Friday Church News Notes
Volume 19, Issue 44 - November 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.
PREPARATIONS FOR THIRD TEMPLE “IN FULL SWING” (Friday Church News Notes, November 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - A report on this month’s Israel Today magazine says, “Preparations for the Third Temple are in full swing.” During the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), Levites in white robes drew water from the ancient Pool of Siloam to perform the Talmudic tradition of “Pouring of the Water.” The ceremony is called “Simchat Beit HaShoeva” (“Rejoicing at the place of the drawing of the water”) and is based on the prophecy of Isaiah 12:3, “Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.” The context, which is ignored by Talmudic interpretation, is the conversion of Israel and the establishment of Christ’s kingdom. It will be fulfilled when Israel can say in truth, “God is my salvation” (Isaiah 12:2). In that day, the LORD’s name will be “known in all the earth” (Isaiah 12:5). None of this is true today. The Bible mentions the Third Temple four times, beginning with Daniel’s prophecies but in every case it is associated with the Antichrist. See Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:15-21; 2 Thessalonians 2:4; Revelation 11:1-3. “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains … For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall. … Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with great power and great glory” (Matthew 24:15 16, 21, 29-20).
IN EUROPE, FREE SPEECH BOWS TO SHARIA (Friday Church News Notes, November 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from Andrew McCarthy, “In Europe,” The National Review, Oct. 27, 2018: “When, the prophet of Islam took as his wife Aisha, who was then six or seven. The marriage was consummated when Aisha was nine. This is not a smear. It is an accurate account of authoritative Islamic scripture. (See, e.g., Sahih-Bukhari, Vol. 5, Book 58, Nos. 234–236.) Yet it can no longer safely be discussed in Europe, thanks to the extortionate threat of violence and intimidation—specifically, of jihadist terrorism and the Islamist grievance industry that slipstreams behind it. Under a ruling by the so-called European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), free speech has been supplanted by sharia blasphemy standards. The case involves an Austrian woman (identified as ‘Mrs. S.’ in court filings and believed to be Elisabeth Sabaditsch Wolff) who, in 2009, conducted two seminars entitled ‘Basic Information on Islam.’ She included the account of Mohammed’s marriage to Aisha. Though this account is scripturally accurate, Mrs. S. was prosecuted on the rationale that her statements implied pedophilic tendencies on the part of the prophet. A fine (about $547) was imposed for disparaging religion. Mrs. S. appealed, relying on Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. That provision purports to safeguard ‘freedom of expression,’ though it works about the same way the warranty on your used car does—it sounds like you’re covered, but the fine print eviscerates your protection. … Europeans are free to say only what they are permitted to say by the unelected judges of the European courts. Truth is irrelevant. As the jurists reasoned in the case of Mrs. S., a person’s freedom to assert facts must be assessed in ‘the wider context’ that balances ‘free’ expression against—I kid you not—‘the right of others to have their religious feelings protected,’ as well as ‘the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace.’ It is thus verboten to say things that might upset Muslims. … There is no free speech in Islam. Sharia states do not merely forbid speech that insults or denigrates Islam; they regard as blasphemy—and punish with cruelty—any form of expression that casts Islam in an unfavorable light.”
ISRAELI TECHNOLOGY FOR BLIND/VISUALLY IMPAIRED (Friday Church News Notes, November 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Israeli Technology Helps,” BreakingIsraelNews.com, Oct. 15, 2018: “OrCam Israel (‘or’ means light in Hebrew, and ‘cam’ represents camera) was founded eight years ago by two Israelis, Prof. Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram, who founded Mobileye--the autonomous vehicle technology company founded in 1999 and based in Jerusalem. Mobileye was bought by the Intel Corporation in March 2017 for $15 billion. Their vision was to make possible artificial vision that would help the blind and visually impaired to carry out basic everyday activities. The invention is a finger-sized technology combining a microprocessor and camera that take text to which the user points and reads it to the user. In addition, the product recognizes faces, performs product identification and identifies colors and banknotes, thus providing a high level of user independence. ... Newspapers, books, signs, menus, product labels and even electronic screens can be read to the blind or visually impaired person. ... When Britain’s Prince William made a short but official trip to the country last summer, OrCam was one of the inventions that impressed him highly. ‘The prince read a couple lines from an article that Blind Veterans put out. He had a big smile on his face,’ recalled an OrCam executive.”
THE TYPE OF PREACHERS I AM PRAYING FOR (Friday Church News Notes, November 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - A couple of years ago, I began praying for God to raise up 1,000 special kind of preachers, men who can build and lead special kind of churches. Sound, strong, fruitful churches are what the world desperately needs, as the church is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15), but we won’t have such churches without the right men. It has been said, truly, that “everything rises and falls on leadership.” Let me describe them as I see them in Scripture: They are God-called men; biblically-qualified men; Christ-centered men of good Christian character and testimony; well-trained men (in the Bible and in other issues facing the churches); studious men; men who are committed to God’s Word rather than human tradition; wise, humble men who can work with a team of men as we see in Acts 13; men of faith; courageous men who fear God more than man and are not intimidated by any old boy’s network or preacher’s association; men who are willing to walk alone if necessary for the truth’s sake; men of serious spiritual wisdom and discernment; men of passion for the truth, who esteem God’s precepts concerning all things to be right and hate every false way (Ps. 119:128); men of large vision and zeal for gospel preaching and world missions and church planting; men who reprove and rebuke sin and error in a plain way; men who are ready and willing to exercise biblical discipline when necessary and will not draw back because of its difficulties; men who are hard workers; men who hate religious pragmatism for the evil thing that it is in God’s sight (e.g., making decisions about the ministry based on what “works” to produce a desired goal as opposed to making decisions based strictly on Bible truth). These are not mythical men. I know men like this. These are the type of preachers that are described in the Pastoral Epistles, and they are, therefore, the type of men that God wants for His churches today. Only God can make such men, but since He has instructed us to pray for laborers for the harvest, surely these are the type of laborers we are to pray for. “Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2). And since Christ has commanded that we pray this, surely God is ready to answer if we will be passionate about it.
ENZYMES ARE NECESSARY FOR LIFE (Friday Church News Notes, November 2, 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 cell also requires the activity of proteins called enzymes, which are catalysts that facilitate and speed up chemical reactions. Michael Pitman, who taught biology at Cambridge, writes: ‘Leading enzymologist M. Dixon comments, “Living matter is the most wonderful chemical system in the world.” Part of its magic is that it consists of a complex network of chemical reactions and processes, arranged so that the product of each reaction is the starting material of the next link in the chain. All such reactions are brought about by enzymes, of which there are many thousands. These are special proteins, each with the power of causing specific chemical reactions that would not occur in their absence. Dixon likens enzymes to automated machine tools, each of which performs one particular operation on a product and hands it on to the next. Some production lines join up, giving rise to a network of lines with many pathways--a network called metabolism. ... Dixon confesses that he cannot see how such a system could ever have originated spontaneously. The main difficulty is that an enzyme system does not work at all until it is complete, or nearly so. Another problem is the question of how enzymes appear without pre-existing enzymes to make them. “The association between enzymes and life”, Dixon writes, “is so intimate that the problem of the origin of life itself is largely that of the origin of enzymes.” ... Certain basic pathways are common to all living systems and must have been present since life began. The glycolytic pathway in which sugar is broken down, releasing energy, is one example; respiration and many other functions basic to life also depend upon networks of metabolic pathways, usually involving dozens of complex stages, which are recognizable throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. ... Enzyme systems are doing every minute what battalions of full-time chemists cannot. The mechanisms of their actions are only just beginning to be understood and we cannot yet manipulate them with any confidence. The idea of designing enzymes for specific purposes, then synthesizing them, is futuristic. This may come: if it does it will be the product of very concentrated thought and manipulative skill by teams of dedicated scientists. Can anyone seriously imagine that naturally occurring enzymes realized themselves, along with hundreds of specific friends, by chance? Enzymes and enzyme systems, like the genetic mechanisms whence they originate, are masterpieces of sophistication’ (Pitman, Adam and Evolution, pp. 144, 145). Enzymes speed up living processes that would otherwise be impossible. The phosphatase enzyme, for example, catalyzes the hydrolysis or splitting of phosphate bonds, which are necessary for cellular life. ‘This enzyme allows reactions vital for cell signaling and regulation to take place in a hundredth of a second. Without the enzyme, this essential reaction would take a trillion years--almost a hundred times even the supposed evolutionary age of the universe (about 15 billion years)’ (Jonathan Sarfati, By Design, p. 157).”
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).
IN EUROPE, FREE SPEECH BOWS TO SHARIA (Friday Church News Notes, November 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from Andrew McCarthy, “In Europe,” The National Review, Oct. 27, 2018: “When, the prophet of Islam took as his wife Aisha, who was then six or seven. The marriage was consummated when Aisha was nine. This is not a smear. It is an accurate account of authoritative Islamic scripture. (See, e.g., Sahih-Bukhari, Vol. 5, Book 58, Nos. 234–236.) Yet it can no longer safely be discussed in Europe, thanks to the extortionate threat of violence and intimidation—specifically, of jihadist terrorism and the Islamist grievance industry that slipstreams behind it. Under a ruling by the so-called European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), free speech has been supplanted by sharia blasphemy standards. The case involves an Austrian woman (identified as ‘Mrs. S.’ in court filings and believed to be Elisabeth Sabaditsch Wolff) who, in 2009, conducted two seminars entitled ‘Basic Information on Islam.’ She included the account of Mohammed’s marriage to Aisha. Though this account is scripturally accurate, Mrs. S. was prosecuted on the rationale that her statements implied pedophilic tendencies on the part of the prophet. A fine (about $547) was imposed for disparaging religion. Mrs. S. appealed, relying on Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. That provision purports to safeguard ‘freedom of expression,’ though it works about the same way the warranty on your used car does—it sounds like you’re covered, but the fine print eviscerates your protection. … Europeans are free to say only what they are permitted to say by the unelected judges of the European courts. Truth is irrelevant. As the jurists reasoned in the case of Mrs. S., a person’s freedom to assert facts must be assessed in ‘the wider context’ that balances ‘free’ expression against—I kid you not—‘the right of others to have their religious feelings protected,’ as well as ‘the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace.’ It is thus verboten to say things that might upset Muslims. … There is no free speech in Islam. Sharia states do not merely forbid speech that insults or denigrates Islam; they regard as blasphemy—and punish with cruelty—any form of expression that casts Islam in an unfavorable light.”
ISRAELI TECHNOLOGY FOR BLIND/VISUALLY IMPAIRED (Friday Church News Notes, November 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Israeli Technology Helps,” BreakingIsraelNews.com, Oct. 15, 2018: “OrCam Israel (‘or’ means light in Hebrew, and ‘cam’ represents camera) was founded eight years ago by two Israelis, Prof. Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram, who founded Mobileye--the autonomous vehicle technology company founded in 1999 and based in Jerusalem. Mobileye was bought by the Intel Corporation in March 2017 for $15 billion. Their vision was to make possible artificial vision that would help the blind and visually impaired to carry out basic everyday activities. The invention is a finger-sized technology combining a microprocessor and camera that take text to which the user points and reads it to the user. In addition, the product recognizes faces, performs product identification and identifies colors and banknotes, thus providing a high level of user independence. ... Newspapers, books, signs, menus, product labels and even electronic screens can be read to the blind or visually impaired person. ... When Britain’s Prince William made a short but official trip to the country last summer, OrCam was one of the inventions that impressed him highly. ‘The prince read a couple lines from an article that Blind Veterans put out. He had a big smile on his face,’ recalled an OrCam executive.”
THE TYPE OF PREACHERS I AM PRAYING FOR (Friday Church News Notes, November 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - A couple of years ago, I began praying for God to raise up 1,000 special kind of preachers, men who can build and lead special kind of churches. Sound, strong, fruitful churches are what the world desperately needs, as the church is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15), but we won’t have such churches without the right men. It has been said, truly, that “everything rises and falls on leadership.” Let me describe them as I see them in Scripture: They are God-called men; biblically-qualified men; Christ-centered men of good Christian character and testimony; well-trained men (in the Bible and in other issues facing the churches); studious men; men who are committed to God’s Word rather than human tradition; wise, humble men who can work with a team of men as we see in Acts 13; men of faith; courageous men who fear God more than man and are not intimidated by any old boy’s network or preacher’s association; men who are willing to walk alone if necessary for the truth’s sake; men of serious spiritual wisdom and discernment; men of passion for the truth, who esteem God’s precepts concerning all things to be right and hate every false way (Ps. 119:128); men of large vision and zeal for gospel preaching and world missions and church planting; men who reprove and rebuke sin and error in a plain way; men who are ready and willing to exercise biblical discipline when necessary and will not draw back because of its difficulties; men who are hard workers; men who hate religious pragmatism for the evil thing that it is in God’s sight (e.g., making decisions about the ministry based on what “works” to produce a desired goal as opposed to making decisions based strictly on Bible truth). These are not mythical men. I know men like this. These are the type of preachers that are described in the Pastoral Epistles, and they are, therefore, the type of men that God wants for His churches today. Only God can make such men, but since He has instructed us to pray for laborers for the harvest, surely these are the type of laborers we are to pray for. “Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2). And since Christ has commanded that we pray this, surely God is ready to answer if we will be passionate about it.
ENZYMES ARE NECESSARY FOR LIFE (Friday Church News Notes, November 2, 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 cell also requires the activity of proteins called enzymes, which are catalysts that facilitate and speed up chemical reactions. Michael Pitman, who taught biology at Cambridge, writes: ‘Leading enzymologist M. Dixon comments, “Living matter is the most wonderful chemical system in the world.” Part of its magic is that it consists of a complex network of chemical reactions and processes, arranged so that the product of each reaction is the starting material of the next link in the chain. All such reactions are brought about by enzymes, of which there are many thousands. These are special proteins, each with the power of causing specific chemical reactions that would not occur in their absence. Dixon likens enzymes to automated machine tools, each of which performs one particular operation on a product and hands it on to the next. Some production lines join up, giving rise to a network of lines with many pathways--a network called metabolism. ... Dixon confesses that he cannot see how such a system could ever have originated spontaneously. The main difficulty is that an enzyme system does not work at all until it is complete, or nearly so. Another problem is the question of how enzymes appear without pre-existing enzymes to make them. “The association between enzymes and life”, Dixon writes, “is so intimate that the problem of the origin of life itself is largely that of the origin of enzymes.” ... Certain basic pathways are common to all living systems and must have been present since life began. The glycolytic pathway in which sugar is broken down, releasing energy, is one example; respiration and many other functions basic to life also depend upon networks of metabolic pathways, usually involving dozens of complex stages, which are recognizable throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. ... Enzyme systems are doing every minute what battalions of full-time chemists cannot. The mechanisms of their actions are only just beginning to be understood and we cannot yet manipulate them with any confidence. The idea of designing enzymes for specific purposes, then synthesizing them, is futuristic. This may come: if it does it will be the product of very concentrated thought and manipulative skill by teams of dedicated scientists. Can anyone seriously imagine that naturally occurring enzymes realized themselves, along with hundreds of specific friends, by chance? Enzymes and enzyme systems, like the genetic mechanisms whence they originate, are masterpieces of sophistication’ (Pitman, Adam and Evolution, pp. 144, 145). Enzymes speed up living processes that would otherwise be impossible. The phosphatase enzyme, for example, catalyzes the hydrolysis or splitting of phosphate bonds, which are necessary for cellular life. ‘This enzyme allows reactions vital for cell signaling and regulation to take place in a hundredth of a second. Without the enzyme, this essential reaction would take a trillion years--almost a hundred times even the supposed evolutionary age of the universe (about 15 billion years)’ (Jonathan Sarfati, By Design, p. 157).”
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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