, but he must come on God’s terms, which is repentance and faith in Christ’s cross, and it is all too likely that he will continue to harden his neck until it is too late. This happened to his friend and co-conspirator in “the new atheism,” Christopher Hitchens. Dawkins has called God a “capriciously malevolent bully,” but in truth God is the most compassionate Person in existence, the source of all true love. God is love. At great cost God provided salvation for rebels. The Son of God suffered and died for rebels. I am thankful for the day when I came to my senses and humbled myself before this God and repented of my wicked sins against Him and put my faith 100% in Jesus as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).
THE NEVER-ENDING PUSH FOR UNITY (Friday Church News Notes, August 10, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - This is the era of the never-ending push for Christian unity. It is evident everywhere: in the World Council of Churches, in national councils, in global and national and regional “evangelical” organizations, in city clergy associations. Unity is promoted by parachurch organizations and is a major focus of evangelistic crusades. Unity is pushed by the Roman Catholic Church, by Protestants, by Pentecostals, by Charismatics, and by most Baptists. It is a major theme of contemporary worship music. It is the focus of global missions organizations. It is a principle held by most Bible colleges and seminaries. Separation has become a foreign concept to the vast, vast majority of professing Christians. Division is instinctively despised. Preachers who cause disunity by doctrinal dogmatism are considered enemies of Jesus Christ, who allegedly prayed for ecumenical unity in John 17. The latest ecumenical thrust, as if another were needed, is the formation of the Congress of Christian Leaders (CCL), a new “interdenominational body that will seek to foster unity.” Founded by “evangelical leaders” Samuel Rodriguez and Johnnie Moore, the inaugural board includes megachurch pastors Greg Laurie, Jack Graham, and Jentezen Franklin (“Greg Laurie, Jack Graham among Global Pastors Named to Board,” Christian Post, Aug. 5, 2018). The 16 leaders on the board “have collective influence exceeding many millions of Christians on six continents.” The founders state that a “key defining factor” of the CCL is that it “will not be exclusively for evangelicals.” Regardless of its popularity, ecumenical unity is contrary to the teaching of God’s Word, which forbids the unity of truth and error, light and darkness. God’s Word warns loudly and plainly of false gospels, false christs, and false spirits. It warns of end-time apostasy and spiritual deception. The unity of all denominations is heresy. It is disobedience to God and will produce a one-world “church” of the Antichrist. Those leading the unity are the blind leading the blind. It is impossible to obey the Bible and pursue Christian unity today. A clear choice must be made. Obedience to the Bible’s command to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints single-handedly destroys every type of interdenominational unity. One cannot pursue ecumenical unity while fighting enthusiastically for doctrinal purity. “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3).
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT BEGAN IN AMERICA 399 YEARS AGO (Friday Church News Notes, August 10, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Representative Government,” Fox News, Aug. 7, 2018: “If you were at Jamestown—the tiny English settlement on the banks of the James River in Virginia—399 years ago this week, you probably would have been aware that something unusual was happening. Over in the rough-hewn, thatch-roofed church building, 22 duly elected settlers, six councilors, and their newly arrived governor, all white males, were braving the intense summer heat to attend the first meeting of the ‘general Assemblie.’ A new English charter a year earlier had authorized formation of this first representative assembly in the dozen-year-old colony, and the new governor, Sir George Yeardley, had seen to the charter’s implementation. It was the beginning of representative democracy in America, the forerunner of our Congress, state legislatures, and other representative bodies. Planted in Virginia a year before the Mayflower arrived from England, representative government would take root firmly, blossom in 13 largely self-governing colonies, and after independence grow into the great tree of American liberty, inspiring similar plantings in much of the world. ... Next year will mark the 400th anniversary of this hugely important, if rudimentary and tragedy-laced, beginning. It will present an opportunity to reflect on how far representative democracy has come and how far it still has to go.”
DRONE FOOD DELIVERY IN ICELAND’S CAPITAL (Friday Church News Notes, August 10, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excepted from “Israel’s Flytrex,” The Times of Israel, Aug. 7, 2018: “The Israeli technology firm Flytrex, which is using drones to deliver sushi, hamburgers and beer to hungry Icelanders, said it is expanding its supply routes in the capital Reykjavik to a total of 13, from one. This will allow the Tel Aviv-based startup to service almost half of the Icelandic city with its autonomous on-demand urban drone delivery service, the firm said on Tuesday. The delivery will continue to be in partnership with Aha.is, Iceland’s largest on-demand supplier of restaurant food, with which the Israeli startup launched its first delivery route. ... The upgraded service will also include an advanced ‘InAir’ wire-drop system that will safely lower packages directly to consumers’ backyards, beginning with a limited number of addresses and expanding pending approval by property owners. ... Each unmanned aerial vehicle is approved to fly up to 700 meters off its path to make backyard deliveries in select, approved neighborhoods, the statement said, and Flytrex aims to extend home deliveries to every resident in Reykjavik in the coming months.”
DNA EDITING MACHINERY AND CHEMICAL PATHWAYS AND BARRIERS ARE NECESSARY FOR LIFE (Friday Church News Notes, August 10, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from Seeing the Non-existent: Evolution’s Myths and Hoaxes, David Cloud, copyright 2011: “The DNA copying and reading process has complex editing ability. Dr. Jonathan Sarfati writes, ‘The copying is far more precise than pure chemistry could manage--only about 1 mistake in 10 billion letters, because there is editing (proof-reading and error-checking) machinery, again encoded in the DNA. But how would the information for editing machinery be transmitted accurately before this machinery was in place? Lest it be argued that the accuracy could be achieved stepwise through selection, note that a high degree of accuracy is needed to prevent error catastrophe--the accumulation of ‘noise’ in the form of junk proteins. Again there is a vicious circle, a ‘Catch-22’ (more irreducible complexity)’ (By Design, p. 163). Chemical pathways and barriers are also necessary for life. Walt Brown, Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from MIT, observes: ‘Living cells contain thousands of different chemicals, some acidic, others basic. Many chemicals would react with others were it not for an intricate system of chemical barriers and buffers. If living things evolved, these barriers and buffers must also have evolved--but at just the right time to prevent harmful chemical reactions. How could such precise, seemingly coordinated, virtually miraculous events have happened for each of millions of species?’ (In the Beginning, p. 15). These are just a few of the terribly complex features of the living cell which point directly to an Almighty God.”
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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