Papal Notes - NYT & Wine of Babylon

With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

Revelation 17:2

 

"Even though Pope Francis’ climate change encyclical, Laudato Si’, promotes Sunday as the day of rest in Section #237, this is nothing new. Sunday is part of the wine of Babylon, and this is what Pope Francis has been promoting from day one of his pontificate, even without Laudato Si’.

The New York Times also revealed that Pope Francis is doing what the Evangelicals used to do – promote Sunday rest:

“Pope Francis replies: “Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen to music, play a sport. But this is being destroyed, in large part, by the elimination of the Sabbath rest day. More and more people work on Sundays as a consequence of the competitiveness imposed by a consumer society.” In such cases, he concludes, “work ends up dehumanizing people.” 

“Catholic social teaching is known for promoting the idea that workers deserve dignity, which includes rest. But Pope Francis seems to be saying something more: that an authentically Christian life includes a proper dose of leisure and family time … The idea of a Catholic exalting the Sabbath sounds particularly peculiar in the American context. In the United States, Catholics were never the great proponents of Sabbatarianism, observing Sunday as a special day, for worship or rest. That was a Protestant thing.”

“From the moment the Puritans arrived, they began enforcing laws to reserve Sunday for churchgoing. Over time, what came to be called “blue laws” covered different activities, and varied by state.” 

“But in Catholicism, as Pope Francis suggests, the Sabbath actually is supposed to matter — the whole day, not just Mass.” 

“The Catholic Church has been recovering this teaching at least since 1998, when Pope John Paul II published his apostolic letter “Dies Domini.”  AdventMessenger

IN the NEWS - Cop City under attack... Sign of the Times....

Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior... Romans 1:29

 "I am urging people to come out from the great centers of population. Our cities are increasing in wickedness...." E.G.W.

 

"A protest in downtown Atlanta over a police shooting turned into a

riot on Saturday night, as hooligans attacked the office tower home to the Atlanta Police Foundation, damaged other structures, and torched a police vehicle. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens told reporters police arrested six people -- and some of the ones arrested had explosives. 

The mayhem along famed Peachtree Street -- in the heart of Atlanta's hotel district and right next to the Ritz-Carlton -- sent tourists scattering for safety.  

Masked rioters wearing the all-black uniform favored by Antifa used rocks, hammers, fireworks, and spray paint to lash out at 191 Peachtree, a 50-story office tower that Deloitte and many other tenants also use.....demonstrators railed against Wednesday's fatal police shooting of a protestor who was among others trying to prevent the construction of an 85-acre, $90 million police and fire training facility on the city's southeast side, which protestors have dubbed "Cop City."  

ZeroHedge

Creation Moment 1/23/2023 - Root of Theological Cemeteries

"......within supposed Bible colleges and seminaries. 

The young people expect that these colleges will teach them how to strengthen their faith, but instead they undermine it. Some of these theological seminaries have been nicknamed theological cemeteries: killing the church by degrees. 

And in most cases, pastors and parents are oblivious until their young people leave the church after attending these colleges.

 One of these ‘theological termites’ is physics lecturer Karl Giberson. He is reflexively hostile to Biblical creation and in love with the whole gamut of evolution, from goo to you via the zoo, and was vice-President of BioLogos, which is happy with the idea that Jesus was mistaken about creation. For many years, he taught at the ostensibly evangelical Eastern Nazarene College (ENC), but the problem is far from being isolated, as Giberson gloats:

“Most evangelical colleges teach evolution, albeit quietly, carefully, and often tentatively, although there are exceptions. … Those of us teaching evolution at evangelical colleges are made to feel as if we have this subversive secret we must whisper quietly in our students’ ears: ‘Hey, did you know that Adam and Eve were not the first humans and never even existed? And that you can still be a Christian and believe that?’”

Notice how insidious they are: just as real termites avoid the light, these theological termites undermine the Bible under the radar, in case they lose support. If the secret got out, then why would parents pay $40,000 per year to ENC? If they are to be indoctrinated in evolution, then why not at a secular university for a fraction of the price? 

 

At least with the secular university, the students would know what to expect." CMI

Parents Anguish

Adam, which was the son of God. Luke 3:38

".....anguished parents (and grandparents) lamenting that their children

now reject the faith in which they were raised. 

If you too are a parent with this same angst, 

---I remind you that Adam and Eve failed even with the best possible raising from God Himself, as well as enjoying perfect health and living in paradise. 

---And Judas Iscariot remained unsaved despite three years with the best teacher ever: Jesus Himself." CMI

The "Really" File - (M&M's--Really?)

 .....inventors of evil things.... Romans 1:30

 

"The confectionery giant Mars announced a revamp to their product line M&M, in order to give them a “fresh, modern take on the looks of our beloved characters and more nuanced personalities to underscore the importance of self-expression and power of community through storytelling” along with an “updated tone of voice that is more inclusive, welcoming, and unifying, while remaining rooted in our signature jester wit and humor.”

 

They’ve recently unveiled limited edition packaging for their famous

From the "Really" File

treats, featuring an all-female cast of candies. 

 

The packages will only have green, brown, and purple M&M’s, with the green and brown candies representing a lesbian couple and the purple representing ‘body positivity’, which is coded for fat positivity. " Protestia

REALLY? 

Creation Moment 1/22/2023 - Atheist W.B. Provine is Right

Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. Genesis 5:2

“Belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. 

One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.”

Provine, W.B., “No free will” in Catching up with the Vision, Margaret W. Rossiter (Ed.), Chicago University Press, p. S123, 1999

Deep Thought for Contemplation: Romans 2:13

For not the hearers of the law are just before 

God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

Romans 2:13

hmmmm....

Creation Moment 1/21/2023 - So True.....

 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

Colossians 1:17

 

"The struggle for life and elimination of the weakest is a horrible
process, against which our whole modern ethics revolts. An ideal society is a non-selective society, one where the weak is protected; which is exactly the reverse of the so-called natural law. I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea that this is the process which God, more or less, set up in order to have evolution."

Jacques Monod, 1976

Catholic Press Admitted It in 1900

If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.  Isaiah 58:13, 14

“Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles … From beginning to end of Scripture, there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first.” (Catholic Press, August 25, 1900).

Creation Moment 1/20/2023 - Darwin was the face that launched a thousand spaceships

This their way is their folly... Psalm 39:14

"The NASA Astrobiology Institute was born in 1998 after the Mars

meteorite scandal. It has a budget of $65 million per year. 

The goal of the new scheme was to attract as many dreamers in the public as possible who would vote for more NASA funding. NASA never had to pay interest on these investments, because it was all based on hope and imagination of possibilities.

 

It was a giant Ponzi scheme, no better than the FTX scandal where Sam Bankman-Fried teased ordinary people to put their savings into his crypto exchange, except NASA’s scheme is worse. Investing in SBF’s scheme was voluntary, but the US government confiscates millions of citizens’ tax dollars by force and gives it to NASA for astrobiological projects with no accountability. 

Astrobiologists can look busy and work on irrelevant projects but

never have to produce the goods: evidence for extraterrestrial life..... how do they gauge the success of astrobiology or origin-of-life projects? It’s an open-ended dream with no end game except for actually finding life that might have “emerged” by materialistic processes. 

If there is no life beyond earth, they could keep the scheme going forever, never having to deliver their ROI, until they have looked under every rock on Mars and explored every quadrant of every presumed ocean under the crust of icy moons like Europa and Enceladus. 

 

Most citizens who had invested their trust in NASA’s tease will be long dead before the schemers have to concede the probable truth: there is no other life in our solar system. 

Q: What then? 

A: The scammers can just carry on the search among thousands of exoplanets being discovered.

 

There is hope for a collapse of this Ponzi scheme. NASA tried it before with SETI. Carl Sagan, the 1980s-era scam artist, teased the public with his Cosmos series, dreaming that “there might be a million planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone that are at this moment inhabited by other intelligent beings.” (Note to Neil deGrasse Tyson, the scheme’s successor: his “extraordinary claim” still lacks “extraordinary evidence.”) 

After scrutiny by Congress, especially William Proxmire’s “Golden Fleece” award given to the SETI pushers, NASA dropped SETI and the alien hunters had to raise their own money. 

 

But without any “bio” in astrobiology, it reduces to astrology—a pseudoscience built on a worldview.  

Charles Darwin was the face that launched a thousand spaceships, when he teased that life might have emerged in a “warm little pond.” CEH

Sin as a Business Partnership

"A query may here arise relative to the punishment of sin in the person of Satan. 

Q: If Satan is punished for the sins of the righteous, are not those

sins punished twice, once in the person of Christ, who suffered for our sins, and again in the person of Satan, upon whom they are finally laid? 

A: We answer that the sins of the righteous are no more punished twice than the sins of the wicked. Christ suffered for all alike, just as much for those who will be finally lost, as for those who will be saved. 

---But the lost will all be punished at last for their own sins. The trouble arises from a misapprehension of the position of Christ as our substitute. 

-*-The idea seems to be generally entertained that Christ in His own person suffered all the punishment due to the sins of all the saved, which they would themselves have endured had they been lost. This leaves those who believe in eternal misery to grapple with an insurmountable problem; and it leads to the most ultra Calvinism. 

 

The truth seems rather to be that Christ appeared before the law as an innocent victim to meet in behalf of others the sentence, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." (Ez.18:20). The offering was voluntary, and therefore involved no injustice; 

-it was from one of so exalted a position that God could accept it; 

-and it was of such infinite value that the law could honorably relax its claims from all those who would accept of it, even if all the world should do so. but we have seen from the type that the removal of sin from the penitent did not cancel the sin itself, but only transferred it to some other object. 

 

The forgiveness was relative, not absolute; that is, as related to the sinner it was forgiven, but the sin itself was considered still in existence, to be disposed of in some other way. 

Christ has done for us in fact what the ancient offering did for the sinner in figure; 

that is, He has provided a medium through which sin with its guilt may be removed from us and transferred to some other party. Thus we can be saved, but the sin must meet its just desert in some other quarter. 

 

Sin may therefore be represented as a partnership business. 

Satan is the senior party,

 the sinner the junior. 

The latter, having been seduced into that position, is allowed, under certain conditions, to leave the company and step out from under the obligations of the business. 

Q: Upon whom then will they fall? 

A: Upon the only remaining member of the firm, the instigator of the whole business, the senior partner, Satan. 

---If the sinner chooses to maintain the partnership in that illegitimate business, he can do so, and receive in his own person at last the punishment of his deeds. But it is in his power, if he so desires, to leave his present relation, unite himself to Christ, and leave his former business with him who is primarily responsible for it.

 
***And this is what we are taught by the doctrine of the scape-goat. 

The sinner goes free, and Satan receives the sins he has incited the sinner to commit back upon his own head, to answer therefor in the settlement which he at last must meet." Uriah Smith

Creation Moment 1/19/2023 - His Natural Laws tell us.....

Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.

Isaiah 45:8

 

"After the knowledge of, 

and obedience to, 

the will of God, the next aim must be to know something of His attributes of wisdom, power and goodness as evidenced by His handiwork.... It is evident that an acquaintance with natural laws means no less than an acquaintance with the mind of God therein expressed."

 James Prescott Joule (father of thermodynamics,) address to the British Association, 1873

What will lighten the world of a load of crime?

 "The  

destruction of the wicked, 

 the end of death, 

 sin banished, 

it will lighten the world of a load of crime which has made it reel to and fro like a drunkard; the internal fires will have spent their force on all combustible matter, and have gone out that those things that cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire." Heb 12:27-29." 

William Miller

IN the NEWS - MarketWatch pushes Sunday Observance

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. Revelation 18:3

 

"MarketWatch is one of the world’s most influential media sources, providing global financial professionals with stock market statistics, financial and business news. It is a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company, which also owns the Wall Street Journal and created the Dow Jones Industrial Average, one of the three major stock markets in the United States. 

 

On January 16, 2023, MarketWatch joined the growing chorus of support for the increasingly popular message that repealing blue laws has been detrimental to our society.

 

MarketWatch published an article written by Steve Goldstein titled “Deaths of Despair may be Driven by Loss of Religion, New Research Paper Argues” and expressed the following:

“So-called deaths of despair such as from suicide or alcohol abuse have been skyrocketing for middle-aged white Americans. It’s been blamed on various phenomenon, including opioid abuse. But a new research paper finds a different culprit — declining religious practice.” 

“The working paper, from Tyler Giles of Wellesley College, Daniel Hungerman of the University of Notre Dame, and Tamar Oostrom of The Ohio State University, looked at the relationship between religiosity and mortality from deaths of despair. The paper was circulated by the National Bureau of Economic Research.” 

“The authors noted that many measures of religious adherence began to decline in the late 1980s … States that experienced larger declines in religious participation in the last 15 years of the 20th century saw larger increases in deaths of despair.” 

“The researchers looked at the repeal of blue laws in particular. Blue laws limited commerce, typically on Sunday mornings. ‘These laws have been shown to be strongly related to religious practice, creating discrete changes in incentives to attend religious services that are plausibly unrelated to other drivers of religiosity,’ they said.” 

“The repeal of blue laws had a 5- to 10-percentage-point impact on weekly attendance of religious services, and increased the rate of deaths of despair by 2 deaths per 100,000 people, they found — accounting for a reasonably large share of the initial rise in the deaths of despair.” 

Theories are being created and circulated to prove that the repeal of Sunday laws in the United States is killing people. So-called experts are saying that society is destroying itself ever since the Blue Laws were repealed." AdventMessenger

SDA Issues: An Embarrassment to the Church

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

Jeremiah 17:9

 

"Taking time off from defending partial birth abortions, Congressman Sheila Jackson Lee, D. from Texas just introduced a

bill that could make criticism of non-white individuals by whites a federal crime.

Lee, a nominal Seventh-day Adventist was allowed to address the audience at the 2015 GC Session in San Antonio. The woman is so blinded by racial hatred she should never be allowed near an Adventist meeting.

Lee was voted the meanest person in Congress several times (I wonder if that is now a hate crime?) More importantly, maybe her being mean to people is a hate crime? But back to H.R. 61, Lee’s latest congressional bill.

In what can only be called a convoluted mess, the H.R 61 bill proposes that a white person who “vilifies” any non-white person and has their words end up on social media, accessible by “persons who are predisposed to engaging in any action in furtherance of a white supremacy inspired hate crime,” would themselves be committing a federal crime.

The provision is so broad that you could drive a John Deere tractor through it. What is a “white supremacy-inspired hate crime” under this statute? How is “replacement theory” defined? Because what Democrats call “replacement theory” as a way to silence Republicans is often not replacement theory at all but is just a

reiteration of Democrat-admitted aims to use immigration to influence elections.

Further, the use of “or” in section (B) is important because it leaves “vilifies” as a stand-alone qualifier. What is the limiting principle there? If I post on social media that Shelia Jackson Lee is an ignorant individual (who once said that the U.S. Constitution is 400 years old (it’s 235 years old)), and an abusive person who has a long history of treating her staff like dirt, does that mean I’ve “vilified” her under this proposed law? It would certainly seem so.

This law, if it were to pass, would be used to quash valid criticism against any non-white person or group (the Black Lives Matter organization, for example) because such criticism could leave those making it liable to federal charges. Forgetting that such would be a blatant breach of the First Amendment, it also exposes a wild totalitarian desire by Lee and those who think like her." Fulcrum7

Creation Moment 1/18/2023 - Brain Whopper

....for I am fearfully and wonderfully made... Psalm 139:14

"Human gene linked to bigger brains was born from seemingly useless DNA (Science Magazine, 5 Jan 2023).

Elizabeth Pennisi probably knows better, but her job requires her to parrot the stupid things that evolutionists say.

 

This tale is a whopper: mistakes in non-coding DNA led to human brains! Accidents caused Einstein, believe it (preferably) not.

Biologists have long known that new protein-coding genes

can arise through the duplication and modification of existing ones. But some protein genes can also arise from stretches of the genome that once encoded aimless strands of RNA instead. How new protein genes surface this way has been a mystery, however.

**Let’s clarify this statement. They call evolutionists “biologists” to give them credibility that is undeserved, as will be shown in a moment. 

Notice that gene duplication is a mistake; it’s as “aimless” as they describe. Everything that follows in their scenario—the processes that led to humans with big brains—is due ultimately to mistakes. Also notice that they couch evolution’s Myth of Progress in innocent-sounding words like arise, surface, endow, emerge, role, and step. Oh, but there is vast “potential” in a sea of mistakes! It’s possible, isn’t it? Mistakes might have “played a role” in the heavy dose of Darwin Flubber that made humans “emerge.”

Now, a study identifies mutations that transform seemingly useless DNA sequences into potential genes by endowing their encoded RNA with the skill to escape the cell nucleus—a critical step toward becoming translated into a protein. The study’s authors highlight 74 human protein genes that appear to have arisen in this de novo way—more than half of which emerged after the human lineage branched off from chimpanzees. Some of these newcomer genes may have played a role in the evolution of our relatively large and complex brains.

You can stop listening to their story right now. If one were to believe their tale, it would undermine itself. 

Q: Why? 

A: Because their beliefs would be built on a long series of accidents, with no anchor in truth or goodness. Cue sound of implosion.

 

Q: How long will reasonable people put up with Toxic Mass Darwinity."

CEH

Most Abused Text

"Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. MATTHEW XXIV.34,35. 

THIS text has, in my opinion, been more abused than any other text in the whole word of God. It has been misunderstood, and perverted to support doctrines diametrically opposite to many of the most important truths revealed in the holy Scriptures. 

On the one hand, it has been used to prevent many from believing in the future coming of Jesus Christ; and others have made it a pillar for the sentiment of universal salvation;

The word "fulfil" signifies to perform, accomplish, complete, or finish. This is the primary meaning of the word. And it is evident that our Savior had this meaning; 

The strict and literal meaning of the word generation is, children of one common parent, and is applied to many things, such as classes of like nature, or sprouts from the same root; cattle from the same stock; the human race from the same common parent; all men living at a certain age, being the children of that age; children of one family, because they were all from one parent; children of God.....Also, the Jews are called a generation, because they are the children of Abraham. The wicked are called a generation, because they are the children of the devil..... Christ to mean, by "generation," the race of Adam: the human family will not pass off the earth until Christ comes in the clouds. 

 

Q: WHAT IS THE MEANING OF "HEAVEN AND EARTH PASSING AWAY."?

Peter, in showing the consummation of the present heavens and earth, has taught us how to reason in this case. 2Pet.iii.5: For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water.

Q: Who are ignorant? 

A: The scoffers. 

Q: Why are they ignorant? 

A:  Because they are willingly so.

But the heavens and the earth which are now. - showing that there had been heavens and an earth before, - by the same word are kept in store, - by the same power, and in a similar manner, kept, - reserved unto fire  against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." vs.7.

Q: How is it possible that false teachers can deceive
people who have a Bible, and can read? 

If we will be ignorant, notwithstanding the plainness and simplicity of God's word, then, if we perish, our blood will be upon our own heads.  

The passing away of the heavens and earth, then, is to be by fire, as it was by water. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of man." 

William Miller

Creation Moment 1/17/2023 - Hummingbirds are "mistakes"?

....and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:21

"Have evolutionists no shame? 

They can take any creature, no matter
how beautiful, skillful or talented, and turn it into an accident of nature. What does this do to one’s enjoyment of natural wonders? Let’s all sing like the hummingbirdies sing: Hmmmmm.

 

Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly forward, backward and sideways, and hover motionless in mid-air. As ....their tongues are designed to quickly harvest nectar from flowers in 1/20th of a second, thousands of times a day. 

 

Can anyone believe that a random mutation, without foresight or plan, resulted in the beautiful, acrobatic hummingbirds so admired by almost everyone? Some evolutionary biologists say so, and reporter by Stephanie Mayer-Bömoser had no problem relaying their speculations without asking any hard questions.  

 

Hummingbirds, they say, are mistakes. 

According to their Darwinian speculation, this first mutation started them on a path of progress. 

 

In addition to the loss of the FBP2 gene, other important

genomic changes probably occurred in hummingbirds. Several other genes that play important roles in sugar metabolism exhibit amino acid changes in hummingbirds, likely because of directed selection. “The relevance of changes in these genes for evolutionary adaptations in hummingbird metabolism needs to be clarified by further studies and experiments,” Hiller said.

There it is again: futureware brings job security for storytellers."  

CEH