MY PRAYER FOR AMERICA (Friday Church News Notes, November 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Following is the basic substance of my continual prayers for America: “Father, I pray for America, the nation of which I am a citizen on this earthly pilgrimage though I live elsewhere. I thank you for the countless blessings you have given to mankind through this very imperfect nation. I pray because you alone are God, you change the times and the seasons, you remove kings and set up kings. I thank you that your Son, Jesus Christ, has all power in heaven and in earth and, therefore, no one has any power that is not given to him by Christ and no one exercises power that is not under the hand of Christ. I pray according to your command in 1 Timothy 2:1-2, for those who are in authority, for the president and vice-president, for the senators and congressmen, for the state governors and the local leaders. I give thanks for the great liberties and blessings we have even in these evil times, liberties that most men in this fallen world have only dreamed of. I pray that those who are in authority will rule in such a way that we might lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Give them wisdom to make right decisions and confound their evil decisions. I pray that you will restrain the devil’s mystery of iniquity in all of its forms, as God’s Word tells us you are doing (2 Th. 2:7). As the church is the pillar and ground of the truth, I pray for pastors to be strong and to lead your redeemed people according to Scripture and not according to tradition and pragmatism, to fear God more than man. I pray for churches to wake up from worldliness and lukewarmness and to shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation. You said that you show mercy unto thousands of them that love you, so I pray for your mercy upon the nation for the sake of those who love you and I pray that those who love you will increase. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, who alone is the Mediator between God and men by His ransom for all.”

FLORIDA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TAKES CHILDREN TO A GAY BAR (Friday Church News Notes, November 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Last week a class of children from Wilton Manors Elementary School in Broward County, Florida, were taken on a field trip to a homosexual bar. School board member Sarah Leonardi tweeted, “I was SO honored to be invited to chaperone @WiltonManorsES’s field trip to the incredible Rosie’s! The students and I had a fun walk over and learned a lot about our community! A huge thank you to @RosiesBnG for hosting this special field trip every year!” The school does not take field trips to Bible-believing churches to learn about Scripture and prayer, but they allow the children to be indoctrinated by those who flaunt their disobedience to God’s Word.

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT ISSUES FIRST GENDER X PASSPORT (Friday Church News Notes, November 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “State Department issues,” Fox News, Oct. 26, 2021: “The State Department on Wednesday issued the first U.S. passport with an ‘X’ gender marker, granting a third option for American passport holders who do not identify as female or male. ‘The Department of State continues the process of updating its policies regarding gender markers on U.S. passports and Consular Reports of Birth Abroad (CRBAs) to better serve all U.S. citizens, regardless of their gender identity,’ press secretary Ned Price said in a statement. ‘The Department is moving towards adding an X gender marker for non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming persons applying for a U.S. passport or CRBA,’ he added. The move was first announced by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June and said it means Americans will no longer require a medical certificate to opt-out of choosing a specific gender.” GOD’S COMMENT ABOUT THIS NEWS ITEM: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). “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” (Psalm 2:2-4).

DIVORCED DRINKING PASTOR TATTOOS THE CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY ON HIS ARM (Friday Church News Notes, November 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Divorced drinking pastor Perry Noble, who was fired in 2016 for drunkenness and “being derelict” in his duties as a pastor and husband, recently broadcast a photo of his new tattoo on Facebook. Covering his entire upper arm, it proclaims, “Only God Can Judge Me.” In 2008, Noble, then pastor of Newspring Church in Anderson, SC, criticized the Southern Baptist Convention for passing a resolution against “social drinking.” In 2013, he again defended drinking alcohol. In 2015, he said that God gave him a revelation that the Ten Commandments aren’t commandments, but promises! In 2016, he was fired from Newspring, and that is saying something because Newspring is incredibly, insanely worldly. (They performed “Highway to Hell” by the vile rock band AC/DC for Easter service 2009 and occult rocker Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” in November 2011.) It wasn’t long before Nobel was back in the “ministry,” this time with a new “church” called Second Chance Church, which quickly exploded in attendance. Obviously Nobel’s apostate “live after your own lusts” philosophy resonates with America today. The motto “Judge Not” is the theme song both of the secular pop culture and the contemporary “evangelical” culture, which is merely a Christianized version of the world and is a dramatic fulfillment of Bible prophecy: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Ti. 4:3-4). While it’s true that only God can judge an individual with ultimate and final judgment, it is also true that God has plainly and forcefully instructed the churches to judge and discipline sin and error. See, for starters, Matthew 7:15-23; Acts 20:28-30; Romans 16:17-18; 1 Corinthians 5; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18; 11:1-4, 12-15; Ephesians 4:11-14; 5:11; 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14; 1 Timothy 4:1-3; 6:3-5; 2 Timothy 2:16-21; 3:5; 4:10; Titus 1:10-16; 3:10-11; 2 John 1:8-11; Revelation 2:2, 6, 14-16; 20-23.

RALPH CARMICHAEL, FATHER OF CCM, DIES (Friday Church News Notes, November 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Ralph Carmichael, who has been called the Father of Contemporary Christian Music, died on October 18 at age 94. In the late 1960s, he joined Billy Ray Hearn and Kurt Kaiser to create the first contemporary youth musicals, “Tell It Like It Is” and “Natural High.” The soft folk rock sound created a carnal appetite for the back beat and beat anticipation and helped break down barriers against contemporary music in the churches, preparing the way for the onslaught of Christian rock in every form. The soft rock sound was lively enough to be desirable to church members but not hard enough to be shocking and offensive. It was a bridge to what was to come later. The son of a Pentecostal pastor, Carmichael “was allowed to listen to mainstream music on the radio.” That fed his appetite for the world’s music, and as a student at Southern California Bible College he founded a men’s quartet “that combined classic hymns and contemporary jazz” (“Ralph Carmichael,” Christian Headlines, Oct. 21, 2021). Carmichael was probably a sincere man who loved God, but so was Jehoshaphat, and building bridges to the world and error is always disobedience to God’s Word and always produces bad fruit. “And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the LORD” (2 Ch. 19:2). “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Co. 15:33). “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Eph. 5:11). “And be not conformed to this world” (Ro. 12:2). We have documented the fruit of Contemporary Christian Music in The Satanic Attack on Sacred Music (videos and book) and The Directory of Contemporary Christian Music, a free eBook, www.wayoflife.org.

METHUSELAH TREE (Friday Church News Notes, November 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The palm tree mentioned 36 times in the Bible is the Judean Date Palm, and the most famous date palm is the Methuselah Tree that was grown from a 2,000-year-old seed. The seed was found by archaeologists in the 1960s in Masada, Herod the Great’s desert fortress overlooking the Dead Sea. They date to before Christ, so they are 2,000 years old. Masada was stocked with every type of food and wine that the luxury-loving Herod craved, but the fortress was abandoned after his death. It was briefly occupied in 73-74 AD for the last stand of Jewish revolters against Rome. When they committed mass suicide, the burned fortress was left to crumble into the dust. The Judean Date Palm itself went extinct sometime before 1000 AD. Groves of them once flourished in Judea (as described by Pliny and Josephus) and were famous across the Roman Empire, but they were destroyed by centuries of war, neglect, and desertification. About 20 years ago, Dr. Sarah Sallon, a natural medicine researcher, had the idea of planting some of the ancient seeds to see if they had medicinal benefits not found in other dates. With difficulty, she convinced the highly skeptical Masada archaeologists to give up their precious find for this purpose. Dr. Elaine Solowey, with the Arava Institute at the Kibbutz Ketura in the Israeli Negev, oversaw the planting. One of three seeds sprouted and grew into a healthy date palm that began flowering and producing pollen in 2011. They named it Methuselah after the oldest living man in history. The problem is, as its name suggests, that it is a male and needs a female for fruit. (In the date palm, the male produces pollen and the female produces fertile flowers that can be pollinated to produce dates.) Solowey convinced other archaeologists to give up ancient seeds they found in Qumran, a few miles north of Masada, and she has been successful in growing females. One is named Hannah, after the prophet Samuel’s mother. In 2020, Methuselah pollinated Hannah and in September she bore 111 dates! Sallon says the Judean date palms “were known for their wonderful sweetness, their very large size, and their ability to be stored for a long time, so they actually were exported around the Roman empire” (“Dates Like Jesus Ate,” National Public Radio, Feb. 6, 2020). The date palm fruit “is famous for its rich sugar content, it’s also praised for its nutritional value. Dates are rich in vitamins, high in antioxidants and loaded with fiber” (“Methuselah,” Bridges for Peace, Mar. 11, 2021).

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).