.WEEKLY CHURCH NEWS NOTES
Pastor Dale Morgan
*
May 29, 2009, Volume 10, Issue 22
The Weekly Church News Notes is designed for use in churches
ANOTHER CHRISTIAN WINNER OF AMERICAN IDOL: THE WORLD AND CHRIST, TOO
- The new winner of the incredibly worldly American Idol television show
is Kris Allen, a “devout Christian” who is worship leader at New Life
Church in Conway, Arkansas, and has done missionary work in various
places. While pursuing the title of American Idol, Allen performed songs
written by such filthy rockers as the homosexual Freddie Mercury (“We
Are the Champions”), accused child molester and unisex monster Michael
Jackson (“Man in the Mirror”), drug, prostitute, pornography addict
Marvin Gaye (“What’s Going On?”), and rapper Kayne West (“Heartless”),
who has appeared in a blasphemous pose on the cover of filthy Rolling
Stone magazine depicting Jesus wearing a crown of thorns. According to
Business Insider, it was Allen’s “teenage-girl fanbase” that kept him in
the running (“Idol Finalist Kris Allen,” May 13, 2009). Allen told his
pastor that “feeling the warm stage lights and seeing the eager audience
looking up at him reminded him of only one thing: going to church.” But
that is only because contemporary churches like his ape the world, the
same type of music, the same rock band format, the same rock show
milieu, the same dress, the same addiction to the heavy back beat, the
same “judge not” philosophy. Other professing Christian winners and
finalists of the American Idol competition are Kelly Clarkson, Clay
Aiken, Ruben Studdard, R.J. Helton, Chris Daughtry, Carry Underwood,
Jordin Sparks, and David Cook. Aiken and Helton have since admitted that
they are homosexuals. The October 20, 2006, issue of People magazine
quoted Helton as saying, “Just because I am gay does not mean I can’t
love God. I’m very proud of who I am.” (Helton’s Christian music album
Real Life sold 20,000 copies.) Aiken was featured on the cover of People
on September 24, 2008, with the words, “Yes, I’m Gay.” American Idol is
rightly named, in that it represents the modern pop culture in all of
its narcissism, its fleshly sensuality, its immodesty, its unisexuality,
its vanity, and its moral relativity. Its producers and judges make no
pretense that it is some sort of platform for godliness. It is, in fact,
a perfect fulfillment of the world described in 1 John 2:16, the world
that the believer is warned not to love, “For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,
is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16). It is
impossible to love the world and Christ, too. The Word of God says, “Ye
adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the
world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the
world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4). The Christianity represented by
the contestants on American Idol is not biblical Christianity; it is the
apostate Christianity predicted in Bible prophecy, the “live after your
own lusts” Christianity. “For the time will come when they will not
endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to
themselves teachers, having itching ears” (2 Timothy 4:3).
BART EHRMAN: AN UNBELIEVER WHO HAS A PROBLEM WITH GOD
Bart Ehrman is the author of “God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to
Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer.” Ehrman is a
“biblical scholar” who rejected his fundamentalist roots for the deadly
wilderness of agnosticism. Today he majors in criticizing the New
Testament Christian faith even while pretending to respect it. Because
of his unbelief, he has become something of a mainstream media darling.
He has been interviewed on the History Channel, the Discovery Channel,
National Public Radio, National Geographic, BBC, the Washington Post,
CNN, and others. Ehrman claims that a turning point in his path to
unbelief was his inability to answer the question of why an Almighty God
allows suffering in this world. The Bible answers that question, but
Ehrman doesn’t like the answer so he pretends that it is not a good one.
The answer is that God made man perfect and placed him in a beautiful
paradise, but man was also made with a will that could rebel against
God, and that is exactly what he did. God did not create suffering; man
did through his rebellion against God’s law. At the same time, God is
not only a compassionate God, He is a holy and just God and He punishes
infractions of His law. If this were not true, the moral basis of the
universe would be destroyed and anarchy would reign (as it does in this
present godless world). The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), and God
has punished the world for its sin. At the same time, God has made a way
of salvation at great cost to Himself. He sent His eternal Son into the
world, born of a virgin, to become incarnate as a sinless man and to die
a horrible death on the cross to pay the punishment that sinful man
deserves. He rose from the dead and commanded that the gospel be
preached to all men, offering eternal salvation to those who repent and
believe. God has given men light (John 1:9), but most reject it. That is
not God’s fault. There is nothing unrighteous about the God of the
Bible, but He is God and He does not have to answer to man. God is
justified by those who believe. It is not God who has the problem. It is
the Bart Ehrman’s of the world that have the problem, and it is not a
problem that will end at the grave.
ROBERT DICK WILSON: A GREAT SCHOLAR WHO BELIEVED THE BIBLE
In his books, lectures, and interviews, Bart Ehrman and his modernistic
buddies would have their listeners believe that no real biblical scholar
accepts the Bible’s historicity as defensible, but this is nonsense.
Many great scholars have defended the Bible as divinely inspired. ROBERT
DICK WILSON has been called “probably the outstanding authority on
ancient languages of the Middle East.” When he graduated from Princeton
at age 20, he could read the New Testament in nine languages. Eventually
he learned 45 languages, including all of the languages into which the
Bible was translated prior to 600 A.D. At age 25, Wilson decided to
dedicate the rest of his life to investigate the historicity of the
Bible to see if it could be defended against the onslaught of
theological modernism. Based on the longevity of his ancestors, he
estimated that he might have 45 more years to dedicate to his project.
Dividing this into three periods, he devoted the first 15 years to
mastering every language that had a bearing on the text of the Old
Testament, the next 15 years to the study of the text of the Old
Testament itself, and the final 15 years to writing down the results of
his research. Among the languages he learned were Babylonian, Ethiopic,
Phoenician, Aramaic, Egyptian, Coptic, Persian, Armenian, Arabic,
Syriac, and Egyptian. The Presbyterian Church of America’s Historical
Center lists over 100 of Wilson’s published writings. When asked what he
tried to give to the estimated 2,000 students that sat under his
ministry, Wilson replied, “I try to give them such an intelligent faith
in the Old Testament Scriptures that they will never doubt them as long
as they live. I try to give them evidence. I try to show them that there
is a reasonable ground for belief in the history of the Old Testament.
I’ve seen the day when I’ve just trembled at undertaking a new
investigation, but I’ve gotten over that. I have come now to the
conviction that no man knows enough to assail the truthfulness of the
Old Testament. Whenever there is sufficient documentary evidence to make
an investigation, the statements of the Bible, in the original texts,
have stood the test” (Robert Dick Wilson, Is the Higher Criticism
Scholarly? foreword by Philip Howard, 1922). Why did Robert Dick Wilson
believe the Bible and teach his students to trust it and believe in God,
while Bart Ehrman disbelieves the Bible and encourages his students to
be skeptics? It’s not a matter of Ehrman having superior scholarship. It
is a matter of faith. As Jesus said, an unbelieving heart will not be
convinced though it witnesses someone rise from the dead (Luke 16:31).
WHY DOES UNBELIEF REIGN IN THE HIGHEST REACHES OF BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP?
The fact that unbelief predominates in the field of biblical scholarship
today is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy and is further proof of its
infallibility. Some 2,000 years ago, the apostle Paul looked down
through the corridor of time and made the following prediction about the
last days: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall
come. ... Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof:
from such turn away. ... Ever learning, and never able to come to the
knowledge of the truth. ... But evil men and seducers shall wax worse
and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. ... For the time will come
when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts
shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they
shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto
fables” (2 Timothy 3:1, 5, 7, 13, 4:3-4). Paul prophesied that the
course of the church age will be characterized by increasing apostasy,
by an onslaught of false teachers who will deny the faith, and that is
exactly what we see today. Other prophecies describe the coming and
judgment of Bible teachers that will deny Christ as Lord, which is
exactly what Bart Ehrman and his liberal buddies have done (e.g., 2
Peter 2; Jude). If the New Testament is a pack of myths and lies as
scholars such as Bart Ehrman claim, how does it contain such precise
prophecies?
GROVELING FOR EARTHWORMS OR PLUCKING VIOLETS?
The following is from Robert Dick Wilson’s Is the Higher Criticism
Scholarly? (The Sunday School Times, 1922): “Notwithstanding this
evident plan and purpose of a divine redemption which runs all through
the Scriptures, there are today many professedly Christian writers who
treat of the Israelitish religion as if it were a purely natural
development. They diligently pick out every instance of a superstitious
observance, or of a departure from the law, or of a disobedience to the
divine commands, as if these represented the true religion of ancient
Israel. They cut up the books and doctor the documents and change the
text and wrest the meaning, to suit the perverted view of their own
fancy. They seem to think that they know better what the Scriptures
ought to have been than the prophets and apostles and even the Lord
Himself! They tell us when revelations must have been made, and how and
where they must have been given, and what their contents could have
been, as if they knew more about such matters than God Himself. Imagine
a man’s writing the history of the last eighteen hundred years and
denying that the New Testament had been in existence during all that
time, denying that the Christian church with all its saving doctrines
and benevolent institutions and beneficent social system derived from
the New Testament had been active and, in a sense, triumphant for at
least fifteen hundred years, simply because he could select thousands of
examples of superstitious customs, and hellish deeds, and impious words,
and avowed agnostics, and Heaven-defying atheists, that have disgraced
the pages of history during this time! LET US NOT GROVEL FOR THE BEETLES
AND THE EARTHWORMS OF ALMOST FORGOTTEN FAITHS WHICH MAY PERCHANCE BE
DISCOVERED BENEATH THE STONES AND SOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, WHILE THE
VIOLETS AND THE LILIES-OF-THE-VALLEY OF A SWEET AND LOWLY FAITH ARE IN
BLOOM ON EVERY PAGE AND EVERY ORACLE REVEALED WITHIN THE WORD OF GOD IS
JUBILANT WITH SONGS OF EVERLASTING JOY. The true religion of Israel came
down from God arrayed in the beautiful garments of righteousness and
life. We cannot substitute for this Heaven-made apparel a robe of human
manufacture, however fine it be.”
JEWISH ACTIVISTS FILED CRIMINAL COMPLAINT AGAINST THE POPE
- Jewish leaders and activists filed criminal charges against Pope
Benedict XVI on his recent trip to Israel. According to the complaint,
the Vatican is holding treasures from the second temple that were
plundered by Rome’s army under General Titus in 70 A.D. The complainants
claim that at least some of the vessels are still in existent in the
Vatican cellars and the pope, therefore, is guilty of possessing stolen
goods (“Pope Named as Defendant,” Arutz Sheva, May 9, 2009). Witnesses
to the complaint include Israel’s chief rabbis Yonah Metzger and Shlomo
Amar, along with Rabbi Yisrael Ariel of the Temple Institute. We have
not been able to find out how the case was settled, but we do know that
the pope was allowed to return to Rome even though the complainants had
hoped to delay his departure. The Arch of Titus, the oldest arch in
Rome, depicts the Roman armies carrying artifacts from the temple in a
victory parade. The golden candlestick is plainly visible.
DON’T BE DOUBLEMINDED IN TRIALS
“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let
patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire,
wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that
giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given
him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is
like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that
man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded
man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:2-8).
CONCLUSION: The Weekly Church News Notes is designed for use in
churches. 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).