Friday Church News Notes
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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 does not imply an endorsement. For instructions on how to unsubscribe to this list or to change mailing addresses, please consult the information paragraph at the end.
LUTHERANS ALLOW HOMOSEXUAL PASTORS (Friday Church News Notes, August 28, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - On August 21, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to allow “gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy.” Moments after the vote, Mark Hanson, the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, pleaded for unity, saying, “It would be tragic if we walked away from one another” (“Lutheran Gay Clergy Vote,” AP, Aug. 22, 2009). In fact, it is tragic that those who claim to believe the Bible are yoked together in the same denomination with those who obviously do not (Romans 16:17). Many mainstream media reports depict the ELCA as a fairly conservative denomination, but in fact it has been riddled with theological modernism and unbelief since its inception. J. Kincaid Smith, an ELCA pastor who attended Hamma School of Theology in the Lutheran Church in America, one of the denominations that merged to form the ELCA in 1988, testified, “When I graduated in 1973, to the best of my knowledge, none of my classmates, nor I, believed in any of the miraculous element in the Bible, in anything supernatural, no six day creation, that Adam and Eve were real historical people, that God really spoke to people, the flood with Noah and the Ark, the Red Sea parting. We believed that no Old Testament Scriptures foretold of Jesus of Nazareth, that Jesus was not anticipated in the Old Testament. No virgin birth” (Christian News, April 29, 1985).
How To Conduct Yourself During Preaching
“But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).
1. SIT RESPECTFULLY AND ALERTLY
Examples of what not to do: leaning on your elbows with your head down and chewing gum. Such things send signals that you are not interested in what the preacher is saying. Remember that others are watching you. Your attitude and very bodily posture affects the preacher, those sitting around you, and the entire atmosphere of the service
2. DON’T DISTRACT OTHERS
Examples of things that distract others are talking and writing notes back and forth between persons, making noise (i.e., cracking your fingers), playing with babies, and children looking at the people behind them. Parents need to be aware of what their children are doing and make certain that they are not distracting someone. Continue reading this article……
Redeeming the Time
“LOST YESTERDAY: somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.”
The Bible exhorts us to redeem the time because life is short (Ephesians 5:16), but the average person wastes vast amounts of time that could be spent profitably.
The book of Proverbs has many warnings about slothfulness. The sluggard “deals with a slack hand” (Prov. 10:4) and loves to laze around (Prov. 20:13; 26:14). He likes to “fold the hands” (Prov. 6:10; 24:33). This phrase could refer to conversing about things of no value, watching television, endlessly collecting pop CDs and MP3 files, playing video games, being consumed with professional sports, fishing, golfing, snowboarding, surfing the Internet, you name it. The sluggard is diligent toward folly but he is lazy toward wisdom. He wastes time and opportunities and doesn’t plan ahead and work hard to fulfill wise objectives (Prov. 6:6-8). He is not self-motivated and diligent in the important issues of life, but he must have someone ruling over him and telling him what to do. When out from under this authority and when left to himself he puts off and neglects the important things. The sluggard uses many excuses to get out of work (Prov. 20:4; 22:13). While the diligent man finds a way to work regardless of the circumstance, the sluggard is busier finding an excuse not to work than to find a way to accomplish the work. The sluggard thinks success is 99% genius and 1% sweat, whereas it is more like 1% genius and 99% sweat. Success makes it own way through diligence and persistence, but the sluggard would rather hope for a jackpot. The sluggard has many desires and plans and covets many things, but he will not work hard to attain these things and thus he is frustrated (Prov. 21:25-26). It’s not that the sluggard doesn’t have any ambition; he is going to do a lot of things whenever he finally gets around to it!Continue reading this article……
Friday Church News Notes
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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 does not imply an endorsement. For instructions on how to unsubscribe to this list or to change mailing addresses, please consult the information paragraph at the end.
BEN STEIN PERSECUTED FOR HIS STAND FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH (Friday Church News Notes, August 21, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Ben Stein, who exposed the vicious intolerance of evolutionary scientists and educators in his brilliant documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, is getting a taste of that intolerance. The following is from Evolution News, August 2009: “Ben Stein probably thought he could do his work on the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed and not himself endure the kind of personal attacks that, in the film, he defended Darwin critics against. In fact, what he found was that Darwinism is at the root of the worldview of the materialist Left and even the materialist Right. You can't say or do anything to offend them. You can't even advocate academic freedom. The people who demanded free speech in the 60s and shouted down figures of authority are now the tenured faculty and newsroom editors of the Establishment. And now they are disallowing any criticism at all. So, unlikely as it seems, Ben Stein became a martyr. Richard Dawkins intervened at the University of Vermont last spring to deny Stein a gig as Commencement Speaker. Now Ben has been disingenuously trashed by The New York Times. Typically, when firing Stein as a business columnist the Times couldn't give the actual reason--which is ideological--and instead had to insinuate that he had a ‘conflict of interest.’ That is a joke as well as an insult.”
AA, Christian or Occult Roots?
The following is by Martin and Deidre Bobgan, PsychoHeresy Awareness Letter, September-October 1997; used by permission (4137 Primavera Rd., Santa Barbara, CA 93110, http://www.pamweb.org/mainpage.html) --
Christians continue to insist that Alcoholics Anonymous is compatible with Christianity because of its so-called Christian roots. That is because of its early connection with the Oxford Group, which is now called Moral Re-Armament (MRA). The founders of AA were involved in the Oxford Group movement during the early days, but there is no record of either Bill Wilson or Bob Smith professing Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord or as the only way to the Father. Neither is there a record of them believing or teaching that the only way of salvation is by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross.Continue reading this article……
The Spirit of Niceness
The following is excerpted from The Tragedy of Compromise: The Origin and Impact of the New Evangelicalism by Dr. Ernest D. Pickering (Bob Jones University Press, 1994, Greenville, SC 29614) --
Franky Schaeffer put it this way: "The clear, loud call for accommodation comes wrapped in the name of the Gospel of Niceness. Sin as the source of all human problems is banished and a call for repentance is rarely made" (Schaeffer, Bad News for Modern Man, p. 45).
Evangelicalism today is consumed with relationalism, the fine art of getting along with people. Bruce Larson, a leading New Evangelical author himself, advises us that "the quality and scope of relationships and the ability and willingness to relate are marks of orthodoxy rather than doctrine" (Larson, The Relational Revolution, p. 32). In other words, the emphasis in theology becomes relational and not conceptual. This tendency, by the way, accounts for a major shift in expectations of the average church member toward the ministry of the pastor. Many want the pastor to center his preaching around "how to" themes rather than doctrinal themes. More will be said about this later.
Continue reading this article……
The Evoutionary Dating Game
The following article by Dr. David Menton is reprinted from The Christian News, December 8, 1997:
Much of the controversy between evolutionists and creationists concerns the age of the earth and its fossils. Evolution, depending as it does on pure chance, requires an immense amount of time to stumble upon anything remotely approaching the complexity we see in even the simplest living things. For over 200 years, geologists have attempted to devise methods for determining the age of the earth that would be consistent with evolutionary dogma. At the time Darwin's Origin of Species was published [1859], the earth was “scientifically” determined to be 100 million years old. By 1932, it was found to be 1.6 billion years old. In 1947, geologists firmly established that the earth was 3.4 billion years old. Finally, in 1976, they discovered that the earth is “really” 4.6 billion years old. These dates indicate that for 100 years the age of the earth doubled every 20 years. If this trend were to continue, the earth would be 700 thousand-trillion-trillion years old by the year 4000 AD. This “prediction,” however, is based on selected data and certain assumptions that might not be true. As we will see, selected data and unprovable assumptions are a problem with all methods for determining the age of the earth, as well as for dating its fossils and rocks. It has all become something of a “dating game” in which only the evolutionarily-correct are allowed to play.Continue reading this article……
Friday Church News Notes
PDF VERSION
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 does not imply an endorsement. For instructions on how to unsubscribe to this list or to change mailing addresses, please consult the information paragraph at the end.
THE WOODSTOCK LEGACY (Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Next week is the fortieth anniversary of the Woodstock Festival, and its legacy is celebrated by a wide swath of modern society. Nearly half a million hippies gathered on a farm about 100 miles north of New York City to immerse themselves in a Dionysian frenzy of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Billed as “An Aquarian Exposition,” the event promoted the myth that we are entering the Age of Aquarius, a new age of peace and love and unity. This week the AFP news service called Woodstock “epoch-making,” and it was that. Building on 1950s rock, ’60s rock changed Western society in far-reaching ways, essentially tearing down every Biblical influence. 1960s rock was open rebellion against the holy God of the Bible and His moral laws. The theme was “I’m free to do what I want any old time” (Rolling Stones, 1965). I know this very well, because I bought into the rock & roll philosophy and lived the rock & roll lifestyle for many years. I was nineteen years old in 1969. The rock philosophy is all about ME, and is described in Bible prophecy. “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves...” (2 Timothy 3:1-2). The legacy of Woodstock is immorality, drug addiction, drunkenness, rebellion, lawlessness, pride, blasphemy, disobedience to parents, unisexism, and spiritual delusion. Consider the bands and performers that entertained and manipulated the crowd. Dozens of the band members and associates died young of drug and alcohol abuse, including Jimi Hendrix; Janis Joplin; Alan Wilson of Canned Heat; Keith Moon of The Who; Ron McKernan, Brent Mydland, John Kahn, and Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead; Tim Hardin; Al Wilson and Bob Hite of Canned Heat; Greg Herbert of Blood, Sweat and Tears; Randy Hobbs of Johnny/Edgar Winter; Paul Butterfield of the Butterfield Blues Band; and Vinnie Taylor of Sha-Na-Na. (If you include the bands that were asked to play but didn’t--The Doors, Led Zeppelin, and the Byrds--we could add to this list Jim Morrison, John Bonham, and Gram Parsons.) Many others, such as Joe Cocker, Sly Stone, and David Crosby, came within a hair’s breadth of dying young from their addictions. Skip Spence of the Jefferson Airplane destroyed his mind with LSD and spent the last decades of his life in psychiatric institutions and living on the streets. Paul Kantner of the Jefferson Airplane almost died of a stroke before his 40th birthday, having consumed massive amounts of LSD. Tom Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Dan Hartman of the Edgar Winter Group died of AIDS complications. Felix Pappalardi of the rock group Mountain was shot to death by his wife in 1983 at age 43. Richard Hughes and Issac Sweat, who played for Johnny Winter, committed suicide. What peace! What love! What happiness!
Is There Life in Outer Space?
We received the following question from a reader: "There is so much talk now about the possibility of life on Mars. Is there anything in the Scripture that would confirm or deny the existence of life on other planets OR is Scripture silent on this point. If human life existed on other planets would Christ have had to have died for them also?"
This is a good question and I would make the following seven observations:
I would note, first of all, that there is no absolute evidence of life on the planets or stars. This question has not passed the stage of conjecture and theorizing. At the same time that reports appeared which stated that some NASA scientists believe a meteorite bears evidence that there was life on Mars, other reports acknowledged that many scientists do not agree with these conclusions. For example, geochemist Jim Papike, director of the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico, testified that he and three colleagues have tested the meteorite in question, and they have found that “it lacked a key sign of biological activity” (Associated Press, August 9, 1996). He stated, "We wanted to know if these pyrites in Martian rocks would show this fingerprint of life that would be indicated by a specific type of ratio. When we looked at the ratio, there was no evidence that it was in a ratio for life forms.” In fact, he claims that the ratio points in the opposite direction from the one that indicates biological activity. President George W. Bush’s 2003 budget report called for an increase in funding for space exploration and expressed hope that evidence of life in other parts of the universe will yet be found. The document also contained the following admission, “Despite all the space aliens that appear in science fiction movies and books, we have yet to find conclusive evidence for life, even microbes, anywhere in the universe besides Earth” (“Bush Budget Gets Spacey, CBS News, Feb. 3, 2003). Continue reading this article……
A Missionary Spirit That Needs To Be Revived
William Cooper and David Barrett, of China Inland Mission, were martyred during the Boxer Rebellion in China, July, 1900.
August 12, 2009 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org) -
The following article is reprinted from The Fundamentalist Digest, Nov.-Dec. 1997 (Don Jasmin, editor)--
In reading a copy of the Baptist Magazine (London, 1820), the writer read correspondence indicating that around the years 1819-1820 there was a group of 100 seminary students at the Andover Seminary in Andover, Massachusetts, who met regularly for the sole purpose of collecting material "concerning missions" to "enable each member to determine whether it is his duty to become a missionary."
These students prepared dissertations on missions regarding various foreign countries from the materials collected and then read them to the entire group. The Andover Seminary library was also seeking periodicals and books dealing with missions to add to its collection so that the above-mentioned students would have larger resources from which to draw, as they pondered God's will for their lives.
Could a group of 100 students be found in any fundamental Baptist seminary in the USA today who have banded themselves together solely for seeking God's will concerning missionary service? Christian writers termed that era "the Age of Missions." That pioneer missionary spirit needs to be revived in our fundamental Baptist circles today. [No Baptist seminary existed at that time; Andover was an orthodox Congregational seminary where the Baptists in America sent most of their students until the founding of the Newton Theological Institute later in 1 the 1820's-editor]
Continue reading this article……
The Creeping Kudzu of Compromise
The following discerning message by Jack Stephens is from the Ohio Bible Fellowship (OBF) Visitor (3865 North High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43214-3797, 614-262-2006). We do not agree with the OBF in some matters, church polity and the Bible text issue among others, but we do appreciate their willingness to take a bold and unpopular stand against the all-pervasive new evangelical spirit. Pastor Stephens demonstrates a clear understanding of a damnable phenomenon that is occurring widely among fundamentalist churches, including fundamental Baptists.
THE CREEPING KUDZU OF COMPROMISE
By Jack Stephens
A few decades ago, an Oriental creeping vine called "kudzu" was introduced into the Southeast of our country for the purpose of providing ground cover and erosion control. Any Southerner can tell you the result. This vine gradually encroached on the land and, where it was not constantly kept in check, it choked out all other plant life, climbing utility poles and following the connecting lines to span roadways and other obstacles in its steady onslaught to take over every inch of available land. In short, from its innocent beginnings, it has become a bane and a pest to the land.Continue reading this article……
Mistake in Last Week's Friday Church News Notes
August 9, 2009 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
In the last week’s Friday Church News Notes I inadvertently used the KJV2000 instead of the King James Bible. Prior to writing that issue of the Friday News I was checking some verses in the KJV2000 in Swordsearcher and forgot to reset it. I am surprised that I didn’t catch it in proofing, but when you have used the KJV daily for as long as I have (a little shy of four decades), you tend to see its wording in your mind even if you are reading something else, and that is what happened here. Following is the corrected edition.
FRIDAY CHURCH NEWS NOTES - CORRECTED
August 7, 2009, Volume 10, Issue 32
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 does not imply an endorsement. For instructions on how to unsubscribe to this list or to change mailing addresses, please consult the information paragraph at the end.
REVEREND IKE, APOSTATE BAPTIST PREACHER, DIES (Friday Church News Notes, August 7, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Frederick Eikerenkoetter II, better known as Reverend Ike, died on July 28 at age 74. He founded the United Church Science of Living Institute headquartered in New York City and built a multi-million dollar empire through his unabashed prosperity message, which he called “positive self-image psychology,” “Science of Living,” or “Thinkonomics.” At the height of his success in the 1970s, he reached an audience of 2.5 million (“Reverend Ike,” New York Times, July 29, 2009). In the 1980s someone sent us a video cassette of one of Reverend Ike’s television programs, and it was truly amazing. That particular program featured a fire walker, and after the man demonstrated his ability, Reverend Ike excitedly proclaimed, “This man walks on fire; Jesus walked on water; Reverend Ike walks on MONEY!!!!!” At the end of the program he had his son manning the phone while he flipped a coin that had “good luck” inscribed on one side and “blessing” on the other. As he flipped the coin he urged his listeners to call in with their donations so they could be blessed, saying, “You can’t lose with the stuff I use!” The saddest part about Reverend Ike is that his father was a Baptist pastor and he was his father’s assistant in his teenage years. Somewhere along the way, though, he rejected the biblical gospel of salvation through the blood of Christ and he rejected the path of self-sacrificial Christian service, “finding the traditional Christian message constricting,” and determined to make it big with his own twist on the prosperity gospel. He succeeded in becoming wealthy, but as Jesus said, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). (Much of Reverend Ike’s doctrine appears to have been adapted from Norman Vincent Peale. See “Norman Vincent Peale: The Apostle of Self-Esteem” at the Way of Life web site and the book The New Age Tower of Babel, available from Way of Life.)
Friday Church News Notes
DOWNLOAD PDF VERSION
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 does not imply an endorsement. For instructions on how to unsubscribe to this list or to change mailing addresses, please consult the information paragraph at the end.
REVEREND IKE, APOSTATE BAPTIST PREACHER, DIES (Friday Church News Notes, August 7, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Frederick Eikerenkoetter II, better known as Reverend Ike, died on July 28 at age 74. He founded the United Church Science of Living Institute headquartered in New York City and built a multi-million dollar empire through his unabashed prosperity message, which he called “positive self-image psychology,” “Science of Living,” or “Thinkonomics.” At the height of his success in the 1970s, he reached an audience of 2.5 million (“Reverend Ike,” New York Times, July 29, 2009). In the 1980s someone sent us a video cassette of one of Reverend Ike’s television programs, and it was truly amazing. That particular program featured a fire walker, and after the man demonstrated his ability, Reverend Ike excitedly proclaimed, “This man walks on fire; Jesus walked on water; Reverend Ike walks on MONEY!!!!!” At the end of the program he had his son manning the phone while he flipped a coin that had “good luck” inscribed on one side and “blessing” on the other. As he flipped the coin he urged his listeners to call in with their donations so they could be blessed, saying, “You can’t lose with the stuff I use!” The saddest part about Reverend Ike is that his father was a Baptist pastor and he was his father’s assistant in his teenage years. Somewhere along the way, though, he rejected the biblical gospel of salvation through the blood of Christ and he rejected the path of self-sacrificial Christian service, “finding the traditional Christian message constricting,” and determined to make it big with his own twist on the prosperity gospel. He succeeded in becoming wealthy, but as Jesus said, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26). (Much of Reverend Ike’s doctrine appears to have been adapted from Norman Vincent Peale. See “Norman Vincent Peale: The Apostle of Self-Esteem” at the Way of Life web site and the book The New Age Tower of Babel, available from Way of Life.)
Country Music
The following is from the book Music in the Balance, by Frank Garlock and Kurt Woetzel, copyright 1992 by Majesty Music, P.O. Box 6524, Greenville, SC 29606. Used by permission.
This is an appropriate time to comment on a disturbing tendency in some Christian circles. Rock music is frequently rejected by Christian adults in what would be considered good churches. However, there is another sound which is welcomed in many of those same churches. The country sound, considered to be harmless and mild by adults who cannot bear that "noise," has gained in popularity and acceptance as an appropriate vehicle to sing praises unto the Lord.
THE THEME
Country music is contemporary music which is designed to entertain, satisfy, and please the world. An entire city exists on this industry. Nashville has become synonymous with country music. The discussion of the previous lessons has focused on the proven fact that all music, by its very nature, preaches a message. What is the message of country music? The titles of the songs give a reasonably accurate indication of the theme of the music:
"Loving Up a Storm"
"You'd Make an Angel Want to Cheat"
"That Lovin' You Feelin' Again"
"You Make Me Want to Be a Mother"
"Behind Closed Doors"
"Something to Brag About"
"She's Pullin' Me Back Again"
"Making Love from Memory"
"Let's Get It While the Gettin's Good"
"She's Not Really Cheatin,' She's Just Gettin' Even"Continue reading this article……
