Friday Church News Notes
December 27, 2024 - Volume 25, Issue 52
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.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
EINSTEIN’S GOAL (Friday Church News Notes, December 27, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “Albert Einstein once said, ‘I want to know God’s thoughts in a mathematical way.’ Einstein wanted an equation, perhaps no more than one inch long, that would encapsulate all physical laws, the beauty, the majesty, the power of the universe into a single equation. That was his life’s goal” (“Einstein,” History Channel). Einstein, a Jew by heritage, was a brilliant man who had a gift of understanding “natural” laws, and he knew that those laws required a Designer, but according to his own testimony he never knew that Designer because he rejected the Designer’s Revelation. The Bible doesn’t encapsulate the mysteries of the universe in a mathematical equation, but it does encapsulate those mysteries in pithy statements that will require an eternity to fully understand. Like this one: “God ... hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:1-3). In these 70 simple words, 58 of which are a mere one syllable and 51 of which are four letters or less, we learn the answer to the most important questions of life and the greatest mysteries of the universe. We learn that there is a God. The Bible doesn’t try to prove God’s existence, because His existence is evident in His work. A universe that must be described in terms of “beauty, majesty, complexity, and power” requires a beautiful, majestic, complex, powerful Author. God gave man enough sense to know that, unless the man corrupts his own reason through rebellion. We learn, too, that God has a Son, and that Son is the express image of His person, and that Son is the Creator. We learn that God has so much affection for man that His Son died on the cross to purchase the atonement for man’s sin. We learn that the Son is currently sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and that the Son upholds all things by the word of His power. The word “uphold” is also translated “to carry” and “to bear.” Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, the Creator, bears this universe by His almighty power. The “God particle” is God Himself (not that the creation is God, of course). Thank the Lord that one doesn’t have to have the mental brilliance of an Einstein to know this lovely God. He only has to humble himself and repent of his sin and put his faith in Jesus Christ as his only Lord and Saviour.
SEEKER’S EVANGELISTIC BIBLE STUDY (Friday Church News Notes, December 27, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Seekers Bible Study is an evangelistic Bible course for use by individuals, homes, and churches. It begins with a study of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, dealing with the Bible, Christ, sin, Jesus’ atoning death, Jesus’ burial and bodily resurrection. This is followed by practical studies on repentance and faith. The last section answers the question, “When Is Jesus Coming?” There are review questions for each section. The Seeker’s Bible Study is designed especially to be used as a multi-week, one-on-one course. In our church, we assign a qualified believer to go through the course with every willing visitor. The teacher is instructed to try to grow the class by involving family, neighbor’s, and friends of the original student. A pastor in Idaho who is using the Seeker’s Bible Study recently wrote, “Had our first profession from someone finishing your study. A Mormon lady named Stacie Hayward (approximately 75 years old). Praise God!” The Seeker’s Bible Study is available as a free download at https://www.wayoflife.org/seekers/ The teacher’s notes can be found in the file “Seeker’s Bible Study - Teacher’s Notes” at the same page.
THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES (Friday Church News Notes, December 27, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The “times of the Gentiles” (Lu. 21:24) refers to the period during which Israel is under Gentile domination. It began when the Gentile king Nebuchadnezzar took Judah captive (2 Ch. 36:1-21). Since then, “Jerusalem has been under Gentile overlordship” (Scofield). Though Israel returned to the land after the Babylonian captivity, she has remained under Gentile control except during the brief reign of the Maccabees. When Jesus was born, Israel was under the dominion of Rome. That Israel is still under “the times of the Gentiles” is why she is at the beck and call of major Gentile powers, such as America, the European Union, the United Nations, and the World Court. Oftentimes, she has not been at liberty to make her own decisions, even when her welfare is at stake. The “times of the Gentiles” is why Israel does not control the Temple Mount and cannot do as she pleases with her own territory in “the West Bank,” etc. This is God’s will for the present, because Israel is still in rebellion to God’s law and in rejection of her own Messiah. The “times of the Gentiles” will end when Christ returns. His kingdom is described by Daniel as the stone that is cut out without hands that destroys the Gentile kingdoms (Da. 2:44-45).
EARLY PRO-LIFE FEMINISTS (Friday Church News Notes, December 27, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from Marjorie Dannenfelser, “Pro-Life Feminists Are Old-School,” National Review, Jan. 20, 2017: “Susan B. Anthony campaigned, above all, for women’s right to equal economic and political opportunity. But the newspaper she owned and ran with Elizabeth Cady Stanton refused to carry ads for abortifacients, and published numerous articles from feminist leaders denouncing abortion as evil. Anthony said in her famous, oft-repeated temperance speech, that ‘the newspaper reports every day of every year of scandals and outrages, of wife murders and paramour shooting, of abortions and infanticides, are perpetual reminders of men’s incapacity to cope successfully with this monster evil of society.’ ... Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was the very first woman to become a medical doctor in the United States ... The National Women’s History Museum honors Dr. Blackwell as our first woman physician, while editing out of her history one of her major passions: opposing the cruelty of abortion. She wrote in her diary: ‘The gross perversion and destruction of motherhood by the abortionist filled with me indignation.’ This sentiment motivated her lifelong efforts, as it did those of other early feminist physicians, including Dr. Charlotte Lozier. Sarah F. Norton, who, with Susan B. Anthony, successfully persuaded Cornell University to admit women in 1870, wrote that ‘perhaps there will come a time when an unmarried mother will not be despised because of her motherhood ... and when the right of the unborn to be born will not be denied or interfered with.’”
SOCIAL MEDIA THE DEVIL’S MIXING BOWL (Friday Church News Notes, December 27, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Social media is the devil’s mixing bowl to weaken Christians in their spiritual stand. Facebook and other social media tend to mix everything together, the holy and the unholy, the sacred and the profane, the spiritual and the worldly, truth and heresy, righteousness and unrighteousness. In this manner, social media provides a direct and powerful and continual assault on biblical holiness and purity. Consider a couple of the many warnings we have received from Christian friends: “When someone leaves a good church and starts living according to the world, many people continue to remain friends with them and ‘Like’ everything they do. They will encounter things on Facebook that their church is against, such as immodest clothing, rock music, drinking, smoking, dancing, dating, wrong marriages. They hear these things preached against at church, but they approve of them on Facebook. They will not separate from people who are going in the wrong direction. From that standpoint, I believe that Facebook has done great damage to churches. I have friends in independent Baptist churches around the world and I have observed that this takes place everywhere.” Another said, “I found that I ‘reconnected’ with people that the Lord had separated me from. The Lord geographically moved me away from an area that I did not need to live in. When I got saved He removed me from things that were not spiritually or physically healthy for me. The Lord saved me from a very wicked life! As a Christian I had no business reconnecting with them. Satan had me believe that I could be a witness to them. It did not happen! There were zero salvations as a result of me ‘reconnecting’ with anyone on Facebook.”
FIRST STEPS TO SUCCESS (Friday Church News Notes, December 27, 2024,, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -
Give God -
The first place in your heart
The first hour of the day
The first day of the week
The first portion of your pay
The first consideration in every decision
(original source unknown)
CRYSTALLINE SILK (Friday Church News Notes, December 27, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) The following is from CreationMoments.com, December 5, 2024: “Scientists have been studying the safety line used by the common garden spider to save itself when falling. This safety line is as strong as nylon and has twice as much stretch. The drag line silk is only one of several kinds that the spider can make. Scientists report that the silk is made of sections that are crystalline and sections that are like rubber. This makes it both stretchy and strong. Amazed chemists note that usually when you make something stronger, you also make it more likely to break rather than stretch. Since spider silk is twice as strong as silkworm silk, why hasn’t it been used to make more things? To harvest enough spider silk for study, scientists place a spider on a piece of cardboard. Then they bump the spider off the cardboard. As the spider makes the drag line silk, a scientist turns the cardboard to reel it in. One spider made half-a-mile of silk in ten minutes! This fact might give you a hint about why spider silk isn’t used to manufacture items. It’s too fine. In the early eighteenth century, an inventor did make gloves and stockings from spider silk. However, his experience showed that it would take more than half a million spiders to make a pound of silk! The spider and its silk are engineering marvels that clearly show why we must rely on a Creator to explain the world in which we live. Notes: J. A. Miller, ‘Spider Silk Stretch and Strength,’ Science News, Vol. 125, #25, p. 391.”
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).
SEEKER’S EVANGELISTIC BIBLE STUDY (Friday Church News Notes, December 27, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Seekers Bible Study is an evangelistic Bible course for use by individuals, homes, and churches. It begins with a study of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, dealing with the Bible, Christ, sin, Jesus’ atoning death, Jesus’ burial and bodily resurrection. This is followed by practical studies on repentance and faith. The last section answers the question, “When Is Jesus Coming?” There are review questions for each section. The Seeker’s Bible Study is designed especially to be used as a multi-week, one-on-one course. In our church, we assign a qualified believer to go through the course with every willing visitor. The teacher is instructed to try to grow the class by involving family, neighbor’s, and friends of the original student. A pastor in Idaho who is using the Seeker’s Bible Study recently wrote, “Had our first profession from someone finishing your study. A Mormon lady named Stacie Hayward (approximately 75 years old). Praise God!” The Seeker’s Bible Study is available as a free download at https://www.wayoflife.org/seekers/ The teacher’s notes can be found in the file “Seeker’s Bible Study - Teacher’s Notes” at the same page.
THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES (Friday Church News Notes, December 27, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The “times of the Gentiles” (Lu. 21:24) refers to the period during which Israel is under Gentile domination. It began when the Gentile king Nebuchadnezzar took Judah captive (2 Ch. 36:1-21). Since then, “Jerusalem has been under Gentile overlordship” (Scofield). Though Israel returned to the land after the Babylonian captivity, she has remained under Gentile control except during the brief reign of the Maccabees. When Jesus was born, Israel was under the dominion of Rome. That Israel is still under “the times of the Gentiles” is why she is at the beck and call of major Gentile powers, such as America, the European Union, the United Nations, and the World Court. Oftentimes, she has not been at liberty to make her own decisions, even when her welfare is at stake. The “times of the Gentiles” is why Israel does not control the Temple Mount and cannot do as she pleases with her own territory in “the West Bank,” etc. This is God’s will for the present, because Israel is still in rebellion to God’s law and in rejection of her own Messiah. The “times of the Gentiles” will end when Christ returns. His kingdom is described by Daniel as the stone that is cut out without hands that destroys the Gentile kingdoms (Da. 2:44-45).
EARLY PRO-LIFE FEMINISTS (Friday Church News Notes, December 27, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from Marjorie Dannenfelser, “Pro-Life Feminists Are Old-School,” National Review, Jan. 20, 2017: “Susan B. Anthony campaigned, above all, for women’s right to equal economic and political opportunity. But the newspaper she owned and ran with Elizabeth Cady Stanton refused to carry ads for abortifacients, and published numerous articles from feminist leaders denouncing abortion as evil. Anthony said in her famous, oft-repeated temperance speech, that ‘the newspaper reports every day of every year of scandals and outrages, of wife murders and paramour shooting, of abortions and infanticides, are perpetual reminders of men’s incapacity to cope successfully with this monster evil of society.’ ... Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was the very first woman to become a medical doctor in the United States ... The National Women’s History Museum honors Dr. Blackwell as our first woman physician, while editing out of her history one of her major passions: opposing the cruelty of abortion. She wrote in her diary: ‘The gross perversion and destruction of motherhood by the abortionist filled with me indignation.’ This sentiment motivated her lifelong efforts, as it did those of other early feminist physicians, including Dr. Charlotte Lozier. Sarah F. Norton, who, with Susan B. Anthony, successfully persuaded Cornell University to admit women in 1870, wrote that ‘perhaps there will come a time when an unmarried mother will not be despised because of her motherhood ... and when the right of the unborn to be born will not be denied or interfered with.’”
SOCIAL MEDIA THE DEVIL’S MIXING BOWL (Friday Church News Notes, December 27, 2024, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Social media is the devil’s mixing bowl to weaken Christians in their spiritual stand. Facebook and other social media tend to mix everything together, the holy and the unholy, the sacred and the profane, the spiritual and the worldly, truth and heresy, righteousness and unrighteousness. In this manner, social media provides a direct and powerful and continual assault on biblical holiness and purity. Consider a couple of the many warnings we have received from Christian friends: “When someone leaves a good church and starts living according to the world, many people continue to remain friends with them and ‘Like’ everything they do. They will encounter things on Facebook that their church is against, such as immodest clothing, rock music, drinking, smoking, dancing, dating, wrong marriages. They hear these things preached against at church, but they approve of them on Facebook. They will not separate from people who are going in the wrong direction. From that standpoint, I believe that Facebook has done great damage to churches. I have friends in independent Baptist churches around the world and I have observed that this takes place everywhere.” Another said, “I found that I ‘reconnected’ with people that the Lord had separated me from. The Lord geographically moved me away from an area that I did not need to live in. When I got saved He removed me from things that were not spiritually or physically healthy for me. The Lord saved me from a very wicked life! As a Christian I had no business reconnecting with them. Satan had me believe that I could be a witness to them. It did not happen! There were zero salvations as a result of me ‘reconnecting’ with anyone on Facebook.”
FIRST STEPS TO SUCCESS (Friday Church News Notes, December 27, 2024,, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -
Give God -
The first place in your heart
The first hour of the day
The first day of the week
The first portion of your pay
The first consideration in every decision
(original source unknown)
CRYSTALLINE SILK (Friday Church News Notes, December 27, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) The following is from CreationMoments.com, December 5, 2024: “Scientists have been studying the safety line used by the common garden spider to save itself when falling. This safety line is as strong as nylon and has twice as much stretch. The drag line silk is only one of several kinds that the spider can make. Scientists report that the silk is made of sections that are crystalline and sections that are like rubber. This makes it both stretchy and strong. Amazed chemists note that usually when you make something stronger, you also make it more likely to break rather than stretch. Since spider silk is twice as strong as silkworm silk, why hasn’t it been used to make more things? To harvest enough spider silk for study, scientists place a spider on a piece of cardboard. Then they bump the spider off the cardboard. As the spider makes the drag line silk, a scientist turns the cardboard to reel it in. One spider made half-a-mile of silk in ten minutes! This fact might give you a hint about why spider silk isn’t used to manufacture items. It’s too fine. In the early eighteenth century, an inventor did make gloves and stockings from spider silk. However, his experience showed that it would take more than half a million spiders to make a pound of silk! The spider and its silk are engineering marvels that clearly show why we must rely on a Creator to explain the world in which we live. Notes: J. A. Miller, ‘Spider Silk Stretch and Strength,’ Science News, Vol. 125, #25, p. 391.”
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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