Friday Church News Notes
Volume 24, Issue 42 - October 20, 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.
ROMAN SWORDS IN A DEAD SEA CAVE (Friday Church News Notes, October 20, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Archaeologists have found four Roman swords in a Dead Sea cave high above Ein Gedi. Dating to the Bar Kokhba Revolt (AD 132-135), the swords are in excellent condition. “The blades have been preserved so well, they look like they could be picked up and used right now, even 2,000 years after they were forged,” geologist Boaz Langford of Hebrew University observed. This is a fascinating window into the fulfillment of Bible prophecy in those times. It was a time of false christs. Jesus prophesied, “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matthew 24:5). Simon Bar Kosiba was one of the false christs. He was pronounced the Messiah by prominent Rabbi Akiva ben Yosef, a major contributor to the Talmud. Coins were minted depicting the silver trumpets with the hope that the trumpets would soon sound from a third temple. It was not to be, because Israel did not have God’s blessing. It was a time of judgment on Israel and worldwide dispersal. Moses had prophesied that the time would come when Israel would be “scattered among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other” (De. 28:64). The scattering began with the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, but it was Rome that brought it to completion. The Emperor Hadrian sent 10 legions to deal with Israel. That was one-third of the Roman army. The Roman historian Cassius Dio said 580,000 Jewish men were killed in battle and countless others died of starvation, disease, and fire. Tens of thousands of Jews were sold as slaves and carried away to other nations. After the war, Hadrian determined to erase the name of Israel from the land. He renamed it Syria Palestina. He razed Jerusalem and built a Roman city over the ruins. He minted a coin depicting him driving a team of oxen to plow up Jerusalem, which was a dramatic fulfillment of Jeremiah 26:18, “Zion shall be plowed like a field.” Moses had further prophesied that during the era of worldwide dispersal, Israel would have no might to resist her enemies (De. 28:32). Israel would “become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations” (De. 28:37); “among these nations shalt thou find no ease” and “thy life shall hang in doubt before thee” (De. 28:65, 66). This is a perfect description of the diaspora that followed the Bar Kokhba revolt. As century after weary century rolled along, there was no Jewish army. There was no Joshua or Gideon or David or Judah Maccabee to lead Israel against her enemies. The same Scripture that was fulfilled in these amazing prophecies further prophesies the rest of Israel’s history. She is back in the land to prepare for the Antichrist (Daniel 9:27). She is back in a spiritually dead condition in preparation for her repentance and conversion (Ezekiel 37:1-14). A remnant of Israel will be converted and receive Jesus as the Christ (Ezekiel 20:37-38; Zechariah 12:10 - 13:1), and converted Israel will be the chief nation in Christ’s worldwide kingdom (Isaiah 2:1-5). Only then will Israel live in peace and war will cease from the earth.
WORLD EVANGELICAL FELLOWSHIP JOINS HANDS WITH THE POPE IN ECUMENICAL PRAYER (Friday Church News Notes, October 20, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - On September 30, Thomas Schirrmacher, secretary general of the World Evangelical Fellowship, joined hands with the pope in an ecumenical prayer venture at the Vatican. The 3,000 attendees of “Together--Gathering the People of God” included Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Pentecostals, and others. Participating leaders included Bartholomew I (Patriarch of Constantinople), Justin Welby (Archbishop of Canterbury), Anne Burghardt (Secretary General, Lutheran World Federation), Jong Chun Park (President, World Methodist Council), Elijah Brown (General Secretary, World Baptist Alliance), and William Wilson (President, Pentecostal World Fellowship). The gathering featured a Roman Catholic Mass which promotes the gross heresy that Christ is re-sacrificed on the Roman altar. (See Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Instruction on the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery, Introduction, C 1,2, p. 108.) “Gathering the People of God” is a glimpse into the incipient “one world church.” The Italian Evangelical Alliance (AEI) issued the following warning: “Once you pray publicly with the Pope, in St. Peter’s square, in front of a Marian portrait, embracing the message of spiritual unity with liberals and orthodox leaders, your alleged distinction becomes secondary. Evangelical identity is absorbed into the ecumenical unity...” (“From Evangelical Unity to Ecumenical Unity: The Latest Tumble of the WEF,” Evangelical Focus, Oct. 3, 2023). The term “evangelical” means nothing. It encompasses an amazing variety of false gospels and heresies.
PRACTICAL BOOK ON EVANGELICALISM WITH REVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TRAINING (Friday Church News Notes, October 20, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Church members are confronted with (New) Evangelical philosophy on every hand, including through nationally-syndicated radio personalities, bookstores, internet blogs, and social media. To be ignorant of the insidious and pervasive nature of evangelicalism is to be unprepared to identify and resist it, yet large numbers of Bible-believing Christians know little or nothing about it. Hosea 4:6 warns, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…” Large numbers of formerly “fundamentalist” churches have capitulated to the evangelical philosophy in the past 20 years. The book New Evangelicalism: Its History, Characteristics, and Fruit documents THE HISTORY AND SPREAD of evangelicalism since the 1950s and describes THE PRINCIPLES of evangelicalism in a practical manner so that church members can understand what it is. These principles include the following: Evangelicalism is characterized by a repudiation of separation, by a love for positivism, by a repudiation of the more negative aspects of biblical Christianity, by a judge-not philosophy, by a dislike of doctrinal controversy, by exalting love and unity above doctrine, by a desire for intellectual respectability, by pride of scholarship, by an attitude of anti-fundamentalism, by the division of biblical truth into categories of essential and non-essential, and by a general mood of softness and tolerance, of a desire for a less strict Christianity, and of a weariness with theological fighting. The book also describes THE APOSTATE FRUIT OF EVANGELICALISM, which is admitted by some of its own leaders. Its apostasy is seen in the questioning of biblical infallibility, in its ecumenicalism, in its embracing of the world, and in its tolerance of heretics. The third edition, August 2017, includes an extensive set of review questions as a teaching tool. We have used this book and the review questions to help prepare people for church membership when they are coming from a weak background. 219 pages. It is available as a print edition or a free eBook at https://www.wayoflife.org/publications/all.php
EUROPE ENGULFED IN PRO-PALESTINIAN DEMONSTRATIONS (Friday Church News Notes, October 20, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “All Corners of Europe,” The European Conservative, Oct. 16, 2023: “[T]he ethnoreligious tinderbox that Europe has become was on full display over the weekend as massive numbers of pro-Palestinian demonstrators flooded the streets of its major cities. Protesters demanded a halt to Israel’s military operations in Gaza that came in reaction to the rampage last weekend by Islamist militant group Hamas. Across the continent and beyond—in Germany, Sweden, Poland, the UK, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and elsewhere—tens of thousands of livid, and sometimes violent protesters occupied squares and streets, in some cases in defiance of bans on demonstrations. ... This weekend’s demonstrations come one week after Islamo-Leftists across the West celebrated after Hamas militants, in an unprecedented incursion out of Gaza, stormed communities in Israel ... As of Sunday, October 15th, some 1,400 people have been killed and more than 120 Israelis have been kidnapped since Hamas’ initial onslaught, according to statements from Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office.”
CREATION: THE WORD OF AN EYEWITNESS OR THE CONJECTURE OF AN ABSENTEE (Friday Church News Notes, October 20, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “Faith learns more in the first sentence of the Bible than all human science and philosophy ever discovered, to wit: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ To create is to bring into being without the use of pre-existing material. That one sentence answers all atheism, pantheism, stoicism, Epicurianism, agnosticism, materialism. ... No man was there to witness. We take it on God’s word. He alone being present, reveals the past. We do not ask science or philosophy to account for the universe. The scientist and philosopher were not there. We prefer to accept the testimony of the infinite eyewitness and agent rather than the puerile fancies and contradictory conjectures of finite absentees” (B.H. Carroll).
A WORLD OF DUST (Friday Church News Notes, October 20, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, September 21, 2023: “It’s behind your refrigerator and under your bed. It’s part of the air you breathe. While dust is common, it’s not commonplace at all. Much of the dust in our everyday lives is nothing more than tiny particles of skin, clothing, carpeting—just pieces of every-day life floating in the air. Studies of dust particles reveal that most dust is soil. However, a second common dust, even a thousand miles from the sea, is salt, driven into the wind by the waves. This salt helps form the clouds that bring us rain. The next most common forms of natural dust are volcanic eruptions and forest fires. Transatlantic winds pick up the dust of the Sahara and sweep it across the ocean where enough of it lands in Miami to sometimes give the rain a light pink color. Not only does your home have dust from all over the world, there’s probably also some from outer space. Ten thousand tons of disintegrating meteorites and comets rain down on earth every year. You can even identify some of this dust by running a magnet through the dust in a rain gutter. Most of the magnetic particles that stick to the magnet are probably from space. In addition, some dust is alive, made up of pollen, fungus spores, and even dormant bacteria hoping to land on a good place to grow. Dust reminds us that the world is smaller than we think and that it won’t last forever. Are you ready for the next world? All your preparations have been made by Jesus Christ. Find out in the Bible what He has done for you today. REF: Moser, P.W. Discover, Nov. 1986, p. 107.”
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).
WORLD EVANGELICAL FELLOWSHIP JOINS HANDS WITH THE POPE IN ECUMENICAL PRAYER (Friday Church News Notes, October 20, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - On September 30, Thomas Schirrmacher, secretary general of the World Evangelical Fellowship, joined hands with the pope in an ecumenical prayer venture at the Vatican. The 3,000 attendees of “Together--Gathering the People of God” included Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Pentecostals, and others. Participating leaders included Bartholomew I (Patriarch of Constantinople), Justin Welby (Archbishop of Canterbury), Anne Burghardt (Secretary General, Lutheran World Federation), Jong Chun Park (President, World Methodist Council), Elijah Brown (General Secretary, World Baptist Alliance), and William Wilson (President, Pentecostal World Fellowship). The gathering featured a Roman Catholic Mass which promotes the gross heresy that Christ is re-sacrificed on the Roman altar. (See Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Instruction on the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery, Introduction, C 1,2, p. 108.) “Gathering the People of God” is a glimpse into the incipient “one world church.” The Italian Evangelical Alliance (AEI) issued the following warning: “Once you pray publicly with the Pope, in St. Peter’s square, in front of a Marian portrait, embracing the message of spiritual unity with liberals and orthodox leaders, your alleged distinction becomes secondary. Evangelical identity is absorbed into the ecumenical unity...” (“From Evangelical Unity to Ecumenical Unity: The Latest Tumble of the WEF,” Evangelical Focus, Oct. 3, 2023). The term “evangelical” means nothing. It encompasses an amazing variety of false gospels and heresies.
PRACTICAL BOOK ON EVANGELICALISM WITH REVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TRAINING (Friday Church News Notes, October 20, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Church members are confronted with (New) Evangelical philosophy on every hand, including through nationally-syndicated radio personalities, bookstores, internet blogs, and social media. To be ignorant of the insidious and pervasive nature of evangelicalism is to be unprepared to identify and resist it, yet large numbers of Bible-believing Christians know little or nothing about it. Hosea 4:6 warns, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…” Large numbers of formerly “fundamentalist” churches have capitulated to the evangelical philosophy in the past 20 years. The book New Evangelicalism: Its History, Characteristics, and Fruit documents THE HISTORY AND SPREAD of evangelicalism since the 1950s and describes THE PRINCIPLES of evangelicalism in a practical manner so that church members can understand what it is. These principles include the following: Evangelicalism is characterized by a repudiation of separation, by a love for positivism, by a repudiation of the more negative aspects of biblical Christianity, by a judge-not philosophy, by a dislike of doctrinal controversy, by exalting love and unity above doctrine, by a desire for intellectual respectability, by pride of scholarship, by an attitude of anti-fundamentalism, by the division of biblical truth into categories of essential and non-essential, and by a general mood of softness and tolerance, of a desire for a less strict Christianity, and of a weariness with theological fighting. The book also describes THE APOSTATE FRUIT OF EVANGELICALISM, which is admitted by some of its own leaders. Its apostasy is seen in the questioning of biblical infallibility, in its ecumenicalism, in its embracing of the world, and in its tolerance of heretics. The third edition, August 2017, includes an extensive set of review questions as a teaching tool. We have used this book and the review questions to help prepare people for church membership when they are coming from a weak background. 219 pages. It is available as a print edition or a free eBook at https://www.wayoflife.org/publications/all.php
EUROPE ENGULFED IN PRO-PALESTINIAN DEMONSTRATIONS (Friday Church News Notes, October 20, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “All Corners of Europe,” The European Conservative, Oct. 16, 2023: “[T]he ethnoreligious tinderbox that Europe has become was on full display over the weekend as massive numbers of pro-Palestinian demonstrators flooded the streets of its major cities. Protesters demanded a halt to Israel’s military operations in Gaza that came in reaction to the rampage last weekend by Islamist militant group Hamas. Across the continent and beyond—in Germany, Sweden, Poland, the UK, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and elsewhere—tens of thousands of livid, and sometimes violent protesters occupied squares and streets, in some cases in defiance of bans on demonstrations. ... This weekend’s demonstrations come one week after Islamo-Leftists across the West celebrated after Hamas militants, in an unprecedented incursion out of Gaza, stormed communities in Israel ... As of Sunday, October 15th, some 1,400 people have been killed and more than 120 Israelis have been kidnapped since Hamas’ initial onslaught, according to statements from Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office.”
CREATION: THE WORD OF AN EYEWITNESS OR THE CONJECTURE OF AN ABSENTEE (Friday Church News Notes, October 20, 2023, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “Faith learns more in the first sentence of the Bible than all human science and philosophy ever discovered, to wit: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ To create is to bring into being without the use of pre-existing material. That one sentence answers all atheism, pantheism, stoicism, Epicurianism, agnosticism, materialism. ... No man was there to witness. We take it on God’s word. He alone being present, reveals the past. We do not ask science or philosophy to account for the universe. The scientist and philosopher were not there. We prefer to accept the testimony of the infinite eyewitness and agent rather than the puerile fancies and contradictory conjectures of finite absentees” (B.H. Carroll).
A WORLD OF DUST (Friday Church News Notes, October 20, 2023, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, September 21, 2023: “It’s behind your refrigerator and under your bed. It’s part of the air you breathe. While dust is common, it’s not commonplace at all. Much of the dust in our everyday lives is nothing more than tiny particles of skin, clothing, carpeting—just pieces of every-day life floating in the air. Studies of dust particles reveal that most dust is soil. However, a second common dust, even a thousand miles from the sea, is salt, driven into the wind by the waves. This salt helps form the clouds that bring us rain. The next most common forms of natural dust are volcanic eruptions and forest fires. Transatlantic winds pick up the dust of the Sahara and sweep it across the ocean where enough of it lands in Miami to sometimes give the rain a light pink color. Not only does your home have dust from all over the world, there’s probably also some from outer space. Ten thousand tons of disintegrating meteorites and comets rain down on earth every year. You can even identify some of this dust by running a magnet through the dust in a rain gutter. Most of the magnetic particles that stick to the magnet are probably from space. In addition, some dust is alive, made up of pollen, fungus spores, and even dormant bacteria hoping to land on a good place to grow. Dust reminds us that the world is smaller than we think and that it won’t last forever. Are you ready for the next world? All your preparations have been made by Jesus Christ. Find out in the Bible what He has done for you today. REF: Moser, P.W. Discover, Nov. 1986, p. 107.”
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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