Berita Mingguan 4 Juli 2009

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Sumber: Way of Life Ministry, Friday Church News Notes

Penerjemah: Dr. Steven E. Liauw

Graphe International Theological Seminary

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WARISAN MICHAEL JACKSON

Michael Jackson, "King of Pop," mati minggu lalu, kemungkinan karena serangan jantung yang dipicu oleh obat, pada umur 50 tahun. Seperti Elvis Presley dan banyak dewa-dewi rock lainnya, Jackson kecanduan berbagai macam obat dan narcismenya tidak memungkinkan dia merendah diri kepada otoritas manapun selain dirinya sendiri. Pengaruh Jackson amatlah besar. Video musiknya membantu membuat MTV populer di awal 1980an. Lagu hitnya di tahun 1982, "Thriller," adalah album A.S. yang pertama atau kedua paling laku sepanjang masa. Gerakan-gerakan dansanya yang aneh dan sering kotor, membantu menciptakan aliran hop-hop dan telah ditiru dalam banyak sekali dansa-dansa kontemporer. Choreografer Kenny Ortega menyebutnya "performer dunia yang paling hebat." Rekor Dunia Guinnes memberikan kepadanya sebutan "entertainer paling sukses sepanjang masa." Ketertarikan yang luar biasa besar terhadap kehidupan dan kematian Jackson merupakan indikasi kejatuhan moral kebudayaan Barat. Website-website besar seperti Facebook, MySpace, Google, dan Twitter, melambat setelah pengumuman kematiannya karena besarnya kenaikan traffic (internet). USA Today, koran harian terbesar di Amerika, mendedikasikan hampir seluruh halaman depannya untuk membahas kematian simbol pop tersebut. Media-media besar melakukan penayangan 24 jam tentang segala aspek kehidupan dan kematiannya. Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble, dan distributor- distributor besar lainnya kehabisan stok musik dan video Jackson satu jam setelah pengumuman kematiannya. Dalam usahanya untuk menjelaskan semua ini, Bill Carr, wakil presiden departemen musik dan video di Amazon, berkata, "Mereka mencintai dia, dia adalah seorang legenda, dan mereka sangat ingin memastikan bahwa mereka memiliki musiknya dalam koleksi mereka." Jackson adalah seorang icon (simbol) dari kultur rock & roll, dan warisannya akan membawa masyarakat modern menuju tingkat kekacauan dan kesia-siaan yang semakin tinggi. Dia adalah seorang yang berpusatkan diri sendiri, tanpa kendali diri dan batasan moral, hamba fashion, dan terpukau oleh penampilan. Ia menyia-nyiakan harta yang banyak sekali. Walaupun dia menjual 750 juta album, katanya dia mati dengan hutang 400 juta dolar, karena dia hidup di luar kesanggupannya. Hidup Jackson menormalisasi keanehan dan ketidakwajaran. Jane Fonda mengatakan dalam sebuah wawancara dengan CNN tentang kehidupan Jackson, "Siapa kita untuk menghakimi?" Pemberontakan terhadap Allah dan FirmanNya semakin bertumbuh, tetapi semuanya akan sampai kepada akhir yang mengagetkan (Mazmur 2). Tanah yang dibeli oleh sang Raja Pop diberi nama Neverland; dan itu bukan hanya tempat tinggal Michael Jackson, itu adalah tempat tinggal budaya pop modern.

MICHAEL JACKSON’S LEGACY (www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org) - Michael Jackson, the “King of Pop,” died last week of a probable drug-induced heart attack at age 50. Like Elvis Presley and many other rock gods, Jackson was addicted to a variety of drugs and his narcissism would not allow him to submit to any authority outside of himself. Jackson’s influence was great. His music videos helped vault MTV into popularity in the early 1980s. His 1982 hit “Thriller” is either the first or second best-selling U.S. album of all time. His quirky and often filthy dance moves helped spawn hop-hop and have been imitated endlessly in contemporary dance. Choreographer Kenny Ortega called him “the world’s greatest performer.” Guinness World Records dubbed him “the most successful entertainer of all time.” The incredible fascination with Jackson’s life and death is indicative of the moral downfall of Western culture. Major websites such as Facebook, MySpace, Google, and Twitter, slowed following the announcement of his death because of the dramatic increase in traffic. USA Today, America’s largest daily newspaper, dedicated nearly the entire front page to the pop icon’s death. Major news media outlets ran 24-hour coverage on every aspect of the man’s life and death. Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble and other major distributers sold out of Jackson music CDs and videos within an hour of the announcement of his passing. In an attempt to explain this, Bill Carr, vice president for music and video at Amazon, said, “They love him, he’s a legend, and they’re anxious to make sure they have his music in their collections.” Jackson is an icon of the rock & roll culture, and his legacy was to carry modern society to a new level of debauchery and vanity. He was self-centered, lacked self-control, had no moral boundaries, was enslaved to fashion, and consumed with appearance. He squandered a fortune. Though he sold 750 million albums, he reportedly died with a debt of $400 million, because he lived so far beyond his means. Jackson’s life further normalized weirdness and perversion in modern society. As Jane Fonda said in an interview with CNN about Jackson’s life, “Who are we to judge?” The rebellion against God and His Word grows apace, but it will come to a shocking end (Psalm 2). The ranch that the King of Pop purchased in the 1980s was called Neverland; and that was not only the place where Michael Jackson lived, it is also the place where the modern pop culture dwells.

KAMU TIDAK BISA MEMPERTAHANKAN SEBUAH POSISI TANPA BERPERANG DEMINYA
Berikut ini disadur dari John Ashbrook, Axioms of Separation (Mentor, OH: Here I Stand Books, n.d.): "Tiga puluh tahun yang lalu, sebagai seorang muda, saya dipilih menjadi bagian dari Executive Committee dari Independent Fundamental Churches of America (IFCA). Seorang presiden baru juga dipilih pada waktu yang sama. Presiden baru itu, seorang yang saleh, mengaku percaya akan separasi. Ia berkata bahwa ia ingin mempertahankan kelompok tersebut bersih, tetapi bahwa selama ini masalah kesesatan dan separasi telah terlalu banyak dibicarakan. Ia mengumukan bahwa grup tersebut haruslah berdiri teguh dengan tenang, tanpa menyinggung siapa pun. Di bawah kepimpinan yang demikian, IFCA berhenti menjadi grup fundamentalis yang vokal yang berdiri di garis depan pertempuran. "Jadilah positif" adalah salah satu kata kunci dunia. Mencoba untuk berdiri teguh, sementara hanya ingin yang positif saja, adalah pertengahan jalan antara fundamentalisme dengan injili. Ini akan selalu memimpin kepada posisi yang lebih lemah, bukan yang lebih kuat. Ribuan gereja jatuh kepada filosofi injili sementara mereka berusaha menjadi fundamentalis yang "diam." Orang-orang dan grup-grup seperti Billy Graham, Christianity Today, National Association of Evangelicals, World Evangelical Fellowship, Evangelical Foreign Missions Association, Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association, Wheation College, dan Fuller Seminary, telah menampilkan pertunjukan yang hebat untuk menjual konsep Injili kepada dunia Kristen. Fundamentalisme menghadapi pertunjukan ini dengan keheningan yang besar. Ada suara yang berteriak, tetapi mayoritas fundamentalis mencoba untuk mempertahankan posisi mereka sambil berdiri diam dan tenang. Gereja-gereja yang percaya Alkitab akhirnya dicuri oleh suara vokal Injili. Kamu tidak bisa mempertahankan suatu posisi tanpa berperang deminya."

YOU CANNOT PRESERVE A POSITION WITHOUT CRUSADING FOR IT (www.wayoflife.org) - The following is excerpted from John Ashbrook, Axioms of Separation (Mentor, OH: Here I Stand Books, n.d.): “Thirty years ago, as a young man, I was elected to the Executive Committee of the Independent Fundamental Churches of America [IFCA]. A new president was elected at the same time. The new president, a godly man, professed to believe in separation. He said that he wanted to keep the group clean, but that there had been too much talk about apostasy and separation. He declared that the group should take a stand quietly, without being offensive. Under that leadership the IFCA ceased to be an outspoken fundamentalist group in the front rank of the battle. ‘Be positive’ is one of the world's watchwords. Trying to take a stand, while remaining all positive, is the halfway house between fundamentalism and new evangelicalism. It always leads to the weaker position, not the stronger one. Thousands of churches have fallen to new evangelicalism while trying to be silent fundamentalists. People and groups like Billy Graham, Christianity Today, the National Association of Evangelicals, the World Evangelical Fellowship, the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association, the Interdenominational Foreign Missions Association, Wheaton College, and Fuller Seminary have put on a massive blitz to sell the Christian world on new evangelicalism. Fundamentalism met this blitz with a great silence. Some voices were raised; but the majority of fundamentalists tried to maintain their position by standing silently. The Bible-believing church was stolen by vocal new evangelicalism. You cannot preserve a position without crusading for it.”

STRUKTUR PALING KOMPLEKS DALAM ALAM SEMESTA
Berikut ini disadur dari Creation Moments, http://www.creation moments.com/ radio/transcript .php?t=2438: "Sadar atau tidak sadar, anda beloh berbangga sebagai pemilik dari rangkaian materi yang paling kompleks dalam alam semesta. Saya sedang berbicara mengenai otak anda. Walaupun hanya seberat tiga pon, struktur otak sedemikian kompleks, sehingga semua penjelasan tidak cukup kecuali mengakui bahwa ada intelijensi yang lebih tinggi yang menciptakannya. Rata-rata otak manusia memiliki sepuluh milyar neuron dan bermilyar-milyar koneksi. Telah diperkirakan bahwa otak dapat menyimpang satu juta kali lebih banyak informasi dari yang dapat dipelajari seumur hidup seseorang. Jika ini benar, maka sepertinya manusia lebih pintar di masa lampau atau dirancang untuk hidup lebih lama. Berkat otak, anda dapat mendengar seseorang berbicara dan langsung mulai merancang jawaban anda sementara otak anda juga mengatur sejumlah proyek lain – seperti detak jantung anda, pernafasan dan reaksi-reaksi kimia dalam darah – tanpa anda sadar akan hal itu. Otak anda, melalui sistem sensorisnya yang luas, memungkinkan jari anda merasakan getaran dalam ukuran kurang dari delapan per seribu inci, dan memungkinkan anda melihat 10 juta warna yang berbeda. Otak sedemikian hebat kompleksitasnya, sehingga bahkan para ilmuwan yang menyangkal adanya jiwa dan yang percaya bahwa hanya materi yang eksis, mereka pun mengakui bahwa otak membuat mereka bertanya-tanya apakah ada sesuatu lagi yang lain dibalik realita ini."

THE MOST COMPLEX STRUCTURE IN THE UNIVERSE (www.wayoflife.org) The following is from Creation Moments, http://www.creationmoments.com/radio/transcript.php?t=2438: “Whether you know it or not, you are the proud owner of the most complex arrangement of matter in the universe. I am speaking of your brain. Even though it weighs only three pounds, the brain's structure is so complex that it defies all explanation except to admit that a higher intelligence created it. The average brain has ten billion neurons and multiple billions of connections. It has been estimated that the brain is able to hold one million times more information than anyone could possibly learn in a lifetime. If true, this suggests that man was smarter in the past or meant to live much longer. Thanks to the brain, you can listen to someone talk and begin to put your reply together for him while your brain is also directing a number of other projects--like your heart beat, breathing, and blood chemistry--without your conscious attention. Your brain, through its extended sensory system, allows your finger to feel a vibration of less than eight-one-thousandths of an inch and lets you see 10 million different colors. The brain is so marvelously complex that even scientists who deny the soul and believe that the material stuff is all that exists have admitted that the brain leads them to wonder if there is not more to reality.”

FORMER GITMO DETAINEE ACCUSED OF KILLING THREE MISSIONARIES (.www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org.) - The following is excerpted from OneNewsNow, June 23, 2009: “A best-selling author and critic of Islam says he can't understand why U.S. President Barack Obama and the United Nations are not expressing more outrage over the execution-style murder of three Christian missionaries in Yemen, apparently by al Qaeda. According to a spokesman from the Yemeni Embassy in Washington, nine foreign nationals--four German adults, three small German children, a British man, and a South Korean woman--were abducted on June 12 after they ventured outside the city of Saada without their required police escorts. Days later the bodies of German nurses Rita Stumpp and Anita Gruenwald, and Eom Young-sun of South Korea were found shot execution style in an area known to be a hotbed of Al Qaeda activity. The fate of the remaining six abducted people remains a mystery. Terrorism experts say the crimes bear the mark of Al Qaeda, and they fear they are the handiwork of the international terror organization’s number two man in the Arabian Peninsula--Said Ali al-Shihri, an Islamic terrorist who once was in American custody but who was released from the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, says this illustrates the folly of Obama's plan to close GITMO and release potentially dangerous prisoners.”

OBAMA AND CREATION SCIENCE (www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org.) - The following is from Answers, a quarterly magazine published by Answers in Genesis. “With the U.S. presidential election now over, the world is closely watching Barack Obama’s new agenda for ‘change.’ One subject not likely to receive much media attention, however, is the Creator’s place in policy debates. Like so many other world leaders in politics and the media, the new president believes that science and education hold the key to a better life. Views about God may be important for individuals, but keep Him out of the science classroom and politics. Obama told an interviewer, when asked during the election campaign about teaching intelligent design: ‘I’m a Christian, and I believe in parents being able to provide children with religious instruction without interference from the state. But I also believe our sch ools are there to teach worldly knowledge and science. I believe in evolution, and I believe there’s a difference between science and faith. That doesn’t make faith any less important than science. It just means they’re two different things. And I think it’s a mistake to try to cloud the teaching of science with theories that frankly don’t hold up to scientific inquiry’ (Tom Joyce, ‘Obama Talks about York,’ York Daily Record, March 30, 2008). The newly elected vice president, Joe Biden, is even more open about his views. Asked about intelligent design, he said, ‘I refuse to believe the majority of people believe this malarkey!’ (HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, episode 74, April 7, 2006). During the campaign, only one candidate’s views on origins came under scrutiny. Hours after Alaska’s governor, Sarah Palin, was announced as the Republican vice presidential candidate, the media blasted her for once suggest ing that creationism be taught alongside evolution. The media and politicians may attempt to sideline the Creator by simply ignoring Him or scorning Bible-believers. But the Creator still sits on His throne and weighs every nation in the balances” (“No Room for the Creator?” Answers, January-March 2009).

THE MONNET METHOD: GLOBALISM’S WINNING TICKET (.www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org.) - The following is excerpted from the excellent book The European Union and the Supra-Religion by Robert Congdon (Congdon Ministries, 2007, http://www.internetbibleinstitute.com, robertcongdon@bellsouth.net). “No man did more to achieve the European Dream than [Jean Monnett, 1888-1979] did. With time, Monnet’s method of ongoing, relentless pressure to expand and increase supranational powers became known as the ‘Monnet method,’ engrenage (gearing up), as he called it. Engrenage was ‘a blanket word to describe all those various techniques whereby the ‘project’ could advance what was really its only underlying agenda: a steady, relentless pressure to extend the Commission’s supranational powers. It got this name because ‘each new advance it [supranationalism] made would merely be re garded as a means of gearing up for the next.’ Monnet’s method was to propose a seemingly minor treaty or agreement. Within that treaty was hidden a principal or precedent, which once made law, opened the door to a much larger application and expansion of the granted power. ‘Thus, brick by brick ... the great supranational structure [would] be assembled. Above all, it would be vital never to define too clearly what was the ‘project’s’ ultimate goal, for fear this would arouse the countervailing forces which might seek to sabotage it before it was complete. ... Monnet’s ‘gearing up’ method has been so effective that today the EU controls sovereignty over legal, economic, environmental, and policy decisions of twenty-seven nations. ... Once introduced, integration into the EU progresses along a predictable path. It begins with a proposal for an economic relationships that is established upon a free trade treaty between the EU and a non-member nation. An independent authority usually administers the treaty. Once this new governing authority has become firmly established and effectively operative, it then suggests that the treaty expand to include open borders, common passports, and a shared monetary system (the Euro). Those involved usually find that the convenience of these shared community benefits outweighs what appears to be only a slight loss of national sovereignty. ... In time the community judiciary supersedes the national judiciary through community laws, community policing, and community courts” (Robert Congdon, The European Union and the Supra-Religion, pp. 132, 133, 137).

SASSING NOT ALLOWED (.www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org.) - The following is excerpted from Training Your Children to Turn out Right, a truly excellent book by David Sorenson (Northstar Ministries, 1820 W. Morgan St., Duluth, MN 55811, 218-726-0209, www.northstarministries.com, dhs.northstar@charter.net) -- “[Another] basic rule in our house was that disrespect, defiance, sassing or any other form of overt rebellion toward us as parents absolutely was not tolerated. Nothing would bring judgment more swiftly than for me to hear our children sassing their mother. They were taught ahead of time that defiance or disrespect was not allowed, period! ... 1 Samuel 15:23 says, ‘For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft...’ It is Satanic in its origins. And rebellion begins with a smart mouth. ... Children are born with a rebellious, sassy spirit, and the sooner it is nipped in the bud the better. ... One of our c hildren would, at times, fight the spanking. She was informed that if she fought and resisted, whatever the original punishment was, it would be doubled. Now, that may seem harsh. However, it did not take too long for it to soak in that rebellion, even during punishment, would not be allowed. ... As a result of dealing with it as soon as it raised its ugly head, it had pretty well been purged by the time the girls were of school age. ... Do not believe the foolishness that if you deal directly with rebellion, you will only cause a child to be more rebellious. Rebellion and defiance will grow like an ugly, malignant cancer. The earlier it is dealt with, the better. ... One might think that our home was a rigid, authoritarian, Spartan environment. To the contrary, it was a warm, fun, loving place; and one of the things that made it such a sweet place was that there was so little conflict” (Training Your Children to Turn Out Right, 1995, pp. 66-68).

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).