Friday Church News Notes
May 30, 2025 - Volume 26, Issue 22
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.
DESPERATE TIMES FOR INDEPENDENT BAPTIST CHURCHES (Friday Church News Notes, March 4, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Over the past 30 years we have seen dramatic changes among independent Baptist churches. Everywhere I travel for Bible conferences, pastors tell me about churches in their areas that have capitulated to the contemporary philosophy and are now enemies of what they used to stand for, or they no longer exist. Consider Akron Baptist Temple of Akron, Ohio. It was founded in 1935 by Dallas F. Billington. By 1949, the church claimed 10,000 members and built a 2,800-seat auditorium. (Obviously most of the “members” were absentee, which was typical of the Quick Prayerism program.) In the 1960s, the church boasted the title “the world’s largest Sunday School” with high days of more than 5,700. In 1978, a 4,000-seat auditorium was built and the church claimed a (meaningless) membership of 15,000. The church, never biblically strong, began a downward slide after the death of the founder. The son, Charles, pastored from 1972 to 1996, when the founder’s grandson, Dallas R., took the pastorate. The church relocated and renamed itself The Connection. Today the former Akron Baptist Temple is an emerging church offering a smorgasbord of worship “experiences.” There is a “traditional” service and a “modern service,” where a loud rock & roll band plays contemporary worship music in a darkened auditorium. The service is advertised as “creating an environment where people who are seeking God, can do so in a non-threatening, comfortable way.” This is the charismatic, new age lust for a feeling. It’s all about me and my tastes and my choices. How 21st century! How 2 Timothy 4:3-4! I was recently rebuked by a pastor who said, “Stop being critical of everyone.” My answer is that I am not being critical. I prove all things and hold fast that which is good; I warn and teach; I reprove, rebuke, and exhort. Preacher friends, it’s not time to beat around the bush and to sit on the sidelines. This is spiritual warfare! We must fear Christ more than man and honor God’s Word more than tradition. “When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers” (Psalm 50:18). “The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity” (Micah 7:4).
VICTOR SEARS SOUNDS ALARM OF FUNDAMENTAL BAPTISTS MERGING WITH EVANGELICALISM (Friday Church News Notes, May 30, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The late Victor Sears, pastor, evangelist, president of Baptist Bible Fellowship International (BBFI), sounded a sharp alarm against the dying out of warning voices among fundamental Baptists and the merging of fundamentalists with evangelicals. He said, “Forty years ago [1941] when I first entered the ministry, the word ‘modernism’ was on the lips of every fundamentalist. The word [was understood to apply to] such organizations as the Federal Council of Churches (now the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches). Individual names such as Harry Emerson Fosdick, Harry Ward, E. Stanley Jones and others were called out in the exposure of modernism or apostasy. Many pulpiteers and Bible expounders became well known for their battle against modernism. Included among these were T.T. Shields, J. Frank Norris, Harvey Springer, Carl McIntyre, Bob Ketchum, Bob Jones, Art Wilson, Noel Smith, Archer Weniger, Henry Grubs, and a host of others too numerous to list. All these men have been very close friends. They fought seemingly insurmountable battles against apostasy and unbelief in denominations and councils. These men were giants in their day. They fought those who would bring false doctrine into our churches and those who would attempt inclusive policies of fellowship between fundamentalists and modernists. The lines were definitely drawn so that people knew unequivocally the difference between fundamentalists, neo-evangelicals, and modernists. Today these lines are fast becoming obliterated” (Victor Sears, “Modernism Takes a New Form,” 1981). This warning was issued nearly 45 years ago and the situation is much worse today. The vast majority of fundamental Baptist pastors have no clear “warning” ministry to protect their people in an even more dangerous time than the one in which Gordon Sears ministered. (Contrast Colossians 1:28, “Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”) Woe unto the worldly, cowardly shepherds and dumb dogs that are “leading” a great many “Bible believing” churches today! Even the boldest of pastors, for the most part, are mousey quiet about the great compromise of their own brethren.
CHARISMATIC PROPHET CLAIMS HE VISITS HELL WITH GOD EVERY EASTER (Friday Church News Notes, May 30, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Micah Turnbo, prophetic minister at Vineyard Church Northwest, Cincinnati, Ohio, claims that God takes him on journeys to hell. He says, “Every Easter, the Lord will take me to Hell. Not my choice. He wants to do it and I don’t like it. The Lord allowed me to sit in front of demons and ask them questions. I’m with God. You know, the Father, on his lap and my hands are, I love his beard. I love his beard. I put my hands in his beard. ... God goes for walks. He walks around, you know. He has like favorite things. Like God loves spicy and salty food. Jesus has the sweet tooth. ... He took me back in time to where I watched him form Adam out of the dirt, and then He took the rib, and He formed [a] woman. I’ve talked to Abraham Lincoln before” (“Vineyard Church pastor defends ‘prophet,’” The Christian Post, May 7, 2025). Turnbo also claims that angels are male and female and reproduce, which was refuted by Christ in Matthew 22:30. After Turnbo was exposed as a false prophet by Mike Winger of the BibleThinker ministry, Turbo’s pastor, Luke Haselmayer, defended him. Among other things, Haselmayer said God confirmed Turnbo’s prophetic ministry in a dream in 2014. Vineyard churches have been messing around with the heresy of “new prophets” since the 1980s, and it has ruined many lives and led a great many astray. In the comments to Winger’s report on YouTube, one man said, “I’m grateful I’m out of Vineyard. Each of the 6 Vineyard churches I’d been part of or visited were about experiences, every one was connected to Bethel, IHOPKC [International House of Prayer Kansas City, which no longer exists because of the immorality of its founder], the contemplative movement and mysticism. There was also a fascination with recreating what happened at Toronto Airport Vineyard. I spent the first few years afterwards seeking to separate what was biblical and what was not. It had led me into occultic practices as a Christian. This [report about Turnbo] is absolutely disturbing.” The end-time “prophecy” movement is filled to the brim with heresy, spiritual delusion, and nuttiness. Beware! (For more about these things see The Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements: The History and Error, www.wayoflife.org.)
NEUROSURGEON-LONGEVITY DOCTOR WARNS THAT ALCOHOL IS TOXIC FOR BRAIN AND BODY (Friday Church News Notes, May 30, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following statement by Dr. Brett Osborn, Section Chief of Neurosurgery at St. Mary’s Medical Center, Palm Beach, Florida, is excerpted from Fox News, Apr. 18, 2025: “In my longevity practice, we are constantly harping on the fact that alcohol is just no good for you. It’s a toxin [poison]. I know the age-old adage that you can have a drink or two a day and it’s good for your heart. No, it’s not. It’s not good for your heart. It’s not good for your brain. It’s not good for your waistline. Anything alcohol touches--your throat, your larynx, your esophagus, your stomach, your bowels, your rectum--those are all being exposed to a toxin. ... It contributes to metabolic dysfunction and visceral fat accumulation and increases the likelihood of type 2 diabetes. [Earlier this year the Surgeon General issued a warning that alcohol is a carcinogen, associated with higher rates of liver, breast, esophageal, colon and head/neck cancers--even with low levels of consumption.] ... Alcohol is a neurotoxin that disrupts neurotransmission, promotes neuroinflammation, and has been directly linked to an increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia. ... We know that if someone has more than seven drinks a week, one drink per day, they are an alcoholic. One drink per day, you are to a degree dependent upon it. I don’t want it for my patients. I don’t use it myself. It’s bad. Get rid of it.” Proverbs 20:1 - “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.”
THE MORAL CHARACTER OF PROFESSIONAL SPORTS (Friday Church News Notes, May 30, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - For the most part, professional sports today is characterized by the following: drinking, gambling, covetousness, immodesty, arrogance, foolishness, anger, cursing, humanism (exaltation of man), unhealthy focus on bodily exercise, filthy rock and roll, homosexual rights, a party lifestyle, carnal addiction, and neglect of the house of God.
A TRULY STRANGE BIRD (Friday Church News Notes, May 30, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, April 24, 2025: “Though God created the entire living kingdom in only a few days, the variety and creativity of what He made seems nearly unlimited by our standards. One of the more unusual creatures He made was thought extinct until it was rediscovered in 1958. The kakapo parrot lives in New Zealand. The most unusual parrot on earth, it is one of only a few known parrots that prefers to sleep during the day and becomes active at night. Weighing in at five pounds, it is also the world’s heaviest parrot. It is, perhaps not surprisingly, the world’s only non-flying parrot. The Creator’s unusual expression of inventive creativity in designing the kakapo did not end here. The mating habits of the kakapo are especially peculiar for birds. In mating season the males gather in locations that are used year after year for mate selection. Female parrots come to these places to inspect the males to select a mate. However, in most un-bird-like fashion, the males provide absolutely no help building the nest or rearing the young. The kakapo is remarkable because of its many strange traits, most of which would make it least fit for survival. In other words, not only is it an unusual creature, but its more unusual characteristics seem to put it at a disadvantage as far as evolution is concerned. So while evolution would not have made the kakapo, our inventive Creator did, perhaps as a witness against evolution. REF: Discover, Mar. 1985, p. 36.”
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).
VICTOR SEARS SOUNDS ALARM OF FUNDAMENTAL BAPTISTS MERGING WITH EVANGELICALISM (Friday Church News Notes, May 30, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The late Victor Sears, pastor, evangelist, president of Baptist Bible Fellowship International (BBFI), sounded a sharp alarm against the dying out of warning voices among fundamental Baptists and the merging of fundamentalists with evangelicals. He said, “Forty years ago [1941] when I first entered the ministry, the word ‘modernism’ was on the lips of every fundamentalist. The word [was understood to apply to] such organizations as the Federal Council of Churches (now the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches). Individual names such as Harry Emerson Fosdick, Harry Ward, E. Stanley Jones and others were called out in the exposure of modernism or apostasy. Many pulpiteers and Bible expounders became well known for their battle against modernism. Included among these were T.T. Shields, J. Frank Norris, Harvey Springer, Carl McIntyre, Bob Ketchum, Bob Jones, Art Wilson, Noel Smith, Archer Weniger, Henry Grubs, and a host of others too numerous to list. All these men have been very close friends. They fought seemingly insurmountable battles against apostasy and unbelief in denominations and councils. These men were giants in their day. They fought those who would bring false doctrine into our churches and those who would attempt inclusive policies of fellowship between fundamentalists and modernists. The lines were definitely drawn so that people knew unequivocally the difference between fundamentalists, neo-evangelicals, and modernists. Today these lines are fast becoming obliterated” (Victor Sears, “Modernism Takes a New Form,” 1981). This warning was issued nearly 45 years ago and the situation is much worse today. The vast majority of fundamental Baptist pastors have no clear “warning” ministry to protect their people in an even more dangerous time than the one in which Gordon Sears ministered. (Contrast Colossians 1:28, “Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”) Woe unto the worldly, cowardly shepherds and dumb dogs that are “leading” a great many “Bible believing” churches today! Even the boldest of pastors, for the most part, are mousey quiet about the great compromise of their own brethren.
CHARISMATIC PROPHET CLAIMS HE VISITS HELL WITH GOD EVERY EASTER (Friday Church News Notes, May 30, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Micah Turnbo, prophetic minister at Vineyard Church Northwest, Cincinnati, Ohio, claims that God takes him on journeys to hell. He says, “Every Easter, the Lord will take me to Hell. Not my choice. He wants to do it and I don’t like it. The Lord allowed me to sit in front of demons and ask them questions. I’m with God. You know, the Father, on his lap and my hands are, I love his beard. I love his beard. I put my hands in his beard. ... God goes for walks. He walks around, you know. He has like favorite things. Like God loves spicy and salty food. Jesus has the sweet tooth. ... He took me back in time to where I watched him form Adam out of the dirt, and then He took the rib, and He formed [a] woman. I’ve talked to Abraham Lincoln before” (“Vineyard Church pastor defends ‘prophet,’” The Christian Post, May 7, 2025). Turnbo also claims that angels are male and female and reproduce, which was refuted by Christ in Matthew 22:30. After Turnbo was exposed as a false prophet by Mike Winger of the BibleThinker ministry, Turbo’s pastor, Luke Haselmayer, defended him. Among other things, Haselmayer said God confirmed Turnbo’s prophetic ministry in a dream in 2014. Vineyard churches have been messing around with the heresy of “new prophets” since the 1980s, and it has ruined many lives and led a great many astray. In the comments to Winger’s report on YouTube, one man said, “I’m grateful I’m out of Vineyard. Each of the 6 Vineyard churches I’d been part of or visited were about experiences, every one was connected to Bethel, IHOPKC [International House of Prayer Kansas City, which no longer exists because of the immorality of its founder], the contemplative movement and mysticism. There was also a fascination with recreating what happened at Toronto Airport Vineyard. I spent the first few years afterwards seeking to separate what was biblical and what was not. It had led me into occultic practices as a Christian. This [report about Turnbo] is absolutely disturbing.” The end-time “prophecy” movement is filled to the brim with heresy, spiritual delusion, and nuttiness. Beware! (For more about these things see The Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements: The History and Error, www.wayoflife.org.)
NEUROSURGEON-LONGEVITY DOCTOR WARNS THAT ALCOHOL IS TOXIC FOR BRAIN AND BODY (Friday Church News Notes, May 30, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following statement by Dr. Brett Osborn, Section Chief of Neurosurgery at St. Mary’s Medical Center, Palm Beach, Florida, is excerpted from Fox News, Apr. 18, 2025: “In my longevity practice, we are constantly harping on the fact that alcohol is just no good for you. It’s a toxin [poison]. I know the age-old adage that you can have a drink or two a day and it’s good for your heart. No, it’s not. It’s not good for your heart. It’s not good for your brain. It’s not good for your waistline. Anything alcohol touches--your throat, your larynx, your esophagus, your stomach, your bowels, your rectum--those are all being exposed to a toxin. ... It contributes to metabolic dysfunction and visceral fat accumulation and increases the likelihood of type 2 diabetes. [Earlier this year the Surgeon General issued a warning that alcohol is a carcinogen, associated with higher rates of liver, breast, esophageal, colon and head/neck cancers--even with low levels of consumption.] ... Alcohol is a neurotoxin that disrupts neurotransmission, promotes neuroinflammation, and has been directly linked to an increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia. ... We know that if someone has more than seven drinks a week, one drink per day, they are an alcoholic. One drink per day, you are to a degree dependent upon it. I don’t want it for my patients. I don’t use it myself. It’s bad. Get rid of it.” Proverbs 20:1 - “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.”
THE MORAL CHARACTER OF PROFESSIONAL SPORTS (Friday Church News Notes, May 30, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - For the most part, professional sports today is characterized by the following: drinking, gambling, covetousness, immodesty, arrogance, foolishness, anger, cursing, humanism (exaltation of man), unhealthy focus on bodily exercise, filthy rock and roll, homosexual rights, a party lifestyle, carnal addiction, and neglect of the house of God.
A TRULY STRANGE BIRD (Friday Church News Notes, May 30, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, April 24, 2025: “Though God created the entire living kingdom in only a few days, the variety and creativity of what He made seems nearly unlimited by our standards. One of the more unusual creatures He made was thought extinct until it was rediscovered in 1958. The kakapo parrot lives in New Zealand. The most unusual parrot on earth, it is one of only a few known parrots that prefers to sleep during the day and becomes active at night. Weighing in at five pounds, it is also the world’s heaviest parrot. It is, perhaps not surprisingly, the world’s only non-flying parrot. The Creator’s unusual expression of inventive creativity in designing the kakapo did not end here. The mating habits of the kakapo are especially peculiar for birds. In mating season the males gather in locations that are used year after year for mate selection. Female parrots come to these places to inspect the males to select a mate. However, in most un-bird-like fashion, the males provide absolutely no help building the nest or rearing the young. The kakapo is remarkable because of its many strange traits, most of which would make it least fit for survival. In other words, not only is it an unusual creature, but its more unusual characteristics seem to put it at a disadvantage as far as evolution is concerned. So while evolution would not have made the kakapo, our inventive Creator did, perhaps as a witness against evolution. REF: Discover, Mar. 1985, p. 36.”
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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