Friday Church News Notes
Oct. 25, 2024 - Volume 25, Issue 43
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.
ONE-YEAR DISCIPLESHIP COURSE IN SPANISH (Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Way of Life Literature’s One-Year Discipleship Course is now available for free download in Spanish. This course features 52 lessons in Christian living. It can be broken into sections and used as a new converts’ course, a discipleship course, a Sunday School series, a home schooling or Bible Institute course, or for preaching outlines. The lessons are thorough and practical. There is an extensive memory verse program built into the course, and each lesson features carefully designed review questions. Following are some of the lesson titles: Repentance, Faith, the Gospel, Baptism, Eternal Security, Position and Practice, Law and Grace, Christian Growth and Spiritual Victory, Prayer, the Armor of God, the Church, the Bible, the Bible’s Proof, Daily Bible Study, Key Principles of Bible Interpretation, Foundational Bible Words, Knowing God’s Will, Making Wise Decisions, Christ’s Great Commission, Suffering in the Christian Life, the Judgment Seat of Christ, Separation - Moral, Separation - Doctrinal, Tests of Entertainment, Fasting, Miracles, a Biblical Testing Mindset, Tongues Speaking, the Rapture, How to Be Wise with Your Money, the Believer and Drinking, Abortion, Evolution, and Dressing for the Lord. One-Year Discipleship Course Spanish Edition.
FIRST KNOWN CONVICTION OF THOUGHT CRIME IN MODERN BRITISH HISTORY (Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Court Delivers,” The European Conservative, Oct. 16, 2024: “An army veteran has today been convicted for praying silently near an abortion clinic. Adam Smith-Connor, who served in Afghanistan, was prosecuted for breaching a ban on protests within a buffer zone around a clinic in Bournemouth, Dorset, in November 2022. His head was bowed and hands were clasped as he prayed for his unborn son Jacob, whom he now regrets aborting more than two decades ago. Reporting on the case, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) legal advocacy group said the conviction was ‘the first known conviction of a thoughtcrime in modern British history.’ It added that Smith-Connor must now pay £9,000 (€10,770) in legal costs to the prosecution, just for praying in his head for three minutes. ... The news comes as Keir Starmer’s Labour government is considering rolling out a ban on silent prayer outside abortion clinics. Ahead of the ruling, Lois McLatchie Miller, who is communications officer at ADF UK, described the case as ‘era-defining,’ adding: ‘Either you can be tried and convicted for the beliefs you hold in your head, or you can’t.’ It turns out that you can.” [CONCLUSION: Smith-Connor was convicted for praying in a restricted place. The British government will answer to God for legalizing the murder of unborn children and for restricting the protest of those who are opposed to it. The man’s prayers for his dead son are unscriptural and ineffectual. He needs to be born again by faith in the blood of Jesus Christ and to learn the sound doctrine of Scripture.]
IRISH TEACHER SENT BACK TO PRISON FOR REFUSING TO BOW TO TRANSGENDER IDEOLOGY (Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Irish Teacher,” Standing for Freedom, Oct. 17, 2024: “Irish schoolteacher Enoch Burke is one of many Christians who face persecution in Europe, in this case the Republic of Ireland, because he will not go along with the woke and trans mafia, which has been waging a full global propaganda campaign in the name of gender ideology. Going back to 2022 ... Burke was suspended and fired from his teaching job. He was issued a restraining order by the court barring him from entrance into Wilson’s Hospital School in Westmeath, Ireland. He was told his mere presence was ‘stressful’ and posed a public health and safety risk for children. What was his crime? Was Enoch Burke some kind of child predator or a deviant, one that needed to be imprisoned and kept away from children? No, Burke did something far worse than that by today’s moral standards. He refused to comply with the new rules of transgender ideology, refusing to play into the confusion by addressing his students by their preferred pronouns or using their chosen trans names. Instead, he committed the greatest sin imaginable: He has repeatedly told the truth. He even committed acts of blasphemy--again, today’s standards of blasphemy--by invoking Christian truth claims on gender and sexuality. Burke has already been fined over €250,000 ($271,164) so far and has spent over 400 days in jail. Just last week, a High Court judge ordered him back to jail, in his words, ‘with great reluctance,’ because Burke refuses to comply with the original court order that prohibits him access to Wilson’s Hospital School’s campus.”
WARNING ABOUT THE KJV COMMON MAN’S REFERENCE BIBLE (Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In a recent report entitled “Reference Bibles” we listed the KJV Common Man’s Reference Bible. While it does have some good features, we have received the following information from a dependable source that causes us to withdraw our recommendation: “I have discovered that the author of the footnotes and commentaries is a Ruckmanite. He mocks those who study the biblical languages by broad brushing them all as Alexandrian scholars. He believes in advanced revelation which means the KJV is superior than the Hebrew and Greek. He also believes in Ruckman’s heresy of different salvation plans based on different dispensations.”
FEDERAL COURT SAYS PARENTS HAVE RIGHT TO OPT CHILDREN OUT OF GENDER LESSONS (Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “A U.S. District Court judge has ruled that a teacher violated parents’ rights when she, without any notice or opportunity for the parents to opt out, read two books to first-grade students about gender ideology and told the children that parents guess a child’s gender at birth and sometimes make mistakes. The issue began March 31, 2022, when Megan Williams, a first-grade teacher at Jefferson Elementary School (part of the Mt. Lebanon School District in Pennsylvania) read two books--When Aidan Became a Brother and Introducing Teddy: A Gentle Story about Gender and Friendship--to children in her class for the purpose of teaching them about gender ideology. Williams has a child who is the same age as the students in her class, though he goes to a different school district. Some of the students knew her son through youth sports. At age 5, Williams’s son began wearing dresses and would sometimes say ‘I am a girl.’ The same week that Williams chose to read the books to the students, her son had said he wanted to have a pronoun change. ... The record shows that when the parents presented their concerns to Bielewicz and the school district, they were largely ignored. No one investigated the complaints or even interviewed teachers’ aides from the class, and messages show that there was never any realistic consideration of punishing Williams. Rather the principal and superintendent supported Williams and her decision to read the book and refused to create a written policy that would require that parents be notified of upcoming lessons on gender ideology and be given the chance to opt their children out. ... The plaintiffs filed suit claiming that the district had violated their right to direct the upbringing of their children, their right to the free exercise of religion, and their right to due process. U.S. District Court Judge Joy Flowers Conti has now ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.”
TESTIMONY ABOUT THE WAY OF LIFE COMMENTARY SERIES (Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “I’m in chapter 29 of Isaiah in my course through it. I have to tell you how useful your commentary on Isaiah is. Over the course of the first 29 chapters I’ve used probably 70% of your notes and cross references. It’s such a wealth of material already done and prepared and makes my work so much easier. The other 30% are my own cross references and comments. But without all of that carefully prepared material this would be so much more work. So thank you. It’s an excellent study, as I always expect from you based on my decades, now, experience of using your materials. I sometimes recommend commentators to the church. When I do I always recommend you. And I do it without reservation. I also recommend McGee, Ironside, Pentecost, Lehman Strauss and others at times. But with all of them I point out the issues with their theological positions. I never have to do that with your work and that’s a huge benefit.”
https://www.wayoflife.org/publications/all.php
TASTEFUL DATA PROCESSING (Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) The following is from CreationMoments.com, October 18, 2024: “Computer engineers are learning how to speed up computers and make them more efficient by using a number of processors instead of just one. They have also learned that designing computers that process some results and then send those results to another, larger processor for more complicated processing, helps them solve even more complicated problems. But computer scientists recognize that they were not the first to use this principle. Though these systems are much simpler than the human brain, they mirror the brain’s basic structure. God has filled His creatures with biological preprocessors. Even your tongue, scientists have now learned, has preprocessors to help your brain sense a multitude of flavors. The old theory that taste buds could only sense salt, sour, bitter and sweet has now been replaced by a more complete understanding. Each of your taste buds is made up of about 40 taste sensing cells that can detect each of the four flavors in various combinations. These cells communicate with each other, in effect deciding what signals to send to the brain about flavor. Your brain then further processes these signals before you learn that the chocolate ice cream you’re eating is extra tasty. Computer scientists have been applying their best knowledge for decades in order to arrive at computers that are this well designed. This helps illustrate the point that even our tongues were designed by a great intelligence so that we could have the blessing of taste. Notes: Weiss, Rick, ‘Taste buds engage in cross talk,’ Science News, Vol 136, #20, p. 317.”
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; Mt. 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” (Ro. 13:11-14).
FIRST KNOWN CONVICTION OF THOUGHT CRIME IN MODERN BRITISH HISTORY (Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Court Delivers,” The European Conservative, Oct. 16, 2024: “An army veteran has today been convicted for praying silently near an abortion clinic. Adam Smith-Connor, who served in Afghanistan, was prosecuted for breaching a ban on protests within a buffer zone around a clinic in Bournemouth, Dorset, in November 2022. His head was bowed and hands were clasped as he prayed for his unborn son Jacob, whom he now regrets aborting more than two decades ago. Reporting on the case, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) legal advocacy group said the conviction was ‘the first known conviction of a thoughtcrime in modern British history.’ It added that Smith-Connor must now pay £9,000 (€10,770) in legal costs to the prosecution, just for praying in his head for three minutes. ... The news comes as Keir Starmer’s Labour government is considering rolling out a ban on silent prayer outside abortion clinics. Ahead of the ruling, Lois McLatchie Miller, who is communications officer at ADF UK, described the case as ‘era-defining,’ adding: ‘Either you can be tried and convicted for the beliefs you hold in your head, or you can’t.’ It turns out that you can.” [CONCLUSION: Smith-Connor was convicted for praying in a restricted place. The British government will answer to God for legalizing the murder of unborn children and for restricting the protest of those who are opposed to it. The man’s prayers for his dead son are unscriptural and ineffectual. He needs to be born again by faith in the blood of Jesus Christ and to learn the sound doctrine of Scripture.]
IRISH TEACHER SENT BACK TO PRISON FOR REFUSING TO BOW TO TRANSGENDER IDEOLOGY (Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Irish Teacher,” Standing for Freedom, Oct. 17, 2024: “Irish schoolteacher Enoch Burke is one of many Christians who face persecution in Europe, in this case the Republic of Ireland, because he will not go along with the woke and trans mafia, which has been waging a full global propaganda campaign in the name of gender ideology. Going back to 2022 ... Burke was suspended and fired from his teaching job. He was issued a restraining order by the court barring him from entrance into Wilson’s Hospital School in Westmeath, Ireland. He was told his mere presence was ‘stressful’ and posed a public health and safety risk for children. What was his crime? Was Enoch Burke some kind of child predator or a deviant, one that needed to be imprisoned and kept away from children? No, Burke did something far worse than that by today’s moral standards. He refused to comply with the new rules of transgender ideology, refusing to play into the confusion by addressing his students by their preferred pronouns or using their chosen trans names. Instead, he committed the greatest sin imaginable: He has repeatedly told the truth. He even committed acts of blasphemy--again, today’s standards of blasphemy--by invoking Christian truth claims on gender and sexuality. Burke has already been fined over €250,000 ($271,164) so far and has spent over 400 days in jail. Just last week, a High Court judge ordered him back to jail, in his words, ‘with great reluctance,’ because Burke refuses to comply with the original court order that prohibits him access to Wilson’s Hospital School’s campus.”
WARNING ABOUT THE KJV COMMON MAN’S REFERENCE BIBLE (Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In a recent report entitled “Reference Bibles” we listed the KJV Common Man’s Reference Bible. While it does have some good features, we have received the following information from a dependable source that causes us to withdraw our recommendation: “I have discovered that the author of the footnotes and commentaries is a Ruckmanite. He mocks those who study the biblical languages by broad brushing them all as Alexandrian scholars. He believes in advanced revelation which means the KJV is superior than the Hebrew and Greek. He also believes in Ruckman’s heresy of different salvation plans based on different dispensations.”
FEDERAL COURT SAYS PARENTS HAVE RIGHT TO OPT CHILDREN OUT OF GENDER LESSONS (Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “A U.S. District Court judge has ruled that a teacher violated parents’ rights when she, without any notice or opportunity for the parents to opt out, read two books to first-grade students about gender ideology and told the children that parents guess a child’s gender at birth and sometimes make mistakes. The issue began March 31, 2022, when Megan Williams, a first-grade teacher at Jefferson Elementary School (part of the Mt. Lebanon School District in Pennsylvania) read two books--When Aidan Became a Brother and Introducing Teddy: A Gentle Story about Gender and Friendship--to children in her class for the purpose of teaching them about gender ideology. Williams has a child who is the same age as the students in her class, though he goes to a different school district. Some of the students knew her son through youth sports. At age 5, Williams’s son began wearing dresses and would sometimes say ‘I am a girl.’ The same week that Williams chose to read the books to the students, her son had said he wanted to have a pronoun change. ... The record shows that when the parents presented their concerns to Bielewicz and the school district, they were largely ignored. No one investigated the complaints or even interviewed teachers’ aides from the class, and messages show that there was never any realistic consideration of punishing Williams. Rather the principal and superintendent supported Williams and her decision to read the book and refused to create a written policy that would require that parents be notified of upcoming lessons on gender ideology and be given the chance to opt their children out. ... The plaintiffs filed suit claiming that the district had violated their right to direct the upbringing of their children, their right to the free exercise of religion, and their right to due process. U.S. District Court Judge Joy Flowers Conti has now ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.”
TESTIMONY ABOUT THE WAY OF LIFE COMMENTARY SERIES (Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “I’m in chapter 29 of Isaiah in my course through it. I have to tell you how useful your commentary on Isaiah is. Over the course of the first 29 chapters I’ve used probably 70% of your notes and cross references. It’s such a wealth of material already done and prepared and makes my work so much easier. The other 30% are my own cross references and comments. But without all of that carefully prepared material this would be so much more work. So thank you. It’s an excellent study, as I always expect from you based on my decades, now, experience of using your materials. I sometimes recommend commentators to the church. When I do I always recommend you. And I do it without reservation. I also recommend McGee, Ironside, Pentecost, Lehman Strauss and others at times. But with all of them I point out the issues with their theological positions. I never have to do that with your work and that’s a huge benefit.”
https://www.wayoflife.org/publications/all.php
TASTEFUL DATA PROCESSING (Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) The following is from CreationMoments.com, October 18, 2024: “Computer engineers are learning how to speed up computers and make them more efficient by using a number of processors instead of just one. They have also learned that designing computers that process some results and then send those results to another, larger processor for more complicated processing, helps them solve even more complicated problems. But computer scientists recognize that they were not the first to use this principle. Though these systems are much simpler than the human brain, they mirror the brain’s basic structure. God has filled His creatures with biological preprocessors. Even your tongue, scientists have now learned, has preprocessors to help your brain sense a multitude of flavors. The old theory that taste buds could only sense salt, sour, bitter and sweet has now been replaced by a more complete understanding. Each of your taste buds is made up of about 40 taste sensing cells that can detect each of the four flavors in various combinations. These cells communicate with each other, in effect deciding what signals to send to the brain about flavor. Your brain then further processes these signals before you learn that the chocolate ice cream you’re eating is extra tasty. Computer scientists have been applying their best knowledge for decades in order to arrive at computers that are this well designed. This helps illustrate the point that even our tongues were designed by a great intelligence so that we could have the blessing of taste. Notes: Weiss, Rick, ‘Taste buds engage in cross talk,’ Science News, Vol 136, #20, p. 317.”
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; Mt. 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” (Ro. 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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