Puritan Corner - There's More....

"There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us."

by  Richard Sibbes (1577-1635)

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, 

that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:16

Woman at the Well SERIES: Spread of the Living Water

"Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well. 

*He is the first person in the story to name His desire—He is thirsty. 

So, He asks the Samaritan woman for a drink. 

She imitates His desire by declaring her thirst as well; she wants “living water.” (John4:1)

Desire then goes viral, and spreads exponentially. She shares her desire with the town, many of whom identify their own desire by borrowing hers. As a result, “many believe.” (John 4:41)

What’s being described here is the process of social contagion. 

This is how the Gospel spreads. 

Jesus and the Samaritan woman show us the way to spread a friendly virus of God’s affection."

Kris Rocke/HyattMoore

SDA Issues: Lunar "sabbath":--A Most DAMNABLE HERESY

But there were false prophets also among the people, 

even as there shall be false teachers among you, 

who privily shall bring in damnable heresies.... 

And many shall follow their pernicious ways; 

by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.....

2 Peter 2:1,2

 

 The Lunar "sabbath" nonsense has reared it's Luciferian inspired
head among some in the Church. One prominent youtuber of the Church has now announced she has left the Church over it.

 

*To be BLUNT, there comes a dividing line where the gloves have to come off and a response in the strongest terms is required.

But the Lunar "sabbath" to quote Peter, is a most DAMNABLE HERESY .....

 

WHY it's a DAMNABLE HERESY?

1) It leads people to trample on the Holy Sabbath Day of God in return for keeping a false sabbath based on some ASTROLOGY based holy day.

2) Since the day bounces around the year based on calculations of

the New Moon, many who fall for it will have a hard time holding down a job when your sabbath moves around the calendar.

3) Even Sunday keepers acknowledge what day is the Biblical Sabbath, the 7th Day. They just arrogate to themselves the authority transfer the solemnity of it to the first day, and admit that's what they do.  

4) Makes a Mockery of Creation week in Genesis, as these proponents of Lunar Astrological Nonsense look like spiritual simpletons as they point to the evening and morning being the first day, etc. before the sun, moon and stars made on the 4th day. Some of them claim the sun and moon had to exist on day one. 

[Excuse me, but to just inject some common sense here, the light shining upon earth as it rotated, would have been the light of God Himself as He appeared in His glory to perform His work of Creation... And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. Genesis.1:3/John 1:1,2,4] 

5) They take the "signs" referenced on the 4th day of creation (and let

them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: Genesis 1:14) to refer to using to identify the sabbath since the sabbath is called a "sign" of God's people.

[Once again, Excuse me, but it's clear in that context that "signs" is used to refer to marking off the secular times of the year---not the holy day of worship: SEE I-III below]

6) It undermines the Scriptural identification of the Mark of the Beast.

*God's Holy Sabbath Day is distinct from time keeping identified on the 4th day of creation because the Sabbath was a Memorial in and of itself to God as Creator. Hence He set up a specific day to flow throughout human history as a reminder. Hence the word "Remember":  

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 

Exodus 20:8

 

Crystal Clear:

I. The weekly Sabbath, the Holy Day of the Week, was established at Creation:  

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the

seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made. Genesis 2:1-3

II. It's detailed in His Law as a weekly Memorial to Him as Creator: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God:....For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.  

Exodus 20:10,11

III. At the Cross the Sabbath was identified as the 7th day of the week---He was crucified and buried before the Sabbath Day began, thereby rested in the tomb on the 7th Day Sabbath, and rose of the First Day to continue His work:  

This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day

according to the commandment. 

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.......And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead;

Luke 23:52-52,56/Mathew 28L1,2,7

 

Even the most simple minded person could understand the teachings

of the Sabbath from Scripture. 

So WHY this DAMNABLE HERESY? There is NO EXCUSE for those in the Church to even be enticed by such attempts at Delusion on this one....NONE.

That leads us to this youtuber who recently announced she has left the Church over the Lunar "sabbath".

She first got caught up in the 2520 Nonsense but backtracked.

Then she more recently got caught up in what she and disingenuously and erroneously calls "Biblical Cosmology" or what

would be better known as flat earth science.

And from there she got infected by Lunar "sabbath" Heresy and finds herself leaving the Church and railing against Church pioneers such as Mrs. White. 

She claims White led the Church that God called up into Babylon because Mrs. White was a strong proponent of the 7th Day Sabbath. (yes, you heard that right. She believes Church pioneers like Ellen White led the Church into part of Papal Rome by keeping the 7th Day Sabbath---because this youtuber believes the "weekend" (Saturday and Sunday) come from the Gregorian Calendar, therefore 7th Day Sabbath keeping is Papist according to her.  --- Now what kind of convoluted psycho-babbel is that to claim SDA's were led into spiritual Babylon of Papal Rome by keeping the 7th Day Sabbath?!?!?

---These people left our churches, but they never really belonged with us; otherwise they would have stayed with us. When they left, it proved that they did not belong with us.

1 John 2:19 NLT

---A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject;

Titus 3:10 

---return unto Me: and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, then shalt thou not remove. 

Jeremiah 4:1

What is the Condemnation of the World?

 And this is the condemnation,

-- that light is come into the world, 

-- and men loved darkness rather than light, 

-- because their deeds were evil.

John 3:19

Flood Evidence Everywhere (4 Basics)

And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. 

Genesis 7:19 ESV

 "The evidence for the flood is everywhere:

 

1- Consider the fact that it takes special conditions to make a
fossil, and the world is covered with billions of them in mass graves. Creatures must be buried rapidly before they rot or get eaten by scavengers. And, in fact, vast numbers of animals were buried and fossilized so quickly that some could not even finish swallowing their meal or giving birth.

 

2- Another obvious evidence that makes sense in a global flood is

fossils of tree trunks standing upright or upside down through more than one layer. This doesn’t make sense with the slow accumulation of layers over millions of years, but instead it is a sign that these polystrate fossils were buried rapidly.

 

3- Another obvious example, which tourists can visit around the

world, is rock layers that were deposited around the globe at the same time. This is consistent with the Genesis account of a worldwide, versus a regional, catastrophe. For example, the Tapeats Sandstone, which sits on the basement rocks of Grand Canyon (Arizona), also appears far away in Wisconsin and across the ocean in Israel and Libya (under different names). How could a local flood deposit the same rock layer across multiple continents?

 

4- You can go to many places on the planet and see row upon row of

consecutively deposited rock layers that were soft when deposited and then bent, sometimes drastically. The whole series shows no signs of fracturing. Obviously, hard rocks do not bend without breaking. A better explanation is that the flood laid these layers rapidly, and they were bent before they could dry out and harden." AIG

Creation Moment 7/31/2023 - God's Pencil

"The job of physicists is to worry about numbers, but one number

has perplexed physicists for more than a century. 

That number is 0.00729735256—approximately 1/137. This is the fine-structure constant. It appears everywhere in the equations of quantum physics.

 

The fine-structure constant, designated by the Greek letter alpha (α), is one of the many constants of nature that power our laws of physics, like the speed of light, the gravitational constant, or Planck’s constant....the fine-structure constant sets the “strength” of the electromagnetic force. The fine-structure constant sets the size of atoms. A larger value means that electrons would be closer to nuclei, making them more tightly bound and less able to participate in

chemical bonds. A smaller value would mean that electrons were less tightly bound, making atoms and molecules less stable.

 

Paul Dirac, a theoretical physicist who is considered one of the founders of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics, called it “the most fundamental unsolved problem in physics.”

 

Physicists do not know why our universe ended up with this particular value for the fine-structure constant, or many of the other fundamental constants, for that matter. 

Many conventional physicists believe that these constants were set more or less randomly at the beginning of the universe. 

*However, it would be surprising if they landed on just the right values to allow for the formation of life.

Though a professing atheist, Richard Feynman poetically mused that “you might say the ‘hand of God’ wrote that number, and ‘we don’t know how He pushed His pencil.’

Psalm 147:5 declares, “Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.”

ICR

Woman at the Well SERIES: "I Am He"

"Jesus saith unto her, I - am He (John 4:26) - Our Lord never spoke in such direct terms concerning Himself to His own countrymen; nor

even to His own disciples, till a little before His death. 

The reason given by Pearce is the following: The woman being alone when Jesus said it, and being a Samaritan, He had no reason to apprehend that the Samaritans, if they knew His claim, would disturb His ministry before the time of His suffering came; which seems to have been the reason why He concealed it so long from His own countrymen."

Adam Clarke

Between Probation and the 2nd Advent

"Note that the son of man is not in the temple, or heavenly sanctuary, but is sitting on a cloud. 

 This introduces a timing element: if Jesus is not in the sanctuary, 

then the investigative judgement has ended, 

probation has closed, 

and Jesus has pronounced,

“He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” Rev. 22:11-12

Probation is closed, the investigative judgment is finished, and everyone’s eternal destiny has been determined and fixed. 

The redeemed are, indeed, living without a mediator because Christ’s mediatorial role has come to an end.  

But, contrary to what some imply, we cannot be lost during this time because our eternal destiny has already been determined. 

The truth that we are to live without a mediator between the close of probation and the Second Coming can be a terror to no one who understands the prophecies."

David Read/F7 

Health Note - Regular Olive Oil Consumption Reduces Fatal Dementia Risk

 Beloved, 

I wish above all things that thou mayest..... be in health.

3 John 1:2

 

"In a large study of U.S. adults, higher olive oil intake was associated

with a moderately lower risk of fatal dementia, irrespective of diet quality. 

The results indicated that people who consumed more than half a tablespoon of olive oil per day had a 28% lower risk of dying from dementia compared with those who never or rarely consumed olive oil.

In addition, replacing just one teaspoon of margarine and mayonnaise with the equivalent amount of olive oil per day was associated with an 8-14% lower risk of dying from dementia."

SciNews

Creation Moment 7/30/2023 - Danesi's web of "lies"

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind..... Romans 1:28

 

"Our brains are hardwired to believe lies, says researcher (Taylor & Francis, 29 June 2023). Marcel Danesi Ph.D., is a professor of

semiotics and linguistic anthropology at the University of Toronto. He must be a very smart person, but the obvious question lurking behind this statement in the headline seems lost on him. 

 

Question: Are you believing in and teaching lies right now? 

For elaboration, consider this syllogistic form of his claim:

• Major premise: Human brains are hardwired to believe lies.
• Minor premise: Danesi has a human brain.
• Conclusion: Danesi is hardwired to believe lies.
• Corollary: If Mussolini, Stalin, and Hitler all succeeded by spreading lies, then lying is an evolutionary success.
• Conclusion: Danesi’s theorem that brains are hardwired to believe lies is a successful lie.

His professional page shows that he believes in social evolution." CEH

Woman at the Well SERIES: Object of Worship

"...worship the Father (John 4:23)— She had talked simply of
"worship"; our Lord brings up before her the great OBJECT of all acceptable worship—"THE FATHER."

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

Goal of the Tempter

By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Romans 5:12

"....into Eden the tempter came. 

Having been cast as profane out of the mount of God, because of the rebellion to which his pride had urged him on, his sole satisfaction was found in 

--trying to thwart the purposes of God, 

--and in causing others to share his own unhappy lot. 

 

Knowing that obedience is life, 

he planned the death of the human race, 

by causing our first parents to sin. 

 

Where was happiness, 

...he sowed the seeds of discontent; 

where was meekness, and willing subjection to God's requirements,   ...he planted pride and unholy ambition; 

where was the utmost liberty, because man was walking in the law of God, 

...the adversary of souls brought hard and cruel bondage.

 

By insinuating into their minds the idea that God was a harsh task-master, and that by His gentle rules he was seeking to elevate himself at their expense, he caused them to seek for larger liberty in their own way; and thus they found that, although a man's own way may seem right in his own eyes. 

 

But the loving Father did not leave his children entirely in the hands of their merciless adversary. Immediately after our first parents had committed the sin which brought death into the world, and all our woe, with loss of Eden, God spoke the words which saved the guilty ones from utter despair, saying to the one who had caused their fall, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Gen.3:15. 

 

*These words are universally understood as containing the promise of the Messiah, who should destroy Satan and his works, and set at liberty those whom he had bound; 

*and in the succeeding ages, until the day that hey were fulfilled, the highest hope of every woman who believed God's word, was that she might be the mother of the great Deliverer." 

E.J. Waggoner

Creation Moment 7/29/2023 - Nobel Laureate Nails It

Gird up now thy loins like a man;

for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? 

declare, if thou hast understanding.

Job 38:3,4

 "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." 

Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate

Woman at the Well SERIES: Proof of His Divine Authority

"The woman saith unto Him, 

Sir, I perceive that thou art a
prophet. (John 4:19) The woman acknowledged Christ to be a prophet. 

*The power of His word in searching the heart, 

*and convincing the conscience of secret things, 

--is a proof of Divine authority. 

*It should cool our contests, to think that the things we are striving about are passing away."

Matthew Henry

Will AI be the BLIND LEADING THE BLIND?

Q: Will AI (artificial intelligence) be the Blind Leading The Blind?

 

Highlights from the article below show just how feebled the filtering

process of some people has become in their ability to think clearly and reason....and how their DISEASED IMAGINATION can be used to influence/confuse others too. 

IF people were weak minded enough to buy into what is below, imagine the theological confusion making the spiritual landscape even more ripe for the Mark of the Beast as people fall in line with group think on a scale we haven't seen before in human history.

As the blind lead the blind, turning AI into an Oracle and IF that Oracle of theirs aligned with the Beast entity...well....

 “I don’t see Christ’s redemption limited to human beings,”

Christopher Benek, an associate pastor at Providence Presbyterian Church in Florida with degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary, told Gizmodo. “It’s redemption of all of creation, even AI. If AI is autonomous, then we should encourage it to participate in Christ’s redemptive purposes in the world.”...James McGrath, a professor of religion at Butler University.... told his religion students to ask Siri, the personal assistant in Apple devices, to pray for them and observe what happened. When directed to pray, Siri basically responded, “I’m not programmed to do that.” But if a more advanced version Siri were programmed to pray, would such an action be valuable? Does God receive prayers from any intelligent being—or just human intelligence?...Kevin Kelly to advocate for the development of “a catechism for robots.”. 

Atlantic

 

***Always Remember, no matter how much psycho-babbel spills from their cyberpens to confuse people with a nonsensical debate of whether AI can become a living soul----at the end of the day it's just a man made machine--not living flesh & blood. These are the same people today who are confused about gender in the 21st century. Now their confusing man made machines for actual mankind.

Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. Matthew 15:14

IN the NEWS - Idle Hands of a Priest with a Access to Texting

But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.

Genesis 13:13

 

Q: How did this level of SIN become so prevalent in the priesthood worldwide on this scale?

"A former Catholic priest with a lengthy career at parishes across

New Mexico has been arrested on criminal charges of coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity through text messages, federal law enforcement authorities announced.

The U.S. Attorney's Office and FBI field office in Albuquerque said that Daniel Balizan of Springer, New Mexico, was arrested in connection with a grand jury indictment.

A redacted copy of the indictment accuses 61-year-old Balizan of knowingly attempting to coerce an unnamed minor into sexual activity in August and September 2012 in Santa Fe County.

The charges carry a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison upon conviction." FOX

IN the NEWS - In Charleston too....

But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.

Genesis 13:13

 

Q: How did this level of SIN become so prevalent in the priesthood worldwide on this scale?

 

"A South Carolina priest who served in the Roman Catholic Diocese

of Charleston is facing federal sex crime charges stemming from allegations that he abused an 11-year-old child.

A recently unsealed indictment shows 68-year-old Jaime Adolfo Gonzalez-Farias has been charged with aggravated sexual abuse of children, coercion of a minor and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. Gonzalez-Farias was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service in Miami on Nov. 29." 

Local10.com

Creation Moment 7/28/2023 - "Best Guess" of Darwinians

"Jack Szostak, University of Chicago professor (formerly at Harvard) is another heavy-hitter, a Nobel Prize laureate (2009) who contributed significantly to the Human Genome Project. Asked in June 2022 for his “best guess for how life began”, he said:

“… we have to think about … some kind of shallow lake or

pond where the building blocks of RNA were made and accumulated, along with lipids and other molecules relevant to biology. And then they self-assembled into lipid vesicles encapsulating RNA, under conditions where the RNA could start to replicate driven by energy from the sun. And that would allow Darwinian evolution to get started. … And then you’re off and running, and life can gradually get more complex and evolve to spread to different environments, until you end up with what we see around us today.”

Q: Does that seem rather speculative? 

Well, remember that it is his “best guess”. CMI

Claiming to be wise, they became fools. Romans 1:22

Creation Moment 7/27/2023 - Epigenetics SIMPLIFIED

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

Psalm 139:14 NLT

 

"The field of epigenetics is one of the most exciting and rapidly

expanding scientific research areas in the study of the genome and how it responds adaptively in organisms. 

 

The term epigenetics is derived from genetics plus the Greek prefix epi, which means “on top of” or “in addition to.” In other words, it’s an additional type of genomic language that overlays the DNA code that controls how genes are switched on or off.

 

Epigenetic changes in the genome are modulated dynamically according to sensory input that the body detects from its physical surroundings, signaling molecules it receives from other creatures (e.g., gut microbes), diet, and even stress. In fact, many epigenetic changes can be heritable and affect traits passed along to children and grandchildren. 

 

Two different systems can epigenetically modify an organism’s chromosomes. 

The first and most easily studied system is known as cytosine

methylation, which is the addition of chemical methyl groups to the actual DNA base molecules or nucleotide letters. 

The second system is the modification of proteins called histones that integrate with the DNA and allow it to be packaged and spatially structured in different ways. 

 

The DNA code comprises the ordered sequence of the nucleotide

letters A (adenine), C (cytosine), T (tyrosine), and G (guanine). Epigenetic modification of the actual DNA molecule occurs specifically on the cytosines by the addition of small epigenetic tags called methyl groups—hence the term cytosine methylation.

The presence of these methyl tags in the DNA molecule plays a major role in the way that genes are expressed, i.e., turned off and on.

 

In general, when the control regions of genes known as promoters are heavily methylated, the gene is turned down like an adjustable light switch being dimmed. 

In addition, many other switches called enhancer elements that are around the genome outside of genes can also become methylated, which regulates the level of gene activity as well. 

 

The addition of methyl tags in the writing process is done by enzymes called DNA methyltransferases. In humans and other mammals, scientists have discovered at least three different methyltransferases that function as writers. 

The erasing function of methyl tags is done by enzymes called demethylases, which remove methylcytosines and replace them with regular cytosines using specialized enzymatic machinery. 

 

First, the methylation of DNA and histone modifications are not random features in the genome. These purposeful chemical tags are placed at specific chromatin addresses all over the genome in response to various environmental cues.

Second, complex cellular machinery and surveillance systems must interpret the huge diversity of epigenetic tags not only according to the creature’s environment but also based on the type of cell and tissue in which the chromatin is located. 

Third, for the complete epigenetic system to be passed along during cell growth and to the next generation, there exists yet another separate and necessary system that copies the chromatin profile when the cells are replicated or sperm and egg are produced for reproduction.

The evolutionary story of random mutations and natural selection can’t account for DNA’s exquisitely engineered systems. Only our Creator can." 

ICR