HILLSONG DEPICTS ONE OF THE THREE WISE MEN AS A WOMAN (Friday Church News Notes, May 15, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In a Christmas production (probably from 2019), Hillsong Australia depicted one of the wise men as a woman (“Hillsong Depicts,” Reformation Charlotte, May 9, 2020). This feminization of the wise men fits Hillsong’s passion to conform Christ to modern culture in direct disobedience to God’s Word, and Hillsong represents the heart and soul of contemporary worship music. It is a Christianity that is very much at home in this world. “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Ro. 12:2). For more about Hillsong, see The Directory of Contemporary Worship Music, available as a free eBook from www.wayoflife.org.

IRVING BERLIN’S GOD BLESS AMERICA (Friday Church News Notes, May 15, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following, which is a shocking reminder of how dramatically America has changed, is adapted from “Irving Berlin and ‘God Bless America!’” by Bill Federer, American Minute: In 1940, Kate Smith sang the patriotic hymn “God Bless America” before Democratic campaign rallies at the request of the Democratic National Committee. The hymn was written by popular song writer Irving Berlin, who was born in Russia in 1888, the son of a Jewish rabbi. The family immigrated to New York in 1902 to escape anti-Jewish persecution, and Irving served in the U.S. Army in World War I as an infantry sergeant. Berlin gave all the royalties of “God Bless America” to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. The original scout oath said, “On my honor I will do my best: To do my duty to God and my country...” Irving was granted the Congressional Gold Medal “in recognition of his services in composing many popular songs, including ‘God Bless America.’” The bill was signed by President Dwight Eisenhower. Upon receiving the medal in February 1955, Berlin told the president, “To me, ‘God Bless America’ was not just a song but an expression of my feeling toward the country to which I owe what I have and what I am.” The lyrics go like this: “While the storm clouds gather far across the sea, let us swear allegiance, to a land that’s free. Let us all be grateful, for a land so fair, as we raise our voices, in a solemn prayer. God Bless America, land that I love, stand beside Her, and guide Her, through the night, with the Light from Above, from the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans white with foam, God Bless America, My Home Sweet Home, God Bless America, My Home Sweet Home!”

JIM BAKKER SUED FOR BOGUS CORONAVIRUS CURE (Friday Church News Notes, May 15, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Jim Bakker, disgraced former host of The PTL Club, is being sued by the state of Missouri for selling a bogus coronavirus cure called Silver Solution. After spending five years in prison for defrauding his followers out of $158 million to support a lavish and immoral lifestyle (including the famous air-conditioned doghouse), Bakker launched a new career with The Jim Bakker Show. He sells survival food and equipment for preppers who, we suppose, plan to hide from the Antichrist. Bakker also has been selling Silver Solution, though it has conveniently disappeared from his web site. This is one of the many brands of colloidal silver (tiny silver particles suspended in a liquid) that are marketed as a health product. On his Feb. 12 broadcast, Bakker’s guest Sherrill Sellman, a “natural health expert,” said, “[I]t has been tested on other strains of the coronavirus and has been able to eliminate it within 12 hours. Totally eliminate it. Kills it. Deactivates it. [Silver Solution] has been proven by the government that it has the ability to kill every pathogen it has ever been tested on, including SARS and HIV” (“Missouri Sues Televangelist,” NPR.org, Mar. 11, 2020). Four 4-ounce bottles are a mere $80. On its very face, Silver Solution has all the hallmarks of snake oil quackery by claiming to be a cure for just about anything. Not only does it kill bacteria and viruses, it boosts the immune system, and is an effective treatment for cancer, arthritis, diabetes, and other things. Bringing everything back to reality and bursting the Silver Solution bubble, the Mayo Clinic says, “Colloidal silver isn’t considered safe or effective for any of the health claims manufacturers make. Silver has no known purpose in the body. Nor is it an essential mineral, as some sellers of silver products claim. It’s not clear how much colloidal silver may be harmful, but it can build up in your body’s tissues over months or years. Most commonly, this results in argyria (ahr-JIR-e-uh), a blue-gray discoloration of your skin, eyes, internal organs, nails and gums. While argyria doesn’t usually pose a serious health problem, it can be a cosmetic concern because it doesn’t go away when you stop taking silver products. Rarely, excessive doses of colloidal silver can cause possibly irreversible serious health problems, including kidney damage and neurological problems such as seizures. Colloidal silver products may also interact with medications” (mayoclinic.org). So silver won’t cure coronavirus, but it might turn your skin blue if you want to look like a Martian! Since it appears that Bakker no longer sells Silver Solution, you can always get the Keto Hydrolyzed Collagen Powder or the Fermented Green Supremefood made of fermented vegetables and grasses and enzymes. Bakker’s wife and former co-host of the PTL Club, Tammy Faye, divorced Jim while he was in prison and married Roe Messner, an old family friend whose company helped build PTL’s Heritage USA resort complex. She had a second wind evangelistic ministry, too, before she died in 2008.

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, A MAJOR PROMOTER OF ABORTION AND SEX EDUCATION (Friday Church News Notes, May 15, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “World Health Organization,” The Stream, Apr. 27, 2020: “The World Health Organization, the ‘watchdog’ of the global health, is a lot more than the world’s disease and infection police. It’s also, as more Americans are starting to learn, one of the biggest promoters of abortion and peddlers of radical sex ed. At this point, it’s undeniable. And it’s been its agenda for many years. If Americans are upset about anything, it shouldn’t be that the president temporarily cut the WHO’s funding. It should be the incredible injustice that’s been done to taxpayers by sending billions of dollars to a group that doesn’t share most people’s values. Sharon Slater of Family Watch International exposes this shameful history in a recent publication on the WHO. According to Family Watch: ‘In 2018, WHO co-published with other UN agencies and the help of International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) the radical International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education. This guide purports to set the sexual health education standards for all of the world’s children. Please note that WHO defines “sexuality” to encompass “sex, gender identities and roles, sexual orientation, eroticism, pleasure, intimacy and reproduction,” and thus, WHO supports such controversial topics being taught to children. If you’re still not convinced, Slater offers additional damning evidence from the WHO-supported learning objectives for children from the International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education that encourage everything from gender and sexual experimentation to abortion, shocking acts of sexual pleasure, and departures from their parents’ more traditional views. Slater also explains that “the WHO’s CSE standards for European children, which are even worse, start by teaching toddlers about [sexual experimentation]. They also refer 9-year-olds to [the International Planned Parenthood Federation] to learn about their “sexual rights,” which is further evidence of WHO’s deep partnership with IPPF.’ ... Slater adds: ‘[WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus] also has worked toward the decriminalization of cross-dressing, same-sex behaviour, sex work and drug use.’ She points to the WHO’s Values and Preferences of Transgender People Study as further evidence, and a ‘WHO fact sheet reveals that the organization has bought into unscientific transgender ideology, stating it is important to recognize identities that do not fit into the binary male or female sex categories.’”

WORLD’S FASTEST CAMERA CAN SHOOT 70 TRILLION FRAMES PER SECOND, PROVES THE BIBLE IS TRUE (Friday Church News Notes, May 15, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “A team of researchers at Caltech have developed (yet another) camera capable of capturing over a trillion images every second. The previous ‘world’s fastest camera’ could shoot 10 trillion fps; the new camera can capture up to 70 trillion, smashing the previous record. This latest breakthrough is an evolution of previous ‘trillion+ fps’ cameras from Caltech, all of them some form of ‘Compressed Ultrafast Photography’ or (CUP). The latest iteration is called CUSP, which stands for Compressed Ultrafast Spectral Photography, and it comes from the same minds at Caltech that were recently able to capture 1 trillion fps images of transparent phenomenon like neuron pulses and shockwaves. ... For those who enjoy back-of-the-napkin math, the speed of light is (just under) 300 billion millimeters per second. Now, take 70 trillion frames/s and divide it by 300 billion mm/s, and you get ~233.3 frames for every millimeter the light travels. Put another way: this camera can capture about 230 frames in the time it takes light itself to move one millimeter” (“New World’s Fastest Camera,” PetaPixel, May 7, 2020). CONCLUDING NOTE: This amazing camera demonstrates exactly what the Bible says about man: he is not an animal, and he is made in the image of God. The gap between man and ape is nearly infinite. David Berlinski, Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University and a post-doctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University, is not a creationist. He is a “secular Jew and an agnostic,” but he is sensible enough to know that man is not an advanced ape, and he is courageous enough to say so publicly in his inimitable way. Commenting on the attempt to teach apes sign language, Berlinski observes, “After years of punishing trials, a few of them have been taught the rudiments of various primitive symbol systems. Having been given the gift of language, they have nothing to say. When two simian prodigies meet, they fling their signs at one another. ... Simian social structures are often intricate. Chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas reason; they form plans; they have preferences; they are cunning; they have passions and desires; and they suffer. The same is true of cats, I might add. In much of this, we see ourselves. But beyond what we have in common with the apes, we have nothing in common, and while the similarities are interesting, the differences are profound” (The Devil’s Delusion, p. 156). “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:27-28).

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).