Friday Church News Notes
Volume 24, Issue 21 - May 26, 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.
RICK WARREN, NEW CHANCELLOR OF SPURGEON COLLEGE (Friday Church News Notes, May 26, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Rick Warren of Purpose Driven Church infamy was installed on May 15 as chancellor of Spurgeon’s College in London. Warren will teach online guest lectures and act as an ambassador for the college. When Warren retired from Saddleback Church last year, he was replaced with a husband-wife pastor team. The church was subsequently evicted from the Southern Baptist Convention for its promotion of female pastors, but the practice began under Warren’s pastorate. In 2021, he ordained three women as pastors at Saddleback. Upon accepting the chancellorship, Warren stated, “[M]y understanding of the meaning of ordination and conviction from Scripture on ministry leadership are identical to Charles Spurgeon’s published views” (“Rick Warren named,” Baptist News Global, May 16, 2023). That is a ridiculous statement! Consider just a few major differences: Warren preaches an incredibly shallow, unscriptural gospel with no hint of repentance, whereas Spurgeon preached repentance and a full-bore regenerating gospel. Warren’s shallow gospel bloated his church’s membership with the unregenerate religious, whereas Spurgeon made a great effort to maintain a regenerate-only membership. Warren’s ecumenical principle embraces theological liberals and Roman Catholic priests, whereas Spurgeon renounced such a practice. Warren practices friendship with the world, whereas Spurgeon practiced separation from the world. Warren ordains women to the pastorate, where Spurgeon renounced this. Charles Spurgeon would have nothing to do with the college that bears his name today. When the Pastor’s College was renamed Spurgeon’s College in 1923, it was no longer associated with the Metropolitan Tabernacle and had loosed itself from Spurgeon’s doctrinal position. From 1961-1977, the college was led by George Beasley-Murray, who claimed that Jesus was wrong about the timing of the Second Coming, that John’s Gospel was not written by John but by a community of John’s followers, and that salvation is not complete without baptism. Beasley-Murray participated in the apostate World Council of Churches and praised its “general theology” and “deep spirituality” (“The Rise and Fall of Spurgeon’s College,” Standing on Shoulders, Jan. 19, 2010). The theology of the WCC includes every type of heresy and blasphemy, including universalism, and its “spirituality” embraces idolatrous Hindu dances, mindless Buddhist chants, and North American Indian spirit sacrifices. By joining hands with today’s Spurgeon’s College, Rick Warren is in likeminded company. See the free eBook Purpose Driven or Scripture Driven,
https://www.wayoflife.org/free_ebooks/purpose_driven.php
OLDEST HEBREW BIBLE SELLS FOR $38 MILLION (Friday Church News Notes, May 26, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Codex Sasson 1053 (S1), the oldest existing complete Hebrew Bible, sold for $38 million on May 17 at Sotheby’s in New York. The annotated Masoretic codex with vowel markings has been dated to about AD 900. It was purchased by the American Friends of the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv and will be on display at the museum. The manuscript is about the same age as the Aleppo Codex but is more complete, containing all 24 books of the Hebrew canon. While the Aleppo Codex is missing 40% of its leaves (including the majority of the Torah or Pentateuch), the Sasson Codex is missing 12 complete leaves and parts of others, a total of about 15 chapters, mostly from Genesis. The Sasson is textually less valuable than the Aleppo because of the carelessness of its scribes. The manuscript is said to be the “least carefully written” of the tenth-century texts (Ellis Brotzman, Old Testament Textual Criticism). The Masoretic accent marks preserve the vowels of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures, assuring correct pronunciation of each word. “The accent marks almost miraculously serve three disparate functions: a) they are notes for cantillation of the word; b) they show the part of the word that should be stressed or accented; c) they serve as marks for phrasing and punctuation” (“The Leningrad Codex,” Jewish Virtual Library). (The 72,000 square foot ANU Museum is “the largest and most comprehensive Jewish museum in the world,” featuring the story of the Jews from Abraham to the present.)
MORE EVIDENCE OF RACISM IN AMERICA (Friday Church News Notes, May 26, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In yet another clear example of rampant racism in America, a black man won the recent Republican governor’s primary for Kentucky, easily besting a slate of white candidates. In 2020, the same black man, Daniel Cameron, was elected Attorney General of Kentucky with 57% of the vote, besting the white Democratic nominee by 5,000 votes. Obviously, racism is irrevocably deep-seated in the American South.
3,000 CHURCHES LEAVE THE UNITED METHODISTS OVER THE HOMOSEXUALITY ISSUE (Friday Church News Notes, May 26, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “141 Pennsylvania Churches Leave,” The Christian Post, May 19, 2023: “One hundred forty-one congregations in Pennsylvania have officially left the United Methodist Church, largely because of the ongoing debate over sexual ethics in the mainline Protestant denomination. At a special session of the UMC, Susquehanna Annual Conference held Wednesday at the Community Arts Center in Williamsport, the disaffiliations of 141 churches were approved. This leaves 665 congregations in the regional body. ... Over the past couple of years, more than 3,000 congregations have officially left the UMC, driven in large part by the denomination’s ongoing debate over whether to change its official stance on LGBT issues.”
STEEP DECLINE IN U.K. OF BELIEF IN GOD, HEAVEN, AND HELL (Friday Church News Notes, May 26, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Survey finds UK has fewer believers,” Premier Christian News, May 19, 2023: “People in the UK are less likely to believe in God than people in almost any other country in the world according to a new survey. The poll of 24 countries by the Policy Institute found that belief in God among UK adults has declined by more than a quarter since 1981. Then, three-quarters of the surveyed UK adults said that they believed in God, compared with just under half (49 per cent) in 2022. The study of more than 3,000 adults in the UK found that only China, Japan, South Korea, Norway and Sweden had fewer people who believe in God. ... The study found that belief in heaven among UK adults fell over the same period, from 57 per cent to 41 per cent. In 2022, about one quarter (26 per cent) said that they believed in hell--a figure largely unchanged.”
RESCUE MINISTRY WINS SETTLEMENT AGAINST THE STATE OF WYOMING OVER RELIGIOUS LIBERTY (Friday Church News Notes, May 26, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Christian Ministry Wins Legal Battle,” CBN News, Nov. 29, 2022: “Just two months after the Wyoming Rescue Mission filed its federal lawsuit against state and federal agencies for threatening to punish the Christian nonprofit for hiring employees who share the ministry’s religious beliefs, attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) announced they reached a favorable settlement in the case. As part of the settlement, state officials acknowledged that the rescue mission, as a religious organization, is free to hire like-minded employees who share the ministry’s religious beliefs and mission to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ through its homeless shelter, clothing voucher service, faith-based recovery programs, and life-rebuilding assistance to Casper residents. ‘The First Amendment protects Wyoming Rescue Mission’s freedom to hire those who share its beliefs without being threatened and investigated by the government,’ said ADF Legal Counsel Jacob Reed. ‘We’re pleased to favorably settle this case for the rescue mission so it can continue its critical work of serving some of Casper's most vulnerable citizens and spreading the gospel.’ ... As CBN News reported, in 2020, the mission decided not to hire a self-proclaimed non-Christian for one of its Rescued Treasures Thrift Store associate positions. ... The non-Christian applicant then filed a discrimination charge against the mission with Wyoming's Department of Workforce Services and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ... The officials determined the mission likely violated the Wyoming Fair Employment Practices Act of 1965 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for refusing to hire the non-Christian applicant, ignoring the fact that neither of those laws applies to faith-based organizations’ religiously based employment decisions. After ADF attorneys filed suit, the government capitulated and agreed the mission can hire only ‘those individuals who agree with and live out the mission’s religious beliefs and practices.’”
THE TROPICAL ARCTIC (Friday Church News Notes, May 26, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, May 11, 2023: “Both archaeology and the Bible suggest that the world was once quite different from the world we know today. Each agrees that the earth’s climate was once much more uniform than it is today. At one time the tropics may have extended into what are today polar regions. However, the Bible and evolutionary geology don’t agree on how long ago that was. Bible-believing geologists, on the other hand, are reporting evidence to support the Bible’s story of history. In the last few years scientists have been surprised to discover dinosaur fossils in Alaska. Dinosaurs need warm temperatures--warmer than Alaska was thought to have been. In 1986, on Canada’s Axel Heiberg Island, only 600 miles from the North Pole, scientists found a huge, dense forest. Some of the trees were well over 125 feet tall. They have been snapped off at the stump and are neither fossilized nor petrified, but remain as fresh wood. Even some of the leaves are still intact. The area was filled with spruce, hickory, dawn redwood and cypress trees and was evidently a swamp, since tropical turtle and alligator remains have also been found. Tree rings show that the area was warmer in the recent past, while the size of the rings tell us that there were short, hot summers during which rapid growth occurred, followed by long, dark winters as there are today. The most interesting conclusion reached by the scientific team is that the entire region must have been subjected to a huge flood! This discovery tells us that all of geology must be restructured to present a history that agrees with the Bible’s story of the earth’s past. REF: ‘Search for a Tropical Arctic’ (television documentary), 1990, Federal Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, Canada.”
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).
https://www.wayoflife.org/free_ebooks/purpose_driven.php
OLDEST HEBREW BIBLE SELLS FOR $38 MILLION (Friday Church News Notes, May 26, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Codex Sasson 1053 (S1), the oldest existing complete Hebrew Bible, sold for $38 million on May 17 at Sotheby’s in New York. The annotated Masoretic codex with vowel markings has been dated to about AD 900. It was purchased by the American Friends of the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv and will be on display at the museum. The manuscript is about the same age as the Aleppo Codex but is more complete, containing all 24 books of the Hebrew canon. While the Aleppo Codex is missing 40% of its leaves (including the majority of the Torah or Pentateuch), the Sasson Codex is missing 12 complete leaves and parts of others, a total of about 15 chapters, mostly from Genesis. The Sasson is textually less valuable than the Aleppo because of the carelessness of its scribes. The manuscript is said to be the “least carefully written” of the tenth-century texts (Ellis Brotzman, Old Testament Textual Criticism). The Masoretic accent marks preserve the vowels of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures, assuring correct pronunciation of each word. “The accent marks almost miraculously serve three disparate functions: a) they are notes for cantillation of the word; b) they show the part of the word that should be stressed or accented; c) they serve as marks for phrasing and punctuation” (“The Leningrad Codex,” Jewish Virtual Library). (The 72,000 square foot ANU Museum is “the largest and most comprehensive Jewish museum in the world,” featuring the story of the Jews from Abraham to the present.)
MORE EVIDENCE OF RACISM IN AMERICA (Friday Church News Notes, May 26, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In yet another clear example of rampant racism in America, a black man won the recent Republican governor’s primary for Kentucky, easily besting a slate of white candidates. In 2020, the same black man, Daniel Cameron, was elected Attorney General of Kentucky with 57% of the vote, besting the white Democratic nominee by 5,000 votes. Obviously, racism is irrevocably deep-seated in the American South.
3,000 CHURCHES LEAVE THE UNITED METHODISTS OVER THE HOMOSEXUALITY ISSUE (Friday Church News Notes, May 26, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “141 Pennsylvania Churches Leave,” The Christian Post, May 19, 2023: “One hundred forty-one congregations in Pennsylvania have officially left the United Methodist Church, largely because of the ongoing debate over sexual ethics in the mainline Protestant denomination. At a special session of the UMC, Susquehanna Annual Conference held Wednesday at the Community Arts Center in Williamsport, the disaffiliations of 141 churches were approved. This leaves 665 congregations in the regional body. ... Over the past couple of years, more than 3,000 congregations have officially left the UMC, driven in large part by the denomination’s ongoing debate over whether to change its official stance on LGBT issues.”
STEEP DECLINE IN U.K. OF BELIEF IN GOD, HEAVEN, AND HELL (Friday Church News Notes, May 26, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Survey finds UK has fewer believers,” Premier Christian News, May 19, 2023: “People in the UK are less likely to believe in God than people in almost any other country in the world according to a new survey. The poll of 24 countries by the Policy Institute found that belief in God among UK adults has declined by more than a quarter since 1981. Then, three-quarters of the surveyed UK adults said that they believed in God, compared with just under half (49 per cent) in 2022. The study of more than 3,000 adults in the UK found that only China, Japan, South Korea, Norway and Sweden had fewer people who believe in God. ... The study found that belief in heaven among UK adults fell over the same period, from 57 per cent to 41 per cent. In 2022, about one quarter (26 per cent) said that they believed in hell--a figure largely unchanged.”
RESCUE MINISTRY WINS SETTLEMENT AGAINST THE STATE OF WYOMING OVER RELIGIOUS LIBERTY (Friday Church News Notes, May 26, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Christian Ministry Wins Legal Battle,” CBN News, Nov. 29, 2022: “Just two months after the Wyoming Rescue Mission filed its federal lawsuit against state and federal agencies for threatening to punish the Christian nonprofit for hiring employees who share the ministry’s religious beliefs, attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) announced they reached a favorable settlement in the case. As part of the settlement, state officials acknowledged that the rescue mission, as a religious organization, is free to hire like-minded employees who share the ministry’s religious beliefs and mission to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ through its homeless shelter, clothing voucher service, faith-based recovery programs, and life-rebuilding assistance to Casper residents. ‘The First Amendment protects Wyoming Rescue Mission’s freedom to hire those who share its beliefs without being threatened and investigated by the government,’ said ADF Legal Counsel Jacob Reed. ‘We’re pleased to favorably settle this case for the rescue mission so it can continue its critical work of serving some of Casper's most vulnerable citizens and spreading the gospel.’ ... As CBN News reported, in 2020, the mission decided not to hire a self-proclaimed non-Christian for one of its Rescued Treasures Thrift Store associate positions. ... The non-Christian applicant then filed a discrimination charge against the mission with Wyoming's Department of Workforce Services and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ... The officials determined the mission likely violated the Wyoming Fair Employment Practices Act of 1965 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for refusing to hire the non-Christian applicant, ignoring the fact that neither of those laws applies to faith-based organizations’ religiously based employment decisions. After ADF attorneys filed suit, the government capitulated and agreed the mission can hire only ‘those individuals who agree with and live out the mission’s religious beliefs and practices.’”
THE TROPICAL ARCTIC (Friday Church News Notes, May 26, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, May 11, 2023: “Both archaeology and the Bible suggest that the world was once quite different from the world we know today. Each agrees that the earth’s climate was once much more uniform than it is today. At one time the tropics may have extended into what are today polar regions. However, the Bible and evolutionary geology don’t agree on how long ago that was. Bible-believing geologists, on the other hand, are reporting evidence to support the Bible’s story of history. In the last few years scientists have been surprised to discover dinosaur fossils in Alaska. Dinosaurs need warm temperatures--warmer than Alaska was thought to have been. In 1986, on Canada’s Axel Heiberg Island, only 600 miles from the North Pole, scientists found a huge, dense forest. Some of the trees were well over 125 feet tall. They have been snapped off at the stump and are neither fossilized nor petrified, but remain as fresh wood. Even some of the leaves are still intact. The area was filled with spruce, hickory, dawn redwood and cypress trees and was evidently a swamp, since tropical turtle and alligator remains have also been found. Tree rings show that the area was warmer in the recent past, while the size of the rings tell us that there were short, hot summers during which rapid growth occurred, followed by long, dark winters as there are today. The most interesting conclusion reached by the scientific team is that the entire region must have been subjected to a huge flood! This discovery tells us that all of geology must be restructured to present a history that agrees with the Bible’s story of the earth’s past. REF: ‘Search for a Tropical Arctic’ (television documentary), 1990, Federal Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, Canada.”
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).
_____
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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