Friday Church News Notes
August 14, 2026 - Volume 27, Issue 33
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.
IRAN CONTINUES BRUTAL KILLINGS OF PROTESTERS (Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2026, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “The world looks away,” The Jerusalem Post, Aug. 6, 2026: “The Islamic Republic’s response to January, when an estimated 30,000-40,000 people were massacred in two days, did not suddenly end when gunfire emptied the streets. It continued through arrests, interrogations, forced confessions, Revolutionary Court proceedings, and executions carried out months after the uprising’s immediate energy had subsided. The objective is to change what Iranians will be prepared to do the next time they confront the state. ‘Right now, it is mostly focused on internal social engineering,’ Khosro Isfahani, research director at the National Union for Democracy in Iran, told The Jerusalem Post. ... The regime’s warning, he said, is simple. ‘If you move, we are going to kill you.’ ... During an uprising, people draw strength from numbers, urgency and a sense of shared purpose. A prison execution months later reaches families, friends, colleagues and fellow protesters individually, after that collective momentum has faded. ‘When you kill a single person, the whole network around them collapses,’ Isfahani said. ... Executions are the most extreme element of a wider campaign. Thousands of people arrested during and after January may never face the gallows, but many are receiving lengthy prison terms. Amnesty reported that more than 6,000 people were arrested after the US-Israel-Iran war began on February 28. ... ‘It’s a multipronged social campaign by the regime to reestablish its control over the society,’ he told the Post.”
EXPLODING MARIJUANA USE BUILT ON LIES (Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2026, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Marijuana’s lies are endangering Americans,” The Washington Times, Aug. 6, 2026: “The obsessive quest to normalize marijuana use has ramped up over the past decade, with new data showing that those bent on profits over people have successfully manipulated the nation into believing weed comes with no real individual or cultural costs. New research from the 2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that marijuana is now the most used daily drug among Americans. The shocking findings reveal that 21.4 million people now use the substance either daily or near-daily, surpassing both cigarettes and alcohol. ... Hollywood has obsessively normalized marijuana in movies and TV shows, desperately attempting to convince people that weed is harmless. ... Tragically, the public has fallen for the lies. ... From 2022 to 2025, daily or near-daily use increased by 21%, from 17.7 million to about 21.4 million. And the rise is mostly among adults, not young people. ... Dr. Raymond Wiggins, an oral surgeon and author of Weeding Out the Lies About Marijuana [said,] “There’s a lot of great studies about mental health, including depression and anxiety, paranoia, personality disorders, psychosis and a lot of new studies about the devastating effects of marijuana during pregnancy.’ ... An honest look at cannabis use paints a dangerous and difficult narrative that is being ignored.”
CHATGPT GOES ROGUE (Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2026, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Who’s controlling artificial intelligence?” The Washington Times, Aug. 6, 2026: “Consider the most recent example of how uncontrolled AI--even with the best safeguards--has escaped human control. OpenAI has conceded that its ChatGPT went beyond the ‘sandbox’ designed to contain it and has attacked ‘Hugging Face’ and several other companies. Hugging Face is a website known for its AI tools. According to the Cloud Security Agency, ‘In July 2026, an OpenAI model broke out of its sandbox during a cybersecurity benchmark, exploited a zero-day vulnerability, and used stolen credentials to gain remote code execution on Hugging Face’s production systems. No human directed the attack.’ In English, that means the OpenAI agent, ChatGPT, escaped the system that was supposed to contain it and used false credentials to access other companies’ servers. OpenAI’s agent used thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of automated attempts to break into Hugging Face and other companies’ websites to take and practice the tools for further attacks on them and other websites. And no human was in control. Stop there for a moment. ChatGPT clearly distinguished between Hugging Face and other non-AI websites. Was ChatGPT able to form the specific criminal intent to rob Hugging Face of its AI tools? We’ll probably never know the answer to that question, but it is crucial to our understanding of just how out of control AI is at this moment.”
READER’S COMMENT ON CCM (Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2026, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “I read your recent article about CCM and all the comments you receive. Music has been a big part of my life. I used to be in the music business, various forms. I am quite familiar with it. And now I am fortunate and blessed to be able to help provide piano occasionally at our church. You are correct in all that you have stated. I know from experience, the incredible power music can have on people’s emotions. I have witnessed it first-hand many times. In fact, there have been certain occasions when I needed to use music for crowd control, and it has always worked. I don’t really understand it all, but I am convinced music can have the spiritual power necessary to strongly effect people’s emotions. I have experienced it; I know this is true. And why not? Lucifer, the great deceiver, is a musician. He is deceiving multitudes every day, and they haven’t a clue! Stand strong in your preaching, stand strong for the Lord Jesus Christ. God Bless You. PS: I have learned that New Testament Christian Church Music must be completely Bible-based. Its primary purpose is not to entertain, but to humble and to exhort. The musician must learn to exert appropriate personal self-control and present his/her music in a way and fashion and style that is appropriate to exalt The Lord Jesus Christ.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S SECOND WIFE A FOLLOWER OF KABBALAH AND A CHANNEL FOR KABBALAH INTO THE TRUMP FAMILY (Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2026, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Marla Maples,” Israel365news, Aug. 10, 2026: “Marla Maples, Donald Trump’s second wife, revealed in a new interview that the president carries an Aramaic copy of the Zohar’s Book of Pinchas inside his clothing, pressed against his heart. Speaking with Channel 12’s Jonathan Rieger, Maples said the mystical text serves a specific purpose in Trump’s life: ‘protection and healing.’ ... Maples described a broader spiritual life shaped by two decades of study at the Kabbalah Center. She said she has kept kosher for more than twenty years and has observed Shabbat for years as well, adding that Trump’s daughter Ivanka’s conversion to Judaism meant ‘Donald was exposed to it a lot.’ ... Raised a Southern Baptist in Cohutta, Georgia, Maples continues to identify with Christianity. The Daily Beast has reported that she attends church regularly while keeping Shabbat, eating kosher, and studying Kabbalah.” EDITOR’S NOTE: This report describes the result of the removal of clear doctrinal and spiritual boundaries in evangelicalism. It has become a bridge to any heresy and false religion. Zohar is a fundamental aspect of Kabbalah, the esoteric or occult (secret) teaching of ancient Jewish rabbis. Borrowing heavily from pagan occultism, such as astrology and numerology, it is supposed to be a third or “hidden” Torah (“Torat Ha-Nistar”) that was revealed to Moses. Kabbalah is based on an allegorical interpretation of Scripture that finds secret and “inner” meanings in the words and even letters of Scripture. There is no one official or “right” Kabbalah teaching. It consists of a bewildering variety of doctrine and practice. The emphasis of Kabbalah is on cleaving to and being one with God, but it is the god of human imagination. The personal God of Scripture is replaced with Ein-sof or Ain-sof, an impersonal omnipotent energy and infinite wisdom. The panentheistic view of God is emphasized in Hasidic (Chassidic) Judaism, a prominent Kabbalah sect. (For more on Kabbalah, see Jews in Fighter Jets: Israel Past, Present, and Future, available in the Books section of wayoflife.org.)
GOD’S HAZARDOUS WASTE EXPERTS (Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2026, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, May 21, 2026: “The environment naturally produces hazardous waste without human help. Ashes from a wood fire can contain enough naturally occurring radioactivity to merit a hazardous waste classification. Uranium and other radioactive elements occur naturally in the environment and can be dissolved in ground water. Chloro fluorocarbons, manufactured for refrigeration, are also spewed from volcanoes. Also called CFCs, these chemicals are thought by some scientists to degrade the earth’s ozone layer. The fact is, nature produces more hazardous waste than does man. Since hazardous waste is a natural part of the creation, one might expect a well-designed creation to have the ability to process hazardous materials into harmless substances. Science is beginning to discover how the Creator has designed the creation to deal with this problem. Scientists have learned how several bacteria decontaminate water that carries dissolved uranium. One species of bacterium combines the phosphate in the water with the uranium to make uranium phosphate crystals. These crystals are stored harmlessly in the bacterium. Another species uses enzymes to make uranium ore that then settles harmlessly out of the water. Another species has been discovered that breaks down CFCs. The creation is indeed well designed. In fact, the Creator's solutions to hazardous waste will help us learn how to clean up the messes we make. REF.: ‘Chemistry of uranium eating microbes,’ Science News, v. 142.”
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).
EXPLODING MARIJUANA USE BUILT ON LIES (Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2026, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Marijuana’s lies are endangering Americans,” The Washington Times, Aug. 6, 2026: “The obsessive quest to normalize marijuana use has ramped up over the past decade, with new data showing that those bent on profits over people have successfully manipulated the nation into believing weed comes with no real individual or cultural costs. New research from the 2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that marijuana is now the most used daily drug among Americans. The shocking findings reveal that 21.4 million people now use the substance either daily or near-daily, surpassing both cigarettes and alcohol. ... Hollywood has obsessively normalized marijuana in movies and TV shows, desperately attempting to convince people that weed is harmless. ... Tragically, the public has fallen for the lies. ... From 2022 to 2025, daily or near-daily use increased by 21%, from 17.7 million to about 21.4 million. And the rise is mostly among adults, not young people. ... Dr. Raymond Wiggins, an oral surgeon and author of Weeding Out the Lies About Marijuana [said,] “There’s a lot of great studies about mental health, including depression and anxiety, paranoia, personality disorders, psychosis and a lot of new studies about the devastating effects of marijuana during pregnancy.’ ... An honest look at cannabis use paints a dangerous and difficult narrative that is being ignored.”
CHATGPT GOES ROGUE (Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2026, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Who’s controlling artificial intelligence?” The Washington Times, Aug. 6, 2026: “Consider the most recent example of how uncontrolled AI--even with the best safeguards--has escaped human control. OpenAI has conceded that its ChatGPT went beyond the ‘sandbox’ designed to contain it and has attacked ‘Hugging Face’ and several other companies. Hugging Face is a website known for its AI tools. According to the Cloud Security Agency, ‘In July 2026, an OpenAI model broke out of its sandbox during a cybersecurity benchmark, exploited a zero-day vulnerability, and used stolen credentials to gain remote code execution on Hugging Face’s production systems. No human directed the attack.’ In English, that means the OpenAI agent, ChatGPT, escaped the system that was supposed to contain it and used false credentials to access other companies’ servers. OpenAI’s agent used thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of automated attempts to break into Hugging Face and other companies’ websites to take and practice the tools for further attacks on them and other websites. And no human was in control. Stop there for a moment. ChatGPT clearly distinguished between Hugging Face and other non-AI websites. Was ChatGPT able to form the specific criminal intent to rob Hugging Face of its AI tools? We’ll probably never know the answer to that question, but it is crucial to our understanding of just how out of control AI is at this moment.”
READER’S COMMENT ON CCM (Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2026, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “I read your recent article about CCM and all the comments you receive. Music has been a big part of my life. I used to be in the music business, various forms. I am quite familiar with it. And now I am fortunate and blessed to be able to help provide piano occasionally at our church. You are correct in all that you have stated. I know from experience, the incredible power music can have on people’s emotions. I have witnessed it first-hand many times. In fact, there have been certain occasions when I needed to use music for crowd control, and it has always worked. I don’t really understand it all, but I am convinced music can have the spiritual power necessary to strongly effect people’s emotions. I have experienced it; I know this is true. And why not? Lucifer, the great deceiver, is a musician. He is deceiving multitudes every day, and they haven’t a clue! Stand strong in your preaching, stand strong for the Lord Jesus Christ. God Bless You. PS: I have learned that New Testament Christian Church Music must be completely Bible-based. Its primary purpose is not to entertain, but to humble and to exhort. The musician must learn to exert appropriate personal self-control and present his/her music in a way and fashion and style that is appropriate to exalt The Lord Jesus Christ.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S SECOND WIFE A FOLLOWER OF KABBALAH AND A CHANNEL FOR KABBALAH INTO THE TRUMP FAMILY (Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2026, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Marla Maples,” Israel365news, Aug. 10, 2026: “Marla Maples, Donald Trump’s second wife, revealed in a new interview that the president carries an Aramaic copy of the Zohar’s Book of Pinchas inside his clothing, pressed against his heart. Speaking with Channel 12’s Jonathan Rieger, Maples said the mystical text serves a specific purpose in Trump’s life: ‘protection and healing.’ ... Maples described a broader spiritual life shaped by two decades of study at the Kabbalah Center. She said she has kept kosher for more than twenty years and has observed Shabbat for years as well, adding that Trump’s daughter Ivanka’s conversion to Judaism meant ‘Donald was exposed to it a lot.’ ... Raised a Southern Baptist in Cohutta, Georgia, Maples continues to identify with Christianity. The Daily Beast has reported that she attends church regularly while keeping Shabbat, eating kosher, and studying Kabbalah.” EDITOR’S NOTE: This report describes the result of the removal of clear doctrinal and spiritual boundaries in evangelicalism. It has become a bridge to any heresy and false religion. Zohar is a fundamental aspect of Kabbalah, the esoteric or occult (secret) teaching of ancient Jewish rabbis. Borrowing heavily from pagan occultism, such as astrology and numerology, it is supposed to be a third or “hidden” Torah (“Torat Ha-Nistar”) that was revealed to Moses. Kabbalah is based on an allegorical interpretation of Scripture that finds secret and “inner” meanings in the words and even letters of Scripture. There is no one official or “right” Kabbalah teaching. It consists of a bewildering variety of doctrine and practice. The emphasis of Kabbalah is on cleaving to and being one with God, but it is the god of human imagination. The personal God of Scripture is replaced with Ein-sof or Ain-sof, an impersonal omnipotent energy and infinite wisdom. The panentheistic view of God is emphasized in Hasidic (Chassidic) Judaism, a prominent Kabbalah sect. (For more on Kabbalah, see Jews in Fighter Jets: Israel Past, Present, and Future, available in the Books section of wayoflife.org.)
GOD’S HAZARDOUS WASTE EXPERTS (Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2026, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, May 21, 2026: “The environment naturally produces hazardous waste without human help. Ashes from a wood fire can contain enough naturally occurring radioactivity to merit a hazardous waste classification. Uranium and other radioactive elements occur naturally in the environment and can be dissolved in ground water. Chloro fluorocarbons, manufactured for refrigeration, are also spewed from volcanoes. Also called CFCs, these chemicals are thought by some scientists to degrade the earth’s ozone layer. The fact is, nature produces more hazardous waste than does man. Since hazardous waste is a natural part of the creation, one might expect a well-designed creation to have the ability to process hazardous materials into harmless substances. Science is beginning to discover how the Creator has designed the creation to deal with this problem. Scientists have learned how several bacteria decontaminate water that carries dissolved uranium. One species of bacterium combines the phosphate in the water with the uranium to make uranium phosphate crystals. These crystals are stored harmlessly in the bacterium. Another species uses enzymes to make uranium ore that then settles harmlessly out of the water. Another species has been discovered that breaks down CFCs. The creation is indeed well designed. In fact, the Creator's solutions to hazardous waste will help us learn how to clean up the messes we make. REF.: ‘Chemistry of uranium eating microbes,’ Science News, v. 142.”
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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