February 4, 2011 Volume 12, Issue 05
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.
JIMMY BUFFETT FALLS OFF STAGE (Friday Church News Notes, February 4, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Jimmy Buffett is an old-timer rocker who has been preaching the rock & roll philosophy for decades. Recently the 64-year-old fell off the stage during a concert in Australia and had to be hospitalized. Buffett’s god is bacchus, and his songs glorify drink and party. His band’s name, Coral Reefer, refers to tropical island indolence, sensuality, and marijuana. Buffett’s 1977 hit, “Margaritaville,” refers to a tequila cocktail, but it’s not just about a drink; it’s a philosophy of life. He likes to sing about drunkenness, but there is nothing funny or innocent about it. Only the Lord knows how many people have destroyed their marriages, abused and estranged their kids, crashed their cars, ruined their health, contracted venereal disease, blasphemed God, kissed the devil, stolen, raped, murdered, and committed suicide under the influence of drink. It is one of the most destructive things in modern society, but rockers have glorified it throughout rock’s filthy history. Buffett is typically rock cool and “cute” in his blasphemy. One of his songs is titled “My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don’t Love Jesus.” Another is “Vampires, Mummies and the Holy Ghost,” in which he compares God the Holy Spirit to frightful things from his childhood. To Buffett and his rock & roll buddies, the Holy Spirit is more frightful than vampires and psychopaths. No doubt, he has long quenched the voice of the Holy Spirit in his life, which is truly the most fruitful thing, because it is the path to eternal hell. Unlike Buffet, I consider the Holy Spirit to be most wonderful and glorious, both in His holiness and in His compassionate grace. I am thankful for His conviction in the lives of undeserving sinners and His mercy in leading them to Jesus Christ. I certainly didn’t deserve His convicting power when He showed me the sin of my rock & roll reefer lifestyle and awakened me to my desperate need of salvation. Only a first-class fool would be frightened of being turned away from hell. Jeff Royal observes: “Jimmy Buffett has influenced millions with his music over the years. Buffett's fans are called ‘parrotheads.’ He has recently become chummy with many within the country music world. Alan Jackson has toured with and cut duets with him. Country music would have no problem in welcoming him in with open arms. Sadly, many professing Christians are listening to him today.”
CHARISMATIC LEADER’S SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS (Friday Church News Notes, February 4, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from Berean Call, December 2010: “On October 17 [1989], Paul and Jan Crouch welcomed three Catholics to their Praise the Lord program: two priests and a woman lay leader. Paul displayed his usual naïveté and incredible ignorance of theology by smoothing over any differences between Protestants and Catholics as ‘simply matters of semantics.’ In his eager embrace of Transubstantiation, a heresy so great that thousands died at the stake rather than accept it, he declared: ‘Well, we [Protestants] believe the same thing. So you see one of these things that has divided us all of these years [Transubstantiation] shouldn't have divided us all along because we were really meaning the same thing but just saying it a little differently. ... I [am] eradicating the word Protestant even out of my vocabulary. ... I’m not protesting anything anymore ... it is ... time for Catholics and non-Catholics to come together as one in the Spirit and one in the Lord.’ But Catholics have a different gospel of salvation by works and ritual through the essential mediation of that Church.” CONCLUDING NOTE BY BROTHER CLOUD: This is dated news, but it is timely and relevant, all the same. The charismatic movement and its experience- and emotion-based ecumenicism is one of the adhesives of end-times apostasy. Another is Contemporary Christian Music. It is a unifying factor that is not founded on sound doctrine. One of the great sins and errors of modern evangelicalism is its silence in the face of such things. How many influential evangelicals have reproved Paul Crouch and TBN publicly? Charles Swindoll is typical. He says that though he disagrees with charismatic theology, he doesn’t “shoot great volleys of theological artillery” at them (Grace Awakening, p. 188). This is inaccurate and silly statement. Reproving sin and heresy is not “shooting” people. It is an act of love for God and His truth and it is an act of compassion toward those who are being led astray. We are commanded to “earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Spiritual pacifism and reproving sin and error in generalities might broaden your ministry and support base, but it won’t get the job done for full-orbed truth in this dark world.
TRINITY SPEAKER PASSIONATE ABOUT CHRISTIAN ROCK (Friday Church News Notes, February 4, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Trinity Baptist College’s annual Church Life Student Conference is featuring a speaker who is passionate about Christian rock. On his web site, Tony Nolan says he is “an outspoken advocate of Contemporary Christian Music” and “partners regularly in concert and conferences with rockers such as Third Day, Reliant K, SuperTones, Pillar, Skillet, Delirious, and Toby Mac. Nolan also has a great admiration for Billy Graham, the grand master of spiritual compromise and ecumenical evangelism. In his blog for October 8, 2010, Nolan described a recent visit with Graham and George Beverly Shea. Trinity Baptist of Jacksonville, Florida, was once a conservative school that practiced separation from the world, but under the direction of Tom Messer this has changed dramatically. It is well down the emerging path. Another speaker at Trinity’s Church Life conference is Greg Locke, who also speaks at the Gospel Light Youth Conference in Walkertown, North Carolina. Gospel Light Baptist Church pastored by Bobby Roberson has a reputation of being an old-fashioned, sin-hating, separated Bible-believing Baptist church, but Locke’s association with Christian rockers is a spiritual disease that will spread if it is not dealt with. I have serious doubts that the necessary separation will happen, though, because Roberson preaches at Clarence Sexton’s Friendship Conferences and thus apparently shares Sexton’s wrong-headed philosophy that for the sake of evangelism, independent Baptists should associate together regardless of the various “secondary” issues that divide them today, one of those issues being contemporary music.
U.S. MISSIONARY MURDERED BY DRUG THUGS IN MEXICO (Friday Church News Notes, February 4, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Nancy Davis Told Friends She Might Not Come Back Alive,” ABC World News, Jan. 27, 2011: “Nancy Davis, the American missionary killed in Mexico by what police suspect were drug thugs, told friends when she last saw them over dinner this fall that she ‘might not come back alive’ from her next visit to Mexico. Nancy and her husband Sam Davis, both Christian missionaries, were aware of the escalating drug violence in Mexico and had been chased by gunmen on previous occasions. But they kept going back. Jennifer Christner, friend of the couple and wife of the pastor of Christian Chapel Church where the Davis’s grew up, said that they knew the danger but were willing to die ‘doing what we were supposed to do.’ Nancy Davis told Christner, ‘If I don’t see you here, I’ll see you in heaven.’ Nancy and Sam Davis were riding along a highway 70 miles south of the border town of Reynosa, Mexico, on Wednesday when they approached an illegal roadblock. Rather than stop, they continued driving and were chased by several gunmen in a black pick-up truck, according Pharr Police Chief Ruben Villescas. Rather than stop, Sam Davis gunned the engine of their blue 2008 Chevrolet pick-up, a vehicle popular with the dangerous Zetas drug cartel that controls the area. The pursuing gunmen fired at Davis' truck, and a bullet hit Nancy Davis in the head. Her husband raced the 70 miles to the Pharr International Bridge, speeding the last part of the way against on-coming traffic to avoid the long lines of northbound cars at the border checkpoint, arriving at 12:25 p.m., according to police reports. Nancy Davis was rushed to a hospital in the border city of McAllen, Texas, but she was declared dead at 1:54 p.m.”
STUDY REINFORCES FACT THAT MUSIC IS A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE (Friday Church News Notes, February 4, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Contemporary Christian Music is built on the premise that music is neutral and that only the lyrics carry moral meaning. Even secular musicians know that this is absurd. Any orchestra conductor will tell you that music itself is a language. A study that was reported in 2009 reinforces this. Mafa farmers in Cameroon, who are culturally isolated from western music, were tested for their emotional reaction to it. A team led by Thomas Fritz of the Max Planck Institute for Human cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany, said: “I was quite amazed that the Mafa accurately categorized basic emotions in pieces of Western music on the first listen” (“Two Cultures Grasp Music’s Universal Feeling,” Science News, April 11, 2009). Mafa and Western listeners classify the same pieces of music as happy, sad, or fearful. Both types of listeners dislike dissonant music. Josh McDermott of New York University said that the new study’s findings fit earlier indications that people interpret certain acoustic cues in the same ways. When rock & roll was birthed in the 1950s, through the merging of various streams of dance music such as blues and jazz, the heavy back beat was its prominent characteristic, because it impacts the body and soul in a certain predictable way and fulfills the music’s objective, which is to create sensual feelings and body movements. The heavy back beat rhythm matches the philosophy of the music, which is moral license. “It’s your life and you can do as you please.” The heavy back beat rhythm of pop music preaches a message, and that message is not godliness and humble submission to authority. It preaches a message that is contrary to the message of the Bible, and to adapt this music to the lyrics of the Christian faith is confusion and moral anarchy. Christian rock music, so called, is the music of the lustful Christianity described in 2 Timothy 4:3-4.
CHRIST-LIKENESS IN GIVING (Friday Church News Notes, February 4, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from Benjamin B. Warfield, “The Person and Work of Christ,” 1950: “Now dear Christians, some of you pray night and day to be branches of the true Vine; you pray to be made all over in the image of Christ. If so, you must be like him in giving ... ‘though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor’ ... Objection 1. ‘My money is my own.’ Answer: Christ might have said, ‘My blood is my own, my life is my own’ ... then where should we have been? Objection 2. ‘The poor are undeserving.’ Answer: Christ might have said, ‘They are wicked rebels ... shall I lay down my life for these? I will give to the good angels.’ But no, he left the ninety-nine, and came after the lost. He gave his blood for the undeserving. Objection 3. ‘The poor may abuse it.’ Answer: Christ knew that thousands would trample his blood under their feet; that most would despise it; that many would make it an excuse for sinning more; yet he gave his own blood. Oh, my dear Christians! If you would be like Christ, give much, give often, give freely, to the vile and poor, the thankless and the undeserving. Christ is glorious and happy and so will you be. It is not your money I want, but your happiness. Remember his own word, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
CHAMELEON CHANGES IN UNEXPECTED WAY (Friday Church News Notes, February 4, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from Creation Moments, Jan. 31, 2011: “Evolutionary naturalists have predicted that a given creature should have pretty much the same strategy for dealing with any of the predators that seek it out. As our knowledge of the animal world grows, they are beginning to realize that they may have to reexamine their prediction. Researchers have now established that a dwarf chameleon native to Africa does indeed use very different strategies depending on the predator. The two main predators the chameleon faces are snakes and birds. After observation in the wild, naturalists decided to test the chameleons' reactions to these predators under controlled conditions. They captured some chameleons and then tested their reactions to a fake snake or a stuffed bird. When the snake was placed where the chameleons could see it, the chameleons turned pale and hugged the branch they were on. When the bird was introduced, the chameleons color-matched their branch much more closely while hugging its underside. Further study led the researchers to see the wisdom of these strategies. The snake looks up from the ground and sees the chameleon against the bright sky. The birds look down and see the darker branch. Obviously, the chameleons didn’t figure this out by themselves. God gave them these strategies for their protection.”
ADONIRAM JUDSON’S PETITION FOR ANN’S HAND (Friday Church News Notes, February 4, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is the petition that missionary Adoniram Judson made to Ann Hasseltine’s father asking for her hand in marriage, knowing that missionary life in India in that day could likely be a death sentence. “I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?” (Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore). Ann’s father let her make the decision, and she said yes. And she did not see her parents again in this world and she did suffer great hardships and she did die young, but she did it for the sake of the Saviour and lost souls. What a wonderful example and challenge. [These account for TRUE MISSIONARIES and not the pathetic MOOCHIONARIES we have today, who enter the "mission" field with the idea of giving their big family a thrill, thus together with their four kids travel the world at someone else's expense. The endeavor accomplished soon enough to return with some pathetic and baseless excuse, landing their first pastorate "job" in March of 2008, eyed in the visit they had made the previous Thanksgiving! These NOW sufficiently well-off to purchase a house for $117,000.00 (ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS while there was and is an abundance of houses at half the price and just as big, if not bigger in the urban area since the city has gone to half the population it had years ago! There STILL is one right on my street!) just two months later in an upscale neighborhood, 4 miles away from the church, while leeching off the poor and embattled diminutive URBAN group who attend the church. This blatant example to be found right here in Niagara Falls, NY, at the Calvary Baptist Church, a church NOT SELF-SUPPORTING as its site, oh!, pardon me, as the
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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). This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list. To SUBSCRIBE, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/wayoflife/subscribe.html. TO UNSUBSCRIBE OR CHANGE ADDRESSES, go to the very bottom of any email received from us and click "Manage My Subscription." Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org.
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