Friday Church News Notes
Volume 21, Issue 41 - October 9, 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.
Raw video screen shot: BLM protesters were filmed confronting Louisville store owner Fadi Faouri (far right).
BLACK LIVES MATTER EMPLOY MAFIA TACTICS TO DEMAND THAT BUSINESSES SUBMIT TO THEIR AGENDA (Friday Church News Notes, October 9, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Immigrant Business Owner Battles BLM Activists,” The Daily Wire, Sep. 30, 2020: “In video captured by a Daily Caller reporter, Louisville business owner Fadi Faouri--who immigrated to America as a teen without knowing the language and with only ‘$100 in his pocket’--is leaning against his store window with gun in-hand when activists swarm him and ask for his verbal support of Black Lives Matter and agreement that ‘Breonna Taylor matters.’ The businessman refuses to promote the radical activist group and emphasizes that he ‘doesn’t see color,’ but looks as people as ‘human beings.’ ... Mr. Faouri told the New York Post that he’s been protecting his storefront for months and was trying to move his location. The place he was leasing, however, was burned down by rioters last week, just as he was finishing up the renovations. ... ‘Every night we have a new store that got looted. They break in, they take whatever and go. They walk away.’ ... ‘They cannot force me to say something I don’t want to say,’ he said. ‘They try to force me to do stuff that I don’t want to do, and I will not do.’ ‘If I made it in this country with no language whatsoever when I came in, and $100 in my pocket, nobody has any right to say they can’t make it in this country,’ the businessman said, adding, ‘There’s a different way and better ways to handle this. What they’re doing, they’re doing it wrong.’ ... According to a report from the Courier-Journal, dozens of businesses in NuLu, a small commercial district in downtown Louisville, have been hit with race-based demands from activists. As laid out by the outlet, the activists’ list of demands include the following: Employ more black people; purchase more inventory from black retailers; undergo diversity training. Activist Phelix Crittenden outlined three ‘rankings’ local businesses can score: ‘A’ for ‘Ally,’ ‘C’ for ‘Complicit,’ and ‘F’ for ‘Failed.’ ... While some business owners have already signed ‘contracts’ to comply with the demands and acknowledge alleged gentrification of the area, some business owners are standing firm. Restaurateur and Cuban immigrant Fernando Martinez, for example, slammed the activists for their ‘mafia tactics.’ ‘There comes a time in life that you have to make a stand and you have to really prove your convictions and what you believe in,’ Martinez said in a Facebook post. ‘All good people need to denounce this. How can you justified (sic) injustice with more injustice?’ ‘If you and I can sit down as human beings that we are without screaming at each other, without calling each other names, without offending each other, we can come to an understanding,’ Martinez told a protester. ‘How is destroying our business going to bring any justice?’”
CHINESE CHRISTIAN BOOKSELLER SENTENCED TO SEVEN YEARS IN PRISON (Friday Church News Notes, October 9, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from International Christian Concern, Oct. 1, 2020: “A Chinese Christian online bookstore owner, Chen Yu, was charged with ‘illegal business operations’ on September 27. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined 200,000 RMB ($29,450 USD). ... Chen will also have his iPhone confiscated. Additionally, the 12,864 Christian books from his bookstore will be destroyed by the Linhai City Public Security Bureau. ... Gina Goh, ICC’s Regional Manager for Southeast Asia, said, ‘The sentence for Mr. Chen Yu shows how the Chinese government is increasingly frightened by all things religious. From religious symbols, Chinese couplets, to Christian books, anything that features religious elements is no longer tolerated by the Chinese Communist Party. The disproportionate sentencing of Christians, such as Early Rain Covenant Church pastor Wang Yi and Chen Yu, under the same charge implies that the crackdown against Christianity will only intensify. The US government and international community should continue to stand up to the tyranny in Beijing.’”
CONGRESSIONAL STUDY PAINTS SHOCKING PICTURE OF THE STATE OF MARRIAGE IN AMERICA (Friday Church News Notes, October 9, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Media Ignores Congressional Report,” The Epoch Times, Aug. 25, 2020: “Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) chairman, told The Epoch Times on Aug. 24, ‘Everything comes back to the family. The family is the foundation of our society and, if the institution of marriage is suffering, then everything is suffering. Repairing the institution of marriage should be our top priority.’ ... ‘Researchers have well established that children raised by married parents do better on a wide array of outcomes. They have stronger relationships with their parents, particularly with their fathers. They are also much less likely to experience physical, emotional or sexual abuse,’ the meticulously documented report states. They have better health, exhibit less aggression, are less likely to engage in delinquent behavior, have greater educational achievement, and earn more as adults. They are also far less likely to live in poverty. Among the effects of the decline is a steep increase in the number of children born to unwed mothers, which climbed to 40 percent of all births in 2018 from 5 percent in 1955, according to the latest available federal data. Moreover, according to the report, ‘over two-thirds of births to black women (69 percent) are to unwed mothers, and over half (52 percent) of births to Hispanic women are.’ The figure for non-Hispanic white women is 28 percent. ... With more illegitimate children living with one parent comes steadily worsening quality of life indicators, including higher crime rates, lower educational attainment, more poverty, and less hope for the future, especially among black and Hispanic children trapped in failing inner-city public schools. ... ‘The means-tested welfare system consists of more than 80 programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care, and social services to poor Americans,’ it says. ‘Most all of these programs penalize marriage, such that when household income rises, welfare benefits decrease.’ Removing such disincentives is where Lee hopes to refocus federal policy. ‘I think the first thing the federal government should do is to stop harming the institution of marriage,’ he told The Epoch Times. ‘Marriage was much better in America before the federal government started creating incentives to undermine it. We need to focus on ending those federal disincentives to marriage.’” ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: The welfare state has definitely been destructive to the family. But we must not forget the apostasy and lukewarmness and worldliness of the churches. Examine the spiritual and moral and doctrinal condition of the churches in a community and you will find a fundamental cause of the social ills that predominate in those communities. Add to that the influence of the filthy hip-hop culture and pornography and the godless brainwashing of the public school system and the victimization mentality and you have the top elements in the destruction of the home in America.
SOCIALISM IN THE U.S. PUBLIC SCHOOLS (Friday Church News Notes, October 9, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “A 2018 study of more than 8,600 tenure-track professors by Brooklyn College professor Mitchell Langbert found registered Democrats outnumber Republicans at 51 of America’s leading liberal arts colleges by a ratio of 10.4 to one. As important as bias on college campuses is, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. Much of the problem goes back much further, to K–12 schools, where only 27 percent of teachers identify as Republicans, according to a national survey by the Education Week Research Center. Not only are K–12 teachers more likely to vote for Democrats and favor left-wing causes, socialist ideas permeate nearly every aspect of government-run schools. ... From their earliest days, young students are taught by modern state curriculum standards to be cogs in the societal wheel rather than independent thinkers. The educational focus is often placed on performing well on standardized tests and memorizing facts, not learning how to make difficult moral choices or cogent arguments with classmates. ... In many public schools, teachers are outright hostile to conservative ideas and openly embrace radical left-wing positions like single-payer health care. Given the state of the current educational system, it’s not surprising that many young people identify with the collectivist principles of the far left and not with the rugged individualism that has been the foundation of American life for centuries. Our children aren’t being taught the same principles the American Founders were taught when they were kids; children today don’t even read the same books the Founders read. Is it any wonder then that they don’t think the same way John Adams and Thomas Jefferson did?” (“America’s Public Schools Have Become Socialist Indoctrination Factories,” Townhall, Jan. 28, 2019). CONCLUDING NOTE: The main book that is not read in America’s schools today that was read in former times is the Bible. Prior to the 20th century, the Bible wielded a major influence in the lives of the vast majority of Americans regardless of religious affiliation or profession. The New England Primer, the most important textbook in America from 1690 to 1790, and which continued to be published until the 1930s, was filled with quotations from the Bible. The introduction to the 1900 edition said, “The New England Primer ... contributed, perhaps more than any other book except the Bible, to the molding of those sturdy generations that gave to America its liberty and its institutions.” Beginning in 1783, Noah Webster’s Blue-Back Speller educated generations of American children, selling nearly 100 million copies. It, too, was packed with quotations from the Bible. Webster’s 1828 An American Dictionary of the English Language, the nation’s most popular dictionary, was filled with references to the King James Bible. Webster’s influence on American education was so great that he has been called “The Schoolmaster of the Republic.” From 1836 to 1960, at least 120 million copies of the McGuffy Readers were sold, and they, too, had strong biblical content. William McGuffey was a Christian whose passions were “education and preaching the gospel.” By the use of the Bible itself and Bible-based textbooks, Americans of the 17th through the 19th centuries were steeped in Scripture from a young age, and this had a large influence on society even among the unsaved. In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ridiculously ruled that devotional Bible reading in public schools is unconstitutional. But before the Bible was removed from the public schools, it was removed, in a practical sense, from most churches and Christian homes.
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).
CHINESE CHRISTIAN BOOKSELLER SENTENCED TO SEVEN YEARS IN PRISON (Friday Church News Notes, October 9, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from International Christian Concern, Oct. 1, 2020: “A Chinese Christian online bookstore owner, Chen Yu, was charged with ‘illegal business operations’ on September 27. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined 200,000 RMB ($29,450 USD). ... Chen will also have his iPhone confiscated. Additionally, the 12,864 Christian books from his bookstore will be destroyed by the Linhai City Public Security Bureau. ... Gina Goh, ICC’s Regional Manager for Southeast Asia, said, ‘The sentence for Mr. Chen Yu shows how the Chinese government is increasingly frightened by all things religious. From religious symbols, Chinese couplets, to Christian books, anything that features religious elements is no longer tolerated by the Chinese Communist Party. The disproportionate sentencing of Christians, such as Early Rain Covenant Church pastor Wang Yi and Chen Yu, under the same charge implies that the crackdown against Christianity will only intensify. The US government and international community should continue to stand up to the tyranny in Beijing.’”
CONGRESSIONAL STUDY PAINTS SHOCKING PICTURE OF THE STATE OF MARRIAGE IN AMERICA (Friday Church News Notes, October 9, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Media Ignores Congressional Report,” The Epoch Times, Aug. 25, 2020: “Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) chairman, told The Epoch Times on Aug. 24, ‘Everything comes back to the family. The family is the foundation of our society and, if the institution of marriage is suffering, then everything is suffering. Repairing the institution of marriage should be our top priority.’ ... ‘Researchers have well established that children raised by married parents do better on a wide array of outcomes. They have stronger relationships with their parents, particularly with their fathers. They are also much less likely to experience physical, emotional or sexual abuse,’ the meticulously documented report states. They have better health, exhibit less aggression, are less likely to engage in delinquent behavior, have greater educational achievement, and earn more as adults. They are also far less likely to live in poverty. Among the effects of the decline is a steep increase in the number of children born to unwed mothers, which climbed to 40 percent of all births in 2018 from 5 percent in 1955, according to the latest available federal data. Moreover, according to the report, ‘over two-thirds of births to black women (69 percent) are to unwed mothers, and over half (52 percent) of births to Hispanic women are.’ The figure for non-Hispanic white women is 28 percent. ... With more illegitimate children living with one parent comes steadily worsening quality of life indicators, including higher crime rates, lower educational attainment, more poverty, and less hope for the future, especially among black and Hispanic children trapped in failing inner-city public schools. ... ‘The means-tested welfare system consists of more than 80 programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care, and social services to poor Americans,’ it says. ‘Most all of these programs penalize marriage, such that when household income rises, welfare benefits decrease.’ Removing such disincentives is where Lee hopes to refocus federal policy. ‘I think the first thing the federal government should do is to stop harming the institution of marriage,’ he told The Epoch Times. ‘Marriage was much better in America before the federal government started creating incentives to undermine it. We need to focus on ending those federal disincentives to marriage.’” ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: The welfare state has definitely been destructive to the family. But we must not forget the apostasy and lukewarmness and worldliness of the churches. Examine the spiritual and moral and doctrinal condition of the churches in a community and you will find a fundamental cause of the social ills that predominate in those communities. Add to that the influence of the filthy hip-hop culture and pornography and the godless brainwashing of the public school system and the victimization mentality and you have the top elements in the destruction of the home in America.
SOCIALISM IN THE U.S. PUBLIC SCHOOLS (Friday Church News Notes, October 9, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “A 2018 study of more than 8,600 tenure-track professors by Brooklyn College professor Mitchell Langbert found registered Democrats outnumber Republicans at 51 of America’s leading liberal arts colleges by a ratio of 10.4 to one. As important as bias on college campuses is, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. Much of the problem goes back much further, to K–12 schools, where only 27 percent of teachers identify as Republicans, according to a national survey by the Education Week Research Center. Not only are K–12 teachers more likely to vote for Democrats and favor left-wing causes, socialist ideas permeate nearly every aspect of government-run schools. ... From their earliest days, young students are taught by modern state curriculum standards to be cogs in the societal wheel rather than independent thinkers. The educational focus is often placed on performing well on standardized tests and memorizing facts, not learning how to make difficult moral choices or cogent arguments with classmates. ... In many public schools, teachers are outright hostile to conservative ideas and openly embrace radical left-wing positions like single-payer health care. Given the state of the current educational system, it’s not surprising that many young people identify with the collectivist principles of the far left and not with the rugged individualism that has been the foundation of American life for centuries. Our children aren’t being taught the same principles the American Founders were taught when they were kids; children today don’t even read the same books the Founders read. Is it any wonder then that they don’t think the same way John Adams and Thomas Jefferson did?” (“America’s Public Schools Have Become Socialist Indoctrination Factories,” Townhall, Jan. 28, 2019). CONCLUDING NOTE: The main book that is not read in America’s schools today that was read in former times is the Bible. Prior to the 20th century, the Bible wielded a major influence in the lives of the vast majority of Americans regardless of religious affiliation or profession. The New England Primer, the most important textbook in America from 1690 to 1790, and which continued to be published until the 1930s, was filled with quotations from the Bible. The introduction to the 1900 edition said, “The New England Primer ... contributed, perhaps more than any other book except the Bible, to the molding of those sturdy generations that gave to America its liberty and its institutions.” Beginning in 1783, Noah Webster’s Blue-Back Speller educated generations of American children, selling nearly 100 million copies. It, too, was packed with quotations from the Bible. Webster’s 1828 An American Dictionary of the English Language, the nation’s most popular dictionary, was filled with references to the King James Bible. Webster’s influence on American education was so great that he has been called “The Schoolmaster of the Republic.” From 1836 to 1960, at least 120 million copies of the McGuffy Readers were sold, and they, too, had strong biblical content. William McGuffey was a Christian whose passions were “education and preaching the gospel.” By the use of the Bible itself and Bible-based textbooks, Americans of the 17th through the 19th centuries were steeped in Scripture from a young age, and this had a large influence on society even among the unsaved. In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ridiculously ruled that devotional Bible reading in public schools is unconstitutional. But before the Bible was removed from the public schools, it was removed, in a practical sense, from most churches and Christian homes.
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).
_____
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.
Way of Life Literature - www.wayoflife.org
copyright 2018 - Way of Life Literature