Friday Church News Notes
Volume 19, Issue 48 - November 30, 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.
CHINA: FIRSTFRUITS OF AN ANTICHRIST SURVEILLANCE GOVERNMENT (Friday Church News Notes, November 30, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “China Mandates Surveillance as Religious Persecution Rises,” an interview with Bob Fu, The Stream, Nov. 14, 2018: “President Xi Jinping considers Christians one of the greatest threats to his power. Underground churches are listed as one of the ‘new black five’ national security threats in China. It’s new under this president for churches to be classified as a national security threat. The government-sanctioned churches that are allowed to exist right now have unique restrictions. Each church has to install a facial-recognition camera in front of the pulpit. The purpose is to identify certain people in the congregation. Many classes of people are banned from entering into any church. These include young people under 18 years old, college students, doctors or medical professionals, civil servants, military members and educators. If they’re found, immediately their boss or a government official will be speaking with them. These are huge ramifications right now. It really began after President Xi Jinping took office in 2012. He is now nicknamed ‘Emperor Xi’ since he successfully removed his term limits in March of this year. When he took power, the mass forced demolition of crosses started in Zhejiang province. That area is called the Jerusalem of China. ... These are government-sanctioned churches. The house churches do not have buildings or a cross. ... On February 1 of this year, a new law called ‘Regulations on the Administration of Religious Affairs’ took effect. Things have become dramatically even worse. Bible-burning campaigns are happening across China. ... China is perhaps the world’s most sophisticated surveillance police state. It’s beyond anything the U.S. does. Some of these efforts are aided by greedy American companies. ... Apple decided to remove all virtual private networks from Apple Stores across China. They have a segregated Chinese version of the Apple iCloud. Supposedly this China iCloud is still part of Apple, offering iTunes content. But it’s totally controlled by the Chinese government. Cisco and Google are similar. China has the most cameras in the whole world, on every street corner. These facial recognition cameras are part of their dynamic monitoring system. They can follow you anywhere. If you drive a car, they can quickly track your license plate. If you buy a train or bus ticket, as soon as you swipe your card, you are classified. I noted how China has five categories of dangerous people. Now China is also building the world’s largest so-called ‘social credit’ system. If you get a traffic ticket, then one point of morality is deducted. If you are found in the underground church, your social score is essentially zero. You lose your right to buy airplane tickets. Last week, I was in South Korea attending a house church leadership conference. But 240 out of 300 church leaders were blocked in Chinese airports, even including Hong Kong, and declared as national security threats. They were not allowed to board the flight when they checked in to Customs.”
BEIJING DEBUTS PLAN TO MONITOR BEHAVIOR OF EVERY RESIDENT (Friday Church News Notes, November 30, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Beijing Debuts,” Breitbart.com, Nov. 23, 2018: “Beijing plans to reward and punish its residents based on data that will be collected from various departments monitoring citizens’ social behavior, according to a detailed ‘action plan’ posted on Monday to the city’s municipal website. By the beginning of 2020, the announcement declares, China’s capital city will have all residents officially locked into the permanent surveillance program, part of a broader effort to have every Chinese citizen rated on a ‘social credit system’ decreeing what public services a person can use based on their obedience to laws and loyalty to the communist regime. The government will use the data collected to assess citizens’ behavior to decide if an individual is law-abiding and ‘trustworthy’ to the Communist Party. Residents who behave properly in the eyes of the Chinese government will receive high credit scores, while residents who misbehave will receive low scores, causing them to lead more difficult lives. ‘Efforts will be made to build a market supervision mechanism with corporate credit as the core,’ states Beijing’s municipal website, adding that it will explore the implementation of what it calls ‘the personal integrity project,’ which will utilize residents’ credit scores for ‘market access, public services, tourism,’ and ‘fields such as entrepreneurship and job hunting.’ Higher scores can also open the ‘green channel,’ which will expedite residents’ applications for higher quality ‘education and medical resources.’ ‘Those who violate the law and lose trust will pay a heavy price,’ adds the government website, stating that it will ‘improve the blacklist system’ and that residents will find themselves ‘limited everywhere, and difficult to move’ if they are deemed untrustworthy by the Communists in control.”
CHICKEN FITBITS (Friday Church News Notes, November 30, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The “Internet of Everything” will soon include chickens. The following is excerpted from “Smart mini-backpacks for chickens,” The New Scientist, Nov. 23, 2018: “Tiny electronic backpacks for chickens can automatically analyse their behaviour, which could reveal when something is wrong. The backpacks are attached to the birds’ backs using straps and are filled with accelerometers that record their movements. An algorithm uses data from the sensors to identify when and for how long the chickens perform different behaviours. The team behind the idea call the devices ‘Fitbits for chickens.’ Currently, farmers have to check chickens manually and individually for signs of the mites. The technology could make monitoring the birds far less labour-intensive. Monitoring different behaviours using the backpacks could help reveal whether farm birds are being disturbed by parasites such as the northern fowl mite, says Amy Murillo at the University of California, Riverside, one of the team. The mite feeds on chickens’ blood and mainly affects egg-laying hens, which are kept alive much longer than those bred for meat.”
DOWN SYNDROME COMMUNITY ASKS TO BE PUT ON “ENDANGERED SPECIES” LIST (Friday Church News Notes, November 30, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from LifeSiteNews, Nov. 13, 2018: “In Iceland, people with Down Syndrome have been virtually wiped out by abortion. In Denmark, people with Down syndrome also face extinction. In the United Kingdom, 90% of parents who discover that their pre-born child has Down syndrome opt to have the baby aborted. In the US, 75% of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. In Canada, it is also close to 90%. All of this is despite the fact that the vast majority of people with Down syndrome report having an extremely high quality of life, exposing the empty and evil excuses of some abortive parents that abortion is ‘best for the baby’ as the transparent lie that it is. Life expectancy has also gone up steadily: Now, people with Down syndrome generally live to about sixty years old, with some living into their seventies. Their life expectancy post-birth has skyrocketed just as their life expectancy pre-birth plummets. That is precisely why the Canadian Down Syndrome Society (CDSS) is attempting to draw attention to the plight of people with Down syndrome via a daring new campaign, ‘Endangered syndrome’: They have launched a petition calling for those with Down syndrome to be placed on the ‘endangered’ list, noting that by the standards of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the Down syndrome community qualifies. The dwindling Down syndrome community has resulted in dwindling funds for essential community services, the CDSS noted through a video highlighting people dressed as endangered animals while explaining their plight. Animal welfare groups, the CDSS observed, get 90% more funding than Down syndrome charities across North America, a fact that helped drive their controversial comparison—the video has already been viewed more than a million times.”
MARK TWAIN’S QUESTION ABOUT THE JEWS (Friday Church News Notes, November 30, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Writing from Vienna in 1897, the American author Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) observed in his inimitable way, ”The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished. The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?” (“Concerning the Jews,” Harper’s Magazine, 1899; The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, Doubleday, 1963, p. 249). The answer to this puzzle is in the Bible that Twain read but did not believe. The secret to the Jew’s “immortality” is the immortal God and His eternal covenants. “Thus saith the LORD; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them” (Jeremiah 33:25-26).
SIBERIAN UNICORN (Friday Church News Notes, November 30, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Siberian rhino (Elasmotherium sibiricum) is an extinct rhino that lived on the Eurasian Steppe (present-day Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, northern China). It is a good candidate for the unicorn mentioned in Job 39:9-12, which was notable for its strength and untamable spirit. See also Numbers 23:22; 24:8. The Siberian rhino is also called the Siberian unicorn. It looked like a giant buffalo with a massive horn protruding from its snout and weighed more than 3.5 tons (“Eurasian Ice Age Wiped out the Siberian Unicorn,” UPI, Nov. 27, 2018). “Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave by labour to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?” (Job 39:9-12).
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).
BEIJING DEBUTS PLAN TO MONITOR BEHAVIOR OF EVERY RESIDENT (Friday Church News Notes, November 30, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Beijing Debuts,” Breitbart.com, Nov. 23, 2018: “Beijing plans to reward and punish its residents based on data that will be collected from various departments monitoring citizens’ social behavior, according to a detailed ‘action plan’ posted on Monday to the city’s municipal website. By the beginning of 2020, the announcement declares, China’s capital city will have all residents officially locked into the permanent surveillance program, part of a broader effort to have every Chinese citizen rated on a ‘social credit system’ decreeing what public services a person can use based on their obedience to laws and loyalty to the communist regime. The government will use the data collected to assess citizens’ behavior to decide if an individual is law-abiding and ‘trustworthy’ to the Communist Party. Residents who behave properly in the eyes of the Chinese government will receive high credit scores, while residents who misbehave will receive low scores, causing them to lead more difficult lives. ‘Efforts will be made to build a market supervision mechanism with corporate credit as the core,’ states Beijing’s municipal website, adding that it will explore the implementation of what it calls ‘the personal integrity project,’ which will utilize residents’ credit scores for ‘market access, public services, tourism,’ and ‘fields such as entrepreneurship and job hunting.’ Higher scores can also open the ‘green channel,’ which will expedite residents’ applications for higher quality ‘education and medical resources.’ ‘Those who violate the law and lose trust will pay a heavy price,’ adds the government website, stating that it will ‘improve the blacklist system’ and that residents will find themselves ‘limited everywhere, and difficult to move’ if they are deemed untrustworthy by the Communists in control.”
CHICKEN FITBITS (Friday Church News Notes, November 30, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The “Internet of Everything” will soon include chickens. The following is excerpted from “Smart mini-backpacks for chickens,” The New Scientist, Nov. 23, 2018: “Tiny electronic backpacks for chickens can automatically analyse their behaviour, which could reveal when something is wrong. The backpacks are attached to the birds’ backs using straps and are filled with accelerometers that record their movements. An algorithm uses data from the sensors to identify when and for how long the chickens perform different behaviours. The team behind the idea call the devices ‘Fitbits for chickens.’ Currently, farmers have to check chickens manually and individually for signs of the mites. The technology could make monitoring the birds far less labour-intensive. Monitoring different behaviours using the backpacks could help reveal whether farm birds are being disturbed by parasites such as the northern fowl mite, says Amy Murillo at the University of California, Riverside, one of the team. The mite feeds on chickens’ blood and mainly affects egg-laying hens, which are kept alive much longer than those bred for meat.”
DOWN SYNDROME COMMUNITY ASKS TO BE PUT ON “ENDANGERED SPECIES” LIST (Friday Church News Notes, November 30, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from LifeSiteNews, Nov. 13, 2018: “In Iceland, people with Down Syndrome have been virtually wiped out by abortion. In Denmark, people with Down syndrome also face extinction. In the United Kingdom, 90% of parents who discover that their pre-born child has Down syndrome opt to have the baby aborted. In the US, 75% of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. In Canada, it is also close to 90%. All of this is despite the fact that the vast majority of people with Down syndrome report having an extremely high quality of life, exposing the empty and evil excuses of some abortive parents that abortion is ‘best for the baby’ as the transparent lie that it is. Life expectancy has also gone up steadily: Now, people with Down syndrome generally live to about sixty years old, with some living into their seventies. Their life expectancy post-birth has skyrocketed just as their life expectancy pre-birth plummets. That is precisely why the Canadian Down Syndrome Society (CDSS) is attempting to draw attention to the plight of people with Down syndrome via a daring new campaign, ‘Endangered syndrome’: They have launched a petition calling for those with Down syndrome to be placed on the ‘endangered’ list, noting that by the standards of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the Down syndrome community qualifies. The dwindling Down syndrome community has resulted in dwindling funds for essential community services, the CDSS noted through a video highlighting people dressed as endangered animals while explaining their plight. Animal welfare groups, the CDSS observed, get 90% more funding than Down syndrome charities across North America, a fact that helped drive their controversial comparison—the video has already been viewed more than a million times.”
MARK TWAIN’S QUESTION ABOUT THE JEWS (Friday Church News Notes, November 30, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Writing from Vienna in 1897, the American author Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) observed in his inimitable way, ”The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished. The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?” (“Concerning the Jews,” Harper’s Magazine, 1899; The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, Doubleday, 1963, p. 249). The answer to this puzzle is in the Bible that Twain read but did not believe. The secret to the Jew’s “immortality” is the immortal God and His eternal covenants. “Thus saith the LORD; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them” (Jeremiah 33:25-26).
SIBERIAN UNICORN (Friday Church News Notes, November 30, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Siberian rhino (Elasmotherium sibiricum) is an extinct rhino that lived on the Eurasian Steppe (present-day Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, northern China). It is a good candidate for the unicorn mentioned in Job 39:9-12, which was notable for its strength and untamable spirit. See also Numbers 23:22; 24:8. The Siberian rhino is also called the Siberian unicorn. It looked like a giant buffalo with a massive horn protruding from its snout and weighed more than 3.5 tons (“Eurasian Ice Age Wiped out the Siberian Unicorn,” UPI, Nov. 27, 2018). “Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave by labour to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?” (Job 39:9-12).
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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