FAA eases rules on gadgets;
Iraq's Prime Minister requests new aid;
Prosecutor will review gym mat death in Georgia;
Dylan's guitar to be auctioned off in NYC.

Red Sox win World Series;
Syria's key step in chemical weapons destruction;
Iraq wants US help;
Beckham's Miami plans.

The Beatles had a fascination with the occultist Aleister Crowley who brazenly rejected the Bible and Jesus Christ, claiming that the God of the Bible is "the devil" and "the doctrines of Jesus alone have degraded the world to its present condition" ( The World's Tragedy, pp. xxx, xxxix). Crowley's own mother referred to him as "The Great Beast of Revelation whose number is 666," and he was pleased with the title. The Sunday Express called him "one of the most sinister figures of modern times" and charged him with being "a drug fiend, an author of vile books, the spreader of obscene practices." Crowley has had a great influence on rock & roll. The International Times voted Crowley "the unsung hero of the hippies." This is because of Crowley's licentious lifestyle and anti-God, anti-law philosophy, which he summarized as follows: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." Crowley was one of characters who appeared on the cover of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album, and they testified that these were their "heroes." John Lennon said that "the whole Beatle idea was to do what you want ... do what thou wilst, as long as it doesn't hurt somebody" (Lennon, cited by David Sheff, The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, p. 61). Paul McCartney's 2013 hit song "New" still preaches Crowley's lie: "We can do what we want; we can live as we choose. See there's no guarantee; we've got nothing to lose" ("New," Paul McCartney, 2013). The thing one has to "lose" by living as you please in rebellion to God's holy laws is one's eternal soul. "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26).

(Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Leviticus 13:8
“And if the priest see that, behold, the scab spreadeth in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is a leprosy.”

The spiny lobster is a social creature. Lobsters like to congregate in groups in crevices and cooperate in defending their home against danger. When they migrate, they walk head to tail in single-file groups.

However, researchers have noted that certain lobster lairs contained only one lobster. They also noted that some of these loners did not appear healthy. Upon further study, they found that the lobsters that looked unwell were infected with a virus they named PaV1. That virus, they learned, is commonly spread by physical contact, although young lobsters can be infected through water contaminated with the virus. Further, underwater surveys revealed that even when the disease is not apparent, healthy lobsters avoid those infected with the virus. While 56 percent of the healthy lobsters were found sharing a lair, only 7 percent of the infected lobsters shared living space. In lab tests, 60 percent of the healthy lobsters avoided a hiding place it if had an infected lobster in it. Scientists don’t know how the healthy lobsters can sense the virus, but it is obvious that they do and they avoid their sick comrades.

Before the advent of modern medicine, people knew to avoid others with obvious diseases like leprosy. It appears that God also gave the same ability to sense disease and avoid contact with it to the lowly lobster.

Notes: Science News, 5/27/06, pp. 325-326, S. Milius, “Lobster Hygiene.”
Photo: Courtesy of Stemonitis. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Obama talks healthcare in Boston;
Sebelius apologizes for healthcare glitches;
Domestic dispute leaves six dead in South Carolina;
Old safe holds treasure trove of gold coins.

India bus fire kills dozens;
Six found dead in SC home;
Obama asks for patience with healthcare website;
World Series Game 6.

"IBM CEO Ginni Rometty appeared on stage at Fortune's Powerful Women conference and shared a few details of what the company's researchers are currently tinkering with behind closed doors. It has everything to do with fighting cancer by using Watson, the company's Jeopardy-winning supercomputer. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has partnered with IBM to see what they can do to put a permanent end to leukemia using Watson's technologies. Their software is called MD Anderson's Oncology Expert Advisor, and because Watson is modeled on human thought processing, it can apply medical knowledge in very much the same way a human can. There are two new builds of Watson coming in the company's pipeline. Watson 2.0 will be able to see pictures and interpret them--for example it could identify problematic areas of an X-ray. When you consider that Watson is already better at diagnosing cancer than regular human doctors, you realize that there's huge potential in giving it a set of eyeballs. ... Rometty used the opportunity to (rightfully) boast about IBM's research work. The company has 3,000 PhDs toiling away on all kinds interesting things."

("IBM's Watson Supercomputer Is Becoming the Best Cancer Doctor, "Business Insider , Oct. 21, 2013)

Psalm 25:6
“Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old.”

When you remember something that happened and where and when it happened, you are using what scientists call episodic memory. Scientists have traditionally thought that such memory was unique to man.

Other scientists suspected that possibly some creatures may have episodic memory. For example, take the hummingbird with its fast metabolism. They need to eat often and remember where reliable sources of nutrition are to be found. At the same time, different flowers regenerate nectar at different rates. Researchers went to the natural habitat of the rufous hummingbird, equipped with some fake flowers and sugar water. The manmade flowers were constructed with reservoirs that could hold the sugar water. Half the flowers were refilled ten minutes after a bird would feed from it, while the other half were refilled twenty minutes after a feeding. Researchers found that the birds quickly learned which flowers were filled at which intervals. They soon returned to the flowers that were filled every ten minutes at ten-minute intervals while they waited twenty minutes in between visits to the other flowers. They noted that the birds did a good job of this even though they were keeping track of eight flowers.

It makes more sense to believe that episodic memory is a sophisticated ability that is the gift from a caring God to those creatures whom He knew would need it.

Notes: Science News, 4/15/06, p. 237, “Hummingbirds can clock flower refills.”
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

NSA programs hearing;
Protests in Brazil over youth killing;
Trayvon Martin's mother testifies at Senate hearing;
Superstorm Sandy anniversary.

Spy policies under review;
Sandy Anniversary;
Two escaped inmates still at large;
Boston leads World Series.

Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle says cessationists are wrong. Speaking on June 9 in a series entitled "Acts: Empowered for Jesus' Mission," Driscoll said that the gift of tongues is for today and will only cease when Christ returns. As far as we know, Driscoll doesn't claim to speak in tongues, but by this position he opens the door to and is an enabler of the charismatic movement. I would ask Driscoll exactly where tongues are operating scripturally today. When I was led to Christ by an old-line Pentecostal in 1973 from a hitch-hiking lifestyle, I had no reason to disbelieve in tongues, but as an earnest Bible student I could see that the gift of tongues had to operate according to strict apostolic rules (1 Corinthians 14). Though I have attended dozens of Pentecostal and charismatic churches and conferences in many countries, forty years later I have never witnessed the scriptural operation of tongues. This is because certain of the spiritual gifts were apostolic sign gifts (2 Cor. 12:12), and tongues was one of these. By its very nature a sign gift is limited in scope. Tongues, the ability to speak a language one has never learned, was a sign to the Jewish nation of the new thing that God was doing in proclaiming the gospel to all nations (Acts 2:4-12; 1 Cor. 14:20-22). Every time tongues were spoken in the book of Acts, Jews were present. It was a truly amazing gift, together with its twin, the interpretation of tongues. To speak or interpret a language one has never learned is a great, great miracle. In contrast, that which passes for "tongues" today is ridiculous. Something that can be taught, learned, and imitated is no miracle! (That which passes today as the gift of healing is equally ridiculous. We believe in divine healing in answer to prayer, but not in the continuation of the apostolic sign gift of healing.) A careful study on the origin of the Pentecostal movement at the turn of the 20th century should convince any Bible believer of its bogus character. The charismatic movement and contemporary worship music are two of the most powerful elements in the building of the end-time one-world "church," and Mark Driscoll is a huge promoter of contemporary worship music. (For extensive documentation of the statements made in this brief report and for the Bible's teaching on apostolic sign gifts, see The Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements: The History and the Error, available in print and eBook formats from Way of Life Literature.)

(Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2013,, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

1 Corinthians 2:13a
“Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth....”

Evolutionists regularly announce that they have scientifically proven that this creature evolved from that creature. Or they say that science proves that this creature or that one has been extinct for millions of years. Further, such claims are not to be questioned because they have been proven by science.

It’s been well over a century since Darwin laid the foundation for these claims. Since that time, whole books have been written about how the alleged claims of scientific proof have, themselves, been proven wrong. Today, we add one more discovery to the list of unproven claims. Evolution claims that the Diatomyidae, commonly known as the rat-squirrel, has been extinct for eleven million years. That is, until freshly caught rat-squirrels were found for sale at a meat market in Laos. The creatures have a rat-like face with a squirrel-like body and a not-very-bushy tail. They are smaller than the common squirrel. A careful analysis of the fossils and the skeletons of the modern specimens have convinced scientists that they are indeed the same creature. The rat-squirrels live deep in the forests of Laos seldom visited by Westerners.

Man’s wisdom has given birth to the theory of evolution. God’s wisdom, the heart of which is the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ, naturally contradicts man’s wisdom where man is wrong. You can count on it.

Notes: USA Today, 3/9/06, Mark A. Klinger, “Rat-squirrel not extinct after all.”
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

EU delegation in Washington to discuss surveillance controversy;
Israel to free 26 Palestinian prisoners;
Doctors urge parents to limit kids' screen time;
British painter turns iPads into art.

Michael Jackson's doctor leaves jail;
Farm Bill negotiations;
Tampering suspected in ride accident;
Boston wins World Series Game 4.

Mark Driscoll, the very cool megachurch pastor in the very cool city of Seattle, belittles a Biblicist stance in his recent blog entitled "Father, Son, and Holy Bible?" He claims that in "a cessationist tribe, the functional Trinity is sometimes the Father, Son, and Holy Bible: the Holy Spirit wrote the Scriptures through human authors, and then it's like he's been on vacation ever since." I don't know who, exactly, he is referring to, and I doubt that he could give any real life examples of this. In my experience, which began when I was converted in 1973, I haven't known of any cessationists who believe this or act like this. It is a convenient straw man. I am a cessationist, believing that the apostolic sign gifts ceased with the apostles, but I don't believe the Lord has been on a vacation. To disbelieve in apostolic sign gifts is not to disbelieve in miracles. In our church planting work, we see souls saved from darkest paganism, people delivered from demons, healings, marriages healed, and many other miracles. But no apostolic sign gifts. I don't believe that a man would mock a Biblicist stance unless he had cut himself loose from Scripture as sole authority, which is exactly what you have to do to accept the continuation of the sign gifts. A Biblicist doesn't worship the Bible, but he knows that we have no other sure Word from God. He knows that there are false christs and false spirits and demons masquerading as angels of light and we must carefully test everything by Scripture so as not to be deceived, particularly in these last days. The Biblicist stance is not to have the "Father, Son, and Holy Bible"; it is to have the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as defined by the Holy Bible. The true Spirit does not operate contrary to the Holy Bible. Any man who mocks that, even if he is half-kidding, is a dangerous man. By the way, Mark, what happened to your New Year's Eve rock & roll champagne parties? I haven't seen those advertised since we reported on them some years ago. Was that too "culturally liberal"* even for some of your friends? (* Mark Driscoll calls himself "theologically conservative and culturally liberal.)

(Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Genesis 9:4
“But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.”

The Bible teaches us that our physical life is in our blood. It also teaches us that our spiritual and eternal life is dependent upon the blood of Jesus Christ.

Your heart pumps blood at a speed of more than three feet per second. This means that any given red blood cell will make a full circulatory trip from your lungs and back in only about a minute. But your heart is not the only hard-working part of your circulatory system. Your red blood cells live only about 4 months. In that time, a red blood cell has made over 170,000 trips from your lungs to bring oxygen to every part of your body. That means your body must constantly replace red blood cells. So your body produces about 2 million new red blood cells every second. Your body does this most efficiently by recycling the iron from dead red blood cells into the new red blood cells. Iron, of course, gives the hemoglobin in red blood cells the ability to carry oxygen.

As we learn more about our circulatory systems, we see that physical life is a daily gift from God. Yet, it was the life-blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ, shed on the cross for us in His holy, innocent suffering and death that makes eternal life possible for us.

Notes: Science News, 6/3/06, pp. 346-348, Ben Harder, “Blood, Iron, and Gray Hair.”
Photo: The bright red drop of blood on the left is oxygenated while the drop on the right is deoxygenated. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Chris Brown arrested for felony assault,
Mom, 4 kids killed in Brooklyn stabbing rampage;
Iconic rock star Lou Reed dead at 71;
Global fans perform simultaneous 'Thriller' dance.

Last week John MacArthur hosted a conference with the title of "Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship." It is an important warning against the charismatic movement, but the strange fire has already infiltrated MacArthur's camp and ultimately, therefore, he will lose the war. In his opening remarks at the conference MacArthur said, "The charismatic movement continually dishonors God in its false forms of worship. It dishonors the Father and Son, but most specifically, the Holy Spirit. Many things are attributed to the Holy Spirit that actually dishonor him. ... God is not to be trifled with. It is dangerous to offer strange fire, corrupt worship." That is exactly right, but one of the most effective aspects of the charismatic movement, one of the things most responsible for creating the charismatic "experience" and building its heretical unity, is contemporary worship music. The late Jerry Huffman, editor of the Calvary Contender, observed that CCM could stand for Contemporary Charismatic Music, because it originates with charismatics. We have documented this extensively in The Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians, available as a free eBook from www.wayoflife.org. The powerful rock music (whether hard or soft) is used to create the atmosphere in which the charismatic worshiper can "feel God." Contemporary music is a huge part of the strange fire worship experience, and John MacArthur has brought this strange fire into his Resolved youth conferences. (See "John MacArthur and Cultural Liberalism" at www.wayoflife.org.) He has therefore already built the bridge to the charismatic movement and the one-world "church" that many will eventually cross. He has lost the war because he has lost the spiritual discernment he once had to oppose contemporary music. MacArthur is committing the same error as many independent Baptists. He thinks he can play with fire and not be burnt. He thinks he can tame the contemporary worship beast. But once this music is "adapted," it is only a matter of time until that particular church is leavened by its corrupting influence.

(Friday Church News Notes, October 25, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Thousands gather in DC to protest mass surveillance;
Obama pledges "fix" for HealthCare.Gov;
Saudi women protest ban on driving;
Actress Marcia Wallace dead.

"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him" (Psa. 103:13).

God as a Father refers to God's tender, personal interest in His creatures. God knows the "frame" of each of His children and He pities them. God is described in Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son as the Father who is anxiously waiting for the wayward one to return, rushing out to meet the repentant son when he is still a long distance away (Luke 15:20). Every good father pities his children. Racham, the Hebrew word translated pity, is elsewhere translated love and mercy. Even if the father is a man who doesn't easily express his care verbally, he has tender emotions toward his children; he wants the very best for them; he desires to help them in every way possible; he is ready to forgive their offenses; he desires their love and yearns to be close to them. How much more does the Lord pity His children (Mat. 7:11). The best father who has ever lived is but a dim image of God's fatherhood.

(Friday Church News Notes, October 18, 2013, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Obama urges Congress to spend more on education;
Consultant predicts fix for Healthcare.gov by November;
Demolition begins on Sandy Hook Elementary School;
Stocks gain on Wall Street.

Danvers, Mass. High School open;
Budget talks coming up;
NC State Fair accident;
Cardinals win World Series game 2.

Israel's National Library aims to digitize and store all of the world's Hebrew manuscripts, beginning with the rare collection held by Italy's Biblioteca Palatina in Parma. The more than 1,600 manuscripts, which were gathered by Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi, date from the 13th to the 18th centuries. The National Library is also negotiating agreements with Oxford's Bodleian Library and the Vatican Library. Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurian, founded a project to photograph and microfilm Jewish texts. As a result, Israel's National Library currently possesses replicas of 90% of the world's known Hebrew manuscripts in microfilm format ("Ingathering and Digitizing," The Times of Israel, Oct. 14, 2013). The new project aims to digitize the material using the latest technology and to make much of it available online to the general public. It will capture high-definition color photographs as well as photos made with multi-spectral imaging, a process that creates composite photos using a series of filters that capture both visible and invisible wavelengths of light, thus bringing out subtle features of the text that were previously invisible. Prior to the onslaught of anti-Bible evolutionary philosophy in the 19th century, it was commonly believed that Hebrew was the original pre-Babel tongue. For more about this see Thomas Strouse, Scholarly Myths Perpetuated on Rejecting the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament, http://bbc-cromwell.org/Seminary_Articles/Scholary-Myths.pdf

(Friday Church News Notes, October 18, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Psalm 59:17
“Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing: for God is my defense, and the God of my mercy.”

Regular listeners to Creation Moments are familiar with the many examples we have described of plants protecting themselves from insects. 

A wide variety of plants make self-defense insect poisons by first producing the chemical jasmonate. Consideration was being given by the insecticide industry to stimulate plant defenses by spraying crops with this naturally occurring chemical. However, research now shows that this might not be a good idea. A worm – known variously as the corn earworm, the cotton bollworm or the tomato fruit worm – infests more than 100 plant species. This worm has two amazing abilities that probably explain why it’s such a pest. First, it can sense when a plant begins to produce jasmonate, the first step in production of its self-defense poisons. When the worm senses jasmonate, it produces enzymes that will detoxify those plant’s poisons. Studies have shown that spraying crops with jasmonate will only tip off the worm’s detoxification abilities and make it more resistant to the plant’s self-defense poisons. It appears that the plants rely on surprise to discourage the worms.

Of course, neither the plants nor the worms know anything about chemistry. It is the Creator of heaven and earth Who has given both the worm and the plants their defense mechanisms and, through His Son, Jesus Christ, has offered mankind protection from sin, death and the devil.

Notes: Science News, 10/19/02, p. 246, S. Milius, “Spying on Plant Defenses.”
Photo: Courtesy of Eric Sylvestre. Licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Two hurt in Navy facility shooting;
Obama calls on Congress to pass immigration reform;
Contractors admit health care site was largely untested;
Cows lead to ocean for art.