WEEKLY CHURCH NEWS NOTES
Pastor Dale Morgan
November 26, 2006.
By: David Cloud
The Weekly Church News Notes is designed for use in churches.
*
NORTH CAROLINA SOUTHERN BAPTISTS VOTE TO EXCLUDE PRO-HOMOSEXUAL CHURCHES*
On November 14 the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina voted to
disallow churches that are sympathetic to homosexuality. The vote
carried by a little less than a three-fourths majority. The addition to
the association's membership criteria says: "Among churches not in
friendly cooperation with the Convention are churches which knowingly
act to affirm, approve, endorse, promote, support or bless homosexual
behavior." This action, though right-sounding in itself, actually is
further evidence of the deeply compromised condition of the Southern
Baptist Convention at the state and local levels. The Baptist churches
in North Carolina that are sympathetic to homosexuality did not become
this wretchedly liberal overnight. They have been unscriptural for
decades, and yet nothing has been done until now. A church that allows
unrepentant homosexuals into its membership is totally apostate.
Further, more than one-fourth of the representatives from Southern
Baptist churches in North Carolina voted AGAINST the action! For
example, Nathan Parrish, pastor of Peace Haven Baptist Church in
Winston-Salem, said: "This is unproductive. We should have more
conversations with each other rather than cast stones at each other."
This is stated like the true compromiser that Parrish is, but he remains
a member of the association's board of directors. Pastor Bill Sanderson
of Hephzibah Baptist Church in Wendell, NC, who raised the proposal,
said: "We are people of the Book. We are not willing to compromise."
That sounds like a very bold stand, but in fact he is perfectly willing
to compromise because he remains in sweet associational fellowship with
the representatives and churches that opposed his proposal. Also, the
association will not take steps to discipline any church unless it first
receives a complaint from two people who are personally familiar with a
church that supports homosexuality. Convention President Stan Welch was
quick to say that the association will not act like a "church watchdog."
The Southern Baptist Convention has taken many steps away from
liberalism at the national level (and in some cases the state level) in
recent decades, but it remains an unscriptural mixed multitude of New
Evangelicals and Liberals.
*
MILLIONAIRE FOOTBALL GODS *
According to USA Today's cover story for November 16 ("Million-dollar
Coaches Move into Mainstream") the average salary for a Division I-A
college football coach in America is almost $1 million per year ($79,000
per game). One coach in Texas makes $4.7 million. These salaries are ten
or more times that of a college professor and many times that of a
college president. Commenting on the amazing sports frenzy that has
permeated the land, sports psychologist Alan Goldberg of the University
of Connecticut said: "Sports [is] like a religion, and the god of that
religion that we all worship is the god of winning" (CNSNews.com, August
31, 2001). An extensive survey commissioned in 1983 found that seven in
every 10 Americans watches, reads, or talks about sports every day. It
was also in 1983 that World Almanac and Book of Facts polled 2,000
8th-grade students to see which persons they most admired. There was not
a single name on the list that was not that of an entertainer or a
sports figure. In 1982, the famous sports announcer Howard Cosell, while
viewing the largest Sunday football game attendance in Texas history,
said "the Cowboys are more than a football team in Dallas; they are a
religion." Indeed, professional football has become a religion all
across the world. In the USA the chief god is American football, while
in most of the rest of the world it is soccer. A person's god is that
which he loves and serves the most. Professional sports is certainly one
of the chief idols in the lives of people today, and God hates idolatry.
The prophets and apostles of old preached against idolatry, and so
should we. What is wrong with professional sports today? It is all about
pride, boasting, covetousness, hero worship, superstition, gross
commercialization, vain philosophy, gambling, beer drinking, indecent
clothing, cursing, rock & roll, and neglecting the house of God, to name
just a few of the ungodly things that are intimately associated with
professional sports today. When evangelist Billy Sunday turned his back
on a successful professional baseball career in 1893, he gave ten
reasons for leaving. Reason number two was "Because it develops a spirit
of jealousy and selfishness; one's whole desires are for personal
success regardless of what befalls others."
*
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH COURT DISMISSES HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE CASE *
On November 16 a tribunal of the Presbyterian Church USA dismissed all
charges against a female "minister" who conducted a lesbian "marriage"
ceremony in 2005. Even though the action was contrary to denominational
law, the tribunal dismissed the case on a procedural error, claiming
that the investigating committee did not bring the charge by the
one-year deadline (the charge was filed four days late). As a result
"Rev." Janet Edwards is free to continue her role as an ordained
Presbyterian minister. In June 2005 Edwards performed a marriage
ceremony for Nancy McConn, a Presbyterian, and Brenda Cole, a Buddhist.
"Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind
lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch" (Matthew 15:14). "Ye
blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel" (Matthew 23:24).
*SOUTH AFRICAN PARLIAMENT OKS HOMOSEXUAL "MARRIAGES" *
On November 14 the South African parliament approved a bill that
recognizes homosexual "marriages." The vote was 230 to 41. The bill now
goes to the National Council of Provinces, and it is expected to be
approved by that body and then signed into law by President Thabo Mbeki.
Well did Jesus liken the time of His return to the days of Lot (Luke
17:28). Lot lived in Sodom and was 'vexed with the filthy conversation
of the wicked" there (2 Peter 2:7). The city was given over to
homosexual practices, and the day that Lot went out of Sodom God
destroyed it with fire and brimstone from heaven (Luke 17:29).
*
BEWARE OF ROARING LAMBS *
Roaring Lambs: A Gentle Plan to Radically Change Your World is the title
of a book published by the late Bob Briner in 1993. It has become a
sensation within the ranks of Contemporary Christian musicians. In May
2000, a Roaring Lambs music album was published by a group of CCM
luminaries, including Steven Curtis Chapman, Sixpence None the Richer,
Jars of Clay, Michael W. Smith, Michael Tait of dc Talk, Delirious,
Charlie Peacock, and Steve Taylor. Bob Briner, who died in 1999, was a
sports promoter who got his start with the Miami Dolphins and went on to
co-found the Association of Tennis Professionals and ProServe sports
Television. The theme of Roaring Lambs is that Christians must get out
of their little subcultures and go into the world. Like all heretical
books, Roaring Lambs has many good points; but a little poison goes a
long way, and Roaring Lambs contains a large dose of poison. The chief
error is in the means that Briner proposes for reaching the world.
Briner calls upon Christians to stop debating topics such as the
inspiration of Scripture and the rapture or anything else the world
doesn't know or care about them. It is basically the Promise Keepers
philosophy. Briner further calls upon Christians to stop merely
witnessing to the unsaved and instead to reach them by doing what they
do. You reach the business man by adopting his goals and philosophy. You
reach the sports fanatic by showing him that you are just as enthused
about such empty temporal things. Briner suggests, for example, that we
have the goal of seeing our sons and daughters become the principle
dancers in ballet companies instead of looking upon such things as
immoral. Briner says, "Š instead of just hanging around the fringes of
our culture, we need to be right smack dab in the middle of itŠ" This is
not what we see in the Scriptures. The Apostles certainly did not reach
the world by becoming like the world. They reached the world by being
different from the world and by preaching the gospel boldly to the
world, calling upon the unsaved to repent of their idolatries and to
turn to Jesus Christ. See the book of Acts. Briner's book sounds like
something that would have been written by Demas: "For Demas hath
forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto
ThessalonicaŠ" (2 Tim. 4:10).
*THOSE WHO TRULY LOVE CHRIST EXPOSE SPIRITUAL DANGERS *
The following are the words of James Henley Thornwell, a staunch Old
School Presbyterian preacher who fought against theological modernism in
the 19th century. He was weary with the compromisers of his day, who
said they loved the truth but were soft in their stance for the truth
and refused to boldly withstand heresy. Note his powerful words and his
understanding of true biblical love: "To employ soft words and honeyed
phrases in discussing questions of everlasting importance; to deal with
errors that strike at the foundations of all human hope as if they were
harmless and venial mistakes; to bless where God disapproves, and to
make apologies where He calls us to stand up like men and assert, though
it may be the aptest method of securing popular applause in a
sophistical age, is cruelty to man and treachery to Heaven. Those who on
such subjects attach more importance to the rules of courtesy than they
do to the measures of truth do not defend the citadel, but betray it
into the hands of its enemies. LOVE FOR CHRIST, AND FOR THE SOULS FOR
WHOM HE DIED, WILL BE THE EXACT MEASURE OF OUR ZEAL IN EXPOSING THE
DANGERS BY WHICH MEN'S SOULS ARE ENSNARED" (quoted in a sermon by George
Sayles Bishop, author of The Doctrines of Grace and Kindred Themes, 1910).
CONCLUSION: Friends in Christ, do not be discouraged by any of this. 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. These things remind us
that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the coming of
the Lord. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you living for
Christ day by day? "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).