Friday Church News Notes
(Friday Church News Notes, December 21, 2012, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - On the morning of December 14, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, dressed like some sort of military commando but with none of the bravery and honor of a real warrior, murdered his dear mother by shooting her twice in the head, then drove to the elementary school where she worked in Newtown, Connecticut, and assassinated 20 precious children ages 6 and 7, shooting each of them multiple times, and murdering each of the six female adults who bravely tried to stop him. He then killed himself. The entire episode at the school was over within minutes, before any armed man could arrive on the scene and stop him, which is typical of those scenes. Gun-toting law enforcers get there just in time to lock down the bloody crime scene.
It’s not their fault; they are armed and ready and brave and they get there as fast as humanly possible, armed to the teeth and ready to face any danger; but it is almost always too late. I think it is criminal, in this day and time in America, that no one at the school was trained in firearms and properly armed, but the disarming of law-abiding American citizens is one of the politically-correct, stupid-think objectives. Therefore, no one could stop the brute. It was only the latest in a long series of horrendous episodes, though. Adults killing children has become common place. Filicide is the third leading cause of death among American children ages five to 14 years. One out of every 33 homicides in the U.S. is the killing of a child under 18 by its parent. In 1994, Susan Smith drowned her two sons in a lake. In September 1998, Khoua Her murdered her six children.
In 2001, Andrew Yates drowned her five children in the family tub. In July 2012, Aaron Schaffhausen slashed the throats of his three young daughters. In October 2012, nanny Yoselyn Ortega murdered the two little children under her care. An increasing number of cases involve “spousal revenge,” in which a husband (in 95% of the cases) murders the children to get back at a girlfriend or wife, which is indicative of an incredible amount of rage and hate and narcism.
THE EXPLOSION OF MASS MURDER (Friday Church News Notes, December 21, 2012, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - It is not only the killing of children by adults that has exploded in intensity in American society, this is also true of mass murder. Since 1980, the number of mass murders of four people or more has increased dramatically, becoming almost common place, with more than 62 episodes. In 1984, James Huberty murdered 21 people in a California McDonalds. In 1986, Pat Sherrill murdered 14 in a post office in Oklahoma. In 1991, George Hennard murdered 23 in a Texas cafeteria.
In 1999, the teenage Columbine shooters killed 12 students and a teacher before taking their own wretched lives, but they intended to kill a far greater number. In 2007, Seung Hui Cho killed 32 students and himself at the Virginia Tech campus. In April 2009, Jiverly Wong murdered 13 in New York, and in November of that year Nidal Hasan murdered 13 at Fort Hood, Texas. 2012 has been a big year for mass murders, with James Holmes murdering 12 and wounded 58 at a movie theater in Colorado in July, and Wade Page killing six and wounded four at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in August, and Andrew Engeldinger murdering five at a business in Minnesota in September, and Adam Lanza murdering 27 in December.
And it isn’t just an American phenomenon. Last year, the incredibly arrogant, cold-hearted Anders Breivik murdered 69 young people who were camping on an island in Norway, shooting those who tried to “play dead” and others who were trying to swim away.
WHY THE HORRIBLE VIOLENCE? (Friday Church News Notes, December 21, 2012, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - It has been both fascinating, frustrating, and sad to read the comments by “experts,” such as psychologists and law enforcement personnel and news media “talking heads,” who are trying to explain the reason behind the latest vicious act (the murder of 20 children at an elementary school) as well as the explosion of murderous rage in general that we are witnessing in Western society. Basically, the experts, having rejected God’s Word and depending on their own feeble resources, have no answer. We are told that mass murder is “not well understood in behavioral sciences” (“Why Are Mass Shootings Becoming More Common?” Washington Post, Dec. 14, 2012). The banner headline for The Tampa Tribune (Florida) for Dec. 16 was “Grief, FEW ANSWERS in Wake of Killings.”
Frank DeAngelis, who was the principal at Columbine High School at the time of the shootings there in 1999, said on December 14, “Money should be spent to find out what is causing so much hate.” For his part, President Obama said emphatically and authoritatively, “These tragedies must end.” I guess he’s going to wave his magic wand. You see, the experts and others trying to figure this out are convinced that they are basically good people themselves; but they know that they are looking at the depths of evil in these situations, and they are deeply puzzled. Well, what is actually happening today, America? The answer is right in front of you, in the Book that was nation’s favorite book from its inception until early in the lifetime of the very Baby Boomer generation that is still alive and kicking. The Bible has the answer, and it is not complicated, but the Bible has been rejected by America, in large measure, within my lifetime.
The Lord Jesus said, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders” (Mark 7:21). This world is full of evil because man’s heart is evil. Mankind rebelled against God and His holy laws. Man sins because he is a sinner, and it isn’t only murderers and other “worst of the worst” who are sinners. The Bible says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Not every man commits murder, but every man hates, which is the same evil before God. The same law of God that says, Thou shalt not kill, also says, “Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother” (Mark 10:19). Further, the Bible prophesies that there will be an explosion of evil in the last days, and it will create perilous times, the root problem being man’s love of himself.
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy” (2 Tim. 3:1-2). Behind all of the wretched violence is the flagrant rejection of the one true God and His Holy Word the Bible and the replacement of Him by a multitude of American idols and false christs.
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.)
