Isn't it something! In Revelation we see predicted that the entire world would be viewing events taking place regarding the two witnesses, places where not even electricity has reached, but the Internet is there!
Awesome!
But, in Nepal, I know through a dear brother in Christ, that the King James Bible has just been finished being translated in their native tongue! Awesome, indeed!
FRIDAY CHURCH NEWS NOTES
MAY 18, 2012, VOLUME 13, 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.
FASHION REBEL DIES (Friday Church News Notes, May 18, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Vidal Sassoon, one of the kings of the fashion industry, died on May 9 at age 84. He was “a beauty pioneer akin to fashion rebels like Mary Quant [inventor of the mini skirt] ... putting women in sleek, wash-and-go wedges, bobs and other less-is-more crops” (“Vidal Sassoon,” USA Today, May 10, 2012). In 1993 Sasson told the Los Angeles Times, “Women were going back to work; they were assuming their own power. They didn’t have time to sit under the dryer anymore.” One of the movers and shakers of the cultural revolution of the 1960s, Sasson said that though the Beatles were changing the world, “you can’t wear music, but you can wear your hair different.” Fashion is not a morally innocent thing. It is a language, and God’s people must not conform themselves to the course of this wicked world (Romans 12:2). Three of the major fundamentals of the modern fashion industry are pride, sensuality (achieved particularly through skimpy and tight clothing), and unisexuality, all of which are condemned in 1 John 2:15-16 as part of the world that lies under God’s righteous judgment. As we have documented in the book Dressing for the Lord, many of the fashion kings are homosexuals, and there has been a brash attempt to break down the separation between the sexes, which is open rebellion to the Creator, who “made them male and female.” The apostle Paul taught that the distinction between the sexes is to be reflected even in the matter of hair length, with long hair being the woman’s glory, signifying her submission to authority, but with long hair on the man being shameful (1 Cor. 11:14-15). This is why I cut my hair in 1973 after I was converted from a “hippie” lifestyle, and I have always considered it hypocritical and inconsistent for churches to allow short-haired women to sing in the choir and teach Sunday School classes, when they would not allow a long-haired man to do the same. Vidal Sassoon’s influence extends even to Bible-believing churches.
MORMONISM GROWING IN WASHINGTON D.C. (Friday Church News Notes, May 18, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “With or Without Romney, D.C. a Surprising Mormon Stronghold,” CNN Belief Blog, May 2, 2012: “A few hundred Mormons filed into a chapel just outside the Washington Beltway one recent Sunday to hear a somewhat unusual presentation: an Obama administration official recounting his conversion to Mormonism. ... The nation’s capital has become a Mormon stronghold, with Latter-day Saints playing a big and growing role in the Washington establishment. The well-dressed crowd gathered for [the] speech was dotted with examples of inside-the-beltway Mormon power. ... Regardless of which party controls the White House, Mormonism in Washington has been growing for decades. When Larsen arrived in Washington in the early ’80s, there were a just handful of Mormon meetinghouses in northern Virginia, where he lives. Today, there are more than 25, each housing three separate congregations, or wards, as they’re known in the LDS Church. ‘There’s been an absolute explosion in Mormon growth inside the beltway,’ Larsen says before slipping out of the pew to crank the air conditioning for the swelling crowd. The LDS Church says there are 13,000 active members within a 10-mile radius of Washington ... Congress now counts 15 Mormon members, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.”
CHECHNYA’S GOVERNMENT APPROVES OF HONOR KILLINGS (Friday Church News Notes, May 18, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Chechen Women in Mortal Fear as President Backs Islamic Honor Killings,” Washington Times, April 29, 2012: “Chechnya's government is openly approving of families that kill female relatives who violate their sense of honor, as this Russian republic embraces a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam after decades of religious suppression under Soviet rule. In the past five years, the bodies of dozens of young Chechen women have been found dumped in woods, abandoned in alleys and left along roads in the capital, Grozny, and neighboring villages. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov publicly announced that the dead women had “loose morals” and were rightfully shot by male relatives. He went on to describe women as the property of their husbands, and said their main role is to bear children. ... Though observers agree that honor killings are on the rise in Chechnya, the issue remains largely taboo among locals — making official statistics hard to come by. ‘You hear about these cases almost every day,’ said a local human rights defender, who asked that her name not be used out of fear for her safety. ‘It is hard for me to investigate this topic, yet I worked on it with [human rights activist] Natasha [Estemirova] for a while. But, I can’t anymore. I am too scared now. I’ve almost given up, really.’ Estemirova, who angered Chechen authorities with reports of torture, abductions and extrajudicial killings, was found in the woods in 2009 in the neighboring region of Ingushetia with gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Her killer or killers have not been found.”
AFTER BIRTH ABORTION (Friday Church News Notes, May 18, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “What Roe Has Wrought” by Kelly Boggs, Baptist Press, March 2, 2012: “Should a newborn be allowed to live? This very question is the subject of an article by two Australian-based ethicists that appears in the latest Journal of Medical Ethics (JME), an international publication based in Britain. The question, of course, is not difficult to answer. In the biblical worldview, a baby should be allowed to live because human life originates with God. Human life is precious, sacred and, as the Bible asserts, made in the image of God. The authors have a very different take. In their article titled ‘After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?,’ Alberto Giubilini of Melbourne's Monash University and Francesca Minerva of the University of Melbourne argue the only reason an infant should be allowed to live is if the parents deem it so. Giubilini and Minerva believe the criteria that allow an unborn baby to be aborted should also be applied to an infant that has been born. ... in the developed nations of the world babies are aborted more than 90 percent of the time as a matter of convenience. ... They write: ‘... the same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of a newborn.’ According to Giubilini and Minerva, in order to qualify as a person an individual must have formed an ‘aim’ that he or she is conscious of and able to pursue and/or achieve. ... Perhaps the most stunning argument by Giubilini and Minerva centers on adoption. The authors address the question: Why not simply allow the baby to be adopted? Their answer is shocking. ‘Consider the interests of the mother who might suffer psychological distress from giving her child up for adoption,’ argue the authors. ... In the worldview of Giubilini and Minerva, a woman’s potential psychological distress outweighs the right to life of an infant. If personhood requires a measure of consciousness, an aim or a function, then what do we do with those who are mentally challenged? What about the physically handicapped? How about those who suffer from Alzheimer's disease? Will all these be classified as non-persons and become disposable? Ideas have consequences.”
INTERNET SPREADING TO MOST REMOTE PLACES ON EARTH (Friday Church News Notes, May 18, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Internet is rapidly spreading to the most remote places on earth. In Nepal, for example, where many millions of people have no access to the electric grid and where a majority of villages can be reached only by walking over steep mountain trails, Internet penetration has nearly doubled in the last year to reach 16% of the population (“Internet Penetration Rate,” Kathmandu Post, March 28, 2012). Many villages in Nepal and India access the internet by mobile phones or cheap laptops charged by solar power. The existence of this technology is taken for granted in prophecies such as Revelation 11, which describes the whole world viewing the activities in Jerusalem pertaining to the Two Witnesses. “And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves” (Revelation 11:9).
PASTORS SAY NEW CALVINISM NEGLECTING MISSIONS (Friday Church News Notes, May 18, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Two of the speakers at the Together for the Gospel conference this month warned that the “new Calvinists” are neglecting world missions. Kevin DeYoung, pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan, said that there has been a lack of “passion and enthusiasm and growth” for “global missions” (“Pastor Says,” Associated Baptist Press, April 13, 2012). David Platt, pastor of Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, Alabama, said “global missions is tragically neglected.” The conference has been held annually since 2006 by “conservative Reformed evangelicals” who are called the “new Calvinists” and the “Reformed Resurgence.” It is no surprise that global missions has been neglected, because their theology of sovereign election does not produce passion for sacrificing to carry the gospel to the uttermost. Calvinists who have had such a passion, and some have, have it in spite of their theology rather than as a product of it. If God has already decided who will be saved and if He is going to save them no matter what, much of the motive for “going” is removed. William Carey had to get beyond the Calvinism of his time to have a burden to carry the gospel to dark Asia. Last year I asked a prominent Calvinist who says that he rejects “hyper-Calvinism” a simple question: “Do you believe that any man can be saved?” He could not answer that in the affirmative. But the Scripture clearly teaches that that any man can believe on Christ and be saved, and if my theology does not allow me to answer that in the affirmative and with alacrity, my theology needs to be changed. Seven times the New Testament repeats the statement that “whosoever believeth” shall be saved. I don’t care two cents for compatibalism, monergism, synergism, irresistible grace, hypothetical atonement, libertarian free will, supralapsarianism, sublapsarianism, infralapsarianism, desiderative will, or antecedent hypothetical will. All I care about is What Saith the Word of God! I have spent more than 20 years of my life on one of the world’s darkest mission fields, and a major motive that has kept me going in difficult conditions is the Bible-taught awareness that my work can change the eternal destiny of souls. The passion that the apostle Paul expressed in the following verse makes no sense in light of “sovereign election.” “For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, THAT I MIGHT GAIN THE MORE” (1 Corinthians 9:19).
PASTORS SAY THE NEW CALVINISM NEGLECTS PERSONAL HOLINESS (Friday Church News Notes, May 18, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Two of the speakers at the recent Together for the Gospel conference warned that the “new Calvinists” are neglecting holiness. Kevin DeYoung, pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan, said that there has been a lack of “passion” for “personal holiness” (“Pastor Says,” Associated Baptist Press, April 13, 2012). The conference has been held annually since 2006 by “conservative Reformed evangelicals” who are called the “new Calvinists” and the “Reformed Resurgence.” Key personalities in the movement include Al Mohler, head of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, John Piper, and Mark Driscoll. It is not surprising that there is a lack of passion for personal holiness because the “new Calvinism” has been successful in appealing to this sensual generation by combining two irreconcilable things: “theological conservatism” and “cultural liberalism.” The Reformed theology appeals to the intellectual side of modern man while the cultural liberalism appeals to his love of the pop culture, particularly the culture’s music, which is one of the chief idols of this plugged-in generation. All of these churches use the sensual, mystical contemporary worship music. On a visit to John Piper’s church last year for research I was amazed to see an otherwise staunch Calvinist congregation rocking out and swaying and coming under the control of charismatic music. The philosophy of cultural liberalism, which tends to be more concerned about the boggy of “legalism” than about holiness, will not produce personal holiness, and when it does in the exceptional cases, it is not because of the theology but in spite of it. Peter Masters, senior pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England, has issued pointed warnings about the “new Calvinists.” Masters is a Calvinist after the fashion of Charles Spurgeon, which is far more Bible-based than that of the “resurgence” crowd, and he preaches a biblical basis for true personal holiness and for truly sacred worship. (See Masters’ book Worship in the Melting Pot, as well as “The Merger of Calvinism with Worldliness,” Sword and Trowel, 2009, No. 1, and “Christian Hedonism - Is It Right?” Sword & Trowel, 2002, No. 3.)
MADALYN MURRAY O’HAIR’S MAGIC THOUGHT WORLD (Friday Church News Notes, May 18, 2012, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Madalyn Murray O’Hair, founder of the American Atheists in 1963, was a forerunner to the atheistic movement that has grown significantly over the past quarter century and has gained social and political influence. It was her lawsuit against the Baltimore school system that resulted in the 1963 Supreme Court decision forbidding Bible reading in public schools. O’Hair, together with her son Jon and granddaughter Robin, were murdered in 1995 by a former employee of the American Atheists who also stole a half million dollars from the organization. O’Hair’s oldest son, William, became a Christian in 1978. In his autobiography he described his mother’s legacy as follows: “I thought my mother was a Marxist, and she was. I thought she hated God, and she did. She hated American society and the concept of the nuclear family centered on a heterosexual marriage. Her vision was of a society without marriage, but with plenty of sex. She sought a civilization with no rules but with a perfect order. Her ideal was a culture in which all human needs were supplied but no demands were made on the individuals. ... But none of these single insights allow me or anyone else to view the core of what Madalyn Murray O’Hair was; they just nibble around the edges. However, put everything together--the atheism, the Marxism, the sexual anarchy, the social standards that have never existed in any functioning society--and one soon sees that she existed in a state of Magic Thought. She was a utopian. She believed that humankind could devise a system on Earth that supplied all needs to all people. In her vision of society, there would be no hunger, no pollution, and no war. ... Utopians often approve of dictatorial or even violent means to reach the impossible utopia they envision, and all of them who have achieved power became mass murderers. ... in 2011 America lives in the fantasy land of the Internet, where perfect societies are created in virtual mode in only minutes. The cries for the masses to be supplied with their needs virtually out of thin air, in a perfect world arranged by the government, are no longer made just by dreamers like Madalyn Murray O’Hair and a handful of sixties radicals like Timothy Leary, but by presidential candidates as well. ... [What] were just pipe dreams of my mother and a few others in the 1960s, are now shared by an ever-expanding percentage of a population with hands perpetually outstretched toward government. At some point between the tough reality of 1960 and the insanity of my mother’s vision, the Western world gave up its sanity for a reality that does not exist. If Madalyn Murray O’Hair lived today, she could probably run for the presidency on the Magic Thought Party ticket promising change that would bring prosperity without perspiration and an effortless material paradise rather than struggle and opportunity” (William Murray, My Life Without God, 2012 edition, “Retrospect from 2011”).
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