WEEKLY CHURCH NEWS NOTES
Pastor Dale Morgan
November 4, 2007
The Weekly Church News Notes is designed for use in churches.
*
DAVID JEREMIAH PRAISES MOTHER TERESA'S WORK *
The October 20-21, 2007, edition of "Turning Point with David Jeremiah"
featured the work of the late Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in
Calcutta. There was not a hint of warning that this organization
preaches a false gospel. The report even concluded with the following
quote from Pope John Paul II: "Keep Jesus Christ in your hearts, and you
will recognize His face in every human being." The spiritual blindness
of popular evangelicalism is evident in its praise of a woman who
trusted in Mary and worshiped a piece of bread as Jesus Christ. She has
been praised by Bill Hybels, Pat Robertson, John Wimber, World magazine,
Christianity Today, Chuck Colson, James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, Billy
Graham, World Vision, and many others. Mother Teresa helped needy people
in a material sense, but she did not preach the gospel to them that they
might be saved, because she did not know the gospel. In fact, she was a
universalist. When Mother Teresa died, her longtime friend and
biographer Naveen Chawla said that he once asked her bluntly, "Do you
convert?" She replied, "Of course I convert. I convert you to be a
better Hindu or a better Muslim or a better Protestant. Once you've
found God, it's up to you to decide how to worship him" ("Mother Teresa
Touched other Faiths," Associated Press, Sept. 7, 1997). [For more on
this see http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/motherteresa.html and
http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/mother-teresa-false-hope.html/ ]
C*HRISTIANITY TODAY CALLS AUTHOR OF "AQUARIAN GOSPEL" AN EVANGELICAL *
The Christianity Today movie review of "The Aquarian Gospel," Oct. 1,
2007, stated: "Drew Heriot, director of the self-help documentary The
Secret, has been tapped to direct The Aquarian Gospel, a movie that
follows the life of Christ through his 'missing years'--including ages
13 through 30. ... Meanwhile, Jesus: The Lost Years, a documentary based
on the Paul Perry book Jesus in Egypt, comes to DVD on November 13.
Variety reports that the script for the former film is based on a pair
of books: The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ, by evangelical writer
Levi Dowling, and The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ, by Russian
anthropologist Nicholas Notovich." Dowling (1844-1911) was a very
strange "evangelical"! He worshipped a false christ and wrote books
under demonic dictation. He allegedly wrote The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus
the Christ by tapping into the Akashic Records, a supposed field of
knowledge surrounding the earth. The book claims that the child Jesus
journeyed to India, Tibet, and Egypt to gain wisdom from religious
masters and by means of education and meditation achieved the "Christ
consciousness." The book denies that Jesus is the virgin-born eternal
Son of God, that He died and shed His blood on the cross to atone for
man's sins, and that He rose again the third day and ascended up to
Heaven to sit on the right hand of God. While I was hitchhiking from
California to Florida in late 1972 I came across the Aquarian Gospel and
was influenced by it to join the Self-Realization Fellowship Society. I
thank God that He had mercy upon me and opened my blinded eyes some
months later and showed me the true Christ and the true Gospel of salvation.
*
CHRISTIAN COUPLE FORCED OUT OF FOSTER CARE FOR REFUSING TO PROMOTE
HOMOSEXUALITY *
The following is excerpted from the Daily Mail of London, England, Oct.
24, 2007: "They are devoted foster parents with an unblemished record of
caring for almost 30 vulnerable children. But Vincent and Pauline
Matherick will this week have their latest foster son taken away because
they have refused to sign new sexual equality regulations. ... To do so,
they claim, would force them to promote homosexuality and go against
their Christian faith. The 11-year-old boy, who has been in their care
for two years, will be placed in a council hostel this week and the
Mathericks will no longer be given children to look after. The
devastated couple, who have three grown up children of their own, became
foster parents in 2001 and have since cared for 28 children at their
home in Chard, Somerset. Earlier this year, Somerset County Council's
social services department asked them to sign a contract to implement
Labour's new Sexual Orientation Regulations, part of the Equality Act
2006, which make discrimination on the grounds of sexuality illegal.
Officials told the couple that under the regulations they would be
required to discuss same-sex relationships with children as young as 11
and tell them that gay partnerships were just as acceptable as
heterosexual marriages. They could also be required to take teenagers to
gay association meetings. ... Mr. Matherick, a 65-year-old retired
travel agent and a primary school governor, said: 'I simply could not
agree to do it because it is against my central beliefs. We have never
discriminated against anybody but I cannot preach the benefits of
homosexuality when I believe it is against the word of God.' ...
Religious campaigners say the couple are the latest victims of an
equality drive which puts gay rights above religious beliefs."
*BEWARE OF ABWE *
Recently an evangelist wrote to ask me about the Association of Baptists
for World Evangelism (ABWE). Following is the reply that I sent: ABWE
has been ecumenical for decades. Viggo Olson, their famous missionary
doctor to Bangladesh, described in his book Daktar about how they worked
with left-leaning New Evangelical groups such as Wheaton College
beginning many decades ago. Lynn Silvernale, another ABWE missionary to
Bangladesh, worked with the radically liberal-ecumenical United Bible
Societies in producing a dynamic equivalency version of the Bengali
Bible. (See http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/unholyhands1.htm/) In 1983
ABWE published a report on Silvernale's work entitled By the Word.
Silvernale was in charge of the project beginning in 1966, so you can
see how far back this compromise goes. She followed dynamic equivalency
guru Eugene Nida who denies the infallible inspiration of Scripture and
Christ's substitutionary blood atonement. Note this very dangerous
statement by Silvernale, "There is nothing special or 'holy' about the
language of the Bible. Greek and Hebrew are subject to the same
limitations as all natural languages." To say that there is nothing
special or holy about the language of the Bible is to deny both the
sovereignty of God and the divine inspiration of Scripture. The Greek
and Hebrew languages themselves are subject to limitations in everyday
life as used by fallible men, but not as they are used in Scripture
under divine inspiration! (For more on this see
http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/dynamic1.htm/.) Dr. Ralph Colas and Dr.
Ernest Pickering both resigned from the board of ABWE in the late 1980s
because of its compromise. Veteran Australian missionary David Bennett
resigned in 1993 because of "its drift" and subsequently wrote "Should
Separated Fundamentalists Support ABWE." It is available from Bible for
Today, 856-854-4452. The report "Little Known Facts about ABWE" is also
available from Bible for Today. Michael McCubbins, former ABWE
missionary, documented the mission board's compromise in his 1996 book
"Sedition in Missions." According to the fall 2006 Message, published by
ABWE, the home church of one of the newly appointed ABWE missionaries is
the rock & roll loving, seeker-sensitive Northridge Church of Plymouth,
Michigan. According to the Australian Baptist Newsletter for September
2004, an ABWE missionary in Brazil won a Purpose Driven Church
international award in 2004 and flew to Saddleback Church in southern
California for the presentation.
*
CLOTHING IS A LANGUAGE *
It is important to understand that clothing is a language. It is a
"social message," a fashion "statement." The knowledge of this is the
engine that drives the fashion industry, and the child of God needs to
understand it as well. I need to ask myself what message is my clothing
broadcasting? Wikipedia defines fashion as "a prevailing mode of
expression." It acknowledges that "every article of clothing carries a
cultural and social meaning" and observes that "humans must know the
code in order to recognize the message transmitted." The upscale unisex
Pusch brand was developed by two brothers who realized as teenagers that
"music had its own subculture, complete with a lifestyle and a style of
dress" ("Groovin' to the Right Tune: A Lifestyle Brand of Clothes
Inspired by Calgary's Music Scene Rocks the Competition," Alberta
Venture, October 2007, p. 12). The Pusch brand is a reflection of the
rock & roll dance scene. An article in Business Week observed that
Abercrombie & Fitch is "best known for its REBELLIOUS ATTITUDE"
("Flip-Flops, Torn Jeans, and Control," Business Week, May 30, 2005).
They don't merely sell clothing; they sell an attitude via a certain
style of clothing. In "The World according to Abercrombie and Fitch,"
David Seel observed: "SUCCESSFUL BRANDS IN AMERICA DON'T SELL PRODUCTS.
THEY SELL LIFESTYLES" (Critique, 2000). Therefore, clothing styles are
not innocent. Each style preaches a message, and God's people must be
careful about what message they are preaching. The right message to
preach by our clothing is the message of holiness and godly separation,
the message that we are strangers and pilgrims in this wicked world.
*
QUICK PRAYERISM VS. BIBLE EVANGELISM *
"Quick Prayerism" is a method of soul winning that has spread widely
since the 1970s. "Quick Prayerism" evangelism is quick to do two things.
First, it is quick to get people to pray a "sinner's prayer" regardless
of whether or not there is any evidence that the individual is even
slightly interested in Christ, let alone that he is calling upon Christ
from a heart of true repentance and genuine saving faith. Second, it is
quick to give assurance to those who have prayed such a prayer and to
include them in salvation statistics when there is no evidence that they
have been born again and, in fact, when their lives witness against
their profession. "They profess that they know God; but in works they
deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work
reprobate" (Titus 1:16). See also Matthew 7:21-23; John 10:27; 1
Corinthians 6:9-11; 2 Timothy 2:19; 1 John 2:3-4. A church in Maine had
a soul winning campaign a few years ago and the people were instructed
to go house to house and ask the following question: "If I could tell
you that you can go to heaven when you die and you won't have to change
anything, would you be interested?" I believe that type of methodology
is heresy and deception. We must tell people the same thing that the
apostle Paul told them, that "they should repent and turn to God, and do
works meet for repentance" (Acts 26:20). To tell sinners that God
demands that they repent will cut down on the "decision" statistics, but
it is the only honest and scriptural path. God has commanded that they
repent (Acts 17:30) and Jesus said they can't be saved without it (Luke
13:1-5), so how can we fail to tell them this? What good are empty
professions and bogus salvation statistics?
*
ROCK MUSIC'S POLLUTION OF SOCIETY *
Rock music has coarsened, cheapened, and corrupted the morals of society
ever since its inception. When Elvis Presley blasted on the scene in the
1950s his lewd antics were infamous and shocking at first but quickly
became old hat, and rockers have continued to push the moral boundaries
with each passing decade. Even the secular world admits this. A
newspaper article about a Kid Rock concert in St. Paul, Minnesota,
observed: 'When John Lennon and Yoko Ono's album 'Unfinished Music, Vol.
1: Two Virgins' hit stores in 1968, it shipped up a furor--not for the
musical content but for its cover, a stark portrait of the pair standing
naked as the day they were born. In the years since, nudity in the music
world has become so common it's nearly mundane" ("Whether They're Bare,
or Barely There," St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 13, 2006, p. 5G). Do I
hear someone protest that it is not the music that is to blame but the
musicians? In fact, it is both. Every type of music speaks a message,
and rock speaks sensuality, rebellion, and moral license. Its chief
message is "I will live as I please." Bible-believing churches once
lifted a voice against rock & roll but most have been silenced by the
onslaught of CCM. How can we preach against it when we are addicted to it?
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).