Friday Church News Notes
February 14, 2025 - Volume 26, Issue 7
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.
WILL TRUMP BUILD THE THIRD TEMPLE? (Friday Church News Notes, February 14, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Facilitated by social media, which has made it possible for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to be a broadcaster, biblically uninformed ideas are flying around like flakes in snowstorm. In 2018, during Donald Trump’s first presidency, the Temple in Zion issued a memorial half shekel temple tax coin featuring the images of Persian King Cyrus and U.S. President Donald Trump on one side and the Third Temple on the other. This was in recognition of Trump’s support for Israel and his public recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In 538 BC, Cyrus issued a proclamation ordering the rebuilding of the Second Temple. The Temple in Zion and associated groups hope that President Trump will be the new Cyrus to institute the building of the Third Temple (“Israeli Group Issues Temple Tax Coin,” Israel Today, Feb. 26, 2018). In a 2014 speech at the Arutz Sheva conference in Jerusalem, Pete Hegseth (who was confirmed as Trump’s Secretary of Defense in January 2025), said, “There’s no reason why the miracle of the re-establishment of the temple on the Temple Mount is not possible. I don’t know how it would happen. You don’t know how it would happen, but I know that it could happen” (The Times of Israel, Nov. 14, 2024). Mr. Hegseth was wrong in saying we don’t know how it will happen. God’s Word has told us. It will happen at the beginning of the reign of the Antichrist when he comes on the scene as a great peace maker and world problem solver and makes a seven-year covenant with Israel (Da. 9:27). The world will receive him as the harbinger of the Age of Aquarius. Operating under the power of the god of this world, he will make the building of the Third Temple possible. We see this in Revelation 11. This scene occurs during the first three and a half years of the Antichrist’s rule. The 42 months and 1,260 days are mentioned in verses 2 and 3. We see the temple being measured in verses 1-2 and two miracle-working prophets preaching in Jerusalem in verses 3-12. A building is measured when it is built, and the temple will be built in a very short time as soon as the go-ahead is given. Everything is ready. Third Temple organizations have constructed the priestly garments, the high priest’s golden crown and breastplate with its 12 precious stones, a copper laver, an incense altar, silver trumpets, gold- and silver-plated shofars, harps, and the gold menorah. They are breeding red heifers in Shiloh. In 2011, the Temple Institute announced completion of the first blueprints for the Third Temple. In 2015, Rabbi Yisrael Ariel said all of the materials for the operation of the temple are “all ready in crates in the basement, so that when we reach Jerusalem there will be trucks that unload everything, and we can get to work” (“Ariel’s Jerusalem,” Arutz Sheva, May 7, 2015). The New Testament believer won’t see Revelation 11 fulfilled. Our blessed hope is Christ, not the Antichrist. Our expectation is an imminent (any time) return of Christ. “Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand” (Php. 4:5).
LUTHERAN CHURCH FEATURES GODDESS WORSHIP AND A RESIDENT WITCH (Friday Church News Notes, February 14, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Apparently striving to reach the very apex of end-time apostasy, an Evangelical Lutheran Church of America congregation in San Francisco worships a goddess and has a “resident witch” on staff. Ebenezer Lutheran Church, founded 150 years ago by Swedish immigrants, was renamed “herchurch” in about 2007. The staff, led by “pastor and priestess of ritual” Stacy Boom, includes “priestexx” Thom Longino and “resident witch” Christine Konkol. The church’s web site recommends a “goddess rosary” which states, “Hail Goddess, full of grace. Blessed are You and blessed are all the fruits of your womb. You are the Mother of us all. Hear/ Heal us now and in all our [dreams]/needs. O blessed be, O blessed be. Sophia, Ah-She” (“ELCA ‘herchurch,’” The Christian Post, Feb. 8, 2025). Described as an “open and affirming community” where all are “loved in the love of Christ-Sophia and the Great Mother of us All,” the church’s website calls “all expressions of gender identity…a blessing.” A large sign on the outside of the purple church auditorium announces, “Celebrate the Goddess.”
TRUMP TACKLES ANTI-CHRISTIAN BIAS WITH NEW TASK FORCE (Friday Church News Notes, February 14, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - We realize that much of what President Trump is doing can be undone by another president, that proposing legislation is not the same as passing it, and that Trump doesn’t have the power to “bring our country back together as one nation under God,” but his actions are still an encouraging respite from the destructive direction of the last few years. The following is excerpted from “Trump tackles,” The Washington Times, Feb 6, 2025: “President Trump signed an executive order Thursday establishing a task force with a goal to ‘eradicate anti-Christian bias.’ ... At the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 6, Trump said, ‘While I’m in the White House, we will protect Christians in our schools and our military and our government, workplaces, hospitals and in our public squares. We will bring our country back together as one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.’ According to the White House, the task force will be made up of members of Mr. Trump’s Cabinet and key government agencies. The group will review the activities of all governmental departments and agencies ‘to identify and eliminate anti-Christian policies, practices or conduct.’ It will also recommend any legislation that is needed to protect Christian Americans. ‘The mission of this task force will be to immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ--which was absolutely terrible--the IRS, the FBI and other agencies,’ he said.”
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN AMERICA HAS PAID $5 BILLION TO SETTLE SEXUAL ABUSE CASES (Friday Church News Notes, February 14, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - According to a study published this month, The Catholic Church in the United States has paid more than $5 billion over 20 years for “costs related to allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests and deacons.” The study, which covers the years 2004 to 2023, was done by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. A 2004 study by John Jay College found 11,757 allegations of sexual abuse involving 5,148 priests, and the report only pertained to about half of the priests in the U.S. By then, the Catholic Church had already spent $1 billion settling lawsuits and providing “treatment” for its filthy priests. The problem is not limited to America. In 2003, the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland agreed to pay $110 million to avoid further sex scandal litigation. There could be as many as 3,000 sex abuse victims there. In France, an independent commission reported in 2021 “that between 2,900 and 3,200 pedophile clergymen have worked in the French Catholic Church since the 1950s” (“Up to 3,200 Pedophiles,” CNN, Oct. 3, 2021). The report said further, “There has always been collusion between the church in France and the Vatican to protect perpetrators of abuse.” A conservative Catholic organization documented this wretched business in the fall/winter 2002 issue of the magazine Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, observing: “… the overwhelming majority of sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church--about 90%--involve homosexual priests preying on teenage boys. The major media and the U.S. culture at large want to deny or spin the homosexual factor out of the scandal.” Many books have documented this issue, including Pedophiles and Priests by Philip Jenkins (1996), Lead Us Not into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children by Jason Berry (2000), A Gospel of Shame: Children, Sexual Abuse, and the Catholic Church by Frank Bruni (2002), Religious Life without Integrity by Australian Catholic historian Barry Coldrey (2001), and Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church (2002). In 2000, the Kansas City Star newspaper published a book-length series of articles documenting that “Catholic seminaries in the 1960s joined in the sexual liberation frenzy of the decade; that many seminarians and priests embraced an active homosexual lifestyle in and out of the seminary; that many of these homosexual seminarians went on to ordination and were groomed for and entrusted to high positions by their superiors.” One result has been a large number of AIDS cases among Catholic priests.
THE FUNDAMENTAL POSTULATE (Friday Church News Notes, February 14, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “The fundamental postulate of all rational thinking is the face of God. I accept the fact of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God--and that makes all miracles credible, makes it so that nothing in the Bible staggers me. I believe--because I accept the fact of God” (Robert G. Lee, “Lord, I Believe,” 1927).
AN AMAZING AUSTRALIAN FROG (Friday Church News Notes, February 14, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, January 22, 2025: “A rare Australian aquatic frog has one of the most amazing systems for rearing its young to be found in the animal kingdom. If any other creature tried the same method, the result would be fatal to its young. The frog is a species of Australian frog so rare that it only has a Latin name. Once the eggs are laid and fertilized, the female swallows the eggs. Sometimes she waits until they begin to develop. However, once the young are in her stomach, she forgoes eating for eight weeks. After eight weeks, the young, developed frogs emerge from her mouth. Why aren’t the young frogs digested in the mother’s stomach? Once the offspring are in her stomach, they begin to release fine threads of chemicals from their mouths. Among these chemicals is one that causes the mother’s stomach to stop manufacturing acid. In other words, the tiny young frogs change the mother’s stomach from an organ for digestion into a comfortable, protected nursery. Scientists were amazed at the frog’s system since no other creature in nature is able to do this. The Bible often notes that when Jesus Christ walked this Earth in bodily form, He frequently amazed people. Sometimes He used a miracle to astonish them. Sometimes it was His teaching that astounded them. Here we see that through His work as Creator, He can still amaze even the most hardened unbelievers. You can learn more about why He is so amazing in the pages of the Bible. REF.: ‘Tadpole Role in Gastric Pregnancy,’ Science News, Vol. 123, p. 350.”
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).
LUTHERAN CHURCH FEATURES GODDESS WORSHIP AND A RESIDENT WITCH (Friday Church News Notes, February 14, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Apparently striving to reach the very apex of end-time apostasy, an Evangelical Lutheran Church of America congregation in San Francisco worships a goddess and has a “resident witch” on staff. Ebenezer Lutheran Church, founded 150 years ago by Swedish immigrants, was renamed “herchurch” in about 2007. The staff, led by “pastor and priestess of ritual” Stacy Boom, includes “priestexx” Thom Longino and “resident witch” Christine Konkol. The church’s web site recommends a “goddess rosary” which states, “Hail Goddess, full of grace. Blessed are You and blessed are all the fruits of your womb. You are the Mother of us all. Hear/ Heal us now and in all our [dreams]/needs. O blessed be, O blessed be. Sophia, Ah-She” (“ELCA ‘herchurch,’” The Christian Post, Feb. 8, 2025). Described as an “open and affirming community” where all are “loved in the love of Christ-Sophia and the Great Mother of us All,” the church’s website calls “all expressions of gender identity…a blessing.” A large sign on the outside of the purple church auditorium announces, “Celebrate the Goddess.”
TRUMP TACKLES ANTI-CHRISTIAN BIAS WITH NEW TASK FORCE (Friday Church News Notes, February 14, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - We realize that much of what President Trump is doing can be undone by another president, that proposing legislation is not the same as passing it, and that Trump doesn’t have the power to “bring our country back together as one nation under God,” but his actions are still an encouraging respite from the destructive direction of the last few years. The following is excerpted from “Trump tackles,” The Washington Times, Feb 6, 2025: “President Trump signed an executive order Thursday establishing a task force with a goal to ‘eradicate anti-Christian bias.’ ... At the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 6, Trump said, ‘While I’m in the White House, we will protect Christians in our schools and our military and our government, workplaces, hospitals and in our public squares. We will bring our country back together as one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.’ According to the White House, the task force will be made up of members of Mr. Trump’s Cabinet and key government agencies. The group will review the activities of all governmental departments and agencies ‘to identify and eliminate anti-Christian policies, practices or conduct.’ It will also recommend any legislation that is needed to protect Christian Americans. ‘The mission of this task force will be to immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ--which was absolutely terrible--the IRS, the FBI and other agencies,’ he said.”
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN AMERICA HAS PAID $5 BILLION TO SETTLE SEXUAL ABUSE CASES (Friday Church News Notes, February 14, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - According to a study published this month, The Catholic Church in the United States has paid more than $5 billion over 20 years for “costs related to allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests and deacons.” The study, which covers the years 2004 to 2023, was done by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. A 2004 study by John Jay College found 11,757 allegations of sexual abuse involving 5,148 priests, and the report only pertained to about half of the priests in the U.S. By then, the Catholic Church had already spent $1 billion settling lawsuits and providing “treatment” for its filthy priests. The problem is not limited to America. In 2003, the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland agreed to pay $110 million to avoid further sex scandal litigation. There could be as many as 3,000 sex abuse victims there. In France, an independent commission reported in 2021 “that between 2,900 and 3,200 pedophile clergymen have worked in the French Catholic Church since the 1950s” (“Up to 3,200 Pedophiles,” CNN, Oct. 3, 2021). The report said further, “There has always been collusion between the church in France and the Vatican to protect perpetrators of abuse.” A conservative Catholic organization documented this wretched business in the fall/winter 2002 issue of the magazine Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, observing: “… the overwhelming majority of sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church--about 90%--involve homosexual priests preying on teenage boys. The major media and the U.S. culture at large want to deny or spin the homosexual factor out of the scandal.” Many books have documented this issue, including Pedophiles and Priests by Philip Jenkins (1996), Lead Us Not into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children by Jason Berry (2000), A Gospel of Shame: Children, Sexual Abuse, and the Catholic Church by Frank Bruni (2002), Religious Life without Integrity by Australian Catholic historian Barry Coldrey (2001), and Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church (2002). In 2000, the Kansas City Star newspaper published a book-length series of articles documenting that “Catholic seminaries in the 1960s joined in the sexual liberation frenzy of the decade; that many seminarians and priests embraced an active homosexual lifestyle in and out of the seminary; that many of these homosexual seminarians went on to ordination and were groomed for and entrusted to high positions by their superiors.” One result has been a large number of AIDS cases among Catholic priests.
THE FUNDAMENTAL POSTULATE (Friday Church News Notes, February 14, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “The fundamental postulate of all rational thinking is the face of God. I accept the fact of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God--and that makes all miracles credible, makes it so that nothing in the Bible staggers me. I believe--because I accept the fact of God” (Robert G. Lee, “Lord, I Believe,” 1927).
AN AMAZING AUSTRALIAN FROG (Friday Church News Notes, February 14, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, January 22, 2025: “A rare Australian aquatic frog has one of the most amazing systems for rearing its young to be found in the animal kingdom. If any other creature tried the same method, the result would be fatal to its young. The frog is a species of Australian frog so rare that it only has a Latin name. Once the eggs are laid and fertilized, the female swallows the eggs. Sometimes she waits until they begin to develop. However, once the young are in her stomach, she forgoes eating for eight weeks. After eight weeks, the young, developed frogs emerge from her mouth. Why aren’t the young frogs digested in the mother’s stomach? Once the offspring are in her stomach, they begin to release fine threads of chemicals from their mouths. Among these chemicals is one that causes the mother’s stomach to stop manufacturing acid. In other words, the tiny young frogs change the mother’s stomach from an organ for digestion into a comfortable, protected nursery. Scientists were amazed at the frog’s system since no other creature in nature is able to do this. The Bible often notes that when Jesus Christ walked this Earth in bodily form, He frequently amazed people. Sometimes He used a miracle to astonish them. Sometimes it was His teaching that astounded them. Here we see that through His work as Creator, He can still amaze even the most hardened unbelievers. You can learn more about why He is so amazing in the pages of the Bible. REF.: ‘Tadpole Role in Gastric Pregnancy,’ Science News, Vol. 123, p. 350.”
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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