
President Donald Trump
A GENERATION IN SEARCH OF WILD GODS (Friday Church News Notes, January 31, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “In Search of Wild Gods” is a discussion between author Tom Holland and rock & roller Nike Cave with UnHerd’s Editor-in-Chief Freddie Sayers. The conversation is a mirror of this confused, lost generation that exists at the very end of the church age when we are witnessing the fulfillment of prophecies of near total apostasy in Christianity (Mt. 13:3; 2 Ti. 3:1-5, 13; 4:3-4, etc.) and skepticism and global rebellion in secular society (Ps. 2; 2 Pe. 3:1-10). The world is coming together in a shared delusion that will be fully realized in the day of the Man of Sin (2 Th. 2:7-12). Holland and Cave have rejected their former atheism for a buffet style spirituality, a little Christianity, a little Greek paganism, a tentative belief in angels, a little praying to Mary, a dab of this and a dab of that, whatever suits your fancy. It is not “religion,” it is “spirituality.” It is New Age spirituality. It’s not about believing absolute truth; it’s about mystical experiences and feelings. It’s not really about God, not any God; it’s about me. Tom Holland says, “Maybe that’s why music is so powerful, is that you don’t have to think! You feel it, and it opens up new ways of experiencing things. And that is what the mystics, many of the profoundest Christian thinkers, have tried to articulate. There’s a meaning that transcends thought.” (These “profoundest Christian thinkers” aren’t actual Bible believers.) Rock & roll has always been about a feeling. It has always been a spiritual thing. Holland and Cave describe an Elvis concert as a spiritual experience. The same thing has been expressed by Jimi Hendrix, Craig Chapuico, Paul Stanley, Sting, Brian Eno, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley, the Grateful Dead, Muddy Waters, Blackie Lawless, Jim Morrison, John Denver, Ozzy Osbourne, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, and many others. George Harrison said, “Music is very involved with the spiritual” (Turner, Hungry for Heaven, p. 71). Rock & roll is spiritual, but it is not godly. It is the spirit of this world, not the spirit of God. It is an unclean spirit, not the Holy Spirit. The Christianization of rock & roll is wretched apostasy. This is irrefutable. To accept Christian rock as legitimate is to bring upon oneself the severe denunciation of James: “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” (Jas. 4:4). There is only one God, and He is not wild. Wild gods are vain idols of man’s imagination. Belief in the true and living God is not a free-for-all; it’s not a smorgasbord; it’s not a nose of wax. God has revealed Himself in holy Scripture in the most dogmatic way conceivable. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, the Creator of all things. He was born of a virgin to become Immanuel, God with us. He lived a sinless life, preached absolute truth, allowed Himself to be condemned in a bogus trial, suffered on a cross to satisfy God’s holy law, paying the price God’s law justly demands for the salvation of law-breaking sinners, and rising bodily from the dead the third day. That is the true God and the true salvation. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). I thank the Lord profusely for enlightening my blinded mind and saving me out of the delusion of this age when I was a young man.
CHINA, AMERICA, AND “TIKTOK BRAIN” (Friday Church News Notes, January 31, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “TokTok: weapon of mass distraction,” UnHerd, Jan. 23, 2025: “While there has been much suspicion that the CCP uses TikTok for influence operations, such as by disseminating Chinese propaganda, the app can be weaponised in even more dangerous ways. Its ‘For You’ algorithm leverages machine learning to track users’ attention, and it employs this knowledge to show them, unprompted, whatever content is most likely to hold their attention. This makes using it a far more passive and addictive experience than other social media platforms, which gives it the potential to inflict long-term harm on young Westerners by keeping them distracted, shortening their attention spans, and, ultimately, atrophying their brains. The app’s ability to cause mass ‘TikTok brain; in young Westerners should prompt consideration of its use as a new kind of civilisational weapon. ... The first thing that should raise suspicions is that the CCP forbids Chinese kids from using TikTok--instead, they use Douyin. As American tech ethicist Tristan Harris has pointed out, Douyin is a ‘spinach’ version of the app filled with science experiments and educational videos instead of twerkers and [other ridiculous things]. TikTok has imposed screen-time limits for younger users (to prevent it from being banned), but Douyin has been doing so since 2019. Further, unlike TikTok, the app is only accessible to kids for 40 minutes per day, and it cannot be accessed between 10pm and 6am. Has the CCP enforced such rules to protect its people from what it intends to inflict on the West? When one examines the philosophical doctrines behind the rules, it becomes clear that the CCP doesn’t just believe that apps like TikTok make people stupid, but that they destroy civilisations.”
BIDEN AIDS SCREAMED AT FACEBOOK EMPLOYEES ABOUT CONTENT THEY DISLIKED (Friday Church News Notes, January 31, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Trump’s free speech order,” Washington Times, Jan. 23, 2025: “President Trump clamped down on government interference in free speech by banning ‘federal censorship’ after four years of Biden officials harassing social media companies to remove disfavored content. Mr. Trump issued the executive order hours after Big Tech CEOs sat just a few feet away as he took the oath of office. Their social media platforms were subjected to cajoling and even threats by Biden officials to censor or remove content. ‘In America, we believe in free speech, and we’re bringing it back starting today,’ Mr. Trump said in a post-inaugural speech Monday to supporters in the Capitol. ... The order also calls on the federal government to ‘correct past misconduct’ related to censorship. This refers to the Biden administration’s heavy hand in controlling social media content, mainly regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, election integrity and Mr. Biden’s troubled son, Hunter Biden. ... Censorship ramped up and expanded dramatically during the Biden administration. That was when Mr. Biden’s top aides leaned on Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms to remove, censor or diminish the visibility of content that questioned the government’s COVID-19 protocols, such as mask and vaccine mandates. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ this month that Mr. Biden’s aides ‘would call up our team and, like, scream at them and curse’ about Facebook content they didn’t like and would demand its removal.”
BATS THAT FEED TREES (Friday Church News Notes, January 31, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, June 20, 2024: “The surface of the Earth 50 to 150 feet below the great living canopy of the rainforest is a dark, humid, still world dominated by great columns of tree trunks. Within those trunks and some of the giant hollow branches extending from them lies the secret of the life of the canopy itself. A rainforest typically receives 12 or more feet of rain per year. That much rain washes out of the soil most of the nitrates needed by the trees for growth. What the trees need is a rich source of nitrates that is constantly being replenished. And that’s where the bats come in. Typically, these huge trees are hollow inside. Many different kinds of creatures, including fruit bats, enter the hollow trees through various openings. Fruit bats find ideal daytime sleeping rooms inside the great hollow branches that extend like caverns from the hollow tree trunk. The accumulating layer of bat guano inside the tree itself is one of the richest sources of nitrates known. So the bats provide the tree with the nitrates it needs in exchange for a protected home during the day! In a very real sense, the fruit bats are the collection and transport system for the raw materials that make possible the tropical rain forest canopy with its millions of residents. The Creator has devised an ingenious way to provide for the needs of many creatures. Truly, the Lord does provide all living things with their food in precisely the way they need it! Ref: Perry, Donald. ‘Life in the treetops,’ Science Digest, Oct. 1978, p. 26.”
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).
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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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