Friday Church News Notes
Volume 24, Issue 11 - March 17, 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.
ANOTHER U.S. STATE ENACTS UNIVERSAL SCHOOL CHOICE (Friday Church News Notes, March 17, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - School choice is the only program that can have a significant impact in reducing the power of America’s mainstream public school system, and school choice is growing. At the same time, the government remains in ultimate control of the money in these schemes, which always spells danger at some point. The best thing Bible-believing parents can do, in our estimation, is to home school or church school and don’t take a dime from the government. God has promised to take care of those who trust Him. At the same time, the school choice movement is an encouraging sign in these times. The following is excerpted from “States pass universal school choice amid parental rights movement,” Fox News, Mar. 8, 2023: “Red-state governors across the country have passed universal school choice legislation, igniting what experts call a ‘revolution.’ ‘We’re seeing a universal school choice revolution that has ignited all across the country. And it started with Arizona, but it really started because the teachers unions overplayed their hand and awakened a sleeping giant, which happens to be parents who want more of a say in their kid’s education,’ American Federation For Children Senior Fellow Corey DeAngelis told Fox News Digital. ... Republican governors made significant inroads in pushing universal school choice legislation, which did not exist anywhere in the country a year ago. As of now, five states passed universal school choice. Most recently, universal school choice legislation passed in the Republican-held Arkansas Senate on Tuesday. ... DeAngelis told Fox News Digital that ‘over 25 states have had legislators in 2023 introduce bills to fund students as opposed to systems.’” Other states that have passed universal school choice are Arizona, Iowa, Utah and West Virginia. The following states are moving toward universal school choice: Florida, Indiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Wyoming.
GRETA THUNBERG JOINS LONG LINE OF CLIMATE CHANGE FALSE PROPHETS (Friday Church News Notes, March 17, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Greta Thunberg’s 2018 Prediction,” PJMedia, Mar. 12, 2023: “Being the international spokesperson for a fake crisis can be tough, as the child actor who acts as the mouthpiece for the climate change industry has just been reminded. On Saturday, Human Events senior editor Jack Posobiec tweeted at pint-sized climate scold Greta Thunberg, ‘Hi @GretaThunberg! Why did you delete this?’ The deleted tweet in question had Greta quoting this: ‘A climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.’ The date on Greta’s tweet? June 21, 2018. Either we have just over three months to live, or Greta’s tweet was juuuuust a trifle hysterical. Her deletion of the tweet suggests that even Greta knows that the sun is likely to rise on June 22, 2023. ... The climate change hysterics have been trying to frighten the public with false apocalyptic scenarios and predictions of imminent destruction for far longer than most people realize. Back in September 1958, future feminist heroine Betty Friedan published an article in Harper’s Magazine entitled ‘The Coming Ice Age.’ Friedan purported to explain ‘how a rising of the ocean waters may flood most of our port cities within the foreseeable future--and why it will be followed by the growth of a vast glacier which may eventually cover much of Europe and North America.’ ... In April 1970, Paul Erlich, author of the bestseller The Population Bomb, warned that ‘population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.’ ... A professor named Peter Gunter wrote in 1970, ‘Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: ... By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.’ ... On June 29, 1989, the Associated Press (AP) ... published an article stating, ‘A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.’”
ENGLAND/EUROPE REJECTING “GENDER AFFIRMING CARE” MODEL (Friday Church News Notes, March 17, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “America Needs to Be Like Europe,” PJMedia, Mar. 11, 2023: “It’s hard to believe that I’d ever want the United States to emulate Europe, but it’s finally happened. While the U.S. has gone all-in on pushing so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ for children with gender dysphoria, our friends in Europe have slowly started coming to their senses. ... In July, London’s Tavistock Clinic, the only transgender clinic in England, closed due to concerns that doctors were performing surgeries without considering children’s mental health--a practice that is far too common here in the United States. A few months later, the National Health Service (NHS) banned puberty blockers in most cases and no longer recommends social transitioning for kids. In fact, the United Kingdom, Finland, and France have all dialed down their pushing transgender ‘treatments’ for children. So has Sweden, which abandoned recommending gender transitioning for children in December, arguing that the first line of treatment should be psychosocial support--not giving kids dangerous drugs and mutilating their bodies. This week, the Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board followed suit. Europe is seeing the light on this dangerous assault on children, and they’re looking at the United States and wondering why we’re so nutty. It’s true; the editor-in-chief of The British Medical Journal, Kamran Abbasi, just pushed back against the gender-affirming care model that has become all the rage in America.”
HILLSONG LEADERS’ SHOPPING “WOULD EMBARRASS A KARDASHIAN” (Friday Church News Notes, March 17, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - It would not be surprising if the Hillsong church empire goes bankrupt. It will be their own heretical, worldly fault, but it is a shame, because the world doesn’t know the difference between true and false Christianity. The following is excerpted from “The kind of shopping that would embarrass a Kardashian,” Premier Christian News, Mar. 10, 2023: “Hillsong Church has been accused of tax evasion and money laundering by an Australian MP, saying that their spending would ‘embarrass a Kardashian’. ... Speaking to the parliament in Canberra, he claimed to have seen leaked documents ... The breadth of his allegations concern a whole spectrum of leaders within the Sydney-based megachurch. He accuses former senior global pastor Brian Houston--who stepped down from his role over allegations of inappropriate conduct with two women--of using ‘private jets like Ubers,’ saying he took five trips amounting to a total of almost £200,000 within a three-month period. He accuses other members of the Houston family of spending $150,000 of church money on watches, luggage sets, designer clothes and skateboards, amongst other luxury items.”
PASTOR WRONGLY DECLARED BRAIN DEAD, NEARLY BECOMES ORGAN DONOR (Friday Church News Notes, March 17, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In early March 2023, Pastor Ryan Marlow, Grace Baptist Church, Wilkesboro, NC, was released from the hospital after being wrongly declared dead and nearly becoming an organ donor. In August 2022, Pastor Marlow was hospitalized with a bacterial infection (listeria) that entered his brain. Later that month, the doctors told his wife that Ryan was clinically deceased. The following is from “Family, Congregation Welcome Home Pastor,” Christian Headlines, Mar. 7, 2023: “Marlow says, ‘They put the time of his death on his chart. That was it. I was called into a room and told that my husband was an organ donor and that we were gonna begin the process of finding matches for his organs. So that process began, he was on life support, and they told me he would remain on life support until they found all of the donors.’ ... The following day, doctors had scheduled the harvesting of his organs, but when Meghan visited him and showed him videos of his three children singing, Marlow moved his feet. ‘I told Ryan all the things that I wanted to tell him,’ she said. ‘That I loved him, people were taking care of me, that God was gonna make sure our babies were taken care of, and it was gonna be alright. And at the very end, I tell him, If you’re inside of there and you can hear me, I need you to fight. I need you to fight like crazy … Long story short, he’s not brain dead, my friends. The doctor would not even do the brain death test because they said that there is brain activity.’”
THE AMAZING BLUE WHALE (Friday Church News Notes, March 17, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, Jan. 27, 2023: “As far as we know, the blue whale is the largest animal that has ever existed. Every statistic that we find about these giants is overwhelming. A blue whale’s tongue is larger than an elephant. Its flipper can be about six feet long--as long as a man is tall. A baby blue whale is the size of two minivans. A blue whale’s mouth could hold 400 people. Yet the creatures they eat--krill--are only about half an inch long. They swallow vast amounts of water, then filter it back through their baleen--the strange keratin filter-like structure that they have in their mouths. They eat four tons of krill a day. That is 4 million of the tiny creatures. Babies consume 50 to 100 gallons of milk per day. The blue whale’s tail is as wide as a soccer net. These whales can dive to nearly 1,000 feet, and they can stay there for 30 minutes, without needing a breath. The water that they blow through their blowhole can jet up to 30 feet high. In short, these are magnificent animals, clearly illustrating the greatness and the beauty of God’s creation. We read in Genesis 1:21 that God made them on the fifth day of creation: ‘And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly.’ The word translated whales could also refer to other large sea creatures, but it certainly includes these beautiful, amazing giants of the ocean. Ref: Encyclopaedia Britannica.”
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).
GRETA THUNBERG JOINS LONG LINE OF CLIMATE CHANGE FALSE PROPHETS (Friday Church News Notes, March 17, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Greta Thunberg’s 2018 Prediction,” PJMedia, Mar. 12, 2023: “Being the international spokesperson for a fake crisis can be tough, as the child actor who acts as the mouthpiece for the climate change industry has just been reminded. On Saturday, Human Events senior editor Jack Posobiec tweeted at pint-sized climate scold Greta Thunberg, ‘Hi @GretaThunberg! Why did you delete this?’ The deleted tweet in question had Greta quoting this: ‘A climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.’ The date on Greta’s tweet? June 21, 2018. Either we have just over three months to live, or Greta’s tweet was juuuuust a trifle hysterical. Her deletion of the tweet suggests that even Greta knows that the sun is likely to rise on June 22, 2023. ... The climate change hysterics have been trying to frighten the public with false apocalyptic scenarios and predictions of imminent destruction for far longer than most people realize. Back in September 1958, future feminist heroine Betty Friedan published an article in Harper’s Magazine entitled ‘The Coming Ice Age.’ Friedan purported to explain ‘how a rising of the ocean waters may flood most of our port cities within the foreseeable future--and why it will be followed by the growth of a vast glacier which may eventually cover much of Europe and North America.’ ... In April 1970, Paul Erlich, author of the bestseller The Population Bomb, warned that ‘population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.’ ... A professor named Peter Gunter wrote in 1970, ‘Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: ... By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.’ ... On June 29, 1989, the Associated Press (AP) ... published an article stating, ‘A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.’”
ENGLAND/EUROPE REJECTING “GENDER AFFIRMING CARE” MODEL (Friday Church News Notes, March 17, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “America Needs to Be Like Europe,” PJMedia, Mar. 11, 2023: “It’s hard to believe that I’d ever want the United States to emulate Europe, but it’s finally happened. While the U.S. has gone all-in on pushing so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ for children with gender dysphoria, our friends in Europe have slowly started coming to their senses. ... In July, London’s Tavistock Clinic, the only transgender clinic in England, closed due to concerns that doctors were performing surgeries without considering children’s mental health--a practice that is far too common here in the United States. A few months later, the National Health Service (NHS) banned puberty blockers in most cases and no longer recommends social transitioning for kids. In fact, the United Kingdom, Finland, and France have all dialed down their pushing transgender ‘treatments’ for children. So has Sweden, which abandoned recommending gender transitioning for children in December, arguing that the first line of treatment should be psychosocial support--not giving kids dangerous drugs and mutilating their bodies. This week, the Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board followed suit. Europe is seeing the light on this dangerous assault on children, and they’re looking at the United States and wondering why we’re so nutty. It’s true; the editor-in-chief of The British Medical Journal, Kamran Abbasi, just pushed back against the gender-affirming care model that has become all the rage in America.”
HILLSONG LEADERS’ SHOPPING “WOULD EMBARRASS A KARDASHIAN” (Friday Church News Notes, March 17, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - It would not be surprising if the Hillsong church empire goes bankrupt. It will be their own heretical, worldly fault, but it is a shame, because the world doesn’t know the difference between true and false Christianity. The following is excerpted from “The kind of shopping that would embarrass a Kardashian,” Premier Christian News, Mar. 10, 2023: “Hillsong Church has been accused of tax evasion and money laundering by an Australian MP, saying that their spending would ‘embarrass a Kardashian’. ... Speaking to the parliament in Canberra, he claimed to have seen leaked documents ... The breadth of his allegations concern a whole spectrum of leaders within the Sydney-based megachurch. He accuses former senior global pastor Brian Houston--who stepped down from his role over allegations of inappropriate conduct with two women--of using ‘private jets like Ubers,’ saying he took five trips amounting to a total of almost £200,000 within a three-month period. He accuses other members of the Houston family of spending $150,000 of church money on watches, luggage sets, designer clothes and skateboards, amongst other luxury items.”
PASTOR WRONGLY DECLARED BRAIN DEAD, NEARLY BECOMES ORGAN DONOR (Friday Church News Notes, March 17, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In early March 2023, Pastor Ryan Marlow, Grace Baptist Church, Wilkesboro, NC, was released from the hospital after being wrongly declared dead and nearly becoming an organ donor. In August 2022, Pastor Marlow was hospitalized with a bacterial infection (listeria) that entered his brain. Later that month, the doctors told his wife that Ryan was clinically deceased. The following is from “Family, Congregation Welcome Home Pastor,” Christian Headlines, Mar. 7, 2023: “Marlow says, ‘They put the time of his death on his chart. That was it. I was called into a room and told that my husband was an organ donor and that we were gonna begin the process of finding matches for his organs. So that process began, he was on life support, and they told me he would remain on life support until they found all of the donors.’ ... The following day, doctors had scheduled the harvesting of his organs, but when Meghan visited him and showed him videos of his three children singing, Marlow moved his feet. ‘I told Ryan all the things that I wanted to tell him,’ she said. ‘That I loved him, people were taking care of me, that God was gonna make sure our babies were taken care of, and it was gonna be alright. And at the very end, I tell him, If you’re inside of there and you can hear me, I need you to fight. I need you to fight like crazy … Long story short, he’s not brain dead, my friends. The doctor would not even do the brain death test because they said that there is brain activity.’”
THE AMAZING BLUE WHALE (Friday Church News Notes, March 17, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, Jan. 27, 2023: “As far as we know, the blue whale is the largest animal that has ever existed. Every statistic that we find about these giants is overwhelming. A blue whale’s tongue is larger than an elephant. Its flipper can be about six feet long--as long as a man is tall. A baby blue whale is the size of two minivans. A blue whale’s mouth could hold 400 people. Yet the creatures they eat--krill--are only about half an inch long. They swallow vast amounts of water, then filter it back through their baleen--the strange keratin filter-like structure that they have in their mouths. They eat four tons of krill a day. That is 4 million of the tiny creatures. Babies consume 50 to 100 gallons of milk per day. The blue whale’s tail is as wide as a soccer net. These whales can dive to nearly 1,000 feet, and they can stay there for 30 minutes, without needing a breath. The water that they blow through their blowhole can jet up to 30 feet high. In short, these are magnificent animals, clearly illustrating the greatness and the beauty of God’s creation. We read in Genesis 1:21 that God made them on the fifth day of creation: ‘And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly.’ The word translated whales could also refer to other large sea creatures, but it certainly includes these beautiful, amazing giants of the ocean. Ref: Encyclopaedia Britannica.”
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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