October 14, 2007.

The Weekly Church News Notes is designed for use in churches .

*WINNING YOUTH TO CHRIST WITH VIOLENT VIDEO GAME? *

Hundreds of churches are using the violent and
addictive M-rated video game Halo to allegedly reach young people
with the gospel. On "Halo nights" teenagers flock around big screen
televisions and engage in violent virtual combat and then listen to a
brief watered-down, no repentance religious message. Kids as young as
12 attend Halo night at Colorado Community Church near Denver and
play the video game even though it is rated M for "mature audiences"
and those buying it must be 17 years of age. Tim Foster, a
12-year-old who attends church-sponsored Halo parties, explained the
allure: "It's just fun blowing people up" ("Churches Lure Youth with
Violent Video Game," Edmonton Journal, New York Times News Service,
Oct. 7, 2007). Contemporary churches are so in love with the world
that they see nothing wrong with using the world to win people to
their type of Christianity. They offer rock & roll worship and Halo
youth outreaches and Hula dances and pool parties and poker nights
and football baptisms. Once the wall of separation is broken down
between churches and the world there is no end to the sinful insanity
that will ensue. "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).

*ANGLICAN LEADER SAYS HEAVEN NOT FOR CHRISTIANS ONLY *

Desmond Tutu, retired Anglican Archbishop of South
Africa, says heaven is for Buddhists and all "good people." Speaking
at the Alliance of Civilizations awards ceremony in Cape Town on
October 8 he said, "Most of us think God is a Christian, but if you
think that God is going to tell the Dalai Lama 'you're a good person,
but sorry you're not a Christian' then (I say) rubbish" (News24,
South Africa, Oct. 7, 2007). This illustrious Anglican leader does
not have the foggiest idea about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. No one
will be in heaven by being a "good person," for the Bible plainly
states, "There is none righteous, no, not one" and "there is none
that doeth good, no, not one" (Romans 3:10, 12). The only way of
salvation from God's wrath is by being again through faith in Jesus
Christ as the only Lord and Saviour. "Neither is there salvation in
any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men,
whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). In August Tutu wrote an open
letter to Anglican leaders urging them to put unity above their
differences and to accept unrepentant homosexuals so that Jesus will
smile at them ("Be United and Let Jesus Smile Again," Church Times,
Aug. 24, 2007). The Tutu gospel is a cheap gospel of license rather
than the biblical gospel of conversion. "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" (2 Timothy 3:1-2,
5).
*
CREATION CRISIS IN CHRISTIAN COLLEGES *

- The following is excerpted from "Creation Crisis in Christian
Colleges," by Dr. Kurt Wise, Answers In Genesis, Jan. 31, 2006:
"Recently, both the Wheaton College student newspaper (this is a
prominent Christian school near Chicago) and Chicago Tribune ran
stories about the age of the earth in Christian colleges. ... With
the exception of Seventh Day Adventist colleges, it's virtually
impossible to find young-age creation taught at denominational
colleges (Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, Nazarene, etc.) ... the
Tribune article mentions three biology majors at Olivet Nazarene
College who entered the school as creationists, but who are now
theistic evolutionists. As a further example, the Wheaton College
newspaper shows the results of a student survey (42% of the students
responded) which showed that whereas 47% believed in a young earth
before entering Wheaton (the same percentage which Gallup finds for
the population at large in its polls), only 27% believed in a young
earth by the time of the survey. The same survey indicated that
Wheaton professors were a greater influence on their age-of-earth
belief than their parents were!" CONCLUDING NOTE: The Bible says the
world was divinely created in six literal days, and that settles the
matter for a Bible-believer. The only sure protection from the
apostasy of these last days is for God's people to have NOTHING
WHATSOEVER to do with those who name the name of Christ but deny or
question the Bible's plain teachings. "Now I beseech you, brethren,
mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine
which ye have learned; and avoid them" (Romans 16:17).
*
CHE GUEVARA'S IDEALS LOSE GROUND IN CUBA *

- The following is excerpted from SwissInfo.org, Oct. 4, 2007: "Cuba
will mark the 40th anniversary of Che Guevara's capture on Monday in
Santa Clara, the central city he captured as a guerrilla leader in
1958 and where a mausoleum was built for his bones when they were dug
up from a secret grave in Bolivia and returned to Cuba a decade ago.
Dissident economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe says Guevara remains well
respected 'for his courage as a guerrilla fighter' but that no one
advocates his economic ideas in Cuba today. 'Cubans are having a very
hard time because of the economic crisis. They are no longer
motivated by these ideals. Their only worry is eating three meals a
day,' he said. ... When he set off to Bolivia in 1965 to start a new
guerrilla insurrection, Guevara said in his parting letter to Castro
that he was leaving behind his wife and four children with no
material goods. 'And I am not sorry: I'm glad it is that way,' said
Guevara, a Marxist who believed in building a 'new man' who would put
community needs above personal interest. Besides the massive iron
figure overlooking Havana's Revolution Square and the famous image of
Guevara gazing into the distance from posters and banknotes, one
former guerrilla fighter says little else remains of him in
contemporary Cuba. 'If the new man that Che wanted is what we have
today, it has been a total failure,' said Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, a
leader of the Escambray front until Guevara showed up."

*BODY MODIFICATION PROFESSIONAL SAYS IT IS DARK AND REBELLIOUS*

A former "body modification"
professional resigned from the trade recently after reading David
Kupelian's "The Marketing of Evil" ("Body-piercing pro quits after
reading book," WorldNetDaily, Sept. 20, 2007). In an open letter to
leading body modification websites, the man, whose name is not given
in the WorldNetDaily article, admits that tattooing and body piercing
is all about rebellion and observes that it is "getting darker and
darker." Following is an excerpt from this letter: "I've been a
faithful student of the Body Modification lifestyle for a decade now.
I have performed countless piercings, scarifications, brands,
implants, and a host of other less 'pop culture' procedures. ... You
see, it's dawned on me that perhaps we (the Bod Mod culture) have
become much darker than we intended. We all in some way or another
come into this 'tribe' as it were, to rebel and fight on some
psychological plane against someone or something, be it our
individual parents, an establishment, or even society itself. ... I
think back on some of the things I've been paid to do to people (and
done to myself) at their own request and I think if someone accused
me of doing these things to them without consent it would be
undeniable torture. ... Self-inflicted castrations, lobotomies,
amputations, disfigurement of every conceivable nature,
suspensions--we do these things to each other and ourselves without a
second thought. Could these acts truly be signs of a perpetually
growing disease? Could the fact that our acts are becoming darker and
darker, more and more grotesque be a sign that we are heading in the
wrong directions? ... You see, it starts so innocently, so pure with
a simple labret or cage in the ear, but in the tinniest increments it
turns darker and darker until we are far beyond the innocence and
purity of our beginnings."
*
CHURCH LEADER ARRESTED IN CHINA FOR RECEIVING IMPORTED BIBLES *

 The following is excerpted from
"House Church Leader in Xinjiang Formally Arrested for Receiving
Bibles and Abused in Jail," ChristianNewsWire.com, Sept. 5, 2007:
"China Aid learned that a well-known house church leader was formally
arrested on August 31 for receiving 3 tons of bibles. Mr. Zhou Heng
is also the manager of a registered bookstore which is called Yayi
Christian Book Room which is used to sell some Christianity related
books published legally and officially inside China. His bookstore
was already forced to close after his arrest by the local authority.
... The Bibles were reportedly donated by South Korean churches and
were intended for local believers free of charge. However, the
Chinese government only allows officially sanctioned (state) churches
to print and distribute a limited number of Bibles each year. If
convicted of the charges, he faces a 15-year prison sentence. ... CAA
China investigators spoke with a recently released inmate who shared
a cell with Brother Zhou. The inmate reported Brother Zhou was beaten
in prison severely by other inmates and prison guards."
*
MENNONITES LEAVING QUEBEC FOR FREEDOM OF RELIGION *

Several Mennonite families have moved from Roxton
Falls, Quebec, after the provincial government refused to allow them
to educate their children according to their religious faith
("Mennonites Beginning to Pull up Stakes," Montreal Gazette, Sept. 3,
2007). The Quebec government requires that all schools use
state-certified teachers and the state-curriculum (which advances
evolution and other humanistic errors). The Mennonite families closed
their private school and relocated to Alexandria, Ontario, where the
laws are friendlier toward private religious schools. Ontario has 69
Mennonite schools with an enrollment of more than 3,000 children.
*
THE BRIDE OF CHRIST AND CALVINISM *

 - In the book of Genesis, Rebekah is a lovely type of the Bride of Christ.
Abraham, a type of the Heavenly Father, sent his servant, a type of
the Holy Spirit, to fetch a bride for Isaac (Genesis 24). Rebekah was
invited to be Isaac's wife (Gen. 24:58), just as sinners are invited
to come to Christ (Mat. 11:28), and she sweetly and wisely agreed. By
faith she accepted the terms offered to her and believed in a man she
had never seen. Likewise, the sinner must accept God's invitation
offered in Scripture and presented to the heart by the Holy Spirit
and must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be saved (John
3:16). This disproves the "sovereign election" doctrine of Calvinism.
If the Bride of Christ were "sovereignly" elected and irresistibly
drawn, having had no choice in the matter, she would be a strange
bride!
*
TRUTH WOULD NOT BE TRUTH IN THIS WORLD IF IT WERE NOT A WARRING THING *

The following is from Charles H.
Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, vol. 5, #24: "Truth could not be truth
in this world if it were not a warring thing, and we should at once
suspect it were not true if error were friends with it. The spotless
purity of truth must always be at war with the blackness of heresy
and lies. I say again, it would cast a suspicion upon its own nature;
we should feel at once that it was not true, if it were not at enmity
with the false. .... It is but a rule of nature that holiness must be
at enmity with sin. That would be but a mock purity which could lie
side by side with iniquity and claim its kinship. 'Shall the throne
of iniquity have fellowship with thee?' ... If it were so, beloved,
we might then not only suspect that the church was not the holy,
universal and apostolic church; we might not only suspect it, but we
might beyond suspicion pronounce a verdict upon her, 'Thou art no
more Christ's bride; thou art an antichrist, an apostate, reprobate
silver shall men call thee, because thou hast not learned to
distinguish between the precious and the vile.'"

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).