Friday Church News Notes
March 15, 2024 - Volume 25, Issue 11
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.
Former Dutch Prime Minister, Dries van Agt, with his wife Eugenie. Aged 93
FORMER DUTCH PM AND WIFE DIE BY DUO EUTHANASIA (Friday Church News Notes, March 15, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Former Dutch PM,” TheBridgehead.ca, March 4, 2024: “On February 5, 2024, former Dutch Prime Minister Dries van Agt died holding hands with his wife Eugenie in his hometown of Nijmegen. Both were 93; the elderly couple chose to die by euthanasia. The Rights Forum, an organization founded by van Agt, released a statement on February 9: ‘He died together and hand in hand with his beloved wife Eugenie van Agt-Krekelberg … with whom he was together for more than seventy years, and whom he always continued to refer to as my girl.’ ... Andreas ‘Dries’ van Agt served as prime minister of the Netherlands from 1977 until 1982 ... A few decades ago--when van Agt was prime minister, for example--an elderly statesman and his wife committing suicide together with the assistance of a doctor would have horrified the country. Now, it is portrayed as a peaceful sendoff--a downright Dutch way of doing things. That may well be the case. On April 1, 2002, the Netherlands became the first country in Europe since Nazi Germany to legalize euthanasia. Since then, the Dutch euthanasia regime has persistently expanded: in 2004, the Groningen Policy laid out the framework for euthanizing infants (who cannot consent); and, the rules have since been expanded to permit euthanasia for all children. Dutch people have been euthanized for alcoholism, blindness, depression, tinnitus, and even dementia--in that case, the woman could not remember having asked for euthanasia and had to be physically held down for the lethal injection. ... Twenty-nine couples opted for the paired death in 2022, up from 16 who chose it in 2021 and the 13 pairs the year before. In 2018, a Canadian couple opted for ‘duo euthanasia’; they did cheery interviews about the decision scarcely a week before they died by lethal injection, also hand in hand.” CONCLUSION: The Bible says death is not an end; it is a journey. “And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments...” (Luke 16:22-23).
NUMBER OF MODERN SLAVERY VICTIMS REACHES RECORD HIGH (Friday Church News Notes, March 15, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Slavery has been practiced since the fall of man. It is not a product of “racism”; it is not an issue of skin color; it is a product of man’s sinful heart. The Lord Jesus Christ described man’s condition with perfect accuracy and uncovered the fundamental issue of slavery: “And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man” (Mark 7:20-23). When men believed the devil’s lie and chose sin over God, they became slaves, slaves not only to sin but slaves physically. History is filled with the sad accounts of men being enslaved by their fellow men and treated as mere cattle, from the slaves under the brutal whips of the ancient pharaohs to the serfs of 17th century Europe to the dirt poor classes of modern Asia and Africa. Slavery has been practiced by the white man, the black man, the red man, the yellow man, and every other kind of man. In spite of the abolition of black slavery by Western nations in modern times, slavery has never been totally abolished. Slavery is still practiced widely in Sudan and Mauritania. In the latter, slavery has existed since the Arabs conquered it in the 12th century. Though officially abolished in 1981, the anti-slavery law is not enforced. Estimates of slaves in Mauritania today “range from 100,000 to more than a half-million.” Slaves “are used for labor, sex and breeding. The property of their masters, they are passed down through generations, given as wedding gifts or exchanged for camels, trucks, guns or money” (“Arabs Have Black Slaves Today,” Israel National News, Mar. 29, 2013). The following is excerpted from “Salvation Army urges vigilance,” Premier Christian News, Mar. 8, 2024: “The number of potential victims of modern slavery reached a record level last year, with 17,004 people referred to the Home Office. A quarter of all those referred (4,088) were female, with children (7,432) making up four in ten referrals. Kathy Betteridge who is The Salvation Army’s Director of Anti-Trafficking and Slavery, told Premier: ‘It’s tragic. Criminals who perpetrate these crimes can make a lot of money from a human, and people are very vulnerable at the moment. There are so many war-torn countries and people living in poverty, so the perpetrators target vulnerable people.’”
THE ADDICTIVE MORAL FILTH AND VIOLENCE OF ONLINE GAMING (Friday Church News Notes, March 15, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “My Torment as a Gamer Girl,” Unherd, Feb. 26, 2024: “My obsession is with the cowboy game Red Dead Redemption 2. Its world is a microcosm of a late-1800s [mythical] America, in which you play a gunslinging outlaw ... It is ... one of the prize assets in the stable of independent publisher Rockstar Games, makers of the Grand Theft Auto series. ... I played the main, offline, ‘story’ version of this game for a year, becoming so fixated that one friend tried to stage an intervention to stop me banging on about it. In the main game, you play as a man. In the online version, you may choose a female avatar--and you can create her in your own image (in my case blonde, overly made-up and probably quite vain). ... As you go about your business, posses of male characters--almost certainly men, given their gamer tags ... lurk behind you. They stab you, they shoot you, they bind you in ropes and carry your hogtied, still writhing body on the back of their horse. They dump you in abandoned houses, where they take turns to jump on you ... Until the 2010s, online gaming was still a niche. Then it exploded: Call of Duty launched online in 2012, Grand Theft Auto (GTA) in 2013, Red Dead in 2018. We are now living, one critic said last year, in the ‘golden age of the online multiplayer.’ ... You can do, in other words, almost exactly what you want. It is this, the plugging-in of fantasy to real-life social networks, which has created a space for the darkest human urges to be played out, over and over, with wearying predictability, on the usual victims and by the usual suspects. ... There are many who think that the explicit content of video games encourages this. In GTA [Grand Theft Auto], players can drive close to prostitutes to engage their services. An encounter boosts the player’s health, but costs money; luckily, you can kill your prostitute afterwards and rob it back. ... The next generation--already buffeted towards extreme misogyny by Andrew Tate, incel culture and society’s utter saturation in porn--are living out these ideologies in cyberspace; 76% of boys in the UK aged 12-15 game online.”
MAN’S FALLEN NATURE (Friday Church News Notes, March 15, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The most fundamental thing in life is to understand God and man. As for man, he was created in God’s image, but he is fallen and corrupt because of his sin against God, beginning with the sin of the first man, Adam. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). Men like to think of themselves as good, but they aren’t. They are so unrighteous that they must be born again, Jesus said, or they will have their part in the lake of fire rather than the kingdom of God.
“And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5).
“The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Psalm 14:2-3).
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness” (Mark 7:21-22).
“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one ... there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Romans 3:10, 12).
“Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others” (Ephesians 2:3).
“For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another” (Titus 3:3).
YOUR BUSY LIVER (Friday Church News Notes, March 15, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, Feb. 12, 2024: “An adult human liver is about the size of a small football. It weighs about three pounds, making it the body’s largest internal organ. Tucked neatly beneath the ribs, your liver performs more than 500 different tasks. It is a vital link between your heart, lungs and digestive system. Inside the liver is a bewildering array of microscopic veins in which each drop of blood is processed. Here, blood conditions are constantly monitored to make sure that its chemistry meets strict standards. If more of some substances are needed in the blood, they are supplied. Useless chemicals are broken down into useful chemicals. Your liver makes proteins and corrects blood clotting factors. Your liver also sees to it that hormone balances are maintained and that poisons are neutralized. If substances are needed to fight an infection, your liver makes them and adds them to the bloodstream. Your liver also stores vitamins and minerals and prepares itself to provide your body with quick energy when you need it. In addition, the liver makes bile, which is essential for digestion. Structures like the liver have caused many evolutionists to abandon the idea that life is a result of millions of years of accidents. The liver is just too well-designed and integrated into the body to have been produced by purposelessness and mindlessness. As Scripture says, truly God has formed our inward parts! Ref: ‘The liver: the body’s refinery,’ Discover, Apr. 1984. p. 80.”
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).
NUMBER OF MODERN SLAVERY VICTIMS REACHES RECORD HIGH (Friday Church News Notes, March 15, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Slavery has been practiced since the fall of man. It is not a product of “racism”; it is not an issue of skin color; it is a product of man’s sinful heart. The Lord Jesus Christ described man’s condition with perfect accuracy and uncovered the fundamental issue of slavery: “And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man” (Mark 7:20-23). When men believed the devil’s lie and chose sin over God, they became slaves, slaves not only to sin but slaves physically. History is filled with the sad accounts of men being enslaved by their fellow men and treated as mere cattle, from the slaves under the brutal whips of the ancient pharaohs to the serfs of 17th century Europe to the dirt poor classes of modern Asia and Africa. Slavery has been practiced by the white man, the black man, the red man, the yellow man, and every other kind of man. In spite of the abolition of black slavery by Western nations in modern times, slavery has never been totally abolished. Slavery is still practiced widely in Sudan and Mauritania. In the latter, slavery has existed since the Arabs conquered it in the 12th century. Though officially abolished in 1981, the anti-slavery law is not enforced. Estimates of slaves in Mauritania today “range from 100,000 to more than a half-million.” Slaves “are used for labor, sex and breeding. The property of their masters, they are passed down through generations, given as wedding gifts or exchanged for camels, trucks, guns or money” (“Arabs Have Black Slaves Today,” Israel National News, Mar. 29, 2013). The following is excerpted from “Salvation Army urges vigilance,” Premier Christian News, Mar. 8, 2024: “The number of potential victims of modern slavery reached a record level last year, with 17,004 people referred to the Home Office. A quarter of all those referred (4,088) were female, with children (7,432) making up four in ten referrals. Kathy Betteridge who is The Salvation Army’s Director of Anti-Trafficking and Slavery, told Premier: ‘It’s tragic. Criminals who perpetrate these crimes can make a lot of money from a human, and people are very vulnerable at the moment. There are so many war-torn countries and people living in poverty, so the perpetrators target vulnerable people.’”
THE ADDICTIVE MORAL FILTH AND VIOLENCE OF ONLINE GAMING (Friday Church News Notes, March 15, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “My Torment as a Gamer Girl,” Unherd, Feb. 26, 2024: “My obsession is with the cowboy game Red Dead Redemption 2. Its world is a microcosm of a late-1800s [mythical] America, in which you play a gunslinging outlaw ... It is ... one of the prize assets in the stable of independent publisher Rockstar Games, makers of the Grand Theft Auto series. ... I played the main, offline, ‘story’ version of this game for a year, becoming so fixated that one friend tried to stage an intervention to stop me banging on about it. In the main game, you play as a man. In the online version, you may choose a female avatar--and you can create her in your own image (in my case blonde, overly made-up and probably quite vain). ... As you go about your business, posses of male characters--almost certainly men, given their gamer tags ... lurk behind you. They stab you, they shoot you, they bind you in ropes and carry your hogtied, still writhing body on the back of their horse. They dump you in abandoned houses, where they take turns to jump on you ... Until the 2010s, online gaming was still a niche. Then it exploded: Call of Duty launched online in 2012, Grand Theft Auto (GTA) in 2013, Red Dead in 2018. We are now living, one critic said last year, in the ‘golden age of the online multiplayer.’ ... You can do, in other words, almost exactly what you want. It is this, the plugging-in of fantasy to real-life social networks, which has created a space for the darkest human urges to be played out, over and over, with wearying predictability, on the usual victims and by the usual suspects. ... There are many who think that the explicit content of video games encourages this. In GTA [Grand Theft Auto], players can drive close to prostitutes to engage their services. An encounter boosts the player’s health, but costs money; luckily, you can kill your prostitute afterwards and rob it back. ... The next generation--already buffeted towards extreme misogyny by Andrew Tate, incel culture and society’s utter saturation in porn--are living out these ideologies in cyberspace; 76% of boys in the UK aged 12-15 game online.”
MAN’S FALLEN NATURE (Friday Church News Notes, March 15, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The most fundamental thing in life is to understand God and man. As for man, he was created in God’s image, but he is fallen and corrupt because of his sin against God, beginning with the sin of the first man, Adam. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). Men like to think of themselves as good, but they aren’t. They are so unrighteous that they must be born again, Jesus said, or they will have their part in the lake of fire rather than the kingdom of God.
“And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5).
“The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Psalm 14:2-3).
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness” (Mark 7:21-22).
“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one ... there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Romans 3:10, 12).
“Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others” (Ephesians 2:3).
“For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another” (Titus 3:3).
YOUR BUSY LIVER (Friday Church News Notes, March 15, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, Feb. 12, 2024: “An adult human liver is about the size of a small football. It weighs about three pounds, making it the body’s largest internal organ. Tucked neatly beneath the ribs, your liver performs more than 500 different tasks. It is a vital link between your heart, lungs and digestive system. Inside the liver is a bewildering array of microscopic veins in which each drop of blood is processed. Here, blood conditions are constantly monitored to make sure that its chemistry meets strict standards. If more of some substances are needed in the blood, they are supplied. Useless chemicals are broken down into useful chemicals. Your liver makes proteins and corrects blood clotting factors. Your liver also sees to it that hormone balances are maintained and that poisons are neutralized. If substances are needed to fight an infection, your liver makes them and adds them to the bloodstream. Your liver also stores vitamins and minerals and prepares itself to provide your body with quick energy when you need it. In addition, the liver makes bile, which is essential for digestion. Structures like the liver have caused many evolutionists to abandon the idea that life is a result of millions of years of accidents. The liver is just too well-designed and integrated into the body to have been produced by purposelessness and mindlessness. As Scripture says, truly God has formed our inward parts! Ref: ‘The liver: the body’s refinery,’ Discover, Apr. 1984. p. 80.”
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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