Puritan Corner - Funeral of Our Sorrows

We spend our years with sighing; it is a valley of tears; but death is the funeral of all our sorrows.

by Thomas Watson (1620-1686)

...but the dead know not any thing,...Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 9:5,6

Q & A on "Tongues" SERIES....5

From Steps To Life....
The tongues movement is bringing divergent religions into harmony, and could be paving the way for a united effort to enforce the mark of the Beast.

Q: At Pentecost, did the apostles speak in languages or in unknown tongues?

A: ...because that every man heard them speak in his own language. Acts 2:6

Papal Notes - Prayed to who?... & for what?

Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods.... 2 Kings 22:17

"Pope Francis noted that today the Church celebrates the feast of St. Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church and co-patron of Italy and of Europe.

As he had done earlier at the daily Mass, he prayed to St. Catherine
---for protection during the pandemic,
---and for the unity of Europe."
VaticanRadio

IN the NEWS - Denying the Lord...by Turning to Mary

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, even denying the Lord that bought them....
2 Peter 2:1

"The Catholic bishops of the United States and Canada are joining forces in re-consecrating their nations to the Blessed Virgin Mary, asking her to intercede in the battle being waged against the coronavirus global pandemic."
Lifesite

Creation Moment 4/30/2020 - Contrasting Worldviews

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness... Genesis 1:26

"A creationist worldview begins with our Creator.
When one
----views the world as the handiwork of a good God,

----and humans as beings who have worth because they are made in His image,
*that has implications for literally every area of life.

The evolutionary worldview, however, is so bleak that evolutionists must continually borrow from the creationist worldview.
Otherwise humans are worth no more than beetles because evolution says we’re descended from a common ancestor. Alternately, one could argue from evolution that some humans are better than others, and we can see the horrors of 20^th century eugenics as an example of where that leads."
CMI

IN the NEWS - Under a Self Promoting "Spell"

Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. 1 Peter 2:13

"Tony Spell, Pastor of Life Tabernacle Church continued his streak of openly defying state orders to shut down his church services by holding his regularly scheduled in-person services inside his

Church building on Sunday, despite being under house arrest and despite a judge ordering that he stay at home and not leave his house.

After he was accused of trying to run over a protester. Spell was charged with aggravated assault and another misdemeanor, a charge punishable by up to 6 months in jail or a $1000 fine, or both.

A video of the ankle bracelet being put on was uploaded on Spell’s Youtube page."
P&P

Q & A on "Tongues" SERIES....4

From Steps To Life....
The tongues movement is bringing divergent religions into harmony, and could be paving the way for a united effort to enforce the mark of the Beast.

1 John 4:1 says, “Test the spirits, whether they are of God.”
Q: How can we test tongues?

A: To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 8:20

SDA Issues - Ecumenicalism DEFINED Properly

And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Revelation 12:17

"Amid the COVID-19 crisis that has devastated Italy and decimated its economy, the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Italy has announced that the coronavirus has delayed one of its 2020

ecumenical activities with Catholics and Evangelicals. The official website of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Italy published on April 10, 2020 that the annual ecumenical “Bible Marathon” was canceled due to COVID-19.

The Bible Marathon consists of Biblical readings in different churches. During the marathon, Seventh-day Adventists run to the Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical churches, read certain passages from the Bible and obtain the signatures of different clergymen. All of this is done in the name of interfaith cooperation and unity.

But any marathon or church project that takes me into the arms of Rome to embrace the Pope’s representative is not Biblical. It is one thing when church leaders engage in interfaith activities; but it is a completely different situation when we use our children to pursue these relationships.

Ecumenism is about being at peace

with the dragon, the beast and its image.

 

How can someone who bears the name of Seventh-day Adventist, a name that is a striking rebuke to those churches that presume to have changed God’s law, work to have a common witness with them?"
AdventMessenger

--WARNING-- to the "Shepherds"

Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD.... Ezekiel 37:4

"In this fearful time, just before Christ is to come the second time,

God's faithful preachers will have to bear a still more pointed testimony than was borne by John the Baptist.
A responsible, important work is before them; and those who speak smooth things, God will not acknowledge as His shepherds."
Testimonies For The Church vol.1,p.321 E.G.W.  

Creation Moment 4/29/2020 - Answer to Darwin's Question

"One of the most significant gaps, actually a chasm, between modern humans and their putative common ancestor is mind, often generally called human consciousness.

The research reveals an unbridgeable chasm

exists between animal and human minds.

Darwin’s Origin “contains only one reference to the brain in the form of the rhetorical question:
Q: ‘Why should the brain be enclosed in a box composed of such numerous and such extraordinarily shaped pieces of bone?’”
A: So God created man in his own image,... Genesis 1:27
CEH/Bergman

Q & A on "Tongues" SERIES....3

From Steps To Life....
The tongues movement is bringing divergent religions into harmony, and could be paving the way for a united effort to enforce the mark of the Beast.

The spiritual gifts (“fire”) in Revelation 13 bring a kind of unity,

but they are counterfeit, for they result in efforts to cause all to worship the Beast.

Q: Can Satan counterfeit the gift of tongues by speaking through people?

A: And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us?
I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.
And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him....And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.
Mark 1:23,24,26

Pillsbury's Prayer – April 26, 1877

....have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer. Psalm 4:1

"This week marks the anniversary of when Minnesota Governor

John S. Pillsbury had his state observe a day of prayer in response to a plague of grasshoppers.

For much of the 1870s, Minnesota experienced large swarms of grasshoppers, which threatened the livelihoods of its farmers as they consumed hundreds of thousands of acres of crops.

As part of the response to the plague, Pillsbury called for a day of prayer and paid for the construction of a chapel 

the "Grasshopper" Chapel still stands

out of his own pocket.

While the call to prayer had its share of contemporary critics, by the summer of that year, the grasshopper swarms had moved away from the state.

“Many attributed the end of the grasshopper plague to divine intervention, since Governor Pillsbury had proclaimed April 26 a day of prayer, after receiving many requests to do so,” explained the Minnesota Historical Society."
CP

The "Really" File - (Those Sons Of Japheth)

The sons of Japheth... Genesis 10:2

"The Danish Bible Society has dismissed reports that its new Bible translation omits several mentions of Israel, substituting it for words such as "us" and “the Jews,"....

Other references to Israel were changed to refer to all readers or all of humanity. For example, The Times of Israel notes that in the new translation the word Israel in the verse “He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” was changed to “us.”

The Danish Bible Society said the translation was aimed at readers who lack a religious background, with various words being rendered differently.

“For instance, it does not use the usual Danish words for sin, 

From the "Really" File

grace, mercy, covenant and many other typically biblical words, which an average Danish reader would not be familiar with the meaning of,” they said.

Some critics, however, responded by saying that other ancient places with modern equivalents, like Egypt, were not changed in the translation to clarify their context." CP

REALLY?

Creation Moment 4/28/2020 - Hear Greenland's Testimony to a Young Earth

If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. Mark 7:16

"Glacier Girl and the lost squadron in Greenland were buried 75 meters under the ice in only 50 years. Even if this observed accumulation rate is too high (roughly 4-5 feet per year) as a worldwide generalization for an average glacier, glaciers aren't

millions of years old. 

The Lost Squadron moved three miles towards to ocean in only 50 years. This is an average of 316 feet per year. The "old" ice would calve off as an iceberg in a very short time, being replaced by fresh ice upslope. So why are the ice cores being treated as gazzillions of years old? How fast do other large glaciers flow to the sea, even in Antarctica?

Even climate change fanatics admit that earth was up to 15 degrees warmer and had up to 40,000 ppm of carbon dioxide in the past according to their (incorrect) evolutionary world view.

Q: So why didn't the poles and glaciers all melt in extended warm periods in the past?
We observed the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods with wheat and grapes being grown in Greenland, etc. Could even massive glaciers survive under such conditions for possibly thousands of years?
A: Nope."
Nathan G. 2/2/20/CMI

Q & A on "Tongues" SERIES....2

From Steps To Life....
The tongues movement is bringing divergent religions into harmony, and could be paving the way for a united effort to enforce the mark of the Beast.

Q: At Pentecost, what group received “fire from heaven,” and what did it cause them to do?

A: And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Acts 2:1-4

1st Day of the Week in Scripture

"In the beginning, the first day was employed by God in the work

of creation. Gen. 1:1-5.
Throughout all the Old Testament history it was one of  the six working days. Eze. 46:1.
Throughout the New Testament it continues to be one of the six working days.
It was the day of Christ's resurrection; and Inspiration says specifically that "the Sabbath was past" when that "first day of the week" came. Mark 16:1, 2.
Inspiration called this first day merely by the ordinary secular name in common business use, with never a suggestion of attaching any sacredness to the day."
W.A.Spicer

IN the NEWS - 2 sisters die from pandemics 102 years apart

"Selma Esther Ryan died last week from coronavirus at an assisted living facility in Austin, Texas.
She was 96 years old.
Her older sister, Esther, died at the age of 5 from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic."
CP
Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
Lamentations 3:19

Conflict & Triumph Sermon SERIES by Walter Veith

Conflict & Triumph Sermon SERIES

(by Walter Veith)

  And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

Revelation 14:8

 PEARLS OF TRUTH
https://www.youtube.com/embed/3Q7r93Y09a0
LIGHT UPON THE PATH
https://www.youtube.com/embed/__Pwid-s6rQ

Babylon Is Fallen Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OjQYpMWGRa8

Babylon Is Fallen Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/embed/XpbAk0ucwvI
THE CHARACTER OF GOD ON TRIAL  
https://www.youtube.com/embed/iUI96jeDQH0

Tephra & the Post Flood Ice Age

And the waters returned from off the earth continually... Genesis 8:3

"Uniformitarians are assigning far too much time to the deep ice cores of Antarctica and Greenland. Since the ice sheets started

forming during the post-Flood Ice Age, these ice sheets can be no more than 4,500 years old.... yet uniformitarian scientists routinely assign six-figure ages to those cores.

Because of low snowfall, visible (and countable) layers are generally not preserved in the deep Antarctic cores.
Hence uniformitarians rely on age-depth models which assume the heights of the ice sheets have been constant or nearly constant for vast ages.

Science popularizer and creation opponent Bill Nye recently highlighted (surely unwittingly!) evidence that presumed ‘annual’ layers within the Greenland ice sheet are not necessarily annual after all. Ironically, this evidence, which involved tephra (volcanic ash and debris), was featured in a recent documentary which

denigrated creation science.

Likewise, in 2010 glaciologists described three layers of tephra discovered within the deepest parts of the Vostok and EPICA Dome C cores.
These are thought to be the oldest volcanic deposits ever found within the ice cores.
One layer was located at a depth of 2,632 m (assigned age of 358 ka) within the EPICA Dome C (EDC) core.
Three others were identified in the Vostok ice core. One was located at a depth of 3,288 m (assigned age of 406 ka). Two were located about a few centimeters apart from one another at a depth of 3,311 m (assigned age of 414 ka).
However, the scientists thought that these two were actually the same tephra layer that had been folded by movement of the ice.

The scientists noted the apparent infrequency of tephra layers within the deepest core sections:

“A striking feature emerging from our study is that the

frequency of visible tephra in the Vostok and EDC cores decreases dramatically in the ice older than ca 220 ka. The last [i.e. most recent] 220- ka sections of both records contain about a dozen discrete tephra layers while only one event is identified at EDC and two at Vostok in the interval 220–414 ka, encompassing more than two complete climate cycles. Tephra layers even disappear from 414 to 800 ka, i.e. the bottom of the EDC core.”

They noted that this ‘dramatic’ drop in visible tephra layers was also apparent in the deep Dome Fuji core. Although dozens of tephra layers were visible in the upper part of the core, only two such tephra layers were visible in the deep part of the Dome Fuji core, thought to represent the time from 230,000 to 700,000 years ago.
Because the Dome Fuji core is about 1,500 to 2,000 km from the Vostok and Dome C cores, they concluded that the dearth of visible tephra layers was not an artefact but a ‘regional pattern’.
Although they acknowledged that not all volcanic eruptions necessarily deposit tephra on the ice sheets, and that not all tephra layers are preserved, they concluded that “these factors likely act

randomly at the long timescale of our observations, and were hardly responsible for the systematic absence of old volcanic layers at the different drilling sites”.
They also concluded that the lack of visible tephra layers could not be blamed on thinning of the ice deep within the cores, nor could it be explained by changes in atmospheric transport of aerosols during the Pleistocene.

They concluded that this apparent decrease in tephra frequency might be due to less intense volcanic activity in the South Sandwich Islands in the distant past.
However, this would require greatly reduced volcanic activity. In the case of the Dome Fuji core, ~500,000 years would have elapsed with no apparent tephra fallout!

Of course, the creation model provides another possibility. Because uniformitarian age-depth models (incorrectly) assign vast ages to the greatest depths of the long Antarctic cores, this results in an apparent decrease in the frequency of tephra layers at

greater core depths. Of course, this is exactly what is observed.
In fact, when the tephra layers are plotted as a function of depth, rather than time, the spacing between the deepest tephra layers is not nearly as pronounced, although tephras are generally still absent from the very deepest core sections.
Heavy snowfall early in the post-Flood Ice Age, with decreasing snowfall at later times, might cause volcanic eruptions to appear somewhat less frequent at the greatest depths. It may be that this observed pattern is the result of both factors."
CMI

IN the NEWS - 100 More....

But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.
Genesis 13:3

"At least 100 former students, medical patients and church members have come forward with new allegations that they were sexually abused years ago.

Many are victims of known sex offenders -- pedophile priests, doctors and teachers.
But at least five ex-Punahou girls basketball players -- including MMA champ Ilima-Lei MacFarlane and former University of Hawaii women’s basketball standout Shawna-Lei Kuehu -- are raising new sex abuse allegations against their former coach Dwayne Yuen.
Attorneys said the lawsuits are just the tip of the iceberg.
“I know (that) for a fact, because I’ve talked to people who are still out there and are still undecided about coming forward," said attorney Randall Rosenberg.
“Some of the conduct is so reprehensible that you wouldn’t believe someone of the clergy would do it. But unfortunately, we’ve seen it over and over again," said attorney Mark Gallagher who represents dozens of victims.
Bishop Larry Silva acknowledged the lawsuits at a recent Sunday mass. "I cannot tell you how it turns my stomach to read of the abuse these people have suffered, and not only that, but how their faith was damaged," said Silva.
Lawyers said that many of these new cases will go to mediation and not to a courtroom because the accused priest, teacher or doctor is a known offender."
Tracker

Creation Moment 4/27/2020 - So Much for their Precious "Peer Review" in "science"

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Jeremiah 17:9

"....Unfortunately, despite being published in a peer reviewed secular journal as a fossil spider, it most definitely is not.

Published in Acta Geologica Sinica the research team examined it under a microscope, described it in detail, photographed it and drew a diagram of what they thought was a large netted spider. Due to a number of features, including longer legs than other spiders in its supposed genus, the researchers named the new species Mongolarachne chaoyangensis. While the paper gave no details of how the fossil was obtained, they stated it was from the Liaoning Province of China.

Thankfully, the ‘spidey senses’ of invertebrate paleontologist Paul Selden of the University of Kansas, started tingling when he saw a picture of the fossil. Selden explained,

“The paper had very few details, so my colleagues in Beijing borrowed the specimen from the people in the Southern University, and I got to look at it. Immediately, I realized there was something wrong with it – it clearly wasn’t a spider. It was missing various parts, had too many segments in its six legs, and huge eyes.”

Helped by a friend, he discovered that crayfish are found in the same formation that the spider allegedly came from. Selden said,

“I realized what happened … was I got a very badly preserved crayfish onto which someone had painted on some legs.”

The crayfish was tentatively identified as a Cricoidoscelosus aethus.

The original paper specifically states that it was examined under an Olympus SZX12 dissecting microscope, and the technical language

used clearly shows that the scientists had a good understanding of spider anatomy (unless they were faking it!) so they should have been able to identify the fake.
Interestingly Seldon was himself presented with a modified spider fossil earlier in his own career, “Cretadiplura ceara … from the Cretaceous Crato Formation of Brazil, in which additional portions of the right walking legs were added using wax crayon”.

One important point that this discovery raises is the staggering quantity of fake fossils that have been created in the past and are still being produced. While there are the well-known historic Piltdown Man (1912) and more recent Archaeoraptor (1999) hoaxes, there are many for sale and on display in museums that will never be exposed.

A staggering report by Science (2010) also found that, “One paleontologist estimates that more than 80% of marine reptile specimens now on display in Chinese museums have been, ‘altered or artificially combined to varying degrees’.” There are also numerous websites highlighting that:

“… over the last three decades, a thriving side-industry has grown up around trilobites – one where craftsmen often working in rural outposts in far-away lands, basically manufacture their own ‘brand’ of fossils from glue, plastic, rubber … or just about any other reliably pliable compound on which they can lay their artistically inclined hands. Such practices have become an accepted part of some trilobite transactions, especially those stemming from the paleontological hotbed of Morocco”.

The above information gives cause for concern in the fossil industry.
The peer review process is not foolproof, even when it comes to the simple description and classification of a fossil, never mind the evolutionary worldview that is then normally imposed on top of it."
CMI

Q & A on "Tongues" SERIES....1

From Steps To Life....
The tongues movement is bringing divergent religions into harmony, and could be paving the way for a united effort to enforce the mark of the Beast.

Q: How will religious leaders of the United States deceive

“those who dwell on the earth” into making an image to the Beast?

A: And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast... Revelation 13:13,14

SDA NEWS - AdventistHealth Breaks Sabbath before the Public

Warn every soul that is in danger. Leave none to deceive themselves. Call sin by its right name. Declare what God has said in regard to lying, Sabbathbreaking, stealing, idolatry, and every other evil. “They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Galatians 5:21.
(Desire of Ages, pp. 805 E.G.W. ).

"Church services are closed in California, but Seventh-day Adventists may sponsor races on the Sabbath.
AdventistHealth in Bakersfield, California is sponsoring a race on the Lord’s Sabbath. This is a public violation against the 4th Commandment of God.

---They are doing this in the eyes of the world.---

The local media is promoting their 24-mile race, which will take place over a 48-hour period and will run through the Sabbath hours.
*What makes this event even worse is that you have to donate money to participate in the desecration of the Lord’s Sabbath. Breaking God’s commandments is no longer free. Now you have to pay to play on Saturday.
They will run 2 miles every 4 hours starting on Friday night (Sabbath) and throughout Saturday.
Q: Do we have to raise money by breaking the Sabbath and encouraging others to do so?"
AdventMessenger

Christian Standards Sermon SERIES by Stephen Bohr

Christian Standards Sermon SERIES

(by Stephen Bohr)

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

1 John 2:15

The Ripple Principle  

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fbAezrDks2s?list=PLIWJyuxBfZ7iBuPqORU4SV2RV1C0Muern

Deadly White Lies  

https://www.youtube.com/embed/iZljNFIfIT4?list=PLIWJyuxBfZ7iBuPqORU4SV2RV1C0Muern

Love Not The World

https://www.youtube.com/embed/8fk0MxzqjHs?list=PLIWJyuxBfZ7iBuPqORU4SV2RV1C0Muern

The Mixed Multitude

https://www.youtube.com/embed/mDxgCWb7prQ?list=PLIWJyuxBfZ7iBuPqORU4SV2RV1C0Muern

Unfaithful Mammon

https://www.youtube.com/embed/NKQ5cCjhx4Q?list=PLIWJyuxBfZ7iBuPqORU4SV2RV1C0Muern

Faithful Unto Death

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2IiHfBsyLOc?list=PLIWJyuxBfZ7iBuPqORU4SV2RV1C0Muern

Strange Fire  

https://www.youtube.com/embed/1ASiwQ1xIz4?list=PLIWJyuxBfZ7iBuPqORU4SV2RV1C0Muern

The Mind Manipulators

https://www.youtube.com/embed/iWuNxS6yJyA?list=PLIWJyuxBfZ7iBuPqORU4SV2RV1C0Muern

The Power of Music

https://www.youtube.com/embed/do56dK9TapI?list=PLIWJyuxBfZ7iBuPqORU4SV2RV1C0Muern

Are Christian Standards for Puritans?  

https://www.youtube.com/embed/yFPVHUOeVv4?list=PLIWJyuxBfZ7iBuPqORU4SV2RV1C0Muern

Dividing Line of the Grave Points to a Pre-Advent Judgment

"The trump of God sounds as the Savior descends from heaven.

When that trump is heard,
---all the righteous are, in the twinkling of an eye, changed to immortality.
---There can be no examination after this to determine whether they shall be counted worthy of eternal life, for they will then have already laid hold upon it.

From this it follows that the examination and decision of the cases of the righteous takes place before the advent of Christ.

--*--The resurrection of the righteous to immortality is decisive proof that they have then already passed the test of the judgment, and have been accepted of the Judge.
That they are thus raised to immortality the following texts plainly teach:-
So also is the resurrection of the dead.
It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption;
it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory;
it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power;
it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.
There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
Behold, I show you a mystery:
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
1Cor.14:42-44. 51, 52."
J.N.Andrews

Sabbath Independence

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...
Genesis 2:2,3

"The Sabbath truth is independent of any heathen institutions and has been perpetuated only through the line of God's chosen people. The seven-day week was God's own division.
Such a week has been
--unaffected by calendar changes,
--nor can its origin be con­nected with the planets!"
A.W. Werline

The bull Tnam Sanctam

....and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows.
Daniel 7:20

"The bull Tnam Sanctam,' which has been so much discussed,

explains that Christ is the Head of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and that St. Peter and his successors, to whom the Lord has entrusted all His sheep, are His representatives.

Referring to Luke 22:38, the bull says further that there are two swords within the power of the church, the spiritual and the material sword.
----The latter is drawn for the church,
----the former by the church; this one by the hands of the priests, the other by the hand of kings and warriors, but according to the will of the priests and only as they allow it."
Ministry1935

IN the NEWS - Monstrance Idolatry

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,... Exodus 20:4

"Auxiliary Bishop David G. O’Connell of Los Angeles climbed a high summit in the San Gabriel Valley April 23 to bless the most populous counties of Southern California and beyond during this

pandemic.

O’Connell, who oversees the San Gabriel pastoral region of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, invoked the power of God “to bring us out from the darkness of the pandemic to the light of the Lord’s glory.”

The evening began with the rosary and continued with canticles of praise and ended with the bishop’s blessing of the four corners of Southern California as he held up the monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament." CRUX

SDA NEWS - Cyber Attack on It Is Written

If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. John 15:18

"It Is Written’s virtual, online evangelist series was hit by a major cyber attack as it opened on April 17.

The cyber attack was described as being targeted and malicious.
John Bradshaw, speaker/director for It Is Written, said that although the ministry was not hacked, the ministry’s main media platform was unable to perform.
Viewers were shifted to alternate platforms and the series has continued."
Newsbriefs

Creation Moment 4/26/2020 - Pre-Darwin: de Maillet & de Fontenelle

Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea further; though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it. Ecclesiastes 8:17

"Belief in deep time and an evolutionary process grew in late 17^th-century and 18^th-century France.
There were a number of reasons for this:
---growing religious struggles,
---political unrest,
---and interest in non-Christian religions from ancient Greece, Egypt, and the Indian Sub-continent.

During the middle of the 18^th century there was also growing agitation for revolution, but suppression by the powers of State and Church only encouraged the revolution. Undermining the scriptural account of creation and the Flood arguably became part of the process of undermining the existing order, although that may not have been the initial or full motivation.

Initially they sought to separate science from religious authority through the application of Cartesian philosophy.
* But de Maillet attempted to establish belief in billions of years of change through appeals to Hinduism and human speculation.

* Bernard de Fontenelle’s (1657–1757) position at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris influenced the development of

geological science in France through the early 18^th century. Fontenelle, who was trained by Jesuits at the Collège de Bourbon, wrote a book in 1686 that was arguably a work of science fiction, entitled Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes).
This was in the form of a dialogue between two people and discussed space travel and the possibility of life on the moon and other planets. It also introduced consideration of developments over long periods of time, and, as Stott suggests, opened up the French imagination and ideas for a century thereafter.
By writing it in the form of science fiction he could avoid the charge of heresy. In the Preface he spoke of the influence of Cicero, and that if challenged by the Catholic authorities on the suggestion that he believed men lived on the moon he would deny that they were men.

* Benoît de Maillet (1656–1738), who was well connected in French society. Through his work as a French diplomat he had opportunity to travel widely in the Middle East and studied the Egyptian pyramids, ancient pagan philosophies and Eastern religions.

Officially he reported to the king’s ministers, but secretly worked to undermine acceptance of the Biblical Flood arguing that the earth was of the order of two billion years old.
He had opportunity to read Fontenelle’s Conversations and other scientific papers while travelling, and later Fontenelle offered him encouragement to expand the work. But while Fontenelle had argued along Cartesian lines in his Histoires, de Maillet also appealed to the beliefs of Hinduism to justify his estimation of the antiquity of the earth.
The major work of de Maillet was presented for publication in Paris in 1735, although draft copies had circulated in Paris as early as 1718 with gossip concerning its contents spreading through Parisian society.
It was finally published in the French language in 1748 by a printer in Holland. This was several years after his death.
This publication was under a thinly veiled pseudonym as Telliamed, or Conversations Between an Indian Philosopher and a French Missionary on the Diminution of the Sea, and the Origin of Men and Animals. Telliamed is of course a simple reversal of his name, and this character was given the task of presenting the author’s more radical views.
The work had presented the days of Genesis as long periods of time, but contended for an early theory of evolution where marine animals gradually turned into terrestrial forms as the sea receded. Flying fish became birds, and mermen and mermaids were said to have evolved into men and women.
At face value he presented an early uniformitarian theory, appealing to gradual changes in the earth.
He comments further:

“ … this Globe was neither habitable, not inhabited till many Ages after the Appearance of our first Grounds; that Navigation … [was] not known till long after the Existence of Men; and that after a Beginning … the Progress of Navigation has been so slow, that from that Time till the Building of the Ship found in Sweden [allegedly in a mine 600 feet (183 m) underground], we may reckon an incredible Number of Years, and perhaps the half of the Age of the Earth.”

In unpublished versions he was speaking in terms of 2 Ga for the age of the earth, which correlated with the Hindu view of the world.

The Hindu cyclical periods were first expounded in the Puranic literature that asserted that the universe undergoes a continual cycle of creation, destruction, and recreation. The 12-hour day of Brahma was said to last for 4.32 Ga, during which period the god Brahma, who governs the universe, is awake, followed by a night of similar length. It would seem that broad correlation in his estimates with the Hindu age of the earth was not coincidental."
CMI