Friday Church News Notes
September 13, 2024 - Volume 25, Issue 37
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.
CHURCH MEMBER PUZZLED OVER LACK OF SPECIAL PRAYER FOR THE NATION (Friday Church News Notes, September 13, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In former times, churches in America, both Protestant and Baptist, had days of fasting and prayer for the nation. The first president, backed by Congress, called for national days of fasting and prayer, and the churches rose to the occasion, not with feasting and playing, but with true confession, repentance, and earnest prayer. God answered with the Second Great Awakening. Many of the founding fathers attributed earnest prayer as a major factor in the fledgling nation’s military success over Britain, the world’s mightiest power at the time, and success in forming an effectual national government from the ever-bickering 13 colonies. That was the last half of the 18th century and first half of the 19th. The 21st is an entirely different matter. Even most of the “best” churches, the most biblical, are Sardis, with a name that they live but they are dead when measured by the bright light of Scripture. One clear evidence is in the matter of prayer. On July 19, we posted a notice in Friday News that a church in Idaho has determined to have a day of corporate fasting and prayer for the nation every Friday until the presidential election and a special prayer meeting each Friday evening. This week I received the following testimony from a member of that church: “We’ve been having our prayer and fasting every Friday. Pastor has tried to get other churches to do it also. None he’s contacted have yet. Most say ‘Great idea. I could never get our people to do that.’ It surprises me. I thought people would jump at the chance to gather and pray exclusively for the country. I’d bet others are somewhere. But if so I don’t know about them and Pastor has a lot of church contacts in the south. Isn’t it an odd thing? I honestly do not understand the resistance to it. It makes absolutely no sense to refuse to seriously gather and beg the Lord for mercy for our country. I know all of us are lazy to some degree. But this seems simple and easy to do. And obviously needed. I’m baffled by the refusal to do it. When I have a problem I go to God. First thing. Our country has a serious problem. It seems obvious we need Him to intervene and aid us. We have been working seven days a week preparing for the changeover in our law practice on October 1 so I can meet my client duties and we can get a private practice going. ... But we have no problem managing that around our church obligations and meetings. I just don’t understand it.” Friends, don’t be deceived. A true New Testament church is a praying church. “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). By that standard, there are very, very, very few New Testament churches by any name.
COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF CHRISTIAN TEACHER FORCED OUT FOR REFUSING TO USE PREFERRED PRONOUNS (Friday Church News Notes, September 13, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Federal court rules,” Standing for Freedom, Sept. 6, 2024: “In a win for free expression and religious liberty, an Ohio school district is scolded for compelling a teacher --at the cost of her job--to say words and advance ideas that went against her deeply held religious beliefs. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio Eastern Division last month ruled that a local school district violated the First Amendment rights of a Christian teacher when it forced her to use students’ preferred pronouns. Vivian Geraghty, who took a job in 2021 as a long-term substitute teacher at Jackson Memorial Middle School in Massillon, Ohio, resigned a year later after the school told her she had to address two transgender students by pronouns that didn’t line up with their biological sex. Geraghty, who is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, argued in court filings that the use of pronouns that did not reflect the sex listed on the student’s birth certificate would require her to ‘embrace the concept of gender identity against her religious belief that God created two unchanging sexes, male and female.’ ... Officials with the Jackson Local School District then called Geraghty to a series of meetings, leading up to the school’s principal asking for her resignation letter if she continued to refuse to address the students the way the school wanted her to. Judge Pamela Barker [wrote in] her decision that district officials had ‘compelled Geraghty to use the students’ preferred names and pronouns’ and, by doing so, required the teacher ‘to utter what was not in her mind about a question of political and religious significance.’”
MORE COMPANIES ABANDONING DEI (Friday Church News Notes, September 13, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - DEI, which stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion, but actually shows favoritism toward select groups of people, is being abandoned by a growing number of American companies, including John Deere, Harley Davidson, Lowe’s, and Tractor Supply. This month Ford motor company CEO Jim Farley sent a letter to its employees stating that Ford does not utilize quotas in hiring, instead prioritizing its resources for business purposes. The letter also stated that the company will not comment on the polarizing issues of the day and will no longer participate in the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, which is a survey used to gauge a company’s support for homosexual policies (“Ford walks back ‘woke’ DEI policies,” Fox News, Aug. 20, 2024). Lowe’s home improvement chain also announced that it is ending its participation in surveys for the Human Rights Campaign. Previously, the company had boasted of its support for homosexual rights and sponsorship of Gay Pride Month (“Lowe’s drops some DEI policies,” Fox News, Aug. 27, 2024).
UNITED METHODIST HOMOSEXUAL HERITAGE CENTER (Friday Church News Notes, September 13, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The United Methodist Church recently voted to lift its longstanding ban on “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” serving as clergy. Now it has announced a new Center for LGBTQ+ United Methodist Heritage. The press release said, “Stories, songs, exhibits, and a special film screening are part of the festivities when the new Center for LGBTQ+ United Methodist Heritage holds its Kickoff Celebration on Wednesday, Oct. 23, at Craig Chapel on the Drew University campus.” Karen Oliveto, the first lesbian bishop, will be present. A documentary “tried to claim that homosexuality was not a sin in the Bible until translations added it in 1946” (“United Methodist Church’s New LGBTQ Heritage Center,” PJMedia, Sept. 4, 2024). This is nonsense, of course, as the King James Bible of 1611 described same-sex relationships as an abomination, vile affections, unseemly, and a reprobate mind. “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is ABOMINATION” (Leviticus 18:22). “For this cause God gave them up unto VILE AFFECTIONS: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is AGAINST NATURE: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, BURNED IN THEIR LUST one toward another; men with men working that which is UNSEEMLY, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their ERROR which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to A REPROBATE MIND, to do those things which are NOT CONVENIENT” (Romans 1:26-28). The same Bible prophesies of false Christians such as the United Methodists. “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. ... Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children” (2 Peter 2:1, 2, 14).
KARL MARX AND GOD (Friday Church News Notes, September 13, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Karl Marx, a chief father of Socialism, raged against God with the most frightful blasphemies. Consider some excerpts from his writings: “I wish to avenge myself against the One who rules above” (Marx, cited from Richard Wurmbrand, Marx and Satan, p. 12). “I am great like God, I clothe myself in darkness like him” (Marx, a poem sent to his father on his 55th birthday). Marx’s play Oulanem gloried in the destruction of the world. “If there is a something which devours, I’ll leap within it, though I bring the world to ruins--the world which bulks between me and the abyss I will smash to pieces with my enduring curses.” Marx considered religion “the opiate of the people” (Contribution to Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, 1843). Marx believed the very concept of God is a hindrance to human development. The Communist Manifesto announces a war to the death against absolute truth, religion, and morality: “Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality.”
VOODOO ASPIRIN (Friday Church News Notes, September 13, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, August 23, 2024: “When they flower, some plants actually generate their own heat. The voodoo lily can raise its temperature by 25 degrees. As it does so, it releases a scent that attracts the beetles that pollinate it. When the voodoo lily generates heat, it burns starch in a way similar to our own bodies. Scientists weren’t sure how voodoo lilies generated their heat and scent until only a couple decades ago. Once they unraveled the complex chemical reactions going on within the plant, they found unexpected surprises. They discovered that a component of aspirin is responsible for raising the lily’s temperature. They remain puzzled about why salicylic acid should lower our temperature, yet raise the temperature of the plant. Scientists were also amazed when they discovered how many separate complex chemical reactions take place to produce a chemical symphony that helps the lily reproduce. Not only does the lily make its own aspirin, it also makes the same chemicals that are found in the rotting meat that its pollinator beetles feed on. The rising temperature of the plant evaporates the chemicals, creating a scent that attracts the beetles. As the beetles look for food in the flower, they become covered with pollen, which will be delivered to the next lily they visit. The voodoo lily is an example of how, even in the plant kingdom, there is no such thing as a simple life form. As this plant duplicates several of the processes taking place in animals, we see that all life was created at about the same time by one Designer! Notes: ‘Do Do That Voodoo That You Do So Well,’ Discover, Feb. 1988, p. 10.”
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).
COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF CHRISTIAN TEACHER FORCED OUT FOR REFUSING TO USE PREFERRED PRONOUNS (Friday Church News Notes, September 13, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Federal court rules,” Standing for Freedom, Sept. 6, 2024: “In a win for free expression and religious liberty, an Ohio school district is scolded for compelling a teacher --at the cost of her job--to say words and advance ideas that went against her deeply held religious beliefs. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio Eastern Division last month ruled that a local school district violated the First Amendment rights of a Christian teacher when it forced her to use students’ preferred pronouns. Vivian Geraghty, who took a job in 2021 as a long-term substitute teacher at Jackson Memorial Middle School in Massillon, Ohio, resigned a year later after the school told her she had to address two transgender students by pronouns that didn’t line up with their biological sex. Geraghty, who is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, argued in court filings that the use of pronouns that did not reflect the sex listed on the student’s birth certificate would require her to ‘embrace the concept of gender identity against her religious belief that God created two unchanging sexes, male and female.’ ... Officials with the Jackson Local School District then called Geraghty to a series of meetings, leading up to the school’s principal asking for her resignation letter if she continued to refuse to address the students the way the school wanted her to. Judge Pamela Barker [wrote in] her decision that district officials had ‘compelled Geraghty to use the students’ preferred names and pronouns’ and, by doing so, required the teacher ‘to utter what was not in her mind about a question of political and religious significance.’”
MORE COMPANIES ABANDONING DEI (Friday Church News Notes, September 13, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - DEI, which stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion, but actually shows favoritism toward select groups of people, is being abandoned by a growing number of American companies, including John Deere, Harley Davidson, Lowe’s, and Tractor Supply. This month Ford motor company CEO Jim Farley sent a letter to its employees stating that Ford does not utilize quotas in hiring, instead prioritizing its resources for business purposes. The letter also stated that the company will not comment on the polarizing issues of the day and will no longer participate in the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, which is a survey used to gauge a company’s support for homosexual policies (“Ford walks back ‘woke’ DEI policies,” Fox News, Aug. 20, 2024). Lowe’s home improvement chain also announced that it is ending its participation in surveys for the Human Rights Campaign. Previously, the company had boasted of its support for homosexual rights and sponsorship of Gay Pride Month (“Lowe’s drops some DEI policies,” Fox News, Aug. 27, 2024).
UNITED METHODIST HOMOSEXUAL HERITAGE CENTER (Friday Church News Notes, September 13, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The United Methodist Church recently voted to lift its longstanding ban on “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” serving as clergy. Now it has announced a new Center for LGBTQ+ United Methodist Heritage. The press release said, “Stories, songs, exhibits, and a special film screening are part of the festivities when the new Center for LGBTQ+ United Methodist Heritage holds its Kickoff Celebration on Wednesday, Oct. 23, at Craig Chapel on the Drew University campus.” Karen Oliveto, the first lesbian bishop, will be present. A documentary “tried to claim that homosexuality was not a sin in the Bible until translations added it in 1946” (“United Methodist Church’s New LGBTQ Heritage Center,” PJMedia, Sept. 4, 2024). This is nonsense, of course, as the King James Bible of 1611 described same-sex relationships as an abomination, vile affections, unseemly, and a reprobate mind. “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is ABOMINATION” (Leviticus 18:22). “For this cause God gave them up unto VILE AFFECTIONS: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is AGAINST NATURE: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, BURNED IN THEIR LUST one toward another; men with men working that which is UNSEEMLY, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their ERROR which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to A REPROBATE MIND, to do those things which are NOT CONVENIENT” (Romans 1:26-28). The same Bible prophesies of false Christians such as the United Methodists. “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. ... Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children” (2 Peter 2:1, 2, 14).
KARL MARX AND GOD (Friday Church News Notes, September 13, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Karl Marx, a chief father of Socialism, raged against God with the most frightful blasphemies. Consider some excerpts from his writings: “I wish to avenge myself against the One who rules above” (Marx, cited from Richard Wurmbrand, Marx and Satan, p. 12). “I am great like God, I clothe myself in darkness like him” (Marx, a poem sent to his father on his 55th birthday). Marx’s play Oulanem gloried in the destruction of the world. “If there is a something which devours, I’ll leap within it, though I bring the world to ruins--the world which bulks between me and the abyss I will smash to pieces with my enduring curses.” Marx considered religion “the opiate of the people” (Contribution to Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, 1843). Marx believed the very concept of God is a hindrance to human development. The Communist Manifesto announces a war to the death against absolute truth, religion, and morality: “Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality.”
VOODOO ASPIRIN (Friday Church News Notes, September 13, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, August 23, 2024: “When they flower, some plants actually generate their own heat. The voodoo lily can raise its temperature by 25 degrees. As it does so, it releases a scent that attracts the beetles that pollinate it. When the voodoo lily generates heat, it burns starch in a way similar to our own bodies. Scientists weren’t sure how voodoo lilies generated their heat and scent until only a couple decades ago. Once they unraveled the complex chemical reactions going on within the plant, they found unexpected surprises. They discovered that a component of aspirin is responsible for raising the lily’s temperature. They remain puzzled about why salicylic acid should lower our temperature, yet raise the temperature of the plant. Scientists were also amazed when they discovered how many separate complex chemical reactions take place to produce a chemical symphony that helps the lily reproduce. Not only does the lily make its own aspirin, it also makes the same chemicals that are found in the rotting meat that its pollinator beetles feed on. The rising temperature of the plant evaporates the chemicals, creating a scent that attracts the beetles. As the beetles look for food in the flower, they become covered with pollen, which will be delivered to the next lily they visit. The voodoo lily is an example of how, even in the plant kingdom, there is no such thing as a simple life form. As this plant duplicates several of the processes taking place in animals, we see that all life was created at about the same time by one Designer! Notes: ‘Do Do That Voodoo That You Do So Well,’ Discover, Feb. 1988, p. 10.”
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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