Australian Independent Baptist Newsletter

www.Bennett.BibleForToday.org

February, 2006 #2

Dr. David C. Bennett, Editor (DCB)

PO Box 1241 - Dubbo - NSW 2830

Phone/Fax 02-6884-2846

Email: Bennett@BibleForToday.org

Permission is given to forward material contained in the AIB Newsletter.

Purpose: To inform and warn God's people of religious, social, and political events in today's world.

Agape Press 25 January 2006 UNITED METHODIST PASTOR CRITICIZES MINISTERS' AD SUPPORTING HOMOSEXUAL MEMBERSHIP (Edited by DCB) "A group of United Methodist ministers in Virginia have purchased a newspaper ad proclaiming their support for granting church membership to homosexuals. The 44 active or retired Richmond-area Methodist clergy signed the $3,000 ad, which they paid their own money to have placed in the Richmond Times Dispatch. In the announcement, the ministers vowed they ‘will continue the long-standing, historic United Methodist practice of accepting into membership all who will take the vows of faith of our United Methodist tradition.’" "The denomination's highest court, the United Methodist Judicial Council, ruled recently that another conservative Methodist pastor in Virginia had the right to deny membership to an unrepentant homosexual."

Editor’s Comment: Jeremiah 23:1 "Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD."

dailytelegraph.news.com.au 26 January 2006 CROCODILE ANCESTOR FOUND IN STORAGE (Edited by DCB) "A TOOTHLESS, two-legged crocodile ancestor that walked upright and had a beak instead of teeth has been lying, unnoticed, in the basement of New York's American Museum of Natural History. The 210 million-year-old fossil had sat in storage at the museum for nearly 60 years and was found only by accident, the paleontologists said. The animal is interesting because it closely resembles a completely unrelated dinosaur called an ostrich dinosaur that lived 80 million years later, they report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a British science journal." "The two metre fossil is an archosaur, an extinct type of animal that includes the ancestors of dinosaurs, crocodilians and birds. It lived in what is now New Mexico, in the US southwest." Mr Norell and graduate student Sterling Nesbitt said "It could be that animals like Effigia dominated what are now the Americas, and that dinosaur evolution only took off after Effigia went extinct, leaving a niche."

Editor’s Comment: 1Timothy 6:20 "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called."

Agence France-Presse 7 February 2006 IRAN TO PUBLISH HOLOCAUST CARTOONS (Edited by DCB) "IRAN'S largest selling newspaper announced today it was holding a contest on cartoons of the Holocaust in response to the publishing in European papers of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed." Farid Mortazavi, the graphics editor for Hamshahri newspaper said "The Western papers printed these sacrilegious cartoons on the pretext of freedom of expression, so let's see if they mean what they say and also print these Holocaust cartoons."

Iran’s President had already angered many he said the murder of millions of Jews in WWII was only a "myth" and was "used to justify the creation of Israel."

Editor’s Comment: Psalm 122:6 "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee."

TheNewMexicoChannel.com 31 January 2006 PASTOR SELLS TOWN'S OLDEST CHURCH TO BUY NEW BMW (Edited by DCB) - A fifty three year old Congregational pastor is in jail for selling Ripon, California’s oldest church for $525,000. It is alleged he used the money to buy a BMW. It is said he also "faked documents that gave him possession of his house, which was owned by the church, then used the property to take

out loans." Both sales were annulled "because of fraudulent paperwork."

Editor’s Comment: Spurgeon said in his sermon THE CHURCH —CONSERVATIVE AND AGGRESSIVE that "The word ‘Church’ has suffered very much from the hands of men." Sad indeed!

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/3635131.html 3 February 2006 MEGACHURCHES ARE PROPAGATING RAPIDLY - NEWEST SURVEY SAYS NUMBER HAS DOUBLED SINCE A SIMILAR RESEARCH PROJECT IN 2000 (Edited and Emphasis by DCB) Megachurches in the USA "…has doubled during the past five years, suggesting that the way Americans prefer to worship is changing, according to a study released Friday." A megachurch is defined as having a weekly attendance of at least two thousand. There are now a total of at least 1,210 megachurches in the USA with "…an estimated combined income of $7.2 billion" and attracting "nearly 4.4 million people to weekly services, according to the study ‘Megachurches Today 2005.’" "The growth of megachurches in recent decades has come about because of a common historical cycle in U.S. religion: faith institutions reinventing themselves to meet the consumerlike demands of worshippers, said Paul Harvey, American history professor at the University of Colorado who specializes in U.S. religious history."

Editor’s Comment: In the same sermon quoted above Spurgeon said "The ‘Church of Christ’ according to the Scripture, is an assembly of faithful men. Ecclesia originally signified assembly; not a mob, but an assembly of persons who were called together on account of their special right to meet for the discussion of certain subjects. They were a called-out assembly. The ‘Church of God’ itself, in its full sense, is a company of persons called out by the Holy Spirit from among the rest of mankind, banded together for the holy purpose of the defense and the propagation of the truth. If there be but three or four, yet if they be so banded together in the fear of God, they are to all intents and purposes a Church and if they should happen to number thousands, they are no more a Church on account of their numbers — a Church being a company of faithful men." (Emphasis the Editor’s)

Because of Calvary,