Friday Church News Notes
June 28, 2024 - Volume 25, Issue 26
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.
ROCK & ROLL’S BILLION DOLLAR DEAL (Friday Church News Notes, June 28, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The music catalog of the rock band Queen has been purchased by Sony Music for US $1.2 billion, exhibiting the immense influence of music in the global pop culture. It isn’t just music or entertainment; it is a philosophy of live as you please. It is global rebellion against God and His Christ. It is Psalm 2. It is the people vainly imagining that they can break God’s bands asunder and cast away His cords, referring to His holy laws. That Queen’s music is of such immense financial value is telling. The name “queen” refers to a homosexual. The band’s lead singer, Freddy Mercury (real name Frederick Bulsara), was queen incarnate. He said, “We want to shock and be outrageous” (Circus, April 1974), and many of their songs are appropriately filthy. He whipped “concert audiences into a frenzy with erotic body contortions” (Larson’s Book of Rock, p. 179). Mercury said he felt like a devil on stage (David Noebel, The Legacy of John Lennon, p. 100). Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” is a proclamation of the band’s bankrupt philosophy: “I’m easy come, easy go, little high, little low, any way the wind blows doesn’t really matter to me. ... Beelzebub has a devil set aside for me, for me, for me.” Some of Queen’s hard-rocking songs are used as rock anthems in sports stadiums, revealing the intimate connection between filthy rock and sports. These include “We Will Rock You,” “We Are Champions,” and “Another One Bites the Dust.” “We Are the Champions” is an unofficial anthem of the homosexual liberation movement. Mercury lived extravagantly on the wages of sin in a $6-million-dollar, 28-room mansion but died of AIDS at age 45. Five months after his death, 72,000 fans of this lascivious rock musician gathered for a memorial at London’s Wembley Stadium that featured Elton John, David Bowie, Annie Lennox, Axl Rose, and other anti-God, anti-Christ rock stars. It was estimated that one billion people viewed the event on television worldwide. At the time it was the “largest ever worldwide viewing audience” for a televised event. Biblical repentance entails renunciation of evil, and if rock & roll isn’t evil, nothing is. Pastors who are silent in the face of this evil will answer to the holy God they profess to serve. A shepherd’s fundamental job is to feed the flock and protect it from wolves. “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).
SPORTS “LIKE A DRUG” (Friday Church News Notes, June 28, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - A Washington Times June 20 report on the surging popularity of sports in America is titled “Like a Drug.” “Ticket prices are soaring, leagues are expanding, legalized betting is exploding, and ratings are higher than ever. Sports are everywhere, all the time, and Americans still can’t get enough. Ninety-three of the top 100 TV broadcasts last year were NFL games. ... Ms. Gerber’s group [Hadassa Gerber, chief research officer of the Television Bureau of Advertising] reported that 82% of February survey respondents said they watched sports on local television at least once a week. This didn’t account for the added viewers on cable channels or streaming services. ... The current trends mirror the Roaring ’20s, said George Washington University sports management professor Lisa Delpy Neirotti. After staying inside for two years because of the 1918 influenza pandemic, Americans enthusiastically ushered in the 1920s with lavish parties and new music” (Washington Times, June 20, 2024). CONCLUSION: The comparison to “a drug” is instructive. Sports is addictive and therefore must be handled with extreme caution by those who want to redeem the time for Jesus Christ. Professional sports is also intertwined with “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” which is the Bible’s definition of worldliness (1 John 2:16). The “roaring 20s” was the big party before the financial crash of the 30s and the military crash of the 40s. Well, the Crash of crashes is on the horizon, and it will make the previous crashes seem like child’s play in comparison, and the world is blissfully partying, as are most churches. The world has no excuse, because the world abides in darkness, but God’s redeemed people should know better than to waste fleeting hours on vanity. Yet that’s exactly what we see in most “Bible-believing” churches. The church members are as crazy for sports and social media vanity as their unsaved neighbors. And while God’s people party, the families grow ever weaker and the youth are in terrible shape, spiritually. Most churches have only a vague semblance to the New Testament assembly. Instead of a holy, pilgrim, discipling program, it is a party program with a veneer of Christianity. Listen to the people’s conversation before and after the services, and you will see where their hearts really are. Pastors must wake up and do a lot of repenting and changing of directions. “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (James 4:8-10).
ANTIOCH SUFFERS DESTRUCTION FROM EARTHQUAKE (Friday Church News Notes, June 28, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Antioch, the location of the first missionary-sending church, was devastated by the powerful earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria in February 2023. The ruins of the city of Paul’s day lie mostly beneath the modern city of Antakya. Destroyed were the 7th century Habib Najjar Mosque and the 14th century St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church. The Hatay Archaeology Museum, which houses Roman mosaics and other artifacts from ancient times, survived largely intact (“Devastation in Antakya,” Biblical Archaeology Society, June 19, 2024). Antioch, located about 300 miles north of Jerusalem, is situated on the bank of the Orontes River about 15 miles from the Mediterranean Sea and the port city of Seleucia. In Paul’s day, Antioch was a prominent city in the Roman province of Syria. It was a major center of commerce located on the main north-south and east-west roads that connected India and Mesopotamia (Persia, Babylon, Assyria) in the east with Asia Minor and Greece and Italy in the west and Africa and Egypt to the south. Overland caravans and ships provided the city with goods from across the world. With a population of 100,000 to 300,000, Antioch was the third largest city in the empire, after Rome and Alexandria. It was the seat of the Greek Seleucid dynasty, which produced Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 BC), the Antichrist forerunner who desecrated the Jerusalem temple in 168 BC. The church at Antioch remained an important church for 500 years, though it eventually left its founding doctrine. After the fourth century, when the Christianizing of the Roman Empire and the apostasy produced territorial bishops, Antioch was one of the five major centers of Christianity, together with Jerusalem, Rome, Alexandria, and Constantinople. Though most of the ruins of the ancient city are buried beneath thick deposits from the flooding of the Orontes River over the centuries, archaeological work was carried out from 1932 to 1939 by Princeton University’s Department of Art and Archaeology. Discoveries include ruins of the Roman theater, the Cardo Maximus, the temple of Aphrodite, the temple of Jupiter, the Tetraptylon, and a large number of fine mosaic floors from private and public buildings in the Roman era. (See the free PowerPoint series Cities and Places of the Bible, more than 2,100 slides in 45 presentations, www.wayoflife.org.)
ENGLAND BECOMING A MUSLIM NATION (Friday Church News Notes, June 28, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “World-Historical Transformation Is Taking Place in Britain,” PJMedia, June 8, 2024: “A world-historical societal transformation is taking place before our very eyes, and yet few have taken notice. Britain, the erstwhile leader of the Western world and the foundation and source of English-speaking civilization, is in its last days as a free society, and will soon become an Islamic state. ... The English actor-turned-political-activist Lawrence Fox recently noted what was happening: ‘The Mayor of London is a Muslim. The mayor of Birmingham is a Muslim. The Mayor of Leeds is Muslim. Mayor of Blackburn is a Muslim. The mayor of Sheffield is a Muslim. The mayor of Oxford is a Muslim. The mayor of Luton is a Muslim. The mayor of Oldham is Muslim. The mayor of Rochdale is Muslim. All this was achieved by only 4 million Muslims out of 66 million people in England.’ Fox continued: ‘Today there are over 3,000 mosques in England. There are over 130 sharia courts. There are more than 50 Sharia Councils. 78 percent of Muslim women do not work, receive state support + free accommodation. 63 percent of Muslims do not work, receive state support + free housing. State-supported Muslim families with an average of 6 to 8 children receive free accommodation. Now every school in the UK is required to teach lessons about Islam. Has anyone ever been given an opportunity to vote for this?’ ... Muslim rape gangs ... victimized thousands of non-Muslim girls for years, and still operate with relative impunity. The BBC reported in 2014 that at least 1,400 children were subjected to appalling sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, and British officials did nothing.’”
ANT MATHEMATICS (Friday Church News Notes, June 28, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, June 17, 2024: “Can ants count? It seems so! When scout ants find an item of food, they take it back to the nest. If the food item is especially good but too big to carry, the scout will return to the nest to get help. Scientists have discovered that ants apparently size up the task ahead before getting help so they can return with enough help, but not too much. One scientist cut a dead grasshopper into three pieces. The second piece was twice the size of the first, and the third was twice the size of the second. He then left the pieces in different locations where ants were sure to find them. He watched as each piece was discovered by a scout, inspected, and each scout returned to the nest for help. When the scout returned with help, the scientist counted the number of ants working at each piece of the grasshopper. The smallest piece had 28 ants working on it. The piece that was twice its size had 44 ants working on it. And how many ants do you think were working on the piece that was twice the size of the second piece? If you doubled that 44 to 88, you would be within one of being right. There were 89 ants working to return it to the nest! We can’t help but conclude that mathematical ability is part of the ants’ amazing ability to plan and carry out a task! They were doing nothing more than what their Creator taught them as they followed the planning principle Jesus reminds us of in Luke 14:28--count the cost of the project before you begin it!”
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).
SPORTS “LIKE A DRUG” (Friday Church News Notes, June 28, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - A Washington Times June 20 report on the surging popularity of sports in America is titled “Like a Drug.” “Ticket prices are soaring, leagues are expanding, legalized betting is exploding, and ratings are higher than ever. Sports are everywhere, all the time, and Americans still can’t get enough. Ninety-three of the top 100 TV broadcasts last year were NFL games. ... Ms. Gerber’s group [Hadassa Gerber, chief research officer of the Television Bureau of Advertising] reported that 82% of February survey respondents said they watched sports on local television at least once a week. This didn’t account for the added viewers on cable channels or streaming services. ... The current trends mirror the Roaring ’20s, said George Washington University sports management professor Lisa Delpy Neirotti. After staying inside for two years because of the 1918 influenza pandemic, Americans enthusiastically ushered in the 1920s with lavish parties and new music” (Washington Times, June 20, 2024). CONCLUSION: The comparison to “a drug” is instructive. Sports is addictive and therefore must be handled with extreme caution by those who want to redeem the time for Jesus Christ. Professional sports is also intertwined with “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” which is the Bible’s definition of worldliness (1 John 2:16). The “roaring 20s” was the big party before the financial crash of the 30s and the military crash of the 40s. Well, the Crash of crashes is on the horizon, and it will make the previous crashes seem like child’s play in comparison, and the world is blissfully partying, as are most churches. The world has no excuse, because the world abides in darkness, but God’s redeemed people should know better than to waste fleeting hours on vanity. Yet that’s exactly what we see in most “Bible-believing” churches. The church members are as crazy for sports and social media vanity as their unsaved neighbors. And while God’s people party, the families grow ever weaker and the youth are in terrible shape, spiritually. Most churches have only a vague semblance to the New Testament assembly. Instead of a holy, pilgrim, discipling program, it is a party program with a veneer of Christianity. Listen to the people’s conversation before and after the services, and you will see where their hearts really are. Pastors must wake up and do a lot of repenting and changing of directions. “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (James 4:8-10).
ANTIOCH SUFFERS DESTRUCTION FROM EARTHQUAKE (Friday Church News Notes, June 28, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Antioch, the location of the first missionary-sending church, was devastated by the powerful earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria in February 2023. The ruins of the city of Paul’s day lie mostly beneath the modern city of Antakya. Destroyed were the 7th century Habib Najjar Mosque and the 14th century St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church. The Hatay Archaeology Museum, which houses Roman mosaics and other artifacts from ancient times, survived largely intact (“Devastation in Antakya,” Biblical Archaeology Society, June 19, 2024). Antioch, located about 300 miles north of Jerusalem, is situated on the bank of the Orontes River about 15 miles from the Mediterranean Sea and the port city of Seleucia. In Paul’s day, Antioch was a prominent city in the Roman province of Syria. It was a major center of commerce located on the main north-south and east-west roads that connected India and Mesopotamia (Persia, Babylon, Assyria) in the east with Asia Minor and Greece and Italy in the west and Africa and Egypt to the south. Overland caravans and ships provided the city with goods from across the world. With a population of 100,000 to 300,000, Antioch was the third largest city in the empire, after Rome and Alexandria. It was the seat of the Greek Seleucid dynasty, which produced Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 BC), the Antichrist forerunner who desecrated the Jerusalem temple in 168 BC. The church at Antioch remained an important church for 500 years, though it eventually left its founding doctrine. After the fourth century, when the Christianizing of the Roman Empire and the apostasy produced territorial bishops, Antioch was one of the five major centers of Christianity, together with Jerusalem, Rome, Alexandria, and Constantinople. Though most of the ruins of the ancient city are buried beneath thick deposits from the flooding of the Orontes River over the centuries, archaeological work was carried out from 1932 to 1939 by Princeton University’s Department of Art and Archaeology. Discoveries include ruins of the Roman theater, the Cardo Maximus, the temple of Aphrodite, the temple of Jupiter, the Tetraptylon, and a large number of fine mosaic floors from private and public buildings in the Roman era. (See the free PowerPoint series Cities and Places of the Bible, more than 2,100 slides in 45 presentations, www.wayoflife.org.)
ENGLAND BECOMING A MUSLIM NATION (Friday Church News Notes, June 28, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “World-Historical Transformation Is Taking Place in Britain,” PJMedia, June 8, 2024: “A world-historical societal transformation is taking place before our very eyes, and yet few have taken notice. Britain, the erstwhile leader of the Western world and the foundation and source of English-speaking civilization, is in its last days as a free society, and will soon become an Islamic state. ... The English actor-turned-political-activist Lawrence Fox recently noted what was happening: ‘The Mayor of London is a Muslim. The mayor of Birmingham is a Muslim. The Mayor of Leeds is Muslim. Mayor of Blackburn is a Muslim. The mayor of Sheffield is a Muslim. The mayor of Oxford is a Muslim. The mayor of Luton is a Muslim. The mayor of Oldham is Muslim. The mayor of Rochdale is Muslim. All this was achieved by only 4 million Muslims out of 66 million people in England.’ Fox continued: ‘Today there are over 3,000 mosques in England. There are over 130 sharia courts. There are more than 50 Sharia Councils. 78 percent of Muslim women do not work, receive state support + free accommodation. 63 percent of Muslims do not work, receive state support + free housing. State-supported Muslim families with an average of 6 to 8 children receive free accommodation. Now every school in the UK is required to teach lessons about Islam. Has anyone ever been given an opportunity to vote for this?’ ... Muslim rape gangs ... victimized thousands of non-Muslim girls for years, and still operate with relative impunity. The BBC reported in 2014 that at least 1,400 children were subjected to appalling sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, and British officials did nothing.’”
ANT MATHEMATICS (Friday Church News Notes, June 28, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, June 17, 2024: “Can ants count? It seems so! When scout ants find an item of food, they take it back to the nest. If the food item is especially good but too big to carry, the scout will return to the nest to get help. Scientists have discovered that ants apparently size up the task ahead before getting help so they can return with enough help, but not too much. One scientist cut a dead grasshopper into three pieces. The second piece was twice the size of the first, and the third was twice the size of the second. He then left the pieces in different locations where ants were sure to find them. He watched as each piece was discovered by a scout, inspected, and each scout returned to the nest for help. When the scout returned with help, the scientist counted the number of ants working at each piece of the grasshopper. The smallest piece had 28 ants working on it. The piece that was twice its size had 44 ants working on it. And how many ants do you think were working on the piece that was twice the size of the second piece? If you doubled that 44 to 88, you would be within one of being right. There were 89 ants working to return it to the nest! We can’t help but conclude that mathematical ability is part of the ants’ amazing ability to plan and carry out a task! They were doing nothing more than what their Creator taught them as they followed the planning principle Jesus reminds us of in Luke 14:28--count the cost of the project before you begin it!”
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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