Friday Church News Notes
April 11, 2025 - Volume 26, Issue 15
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.
Excavations at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. (Photo: Archivio Università di Roma Sapienza
TRACES OF GARDEN FOUND UNDER THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE (Friday Church News Notes, April 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Archaeological work beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem since 2022 has identified the remains of olive trees and grapevines dating to the time of Christ. The excavations have been carried out by the Sapienza University of Rome under the direction of Francesca Stasolla (“Echoing Gospel account, traces of ancient garden found,” The Times of Israel, Mar. 22, 2025). This is further confirmation that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is built over the place of Christ’s crucifixion and burial. John tells us that Christ’s tomb was near the cross. “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid” (Joh. 19:41). The historical timeline leaves no doubt that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built over that place. In about AD 132, the Roman Emperor Hadrian built a pagan goddess temple over the site known to have been Christ’s tomb. There can be no doubt that the correct place was known at that time. In AD 325, Emperor Constantine tore down the temple of Aphrodite and built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the same site. Though the church was destroyed by Muslims in 1009, it was subsequently rebuilt at the same place. In 2017, two independent OSL (optically stimulated luminescence) tests found that the tomb’s mortar and marble cladding dates to the fourth century AD, the time of Constantine (“Age of Jesus Christ’s Purported Tomb Revealed,” National Geographic, Nov. 28. 2017).
ISRAEL’S FAMINE (Friday Church News Notes, April 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Amos 8:11-12--“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.” This amazing prophecy describes Israel’s relationship with God’s Word during her wanderings among the nations. It is a perfect description of Talmudic Judaism which has buried God’s Word under layers of vain tradition. The Talmud is composed of two parts: First, there is the Mishnah, which is the Rabbinic commentary on the Torah (Pentateuch). It is filled with debate and argument. Nothing is concrete and settled. The rabbis argue about such things as whether meat and cheese can be on the same table and how much water validates a ritual bath. Second, there is the Gemara which consists of rabbinical comments and debates about the Mishnah. Thus the Gemara is a commentary on a commentary. The Talmud is basically a massive encapsulation of the very Pharisaical teaching that the Lord Jesus Christ condemned (Mt. 13:14-15; 23:1-33; Mr. 7:5-13; Joh. 12:37-40). The Talmud is filled with nonsense, such as angels as best men at Adam’s marriage and the serpent lusting after Mary. The famine for hearing God’s words was further deepened with the spread of Kabbalah. This is supposed to be a third or “hidden” Torah that was revealed to Moses, together with the Torah (Pentateuch) and the Mishnah. It is based on an allegorical interpretation of Scripture that finds secret and “inner” meanings in the words and even letters of Scripture. It borrows heavily from pagan occultism, such as astrology and numerology. Kabbalah consists of a bewildering variety of doctrine and practice. It is esoteric (secret teaching) and mystical (emphasizing intuition and feeling over reason). Hasidic Judaism is permeated with Kabbalah. The geographic focus of Kabbalah is Mt. Meron in northern Israel, where Hillel the Elder, Shammai, Shimon Bar Yochai, and other influential rabbis are buried. Mt. Meron is a major Jewish pilgrimage site where practitioners go in search of spiritual power and “good fortune.” On the anniversary of Shimon’s death, called Lag BaOmer, the day on which he was supposed to have revealed the deepest secrets of Kabbalah, an estimated 250,000 people visit Mt. Meron seeking blessing and mystical enlightenment.
U.K. PARENTS ARRESTED FOR CRITICIZING SCHOOL LEADERS ON PRIVATE SOCIAL MEDIA (Friday Church News Notes, April 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Police Arrest U.K. Parents,” Standing for Freedom, Apr. 1, 2025: “The increasingly authoritarian nature of the British government is back in the spotlight this week after news broke that police arrested, interrogated, and jailed parents in Hertfordshire, England, for complaining about school policy and criticizing school leaders in a private group chat. ... It all started in May 2024, when Maxie Allen, whose daughter Sascha, 9, was attending Cowley Hill Primary School, contacted the chair of governors of the school to question the hiring process of its new head teacher. ... Allen says that the chair’s response was ‘evasive,’ so he sent a letter to all the school governors asking about the decision not to open recruitment to other candidates. Allen posted the letter in a private WhatsApp parents’ group. The next month, Jackie Spriggs, who is the chair of governors, wrote a letter to parents claiming that parents were using WhatsApp ‘to make inflammatory and defamatory comments about senior leaders in the school.’ Spriggs then ordered parents not to criticize leaders ... Shortly after, Levine and Allen were banned from school grounds. ... six police officers in three police cars showed up at Allen and Levine’s home. ... The officers searched the home. They then arrested the couple on ‘suspicion of harassment, malicious communications and causing a nuisance on school property’ and questioned them at the station, where they were later locked in a cell for at least eight hours before being released at midnight. ... Five weeks later, the Hertfordshire police concluded there should be no further investigation. ... The arrest has received criticism as U.K. police increase their targeting of U.K. citizens over their speech. Lord Toby Young of the Free Speech Union questioned, ‘Why are Hertfordshire Police dispatching six officers to arrest a middle-aged couple for criticising their children’s school in a WhatsApp group and ignoring serious crimes? We’ve entered a topsy turvy world in which hurty words by the law-abiding middle-classes are treated as dangerous crimes and violent assaults by marauding gangs as a legitimate form of expression.’ ... The United Kingdom has traded its heritage as the birthplace of the Magna Carta and the foundational principles of individual rights and due process for the unserious, illogical notions of social justice, virtue signaling, and political correctness.”
COLORADO DEMOCRATS PROPOSE ABORTING BABIES TO SAVE MONEY (Friday Church News Notes, April 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Abort Babies, Save Money,” Standing for Freedom, Apr. 3, 2025: “On March 25, 2025, Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D, sat before a legislative committee to discuss Senate Bill 25-183, a measure designed to force the state’s Medicaid program to cover abortion services. The hearing was one of those moments where the mask drops, and the cold, deathly, skeletal face of progressive policy ambitions looked America right in the eyes. McCluskie didn’t even really try to hide her position. She just brazenly leaned into a fiscal argument that’s as chilling as it is revealing: ‘A birth is more expensive than an abortion,’ she said, citing a fiscal note projecting that Colorado could save over $550,000 annually by funding abortions rather than births. She euphemistically called them ‘averted births.’ Averted births?! Ma’am, the word you’re looking for is ‘murdered children.’ The bill’s ‘numbers’ (apparently) back her up--$5.9 million to pay for abortions in the first full year, offset by $6.4 million in ‘savings’ from these ‘averted births.’”
THE GREAT FUNDAMENTAL BAPTIST COLLAPSE (Friday Church News Notes, April 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - We are witnessing a great collapse among fundamental Baptist churches. The majority are either dying or are moving in the contemporary path. We could give examples by surveying any city in the United States. The changes are sweeping through fundamental Baptist churches like a hurricane. Most Independent Baptist preachers and their churches are not doing what is necessary to stand. It is a day to narrow down one’s associations in order to protect oneself and one’s family and friends and ministry and church from the contagious disease of compromise. It’s a day when pastors need to rise up and make themselves counted among the warriors for God’s truth, stop entertaining the saints, stop being a mere hireling, stop overlooking the worldliness and lukewarmness in the membership, and start building true New Testament churches that are strong enough in God’s Word to stand in this evil time and are looking for the imminent return of Christ with cheerful expectation.
SPIDER SUPER CHEMISTRY (Friday Church News Notes, April 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, January 3, 2025: “The bola spider is said to have evolved its amazing abilities all by itself. Why, then, is it smarter and why does it have more abilities than mankind? The bola spider’s favorite food is moths, but it doesn’t weave a web. The bola spider produces the same scent produced by a female moth. Male moths are attracted to this scent, and the spider waits for the inevitable appearance of a male moth. As the male moth nears, the bola senses the vibrations from its wings. At just the right moment, the spider casts out its bola. The bola, after which the spider is named, is a special spider-silk thread with a sticky glob on the end. Scientists who have studied this glue-glob say that modern chemistry could not equal it. The silken line is so elastic that it can stretch up to six times its original length. This allows the spider to conserve its energy while the moth struggles. Once reeled in, the bola wraps the moth in silk for storage until it’s hungry. The bola’s method works so well that it is not unusual for one spider to catch up to eight moths a night. Normally, a species is unable to detect the mating scents of other species. How could the bola spider devise its plan? Once the plan was invented, how could the spider learn how to duplicate the female moth’s chemistry? How could the bola spider be more clever than our best chemists? Of course, the only answer to these questions is that the bola spider was designed and created by God, Who invented chemistry in the first place.”
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).
ISRAEL’S FAMINE (Friday Church News Notes, April 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Amos 8:11-12--“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.” This amazing prophecy describes Israel’s relationship with God’s Word during her wanderings among the nations. It is a perfect description of Talmudic Judaism which has buried God’s Word under layers of vain tradition. The Talmud is composed of two parts: First, there is the Mishnah, which is the Rabbinic commentary on the Torah (Pentateuch). It is filled with debate and argument. Nothing is concrete and settled. The rabbis argue about such things as whether meat and cheese can be on the same table and how much water validates a ritual bath. Second, there is the Gemara which consists of rabbinical comments and debates about the Mishnah. Thus the Gemara is a commentary on a commentary. The Talmud is basically a massive encapsulation of the very Pharisaical teaching that the Lord Jesus Christ condemned (Mt. 13:14-15; 23:1-33; Mr. 7:5-13; Joh. 12:37-40). The Talmud is filled with nonsense, such as angels as best men at Adam’s marriage and the serpent lusting after Mary. The famine for hearing God’s words was further deepened with the spread of Kabbalah. This is supposed to be a third or “hidden” Torah that was revealed to Moses, together with the Torah (Pentateuch) and the Mishnah. It is based on an allegorical interpretation of Scripture that finds secret and “inner” meanings in the words and even letters of Scripture. It borrows heavily from pagan occultism, such as astrology and numerology. Kabbalah consists of a bewildering variety of doctrine and practice. It is esoteric (secret teaching) and mystical (emphasizing intuition and feeling over reason). Hasidic Judaism is permeated with Kabbalah. The geographic focus of Kabbalah is Mt. Meron in northern Israel, where Hillel the Elder, Shammai, Shimon Bar Yochai, and other influential rabbis are buried. Mt. Meron is a major Jewish pilgrimage site where practitioners go in search of spiritual power and “good fortune.” On the anniversary of Shimon’s death, called Lag BaOmer, the day on which he was supposed to have revealed the deepest secrets of Kabbalah, an estimated 250,000 people visit Mt. Meron seeking blessing and mystical enlightenment.
U.K. PARENTS ARRESTED FOR CRITICIZING SCHOOL LEADERS ON PRIVATE SOCIAL MEDIA (Friday Church News Notes, April 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Police Arrest U.K. Parents,” Standing for Freedom, Apr. 1, 2025: “The increasingly authoritarian nature of the British government is back in the spotlight this week after news broke that police arrested, interrogated, and jailed parents in Hertfordshire, England, for complaining about school policy and criticizing school leaders in a private group chat. ... It all started in May 2024, when Maxie Allen, whose daughter Sascha, 9, was attending Cowley Hill Primary School, contacted the chair of governors of the school to question the hiring process of its new head teacher. ... Allen says that the chair’s response was ‘evasive,’ so he sent a letter to all the school governors asking about the decision not to open recruitment to other candidates. Allen posted the letter in a private WhatsApp parents’ group. The next month, Jackie Spriggs, who is the chair of governors, wrote a letter to parents claiming that parents were using WhatsApp ‘to make inflammatory and defamatory comments about senior leaders in the school.’ Spriggs then ordered parents not to criticize leaders ... Shortly after, Levine and Allen were banned from school grounds. ... six police officers in three police cars showed up at Allen and Levine’s home. ... The officers searched the home. They then arrested the couple on ‘suspicion of harassment, malicious communications and causing a nuisance on school property’ and questioned them at the station, where they were later locked in a cell for at least eight hours before being released at midnight. ... Five weeks later, the Hertfordshire police concluded there should be no further investigation. ... The arrest has received criticism as U.K. police increase their targeting of U.K. citizens over their speech. Lord Toby Young of the Free Speech Union questioned, ‘Why are Hertfordshire Police dispatching six officers to arrest a middle-aged couple for criticising their children’s school in a WhatsApp group and ignoring serious crimes? We’ve entered a topsy turvy world in which hurty words by the law-abiding middle-classes are treated as dangerous crimes and violent assaults by marauding gangs as a legitimate form of expression.’ ... The United Kingdom has traded its heritage as the birthplace of the Magna Carta and the foundational principles of individual rights and due process for the unserious, illogical notions of social justice, virtue signaling, and political correctness.”
COLORADO DEMOCRATS PROPOSE ABORTING BABIES TO SAVE MONEY (Friday Church News Notes, April 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Abort Babies, Save Money,” Standing for Freedom, Apr. 3, 2025: “On March 25, 2025, Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D, sat before a legislative committee to discuss Senate Bill 25-183, a measure designed to force the state’s Medicaid program to cover abortion services. The hearing was one of those moments where the mask drops, and the cold, deathly, skeletal face of progressive policy ambitions looked America right in the eyes. McCluskie didn’t even really try to hide her position. She just brazenly leaned into a fiscal argument that’s as chilling as it is revealing: ‘A birth is more expensive than an abortion,’ she said, citing a fiscal note projecting that Colorado could save over $550,000 annually by funding abortions rather than births. She euphemistically called them ‘averted births.’ Averted births?! Ma’am, the word you’re looking for is ‘murdered children.’ The bill’s ‘numbers’ (apparently) back her up--$5.9 million to pay for abortions in the first full year, offset by $6.4 million in ‘savings’ from these ‘averted births.’”
THE GREAT FUNDAMENTAL BAPTIST COLLAPSE (Friday Church News Notes, April 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - We are witnessing a great collapse among fundamental Baptist churches. The majority are either dying or are moving in the contemporary path. We could give examples by surveying any city in the United States. The changes are sweeping through fundamental Baptist churches like a hurricane. Most Independent Baptist preachers and their churches are not doing what is necessary to stand. It is a day to narrow down one’s associations in order to protect oneself and one’s family and friends and ministry and church from the contagious disease of compromise. It’s a day when pastors need to rise up and make themselves counted among the warriors for God’s truth, stop entertaining the saints, stop being a mere hireling, stop overlooking the worldliness and lukewarmness in the membership, and start building true New Testament churches that are strong enough in God’s Word to stand in this evil time and are looking for the imminent return of Christ with cheerful expectation.
SPIDER SUPER CHEMISTRY (Friday Church News Notes, April 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, January 3, 2025: “The bola spider is said to have evolved its amazing abilities all by itself. Why, then, is it smarter and why does it have more abilities than mankind? The bola spider’s favorite food is moths, but it doesn’t weave a web. The bola spider produces the same scent produced by a female moth. Male moths are attracted to this scent, and the spider waits for the inevitable appearance of a male moth. As the male moth nears, the bola senses the vibrations from its wings. At just the right moment, the spider casts out its bola. The bola, after which the spider is named, is a special spider-silk thread with a sticky glob on the end. Scientists who have studied this glue-glob say that modern chemistry could not equal it. The silken line is so elastic that it can stretch up to six times its original length. This allows the spider to conserve its energy while the moth struggles. Once reeled in, the bola wraps the moth in silk for storage until it’s hungry. The bola’s method works so well that it is not unusual for one spider to catch up to eight moths a night. Normally, a species is unable to detect the mating scents of other species. How could the bola spider devise its plan? Once the plan was invented, how could the spider learn how to duplicate the female moth’s chemistry? How could the bola spider be more clever than our best chemists? Of course, the only answer to these questions is that the bola spider was designed and created by God, Who invented chemistry in the first place.”
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, BUT 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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