Friday Church News Notes
Volume 24, Issue 04 - January 27, 2023
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.
WHY ADAPTED CCM IS DANGEROUS (Friday Church News Notes, January 27, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - I received the following question recently: “The main question that continues to arise in regards to using adapted CCM (especially from an acapella sense) is along this line, ‘If the words are doctrinally sound and I am singing in an honest effort to worship, what is wrong with it?’” We deal with this matter extensively in The Satanic Attack on Sacred Music video series, especially in the session on “CCM a Bridge to Dangerous Waters.”
AWANA GOES WOKE (Friday Church News Notes, January 27, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Awana,” thirtypiecesofsilver.org, Nov. 2, 2022: “AWANA ... since 2021 has increasingly featured and been dominated by social justice/woke, LGBTQ inclusion activist evangelical speakers. Based on its 2022 and 2023 discipleship events and speakers, Awana is in the polluted stream of Tim Keller’s WOKE organization The Gospel Coalition (TGC), Neo-Calvinist leader’s Together 4 The Gospel (T4G), along with the now disgraced former leader of the ERLC, Russell Moore. Clearly Third Way politics and activist / inclusion/ BLM [Black Lives Matter]/ CRT [Critical Race Theory] narratives are flooding Awana. ... Note about the speakers at Awana’s Child Discipleship Forum, Sept. 2022: SAM ALLBERRY is an activist same-sex attracted /homosexual priest from the Church of England and co-founder of ‘Living Out’ a controversial LGBTQ inclusion movement which has sought to ‘Audit Churches for LGBTQ Inclusion.’ ANDY CROUCH is a former editor of left-swerving Christianity Today who used his position there to promote the LGBTQ activist ‘Revoice’ movement and now serves on Revoice Board /Council. REBECCA MCLAUGHLIN is in the TGC [The Gospel Coalition] speaker promoting the APA/ SOGI [American Psychological Association’s Sexual Orientation Gender Identity] based same-sex attraction narrative. ... Awana’s 2023 Child Discipleship Forum promises a racially woke rapper and more. Speakers include SHAI LINNE, a rapper and writer and TGC regular. He was discipled at TGC /T4G leader Mark Dever’s Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Shai is a racial activist using vintage critical race theory narratives ... Linne’s own words advocating Black Lives Matter (BLM) reflect his Critical Race Theory worldview in his reflections on the death of George Floyd which launched the BLM riots and Marxist-styled protest of 2020. ... Mark Markins [new CEO of Awana] appears to be desperately eager to turn Awana from the tried and true and treasure focus of teaching Bible verses to our children and grandchildren, which is viewed by him and others inside Awana as ‘looking back to the ways of the past and the methods of the good ole days.’ Markins warns churches and parents that this ‘looking back’ is wrong and is failing their children and [we should rather be] ‘looking ahead and charting a course to the future.’ Clearly by ‘Charting a New Course,’ Markins and Awana leadership mean your children need LGBTQ Church Inclusion ... BLM advocate rap with Critical Race Theory driven narratives on race by Shai Linne which are loose with the facts and heavy on systemic racism worldview.”
CRITICIZE ISLAM AT YOUR OWN RISK IN EUROPE (Friday Church News Notes, January 27, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Criticize Islam,” Arutz Sheva, Jan. 9, 2023: “I’ve often heard of coincidences, but I’ve never seen one. Instead I saw that a few weeks ago the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg convicted the French journalist Eric Zemmour of insulting Islam. Zemmour goes around with a larger escort than many French ministers. And now I see that French Muslims are taking Michel Houellebecq to court for his critical sentences of Islam. These political trials on Islam began in 2002, when a Paris court examined a complaint against Houellebecq, who in his novel ‘Platform’ had defined Islam as ‘the stupidest religion’. ... Oriana Fallaci also ended up on trial that year for her book ‘Rage and Pride’. ... When she died in 2007, Oriana Fallaci was still on trial in Bergamo, Italy. ... Since 2014, the Council of Europe has organized the ‘European Day against Islamophobia’. After the Second World War and the horrors of Nazism and Stalinism, a fundamental principle of Western democracies was that people could be put on trial, but not ideas and opinions. Europe is today allowing dangerous Islamist and ‘human rights’ groups to restrict the boundaries of our freedom of expression, exactly as in the Soviet show trials.”
DESTRUCTION OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN POPULATION THROUGH ABORTION (Friday Church News Notes, January 27, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - According to a report by the New York City Department of Health, 59.8 percent of African-American pregnancies in 2009 ended in abortion. A whopping 60% of black babies in “Christian” America are murdered in the womb! To understand this massacre, it is necessary to understand the eugenics movement, a philosophy that flourished prior to World War II and is based on Darwinian natural selection. Founded by Charles Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, eugenics was built upon the idea that the white race is superior and should be kept pure from intermixture with other “races.” In Germany, the eugenics movement was called “race hygiene.” Founder Alfred Ploetz said that his ideas about eugenics were drawn from Darwinism, and he praised Darwin’s disciple Ernst Haeckel as a key influence (Richard Wiekart, From Darwin to Hitler, p. 15). Henry Fairfield Osborn, head of the American Museum of Natural History and president of the Second International Congress of Eugenics in 1921, praised the work of German racists Jon Mioen and Hermann Lundborg for giving men “a new appreciation of the spiritual, moral and physical value of the Nordic [white] race” (Edwin Black, War Against the Weak, p. 244). Eugenics sought to purify the human race by culling it of the “inferior” through birth control, abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger referred to “inferior” humans as “weeds,” complaining that “nature eliminates the weeds, but we turn them into parasites and allow them to reproduce” (Black, War Against the Weak, p. 133). Sanger called large families “immoral.” She was on the cutting edge of the modern Culture of Death. In her book Woman and the New Race, she said, “The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” Eugenics went out of popularity after Hitler took the program to its logical conclusion, but the Darwinian eugenics philosophy is alive and well and has spread throughout society. This philosophy has resulted in the elimination of multitudes of people, and black babies have suffered more than those of any other group. If it isn’t racist to destroy a class of people through birth control and abortion, I don’t know what racism would be.
PASTOR PREACHES AGAINST “MODERATE DRINKING” (Friday Church News Notes, January 27, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following statement is by by Bruce Lackey, who pastored Lakewood Baptist Church of Harrison, Tennessee, in the 1970s: “How is alcoholic wine deceptive? In the very way that people are advocating today, by saying that drinking a little bit will not hurt. Everyone admits that drinking too much is bad. Even the liquor companies tell us not to drink and drive, but they insist that a small amount is all right. However, that is the very thing that is deceptive. Who knows how little to drink? Experts tell us that each person is different. It takes an ounce to affect one, while more is necessary for another. The same person will react to alcohol differently in different situations, depending on the amount of food he has had, among other things. So the idea that ‘a little bit won’t hurt’ is deceptive, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise!” “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise” (Proverbs 20:1). For more about this subject, see “Christian Drinking Is a Bellwether Issue.”
MEN OF INTEMPERATE MINDS CANNOT BE FREE (Friday Church News Notes, February 3, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from Edmund Burke, “A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly,” 1791. This statement identifies America’s fundamental problem, and it cannot be solved by politics: “What is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without restraint. Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as they are disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good in preference to the flattery of knaves. ... It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
GOD’S COLORFUL WORLD (Friday Church News Notes, January 27, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Scientists estimate that there are 10 million colors in the world that are distinguishable by man’s eye. There are seven core colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. These are the colors of the rainbow. Every color is a variation of these. “The way to figure out how many colors exist in the world is to start with how many shades of light the human eye can actually see. According to researchers, the answer is 1,000 shades of light. Within those shades, we can detect 100 different levels of red-green shades. We can also see 100 levels of yellow-blue shades. It works out to about 10 million colors in the world that the human eye can see. ... we’re only talking about colors that humans can actually see. It’s possible that the total number of colors that aren’t perceived by the human eye is infinite” (Jacob Olesen, “How Many Colors,” Color-Meanings.com). Computer RGB displays can produce 16,777,216 colors. If we look in God’s Word, we can go beyond science. There we learn that color is a creation of God. “I am the LORD that maketh all things” (Isaiah 44:24). Color is part of the wonder that God incorporated into man’s environment. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). God did not put man into a dull grey world, and He didn’t limit the number of colors to a few basics. Color is a function of light reflection and the human eye’s perception and interpretation of it with the complex equipment God has given him. Color is a testimony to the glory of God for those who have “eyes to see.” It testifies of God’s power, wisdom, love, beauty, and other aspects of His infinite character.
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).
CRITICIZE ISLAM AT YOUR OWN RISK IN EUROPE (Friday Church News Notes, January 27, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Criticize Islam,” Arutz Sheva, Jan. 9, 2023: “I’ve often heard of coincidences, but I’ve never seen one. Instead I saw that a few weeks ago the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg convicted the French journalist Eric Zemmour of insulting Islam. Zemmour goes around with a larger escort than many French ministers. And now I see that French Muslims are taking Michel Houellebecq to court for his critical sentences of Islam. These political trials on Islam began in 2002, when a Paris court examined a complaint against Houellebecq, who in his novel ‘Platform’ had defined Islam as ‘the stupidest religion’. ... Oriana Fallaci also ended up on trial that year for her book ‘Rage and Pride’. ... When she died in 2007, Oriana Fallaci was still on trial in Bergamo, Italy. ... Since 2014, the Council of Europe has organized the ‘European Day against Islamophobia’. After the Second World War and the horrors of Nazism and Stalinism, a fundamental principle of Western democracies was that people could be put on trial, but not ideas and opinions. Europe is today allowing dangerous Islamist and ‘human rights’ groups to restrict the boundaries of our freedom of expression, exactly as in the Soviet show trials.”
DESTRUCTION OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN POPULATION THROUGH ABORTION (Friday Church News Notes, January 27, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - According to a report by the New York City Department of Health, 59.8 percent of African-American pregnancies in 2009 ended in abortion. A whopping 60% of black babies in “Christian” America are murdered in the womb! To understand this massacre, it is necessary to understand the eugenics movement, a philosophy that flourished prior to World War II and is based on Darwinian natural selection. Founded by Charles Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, eugenics was built upon the idea that the white race is superior and should be kept pure from intermixture with other “races.” In Germany, the eugenics movement was called “race hygiene.” Founder Alfred Ploetz said that his ideas about eugenics were drawn from Darwinism, and he praised Darwin’s disciple Ernst Haeckel as a key influence (Richard Wiekart, From Darwin to Hitler, p. 15). Henry Fairfield Osborn, head of the American Museum of Natural History and president of the Second International Congress of Eugenics in 1921, praised the work of German racists Jon Mioen and Hermann Lundborg for giving men “a new appreciation of the spiritual, moral and physical value of the Nordic [white] race” (Edwin Black, War Against the Weak, p. 244). Eugenics sought to purify the human race by culling it of the “inferior” through birth control, abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger referred to “inferior” humans as “weeds,” complaining that “nature eliminates the weeds, but we turn them into parasites and allow them to reproduce” (Black, War Against the Weak, p. 133). Sanger called large families “immoral.” She was on the cutting edge of the modern Culture of Death. In her book Woman and the New Race, she said, “The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” Eugenics went out of popularity after Hitler took the program to its logical conclusion, but the Darwinian eugenics philosophy is alive and well and has spread throughout society. This philosophy has resulted in the elimination of multitudes of people, and black babies have suffered more than those of any other group. If it isn’t racist to destroy a class of people through birth control and abortion, I don’t know what racism would be.
PASTOR PREACHES AGAINST “MODERATE DRINKING” (Friday Church News Notes, January 27, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following statement is by by Bruce Lackey, who pastored Lakewood Baptist Church of Harrison, Tennessee, in the 1970s: “How is alcoholic wine deceptive? In the very way that people are advocating today, by saying that drinking a little bit will not hurt. Everyone admits that drinking too much is bad. Even the liquor companies tell us not to drink and drive, but they insist that a small amount is all right. However, that is the very thing that is deceptive. Who knows how little to drink? Experts tell us that each person is different. It takes an ounce to affect one, while more is necessary for another. The same person will react to alcohol differently in different situations, depending on the amount of food he has had, among other things. So the idea that ‘a little bit won’t hurt’ is deceptive, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise!” “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise” (Proverbs 20:1). For more about this subject, see “Christian Drinking Is a Bellwether Issue.”
MEN OF INTEMPERATE MINDS CANNOT BE FREE (Friday Church News Notes, February 3, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from Edmund Burke, “A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly,” 1791. This statement identifies America’s fundamental problem, and it cannot be solved by politics: “What is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without restraint. Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as they are disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good in preference to the flattery of knaves. ... It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
GOD’S COLORFUL WORLD (Friday Church News Notes, January 27, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Scientists estimate that there are 10 million colors in the world that are distinguishable by man’s eye. There are seven core colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. These are the colors of the rainbow. Every color is a variation of these. “The way to figure out how many colors exist in the world is to start with how many shades of light the human eye can actually see. According to researchers, the answer is 1,000 shades of light. Within those shades, we can detect 100 different levels of red-green shades. We can also see 100 levels of yellow-blue shades. It works out to about 10 million colors in the world that the human eye can see. ... we’re only talking about colors that humans can actually see. It’s possible that the total number of colors that aren’t perceived by the human eye is infinite” (Jacob Olesen, “How Many Colors,” Color-Meanings.com). Computer RGB displays can produce 16,777,216 colors. If we look in God’s Word, we can go beyond science. There we learn that color is a creation of God. “I am the LORD that maketh all things” (Isaiah 44:24). Color is part of the wonder that God incorporated into man’s environment. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). God did not put man into a dull grey world, and He didn’t limit the number of colors to a few basics. Color is a function of light reflection and the human eye’s perception and interpretation of it with the complex equipment God has given him. Color is a testimony to the glory of God for those who have “eyes to see.” It testifies of God’s power, wisdom, love, beauty, and other aspects of His infinite character.
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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