September 30, 2003 (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) –

From time to time, I publish some of the goodies from my interesting mailbox, and many people have told me that they enjoy reading these things. Following are some items from the last couple of months:

THEY LIKE MY PREACHING

“Just want to say thanks! I’ve been coming to your website for some time now. Whenever I need encouragement and strength for the battle I stop in to learn, and to be reminded that God still has many others still striving to be faithful to the best of their ability. Thank God for the power and witness of the Holy Ghost and the sovereign work of God in establishing this ministry!”

“Excellent article, right in time when I need these supporting scriptures to defend the Lord Jesus Christ is God!”

“Thank you so much for the encouragement that your ministry brings to our family in these confusing days of apostasy. We are praying for God's encouragement and strength as you daily battle on the front lines. Your ‘reproofs of instruction’ from God's Word provide us with the abundant ‘way of life’ we so desperately need.”

“Thanks for all you are doing to try to stem the tide of worldliness in our churches. Keep up the good work & God Bless.”

“Love your website. Have been very blessed by it.”

“Thank you again for the way of life ministry. We have gained a wealth of biblical truth with scripture to back it up, from material on your site as well as from your books. We pray that God will continue to bless you and your work there.”

“Anyway, brother, please do not get discouraged. There are a lot of us out here that really thank God for you and for your position and research on these matters. I would buy you a hamburger if I had the chance. Instead, I will just pray for God's richest blessings on you, and pass this article on to everybody I can. I love you for your love of the truth.”

“Thank you very much for your ministry. I found your website just a few weeks ago, but it contributed greatly to getting me back to a conservative and strong evangelical faith. Coming from a lutheran and later baptist background, though warned I enthusiastically joined the charismatic/pentecostal movement for four years. Despite the fact that I quit that movement in 1998, I had actually never really turned away from it (i.e. still holding to its doctrine, practices and music in some or the other way). Please be encouraged to continue publishing the truth about false teaching, wrong practices and apostasy - it is received and bears fruit. Truth matters. I thank my God and Savior that He granted me repentance.”

“We are not FIBs [Fundamental Independent Baptists] and we go to an evangelical church but we know that the only rule for faith and practice is the Bible and we are grateful that we can count on you to uphold the Bible’s teaching and not soften it or whittle it down or scripture twist doctrines out of existence when those doctrines are clearly taught by the Bible.”

“God has used you much as an encouragement here where there is little to no support.”

“Please accept my thanks to you and to God for your faithfulness. Your messages are of great service. Thank you, very much.”

“That article on ‘Repentance and Lordship Salvation’ was a great article. I just wanted you to know that you’ve done so much for me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Please keep on going. You're helping a pastor like me a great deal.”

“I study the messages you send on the FBIS mailing list and find their teaching and warnings invaluable.”

“I want to thank you for all the research you have done and for the information you have provided in so many ways. I can’t say how much I appreciate it. It has been invaluable to me as a pastor in a small church. I have highly recommended it to a number of pastors and others.”

“We've been reading O Timothy (through our church) since 1994 and have been greatly blessed by the multiple Scriptural articles you have published...”

“I greatly appreciate your ministry. There are not many like it. Fundamental Baptist churches who have the Bible to be the #1 authority and is likeminded like you and me are an oasis among the churches out there.”

“Thank you so much for standing uncompromisingly for the truth. Your letters are a tremendous blessing and encouragement and I regularly keep you in prayers.”

“It was good to have confirmation on Rick Warren's ‘philosophy.’ My husband and I left a large (neo)evangelical church two years ago just after the new pastor had Rick Warren address the other pastors and elders on church growth. ... So we did leave and are now at a conservative Independent Baptist church. Sorry this is so long-winded but I just had to write to tell you how grateful I am for people like you who expose lies and defend the Truth.”

“I have learned so much from you. Thank you for your time and study and for sharing. I’m thankful to learn from you.”

“Just a quick note to express my appreciation of your stand on biblical separation, the defense of the Textus Receptus and preservation, and right Baptist convictions and principles. It has been a joy to find through your ministry accessible, biblically sound, well prepared and well expressed articles on a variety of issues, especially in a post modern era.”

“I was thrilled with your treatment of the CCM issue, and the tracing of the decline, from a Biblical standpoint, of churches who have gone Contemporary. May God richly bless you for taking this stand.”

“I just wanted to thank you for your literature on the KJV. It has helped me tremendously.”

“I want to first of all thank you deeply for your stand and your ministry and much more than that the strength of the Rock that you stand on to provide a foundation for your ministry. I admit that when I first came in contact with some of the materials you produce they were hard to hear, or rather that I was hard of hearing. Your ministry has been a tremendous benefit to my spiritual growth, and the straightforward way you deal with issues has given me much Biblical discernment and helped me make sound judgments based on the Word of God.”

“Just a note to say ‘thank you’ to Bro. Cloud for his faithfulness to rightly divide the Word of God. We have read some of his books, O Timothy, and online materials from Way of Life. We are always so pleased and spiritually refreshed; the Spirit in each of us bears witness with such sound teaching, and we know that it is of God. It keeps us on the right track.”

“I've thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated your recent messages on CCM and its long term impact on churches. I'll spare you my own background just now, but a number of years ago, I wouldn't have sided with you and those you've quoted. At present, I'm with you all the way and believe what you've written to be Spirit filled. It's not harsh or abrasive, but hits several nails right on the head. Thank you.”

“I am a recent subscriber to your newsletter, and there are things I don’t agree with, but your articles on music say things that I have felt for years, but never had the materials (quotes from musicians etc.) to back it up. I wouldn’t trade Charles Wesley’s ‘And Can it Be?’ for a ‘semi’ truckload of CCW songs.”

“I recently read your series of messages ‘Fundamentalism, Modernism, and New Evangelicalism.’ WHAT A BLESSING, GREAT HELP AND EYE OPENING experience that was for myself. Thank you for your ministry.”

“Why would anyone want to criticize Billy Graham? Graham is a better
Baptist minister than most Baptist ministers because Graham does not
engage in negative preaching.”

“My wife and I found our church (Heritage Baptist Church in Frankfort, IL) through the listing on your website. Since then I and my children have been saved. I appreciate your ministry.”

“I have been receiving your articles and messages, which have been very motivating and truly a blessing to me. I would like to ask you to keep sending them to me, as I also have learned a lot from you.”

UNLESS I AM MISTAKEN, THEY DON’T LIKE MY PREACHING

“It saddens my heart to think that you would put so much time and effort into putting down Billy Graham and the Catholic Church. By whose authority do you do so? Didn't Jesus say, ‘those who are not against us are with us’. It seems to me that you are on the dark side and are not working for unity but division in Christianity. What a shame and how sad you are pulling many down with you.”

“where do you see rock and roll christianity? nowhere because it was not a possibility. you want people to live EXACTLY as God says in the Bible, but times have changed...we no longer do the same things as were necessary back then, and with mass communication available and many young teens who would rather listen to rock and roll than a boring sermon, christian rock is not such a bad idea.”

“I suggest you wait until you're a little better educated before you attempt to address the public about things you don't understand. Your utterly moronic stance against things that don't concern you are driving out the very free-thinkers that you need on your side, witnessing to others and spreading the word of God in a dignified, intelligent manner. The only people left in the churches are ignorant hillbillies/nazis that thoroughly frighten anybody with a mind of their own. Stop this nonsense and try actually READING the Bible and applying it's message of inclusion, open-mindedness, love, and peace to your own life.”

“Mr. Cloud....you are just plain nuts!!!!!” [Note from Bro. Cloud: This is my favorite one of the year!]

“Your web site is pathetic at best!!!!”

“Rock music is the most uplifting music in the world!!!!! Your brain washed....God loves ROCK N ROLL!!! .... you have been sucker punched by idiots and most likely picked on in school....I have a questen for you why are you trying to make this stupid world more boreing huh? sick of your type. sorry if im not spelling good.”

“Your website upset me. We are all Christians, we all love our Jesus, we should all be on the same team. ... That’s what I thought Christianity was all about.”

“Why don't ya'll get off your self righteous pedestal and come down to the real world and wake up to the truth!!!!!!”

“You sure spent a lot of time condemning U2. It would have been better to have shown a bit more love and understanding. Neither you nor I are ANYONES judge. ... Self-righteousness, lack of scriptural balance and just outright meanness is not the loving God many of us know.” [Note from Bro. Cloud: I am sure glad that this fellow is not judgmental!]

“I have not the time or the energy to assess the rest of this degenerative piece of insanity. You only want people to be the idealistic vegetables that don’t breath unless they are told to do so. Either you have NEVER had children or you are a complete control freak.”

“i grew up in a baptist home and was saved and attended church every sunday and i am a goth [the black trenchcoat, black nail polish, death rock style] with nothing against you. ive just dont believe in a book with a unproveable god.”

“I thank you for being so blatantly off the mark that I can leave Fundamentalism without guilt.”

“There are ‘goats’ in ALL churches the good Lord will do the separation and the end harvest. Let stop this division. This is my contribution!!!”

THEY ARE IN OUTER SPACE

“I have been in the meetings where lightning flashes have been in the room. ... I myself and several people I know have had gold dust/flakes appear. I was telling this one brother the testimony of Sis. Silvania on the way to prison ministry. As I was telling him a gold flake about the size of a kernel of corn manifested on my temple. He saw it and touched it. It came off on his finger. ... I had gold specks all over my desk at work for about a month. It still appears on or around me from time to time.”

“I agree with Jimmy Carter that Mormons are Christians.”

“please one in good lord as a co-founder how does america visiting other churches works cos we long that we should merit one day.”

“Independent Baptists are doomed to hell. Period.”