FOCUS ON THE FAMILY PARTICIPATING IN SCHULLER CONFERENCE (Friday Church News Notes, October 26, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - H.B. London of Focus on the Family is scheduled to join hands with heretic Robert Schuller in a “Rethink” conference at the Crystal Cathedral in January 2008. The conference will bring together “30 influential thinkers” to “deliver cutting edge ideas about the ever-changing world.” The 2,500 conference attendees are expected to be joined by tens of thousands of simulcast viewers. Speakers include Robert Schuller; who has redefined the gospel according to his heretical self-esteem theology; Chuck Colson one of the founders of Evangelicals and Catholics Together; Dan Kimball and Erwin McManus of the deeply unscriptural Emerging Church movement; H.B. London, Jr. of Focus on the Family; Kay Warren, wife the Purpose Driven Life guru; Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation and purveyor of pornography; Larry King, an agnostic; Lee Strobel, George Barna, John Townsend, Gary Smalley, Jay Sekulow, and Henry Cloud. Rethink conference speaker McManus says, “We need to know where things are going so we can get there first” (www.rethinkconference.com). In fact, the Bible believer knows exactly where things are going and how things will turn out, and he is not dependent upon the “insights” of the unregenerate and of false teachers. Beware, friends, these are the blind leading the blind. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20). “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness” (2 Corinthians 6:14).

PASTOR OF AMERICA’S LARGEST CHURCH DOESN’T MENTION SIN OR REPENTANCE IN TELEVISION INTERVIEW (Friday Church News Notes, October 26, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In an interview on Larry King Live on October 16 Joel Osteen, pastor of America’s largest church, did not mention sin or repentance or the blood of Christ or the fire of hell. Everything was “positive” and light, even though Larry King is an agnostic and his audience is composed largely of unsaved people. Osteen had a wonderful opportunity to preach the gospel, but he failed, because he refuses to deal with any of the “hard” things in Scripture. Though Osteen mentioned the gospel and the cross of Christ, he did not preach the gospel. The gospel is that “Christ died for our SINS according to the Scripture...” (1 Cor. 15:3), but Osteen did not even mention sin. No one can be saved by simply “believing in Christ.” To be saved I must acknowledge that I am a sinner, that I have broken God’s laws, and that I deserve eternal punishment but that Christ paid the full price in my place. Jesus warned, “... except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3), but Osteen did not mentioned repentance. The Bible says that “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb. 9:22), but Osteen didn’t mention the blood. The Bible says that hell is a place where “the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:44, 46, 48), but when Larry King asked Osteen if he believes in hell he replied merely that hell is “separation from God.” Joel Osteen is the pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, where the Sunday crowds total about 48,000. He preaches a positive-only, self-esteem gospel, and exemplifies the apostasy of America’s churches today.

MIDDLE SCHOOL APPROVES BIRTH CONTROL FOR CHILDREN (Friday Church News Notes, October 26, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - On October 17 the school board for Portland, Maine, approved a measure allowing students to have access to prescription birth control medications without parental notification (“Birth Control Allowed at Maine Middle School,” New York Times, Oct. 18, 2007). Only two members of the 12-person committee voted against this ridiculous measure. Middle School students are children aged 10 to 13. Pat Patterson, medical director of School-Based Health Centers, said, “It has been shown, over and over again, that this does not increase sexual activity.” The public schools in America are getting more wicked and morally vile every decade. The Bible warns, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor. 15:33), and the most evil influence in my life when I was young was the government school system. I started public school in 1955, and even then it was a moral cesspool, and that was only at the dawn of the godless rock & roll culture. We still had prayer in school when I was a kid, but the foolishness and immorality among the students far more than made up for that bit of religious influence.

HEAD OF EPISCOPAL CHURCH SAYS SLOWNESS OF ACCEPTANCE OF HOMOSEXUALITY IS A “CRUCIFIXION” (Friday Church News Notes, October 26, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Katharine Jefferts-Schori, head of the Episcopal Church in America, recently said: “The crucifixion I suffer is not being able to include the fullness of the gifts of my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, that they are not yet able to live those out in all orders of ministry in this church, that their unions are unable to be blessed in those places” (“Episcopal Leader Compares ‘Gay Rights’ Struggle to Crucifixion,” OneNewsNow.com, Oct. 17, 2007). She says that those who don’t accept unrepentant homosexuals in the churches are “in the 1950s relative to our own experience.” In fact, what some Christians did or did not believe in the 1950s is irrelevant. The Bible is God’s Word and is the sole authority for Christian faith and practice, and the newest part of the Bible is 2,000 years old! In Romans 1 the Bible calls homosexuality “vile affections,” “against nature,” “that which is unseemly,” “error,” “a reprobate mind,” and “not convenient” (Rom. 1:26-28). “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).

SWEDISH GOVERNMENT GOES ON WARPATH AGAINST CREATIONISM (Friday Church News Notes, October 26, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Swedish government is preparing new rules that will forbid any teaching of creationism or “intelligent design” in the nation’s schools, including independent ones. Education Minister Jan Bjorklund says, “Pupils must be protected from all forms of fundamentalism” (“Creationism to be Banished from Swedish Schools,” The Local: Sweden’s News in English, Oct. 15, 2007). Bjorklund said the national education agency plans to double the number of inspections of schools and intends to make it easier to close schools that break the rules. We have ten words for Mr. Bjorklund and his deluded government: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).

BUSH SAYS CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS PRAY TO THE SAME GOD AND ISLAM A RELIGION OF PEACE (Friday Church News Notes, October 26, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - For at least the second time in his presidency, President George Bush has said that Christians and Muslims pray to the same God. In fact, this time he said that all religions pray to the same God. In an interview with Al Arabiya reporter Elie Nakouzi on October 5 Bush said: “I believe in an Almighty God, and I believe that all the world, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, prays to the same God. That’s what I believe. I believe that Islam is a great religion that preaches peace” (“Bush: All Religions Pray to Same God,” WorldNetDaily, Oct. 7, 2007). In November 2003 Bush, when asked by a reporter in England whether “Muslims worship the same Almighty,” replied: “I believe we worship the same God” (“Christians, Muslims Worship Same God, Bush Tells Reporters,” Baptist Press, Nov. 20, 2003).

BEWARE OF NEW AGE BIBLE VERSIONS (Friday Church News Notes, October 26, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Our booklet “The Problem with New Age Bible Versions” first appeared in 1994. Before I published that book I sent a copy to Mrs. Riplinger and requested that she communicate with me about it, but she has never replied in person. Instead she published a slanderous attack upon me in her book “Blind Guides,” lumping me together with men who support the critical text. Like Peter Ruckman, Riplinger confuses a critique of her and her writings as an attack upon the King James Bible itself. Mrs. Riplinger has been divorced twice and married thrice. Her second marriage ended in August 1984, and her third marriage was contracted only four months later (http://www.avpublications.org/). She teaches mixed crowds in churches, and her writings are so marred by error, carelessness, and faulty logic that they cannot be used as dependable resources. For example, on page 448 of New Age Bible Versions Mrs. Riplinger says: “Westcott’s biographer cites that in 1858 ‘he was quite inaudible’ and by 1870 ‘his voice reached few and was understood by still fewer.’” Riplinger uses this to support her claim that Westcott lost his voice. She sees that as a judgment of God for his tampering with the Bible. The fact is that Westcott did not lose his voice. Riplinger cites volume one of The Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, but the quotes are misused. The first quote is from a statement about how that Westcott, as a young student, disliked public speaking. “He [Westcott] took his turn of preaching in Chapel, but he dreaded and disliked the duty, and he was quite inaudible to many of the boys” (The Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, vol. 1, p. 198). There is nothing here about Westcott losing his voice. The second of Riplinger’s quotes is taken from a letter from a Dr. Butler, who said that Westcott, when he was 35 years old and teaching at Harrow, still had a weak public speaking voice. “His voice was not yet a force in the chapel. It reached but few, and it was understood by still fewer” (The Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, vol. 1, pp. 272-273). Again, there is not a hint that Westcott lost his voice. It is a figment of Mrs. Riplinger’s fertile imagination. We believe that the King James Bible is the preserved Word of God in the English language and that modern textual criticism is heresy. In the 292-page book “The Modern Bible Version Hall of Shame” I have documented the heresies of 150 influential textual critics and modern version translators, including Westcott and Hort, but it is wrong and harmful to make claims about these men that are unsubstantiated by the facts. Beware of New Age Bible Versions. 

PROVERBS VS. HOLLYWOOD (Friday Church News Notes, October 26, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The book of Proverbs in the Bible is an amazing book. It contains practical wisdom about everyday life and human relationships, and teaches the difference between the wise and the fool. Sadly, most people, even in western countries where churches and Bibles abound, do not study Proverbs. Instead, they unwittingly get their lessons about life from sources such as Harry Potter novels and Hollywood movies. Consider some of the great contrasts between Proverbs and Hollywood. Proverbs commends the fear of God and warns that those who do not fear God are fools, but Hollywood commends “honest skepticism.” Proverbs commends humility and says that pride goeth before a fall, but Hollywood portrays pride as desirable and humility as foolish. Proverbs commends moral purity within marriage and warns that all fornication is the road to death and hell, but Hollywood glorifies “consensual” sexual exploration and portrays faithfulness within marriage as boring. Proverbs commends obedience to parents and warns that dishonor and rebellion will be judged, but Hollywood glorifies smart aleck, rebellious kids and portrays obedient ones as insipid, if it portrays them at all. Proverbs commends the woman who is the virtuous housewife, but Hollywood commends the career woman and the single party girl. Proverbs commends wisdom and virtue and likens beauty without godly character to a pig with a gold ring in its nose, but Hollywood glorifies beauty as practically the most desirable thing in life, and Hollywood’s beauties invariably do not have godly character.  Proverbs commends patient diligence and hard work and warns that the drunkard and glutton will come to poverty, the thief will come to destruction, and wealth gotten by vanity shall diminish, but Hollywood glorifies wealthy sloth and debauchery and “high class thievery” as cool and desirable. My friends, beware. Proverbs is right and Hollywood is wrong! “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7).