Friday Church News Notes
Volume 21, Issue 32 - August 7, 2020
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.
WHAT DO BLM, ANTIFA, POST-MODERNISTS, PROGRESSIVES, LEFTISTS, MARXISTS, FEMINISTS, WOKEISTS, CANCEL CULTURE, CRITICAL RACE THEORY, LGBT, PLANNED PARENTHOOD, JIHADIST ISLAM, ETC., HAVE IN COMMON? (Friday Church News Notes, August 7, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Post-Modernists, Progressives, Leftists, Marxists, Feminists, Wokeists, Critical Race Theory, Cancel Culture, LGBT, Planned Parenthood, Jihadist Islam, etc., have a major thing in common, and that is a rage against Jehovah God and His Christ and His holy laws. These and many others are a fulfillment of the precise, 3000-year-old prophecy in Psalm 2, that describes conditions in this world just prior to the return of Christ. “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”
WE MUST SEE AMERICA THROUGH GOD’S EYES (Friday Church News Notes, August 7, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - America is in a mess, socially, politically, economically, educationally, by almost any standard. Patriots are perhaps more discouraged than since the darkest days of the War of Independence, and that’s saying a lot because the nation has been through many severe trials. What’s going on? We need to look at things in this world through God’s eyes, and we can do that by His Word. America is in a mess because of rebellion against God. It’s that simple. America’s problem today is not systemic racism; it is systemic wickedness. America is unique in that it has had more spiritual light than any nation in history (ancient Israel had only part of the Scriptures), yet she has sinned greatly and brazenly against that light. Her churches are in a most wretched condition. Most are entirely apostate, and most of the rest are lukewarm and worldly, Sardis at best. “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead” (Revelation 3:1). Churches that are praying instead of partying are shockingly rare. God’s name is used everywhere in vain, and the holy name of Jesus Christ is a cheap curse word across vast portions of society. Holy matrimony is despised and defiled. The Bible says, “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge,” but most Americans think that is unreasonable. Science and mother nature receive the glory due to the Creator. The gospel is widely perverted. Babies are cut to pieces by the tens of millions. The nation is besotted with drink and drugs. Moral abominations are accepted as “alternative lifestyles.” The justice system dispenses very little justice. Thugs, rapists, sexual predators, and murderers are released to continue their careers. Lying in politics is applauded. Atheism is on the march. Occultism is pervasive. The Bible says life is for God’s will, but most Americans think life is a party. The nation’s cities are moral cesspools. The entertainment industry would make ancient Corinth blush. Children are sexualized. Pornography is a national past-time. The public educational system is in flagrant rebellion to the Bible. The government confiscates the wealth of hard workers and redistributes it to bums. The highest judges thumb their noses at God’s Word. The Bible says “there are none that doeth good,” but most Americans think of themselves as good. God is allowed as a Saviour, but not as a Judge. Hell is denied. At funerals, everyone goes to heaven, which is a great deceit. The only surprise is that America is not in more of a mess than she currently is. That is God’s mercy, but the day of the Lord is fast approaching. “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). “The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!” (Lamentations 5:16). “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Psalm 9:17). “Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him” (Isaiah 3:11). “This is thy lot, the portion of thy measures from me, saith the LORD; because thou hast forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood” (Jeremiah 13:25).
STANDING ALONE AGAINST BLACK LIVES MATTER PROPAGANDA (Friday Church News Notes, August 7, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - One man refused to kneel for Black Lives Matter at a ceremony at a major league baseball game. Just one man. While all of the players, coaches, managers, and staff of the San Francisco Giants knelt to express support for this anarchist movement, pitcher Sam Coonrod stood. He told the San Francisco Chronicle, “I’m a Christian ... and I just can’t get on board with a couple of things that I have read about Black Lives Matter. How they lean toward Marxism and they’ve said some negative things about the nuclear family. I just can’t get on board with that. I don’t think I’m better than anybody. I’m just a Christian. I believe I can’t kneel before anything but God, Jesus Christ. I chose not to kneel. I feel if I did kneel I’d be a hypocrite” (“Giants’ Sam Coonrod cites his faith,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 24, 2020). We aren’t professional sports fans, but we applaud this man’s courage of conviction, which has become too rare. The land of the free and home of the brave is becoming the land of the oppressed and the home of the cowardly. We would guess that most of the sports players who are kneeling for Black Lives Matter don’t have a clue about the organization’s radical objectives and do not actually support the transformation of America into a Marxist state. They couldn’t give evidence for “systemic racism” in America today if their lives depended on it. They are simply following the crowd, too lazy to look into the matter properly and too cowardly to stand for their real beliefs. That’s just our opinion.
PROMINENT BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS ORGANIZATION STANDS AGAINST BLACK LIVES MATTER, 1619 PROJECT (Friday Church News Notes, August 7, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Civil Rights Vet Warns Against BLM Riots,” PJ Media, July 30, 2020: “Robert L. Woodson Sr., a veteran of the 1960s civil rights movement, condemned both the BLM riots and the [New York Times] 1619 Project. He has fought to empower the black community for decades, and he told PJ Media that the riots and the 1619 Project actually harm the cause of helping inner-city blacks. ‘Low-income blacks are the collateral damage’ of the riots, Woodson told PJ Media. ‘It’s really damaging. Many of the businesses that are being torched are black-owned businesses. In my own neighborhood of Philadelphia, they burned down a grocery store that employed ex-offenders and a center that treated dialysis patients. I don’t know what this has to do with social justice,’ he quipped. Woodson, who founded the Woodson Center in 1981 in order to help residents of low-income neighborhoods address the problems of their communities, chastised the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement and insisted that the 1960s civil rights movement never worked hand-in-glove with violent rioters. ... He condemned other civil rights veterans as ‘complicit’ with the riots ‘because they’re not speaking out’ against them. ... Of the rioters, Woodson insisted, ‘Their target isn’t injustice in America, it’s America itself. They have stopped all pretense of being interested in social justice for blacks. They’re after civil society itself.’ ... The Woodson Center recently launched a program called 1776 Unites, which combats the 1619 Project’s claim that America’s true founding came with the arrival of the first black slaves, rather than with the Declaration of Independence. ... While the 1619 Project seeks to ‘present America as a criminal organization founded on slavery,’ 1776 Unites explains that ‘slavery was America’s birth defect, but America is not defined by its defect but by the promise of 1776.’ ... 1776 Unites includes a team of 20-25 black and white scholars who champion the black Americans who used the free market to build their own prosperity, often facing stiff odds. It also includes ‘community activists whose lives embody’ the spirit of redemption for inner-city communities. ‘There’s a move afoot in black America to recognize that the problems we’re confronting are internal and can’t be solved by external means,’ Woodson said.”
DESTRUCTION OF PORT ROYAL, THE SODOM OF THE NEW WORLD (Friday Church News Notes, August 7, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Lawless Pirates, Earthquake Judgment and Revival,” American Minute with Bill Federer: “On Jamaica’s sandy southeast coast, the city of Port Royal grew to surpass Boston as England’s most prosperous New World settlement. Many of the Caribbean’s thousands of pirates and smugglers operated from there, with half of the 200 ships a year passing through the harbor transporting slaves, liquor, and other contraband trade to Spanish America. Drinking, gaming houses, slave trading, brothels, taverns and grog shops, attracted ‘pirates, cutthroats, whores and some of the vilest persons in the whole of the world.’ Port Royal was called ‘the richest and wickedest city in the world’ or ‘the Sodom of the New World.’ Suddenly, June 7, 1692, an earthquake and tsunami sank Port Royal under the sea, followed by violent aftershocks. Over 2,000 drowned. Graves were opened and bodies washed about. The sea inundated the town's wharf, ‘with all those goodly brick houses upon it ... and two entire streets beyond that.’ Enormous waves tossed ships from the harbor into buildings, and in many places the ground opened up and ‘swallow’d up multitudes of people together.’ Members of the Jamaica Council declared, ‘We are become ... an instance of God Almighty’s severe judgment, therefore every future seventh of June ... be kept and observed by all the inhabitants of this Island, as an anniversary day of fasting and humiliation,’ in hopes that acknowledging ‘manifold sins and wickednesses committed against his Divine Majesty,’ may ‘appease God’s imminent wrath and prevent heavier judgements.’ A Quaker resident, John Pike, wrote June 19, 1692: ‘Ah brother! If thou didst see those great persons that are now dead upon the water thou couldst never forget it. Great men who were so swallowed up with pride, that a man could not be admitted to speak with them, and women whose top-knots seemed to reach the clouds, now lie stinking upon the water, and are made meat for fish and fowls of the air.’”
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).
WE MUST SEE AMERICA THROUGH GOD’S EYES (Friday Church News Notes, August 7, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - America is in a mess, socially, politically, economically, educationally, by almost any standard. Patriots are perhaps more discouraged than since the darkest days of the War of Independence, and that’s saying a lot because the nation has been through many severe trials. What’s going on? We need to look at things in this world through God’s eyes, and we can do that by His Word. America is in a mess because of rebellion against God. It’s that simple. America’s problem today is not systemic racism; it is systemic wickedness. America is unique in that it has had more spiritual light than any nation in history (ancient Israel had only part of the Scriptures), yet she has sinned greatly and brazenly against that light. Her churches are in a most wretched condition. Most are entirely apostate, and most of the rest are lukewarm and worldly, Sardis at best. “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead” (Revelation 3:1). Churches that are praying instead of partying are shockingly rare. God’s name is used everywhere in vain, and the holy name of Jesus Christ is a cheap curse word across vast portions of society. Holy matrimony is despised and defiled. The Bible says, “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge,” but most Americans think that is unreasonable. Science and mother nature receive the glory due to the Creator. The gospel is widely perverted. Babies are cut to pieces by the tens of millions. The nation is besotted with drink and drugs. Moral abominations are accepted as “alternative lifestyles.” The justice system dispenses very little justice. Thugs, rapists, sexual predators, and murderers are released to continue their careers. Lying in politics is applauded. Atheism is on the march. Occultism is pervasive. The Bible says life is for God’s will, but most Americans think life is a party. The nation’s cities are moral cesspools. The entertainment industry would make ancient Corinth blush. Children are sexualized. Pornography is a national past-time. The public educational system is in flagrant rebellion to the Bible. The government confiscates the wealth of hard workers and redistributes it to bums. The highest judges thumb their noses at God’s Word. The Bible says “there are none that doeth good,” but most Americans think of themselves as good. God is allowed as a Saviour, but not as a Judge. Hell is denied. At funerals, everyone goes to heaven, which is a great deceit. The only surprise is that America is not in more of a mess than she currently is. That is God’s mercy, but the day of the Lord is fast approaching. “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). “The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!” (Lamentations 5:16). “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Psalm 9:17). “Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him” (Isaiah 3:11). “This is thy lot, the portion of thy measures from me, saith the LORD; because thou hast forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood” (Jeremiah 13:25).
STANDING ALONE AGAINST BLACK LIVES MATTER PROPAGANDA (Friday Church News Notes, August 7, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - One man refused to kneel for Black Lives Matter at a ceremony at a major league baseball game. Just one man. While all of the players, coaches, managers, and staff of the San Francisco Giants knelt to express support for this anarchist movement, pitcher Sam Coonrod stood. He told the San Francisco Chronicle, “I’m a Christian ... and I just can’t get on board with a couple of things that I have read about Black Lives Matter. How they lean toward Marxism and they’ve said some negative things about the nuclear family. I just can’t get on board with that. I don’t think I’m better than anybody. I’m just a Christian. I believe I can’t kneel before anything but God, Jesus Christ. I chose not to kneel. I feel if I did kneel I’d be a hypocrite” (“Giants’ Sam Coonrod cites his faith,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 24, 2020). We aren’t professional sports fans, but we applaud this man’s courage of conviction, which has become too rare. The land of the free and home of the brave is becoming the land of the oppressed and the home of the cowardly. We would guess that most of the sports players who are kneeling for Black Lives Matter don’t have a clue about the organization’s radical objectives and do not actually support the transformation of America into a Marxist state. They couldn’t give evidence for “systemic racism” in America today if their lives depended on it. They are simply following the crowd, too lazy to look into the matter properly and too cowardly to stand for their real beliefs. That’s just our opinion.
PROMINENT BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS ORGANIZATION STANDS AGAINST BLACK LIVES MATTER, 1619 PROJECT (Friday Church News Notes, August 7, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Civil Rights Vet Warns Against BLM Riots,” PJ Media, July 30, 2020: “Robert L. Woodson Sr., a veteran of the 1960s civil rights movement, condemned both the BLM riots and the [New York Times] 1619 Project. He has fought to empower the black community for decades, and he told PJ Media that the riots and the 1619 Project actually harm the cause of helping inner-city blacks. ‘Low-income blacks are the collateral damage’ of the riots, Woodson told PJ Media. ‘It’s really damaging. Many of the businesses that are being torched are black-owned businesses. In my own neighborhood of Philadelphia, they burned down a grocery store that employed ex-offenders and a center that treated dialysis patients. I don’t know what this has to do with social justice,’ he quipped. Woodson, who founded the Woodson Center in 1981 in order to help residents of low-income neighborhoods address the problems of their communities, chastised the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement and insisted that the 1960s civil rights movement never worked hand-in-glove with violent rioters. ... He condemned other civil rights veterans as ‘complicit’ with the riots ‘because they’re not speaking out’ against them. ... Of the rioters, Woodson insisted, ‘Their target isn’t injustice in America, it’s America itself. They have stopped all pretense of being interested in social justice for blacks. They’re after civil society itself.’ ... The Woodson Center recently launched a program called 1776 Unites, which combats the 1619 Project’s claim that America’s true founding came with the arrival of the first black slaves, rather than with the Declaration of Independence. ... While the 1619 Project seeks to ‘present America as a criminal organization founded on slavery,’ 1776 Unites explains that ‘slavery was America’s birth defect, but America is not defined by its defect but by the promise of 1776.’ ... 1776 Unites includes a team of 20-25 black and white scholars who champion the black Americans who used the free market to build their own prosperity, often facing stiff odds. It also includes ‘community activists whose lives embody’ the spirit of redemption for inner-city communities. ‘There’s a move afoot in black America to recognize that the problems we’re confronting are internal and can’t be solved by external means,’ Woodson said.”
DESTRUCTION OF PORT ROYAL, THE SODOM OF THE NEW WORLD (Friday Church News Notes, August 7, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Lawless Pirates, Earthquake Judgment and Revival,” American Minute with Bill Federer: “On Jamaica’s sandy southeast coast, the city of Port Royal grew to surpass Boston as England’s most prosperous New World settlement. Many of the Caribbean’s thousands of pirates and smugglers operated from there, with half of the 200 ships a year passing through the harbor transporting slaves, liquor, and other contraband trade to Spanish America. Drinking, gaming houses, slave trading, brothels, taverns and grog shops, attracted ‘pirates, cutthroats, whores and some of the vilest persons in the whole of the world.’ Port Royal was called ‘the richest and wickedest city in the world’ or ‘the Sodom of the New World.’ Suddenly, June 7, 1692, an earthquake and tsunami sank Port Royal under the sea, followed by violent aftershocks. Over 2,000 drowned. Graves were opened and bodies washed about. The sea inundated the town's wharf, ‘with all those goodly brick houses upon it ... and two entire streets beyond that.’ Enormous waves tossed ships from the harbor into buildings, and in many places the ground opened up and ‘swallow’d up multitudes of people together.’ Members of the Jamaica Council declared, ‘We are become ... an instance of God Almighty’s severe judgment, therefore every future seventh of June ... be kept and observed by all the inhabitants of this Island, as an anniversary day of fasting and humiliation,’ in hopes that acknowledging ‘manifold sins and wickednesses committed against his Divine Majesty,’ may ‘appease God’s imminent wrath and prevent heavier judgements.’ A Quaker resident, John Pike, wrote June 19, 1692: ‘Ah brother! If thou didst see those great persons that are now dead upon the water thou couldst never forget it. Great men who were so swallowed up with pride, that a man could not be admitted to speak with them, and women whose top-knots seemed to reach the clouds, now lie stinking upon the water, and are made meat for fish and fowls of the air.’”
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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