SDA News - South Sudan Crises

"Around 1,500 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have taken refuge on the Seventh-day Adventist Church/ADRA compound in South Sudan’s capital of Juba as renewed violence erupted in the city last week." ANN
 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house?
Isaiah 58:7

Creation Moment 7/24/2016 - Mathematical Destruction of Evolution

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen,

 being understood by the things that are made, .... so that they are without excuse:

Romans 1:20

 

"Marcel-Paul ‘Marco’ Schützenberger was a leading scientific researcher who achieved prominence

in several fields. From his research, especially in the area of mathematical analysis of the purported mechanisms of evolution, he increasingly became disenchanted with Darwinism.

Schützenberger openly presented, along with MIT professor Murray Eden, the evidence for the fact that the mathematical probabilities against neo-Darwinism are enormous. He concluded that, as a result of the discovery of genetic coding, scientists have realized that genes are

“ … like a word composed in the DNA alphabet; such words form the genomic text. It is that word that tells the cell to make this or that protein. Either a given protein is structural, or a protein itself works in combination with other signals given by the genome to fabricate yet another protein.”

He stressed that a central evolution postulate is that genes undergo mutations “that may facilitate the reproduction of those individuals carrying it; over time, and with respect to a specific environment, [and these] mutants come to be statistically favored, replacing individuals lacking the requisite mutation[s].” He concluded that

“Evolution could not be an accumulation of such typographical errors. Population geneticists can study the speed with which a favorable mutation propagates itself under these circumstances. They do this with a lot of skill, but these are academic exercises … because none of the parameters that they use can be empirically determined … We know the number of genes in an organism. There are about one hundred thousand for a higher vertebrate … . But this seems grossly insufficient to explain the incredible quantity of information needed to accomplish evolution within a given line of species.”

 MIT Professor Murray Eden agreed with Schützenberger, and

“ … was particularly concerned with the element of randomness which is claimed to provide the mutational variation upon which evolution depends. ‘No currently existing formal language’, he contends, ‘can tolerate random changes in the symbol sequences which express its sentences. Meaning is almost invariably destroyed. Any changes must be syntactically lawful ones’.”

 
Schützenberger also documented the existence of major gaps in the current evolution theory, namely the problem of the enormous number of beneficial random mutations and massive selection that are required for evolution to occur, noting that

“ … it is clear that even on the most schematic models the number of cycles involved is truly enormous. Thus, when we reach the level of 10¹⁰⁰⁰, whether or not we take a few square roots makes little difference.”

 
This is another crucial argument against Darwinism. Anything that was produced by a random process is more likely to be destroyed by the very same process than it is to be improved by further random changes.
This extends the functionality problem ever further. Not only do Darwinists have to produce life by chance, they then have to maintain it over billions of years by the same process.
Schützenberger refers to this problem elsewhere by pointing out that biologists almost universally assume the functionality of life without questioning it, while physicists and the mathematician can see this as a glaring oversight that is fatal to the Darwinian position." CMI
 

SANCTIFICATION: The Battle Within

This is the will of God, your sanctification… 1 Thessalonians 4:3

"There is always a tremendous battle before sanctification is

realized— something within us pushing with resentment against the demands of Christ. When the Holy Spirit begins to show us what sanctification means, the struggle starts immediately.

We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ on this point. We say, “But this is so strict. Surely He does not require that of me.” Our Lord is strict, and He does require that of us."
 Oswald Chambers

 

IN the NEWS - SBC Heresy - LGBTQ our CORNERSTONE?

For there are certain men crept in unawares,

who were before of old ordained to this condemnation,

ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness,

and denying the only Lord God,

and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jude 1:4

“I have never heard such a brazenly blasphemous statement from any of the word-faith preachers … this was jaw-dropping heresy.”  Justin Peters

Dr. David Uth, pastor of First Baptist Church Orlando, was the point man responsible for perhaps the most epic act of apostasy seen in the Southern Baptist Convention. 

No one in the SBC leadership, no one in the Florida Baptist Convention, indeed not even, it seems, any authentic believers in First Baptist Orlando seem to be even slightly concerned at the intentional blasphemy proclaimed from the pulpit of this flagship SBC church.

On the evening of June 14, Uth paraded across the platform an array of speakers gathered for a noble-

sounding, though Scripturally-illicit purpose, “for prayer and encouragement” following the terrorist attack on a homosexual nightclub.

One of those, invited by Uth, standing in the pulpit and proclaiming what Justin Peters referred to as “jaw-dropping heresy” was Dr. Larry G. Mills, pastor of Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in Orlando.  Mills’ proclamation of the false “Jesus loves everybody regardless” gospel opened with his reference to the KJV version of 1 Peter.

Emphasizing the KJV usage of the word “peculiar” in verse 9, Mills proclaimed “we’re not peculiar because of race, or gender, or creed.”  Instead, he said, “In Orlando, we are peculiar because of e pluribus unum … out of many, one.”

That bit of hermeneutical heresy should have prompted Dr. Uth, at least, to rise in compassionate correction for the erroneous commentary.  It did not.

While Peter was clearly targeting his epistle to a targeted audience, “those who are elect,” (1 Peter 1:1) Mills proclaimed a universal application of these inspired words of Scripture. Every person in the audience, in Orlando, indeed, every person in America became, under Mills’ Scripture-twisting interpretation, “the elect.” His universalism passed unchallenged.

“We are peculiar because we know how to let theological differences, and disputes, and factions not get in the way of love and Christ.”  Dr. Larry Mills

Not done with his “peculiar” word play, Mills unknowingly acknowledged the very tolerance for apostasy that allowed him to stand in a Southern Baptist pulpit in the first place.  Neither he, nor Dr. Swanson who proclaimed universalism from the pulpit just prior to him, nor Dr. Uth, allowed any “theological differences” to get in the way of proclaiming a repentance-void false gospel of  “love.” 

But Mills wasn’t finished. He went much, much deeper into the waters of damnable blasphemy. Referring to the “cornerstone” of Peter’s remarks in verse 6, Mills spewed forth from this Southern Baptist pulpit nothing short of rank heresy.  As he acknowledged the tragedy incurred by the homosexual community, Mills stripped Truth from two millennia of Christian orthodoxy, ripped the royal robe from our Lord and Savior, and replaced it with diabolical deceit.

“That LGBTQ area is the head cornerstone … and we are here to lift up and magnify and allow them to know that regardless of people’s opinions, regardless of where we are, love triumphs over evil.  It’s all about love.  The question is asked, what does love have to do with it?  Everything.”  Dr. Larry Mills

 
Jesus is not, according to Mills, the chief cornerstone.  That honor goes to the LGBTQ community. 

Why?  Because “it’s all about love.”  Jesus’ love.  Your love.  My love.  Community love.  Gay love, heterosexual love, any kind of love.  The heresy flowed from this SBC pulpit with the ease of gentle, lapping waves on the sandy shores of a Florida beach.
Rather than rightly exalting Christ, rather than lifting Him up, magnifying Him, and declaring His Gospel, Mills exalted unregenerate, “condemned already” homosexuals because they had been persecuted.

Let that reality sink in. A standing ovation was given to a proclamation that everyone will be saved, that Christ is NOT the chief cornerstone of our faith, and that love, un-tempered by the corresponding truth of God’s coming judgment on sinners, is all that matters.
Universalism. False doctrine. A denial of “our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” (Jude 4) Such things were stated, unchallenged, from the pulpit of a Southern Baptist Church.  
 Can you say, A-P-O-S-T-A-S-Y?" Pulpit&Pen

Book Review: Persia and the Bible

(short) Book Review: A book that may be of some interest....
(Review by Biblical Archaeology Review)

Persia and the Bible

by Edwin Yamauchi

Baker Books, 580 pages

Internationally noted historian Edwin Yamauchi paints an incisive

portrait of Persia’s role in Old Testament history. As well as providing a detailed assessment of the archaeology and Biblical data, he weaves into his meticulously documented text more than one hundred photos, maps and diagrams.

But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days:

but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me;

and I remained there with the kings of Persia.

Daniel 10:13

 

Creation Moment 7/23/2016 - Dark goes, well, Dark

"There is no exotic dark matter, according to the most sensitive search to date. The ramifications for cosmology are enormous.

A lot of time, money, and effort has gone into looking for something that doesn’t exist. Cosmologists need cold dark matter to make their theories of the big bang work. They need something that doesn’t shine, doesn’t interact with normal matter, but has gravity. And they need lots of it: according to current theory, it outclasses normal matter ten to one. Astrophysicists have pondered what it might be: exotic entities like “weakly interacting massive particles” (WIMPS), axions, and other made-up names for Mysterious Unknown Stuff.

Now, the most sensitive detector has turned up nothing. Space.com reports, “Dark Matter Still a

Mystery: Most Sensitive Search Yet Comes Up Empty.”

The incredibly sensitive LUX dark-matter detector, buried under a mile of rock, has come up empty on its 20-month search for dark matter — further narrowing down the possible characteristics of the strange substance.

Researchers presented the results today (July 21) at the 11th Identification of Dark Matter Conference (IDM2016) in Sheffield, U.K., which gathers together researchers seeking to understand dark matter, the mysterious material that appears to make up more than four-fifths of the universe’s mass, but which scientists have not observed directly.

 

Nature is apparently not cooperative with current theory. The null result comes even after collaborative efforts “pushed the sensitivity of the instrument to a final performance level that is four times better than the original project goals.” If WIMPs existed, scientists should have seen a flash from detectors monitoring 1/3 of a ton of liquid xenon surrounded by 72,000 gallons of purified water deep in a South Dakota gold mine.

“It would have been marvelous if the improved sensitivity had also delivered a clear dark-matter signal,” Gaitskell said. “However, what we have observed is consistent with background alone.”

Another lambasted Nature’s rudeness for being so uncooperative:

“Though a positive signal would have been welcome, nature was not so kind!” Cham Ghag, a physicist at University College London and collaborator on LUX, said in another statement. “Nonetheless, a null result is significant as it changes the landscape of the field by constraining models for what dark matter could be beyond anything that existed previously.”

But does a non-detection of ghosts “constrain models” for what they could be? Maybe it’s time for a major change to theories that demand something that isn’t there.

Dark energy: The other major “mysterious unknown stuff” of the universe is dark energy. Science Daily says the Royal Society is accelerating the search for it, but existing tests produce conflicting results. Philosophers of science take note: “Making up 95% of our universe, these substances have profound effects on the birth and lives of galaxies and stars and yet almost nothing is known about their physical nature.”

Radio bursts: What is the “most perplexing mystery in astronomy”? The answer, according to Nature, is the source of ultra-powerful radio bursts. No theorists predicted these, but they may be common. One of these bursts can emit the energy of 500 million suns in just 5 milliseconds, suggesting that they come from very compact objects. About 20 have been observed so far.

Whatever these objects are, recent observations suggest that they are common, with one flashing in the sky as often as every 10 seconds. Yet they still defy explanation. Theorists have proposed sources such as evaporating black holes, colliding neutron stars and enormous magnetic eruptions. But even the best model fails to account for all the observations, says Edo Berger, an astronomer at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who describes the situation as “a lot of swirling confusion”.

 

In general, scientists cannot appeal to unobservable reality forever. The historical examples of phlogiston and caloric show that wrong paradigms can prevail among top experts for decades or centuries. Sooner or later, though, scientists need to consider the possibility they have been engaged in a snipe hunt, and need to find reality elsewhere." CEH

...and hath stretched out the heaven by his understanding.

Jeremiah 51:15

 

The Cleft from Where to see His Glory Pass By

The Lord our God hath shewed us His glory.

  Deuteronomy 5:24

"But how shall the glory of God be manifested to such fallen creatures as we are?

 

Man's eye is not single,

he has ever a side glance towards his own honor,

has too high an estimate of his own powers,

and so is not qualified to behold the glory of the Lord.

 

It is clear, then, that self must stand out of the way, that there may be room for God to be exalted; and this is the reason why He bringeth His people ofttimes into straits and difficulties, that, being made conscious of their own folly and weakness, they may be fitted to behold the majesty of God when He comes forth to work their deliverance.

 

He whose life is one even and smooth path,

will see but little of the glory of the Lord,

for he has few occasions of self-emptying,

and hence,

but little fitness for being filled with the revelation of God.

 

They who navigate little streams and shallow creeks, know but little of the God of tempests; but they who "do business in great waters," these see His "wonders in the deep."

 

Among the huge Atlantic-waves of bereavement, poverty,

temptation, and reproach, we learn the power of Jehovah, because we feel the littleness of man......Your troubles have enriched you with a wealth of knowledge to be gained by no other means: your trials have been the cleft of the rock in which Jehovah has set you, as He did His servant Moses, that you might behold His glory as it passed by......"

Charles Spurgeon

IN the NEWS - AME preaches another Gospel

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you

 into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:

Galations 1:6

"African Methodist Episcopal Church leaders are taking a stand against climate change and urging their congregations and communities to do the same.
Some 30,000 AME clergy, leaders and members met in Philadelphia last week for the church’s 50th General Conference, where they passed a resolution to support the historic 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
The AME Church is a Protestant denomination founded by black Americans more than 200 years

ago, and which now comprises 7,000 congregations and 2.5 million members around the world.
The church partnered with interfaith climate initiative Blessed Tomorrow to release the resolution, noting the importance of religions working together to tackle environmental challenges. 
“Climate is not just our issue; it’s everybody’s issue,” AME Bishop Vashti McKenzie said in a statement. “It’s very important for the AME Church to reach out and work with other faith traditions on climate solutions so that we ensure a legacy of a healthier, safer world for future generations.”
The AME Church launched their resolution on July 13 with a resource guide for clergy and congregations to implement sustainability measures in their homes, churches and communities." HP

Creation Moment 7/22/2016 - Any "Thoughts"?

"In a post titled "At last: a rational thinker at 'The Stone,'" atheist biologist and free-will denier Jerry Coyne quotes fellow atheist Alex Rosenberg, a Duke University professor of philosophy.
Rosenberg:

We never have direct access to our thoughts. As Peter Carruthers first argued, self-consciousness is just mind reading turned inward... There is no first-person point of view.
Our access to our own thoughts is just as indirect and fallible as our access to the thoughts of other people. We have no privileged access to our own minds. If our thoughts give the real meaning of our actions, our words, our lives, then we can't ever be sure what we say or do, or for that matter, what we think or why we think it.

It's not even clear what "We never have direct access to our thoughts" means. Of course we have direct access to our thoughts -- one could define first-person experience (i.e. thought) as "that to which we have direct access."

A hallmark of the mind is that it is incorrigible. Our thoughts are our own, we are always right about the existence of our own thought, and an observer can never be right about the thought of another person if the observer and the person disagree. If I am thinking of a red apple, then I am thinking of a red apple. If my friend says "No you're not. You're thinking of a blue Corvette,"

then I'm right and my friend is wrong. You can't be wrong about the raw content of what you're thinking.

Now that doesn't mean that you can't have a mistaken thought (a proposition that is untrue) or that you can't have a misunderstanding (maybe the apple I'm thinking of is more maroon than red). But my thought is my thought. I have direct access to it -- I experience it -- and other people don't.
So of course there is a first person point of view. Our only point of view is first person. That's what "point of view" means. It is the view from the "point" of a human being, which is first person by definition.

Now of course understanding the motivations for our thoughts, and the correspondence between our beliefs and reality, are open to debate. We may not know exactly why we think something. But we know -- incorrigibly -- that we think something.

Like so many bizarre materialist claims about the mind, Rosenberg's assertion is self-refuting. If we have no direct access to our thoughts, why would we assume that what Rosenberg has written has any relationship to what he actually thinks? If Rosenberg has no direct access to his own thoughts, there is no way to ascertain what he actually thinks. Even he doesn't know what he actually thinks.
Materialist theories of the mind border on the insane. If a man walks into a doctor's office and says "I never have direct access to my thoughts and I have no first person point of view," the man will be referred to a psychiatrist and may be involuntarily hospitalized until it is established that he is not a danger to himself or others.
If the same guy walks into the philosophy department at Duke University, he gets tenure." EN&V

For the word of God is quick, and powerful,

and sharper than any twoedged sword,

piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow,

 and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

What is the Apocrypha?

 "The Greek word apocrypha, meaning “hidden,” was originally applied to books in Judaism that were unsuitable for public reading because of the esoteric nature of their content. Today, we use the word Apocrypha for the Old Testament books found in Catholic but not in Protestant Bibles.

During the period between 200 B.C. and A.D. 100, many books were written by Jewish authors.

Some of them found their way into the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, and were at times quoted in the same way as the books of the Old Testament. There is no evidence, however, that these books were ever regarded as canonical by the Jews. When after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the Jewish canon was more clearly defined, these works fell into disfavor in Judaism, and the term apocrypha came to mean “heretical” or “spurious.”

Catholic Bibles contain the following seven books not found in Protestant Bibles: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, and Baruch. There are also a number of additions to the books of Esther and Daniel, as well as a letter of Jeremiah at the end of the Book of Baruch.

In the Book of Daniel, the additions are the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Hebrews in chapter three. Two additional chapters are Susanna and the Judgment of Daniel (chap. 13) and Bel and the Dragon (chap. 14). Orthodox Bibles have three additional books (1 Esdras, Psalm 151, and 3 Maccabees).

The Apocrypha were first given canonical status by Greek-speaking Christians, who assumed that because they were included in the Septuagint, they were part of an “Alexandrian canon.” During the early Christian centuries, most Greek and Latin Church Fathers, such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Cyprian, cited the Apocrypha as Scripture, and local synods in Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) justified and authorized their use as Scripture. Only a few voices were raised in protest during that time. One of them was Jerome in the fourth century, who regarded them as non-canonical. In his Bible translation (the Vulgate), however, he included the Apocrypha in accordance with church practice, despite his reservations.

Protestants rejected the Apocrypha because they supported some of the false teachings of the Catholic Church:
(1) the dead can still pray: “Almighty Lord, God of Israel, hear the prayer of the dead of Israel, of the sons of those who have sinned against you” (Baruch 3:4);
(2) prayer for the dead: “For had he not expected the fallen to rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead” (2 Macc. 12:44);
(3) almsgiving delivers from eternal death and purges sin: “Almsgiving saves from death and purges every kind of sin” (Tobit 12:9);
(4) the doctrine of purgatory: “And having been a little chastised, they [the souls of the righteous] shall be greatly rewarded: for God proved them, and found them worthy for himself. As gold in the furnace hath he tried them, and received them as a burnt offering” (The Wisdom of Solomon 3:5, 6)."
Gerhard Pfandl

But though we, or an angel from heaven,

preach any other gospel unto you than that which

we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

Galatians 1:8

Creation Moment 7/21/2016 - Young Earth / Old Earth Battle

"Since the late 18^th century, many Christian academics and theologians have embraced an old earth, claiming that it is compatible with Christianity. Even conservative Christian scholars have been swept along.
 
The process has become predictable; scientists advance the latest iteration of the old-earth paradigm

using ‘scientific evidence’ and theologians follow meekly, generating new interpretations of Genesis to accommodate it.
 
 These theologians and academics argue that:
1) Christianity is perfectly compatible with an old earth, and
2) biblical creationists are a danger to the church, since they make Christians the enemies of science and rationality. Their actual arguments for an old earth are typically rehashed secularism, empirical, and heavy on scientific authoritarianism.
 
 We believe that the old-earth paradigm is wrong, and that a new line of argument is warranted for the sake of Christians who feel trapped by ‘scientific evidence’. Science, the child of Christianity, is a valuable source of knowledge. But when it is distorted in the service of naturalism, we must undo the distortions to restore its intrinsic value.

Since naturalism’s philosophy of history requires the best possible scientific extrapolation back in

time, uniformity is assumed, which includes a strict uniformitarianism, because a positivistic epistemology must establish an absolute chronology using the ‘clocks’ found in the rock and fossil records. This explains the vigor of the past conflict (red herring though it was) between ‘uniformitarianism’ and ‘catastrophism’.

Uniformitarianism further strengthens the ties between an old earth and naturalism, since the features of earth’s crust require either a short, intense, convulsive history or an extended one marked by low-energy processes operating with metronomic regularity. Opting for the latter, deep time is a part of naturalism.

Finally, uniformitarianism links deep time to naturalism by filling the gaps that mark so much of the rock record. The physical rock record is anemic relative to the time demanded by geologists, but it is the primary physical evidence of the past, and positivism requires physical evidence. It is like having a book with most of the pages missing; we are hard pressed to follow the story, unless, and only unless, those pages are irrelevant or repetitive. Since relevance cannot be discerned, then repetition is required.

In all of these ways, the old-earth paradigm is shown to be the logically consistent handmaiden of the worldview of naturalism.

Human knowledge is uncertain in two ways;
first, man is finite, and
second, the noetic effects of sin cloud our minds and darken our hearts.

 Genesis starts with “In the beginning … ” and the story ends in Revelation. There is no reason to look outside the Bible for an outline of the past.

Creation–Fall–Flood–Rebellion–Israel–Christ–Church–Apocalypse:

a comprehensive history of this universe exists, the fabric of which is rent by any intrusion of evolutionary uniformitarianism.
Even if gaps exist in some chronologies, the contextual narrative precludes long periods of lost time.

The events and people of the first chapters of Genesis are affirmed by Christ and His Apostles in the New Testament.

The logic of the Flood narrative is also destroyed if it is a local event (e.g. why build an ark for 100 years and take birds on board if people and animals could avoid the Flood by leaving Mesopotamia? ). Furthermore, this view divorces Genesis 2–4 from Genesis 5:1–3 and Genesis 1 from Genesis 2 and 5. Genesis 1–11 is a coherent and well-structured narrative intended to be read as factual history.

Providence also contradicts the mindless progression of uniformitarianism. Uniformity requires an underlying continuity of cause and effect that must either reside in nature or in God. Naturalism chooses the former; Christianity, the latter.

During the history of the church, there were cycles into heterodoxy, but within the context of a Christian West. But the current crisis presents a different kind of challenge. It is the challenge of a foreign worldview, not a deviation within the framework of belief. It would be like the early Christians seeking accommodation with pagan philosophy, sacrificing their core understanding of revelation to appease Epicureans, Stoics, Platonists, or Aristotelians. The old-earth paradigm is a door into atheism." CMI

Let God be true though every one were a liar,..

Romans 3:4

 

4 Things Lucifer can do... So BEWARE

BEWARE

*Lucifer can quote Scripture:
And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee:
Matthew 4:6

*Lucifer can perform Miracles:

Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents:

Exodus 7:11,12

 

*Lucifer can even appear as an angel of light:

And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

2 Corinthians 11:14

*Lucifer can even give you Prosperity:

And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
Luke 4:5,6

That Fair Seal of Love

 

He will make her wilderness like Eden.

  Isaiah 51:3

 

"Methinks, I see in vision a howling wilderness,

a great and terrible desert,

like to the Sahara.

 

I perceive nothing in it to relieve the eye, all around I am wearied with a vision of hot and arid sand, strewn with ten thousand bleaching skeletons of wretched men who have expired in anguish, having lost their way in the pitiless waste. What an appalling sight! How horrible! a sea of sand without a bound, and without an oasis, a cheerless graveyard ....

 

 But behold and wonder! Upon a sudden, upspringing from the scorching sand I see a plant of renown; and as it grows it buds, the bud expands-it is a rose, ...Call it not Sahara, call it Paradise. 

 

 Jesus is that plant of renown, and His presence makes all things new. ....for its sake you have been pitied and tended by divine providence, you are washed and cleansed from your defilement, you are adopted into heaven's family, the fair seal of love is upon your forehead, and the ring of faithfulness is on your hand-you are now a prince unto God, though once an orphan, cast away."

Charles Spurgeon

Creation Moment 7/20/2016 - That INFLUENCE

"The quest for understanding our universe as a whole benefits from

the integration of knowledge from all areas of study, including those that consider questions of purpose, such as design engineering. The synthesis of this knowledge that provides the most satisfying answers regarding human experience is one that admits the recognition of purpose and the existence of an (as yet, not-well-understood) engineering influence." — Halsmer, Asper, Roman and Todd, “The coherence of an engineered world,” Transactions of the Wessex Institute Jan 2011.

HERE is that "INFLUENCE".... He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom,... Jeremiah 51:15

WHY the LIE? (It was Rooted in "I")

WHY the LIE?....the Lie of Immortality of the Soul?
1st LIE told on earth---Lucifer Lied to Eve... And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: Genesis 3:4

It has to do with the desire to be like God-  ....the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; 1 Timothy 6:15,16

And it was Lucifer's DESIRE of his heart to be like God- For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Isaiah 14:13,14

SUMMARY: The Dead are Dead until the Resurrection. The LIE that when you die your soul floats off to heaven is a myth from

paganism that crept into Christianity. It's a LIE rooted in the "I" of the DESIRE of Lucifer's heart to be like God (who only has immortality).....P.S.-Man had access to eternal life via access to the Tree of Life in Genesis (which God took away) and man will have access again according to  Revelation one day. So your immortality / eternal life is conditional. It's not the same as God. You are NOT God.

Health Note - Alcohol

"Alcohol abuse kills as many people around the world as tobacco and high blood pressure, a new study shows.

Getting Drunk Not Heart Healthy

Room and colleagues report that alcohol is responsible for 4% of worldwide disease, contributing to more than 60 different medical conditions. Tobacco is responsible for 4.1% and high blood pressure, 4.4%." WebMD

Beloved, I wish above all things that thou....be in health, .....

3 John 1:2

Creation Moment 7/19/2016 - DESIGN (by common sense)

"There’s a million codes out there. HTML, bar

codes, zip codes, Java, English and Chinese.
Out of a million codes, 999,999 are designed by humans.
There’s one code we don’t know the origin of – and that’s DNA. We don’t know of any codes that are not designed. This implies design in DNA." E20
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,.... so that they are without excuse:
Romans 1:20
 

Hawking - Lennox Square Off

The light of the righteous rejoiceth:

 but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out.

Proverbs 13:9

BEWARE of the Message Bible's New Age-ism

A term New Agers use--AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

 

 

Our Father in heaven, Reveal who you are.    

Set the world right;

Do what's best - as above, so below. 

Matthew 6:9,10 Message Bible   

 

     Our Father which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:9.10 KJV

IN the NEWS - UMC Turns from God

"Representatives of the United Methodist Church have elected their first openly gay bishop, in defiance of church prohibitions on homosexuality.

Rev. Karen Oliveto, senior pastor of Glide Memorial Church in San


Rev. Karen Oliveto

Francisco, was elected bishop of the church's Western Division at a conference Friday night in Scottsdale, Arizona.
"I think at this moment I have a glimpse of the realm of God," 58-year-old Oliveto said after her election, according to a news story from the church. "Today we took a step closer to embody beloved community and while we may be moving there, we are not there yet. We are moving on to perfection." yahoo

For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago

 were designated for this condemnation,

ungodly people, who pervert

the grace of our God into sensuality...

Jude 1:4 ESV

Creation Moment 7/18/2016 - White Hole = Timelessness?

"How can old objects exist in nearby space, such as the white dwarf (WD) star orbiting Sirius.

Sirius B is a Carbon-Oxygen (C-O) WD with a measured temperature of 25,000 K. Like other WDs, it has no energy source but is steadily cooling down from its former hot stellar state. In fact, Sirius is

itself a mature, spectral type A1V star only 2.6 parsecs (8.6 light-years) distant from the sun.

How does such an old system exist near our youthful, directly created solar system, which is less than 10,000 years of age?
The answer is the existence of a timeless region! Russ Humphreys found that there is a timeless region inside the white hole (or a black hole for that matter).

In the ‘White Hole’ (WH) cosmology of Russ Humphreys or in his more recent cosmology, as long as the earth is inside the event horizon of the WH (and therefore inside the timeless region), objects outside of it continue to age and their light continues to impinge upon the earth. So nearby objects are old in the model. That is the simple answer.

The actual details may be more complex. For this process to work up close to the solar system, the event horizon may have dispersed (evaporated) somewhere between the solar system and the nearest mature star, Proxima Centauri, about 4.2 LYs away. This would allow ageing in the Centauri system also. The minimum radius to take in the entire solar system, including the Kuiper Belt, is ~70 AU. This would require the presence of a 3.5-billion-solar-mass singularity at the core to maintain a 70-AU-radius WH. (Here we have ignored the Oort Cloud since there is no direct observational evidence for its existence.)

Of course, it’s not only the earth that’s within the white hole as it collapses but the entire solar system, including the sun, created on Day 4. The singularity will cause the ageing process of objects

external to the white hole as seen from the earth to continue until the event horizon gets close. After it loses sufficient matter, we would expect the WH to evaporate and the time dilation apparent to Earth-based observers to cease. All other related phenomena that affect space-time would also cease, e.g. blue-shifts. The WH would evaporate quickly as the event horizon collapses inward and all matter leave the timeless region, much the same as a miniature black hole does." CMI

 I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens,

and all their host have I commanded.

Isaiah 45:12

IN the NEWS - Heatwave Shuts Down Ecumenical Rally in D.C.

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing,
Matthew 7:15

"A massive rally titled "Together 2016" was shut down Saturday after 400 people had to be treated

for heat-related illness. 
The religious event brought together over 40 faith leaders and recording artists and was organized by Nick Hall, the founder of PULSE, a Twin-Cities based nonprofit organization that focuses on student-led prayer and outreach efforts. 
The free event was expected to draw thousands and go until 9 p.m. Saturday, but the U.S. Park Police were forced to shut it down after the influx of emergency medical situations. 
Hall issued a statement following the shutdown, saying that it was a disappointment but that "we want to honor the authorities who are trying to keep people safe." FOX5

Was God trying to send a message-this doesn't have His blessing???--or was it a coincidence?

Papal Notes - GREEN Glue of Francis in Spain

....and all the world wondered after the beast.

Revelation 13:3

 ....and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator,

Romans 1:25

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called

 you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:

Galatians 1:6

"They are scientists and religious leaders from 15 countries and eight denominations. The International Seminar on Science and Religions for the conservation of the environment united them all at the Shrine of Torreciudad in Spain. There, they launched an ambitious Declaration on the Protection of the Environment.

The seminar revolved around Pope Francis' encyclical, Laudato si', a year after its publication. They tried to find solutions to challenges such as climate change, an

issue that concerns everyone, regardless of their religious beliefs.

 

In addition to signing a declaration, they planted an olive tree at the Shrine of Torreciudad as a symbol of the commitment by the various religious traditions and scientific community in environmental conservation. It is a commitment that promises to take root and bear good fruit." RomeReports

"Religious leaders contributed their specific visions in a session “Integral ecology, Lines of approach and action, and Ecological

spirituality”, moderated by Bishop Mons. Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, with the participation of Rabbi Yonatan Neril, founder of the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development; Buddhist nun Karma Tsunma Chimey Lhatso; Attorney General of the Cistercians, P. Lluc Torcal; Bulgarian Orthodox archdeacon, Petar Gramatikov Plovdiv and Swamini Umananda, Hindu nun from the Chinmaya mission in France were able to highlight the contributions of each of their religious traditions to nature conservation.

Pope Francis sent a message to participants wishing the seminar “serve to promote scientific and interreligious dialogue for care of

our common home and encourage joint efforts to promote consciousness with greater solidarity for the good of each and every human being.”

ISSREC

The SINS Sweeping our Fruited Plains

--The SINS Sweeping our Fruited Plains--

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil;

that put darkness for light, and light for darkness;

that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Isaiah 5:20

 

--From Whence does it Stem?--

The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately wicked:

who can know it?

Jeremiah 17:9

 

--GOD REPEATS HIS WARNING TO US--

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man,

 but the end thereof are the ways of death.

Proverbs 14:12

There is a way that seemeth right unto a man,

but the end thereof are the ways of death.

Proverbs 16:25