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Way of Life Literature

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Way of Life Literature

Publisher of Bible Study Materials

Way of Life Bible College
Friday Church News Notes
Volume 24, Issue 20 - May 19, 2023
Graphical Edition
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.
 
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A photo of the outside of the Mount Ebal curse tablet (courtesy Pieter Gert van der Veen)
MT. EBAL CURSE TABLET REFUTES LIBERAL VIEWS OF THE BIBLE (Friday Church News Notes, May 19, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “And it shall come to pass, when the LORD thy God hath brought thee in unto the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal” (Deuteronomy 11:29). A small lead tablet found on Mt. Ebal single-handedly upsets liberal views of the Bible. The tablet was discovered during a 2019 wet-sifting project of detritus from an excavation led by Adam Zertal in the 1980s. Zertal believed that he had discovered Joshua’s altar (De. 27:4). The tablet could not be opened without damaging it, but “a team of experts performed X-ray tomography scanning in Prague as well as detailed photography” (“New Insights into Mount Ebal Curse Tablet,” Israel Today, May 12, 2023). The tablet reads, “You are cursed by the God, YWH [Jehovah], cursed. You will die cursed--cursed you will surely die. Cursed you are by YWH--cursed.” Consider the importance of this discovery: (1) The tablet is the oldest Hebrew writing ever found, proving that the Hebrews were literate at that time. Who would have guessed! It is 200 to 400 years older than the previous oldest text, which is the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon found at ancient Beit Shemesh. (2) This is the oldest written name of Jehovah God ever found, predating by 500 to 600 years the previous oldest. (3) The tablet dates to 1400-1200 BC. The oldest date puts the tablet in the land of Israel at the very time indicated by Scripture. According to biblical dating, Joshua’s entrance into Canaan was 1451 BC. (4) The tablet was found on Mt. Ebal, the mountain where the curses of God’s law were spoken (De. 11:29; 27:4, 13; Jos. 8:33). The chance of this tablet not being associated with biblical Israel would seem to be zero. Peter van der Veen, associate professor at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany and an epigrapher who reviewed the inscription, said, “We have a Hebrew inscription of a curse found on the mountain of curses. I think the conclusion we reached last year is now confirmed by more in-depth study.”

THREE-PARENT BABY CREATED IN THE U.K. (Friday Church News Notes, May 19, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “First Baby,” The Guardian, May 9, 2023: “The first UK baby created with DNA from three people has been born after doctors performed a groundbreaking IVF [In Vitro Fertilization] procedure that aims to prevent children from inheriting incurable diseases. The technique, known as mitochondrial donation treatment (MDT), uses tissue from the eggs of healthy female donors to create IVF embryos that are free from harmful mutations their mothers carry and are likely to pass on to their children. ... The process has led to the phrase ‘three-parent babies’, though more than 99.8% of the DNA in the babies comes from the mother and father. ... The procedure is not without risks. Recent research has found that in some cases, the tiny number of abnormal mitochondria that are inevitably carried over from the mother’s egg to the donor egg can multiply when the baby is in the womb. So-called reversion or reversal could lead to a disease in the child.”

A.W. TOZER’S MYSTICISM (Friday Church News Notes, May 19, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “The Bottom Line of A.W. Tozer,” Lighthouse Trails, May 1, 2023: “[W]e have known about Tozer’s affinity toward the mystics for some time now ... It does seem odd to think that a man of such apparent intelligence and spiritual insights in certain areas (as some of our readers and colleagues have pointed out) did not have the discernment to see that these figures (whom he called ‘the great masters of the deeper life’) he was quoting and admiring (such as Meister Eckhart and John of the Cross, who were both panentheists) were indeed mystics and outside the realm of biblical Christianity. ... In an ‘authorized biography’ titled The Life of A.W. Tozer, the author quotes Tozer as saying: ‘As God’s hungry bee, I’m able to suck nectar out of all sorts of flowers.’ One of those from whom he may have drawn ‘nectar’ was the mystic Thomas Merton, with whom he kept ‘correspondence for some time.’ Merton, a universalistic panentheist, believed there was no contradiction between Christianity and Buddhism and said he wanted to be the best Buddhist he could be. ... Tozer seemed to have an insatiable thirst for what he called ‘the deeper life’ (or what he also called ‘holy mysteries’) with God ... he seems to have spent much of his life seeking after experiences that would give him this deeper life ... Tozer’s recommended reading list included a who’s who of medieval mystics such as: St. John of the Cross (Dark Night of the Soul), an anonymous monk (The Cloud of Unknowing), Bernard of Clairvaux, Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Kelly, Brother Lawrence (Practicing the Presence of God), Michael (Miguel) Molinos, Jacob Boehme, Richard Rolle, and Francis de Sales, to name about one third of the listed names. ... In Tozer’s own writings, and in the biographies written about him, the words ‘mystics,’ ‘mystical,’ and ‘mysticism’ are treated as if they are everyday terms the Christian can and should utilize. And with today’s contemplative prayer movement’s energizing force being that of mystical meditation, Tozer’s use of the words and the words commonly associated with him makes him a poster child for today’s contemplative prayer movement.

EU PARLIAMENT SLAMS HATEFUL PALESTINIAN TEXTBOOKS (Friday Church News Notes, May 19, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “EU Parliament,” The Times of Israel, May 11, 2023: “The European Parliament passed a resolution Wednesday condemning the Palestinian Authority over the ‘hateful’ content of its textbooks and conditioning future funding for education on the removal of antisemitic material. It is the fourth consecutive year that the parliament has passed a resolution criticizing the PA for its school material. ... The wording of the resolution was ‘noticeably more critical of the PA’ compared to previous resolutions, according to a statement from the Israeli Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se). For the first time, an EU resolution directly linked the content of PA textbooks with funds for Palestinian terrorism, and in particular attacks by young people, it said. The resolution also acknowledged that there is antisemitism in the textbooks and demanded that it be removed. ... The European Union, the PA’s largest donor, helps to pay the salaries of the PA’s many civil servants, constituting a significant chunk of the West Bank economy. Between 2008 and 2020, Brussels sent around $2.5 billion in direct budget support to the PA.”

THE HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN PROPAGANDIZING THE “TRANS” AGENDA IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS (Friday Church News Notes, May 19, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Is This Why Transgenderism Is Exploding?” PJMedia, May 13, 2023: “Writing for the Capital Research Center (CRC), Kali Fontanilla ... provided a graphic demonstration of just how deeply the transgendering movement has penetrated American society: ‘Historically, gender dysphoria only affected a small percentage of children, less than 0.01 percent, and almost all the cases were boys. Today, the U.S. has seen an estimated 1,000 percent rise in gender dysphoria over the past decade, and the UK has reported a more than 4,000 percent rise in girls demanding gender treatments. And 70 percent of sex reassignment surgeries were done on girls.’ ... more important [to this increase in dysphoria] are public school teachers and administrators and the Far-Left advocacy groups funding the movement’s training and propaganda resources, especially the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Ever heard of HRC’s Thrive Conference? Odds are you haven’t, but the influence of this program is undeniable. Every year, Thrive trains thousands of ‘youth-serving professionals,’ including teachers and counselors, on how to ‘create safe, inclusive, and welcoming environments for LGBTQ+ youth.’ According to Fontanilla, the materials provided by the Thrive event include comprehensive lesson plans now used in thousands of public school elementary and middle school classrooms. Lesson titles for some of their kindergarten–2nd-grade lesson plans include ‘Jacob’s New Dress: Understanding Gender Expression;’ ‘They, She, He, Easy as ABC: Understanding Names, Pronouns, and Gender Expression;’ ‘Chimera Butterflies: Non-Binary Animals;’ and ‘I am Jazz: Understanding Transgender Children.’”

CATHOLIC CHURCH’S “GOD IS TRANS” DISPLAY (Friday Church News Notes, May 19, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Church’s ‘God Is Trans’ Display,” Christian Headlines, May 9, 2023: “The ‘God is Trans: A Queer Spiritual Journey’ display at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, a Catholic congregation, includes artwork that maps the ‘queer spiritual journey,’ according to a description of the artwork at the church. The New York Post first reported on the controversy. The Church of St. Paul the Apostle is the mother church of the Paulist Fathers. Patrick Egan tweeted: ‘This place is an absolute joke. They replaced the crucifix with a butterfly years ago! A friend use to call this church Paul the apostate. ... it is dying as the Paulists try to out gay the Jesuits.’”

BULLET-PROOF SPIDERS (Friday Church News Notes, May 19, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, May 9, 2023: “The silk produced by spiders is very different from the silk produced by silkworms in some very important ways. While silkworm silk is strong yet not prone to stretching, spiders make silk that is both strong and stretchy. They also make several different kinds of silk, each with its own purpose. In fact, spider silk is stronger than an equal amount of steel and yet it stretches. Spider silk is made of nothing more than proteins. However, scientists are finding it extremely difficult to study the chemical structure of spider silk because it resists most of their efforts to break it down into its chemical parts. Scientists have finally resorted to hot, concentrated acids to break down the silk. They are learning that one type of spider silk is made up of lengths of very stiff amino acids, separated by segments of amino acids that form a springy helix. Together they contribute to the strength and stretchiness of spider silk. Scientists are exploring how spider silk is made, because this wonderful material promises new methods for creating stronger and lighter materials for human use. One possible use would be making cloth that is both comfortable and bulletproof. God has done all things well. The fact that we can learn to design better things by learning how He designed things is a witness for His wisdom as well as a witness against claims that the creation designed itself by trial and error. However, there is much more to God’s plans for us, as you can learn from the Bible. REF: Amato, I. 1990. ‘Unraveling the biochemistry of spider silk’ Science News, v. 138, Oct. 6. p. 214.”

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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