October 23, 2009, Volume 10, Issue 43
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 does not imply an endorsement. For instructions on how to unsubscribe to this list or to change mailing addresses, please consult the information paragraph at the end.
FRANKLIN GRAHAM PREACHES IN THREE-SELF COMMUNIST CHURCH (Friday Church News Notes, October 23, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – Following in his father’s footsteps, Franklin Graham recently preached in a registered Three-Self communist church in China. The church, Bethel Church of Baoding, is the second largest church in China. This was Franklin’s second occasion to preach in Three-Self churches. It is illegal in China for churches to exist unless they register with the government and come under government restrictions which forbid them to do such things as have Sunday Schools or preach the gospel outside of times and venues approved by the communist government. Those who have refused to submit to these restrictions and have sought to obey God more than man have been harshly persecuted. Even today many unregistered preachers are in jail for their faith, as we have often reported in the Friday Church News Notes. The Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the China Christian Council were founded by the brutal Mao Tse Tung as a tool to control the churches. To preach in a deeply compromised communist-registered church is a sellout to the Lord Jesus Christ, the sole Head of the Church. The Grahams will give account to God for their great compromise of His Word and for their mocking of biblical fundamentalists who simply want to take the Bible seriously. They have gone the way of bigness and worldly popularity, but Jesus said, “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets” (Luke 6:26). (We have written many articles about the Three-Self movement and its former head K.H. Ting, a theological modernist and a master of Chinese communist propaganda. These can be found in the Fundamental Baptist Digital Library, which goes on sale in the next couple of weeks.)





