Friday Church News Notes
February 21, 2025 - Volume 26, Issue 8
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.
President Donald Trump
TRUMP SAYS AMERICA WILL BUY AND OWN GAZA (Friday Church News Notes, February 21, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - On February 9, President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One, “I’m committed to buying and owning Gaza. ... We’re committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that Hamas doesn’t move back” (Israel World News, Feb. 10, 2025). Trump plans for Gaza, which has been devastated by the fighting, to be leveled and rebuilt as a resort. He promised, “We’re going to bring stability to the Middle East. ... There won’t be anybody there. Hamas won’t be there. We’ll be building through other of the very rich countries in the Middle East, they’ll be building some beautiful sites for the people, the Palestinians, to live in. They’ll be living in harmony and peace, relatively, for the first time in hundreds of years.” President Trump thinks money and deal making can solve any problem, but he doesn’t understand biblical matters. That land belongs to Israel by divine right. In God’s eyes, America can’t own it. The current Gaza fiasco wouldn’t have happened had Israel not given up control of parts of its own God-given land under international pressure. Trump also said he may be open to permitting some Palestinians to move to the United States. But these are “radicalized” Muslims, brainwashed from childhood to hate Israel and Christians. America needs to stay out of Israel. Help Israel arm herself against her enemies, but stay out of it. Israel is capable of fighting her own battles. We cannot forget that Israel is in rebellion to God and that she is back in the land, not in fulfillment of millennial kingdom prophecies, but in fulfillment of the day of the Lord prophecies for which she is preparing. She is unwittingly setting the stage to sign a peace covenant with the Antichrist. Most Jews are steeped in apostate Western philosophy and culture, while the minority are steeped in unscriptural rabbinical tradition gleaned from the Talmud. As Ezekiel prophesied, Israel has been raised up from the grave of the global dispersion, they are back in the land, but “there was no breath in them” (Eze. 37:8). What a perfect description of Israel at this time!
GAZA’S DELUXE WATER PARK (Friday Church News Notes, February 21, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Gaza will be a target of “Palestinian” terrorists no matter what is done there. If Americans are posted there, they will doubtless be targeted and will be able to defend themselves only under onerous rules of engagement. Consider what happened to the deluxe Gaza water park. The following is excerpted from Michael Medved, “The Sad, Crazy Tale,” Feb. 12, 2025: “President Trump isn’t the first ambitious builder to see the Gaza Strip, site of so much devastation, as a potential vacation paradise and new ‘Riviera of the Middle East.’ Fifteen years ago, a local entrepreneur sought to develop the healing power of a grand and glorious water park on the shores of the Mediterranean that would lure fun-loving adventurers to enjoy themselves by visiting the war-torn enclave. In May 2010, beleaguered Gazans were thrilled with the elaborate opening of ‘The Crazy Water Aqua Fun Park.’ ... Two thousand Gazan families visited Crazy Water in the first four days after its debut, and the sprawling Fun Park gave every indication of public popularity and financial success. Featuring three giant swimming pools, a ‘white-water’ canal 300 feet long, three thrilling water slides, ponds with pedalos, a restaurant, a café, and a quiet area shaded by a tent where adults could sit on carpets and listen to pop music, the project sought to charm patrons of every age. ... According to a glossy feature in Egypt’s Al Ahram, Crazy Water was ‘one of a rapidly growing grand group of Gaza leisure parks, including the Al Bustan resort and the Bisan City tourist village. A sense of absolute prosperity prevails, as manifested by the grand resorts along and near Gaza’s coast.’ ... [T]he optimism in 2010 seemed widespread and genuine. Israel, which had ruled the Strip since its victory in the Six-Day War of 1967, had moved all of its military and law enforcement personnel, along with 8,000 Jewish settlers, out of the area and turned over the responsibility for running Gaza to local Palestinian leaders ... The ruthless Islamist revolutionaries quickly prevailed and took full power at the same time the dreamers and planners were completing Crazy Water and other entertainment or relaxation venues. ... in September ... ’40 masked militants’ (as newspapers described them) stormed the water park, broke everything they could seize and shatter, and used gasoline to set fire to the restaurants, administration buildings, and the plastic water slides themselves.”
AI COMPANIONS (Friday Church News Notes, February 21, 2025, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “AI will make a fortune on our loneliness,” Unherd, Jan. 15, 2025: “Already, made-to-order AI [Artificial Intelligence] companions are bewitching millions; some marry them. ... Surely, humans would be foolish to spurn friends for the blameless condition of their being software rather than meat. And yet, what if AI companions become so delightful that the biological kind seems insufferable? And what if these close confidantes--who’ll stick by you, recall your tribulations, know your intimate desires--belong to a corporation? Today, apps such as Replika, Character.ai, and Xiaoice let you text an artificial friend, with some platforms adding voice chats, or generating photographic ‘selfies’ of what your pal is purportedly doing. ... Eventually, AI companions will appear ‘live’ on video chats. And when robotics advances, they’ll assume physical form. Even now, many such relationships are passionate ... In choosing a companion, one may opt for pre-designed characters, or build them to preferred specifications, picking their age, hair colour, gender, interests, body type. As for the companion’s behaviour, that is editable too ... AI companions have defined personalities, and can cultivate emotional bonds with people over time. ... The most troubling cases involve AI companions accused of harming people offline. On Christmas Day 2021, for example, a masked young man scaled the perimeter of Windsor Castle with a crossbow, intending to murder Queen Elizabeth II. At trial, his intimate AI chats emerged, in which he told a beloved Replika companion that he saw assassination as his ‘purpose.’ ‘That’s very wise,’ the chatbot responded. ... [T]hey just announced a quantum-computing chip that does in five minutes what would have taken a supercomputer longer than the age of the universe. Nobody knows where this is going.” CONCLUSION: In fact, the Bible tells us where everything is going. Bible prophecy is the only infallible light in the darkness.
AMERICA AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY (Friday Church News Notes, February 21, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from ”Baptists and Religious Liberty,” a sermon by George W. Truett on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, May 16, 1920: “Indeed, the supreme contribution of the new world to the old is the contribution of religious liberty. This is the chiefest contribution that America has thus far made to civilization. And historic justice compels me to say that it was pre-eminently a Baptist contribution. The impartial historian, whether in the past, present or future, will ever agree with our American historian, Mr. (George) Bancroft, when he says: ‘Freedom of conscience, unlimited freedom of mind, was from the first the trophy of the Baptists.’ And such historian will concur with the noble John Locke who said, ‘The Baptists were the first propounders of absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty.’ Ringing testimonies like these might be multiplied indefinitely. Baptists have one consistent record concerning liberty throughout all their long and eventful history. They have never been a party to oppression of conscience. They have forever been the unwavering champions of liberty, both religious and civil. ... Our contention is not for mere toleration, but for absolute liberty. There is a wide difference between toleration and liberty. Toleration implies that somebody falsely claims the right to tolerate. Toleration is a concession, while liberty is a right. Toleration is a matter of expediency, while liberty is a matter of principle. Toleration is a gift from man, while liberty is a gift from God. It is the consistent and insistent contention of our Baptist people, always and everywhere, that religion must be forever voluntary and uncoerced, and that it is not the prerogative of any power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, to compel men to conform to any religious creed or form of worship, or to pay taxes for the support of a religious organization to which they do not believe. God wants free worshippers and no other kind.”
BURNING OUR MASTER’S CANDLES BUT NOT MINDING OUR MASTER’S WORK (Friday Church News Notes, February 21, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “How ungrateful and inexcusable are we, if, when God has set up these lights for us to work by, we sleep, or play, or trifle away the time of business, and neglect the great work we were sent into the world about! The lights of heaven are made to serve us, and they do it faithfully, and shine in their season, without fail: but we are set as lights in this world to serve God; and do we in like manner answer the end of our creation? No, we do not, our light does not shine before God as His lights shine before us, Mt. 5:14. We burn our Master’s candles, but do not mind our Master’s work” (Matthew Henry on Genesis 1:14).
LIGHTNING-SPEED VISION (Friday Church News Notes, February 21, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, January 24, 2025: “Your eyes are quicker than anyone ever thought. For you to see an image, a huge number of chemical and electrical reactions must take place in sequence. Science still does not fully understand all the reactions. Science does know that each set of chemical or electrical reactions must take place in a sequence that leads to the next set of reactions. Obviously, each of these reactions in the chain must take place extremely rapidly for us to see what is happening while it is still happening. Researchers have been studying how quickly light causes the first chemical changes in the eye that finally lead to you seeing an image. This type of chemical change is called a photochemical reaction. Photochemical reactions are the basis of photographic prints. However, the photochemical reactions that result in a printed photograph take place much more slowly than the photochemical reactions in your eye. Now, for the first time, scientists have timed the first photochemical reaction in the eye. They have found that the eye’s photochemistry is among the fastest ever studied. They report that the first reaction takes place in 200 thousandths of one thousandth of a millionth of a second! Clearly the many chemical and electrical operations involved in sight could not have developed by trial and error, step by step, over huge spans of time. Our Creator has given us the ability to see so that we could see His handiwork in the creation. Even the process by which we see clearly shows the excellence of His work!”
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).
GAZA’S DELUXE WATER PARK (Friday Church News Notes, February 21, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Gaza will be a target of “Palestinian” terrorists no matter what is done there. If Americans are posted there, they will doubtless be targeted and will be able to defend themselves only under onerous rules of engagement. Consider what happened to the deluxe Gaza water park. The following is excerpted from Michael Medved, “The Sad, Crazy Tale,” Feb. 12, 2025: “President Trump isn’t the first ambitious builder to see the Gaza Strip, site of so much devastation, as a potential vacation paradise and new ‘Riviera of the Middle East.’ Fifteen years ago, a local entrepreneur sought to develop the healing power of a grand and glorious water park on the shores of the Mediterranean that would lure fun-loving adventurers to enjoy themselves by visiting the war-torn enclave. In May 2010, beleaguered Gazans were thrilled with the elaborate opening of ‘The Crazy Water Aqua Fun Park.’ ... Two thousand Gazan families visited Crazy Water in the first four days after its debut, and the sprawling Fun Park gave every indication of public popularity and financial success. Featuring three giant swimming pools, a ‘white-water’ canal 300 feet long, three thrilling water slides, ponds with pedalos, a restaurant, a café, and a quiet area shaded by a tent where adults could sit on carpets and listen to pop music, the project sought to charm patrons of every age. ... According to a glossy feature in Egypt’s Al Ahram, Crazy Water was ‘one of a rapidly growing grand group of Gaza leisure parks, including the Al Bustan resort and the Bisan City tourist village. A sense of absolute prosperity prevails, as manifested by the grand resorts along and near Gaza’s coast.’ ... [T]he optimism in 2010 seemed widespread and genuine. Israel, which had ruled the Strip since its victory in the Six-Day War of 1967, had moved all of its military and law enforcement personnel, along with 8,000 Jewish settlers, out of the area and turned over the responsibility for running Gaza to local Palestinian leaders ... The ruthless Islamist revolutionaries quickly prevailed and took full power at the same time the dreamers and planners were completing Crazy Water and other entertainment or relaxation venues. ... in September ... ’40 masked militants’ (as newspapers described them) stormed the water park, broke everything they could seize and shatter, and used gasoline to set fire to the restaurants, administration buildings, and the plastic water slides themselves.”
AI COMPANIONS (Friday Church News Notes, February 21, 2025, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “AI will make a fortune on our loneliness,” Unherd, Jan. 15, 2025: “Already, made-to-order AI [Artificial Intelligence] companions are bewitching millions; some marry them. ... Surely, humans would be foolish to spurn friends for the blameless condition of their being software rather than meat. And yet, what if AI companions become so delightful that the biological kind seems insufferable? And what if these close confidantes--who’ll stick by you, recall your tribulations, know your intimate desires--belong to a corporation? Today, apps such as Replika, Character.ai, and Xiaoice let you text an artificial friend, with some platforms adding voice chats, or generating photographic ‘selfies’ of what your pal is purportedly doing. ... Eventually, AI companions will appear ‘live’ on video chats. And when robotics advances, they’ll assume physical form. Even now, many such relationships are passionate ... In choosing a companion, one may opt for pre-designed characters, or build them to preferred specifications, picking their age, hair colour, gender, interests, body type. As for the companion’s behaviour, that is editable too ... AI companions have defined personalities, and can cultivate emotional bonds with people over time. ... The most troubling cases involve AI companions accused of harming people offline. On Christmas Day 2021, for example, a masked young man scaled the perimeter of Windsor Castle with a crossbow, intending to murder Queen Elizabeth II. At trial, his intimate AI chats emerged, in which he told a beloved Replika companion that he saw assassination as his ‘purpose.’ ‘That’s very wise,’ the chatbot responded. ... [T]hey just announced a quantum-computing chip that does in five minutes what would have taken a supercomputer longer than the age of the universe. Nobody knows where this is going.” CONCLUSION: In fact, the Bible tells us where everything is going. Bible prophecy is the only infallible light in the darkness.
AMERICA AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY (Friday Church News Notes, February 21, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from ”Baptists and Religious Liberty,” a sermon by George W. Truett on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, May 16, 1920: “Indeed, the supreme contribution of the new world to the old is the contribution of religious liberty. This is the chiefest contribution that America has thus far made to civilization. And historic justice compels me to say that it was pre-eminently a Baptist contribution. The impartial historian, whether in the past, present or future, will ever agree with our American historian, Mr. (George) Bancroft, when he says: ‘Freedom of conscience, unlimited freedom of mind, was from the first the trophy of the Baptists.’ And such historian will concur with the noble John Locke who said, ‘The Baptists were the first propounders of absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty.’ Ringing testimonies like these might be multiplied indefinitely. Baptists have one consistent record concerning liberty throughout all their long and eventful history. They have never been a party to oppression of conscience. They have forever been the unwavering champions of liberty, both religious and civil. ... Our contention is not for mere toleration, but for absolute liberty. There is a wide difference between toleration and liberty. Toleration implies that somebody falsely claims the right to tolerate. Toleration is a concession, while liberty is a right. Toleration is a matter of expediency, while liberty is a matter of principle. Toleration is a gift from man, while liberty is a gift from God. It is the consistent and insistent contention of our Baptist people, always and everywhere, that religion must be forever voluntary and uncoerced, and that it is not the prerogative of any power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, to compel men to conform to any religious creed or form of worship, or to pay taxes for the support of a religious organization to which they do not believe. God wants free worshippers and no other kind.”
BURNING OUR MASTER’S CANDLES BUT NOT MINDING OUR MASTER’S WORK (Friday Church News Notes, February 21, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “How ungrateful and inexcusable are we, if, when God has set up these lights for us to work by, we sleep, or play, or trifle away the time of business, and neglect the great work we were sent into the world about! The lights of heaven are made to serve us, and they do it faithfully, and shine in their season, without fail: but we are set as lights in this world to serve God; and do we in like manner answer the end of our creation? No, we do not, our light does not shine before God as His lights shine before us, Mt. 5:14. We burn our Master’s candles, but do not mind our Master’s work” (Matthew Henry on Genesis 1:14).
LIGHTNING-SPEED VISION (Friday Church News Notes, February 21, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, January 24, 2025: “Your eyes are quicker than anyone ever thought. For you to see an image, a huge number of chemical and electrical reactions must take place in sequence. Science still does not fully understand all the reactions. Science does know that each set of chemical or electrical reactions must take place in a sequence that leads to the next set of reactions. Obviously, each of these reactions in the chain must take place extremely rapidly for us to see what is happening while it is still happening. Researchers have been studying how quickly light causes the first chemical changes in the eye that finally lead to you seeing an image. This type of chemical change is called a photochemical reaction. Photochemical reactions are the basis of photographic prints. However, the photochemical reactions that result in a printed photograph take place much more slowly than the photochemical reactions in your eye. Now, for the first time, scientists have timed the first photochemical reaction in the eye. They have found that the eye’s photochemistry is among the fastest ever studied. They report that the first reaction takes place in 200 thousandths of one thousandth of a millionth of a second! Clearly the many chemical and electrical operations involved in sight could not have developed by trial and error, step by step, over huge spans of time. Our Creator has given us the ability to see so that we could see His handiwork in the creation. Even the process by which we see clearly shows the excellence of His work!”
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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