Friday Church News Notes
July 11, 2025 - Volume 26, Issue 28
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.
PM Netanyahu, President Trump, Ayatollah Shirazi
IRAN DECLARES FATWAH ON TRUMP AND NETANYAHU (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Iran Just Declared,” Israel365News, July 3, 2025: “On June 29th, Iran’s most senior religious cleric, Grand Ayatollah Makaram Shirazi, issued a chilling fatwa calling for the global assassination of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. This isn’t just political rhetoric--this is a direct religious ruling urging Muslims worldwide to carry out targeted killings. Backed by a reward from Allah for anyone who dies attempting the assassination, and brutal punishments for anyone who supports the West, this fatwa reveals the true spiritual and ideological nature of Iran’s war against the West. It is not about land. It is not about borders. It is a religious war rooted in a vision to destroy Israel and America. [These] Islamic rulings have led to real [and attempted] assassinations--from Anwar Sadat to Salman Rushdie. This decree must be taken seriously. This signals a dangerous escalation.”
DALAI LAMA SAYS HE WILL REINCARNATE (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The week of his 90th birthday, the Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) said he will reincarnate to assure that the Tibetan Buddhist institution will continue after his death. He is supposed to be the 14th incarnation of Chenrezig, the Buddhist god of compassion. After the 13th incarnation died in 1933, Tibetan Buddhist monks searched the kingdom for the new incarnation according to various signs and oracles and settled on Tenzin in 1937 when he was two years old. When Chinese troops crushed a Buddhist uprising in Lhasa in 1959, Tenzin fled Tibet and established a government-in-exile in Dharamshala, India. The Chinese government has vowed to control the appointment of the next Dalai Lama, which could result in competing lamas. When I met the man who led me to Christ in 1973, I believed in reincarnation, and it was one of the first things I brought up in our conversations. He replied, “The Bible says, And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). He showed me the verse. I was amazed at the clarity of the Bible’s teaching on this subject. If the Bible is true, reincarnation is a myth. There is one death, then judgment. I had grown up in a Baptist church, but I didn’t know the Bible. I thought it was basically a very old, pretty dull, largely incomprehensible book. I had no idea that it speaks clearly to the very things I was studying in modern times. I spent three or four days with this man, spouting my opinions, arguing, but also listening and pondering what the Bible said and praying to God for help. I was impressed by the man’s knowledge of Scripture and his ability to find verses that applied perfectly to the things I then believed (e.g., men should follow their hearts; there are many ways to God; if a man is sincere all will be well; hell is too severe; judgment is unfair for those who have never heard the gospel; why should we believe the Bible is God’s Word; Jesus learned from gurus when he was young). Thankfully, at the end of that intensive Bible study, God had great mercy on a very foolish young man. I repented of my rebellion to God’s authority, believed 100% in Jesus as the only Lord and Saviour, and was born again. By God’s grace I have not doubted a word in the Bible since.
SINGING, DANCING ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Under the direction of Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s Minister of National Security, Jews have been permitted to sing and dance openly across the entire Temple Mount compound since June 26 (“Messiah in the air,” World Israel News, June 26, 2025). This is a first since Israel captured the Temple Mount at the end of the Six-day War in 1967. On June 7, Motta Gur, commander of the paratroopers, excitedly announced on the radio, “Har Ha-bayit be-yadeinu!” (“The Temple Mount is in our hands!”) Within days, Israel’s secular-minded Defense Minister Moshe Dayan took it upon himself to return control of the Temple Mount to the Muslims (the Islamic Waqf). In Moshe Dayan: Story of My Life, he said he was worried that the Jews would try to build the Third Temple. Since then, Muslims worship freely on the Temple Mount while Jews (and Christians) have not been allowed to engage even in quiet prayer. We don’t know how long the current liberty under Ben-Gvir will last, but we do expect there will be a great celebration on the Temple Mount when the Antichrist announces the construction of the Third Temple!
AMERICA A VERY WICKED NATION (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - According to the latest Gallup Poll, only 40% of Americans consider abortion morally wrong (“Rise in Americans,” Christianity Daily, June 18, 2025). That adds up to a very wicked nation before the Creator God who owns all souls. “Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4).
BEWARE OF A REPROBATE MIND (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Romans 1:21-32 describes the beginning of idolatry and the moral descent of mankind following the Tower of Babel. Instead of being thankful to God for preserving them from the destruction of the global flood, Noah’s descendants glorified Him not as God, rejected holiness, and devoted themselves to the pursuit of the sins of the flesh. As a result, “God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” Homosexuality is a product of allowing the mind to dwell upon filthy and wicked things. When a person allows his mind to dwell upon evil in the secret of his imagination, he opens the door to every evil thing, including child pornography and violence. FBI profiler Robert Kessler says, “My research [into serial killers] convinced me that the key was not the early trauma but the development of perverse thought patterns. These men were motivated to murder by their fantasies. ‘It is a development,’ one killer reported, ‘Getting tired of a certain level of fantasy and then going even further and even more bizarre.’ ... All the murderers that we interviewed had compelling fantasies; they murdered to make happen in the real world what they had seen over and over again in their minds since childhood and adolescence. As adolescents, instead of developing normal peer-related interests and activities, where they couldn’t completely control what went on, the murderers retreated into sexually violent fantasies, where they could, in effect, control their world” (Kessler, Whoever Fights Monsters, p. 110). This is a very loud warning in the internet age and the video game age, when every type of vile image is available at the click of a mouse or the swipe of a finger. We cannot always control what comes into the mind, but we can control what we willfully put into our minds, and we can control what we allow the mind to dwell upon. It has been said, “You cannot keep a bird from lighting on your head, but you can keep him from building a nest there.” It is far better to be too careful than not careful enough. I am convinced that every church that does not have an effectual supervision program for pornography is a church that is filled with moral corruption and is on the path of destruction. (We recommend The Pornographic Age and Victory in Christ, www.wayoflife.org.)
WHY I HAVE WRITTEN AS I HAVE (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “I do not set up myself to be better than other people, and if anyone asks, ‘What are you, that you write this way?’ I answer, ‘I am a very poor creature indeed.’ But I say that I cannot read the Bible without desiring to see many believers more spiritual, more holy, more single-eyed, more heavenly-minded, more whole-hearted than they (presently) are. I want to see among believers more of a pilgrim spirit, a more decided separation from the world, a conversation more evidently in heaven, a closer walk with God, and therefore I have written as I have” (J.C. Ryle).
MARY QUANT, THE FASHION REVOLUTIONIST (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In 2019, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London had a major exhibit on Mary Quant (1930-2023), the revolutionary fashion designer of the Beatles era. She invented the mini skirt and hot pants. The focus of the exhibit was revolution, liberation from biblical sexual mores, and breaking down the biblical barriers between the sexes (unisex, androgyny). There was no attempt to hide this. Following are some of the quotes from the exhibit: “using fashion to question hierarchies and gender rules”; “a rebellious approach to established gender norms”; “mocking religion”; “subverting menswear”; “trousers were considered inappropriate for women [but] Quant wears them anywhere she wants”; “androgynous style”; “an independent style”; “self-expression”; “freedom”; “the miniskirt became an international symbol of women’s liberation.” The exhibit acknowledged that unisex clothing was a major facet of homosexual rights. “[Quant’s] provocative styles reflected increasing relaxed attitudes in society towards sexuality in all its forms, reinforced legally by the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967.” Mary Quant’s fashions were more modest than some of those seen in the average church today.
THE SECRET OF BEE BREAD (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, May 28, 2025: “Bee bread is a highly nutritional derivative, made from pollen by bees. Scientists have understood for some time that worker bees who have just emerged from the comb must eat bee bread so that their glands produce food for the queen and developing larvae. However, older worker bees get by on honey alone. So scientists suspected that bee bread must have a higher nutritional value than honey. Now, after painstaking work, researchers have learned how bee bread is made. Even as bees collect the pollen, they begin to work on the recipe. They add secretions from special glands, as well as microorganisms that produce enzymes which release a number of important nutrients from the pollen. Other microbes are added to produce antibiotics and fatty acids to prevent spoilage. At the same time, unwanted microbes are removed, and the bees add honey or nectar to the bread to get it to stick together. The bees’ recipe for bee bread involves a highly sophisticated knowledge of microbiology, nutritional chemistry and biochemistry in general. Modern science, therefore, absolutely requires us to reject the idea that bees and their culture evolved by blind chance and ignorant natural forces. Only a perfect Creator could have made these wonderful creatures and taught them how to make bee bread!”
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).
DALAI LAMA SAYS HE WILL REINCARNATE (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The week of his 90th birthday, the Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) said he will reincarnate to assure that the Tibetan Buddhist institution will continue after his death. He is supposed to be the 14th incarnation of Chenrezig, the Buddhist god of compassion. After the 13th incarnation died in 1933, Tibetan Buddhist monks searched the kingdom for the new incarnation according to various signs and oracles and settled on Tenzin in 1937 when he was two years old. When Chinese troops crushed a Buddhist uprising in Lhasa in 1959, Tenzin fled Tibet and established a government-in-exile in Dharamshala, India. The Chinese government has vowed to control the appointment of the next Dalai Lama, which could result in competing lamas. When I met the man who led me to Christ in 1973, I believed in reincarnation, and it was one of the first things I brought up in our conversations. He replied, “The Bible says, And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). He showed me the verse. I was amazed at the clarity of the Bible’s teaching on this subject. If the Bible is true, reincarnation is a myth. There is one death, then judgment. I had grown up in a Baptist church, but I didn’t know the Bible. I thought it was basically a very old, pretty dull, largely incomprehensible book. I had no idea that it speaks clearly to the very things I was studying in modern times. I spent three or four days with this man, spouting my opinions, arguing, but also listening and pondering what the Bible said and praying to God for help. I was impressed by the man’s knowledge of Scripture and his ability to find verses that applied perfectly to the things I then believed (e.g., men should follow their hearts; there are many ways to God; if a man is sincere all will be well; hell is too severe; judgment is unfair for those who have never heard the gospel; why should we believe the Bible is God’s Word; Jesus learned from gurus when he was young). Thankfully, at the end of that intensive Bible study, God had great mercy on a very foolish young man. I repented of my rebellion to God’s authority, believed 100% in Jesus as the only Lord and Saviour, and was born again. By God’s grace I have not doubted a word in the Bible since.
SINGING, DANCING ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Under the direction of Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s Minister of National Security, Jews have been permitted to sing and dance openly across the entire Temple Mount compound since June 26 (“Messiah in the air,” World Israel News, June 26, 2025). This is a first since Israel captured the Temple Mount at the end of the Six-day War in 1967. On June 7, Motta Gur, commander of the paratroopers, excitedly announced on the radio, “Har Ha-bayit be-yadeinu!” (“The Temple Mount is in our hands!”) Within days, Israel’s secular-minded Defense Minister Moshe Dayan took it upon himself to return control of the Temple Mount to the Muslims (the Islamic Waqf). In Moshe Dayan: Story of My Life, he said he was worried that the Jews would try to build the Third Temple. Since then, Muslims worship freely on the Temple Mount while Jews (and Christians) have not been allowed to engage even in quiet prayer. We don’t know how long the current liberty under Ben-Gvir will last, but we do expect there will be a great celebration on the Temple Mount when the Antichrist announces the construction of the Third Temple!
AMERICA A VERY WICKED NATION (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - According to the latest Gallup Poll, only 40% of Americans consider abortion morally wrong (“Rise in Americans,” Christianity Daily, June 18, 2025). That adds up to a very wicked nation before the Creator God who owns all souls. “Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4).
BEWARE OF A REPROBATE MIND (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Romans 1:21-32 describes the beginning of idolatry and the moral descent of mankind following the Tower of Babel. Instead of being thankful to God for preserving them from the destruction of the global flood, Noah’s descendants glorified Him not as God, rejected holiness, and devoted themselves to the pursuit of the sins of the flesh. As a result, “God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” Homosexuality is a product of allowing the mind to dwell upon filthy and wicked things. When a person allows his mind to dwell upon evil in the secret of his imagination, he opens the door to every evil thing, including child pornography and violence. FBI profiler Robert Kessler says, “My research [into serial killers] convinced me that the key was not the early trauma but the development of perverse thought patterns. These men were motivated to murder by their fantasies. ‘It is a development,’ one killer reported, ‘Getting tired of a certain level of fantasy and then going even further and even more bizarre.’ ... All the murderers that we interviewed had compelling fantasies; they murdered to make happen in the real world what they had seen over and over again in their minds since childhood and adolescence. As adolescents, instead of developing normal peer-related interests and activities, where they couldn’t completely control what went on, the murderers retreated into sexually violent fantasies, where they could, in effect, control their world” (Kessler, Whoever Fights Monsters, p. 110). This is a very loud warning in the internet age and the video game age, when every type of vile image is available at the click of a mouse or the swipe of a finger. We cannot always control what comes into the mind, but we can control what we willfully put into our minds, and we can control what we allow the mind to dwell upon. It has been said, “You cannot keep a bird from lighting on your head, but you can keep him from building a nest there.” It is far better to be too careful than not careful enough. I am convinced that every church that does not have an effectual supervision program for pornography is a church that is filled with moral corruption and is on the path of destruction. (We recommend The Pornographic Age and Victory in Christ, www.wayoflife.org.)
WHY I HAVE WRITTEN AS I HAVE (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “I do not set up myself to be better than other people, and if anyone asks, ‘What are you, that you write this way?’ I answer, ‘I am a very poor creature indeed.’ But I say that I cannot read the Bible without desiring to see many believers more spiritual, more holy, more single-eyed, more heavenly-minded, more whole-hearted than they (presently) are. I want to see among believers more of a pilgrim spirit, a more decided separation from the world, a conversation more evidently in heaven, a closer walk with God, and therefore I have written as I have” (J.C. Ryle).
MARY QUANT, THE FASHION REVOLUTIONIST (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In 2019, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London had a major exhibit on Mary Quant (1930-2023), the revolutionary fashion designer of the Beatles era. She invented the mini skirt and hot pants. The focus of the exhibit was revolution, liberation from biblical sexual mores, and breaking down the biblical barriers between the sexes (unisex, androgyny). There was no attempt to hide this. Following are some of the quotes from the exhibit: “using fashion to question hierarchies and gender rules”; “a rebellious approach to established gender norms”; “mocking religion”; “subverting menswear”; “trousers were considered inappropriate for women [but] Quant wears them anywhere she wants”; “androgynous style”; “an independent style”; “self-expression”; “freedom”; “the miniskirt became an international symbol of women’s liberation.” The exhibit acknowledged that unisex clothing was a major facet of homosexual rights. “[Quant’s] provocative styles reflected increasing relaxed attitudes in society towards sexuality in all its forms, reinforced legally by the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967.” Mary Quant’s fashions were more modest than some of those seen in the average church today.
THE SECRET OF BEE BREAD (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, May 28, 2025: “Bee bread is a highly nutritional derivative, made from pollen by bees. Scientists have understood for some time that worker bees who have just emerged from the comb must eat bee bread so that their glands produce food for the queen and developing larvae. However, older worker bees get by on honey alone. So scientists suspected that bee bread must have a higher nutritional value than honey. Now, after painstaking work, researchers have learned how bee bread is made. Even as bees collect the pollen, they begin to work on the recipe. They add secretions from special glands, as well as microorganisms that produce enzymes which release a number of important nutrients from the pollen. Other microbes are added to produce antibiotics and fatty acids to prevent spoilage. At the same time, unwanted microbes are removed, and the bees add honey or nectar to the bread to get it to stick together. The bees’ recipe for bee bread involves a highly sophisticated knowledge of microbiology, nutritional chemistry and biochemistry in general. Modern science, therefore, absolutely requires us to reject the idea that bees and their culture evolved by blind chance and ignorant natural forces. Only a perfect Creator could have made these wonderful creatures and taught them how to make bee bread!”
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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