Friday Church News Notes
August 8, 2025 - Volume 26, Issue 32
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.
Jews on the Temple Mount
THOUSANDS OF JEWS WORSHIP ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Thousands of Jews worshipped on the Temple Mount on Tisha B’Av (the ninth day of Av, August 2-3 this year) and sang about the return of the Messiah to “build the temple.” Tisha B’Av marks the day of the destruction of the first temple (586 BC) and the second temple (AD 70). National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir spoke to the crowd and called for Israel to “conquer all of Gaza, declare sovereignty over the entire Strip, take down every Hamas member, and encourage voluntary migration” (“Thousands of Jews,” World Israel News, Aug. 3, 2025). It is Ben-Gvir who has allowed Jews to pray, 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 the first time this has happened since Israel captured the Temple Mount at the end of the Six-day War in 1967. Within days, Israel’s secular-minded Defense Minister Moshe Dayan took it upon himself to return control of the Temple Mount to the Islamic Waqf. Since then, Muslims have worshipped freely on the 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!
ISRAEL KNESSET SUPPORTS ISRAEL’S SOVEREIGNTY OVER JUDEA, SAMARIA, AND THE JORDAN VALLEY (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “In a landmark decision on July 23, 2025, the Israeli Knesset passed a powerful resolution supporting the application of Israeli sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley. The vote--71 in favor and only 13 opposed--marked the first official endorsement of such a move since the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967. This decisive parliamentary act, backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and supported by members from both coalition and opposition parties, signals a transformative moment in Israeli policy. It’s not just symbolic. The resolution urges the government to take swift and concrete steps to implement full Israeli law, jurisdiction, and administration over Jewish communities across the contested territories” (“Historic Decision,” Israel365News, July 24, 2025). Israel should never have relinquished control over these areas, which were promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their seed by an eternal covenant (Ge. 12:7; 13:15-17; 15:7, 18-21; 17:7-8; 26:1-3; 28:12-15; 35:9-12). It’s God’s land, and it was deeded to Israel, even apostate Israel. Ezekiel 37 describes Israel returning to the land in a spiritually-dead condition before being revived. “So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them” (Eze. 37:7-8). This is where we are today. Israel is back in her own God-given land, not in fulfillment of the Messianic kingdom prophecies, but in preparation for the Antichrist and the Third Temple and the day of the Lord (Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:15-28; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12).
LONDON DISPLAYS 300 “PRIDE FLAGS” (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The mayor of London promoted a display of 300 “gay pride” flags on Regent Street in July. Sadiq Khan, a Muslim who has served as mayor since 2016, tweeted, “Tomorrow at Pride in London we’ll send a message to the world: in our city you are free to be whoever you want to be, and love whoever you want to love. We must take a stand against those seeking to roll back hard-won rights.” London is given over to moral perversion and godlessness, thumbing its nose at Almighty God and His holy laws. It is a major sign of the times. “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion” (Psalm 2:1-6).
NO MORE PREACHING AGAINST ROCK & ROLL (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In the 20th century, many voices were raised among Bible-believing churches against rock & roll via sermons, books, and videos, but these voices have become largely silent in the 21st century. When I made this observation to a friend recently, he replied, “You’re right. Nobody would even think of having a session or a message geared towards that, like they did in the 70s 80s.” Rock & roll has only gotten more wicked by biblical standards, so what has happened? Following are three of the reasons why the preaching against rock & roll has largely ceased. (1) The churches have capitulated to worldliness. Look at the majority of the young people and what they truly love and how they live during the week. Examine their video games, their social media, their movies, their music, their dress, their friends, their Bible study habits, and their prayer lives. (2) Professing Christians are non-critically immersed in rock & roll (e.g., via movies, social media, college and professional sports, video games) and have become accustomed to it and accepting of it, like the frog in the slowly heated pot. (3) Preachers have stopped preaching. Reproof, rebuke, and warning have largely disappeared, except in vague generalities. We are glad for the exceptions, but for the most part, the preaching is soft. Sinners are encouraged; worldlings are comforted; there is no bold call to repentance; the convicting element is dull or non-existent. As a result, the churches are growing ever more lukewarm and worldly as they move toward complete apostasy, even as some of them still hold to the King James Bible and the “old hymns”!
THE FRUIT OF ROCK & ROLL (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Jesus Christ said you can know the character of a tree by its fruit. “[E]very good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit ... Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:16-20). By that infallible standard, rock & roll is found out to be very evil. The fruit is cursing, blasphemy, lawlessness, lasciviousness, fornication, adultery, nakedness, unisexism, homosexuality, alcoholism, drug abuse, broken marriages, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, fightings, arrests, incarceration, broken health, automobile wrecks and motorcycle crashes, shootings, knifings, suicide, covetousness, bankruptcy, lawsuits, deafness, loneliness, insanity, and untimely deaths--to name a few.
CONTEMPORARY WORSHIP ARTIST EXPOSES THE SLEEZE (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Responding to the Michael Tait scandal, wherein the lead singer of the Newsboys was exposed as a moral reprobate, Cory Asbury, once “a chart-topping artist” in the Bethel Music celebrity machine, made the following statement on TikTok: “Marketing yourself is antithetical to the way of Jesus. Every Christian artist has a camera on themselves, or a camera crew team videoing everything they do. Scripture tells us don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, and yet we hire entire promo teams to tell the world how great we are. ... A lot of what pushed me away from the Christian music industry was people writing worship songs knowing that they’re going to get a big fat CCLI check if it does really well, and I’ll have another video on CCLI. I personally have made tons of money, I mean millions and millions of dollars from CCLI, which is when churches put your lyric up on the screen [and] they sing your song. But what happens is people see that success, or they hear about that success, and they go, I wanna do that. I need to write a worship banger, and it becomes formulaic; it is not from the heart, inauthentic garbage, drivel not from God but from man.”
NO SECOND CHANCE AFTER DEATH (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Bible warns that “now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). Shortly before his death, Benjamin Franklin wrote the following to Ezra Stiles, president of Yale University: “As to Jesus of Nazareth ... I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble” (The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Boston and London, 1722-1726). This letter was written on March 9, 1790, and Ben Franklin died on April 17. He thought he could wait until after death to decide who Jesus is, but that is too late. Only in this present life can we bow the knees in a saving manner to Jesus Christ and His gospel, and it is imperative that every person give his fullest attention to this matter and not put it off.
THE SOLAR POWERED PUMP (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, July 22, 2025: “When you look at a tall tree with good green leaves on the topmost branches and it hasn’t rained in a week, did you ever wonder how those leaves get their water in order to stay green? On a nice, warm summer day, a large tree may pump over a thousand gallons--that’s four tons--of water from the ground up to its leaves. The water is collected by the roots, a drop at a time. But the real work of pumping tons of water 30, 60 or 100 feet into the air comes from the top of the tree. As water is pulled toward the treetop, it passes through vessels that have negative pressure in them, pulling the water up. Negative pressure in these vessels, high in a tree, has been measured as low as negative 20 atmospheres. This very low pressure is created as water evaporates from the leaves of the tree, creating a vacant space in the vessel that must be filled with more water from below. The pump in every tree can pull water up from more than 32 feet, which is the limit for man-made pumps. The engineering excellence and power of the silent pump that delivers water within the tree is a witness for our Creator God and against chance evolution!”
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 KNESSET SUPPORTS ISRAEL’S SOVEREIGNTY OVER JUDEA, SAMARIA, AND THE JORDAN VALLEY (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “In a landmark decision on July 23, 2025, the Israeli Knesset passed a powerful resolution supporting the application of Israeli sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley. The vote--71 in favor and only 13 opposed--marked the first official endorsement of such a move since the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967. This decisive parliamentary act, backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and supported by members from both coalition and opposition parties, signals a transformative moment in Israeli policy. It’s not just symbolic. The resolution urges the government to take swift and concrete steps to implement full Israeli law, jurisdiction, and administration over Jewish communities across the contested territories” (“Historic Decision,” Israel365News, July 24, 2025). Israel should never have relinquished control over these areas, which were promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their seed by an eternal covenant (Ge. 12:7; 13:15-17; 15:7, 18-21; 17:7-8; 26:1-3; 28:12-15; 35:9-12). It’s God’s land, and it was deeded to Israel, even apostate Israel. Ezekiel 37 describes Israel returning to the land in a spiritually-dead condition before being revived. “So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them” (Eze. 37:7-8). This is where we are today. Israel is back in her own God-given land, not in fulfillment of the Messianic kingdom prophecies, but in preparation for the Antichrist and the Third Temple and the day of the Lord (Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:15-28; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12).
LONDON DISPLAYS 300 “PRIDE FLAGS” (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The mayor of London promoted a display of 300 “gay pride” flags on Regent Street in July. Sadiq Khan, a Muslim who has served as mayor since 2016, tweeted, “Tomorrow at Pride in London we’ll send a message to the world: in our city you are free to be whoever you want to be, and love whoever you want to love. We must take a stand against those seeking to roll back hard-won rights.” London is given over to moral perversion and godlessness, thumbing its nose at Almighty God and His holy laws. It is a major sign of the times. “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion” (Psalm 2:1-6).
NO MORE PREACHING AGAINST ROCK & ROLL (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In the 20th century, many voices were raised among Bible-believing churches against rock & roll via sermons, books, and videos, but these voices have become largely silent in the 21st century. When I made this observation to a friend recently, he replied, “You’re right. Nobody would even think of having a session or a message geared towards that, like they did in the 70s 80s.” Rock & roll has only gotten more wicked by biblical standards, so what has happened? Following are three of the reasons why the preaching against rock & roll has largely ceased. (1) The churches have capitulated to worldliness. Look at the majority of the young people and what they truly love and how they live during the week. Examine their video games, their social media, their movies, their music, their dress, their friends, their Bible study habits, and their prayer lives. (2) Professing Christians are non-critically immersed in rock & roll (e.g., via movies, social media, college and professional sports, video games) and have become accustomed to it and accepting of it, like the frog in the slowly heated pot. (3) Preachers have stopped preaching. Reproof, rebuke, and warning have largely disappeared, except in vague generalities. We are glad for the exceptions, but for the most part, the preaching is soft. Sinners are encouraged; worldlings are comforted; there is no bold call to repentance; the convicting element is dull or non-existent. As a result, the churches are growing ever more lukewarm and worldly as they move toward complete apostasy, even as some of them still hold to the King James Bible and the “old hymns”!
THE FRUIT OF ROCK & ROLL (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Jesus Christ said you can know the character of a tree by its fruit. “[E]very good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit ... Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:16-20). By that infallible standard, rock & roll is found out to be very evil. The fruit is cursing, blasphemy, lawlessness, lasciviousness, fornication, adultery, nakedness, unisexism, homosexuality, alcoholism, drug abuse, broken marriages, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, fightings, arrests, incarceration, broken health, automobile wrecks and motorcycle crashes, shootings, knifings, suicide, covetousness, bankruptcy, lawsuits, deafness, loneliness, insanity, and untimely deaths--to name a few.
CONTEMPORARY WORSHIP ARTIST EXPOSES THE SLEEZE (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Responding to the Michael Tait scandal, wherein the lead singer of the Newsboys was exposed as a moral reprobate, Cory Asbury, once “a chart-topping artist” in the Bethel Music celebrity machine, made the following statement on TikTok: “Marketing yourself is antithetical to the way of Jesus. Every Christian artist has a camera on themselves, or a camera crew team videoing everything they do. Scripture tells us don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, and yet we hire entire promo teams to tell the world how great we are. ... A lot of what pushed me away from the Christian music industry was people writing worship songs knowing that they’re going to get a big fat CCLI check if it does really well, and I’ll have another video on CCLI. I personally have made tons of money, I mean millions and millions of dollars from CCLI, which is when churches put your lyric up on the screen [and] they sing your song. But what happens is people see that success, or they hear about that success, and they go, I wanna do that. I need to write a worship banger, and it becomes formulaic; it is not from the heart, inauthentic garbage, drivel not from God but from man.”
NO SECOND CHANCE AFTER DEATH (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Bible warns that “now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). Shortly before his death, Benjamin Franklin wrote the following to Ezra Stiles, president of Yale University: “As to Jesus of Nazareth ... I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble” (The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Boston and London, 1722-1726). This letter was written on March 9, 1790, and Ben Franklin died on April 17. He thought he could wait until after death to decide who Jesus is, but that is too late. Only in this present life can we bow the knees in a saving manner to Jesus Christ and His gospel, and it is imperative that every person give his fullest attention to this matter and not put it off.
THE SOLAR POWERED PUMP (Friday Church News Notes, August 8, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, July 22, 2025: “When you look at a tall tree with good green leaves on the topmost branches and it hasn’t rained in a week, did you ever wonder how those leaves get their water in order to stay green? On a nice, warm summer day, a large tree may pump over a thousand gallons--that’s four tons--of water from the ground up to its leaves. The water is collected by the roots, a drop at a time. But the real work of pumping tons of water 30, 60 or 100 feet into the air comes from the top of the tree. As water is pulled toward the treetop, it passes through vessels that have negative pressure in them, pulling the water up. Negative pressure in these vessels, high in a tree, has been measured as low as negative 20 atmospheres. This very low pressure is created as water evaporates from the leaves of the tree, creating a vacant space in the vessel that must be filled with more water from below. The pump in every tree can pull water up from more than 32 feet, which is the limit for man-made pumps. The engineering excellence and power of the silent pump that delivers water within the tree is a witness for our Creator God and against chance evolution!”
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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