.
7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
18 (For many walk, of whom I have told you often,
and now tell you even weeping,
that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:
19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly,
and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
Philippians 3:7; 18-19 (King James Bible)
They shall cast their silver in the streets,
and their gold shall be
removed:
their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them
in the day of the wrath of the LORD:
they shall not satisfy their souls,
neither fill their bowels:
because it is the stumblingblock of their
iniquity.
Ezequiel 7:19 (King James Bible)
FRIDAY CHURCH NEWS NOTES
MAY 17, 2013, VOLUME 14, ISSUE 20
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.
RICK WARREN UNCERTAIN IF HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR IS SINFUL (Friday
Church News Notes, May 17, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org,
866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Rick Warren Says
‘Gays’ Go to Heaven,” Christian News, Nov. 29, 2012: [Ah! What won't unscrupulous pastors do for the sake of building mega crowds!] “Controversy is stirring over recent comments made by Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book The Purpose-Driven Life
and megachurch leader of Saddleback Church in California, who stated
that homosexual behavior ‘might be’ sinful, and that he believes
homosexuals go to Heaven. ... During an interview this week with the Huffington Post,
Warren was asked by Marc Lamont Hill if having romantic feelings for a
member of the sameSex is a sin. ... ‘No, it’s not a sin to love
somebody,’ Warren said. ‘It might be a sin to have [sexual activity]
with them,’ he added. ‘It might be.’ ...
Later
during the interview, when Hill asked Warren if he believes homosexuals
will go to Hell, he replied that they will not. ‘No, not because
they’re gay,’ he said. ‘We go to Hell because we choose to reject the
grace of God.’ When Hill asked what happens to a homosexual that accepts
Jesus, Warren responded enthusiastically. ‘He’s going to Heaven!’ he
declared. ‘Without a doubt.’ ...
Peter
LaBarbera, the president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality ...
stated that he was shocked at Rick Warren’s comments. ‘You don’t want
to give the impression that it’s fine and dandy to live the homosexual
lifestyle and as long as I believe in Jesus, I can still go to Heaven,’
he said. ‘It’s one thing to have attractions and [fight] that, [and
another to embrace homosexual behavior].’ ... ‘When you accept Christ,
your behavior changes,’ LaBarbera said. ‘And the attitude is [people
like Warren] don’t want to talk about changes. … We know that God
changes homosexuals, so why isn’t Rick Warren saying that?’ ... What
part of Romans 1 doesn’t Rick Warren understand? It’s so clear,’ he
said.
‘When
you make statements like these, you end up losing the Biblical sense,
and the Biblical sense is that this is an abomination.’ ... LaBarbera
said that Warren should not only have called homosexual behavior sin,
but should have gone deeper to the root issue. ‘It’s also sinful to lust
after another man,’ LaBarbera said. ‘We can’t advocate sin as
believers, and we have to think about how that the person that’s
struggling with homosexuality is going to hear this.’”
PENTAGON MAY COURT MARTIAL SOLDIERS WHO SHARE CHRISTIAN FAITH
(Friday Church News Notes, May 17, 2013, www.wayoflife.org
fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from
“Pentagon Confirms May Court Martial,” Breitbart, May 1, 2013: “The
Pentagon has released a statement confirming that soldiers could be
prosecuted for promoting their faith: ‘Religious proselytization is not
permitted within the Department of Defense ... Court martials and
non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis...’
The
statement, released to Fox News, follows a Breitbart News report on
Obama administration Pentagon appointees meeting with anti-Christian
extremist Mikey Weinstein to develop court-martial procedures to punish
Christians in the military who express or share their faith. (From our
earlier report: Weinstein is the head of the Military Religious Freedom
Foundation, and says Christians--including chaplains--sharing the gospel
of Jesus Christ in the military are guilty of ‘treason,’ and of
committing an act of ‘spiritual rape’ as serious a crime as ‘sexual
assault.’ He also asserted that Christians sharing their faith in the
military are ‘enemies of the Constitution.’) Being convicted in a court
martial means that a soldier has committed a crime under federal
military law. Punishment for a court martial can include imprisonment
and being dishonorably discharged from the military.
So
President Barack Obama’s civilian appointees who lead the Pentagon are
confirming that the military will make it a crime--possibly resulting in
imprisonment--for those in uniform to share their faith. This would
include chaplains—military officers who are ordained clergymen of their
faith (mostly Christian pastors or priests, or Jewish rabbis)--whose
duty since the founding of the U.S. military under George Washington is
to teach their faith and minister to the spiritual needs of troops who
come to them for counsel, instruction, or comfort.” [Peter Marshall, Chaplain of the United States Senate, would be turning in his grave, if he knew of this!
“Give us the courage to stand for something, lest we fall for anything.”]
THREE MILLION YEAR-OLD SOFT CAMEL TISSUE FOUND (Friday
Church News Notes, May 17, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org,
866-295-4143) - More soft tissue has been discovered among creatures
that are supposedly millions of years old. This time it is an ancient
camel that was found in Canada’s high Arctic. The Canadian Museum of
Nature in Ottawa claims that it is 3.5 million years old, but the
remains are mummified, not fossilized, and fragments of collagen are
preserved (“Ancient Arctic camel a curious conundrum,” Fox News, March
5, 2013). In 2008, a “2-million-year-old” fossil ape was discovered in
Malapa, South Africa, with skin attached.
That same year BBC News
reported on fossil feathers that have retained their biological pigment
colors. In 2009, researchers reconstituted dried ink from a “150
million-year-old” fossil squid’s ink sac. That was also the year of the
discovery of Darwinius masillae, an alleged 47-million-year-old missing link with preserved soft tissue.
A
mosasaur fossil (a 40-foot-long marine reptile) at the Dinosaur
Institute of the National History Museum of Los Angeles County,
supposedly millions of years old, has retina pigment, dried blood
residue, and “preservation of skin structures from all parts of the
body.” In 2011 PLoS ONE reported a “34-million-year” old cuttlefish
fossil with organic chitin remaining in the cuttlebone. Other
researchers found chitin in a scorpion that is supposedly hundreds of
millions of years old. Scientists studying these discoveries admit they
don’t know how it is possible for biomaterial to last millions of years.
Professor Mike Benton of the University of Bristol
asks, “How do you square that with the well-known FACT that the
majority of organic molecules decay in thousands of years?” (“Fossil
Feathers Reveal Their Hues,” BBC News,
July 8, 2008). The only answer they have is that since they KNOW that
the fossils are millions of years old, it must therefore be possible for
biomaterial to last millions of years, even though this goes against
known FACTS! This isn’t science; it’s circular reasoning; it’s myth
making. In fact, the soft tissue is evidence against
the evolutionary dating scheme and supports a young earth position,
because laboratory studies have consistently shown that even
well-preserved collagen should turn to dust in 30,000 years.
KNOWLEDGE SHALL INCREASE (Friday
Church News Notes, May 17, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org,
866-295-4143) - About 2,500 years ago, during the Persian Empire, an
angel told the prophet Daniel, “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words,
and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and
fro, and knowledge shall be increased” (Daniel 12:4). We are seeing a
dramatic fulfillment of this in our day. Recent inventions include the
following:
(1) Research into graphene is increasing dramatically with large potential for commercial applications. Though
the material was only identified in 2004, more than 7,000 patents have
been filed. Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms, is the thinnest
material ever made by man. Said to be stronger than diamond, more
conductive than copper, and as flexible as rubber, graphene holds huge
promise for a host of applications from IT to energy to medicine
(“Graphene,” BBC News, Jan. 15, 2013).
(2) A replacement living ear is about three years away from reality.
The bioengineered ear is made by printing a 3D mold of an ear and then
filling it with living cow ear cells and collagen (“3D-printed Ear
Created in Lab,” Fox News, Feb. 21, 2003). Jason Spector, with
Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, says the process takes
less than two days and it could be possible to implant one in a human in
as few as three years.
(3) Nano body parts can be reproduced the same way using a newly announced microscopic 3D printer.
Produced by the German company Nanoscribe GmbH, the printer can make
three-dimensional objects smaller than the width of a human hair quickly
with maximum resolution (“The world’s fastest microscopic 3D printer,” Fox News,
Feb. 20, 2013). “Printing three-dimensional objects in such incredibly
fine detail opens up many areas in which it could be useful, ranging
from defense to medicine. For biomedical technology or nanotechnology,
the 3D printer could be used to create tailor-made construction parts.”
(4) Brain scans can tell what a person is thinking.
Brain imagining technology (functional magnetic resonance imaging) is
making great strides and can now identify what number people have just
seen, what memory they are recalling, and can even reconstruct videos of
what a person has watched (“Your Brain Scans,” Business Insider, March 13, 2013).
THE GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD (Friday
Church News Notes, May 17, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org,
866-295-4143) - “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on
them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue
in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off” (Romans
11:22). (The word “goodness” is elsewhere translated “gentleness” Gal.
5:22 and “kindness” 2 Cor. 6:6; Col. 3:12; Titus 3:4.)
The
phrase “the goodness and severity of God” summarizes the two aspects of
God’s character that seem, to fallen man, to be contradictory and
confusing. How can God be good and yet severe? How can He be good when
He allows suffering to exist in this world? How can He be a God of love
and yet consign men to eternal hellfire? These are questions that men
have wrestled with for millennia. The answer is at once simple and
complex; the answer lies in God’s character.
We
have to deal with the God that exists rather than the god we would
create after our own thinking, which is an idol. We have to trust the
revelation God has given us, for we have no other way to know about
God’s character. We can learn of God’s power and wisdom through the
light of creation, but we cannot know His character apart from a higher
revelation, which God has graciously given us in Scripture. There we
find that the God that exists is good; He is compassionate and loving
beyond comprehension; but He is also holy and just; He is a righteous
lawgiver and a judge of rebellion. Both aspects of God’s character are
clearly evident in the Cross, the central event in history.
There
we see the severity of God, the awfulness of His justice, the depth of
his holiness whereby He would require His own Son to suffer so; but
there we see, too, the amazing goodness of God in taking the just
punishment of His own creatures upon Himself. What severity; what
goodness! In truth, the severity of God is part of and perfectly
compatible with His goodness. It is good that God is righteous, holy,
and just. This is the foundation of law and order in the created
universe. If God did not make righteous laws for His creatures and if He
did not enforce those laws, there would be chaos and anarchy, as we see
in this present world. While the scofflaw might see laws and police and
courts as severe, society understands that these are good. “Behold
therefore the goodness and severity of God.”
FOSSIL DRIVES EVOLUTIONISTS BATTY (Friday Church News Notes, May 17, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from Creation Moments,
April 4, 2013: “I’m sure everyone has noticed that whenever one of
those interesting nature programs on television show an especially
clever design in nature, the program is always quick to explain how this
came about by evolution. One good example is the unusual hearing
ability of the moth. Night flying moths have hearing organs that are
able to hear the ultrasonic signals used by bats.
The
bats use these signals to navigate and to find food, which includes the
moths. However, evolutionists never want anyone to think about a
Creator Who might have given the moths the ability to hear one of their
main predators.
So
they quickly explained that as moths evolved, they developed the
ability to hear the bats in response to bat attacks. Several years ago, a
fossilized egg from a night flying moth was discovered. Evolutionists
said that the egg was half again as old as any evidence of the first
bat. Yet the egg clearly belongs to a moth species that can hear bats.
Evolutionary scientists said that this discovery was most puzzling. They
said that evolution would have no reason to evolve this species of moth
before bats existed. Those of us who believe the Word of our Creator in
the Bible realize that all living things were made within a few days of
each other. We see around us how each was designed in a way that keeps
in mind the design found in other creatures. Moths have always been
moths, and bats have always been bats. There’s nothing puzzling about it
at all.”
CONCLUSION:
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 obviously
does not imply an endorsement. We trust that our readers will not be
discouraged. It is God’s will that we know the times (1 Ch. 12:32; Mat.
16:3) and that we be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
The
News Notes remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be
ready for the Lord’s coming. Are you sure that you are born again? Are
you living for Christ? “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high
time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we
believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore
cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not
in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil
the lusts thereof” (Rom. 13:11-14).
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