Friday Church News and Notes

The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, though this does not imply an endorsement.

DISNEY MARKET FREE-FALL – The following is excerpted from “Disney’s Market,” PJMedia, May 4, 2022: “David Ng at Breitbart is reporting that The Walt Disney Company has lost a whopping $63 billion in market capitalization over the past two months. ‘Shares of Disney have plummeted 23.5 percent since the start of March, falling from $145.70,’ Ng writes. ‘Market cap is down $62.6 billion, from $265.3 to $202.7 billion.’ … Disney’s stock has performed poorly over the past several months, dropping 30% over the past year. Much, though not all, of this stems directly from Disney’s decision to speak out on Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill, which the legislature passed into law and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed at the end of March. The Democrats and their willing accomplices in the media falsely dubbed it the ‘Don’t Say Gay Bill,’ which triggered the LGBTQ lobby among Disney cast members to pressure CEO Bob Chapek to stick the company’s nose into the state’s business. [Since Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law merely forbids public schools from teaching transsexualism to children from kindergarten to third grade, Disney is calling for homosexual indoctrination of the youngest children.] … On top of Disney’s newfound woke activism, the public found out that some of Disney’s creative executives are dedicated to doubling down on LGBTQ content for kids and families. … All of this wokeness on Disney’s part has backfired, to the point where CEOs of other companies of all sizes are viewing Disney’s antics as an example of what not to do.”

GRANDCHILDREN SING AS GRANDMOTHER IS EUTHANIZED IN CHURCH SANCTUARY – The following is excerpted from “Children, Grandchildren Sing,” The Dissenter, May 5, 2022: “The elders at Churchill Park United in Winnipeg, Manitoba, unanimously voted to carry out the recently-legalized form of government-sanctioned medical murder in the sanctuary of the church. According to Broadview, a United Church of Christ (UCC) publication, Betty Sanguin, with an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis diagnosis [Lou Gehrig’s disease] and whose age is left unreported, was brought in on a stretcher around noon on March 9 to have the procedure carried out. … ‘As the sun streamed through the stained glass windows in the music-filled sanctuary,’ the obituary continues, ‘surrounded by her children, grandchildren and close friends, Betty hosted a simple Crossing Over Ceremony and then let go of her hold on this life.’ …The Broadview reports: ‘During the ceremony, two of Sanguin’s grandchildren sang Let Your Light Shine on Me and everyone joined in for How Great Thou Art. Sanguin waved her arms along to the music. Sanguin had prepared a playlist for the event, which was mostly gospel music–a lifelong love of hers.’ This is seriously unfathomable. But it comes as no surprise [since] the United Church of Christ employs atheist ‘pastors’ and leaders. ‘Afterwards, the minister of Churchill Park United, Rev. Dawn Rolke, offered a blessing, the report continued. ‘Each of Betty’s six children placed their hands on her as Rolke invited Sanguin to go in peace.’”

NORTH CAROLINA LT. GOVERNOR – “AIN’T BUT TWO GENDERS” – North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson speaks the truth regardless of how unpopular. Bolder than the vast majority of preachers, Robinson made the following remarks in August 2021 at Upper Room Church of God in Raleigh, NC: “Something else I’m not supposed to say: Ain’t but two genders. Two genders. Ain’t nothing but men and women. You can go to the doctor and get cut up. You can go down to the dress shop and get made up. You can go down there and get drugged up. But at the end of the day, you’re just a drugged up, dressed up, made up, cut up man or a woman. You ain’t changed what God put in you–that DNA. You can’t transcend God’s creation, I don’t care how hard you try. If there is a movement in this country that is demonic, and is full of the spirit of antichrist, it is the transgender movement. … It’s time for grown-ups and time for Christians to start standing up and being unafraid to tell the truth. I’m not afraid to stand up and tell the truth about that issue. They’re dragging our kids into the pit of hell, trying to teach ‘em that mess in our schools.”  CONCLUDING NOTE: The widespread acceptance of homosexuality, with its endless perversions and insanities [i.e., multiple sexes], is a sign of the end times. The Lord Jesus Christ prophesied that the days preceding His return will be like those of Sodom. “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:28-30). It is high time for all sinners, both “straight and gay,” to repent and flee to Christ for salvation before it is too late.

TEACHER WHO SEES RAMPANT TECH ADDICTION SENDS OWN KIDS TO SCREEN-FREE SCHOOL  – The following is excerpted from “As a Teacher Who Sees Rampant Tech Addiction,” The Federalist, May 6, 2022: “Many of today’s children are ignorant, sad, and set up for failure. They lack the knowledge and skills to perform basic tasks. They are lonely and suffer from depression and anxiety. Also, as Mark Bauerlein explains in his book ‘The Dumbest Generation Grows Up,’ they are incredibly immature. The reasons for this are not a mystery. One top answer is actually incredibly simple: screens. Instead of learning about their world and participating in it, the majority of young people are glued to their devices, playing video games, scrolling through social media, and streaming videos. … tablets and smartphones have radically transformed the school experience from what it used to be. Those who taught before screens wouldn’t even recognize today’s classrooms, and those who taught afterward wouldn’t even believe what students of the past were capable of without the help of technology. … Not only do the screens affect students academically, but also socially. Many students don’t talk anymore, and they will go through the whole school year without making friends. … It makes sense, then, that in my experience, there’s a strong correlation between students’ academic performance and the time they spend on their phones. … There’s also the serious problem of what the kids are actually doing on their screens–much of which is not age-appropriate. … For a few years now, my wife and I have held strong with our three toddlers, keeping our house screen-free. On one hand, this means we have to actively monitor and supervise them from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed, which can be exhausting and often overwhelming. On the other hand, our children are much more creative, energetic, and mature than most kids their age. More importantly, they are happier and we have a close relationship with them. To maintain a screen-free environment, we’ve also opted to send our children to a classical charter school that prohibits smartphones and tablets. … This is why countries like France have banned smartphones from public schools altogether, or why fancy prep schools in Silicon Valley like the Waldorf Academy do the same.”

SUICIDE OF THE LIBERALS  – The following is excerpted from “Suicide of the Liberals” by Gary Saul Morson, First Things, Oct. 2020. Dr. Morson is Lawrence B. Dumas Professor of the Arts and Humanities at Northwestern University. “Between 1900 and 1917, waves of unprecedented terror struck Russia. Several parties professing incompatible ideologies competed (and cooperated) in causing havoc. Between 1905 and 1907, nearly 4,500 government officials and about as many private individuals were killed or injured. Between 1908 and 1910, authorities recorded 19,957 terrorist acts and revolutionary robberies, doubtless omitting many from remote areas. As the foremost historian of Russian terrorism, Anna Geifman, observes, ‘Robbery, extortion, and murder became more common than traffic accidents.’ Anyone wearing a uniform was a candidate for a bullet to the head or sulfuric acid to the face. Country estates were burnt down (‘rural illuminations’) and businesses were extorted or blown up. Bombs were tossed at random into railroad carriages, restaurants, and theaters. Far from regretting the death and maiming of innocent bystanders, terrorists boasted of killing as many as possible, either because the victims were likely bourgeois or because any murder helped bring down the old order. A group of anarcho-­communists threw bombs laced with nails into a café bustling with two hundred customers in order ‘to see how the foul bourgeois will squirm in death agony.’ Instead of the pendulum’s swinging back–a metaphor of inevitability that excuses people from taking a stand–the killing grew and grew, both in numbers and in cruelty. Sadism replaced simple killing. As Geifman explains, ‘The need to inflict pain was transformed from an abnormal irrational compulsion experienced only by unbalanced personalities into a formally verbalized obligation for all committed revolutionaries.’ One group threw ‘traitors’ into vats of boiling water. Others were still more inventive. Women torturers were especially admired. How did educated, liberal society respond to such terrorism? What was the position of the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) Party and its deputies in the Duma (the parliament set up in 1905)? Though Kadets advocated democratic, constitutional procedures, and did not themselves engage in ­terrorism, they aided the terrorists in any way they could. Kadets collected money for terrorists, turned their homes into safe houses, and called for total amnesty for arrested terrorists who pledged to continue the mayhem. Kadet Party central committee member N. N. Shchepkin declared that the party did not regard terrorists as criminals at all, but as saints and martyrs. The official Kadet paper, Herald of the Party of People’s Freedom, never published an article condemning political assassination. The party leader, Paul Milyukov, declared that ‘all means are now legitimate … and all means should be tried.’ When asked to condemn terrorism, another liberal leader in the Duma, Ivan Petrunkevich, famously replied: ‘Condemn terror? That would be the moral death of the party!’ Not just lawyers, teachers, doctors, and engineers, but even industrialists and bank directors raised money for the terrorists. Doing so signaled advanced opinion and good manners. A quote attributed to Lenin–‘When we are ready to kill the capitalists, they will sell us the rope’ … True to their word, when the Bolsheviks gained control, their organ of terror, the Cheka, ‘liquidated’ members of all opposing parties, beginning with the Kadets.”

CONCLUSION: 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 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).

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