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.

EGYPTIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS OBAMA IS A MUSLIM (Friday Church News Notes, June 25, 2010, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Obama, a ‘Strategic Catastrophe,’” Israel Today, April 29, 2010: “Although Israeli officials publicly play down the crisis in relations between Jerusalem and Washington, privately the language is much different. Sources close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describe Obama as a ‘strategic catastrophe’ for Israel. Officials in the Prime Minister's Office, speaking on condition of anonymity to the nation’s top newspapers, see the Obama administration as a serious threat to the future of the State of Israel. On the record, Israel and the US have a ‘strategic partnership that is unbreakable’; off the record, the terminology is blunt to say the least. ‘President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have drawn a clear line, supporting the Palestinian position at the expense of Israel,’ said one Netanyahu confidant. ‘It is insane, it is sick. Relations between Jerusalem and Washington are simply disastrous; the situation has never been so dangerous. This US President wants to establish a Palestinian state at any price and hand them Jerusalem on a silver platter.’ ... The feeling among the Israeli public is that Obama is appeasing the Muslim world at the expense of Israel. ‘The American President told me in confidence that he is a Muslim,’ said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Nile TV. That could explain why Obama has instructed that the term ‘Islamic extremism’ no longer be used in official government documents and statements.”

The following is published with permission of Pastor Buddy Smith of Malanda, Queensland . It is something that he wrote to a friend about the recent Independent Baptist Friends International Conference and its emphasis on uniting all Independent Baptists:

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Dear Brother ___________  
 
Regarding the IBFI conference and website, there is no doubt in my mind that you know more about it than I, simply because of your personal acquaintance with Bro. Sexton. My observations from a distance are as follows:
 
I) I understand and agree that Bro. Sexton is not attempting to start a new denomination. He has no doubt invested an enormous amount of time, manpower, and effort into hosting this conference. I expect he hopes to accomplish many good things out of it.
 
II) I appreciate him using the best speakers he could find to promote his efforts to unify the diversity that exists among Baptists. From his statements I gather he seriously believes that all Independent Baptists can and should see each other as friends and work together.

The following is excerpted from our new book Israel: Past, Present, and Future:

“A Psalm for Solomon. Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son. He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations. He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth” (Psalm 72:1-7).

“He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him. For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight. And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised. There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth” (Psalm 72:8-16).

“His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed. Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen” (Psalm 72:17-19).

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.

STEPHEN HAWKINS SAYS SCIENCE WILL WIN OVER RELIGION (Friday Church News Notes, June 18, 2010, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Stephen Hawkins, Cambridge professor of mathematics and best-selling author, says science will win out over religion. In an interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC World News, Hawkins was asked if there is a way to reconcile religion and science. He replied, “There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works” (“Stephen Hawking on Religion: Science Will Win,” ABC World News, June 7, 2010). In fact, science doesn’t work at all when it comes to the big questions of life. In the same interview, Hawkins, who is supposed to “know more about the universe than almost any other person ever to walk the planet,” says, “I want to know why the universe exists.” Science can never answer that question or a thousand others. Is there a God and if so who is He, what is He like, and how can I know Him personally? Why does the universe follow precise laws that man can discover through science? What is man? Why is he so distinct from the animals from which he is supposed to have evolved? What is man’s soul? Where does it come from and what happens to it after death? Until his recent retirement, Hawking held the post at Cambridge once occupied by Sir Isaac Newton, but Newton was far ahead of Hawking in that he was not duped into thinking that science is capable of all-knowing. Newton, who discovered the law of gravity, said, “Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion.” This highlights the difference between Newton and Hawking. From the Sawyer interview, it appears that Hawking doesn’t understand the dramatic limitation of science. Newton believed in a Creator God and called atheism “senseless and odious.” He believed that the Bible is God’s revelation of Himself to man and devoted more time to studying the Bible than science. He said, “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being. ... This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as the Lord over all. ... The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, and absolutely perfect.” It is this God that modern science has rejected, but the rejection is not based on scientific facts; it is based on willful enmity and is one of the countless proofs that the Bible is what it professed to be, the infallible Word of God (2 Peter 3:3-5).

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.



EDINBURGH 2010: A FALSE UNITY (Friday Church News Notes, June 11, 2010, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Last week’s Edinburgh 2010 was an ecumenical celebration of the 100th anniversary of the World Missionary Conference. It was a celebration of a false unity and is more about the building of the Harlot Church of Revelation 17 than the true church of Jesus Christ. Edinburgh 2010 brought together a hodgepodge of Evangelicals, Modernists, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Pentecostals. There were Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, Anglicans, Baptists, you name it. Olav Tveit, general secretary of the wretchedly apostate World Council of Churches, said, “Mission and unity belong together” (“Evangelicals, Ecumenicals,” Christian Post, June 3, 2010). Geoff Tunnicliffe, international director of the World Evangelical Alliance, said that though Christians can’t agree on doctrine, they should “build bridges rather than create chasms.” The conference concluded with “a Common Call to Christians.” In John 17:21, Jesus did not call for any sort of ecumenical unity. John 17 is a prayer that Jesus prayed to God the Father, not a command that He gave to Christians. By the context, it is obvious that Jesus was not describing the “unity in diversity” of modern ecumenism (including “evangelical” ecumenism). Jesus was describing those who keep God’s Word (John 17:6). That is definitely not a description of the crowd at Edinburgh, with their wholesale rejection of the infallible inspiration of Scripture, acceptance of evolution, infant baptism, prayers to Mary, replacement theology, liberation theology, interfaith dialogue, social gospel, private prayer language, and a host of other heresies. If God is so big on unity, why did He demand that His people earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3)? Why did He demand that we keep the truth without spot (1 Timothy 6:14)? The participation of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelism and other “evangelical” organizations in Edinburgh 2010 is clear evidence of the apostasy of evangelicalism today. Where are the prominent evangelicals who are lifting their voices against this rebellion? This is a loud warning to those fundamentalists who are footsying with the evangelicals.

The following is excerpted from our book Contemplative Mysticism: A Powerful Ecumenical Bond, which is available from Way of Life Literature.
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Richard Foster’s writings have been at the forefront of the contemplative movement since the 1970s. No one has done more than this man to spread contemplative mysticism throughout Protestant and Baptist churches.

Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline, which has sold more than two and a half million copies, was selected by Christianity Today as one of the top ten books of the 20th century. (For this review I obtained multiple editions of Celebration of Discipline, plus three other books by Foster.)

The Quaker Connection

He grew up among the Quakers (the Religious Society of Friends), was trained at George Fox College, has pastored Quaker churches, and has taught theology at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas, and at George Fox. One website calls him “perhaps the best known Quaker in the world today.”

I have been reading about the Dead Sea Scrolls for years, but my interest was piqued to a higher degree recently after visiting two sites associated with them: the caves and the museum at Qumran, and the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem where the first seven scrolls are housed.

The scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in 11 caves near the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, 13 miles southeast of Jerusalem. The first cave contained two Isaiah scrolls, including the nearly intact Great Isaiah Scroll.

The scrolls contain the remains of about 900 different writings, mostly written between 200 B.C. and 68 A.D. The vast majority of the scrolls are in fragments. The Dead Sea Scrolls have been called “the world’s greatest jigsaw puzzle.” Most of the scrolls were written on parchment (sheep or goat skins), while a minority were written on papyrus and clay, and two were written on copper (Geza Vermes, The Story of the Scrolls, 2010).

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.

HOSTILE NAME CHOSEN FOR GROUND ZERO MOSQUE (Friday Church News Notes, June 4, 2010, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from “The Hostile and Provocative Name,” The Middle East Media Research Institute, May 28, 2010: “Iraqi-American columnist Khudhayr Taher published an article in the Arab online liberal daily Elaph.com on May 18, 2010 in which he warns against the desire to turn the U.S. into a Muslim country. Taher called upon the American administration to ban the building of mosques, and especially the Cordoba Mosque, planned for construction near Ground Zero in New York, because, he says, these mosques pose a danger to the security of the U.S. as they are centers for spreading extremist and terrorist ideas. Following is a translation of excerpts from the article. ‘In these days, the issue of the Muslim decision to build a mosque near the place where the crime of the cowardly September 11 terrorist attacks took place has come up. We must note that a hostile and provocative name [Cordoba] has been chosen for this mosque. It is well known that the first Cordoba Mosque was built by Muslims in a city in Spain, after they occupied this Christian country, killing its men and capturing its women to bring them to Arab countries as slaves and servants to serve their sexual pleasure. The Arabs and Muslims have never ceased to take pride and bask in the glory of this imperialist history, which they consider to be a symbol of their strength and power, and they are unashamed of the fact that the annals [of their history] are full of shameful crimes. Today, it seems as though some Muslims in America are enamored of the dream of bringing back this ugly imperialist Muslim history, which is based on occupying peaceful peoples, on trying to force them to change their religious beliefs by the sword, on killing the men, and on abducting the women from their homes and bringing them to their own countries.’”

“You can have a pretty straight-laced but theologically liberal Presbyterian church using the same songs that are being sung at a wild and crazy charismatic church, but they use different arrangements and adapt the songs to their unique settings” (Styll, quoted by Steve Rabey, “The Profits of Praise,” Christianity Today, July 12, 1999).

Why would a “theologically liberal” Presbyterian church, which perhaps hates the old hymns about the blood and adds hymns about mother god and the social gospel to its songbook, and which allows preachers to deny that Jesus is God and thinks unrepentant homosexuals make fine church members, be attracted to contemporary praise music? Why would a Roman Catholic who prays to Mary and praises God for purgatory (such as the popular charismatic priest Tom Forrest does) be attracted to contemporary praise music?

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A recent research article by Gibson, & Glass et. al.(J. Craig Venter Institute), in Science titled “Creation of a Bacterial Cell Controlled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome” was heralded by the media with the sensational claim that “Scientist Creates Life” (see Time.com).

What exactly did this group of researchers do that would warrant such a fantastic claim? What can we learn from their research? What conclusions can we draw from their accomplishments? To answer these questions, I went beyond the media reports and reviewed the original scientific article published by this group of researchers.

Simply put, these researchers transplanted the DNA of one bacteria into another bacteria, and the recipient bacteria took on the characteristics of the donor bacteria and replicated itself.