Friday Church News Notes
Volume 19, Issue 45 - November 9, 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.
THE DEVIL LIVES IN OUR PHONES (Friday Church News Notes, November 9, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “A Dark Consensus about Screens,” New York Times, Oct. 26, 2018: “Technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don’t want their own children anywhere near them. A wariness that has been slowly brewing is turning into a regionwide consensus: The benefits of screens as a learning tool are overblown, and the risks for addiction and stunting development seem high. The debate in Silicon Valley now is about how much exposure to phones is O.K. ‘Doing no screen time is almost easier than doing a little,’ said Kristin Stecher, a former social computing researcher married to a Facebook engineer. ‘If my kids do get it at all, they just want it more.’ Ms. Stecher, 37, and her husband, Rushabh Doshi, researched screen time and came to a simple conclusion: they wanted almost none of it in their house. Their daughters, ages 5 and 3, have no screen time ‘budget,’ no regular hours they are allowed to be on screens. ... Athena Chavarria, who worked as an executive assistant at Facebook ... said: ‘I am convinced the devil lives in our phones and is wreaking havoc on our children.’ Ms. Chavarria did not let her children have cellphones until high school, and even now bans phone use in the car and severely limits it at home. She said she lives by the mantra that the last child in the class to get a phone wins. ... For longtime tech leaders, watching how the tools they built affect their children has felt like a reckoning on their life and work. Among those is Chris Anderson, the former editor of Wired and now the chief executive of a robotics and drone company. ... ‘On the scale between candy and crack cocaine, it’s closer to crack cocaine,’ Mr. Anderson said of screens. ... ‘We thought we could control it. And this is beyond our power to control. This is going straight to the pleasure centers of the developing brain. This is beyond our capacity as regular parents to understand.’ He has five children and 12 tech rules. They include: no phones until the summer before high school, no screens in bedrooms, network-level content blocking, no social media until age 13, no iPads at all and screen time schedules enforced by Google Wifi that he controls from his phone. Bad behavior? The child goes offline for 24 hours. I didn’t know what we were doing to their brains until I started to observe the symptoms and the consequences.’” CONCLUDING NOTE FROM D. CLOUD: These people are exercising more wisdom in this matter than the average parent in a Bible-believing church. Pastors must take the lead in this and inform and warn and exhort the people about how to protect the children and youth from the great spiritual danger of modern communications technology. We have been publishing material on this subject since 1998, including The Mobile Phone and the Christian Home and Church.
BONO CALLS EUROPEAN LEADERS OPPOSED TO OPEN BORDERS “THE DEVIL” (Friday Church News Notes, November 9, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - At a concert in Milan, Bono, lead singer of the rock band U2, dressed as Satan and called European populist leaders who oppose open borders “my people.” Bono, speaking for the devil, said, “My people are all over Europe. They go by many names.” He referred in particular to the Swedish Democrats, Marine Le Pen’s Front National in France, Matteo Salvini of Italy. Bono has no idea what he is talking about, and he is a first class hypocrite. He calls for open borders, but he doesn’t open his own house to immigrants. He calls for socialistic redistribution of wealth, but he doesn’t give away his own wealth. Like socialists the world over, he wants to “do good” by confiscating and redistributing other people’s money. He claims to love Jesus, but he doesn’t believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven and “never accepted the whole ‘born again’ tag” (“Bono Bites Back,” Mother Jones magazine, May 1989). He claims to revere the holy Bible, but he lives an unholy life by his own admission and claims that Paul was wrong about women and homosexuality (“Bono: The Rolling Stone Interview” with Jann Wenner, Dec. 27, 2017). In 2006, Bono said: “I recently read in one of St. Paul’s letters where it describes all of the fruits of the spirit, and I had none of them” (“Enough Rope with Andrew Denton,” TV series, March 13, 2006).
PRAY FOR PREACHERS (Friday Church News Notes, November 9, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening: “‘Brethren, pray for us’ (1 Th. 5:25). This one morning in the year we reserved to refresh the reader’s memory upon the subject of prayer for ministers, and we do most earnestly implore every Christian household to grant the fervent request of the text first uttered by an apostle and now repeated by us. Brethren, our work is solemnly momentous, involving weal or woe to thousands; we treat with souls for God on eternal business, and our word is either a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death. A very heavy responsibility rests upon us, and it will be no small mercy if at the last we be found clear of the blood of all men. As officers in Christ’s army, we are the especial mark of the enmity of men and devils; they watch for our halting, and labour to take us by the heels. Our sacred calling involves us in temptations from which you are exempt, above all it too often draws us away from our personal enjoyment of truth into a ministerial and official consideration of it. We meet with many knotty cases, and our wits are at a non plus; we observe very sad backslidings, and our hearts are wounded; we see millions perishing, and our spirits sink. We wish to profit you by our preaching; we desire to be blest to your children; we long to be useful both to saints and sinners; therefore, dear friends, intercede for us with our God. Miserable men are we if we miss the aid of your prayers, but happy are we if we live in your supplications. You do not look to us but to our Master for spiritual blessings, and yet how many times has He given those blessings through His ministers; ask then, again and again, that we may be the earthen vessels into which the Lord may put the treasure of the gospel. We, the whole company of missionaries, ministers, city missionaries, and students, do in the name of Jesus beseech you ‘BRETHREN, PRAY FOR US.’”
OLD BAPTIST CHURCHES AND DISCIPLINE (Friday Church News Notes, November 9, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Abraham Marshall (1748-1819) is an example of the type of man who pastored Baptist churches in America in the early 19th century. He was the son of Daniel Marshall, founder of the first Baptist church in Georgia (Kiokee Baptist, founded in 1772). Abraham pastored Kiokee Baptist for 37 years after his father’s death. He also had an itinerant ministry. On one arduous six-month journey in 1786, he traveled 3,000 miles on horseback, visited 11 states, and preached at least 197 times. “The minutes reveal that Marshall and the church were strict in their discipline but they were never hasty or careless. They exhibited patience and only exercised discipline when their pleas and counsel were rejected or ignored. They were slow to discipline but quick to forgive, welcoming back into the church anyone who demonstrated a humble and repentant spirit. Marshall was a loving and compassionate pastor, but at the same time he was a man of strong convictions--especially when it involved loyalty to Christ and His church. Whenever he observed his people being careless or neglecting their Christian duties he was quick to admonish and if necessary rebuke their actions. One such issue which aroused Marshall’s ire was church members who would load up their wagons in the latter part of the week and go to market in Augusta and not return in time for the Sunday services. ... As pastor he expected all of the heads of families to have a daily time of prayer, Bible reading, and personal instruction. ... Marshall’s goal was to produce a people that put Christ and His church first in their lives” (Thomas Ray, Daniel and Abraham Marshall: Pioneer Baptist Evangelists to the South, pp. 36, 37).
MORE ABOUT THE AMAZING HUMAN EYE (Friday Church News Notes, November 9, 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: “Intelligent processing occurs in the retina before the information is transmitted to the brain. It has been estimated that 10 billion calculations occur every second in the retina before the image even gets to the brain (Gillen). George Marshall, Ph.D. in Ophthalmic Science from Glasgow University, says: ‘The retina is probably the most complicated tissue in the whole body. Millions of nerve cells interconnect in a fantastic number of ways to form a miniature brain. Much of what the photoreceptors ‘see’ is interpreted and processed by the retina long before it enters the brain’ (‘An Eye for Creation: An Interview with Eye-disease Researcher Dr. George Marshall,’ Creation, September 1996, www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i4/eye.asp). Even the atheist Richard Dawkins has to marvel at the complexity of the human eye, though he reaches the strange conclusion that it is the product of blind evolution: ‘The optic nerve is a trunk cable, a bundle of separate insulated wires, in this case about three million of them. Each of the three million wires leads from one cell in the retina to the brain. You can think of them as the wires leading from a bank of three million photocells (actually three million relay stations gathering information from an even larger number of photocells) to the computer that is to process the information in the brain’ (Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, p. 93). The eye’s optic nerve can handle 1.5 million simultaneous messages that are sent to the brain where this massive amount of information is instantaneously processed. The eyes are set in the body at the ideal place and are protected by the surrounding bone structure, by the eyelid, the eyelashes, and the eyebrows. The eyes are self-cleaning and self-maintaining. They produce three different types of tears, each with its own complex chemical makeup. Basal tears are the normal lubricating tears that keep the eye clear of dust. The composition of these tears includes lysozyme which fights against bacterial infection as part of the body’s mind-bogglingly complex immune system. Reflex tears are produced to flush the eye of irritants, such as onion or pepper vapors. Emotional tears are produced as a result of emotional stress and contain a natural painkiller and calming hormones. Tears have three layers, an outer layer which contains oils that prevent evaporation and controls the flow of tears onto the cheek; a middle layer, which contains the proteins and hormones, and a mucous layer touching the eye itself which coats the cornea and provides for even distribution of the tear film.”
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).
BONO CALLS EUROPEAN LEADERS OPPOSED TO OPEN BORDERS “THE DEVIL” (Friday Church News Notes, November 9, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - At a concert in Milan, Bono, lead singer of the rock band U2, dressed as Satan and called European populist leaders who oppose open borders “my people.” Bono, speaking for the devil, said, “My people are all over Europe. They go by many names.” He referred in particular to the Swedish Democrats, Marine Le Pen’s Front National in France, Matteo Salvini of Italy. Bono has no idea what he is talking about, and he is a first class hypocrite. He calls for open borders, but he doesn’t open his own house to immigrants. He calls for socialistic redistribution of wealth, but he doesn’t give away his own wealth. Like socialists the world over, he wants to “do good” by confiscating and redistributing other people’s money. He claims to love Jesus, but he doesn’t believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven and “never accepted the whole ‘born again’ tag” (“Bono Bites Back,” Mother Jones magazine, May 1989). He claims to revere the holy Bible, but he lives an unholy life by his own admission and claims that Paul was wrong about women and homosexuality (“Bono: The Rolling Stone Interview” with Jann Wenner, Dec. 27, 2017). In 2006, Bono said: “I recently read in one of St. Paul’s letters where it describes all of the fruits of the spirit, and I had none of them” (“Enough Rope with Andrew Denton,” TV series, March 13, 2006).
PRAY FOR PREACHERS (Friday Church News Notes, November 9, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening: “‘Brethren, pray for us’ (1 Th. 5:25). This one morning in the year we reserved to refresh the reader’s memory upon the subject of prayer for ministers, and we do most earnestly implore every Christian household to grant the fervent request of the text first uttered by an apostle and now repeated by us. Brethren, our work is solemnly momentous, involving weal or woe to thousands; we treat with souls for God on eternal business, and our word is either a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death. A very heavy responsibility rests upon us, and it will be no small mercy if at the last we be found clear of the blood of all men. As officers in Christ’s army, we are the especial mark of the enmity of men and devils; they watch for our halting, and labour to take us by the heels. Our sacred calling involves us in temptations from which you are exempt, above all it too often draws us away from our personal enjoyment of truth into a ministerial and official consideration of it. We meet with many knotty cases, and our wits are at a non plus; we observe very sad backslidings, and our hearts are wounded; we see millions perishing, and our spirits sink. We wish to profit you by our preaching; we desire to be blest to your children; we long to be useful both to saints and sinners; therefore, dear friends, intercede for us with our God. Miserable men are we if we miss the aid of your prayers, but happy are we if we live in your supplications. You do not look to us but to our Master for spiritual blessings, and yet how many times has He given those blessings through His ministers; ask then, again and again, that we may be the earthen vessels into which the Lord may put the treasure of the gospel. We, the whole company of missionaries, ministers, city missionaries, and students, do in the name of Jesus beseech you ‘BRETHREN, PRAY FOR US.’”
OLD BAPTIST CHURCHES AND DISCIPLINE (Friday Church News Notes, November 9, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Abraham Marshall (1748-1819) is an example of the type of man who pastored Baptist churches in America in the early 19th century. He was the son of Daniel Marshall, founder of the first Baptist church in Georgia (Kiokee Baptist, founded in 1772). Abraham pastored Kiokee Baptist for 37 years after his father’s death. He also had an itinerant ministry. On one arduous six-month journey in 1786, he traveled 3,000 miles on horseback, visited 11 states, and preached at least 197 times. “The minutes reveal that Marshall and the church were strict in their discipline but they were never hasty or careless. They exhibited patience and only exercised discipline when their pleas and counsel were rejected or ignored. They were slow to discipline but quick to forgive, welcoming back into the church anyone who demonstrated a humble and repentant spirit. Marshall was a loving and compassionate pastor, but at the same time he was a man of strong convictions--especially when it involved loyalty to Christ and His church. Whenever he observed his people being careless or neglecting their Christian duties he was quick to admonish and if necessary rebuke their actions. One such issue which aroused Marshall’s ire was church members who would load up their wagons in the latter part of the week and go to market in Augusta and not return in time for the Sunday services. ... As pastor he expected all of the heads of families to have a daily time of prayer, Bible reading, and personal instruction. ... Marshall’s goal was to produce a people that put Christ and His church first in their lives” (Thomas Ray, Daniel and Abraham Marshall: Pioneer Baptist Evangelists to the South, pp. 36, 37).
MORE ABOUT THE AMAZING HUMAN EYE (Friday Church News Notes, November 9, 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: “Intelligent processing occurs in the retina before the information is transmitted to the brain. It has been estimated that 10 billion calculations occur every second in the retina before the image even gets to the brain (Gillen). George Marshall, Ph.D. in Ophthalmic Science from Glasgow University, says: ‘The retina is probably the most complicated tissue in the whole body. Millions of nerve cells interconnect in a fantastic number of ways to form a miniature brain. Much of what the photoreceptors ‘see’ is interpreted and processed by the retina long before it enters the brain’ (‘An Eye for Creation: An Interview with Eye-disease Researcher Dr. George Marshall,’ Creation, September 1996, www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i4/eye.asp). Even the atheist Richard Dawkins has to marvel at the complexity of the human eye, though he reaches the strange conclusion that it is the product of blind evolution: ‘The optic nerve is a trunk cable, a bundle of separate insulated wires, in this case about three million of them. Each of the three million wires leads from one cell in the retina to the brain. You can think of them as the wires leading from a bank of three million photocells (actually three million relay stations gathering information from an even larger number of photocells) to the computer that is to process the information in the brain’ (Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, p. 93). The eye’s optic nerve can handle 1.5 million simultaneous messages that are sent to the brain where this massive amount of information is instantaneously processed. The eyes are set in the body at the ideal place and are protected by the surrounding bone structure, by the eyelid, the eyelashes, and the eyebrows. The eyes are self-cleaning and self-maintaining. They produce three different types of tears, each with its own complex chemical makeup. Basal tears are the normal lubricating tears that keep the eye clear of dust. The composition of these tears includes lysozyme which fights against bacterial infection as part of the body’s mind-bogglingly complex immune system. Reflex tears are produced to flush the eye of irritants, such as onion or pepper vapors. Emotional tears are produced as a result of emotional stress and contain a natural painkiller and calming hormones. Tears have three layers, an outer layer which contains oils that prevent evaporation and controls the flow of tears onto the cheek; a middle layer, which contains the proteins and hormones, and a mucous layer touching the eye itself which coats the cornea and provides for even distribution of the tear film.”
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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