Friday Church News Notes
October 10, 2025 - Volume 26, Issue 41
The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, though this does not imply an endorsement.
President Donald Trump
TRUMP SAYS HE WILL NOT ALLOW ISRAEL TO ANNEX THE “WEST BANK” (Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - On September 25, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House, President Trump said, “I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. Nope, I will not allow it. It’s not going to happen” (“Trump Says,” Associated Press, Sept. 26, 2025). We would make four comments on this. First, the President’s statement is in clear opposition to God’s Word, which says God gave the land of Israel to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their seed. The Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 12) is the title deed to the land of Canaan. The giving of that land to Abraham and his seed is mentioned at least 12 times in Genesis. See Ge. 12:7; 13:14-17; 15:7, 18 (“from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates”); 17:8 (“an everlasting possession”); 24:7; 26:3 (God repeated the promise to Isaac); 28:4, 13 (God repeated the promise to Jacob); 35:12 (the land is promised to the seed of Jacob). Though God gave the land to Israel, He still owns it. He calls it “my land” (2 Ch. 7:20; Isa. 14:25; Jer. 2:7; 16:18; Eze. 36:5; 38:16; Joe. 1:6; 3:2). It’s not Israel’s land to do with as she pleases. Second, the state of Israel was wrong in turning control of Gaza, Judea, and Samaria (the “West Bank”) over to the Palestinians. Israel has used its God-given land as bargaining chips in their own deal making, but attempts at appeasement have never worked. Israel 365 News says, “Let us be honest: this is not about Trump. It is about us. We have treated sovereignty as a political tool instead of a divine mandate. We have allowed thirty years of cowardice to harden into policy. And unless we repent, we will go on hearing the nations tell us what we ourselves have already implied: that God’s land is negotiable” (“Don’t Blame Trump,” Israel 365 News, Sept. 29, 2025). Third, the meddling of U.S. presidents and other world leaders into Israel’s affairs is evidence that we are still in “the times of the Gentiles” (Lu. 21:24), which is the period during which Israel is under Gentile domination. It began when Nebuchadnezzar took Judah captive (2 Ch. 36:1-21). Even today when Israel has returned to the land and has her own national identity, she is not at full liberty to make her own decisions even when her welfare is at stake. The times of the Gentiles will end when the remnant of Israel repents and Christ delivers the nation at Armageddon. Fourth, Gaza, Judea, and Samaria will probably at some point be claimed by Muslims as the “Palestinian state” that has been recognized by 151 nations, including France, Britain, Australia, Canada, Portugal, Belgium, Norway, Spain, Ireland, Sweden, Turkey, India, and China. Yasser Arafat proclaimed a Palestinian State on Nov. 15, 1988, and Algeria was the first country to officially recognize it. Today, only about two dozen nations do not recognize it, chiefly the United States, Italy, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. Philippe Sands, Franco-British law professor at University College London and barrister who appears as counsel before the International Court of Justice, says, “I know for many people this seems only symbolic, but actually in terms of symbolism, it is sort of a game changer, because once you recognize Palestinian statehood ... you essentially put Palestine and Israel on level footing in terms of their treatment under international law.” In truth, there is no Palestinian state and can be no Palestinian state. The “Palestinian people” have no historic reality; they are a myth created by Israel haters; and the “Palestinians” themselves, so called, are hopelessly divided into violent sects (e.g., Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, Shiite, Sunni), often hating one another nearly as much as they hate Israel.
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE’S MORAL PERVERSION (Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The National Football League has selected Puerto Rican rapper Benito Martinez Ocasio to headline its 2026 Super Bowl halftime show. He will perform in Spanish. His moniker “Bad Bunny” is well deserved. “Bad Bunny is about as divisive as an individual can get when it comes to cultural norms, gender fluidity, politics, and the United States’ rule of law. ... The NFL is amplifying an anti-American, anti-law enforcement, anti-God, cross dresser and putting him on its biggest stage. ... [Ocasio] questions the definition of a man and a woman” (NFL Turns Its Back on Moral Values,” Outkick, Oct. 1, 2025). Ocasio frequently dresses as a female in homosexual “drag” and ridiculously claims that this means nothing. The National Football League pretends to be pro-American by playing the national anthem and even covering the playing field with a 57-000-square-foot American flag (Las Vegas, Dec. 16, 2024), but in truth it is on the cutting edge of promoting the new morally-perverted America by its vile rock & roll culture. The game is played on the second Sunday in February which is called “Super Bowl Sunday.” It is massively popular and “frequently commands the largest audience among all American broadcasts.” It is impossible to imagine the apostle Paul being enthusiastic over professional sports today and wasting days and hours on this vanity. “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11).
SOUTHERN BAPTIST PASTOR SAYS 20 MINUTE SERMONS ARE BEST (Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Ed Young, pastor of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, said in a Sept. 28 video that 20 minutes is the best length for a sermon. “Preachers, we preach too long, I guarantee it. Just look at yourself,” he said. “I preach too long. Once a sermon gets past 25 minutes, I’m so [attention deficit disorder]. I lose it” (“Megachurch Pastor Ed Young,” The Christian Post, Oct. 3, 2025). Young is the oldest son of Homer Edwin Young, pastor of megachurch Second Baptist of Houston, Texas, author of many books, and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention (1992 and 1993). It was reported in 2010 that Ed Young has a private jet, an annual salary of $1 million, and a housing allowance of $240,000 (“Prominent Grapevine pastor linked to luxury,” WFAA-TV, Feb. 5, 2010). For our part, the length of a sermon depends on the occasion and the quality of the preaching. Some occasions call for short sermons, and many preachers should limit their sermons to 5 or 10 minutes on all occasions. For others, an hour can be too short. Consider Lawrence Chaderton, one of the translators of the King James Bible. As a young man Chaderton began a series of afternoon sermons at the church of St. Clement’s, Cambridge, that continued for 50 years. “Sermons were timed by an hour glass, which stood beside the pulpit. Chaderton’s biographer tells how once having preached for two hours, he feared he had worn out his listeners’ patience and stopped. But the entire congregation cried, ‘Go on! We beg you, go on!’ Chaderton continued for another hour” (Olga Opfell, The King James Bible Translators, p. 47). When he announced that he was retiring from these lectures, forty of the clergy, who said they owed their conversion to his preaching, begged him to reconsider. There are very few preachers of this caliber. It has been well said that the preacher should quit when the audience would have him continue rather than long for him to stop.
FEMALE, SAME-SEX BLESSING ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY (Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - For an apostate Christian denomination, it is appropriate that the newly elected head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is a woman who supports the blessing of same-sex “marriages.” When Archbishop of Canterbury-designate, Sarah Mullally, was asked by a reporter in 2023 if sexual intimacy in a same-sex relationship is sinful, she replied that some such relationships could be blessed (“Gafcon laments future of Anglican communion,” The Christian Post, Oct. 3, 2025). Mullally is the latest in a long line of ultra liberal archbishops (an office that has no authority in God’s Word). On October 31, 2024, Justin Welby tweeted a praise of Hinduism, calling it “light.” In a July 2014 interview, Rowan Williams said that he practices a combination of Buddhist/Catholic/Orthodox meditation practices” (“Rowan Williams: How Buddhism Helps Me Pray,” The Telegraph, London, July 2, 2014). In 1996, George Carey lashed out at fundamentalists who place the Bible “above and beyond human inquiry” (Christian News, Dec. 9, 1996). In 1982, Robert Runcie said he was an agnostic as to why Jesus suffered on the cross (Sunday Times Weekly Review, London, April 11, 1982). In 1961, Michael Ramsey said, “[H]eaven is not a place for Christians only. ... I expect to see many present day atheists there” (London Daily Mail, Oct. 2, 1961). In 1934, William Temple, in his book Nature and God, said, “[T]here is no such thing as revealed truth.”
ANOTHER FAILED DATE SETTING PREDICTION FOR CHRIST’S RETURN (Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Lord Jesus Christ plainly and unequivocally said of His return, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matthew 24:36). Every individual who sets a date for Christ’s return flies in the face of this divine statement. We can “see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25), but we cannot know the day, nor even the month or the year. Most recently, South African pastor Joshua Mhlakela claimed that Jesus appeared to him in a vision and told him that He would return on Sept. 23-24, 2025. This is the latest in a long line of deluded prognosticators, including Thomas Muntzer (1525), William Aspinwall a Fifth Monarchist (1673), Ann Lee of the Shakers (1770), George Rapp of the Harmony Society (Sept. 15, 1829), William Miller (October 22, 1844), Jonathan Edwards (1866), Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Watchtower Society of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (1874), Hal Lindsay (no later than 1988), Edgar Chisenant (1989), Harold Camping (May 21, 2011), Ronald Weinland (May 27, 2012), and Mark Biltz (Sept. 28, 2015),
FIRST STEPS TO SUCCESS (Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - First Steps to Success
Give God -
The first place in your heart
The first hour of the day
The first day of the week
The first portion of your pay
The first consideration in every decision
(original source unknown)
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).
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE’S MORAL PERVERSION (Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The National Football League has selected Puerto Rican rapper Benito Martinez Ocasio to headline its 2026 Super Bowl halftime show. He will perform in Spanish. His moniker “Bad Bunny” is well deserved. “Bad Bunny is about as divisive as an individual can get when it comes to cultural norms, gender fluidity, politics, and the United States’ rule of law. ... The NFL is amplifying an anti-American, anti-law enforcement, anti-God, cross dresser and putting him on its biggest stage. ... [Ocasio] questions the definition of a man and a woman” (NFL Turns Its Back on Moral Values,” Outkick, Oct. 1, 2025). Ocasio frequently dresses as a female in homosexual “drag” and ridiculously claims that this means nothing. The National Football League pretends to be pro-American by playing the national anthem and even covering the playing field with a 57-000-square-foot American flag (Las Vegas, Dec. 16, 2024), but in truth it is on the cutting edge of promoting the new morally-perverted America by its vile rock & roll culture. The game is played on the second Sunday in February which is called “Super Bowl Sunday.” It is massively popular and “frequently commands the largest audience among all American broadcasts.” It is impossible to imagine the apostle Paul being enthusiastic over professional sports today and wasting days and hours on this vanity. “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11).
SOUTHERN BAPTIST PASTOR SAYS 20 MINUTE SERMONS ARE BEST (Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Ed Young, pastor of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, said in a Sept. 28 video that 20 minutes is the best length for a sermon. “Preachers, we preach too long, I guarantee it. Just look at yourself,” he said. “I preach too long. Once a sermon gets past 25 minutes, I’m so [attention deficit disorder]. I lose it” (“Megachurch Pastor Ed Young,” The Christian Post, Oct. 3, 2025). Young is the oldest son of Homer Edwin Young, pastor of megachurch Second Baptist of Houston, Texas, author of many books, and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention (1992 and 1993). It was reported in 2010 that Ed Young has a private jet, an annual salary of $1 million, and a housing allowance of $240,000 (“Prominent Grapevine pastor linked to luxury,” WFAA-TV, Feb. 5, 2010). For our part, the length of a sermon depends on the occasion and the quality of the preaching. Some occasions call for short sermons, and many preachers should limit their sermons to 5 or 10 minutes on all occasions. For others, an hour can be too short. Consider Lawrence Chaderton, one of the translators of the King James Bible. As a young man Chaderton began a series of afternoon sermons at the church of St. Clement’s, Cambridge, that continued for 50 years. “Sermons were timed by an hour glass, which stood beside the pulpit. Chaderton’s biographer tells how once having preached for two hours, he feared he had worn out his listeners’ patience and stopped. But the entire congregation cried, ‘Go on! We beg you, go on!’ Chaderton continued for another hour” (Olga Opfell, The King James Bible Translators, p. 47). When he announced that he was retiring from these lectures, forty of the clergy, who said they owed their conversion to his preaching, begged him to reconsider. There are very few preachers of this caliber. It has been well said that the preacher should quit when the audience would have him continue rather than long for him to stop.
FEMALE, SAME-SEX BLESSING ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY (Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - For an apostate Christian denomination, it is appropriate that the newly elected head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is a woman who supports the blessing of same-sex “marriages.” When Archbishop of Canterbury-designate, Sarah Mullally, was asked by a reporter in 2023 if sexual intimacy in a same-sex relationship is sinful, she replied that some such relationships could be blessed (“Gafcon laments future of Anglican communion,” The Christian Post, Oct. 3, 2025). Mullally is the latest in a long line of ultra liberal archbishops (an office that has no authority in God’s Word). On October 31, 2024, Justin Welby tweeted a praise of Hinduism, calling it “light.” In a July 2014 interview, Rowan Williams said that he practices a combination of Buddhist/Catholic/Orthodox meditation practices” (“Rowan Williams: How Buddhism Helps Me Pray,” The Telegraph, London, July 2, 2014). In 1996, George Carey lashed out at fundamentalists who place the Bible “above and beyond human inquiry” (Christian News, Dec. 9, 1996). In 1982, Robert Runcie said he was an agnostic as to why Jesus suffered on the cross (Sunday Times Weekly Review, London, April 11, 1982). In 1961, Michael Ramsey said, “[H]eaven is not a place for Christians only. ... I expect to see many present day atheists there” (London Daily Mail, Oct. 2, 1961). In 1934, William Temple, in his book Nature and God, said, “[T]here is no such thing as revealed truth.”
ANOTHER FAILED DATE SETTING PREDICTION FOR CHRIST’S RETURN (Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Lord Jesus Christ plainly and unequivocally said of His return, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matthew 24:36). Every individual who sets a date for Christ’s return flies in the face of this divine statement. We can “see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25), but we cannot know the day, nor even the month or the year. Most recently, South African pastor Joshua Mhlakela claimed that Jesus appeared to him in a vision and told him that He would return on Sept. 23-24, 2025. This is the latest in a long line of deluded prognosticators, including Thomas Muntzer (1525), William Aspinwall a Fifth Monarchist (1673), Ann Lee of the Shakers (1770), George Rapp of the Harmony Society (Sept. 15, 1829), William Miller (October 22, 1844), Jonathan Edwards (1866), Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Watchtower Society of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (1874), Hal Lindsay (no later than 1988), Edgar Chisenant (1989), Harold Camping (May 21, 2011), Ronald Weinland (May 27, 2012), and Mark Biltz (Sept. 28, 2015),
FIRST STEPS TO SUCCESS (Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - First Steps to Success
Give God -
The first place in your heart
The first hour of the day
The first day of the week
The first portion of your pay
The first consideration in every decision
(original source unknown)
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).
_____
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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