Friday Church News Notes
Volume 21, Issue 43 - October 23, 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.
EUTHANASIA’S SLIPPERY SLOPE IN THE NETHERLANDS (Friday Church News Notes, October 23, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Dutch government backs euthanasia for under-12s,” The Guardian, Oct. 14, 2020: “The Dutch government will permit doctors to euthanise terminally ill children aged between one and 12 after months of debate within the ruling coalition. The country’s health minister, Hugo de Jonge, said a change in regulations was necessary to help ‘a small group of terminally ill children who agonise with no hope, and unbearable suffering’ ... Belgium became the first country to allow for voluntary child euthanasia in 2014 when it legislated to allow euthanasia in cases where the young patient was terminally ill and in great pain. Two Belgian children aged nine and 11 became the first to be euthanised in 2016 and 2017. Intervention to end a life is also already legal in the Netherlands for children older than 12 if consent is given by the patient and their parents. Babies up to a year old may also have their lives ended with parental consent. The group of children referenced by the planned regulation currently may only be given palliative care or have their nutrition withheld to speed up their death under the current rules with doctors facing prosecution if they take any other action to end a life. ... Since 2002 doctors have been able to euthanise adults in the Netherlands in cases where it is regarded as a voluntary and well considered request in the context of unbearable suffering from which there is no prospect of improvement, or alternative remedy. Last year there were 6,361 cases of euthanasia in the country--just over 4% of the country’s total deaths. Of those, 91% were for terminal medical conditions. The remainder of euthanasia cases involve severe psychiatric illness.”
BLACK LIVES MATTER/ANTIFA TARGET BUSINESSES IN PORTLAND THAT REFUSE TO SUPPORT THEIR AGENDA (Friday Church News Notes, October 23, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Rioters Trash Portland Restaurant,” PJ Media, Oct. 14, 2020: “On the day Yelp introduced a new ‘racist behavior’ wokeness rating, antifa and Black Lives Matter activists in Portland were seen on Twitter soliciting names of ‘non-friendly’ businesses that support police, singling them out as targets. By Sunday’s pre-planned ‘Day of Rage,’ rioters had trashed one of the explicit targets, a black-owned downtown Portland cafe. Portland antifa watcher Andy Ngo showed screenshots of the tweets calling for retribution against the Heroes American Cafe, owned by John Jackson. One antifa-associated Twitter account responded, ‘Heroe’s American Cafe on S Park blocks gives profits to their heroes ….. cops [sic].’ Ngo noted that not only did antifa and BLM militants bash the windows of the cafe, but shot it up. ‘Antifa rioters shot inside the Heroes American Cafe in downtown Portland last night during their mass rampage. Antifa has taken issue with the business for putting photos of first responders on its walls & added the cafe to its list of places to target.’ ... Fox News reports that Jackson, a veteran of both the Army and Marines, won’t be intimidated. ... Jackson will have the last word. Not only are people of good will planning to eat at his restaurant as never before, but he told Fox News that the attack ‘solidified my Trump vote. I’m done with this weakness and we need some real strong leadership.’ Day of Ragers also targeted the Oregon Historical Society, bashing windows and ripping out several historical items, leaving them trashed on the street.”
POLL FINDS THAT A MAJORITY OF WHITE AMERICANS BELIEVE THAT THERE ARE MORE THAN TWO GENDERS (Friday Church News Notes, October 23, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Black voters far more likely than white,” Just the News, June 25, 2020: “A new Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen found 62% of Black U.S. voters said there are only two genders, biological male and females, while 49% of whites and 51% of Hispanics said the same. Thirty percent of black voters said there were ‘other gender identities,’ compared to 44% of whites and 39% of Hispanics. Among U.S. voters overall, and of all races, just 51% believe there are only two genders while 41% believe there are other gender identities. ‘This is a pretty significant measure of a massive cultural shift,’ Rasmussen said. ‘As on many other questions, there is a significant gap between voters under 45 and their elders. A majority of older voters believe there are just two genders. Younger voters are evenly divided.’”
CALIFORNIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS REMOVING NAMES OF FOUNDING FATHERS (Friday Church News Notes, October 23, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Forty-four schools in the San Francisco School District are being renamed, including those named after the nation’s founding fathers. The list includes eight schools named after George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Paul Revere, and Francis Scott Key (composer of “The Star Spangled Banner”) (“Dianne Feinstein Elementary on List of ‘Inappropriate’ School Names,” The Daily Wire, Oct. 16, 2020). The name of any person who fails any one of the following criteria is to be removed: “Anyone directly involved in the colonization of people; slave owners or participants in enslavement; perpetrators of genocide or slavery; those who exploit workers/people; those who directly oppressed or abused women, children, queer or transgender people; those connected to any human rights or environmental abuses; those who are known racists and/or white supremacists and/or espoused racist beliefs.” This level of insanity is a judgment of God on a wicked nation. “lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what wisdom is in them?” (Jeremiah 8:9).
CHINA’S PREMIER ACKNOWLEDGES 600 MILLION PEOPLE LIVING ON $35 A WEEK (Friday Church News Notes, October 23, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “China’s Premier Acknowledges Serious Economic Crisis,” The Epoch Times, May 30, 2020. Since China has no freedom of speech and no free press and the internet and social media are constrained, when a Chinese leader admits that things are not well, they are probably much worse than he admits. “Chinese leader Xi Jinping said during his 2020 new year’s message that his goal was for China to become a ‘moderately prosperous’ society in the coming year. But Xi’s target seemed out of reach, according to Li’s latest comments. ... When a reporter asked Li about China’s plans for eliminating poverty and growing the middle class, Li answered: ‘Our average annual income is 30,000 yuan ($4,198). But there are 600 million people whose monthly income is only 1,000 yuan ($140).’ China’s population is 1.439 billion. 600 million is roughly 41.7 percent of the total population. ... The premier also admitted that the pandemic has done serious damage to China’s economy, using the analogy of ‘a big car driving on a road covered with thorns.’ Beijing will cut down on expenses, and has also ordered local governments to do the same, he said. Li also announced that the central government will issue national debt and local government bonds--valuing 2 trillion yuan ($280 billion) in total--to prop up the economy.”
BLACK LIVES MATTER FUNDING (Friday Church News Notes, October 23, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Black Lives Matter movement is awash in funding by leftist foundations that strangely seek to destroy the very nation that made them rich. Billionaire George Soros has given more than $33 million in grants to Black Lives Matter through his Open Society Foundation, and the Ford Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy announced a campaign in 2016 aimed at raising $100 million for the Black-Led Movement Fund (BLMF) (“Black Lives Matter cashes in,” Washington Times, Aug. 16, 2016). Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), which is closely associated with BLMF, “demands” racial reparations, defunding the police, defunding jails and prisons, decriminalization of drug offenses and prostitution, end to pretrial detention, reduction in military expenditure, end of surveillance of communities, universal health care, free abortions, free education with a focus on “special protections for queer and trans students,” free daycare, free meals for students, rent cancellation, mortgage cancellation, debt cancellation, acceptance of looting and destruction of property, and support for “queer, trans, gender nonconforming, intersex.” Then there is the Black Lives Matter Global Network, which is the recipient of millions of dollars in funding from Airbnb, Amazon, Cisco, Dropbox, Fitbit, Gatorade, Microsoft, Nabisco, Unilever, Tinder, and others. The BLM Global Network’s mission includes replacing the “nuclear family structure” and promoting the LGBT agenda (“These 18 Corporations,” The Daily Signal, July 7, 2020).
A BETTER KIND OF “WOKE” (Friday Church News Notes, October 23, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - We received the following communication recently: “I am writing this e-mail from Budapest, Hungary, Europe to thank you for the effort you put in the books you have published and shared. It was God’s providence how I stumbled into this and with a divine goal that I must be more strong for future challenges such us church ministry and eventually starting my own family. I constantly save your books on my desktop as if there is no internet tomorrow! I find this bookstore a treasure trove and it is not possible to express with words how much you helped me! I think in the last month I downloaded or purchased 30-35 ebooks and have dug deep in the topic of New Evangelicalism, Emerging Church, discipling church, CCM, and women’s service unto God. I started with the book Separation: Its doctrine and practice and I feel God guided me to this book first. I can’t express my gratitude to God how happy I am that I got rid of this evangelical dark yoke that makes countless kinds of pressure on the shoulders among Christians in Christian ministry, dating, dressing, worship, way of thinking, attitude in church, path of ministries, ecumenical fellowships and more. I have to say, since I was born again in 2013 I had in these topics many many fears and burdens and I never had a peace of conscience, neither assurance in these things. ... Hungary has done almost completely secular. In ‘better days’ it was 65% Catholic and 20% Protestant country, but nowadays the atheism grows. ... Anyway I wanted to thank you for the whole package about the Christian world. I feel myself woke up from a deep dream that I always felt there is something wrong about.”
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).
BLACK LIVES MATTER/ANTIFA TARGET BUSINESSES IN PORTLAND THAT REFUSE TO SUPPORT THEIR AGENDA (Friday Church News Notes, October 23, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Rioters Trash Portland Restaurant,” PJ Media, Oct. 14, 2020: “On the day Yelp introduced a new ‘racist behavior’ wokeness rating, antifa and Black Lives Matter activists in Portland were seen on Twitter soliciting names of ‘non-friendly’ businesses that support police, singling them out as targets. By Sunday’s pre-planned ‘Day of Rage,’ rioters had trashed one of the explicit targets, a black-owned downtown Portland cafe. Portland antifa watcher Andy Ngo showed screenshots of the tweets calling for retribution against the Heroes American Cafe, owned by John Jackson. One antifa-associated Twitter account responded, ‘Heroe’s American Cafe on S Park blocks gives profits to their heroes ….. cops [sic].’ Ngo noted that not only did antifa and BLM militants bash the windows of the cafe, but shot it up. ‘Antifa rioters shot inside the Heroes American Cafe in downtown Portland last night during their mass rampage. Antifa has taken issue with the business for putting photos of first responders on its walls & added the cafe to its list of places to target.’ ... Fox News reports that Jackson, a veteran of both the Army and Marines, won’t be intimidated. ... Jackson will have the last word. Not only are people of good will planning to eat at his restaurant as never before, but he told Fox News that the attack ‘solidified my Trump vote. I’m done with this weakness and we need some real strong leadership.’ Day of Ragers also targeted the Oregon Historical Society, bashing windows and ripping out several historical items, leaving them trashed on the street.”
POLL FINDS THAT A MAJORITY OF WHITE AMERICANS BELIEVE THAT THERE ARE MORE THAN TWO GENDERS (Friday Church News Notes, October 23, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Black voters far more likely than white,” Just the News, June 25, 2020: “A new Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen found 62% of Black U.S. voters said there are only two genders, biological male and females, while 49% of whites and 51% of Hispanics said the same. Thirty percent of black voters said there were ‘other gender identities,’ compared to 44% of whites and 39% of Hispanics. Among U.S. voters overall, and of all races, just 51% believe there are only two genders while 41% believe there are other gender identities. ‘This is a pretty significant measure of a massive cultural shift,’ Rasmussen said. ‘As on many other questions, there is a significant gap between voters under 45 and their elders. A majority of older voters believe there are just two genders. Younger voters are evenly divided.’”
CALIFORNIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS REMOVING NAMES OF FOUNDING FATHERS (Friday Church News Notes, October 23, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Forty-four schools in the San Francisco School District are being renamed, including those named after the nation’s founding fathers. The list includes eight schools named after George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Paul Revere, and Francis Scott Key (composer of “The Star Spangled Banner”) (“Dianne Feinstein Elementary on List of ‘Inappropriate’ School Names,” The Daily Wire, Oct. 16, 2020). The name of any person who fails any one of the following criteria is to be removed: “Anyone directly involved in the colonization of people; slave owners or participants in enslavement; perpetrators of genocide or slavery; those who exploit workers/people; those who directly oppressed or abused women, children, queer or transgender people; those connected to any human rights or environmental abuses; those who are known racists and/or white supremacists and/or espoused racist beliefs.” This level of insanity is a judgment of God on a wicked nation. “lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what wisdom is in them?” (Jeremiah 8:9).
CHINA’S PREMIER ACKNOWLEDGES 600 MILLION PEOPLE LIVING ON $35 A WEEK (Friday Church News Notes, October 23, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “China’s Premier Acknowledges Serious Economic Crisis,” The Epoch Times, May 30, 2020. Since China has no freedom of speech and no free press and the internet and social media are constrained, when a Chinese leader admits that things are not well, they are probably much worse than he admits. “Chinese leader Xi Jinping said during his 2020 new year’s message that his goal was for China to become a ‘moderately prosperous’ society in the coming year. But Xi’s target seemed out of reach, according to Li’s latest comments. ... When a reporter asked Li about China’s plans for eliminating poverty and growing the middle class, Li answered: ‘Our average annual income is 30,000 yuan ($4,198). But there are 600 million people whose monthly income is only 1,000 yuan ($140).’ China’s population is 1.439 billion. 600 million is roughly 41.7 percent of the total population. ... The premier also admitted that the pandemic has done serious damage to China’s economy, using the analogy of ‘a big car driving on a road covered with thorns.’ Beijing will cut down on expenses, and has also ordered local governments to do the same, he said. Li also announced that the central government will issue national debt and local government bonds--valuing 2 trillion yuan ($280 billion) in total--to prop up the economy.”
BLACK LIVES MATTER FUNDING (Friday Church News Notes, October 23, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Black Lives Matter movement is awash in funding by leftist foundations that strangely seek to destroy the very nation that made them rich. Billionaire George Soros has given more than $33 million in grants to Black Lives Matter through his Open Society Foundation, and the Ford Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy announced a campaign in 2016 aimed at raising $100 million for the Black-Led Movement Fund (BLMF) (“Black Lives Matter cashes in,” Washington Times, Aug. 16, 2016). Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), which is closely associated with BLMF, “demands” racial reparations, defunding the police, defunding jails and prisons, decriminalization of drug offenses and prostitution, end to pretrial detention, reduction in military expenditure, end of surveillance of communities, universal health care, free abortions, free education with a focus on “special protections for queer and trans students,” free daycare, free meals for students, rent cancellation, mortgage cancellation, debt cancellation, acceptance of looting and destruction of property, and support for “queer, trans, gender nonconforming, intersex.” Then there is the Black Lives Matter Global Network, which is the recipient of millions of dollars in funding from Airbnb, Amazon, Cisco, Dropbox, Fitbit, Gatorade, Microsoft, Nabisco, Unilever, Tinder, and others. The BLM Global Network’s mission includes replacing the “nuclear family structure” and promoting the LGBT agenda (“These 18 Corporations,” The Daily Signal, July 7, 2020).
A BETTER KIND OF “WOKE” (Friday Church News Notes, October 23, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - We received the following communication recently: “I am writing this e-mail from Budapest, Hungary, Europe to thank you for the effort you put in the books you have published and shared. It was God’s providence how I stumbled into this and with a divine goal that I must be more strong for future challenges such us church ministry and eventually starting my own family. I constantly save your books on my desktop as if there is no internet tomorrow! I find this bookstore a treasure trove and it is not possible to express with words how much you helped me! I think in the last month I downloaded or purchased 30-35 ebooks and have dug deep in the topic of New Evangelicalism, Emerging Church, discipling church, CCM, and women’s service unto God. I started with the book Separation: Its doctrine and practice and I feel God guided me to this book first. I can’t express my gratitude to God how happy I am that I got rid of this evangelical dark yoke that makes countless kinds of pressure on the shoulders among Christians in Christian ministry, dating, dressing, worship, way of thinking, attitude in church, path of ministries, ecumenical fellowships and more. I have to say, since I was born again in 2013 I had in these topics many many fears and burdens and I never had a peace of conscience, neither assurance in these things. ... Hungary has done almost completely secular. In ‘better days’ it was 65% Catholic and 20% Protestant country, but nowadays the atheism grows. ... Anyway I wanted to thank you for the whole package about the Christian world. I feel myself woke up from a deep dream that I always felt there is something wrong about.”
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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