Friday Church News Notes
Volume 19, Issue 52 - December 28, 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.
CHINESE GOVERNMENT VIOLENTLY SHUTS DOWN LARGE CHURCHES (Friday Church News Notes, December 28, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Hong Kong Christians Protest Brutal China Crackdown,” Breitbart, Dec. 23, 2018: “On December 9, Chinese security forces carried out a series of coordinated raids on the Early Rain Covenant Church, one of the most prominent house churches in China, arresting as many as a hundred members, including Pastor Wang Yi and his wife. According to Gina Goh, Southeast Asia regional manager for International Christian Concern, officials beat, tortured, and denied food and restroom accommodations to the Christian detainees. Some of the Christians were dragged along the ground, stepped on, bound to chairs, and had handfuls of hair pulled from their scalp, Goh said. Six days later, authorities repeated the exercise on the Rongguili Church in Guangzhou, the largest unregistered church in south China. Local officials shut down the church, interrupting a children’s Bible class, and confiscated some 4,000 religious books. The pre-Christmas raids are part of an escalating crackdown on house churches and unsanctioned Christians, as part of an effort by the Xi regime to secure absolute control over all religious activities in the country. So far this year, there have been more than 10,000 cases of Christians being detained in China, compared with just over 3,000 cases for the whole of last year, according to Bob Fu of China Aid, a U.S.-based Christian non-profit organization.”
DEMOCRAT FACEBOOK/TWITTER MISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST ROY MOORE EXPOSED (Friday Church News Notes, December 28, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Facebook suspends accounts tied to Dem disinformation scheme,” Fox News, Dec. 25, 2018: “Facebook suspended five accounts linked to Democratic operatives who engaged in ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior’ in a bid to steer votes away from Alabama Republican Roy Moore during last year’s special Senate election. The announcement comes following a New York Times report last week that exposed the scheme, in which the users created a Facebook page and imitated conservative Alabamians who weren’t satisfied with the Republican candidate while encouraging others to write in another candidate. ... The scheme also involved creating thousands of fake Russian accounts on Twitter that began following Moore. This effort attracted attention from local and national media, falsely suggesting Russia was backing Moore’s candidacy. ‘Russian invasion? Roy Moore sees spike in Twitter followers from land of Putin,’ read the headline of an article at The Montgomery Advertiser, just months before the election night. Other outlets shortly picked up the story.” CONCLUDING COMMENT BY FRIDAY CHURCH NEWS NOTES EDITOR: In addition to these lies, Roy Moore was the target of unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls when he was in his 30s. His campaign called the allegations “baseless” and “the very definition of fake news,” but the damage was done. The man lost the election due to dirty politics, pure and simple.
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA FILING BANKRUPTCY (Friday Church News Notes, December 28, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from Red State News, Dec. 13, 2018: “The once proud organization known as the Boy Scouts is declaring bankruptcy after severely flagging numbers due to a myriad of problems, including implementing social justice measures to make it more inclusive. According to the Daily Caller, the Boy Scouts changed its name to Scouts BSA and began to allow girls into their ranks. Before that, the Boy Scouts ruled that openly gay scouts and scout leaders could also join the program. This led to a serious decline in membership and now the organization is filing Chapter 11. ... It’s only going to get worse as well. The Mormon Church has announced that it’s discontinuing its partnership with the Boy Scouts and will be starting up its own boy’s program in 2020, according to the Daily Caller. When that happens, the Scouts will lose a third of its membership.”
REPUBLICAN SENATOR BLOCKING TRUMP’S NOMINATION OF LGBT ACTIVIST (Friday Church News Notes, December 28, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Sen. Mike Lee Blocks,” CNSNews.com, Dec. 21, 2018: “Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) is blocking Senate confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Chai Feldblum, for fear she could threaten religious freedom and traditional marriage. If confirmed, Feldblum, a leftist Democrat and LGBTQ activist who has made controversial comments about religious liberty, would serve her third EEOC term. She was first nominated in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama, and finished her second term in July 2018. Sen. Lee has asserted that Feldblum ‘is no typical Democrat,’ and could curtail ‘the rights of religious Americans.’ ... The EEOC is a bipartisan commission that enforces federal laws prohibiting discrimination against job applicants or employees on the basis of race, sex, religion, color, national origin, age, disability or genetic information. In a 2006 interview with the Weekly Standard, Feldblum suggested sexual liberty was more important than religious liberty, and should be prioritized should the two come into conflict. ‘Sexual liberty should win in most cases,’ Feldblum said. ‘There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win because that’s the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner.’ ... Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Wire Ben Shapiro said Feldblum was ‘President Trump’s Worst Federal Nomination’ ... ‘Feldblum should not be anywhere near the levers of power,’ Shapiro wrote. ‘And it’s particularly inexcusable for President Trump and a Republican Congress to reauthorize her presence there.’”
GROCER IN ARIZONA THE FIRST TO OFFER DRIVERLESS VEHICLE DELIVERY (Friday Church News Notes, December 28, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Kroger has become the first supermarket chain to provide delivery of groceries via driverless vehicles. The service was launched in Scottsdale, Arizona. The grocers have teamed up with the Nuro company and its small R1 electric-powered van “shaped like a rounded, silver lunch box” or a “toaster on wheels,” which has been in development since 2016. When filling an order, the van self-drives to the address. The customer watches the vehicle’s progress on a smartphone app, activates a code to open the van, and retrieves his package.
BEWARE OF HAVING TOO MANY SCHEMES (Friday Church News Notes, December 28, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “If we are competent merchantmen in the business of the Church we shall limit our schemes, and we shall operate them to the last ounce of our strength. We shall not waste and squander our power in twenty scouting excursions, but we will use it in sinking one or two good mines, and working them with noble and persistent exploration. ... If the pulpit is your mine, don’t play with it, work it night and day. If the Sunday School is your mine, sink your shaft deeper and deeper, open out new seams and veins of treasure, and let the mine abundantly justify itself by its products. Whatever may be your mind, put your strength into it. I am a strong believer in a very few schemes, but tried to the utmost; I believe in a very few mines, but worked for all they are worth. The life of our day tempts us to diffuse. We are tempted to have too many irons in the fire, and we don’t beat any one of them to final ‘shape and use.’ Gentlemen, have a few well-designed and well-proportioned schemes. Don’t lose yourself in dreams. Lay your hands upon a few things, and hold on to them like grim death, and make them pay daily tribute to the Lord your God. Master something. Finish something, or be still working away at it when the Lord promotes you to higher service. That was the Master’s way. ‘I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.’ He ‘set His face’ steadfastly to it, nothing drew Him aside, and He finished it. ... And this, too, was the way of the Apostle Paul. ‘This one thing I do.’ His life and work were controlled by a glorious concentration, and he held on to his grace like a hound that has found the trail. Follow his inspired example. Don’t be forever itching after novelties. Don’t be continually shifting your ground” (J.H. Jowett, The Preacher: His Life and Work, 1912).
ATP IS NECESSARY FOR LIFE (Friday Church News Notes, December 28, 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: “The living cell is powered by ATP (Adenosine TriPhosphate), which is produced in the cell’s mitochondria by an amazing genetic motor called ATP Synthase. Without ATP there would be no biological life and without the ATP motor there would be no ATP. One trillion trillion of these complex motors would fit on the head of a pin. They typically spin at about 10,000 rpm and develop immense torque, with each rotation producing three ATP molecules. ‘The human body generates about its own weight of ATP every day, generated by trillions of these motors. And it is consumed very quickly to power vital biochemical reactions, including DNA and protein synthesis, muscle contraction, transport of nutrients and nerve impulses. An organism without ATP is like a car without gasoline. Cyanide is so toxic precisely because it stops ATP production. ... because energy is vital for life, life could not have evolved before this motor was fully functional. This is an even more foundational problem: natural selection by definition is differential reproduction, so requires self-reproducing entities at the start. Yet self-reproduction requires ATP to supply the energy! So does the expression of the information that is selected. So even if a series of gradual steps could be imagined up this peak of Mount Improbable, there would be no natural selection to enable that climb. This is because all the hypothetical intermediates would be lacking energy and thus dead’ (Jonathan Sarfati, By Design, pp. 135, 136). Shem Dharampaul, M.D., observes: “In the glycolytic pathway which produces ATP, you need to input two molecules of ATP to produce four molecules of ATP (net product of two molecules). It is a classic chicken and egg scenario. From where did the first two molecules appear?” A graphical depiction of the ATP synthase can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d5QU7fCWpE
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).
DEMOCRAT FACEBOOK/TWITTER MISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST ROY MOORE EXPOSED (Friday Church News Notes, December 28, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Facebook suspends accounts tied to Dem disinformation scheme,” Fox News, Dec. 25, 2018: “Facebook suspended five accounts linked to Democratic operatives who engaged in ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior’ in a bid to steer votes away from Alabama Republican Roy Moore during last year’s special Senate election. The announcement comes following a New York Times report last week that exposed the scheme, in which the users created a Facebook page and imitated conservative Alabamians who weren’t satisfied with the Republican candidate while encouraging others to write in another candidate. ... The scheme also involved creating thousands of fake Russian accounts on Twitter that began following Moore. This effort attracted attention from local and national media, falsely suggesting Russia was backing Moore’s candidacy. ‘Russian invasion? Roy Moore sees spike in Twitter followers from land of Putin,’ read the headline of an article at The Montgomery Advertiser, just months before the election night. Other outlets shortly picked up the story.” CONCLUDING COMMENT BY FRIDAY CHURCH NEWS NOTES EDITOR: In addition to these lies, Roy Moore was the target of unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls when he was in his 30s. His campaign called the allegations “baseless” and “the very definition of fake news,” but the damage was done. The man lost the election due to dirty politics, pure and simple.
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA FILING BANKRUPTCY (Friday Church News Notes, December 28, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from Red State News, Dec. 13, 2018: “The once proud organization known as the Boy Scouts is declaring bankruptcy after severely flagging numbers due to a myriad of problems, including implementing social justice measures to make it more inclusive. According to the Daily Caller, the Boy Scouts changed its name to Scouts BSA and began to allow girls into their ranks. Before that, the Boy Scouts ruled that openly gay scouts and scout leaders could also join the program. This led to a serious decline in membership and now the organization is filing Chapter 11. ... It’s only going to get worse as well. The Mormon Church has announced that it’s discontinuing its partnership with the Boy Scouts and will be starting up its own boy’s program in 2020, according to the Daily Caller. When that happens, the Scouts will lose a third of its membership.”
REPUBLICAN SENATOR BLOCKING TRUMP’S NOMINATION OF LGBT ACTIVIST (Friday Church News Notes, December 28, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Sen. Mike Lee Blocks,” CNSNews.com, Dec. 21, 2018: “Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) is blocking Senate confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Chai Feldblum, for fear she could threaten religious freedom and traditional marriage. If confirmed, Feldblum, a leftist Democrat and LGBTQ activist who has made controversial comments about religious liberty, would serve her third EEOC term. She was first nominated in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama, and finished her second term in July 2018. Sen. Lee has asserted that Feldblum ‘is no typical Democrat,’ and could curtail ‘the rights of religious Americans.’ ... The EEOC is a bipartisan commission that enforces federal laws prohibiting discrimination against job applicants or employees on the basis of race, sex, religion, color, national origin, age, disability or genetic information. In a 2006 interview with the Weekly Standard, Feldblum suggested sexual liberty was more important than religious liberty, and should be prioritized should the two come into conflict. ‘Sexual liberty should win in most cases,’ Feldblum said. ‘There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win because that’s the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner.’ ... Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Wire Ben Shapiro said Feldblum was ‘President Trump’s Worst Federal Nomination’ ... ‘Feldblum should not be anywhere near the levers of power,’ Shapiro wrote. ‘And it’s particularly inexcusable for President Trump and a Republican Congress to reauthorize her presence there.’”
GROCER IN ARIZONA THE FIRST TO OFFER DRIVERLESS VEHICLE DELIVERY (Friday Church News Notes, December 28, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Kroger has become the first supermarket chain to provide delivery of groceries via driverless vehicles. The service was launched in Scottsdale, Arizona. The grocers have teamed up with the Nuro company and its small R1 electric-powered van “shaped like a rounded, silver lunch box” or a “toaster on wheels,” which has been in development since 2016. When filling an order, the van self-drives to the address. The customer watches the vehicle’s progress on a smartphone app, activates a code to open the van, and retrieves his package.
BEWARE OF HAVING TOO MANY SCHEMES (Friday Church News Notes, December 28, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “If we are competent merchantmen in the business of the Church we shall limit our schemes, and we shall operate them to the last ounce of our strength. We shall not waste and squander our power in twenty scouting excursions, but we will use it in sinking one or two good mines, and working them with noble and persistent exploration. ... If the pulpit is your mine, don’t play with it, work it night and day. If the Sunday School is your mine, sink your shaft deeper and deeper, open out new seams and veins of treasure, and let the mine abundantly justify itself by its products. Whatever may be your mind, put your strength into it. I am a strong believer in a very few schemes, but tried to the utmost; I believe in a very few mines, but worked for all they are worth. The life of our day tempts us to diffuse. We are tempted to have too many irons in the fire, and we don’t beat any one of them to final ‘shape and use.’ Gentlemen, have a few well-designed and well-proportioned schemes. Don’t lose yourself in dreams. Lay your hands upon a few things, and hold on to them like grim death, and make them pay daily tribute to the Lord your God. Master something. Finish something, or be still working away at it when the Lord promotes you to higher service. That was the Master’s way. ‘I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.’ He ‘set His face’ steadfastly to it, nothing drew Him aside, and He finished it. ... And this, too, was the way of the Apostle Paul. ‘This one thing I do.’ His life and work were controlled by a glorious concentration, and he held on to his grace like a hound that has found the trail. Follow his inspired example. Don’t be forever itching after novelties. Don’t be continually shifting your ground” (J.H. Jowett, The Preacher: His Life and Work, 1912).
ATP IS NECESSARY FOR LIFE (Friday Church News Notes, December 28, 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: “The living cell is powered by ATP (Adenosine TriPhosphate), which is produced in the cell’s mitochondria by an amazing genetic motor called ATP Synthase. Without ATP there would be no biological life and without the ATP motor there would be no ATP. One trillion trillion of these complex motors would fit on the head of a pin. They typically spin at about 10,000 rpm and develop immense torque, with each rotation producing three ATP molecules. ‘The human body generates about its own weight of ATP every day, generated by trillions of these motors. And it is consumed very quickly to power vital biochemical reactions, including DNA and protein synthesis, muscle contraction, transport of nutrients and nerve impulses. An organism without ATP is like a car without gasoline. Cyanide is so toxic precisely because it stops ATP production. ... because energy is vital for life, life could not have evolved before this motor was fully functional. This is an even more foundational problem: natural selection by definition is differential reproduction, so requires self-reproducing entities at the start. Yet self-reproduction requires ATP to supply the energy! So does the expression of the information that is selected. So even if a series of gradual steps could be imagined up this peak of Mount Improbable, there would be no natural selection to enable that climb. This is because all the hypothetical intermediates would be lacking energy and thus dead’ (Jonathan Sarfati, By Design, pp. 135, 136). Shem Dharampaul, M.D., observes: “In the glycolytic pathway which produces ATP, you need to input two molecules of ATP to produce four molecules of ATP (net product of two molecules). It is a classic chicken and egg scenario. From where did the first two molecules appear?” A graphical depiction of the ATP synthase can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d5QU7fCWpE
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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