Kenneth Copeland and Pope Francis

There used to be an army of men and women throwing an enormous spotlight on the dark, malignant ecclesiastical tyrant that is the Papacy.

They used to be called Protestants. They were called Protestant because they were publicly protesting.

What or whom were they protesting?

They were protesting the abuses, hypocrisies, and false teachings of the corrupt Catholic church.

How could they protest? The Church was The religious authority. On what authority could they challenge the Catholic Church?

The Protestants protest was a proclamation that the Church did not match the Word of God.

The Protestants authority was the Bible.

A Protestant used to stand on the foundation of God’s Word to debunk the gross superstitions and corruption of the Catholic Church, or any false teaching. Over hundreds of years, millions of brave souls scorned poverty, persecution and often a horrible death to open the pages of the the Scriptures to the public. To bring truth to the world, no matter what. Their sacrifice ushered in the Reformation, the great Spiritual enlightenment that in turn opened the door for the Renaissance.

What is that, I hear you say? The Reformation sparked the Renaissance?

Absolutely.

In a very real way, your modern lifestyle, your education, your literacy, your health, your hygiene, your travel, your personal library (either digital or paper) is a testimony to those souls who braved death to search the Bible for themselves and then risk their lives, over and over, to tell a world that was gripped in the darkness of the superstitious and hypocritical prison of the Roman Catholic Church that the Church was a liar. That it did not at all represent God – that in fact, it was against Christ. It was, and is still, anti-Christ.

Hard to believe? Chew on this: for 1600 years there was essentially no advance in human progress. Illiteracy. Squalor. Disease. Corruption. Superstition. That was the norm for 1600 years. Society regressed instead of progressed. What changed things was the Reformation.

If there had been no Reformation you’d almost certainly be illiterate, with a life expectancy of 40, dirty, backward and superstitious, just like your ancestors for 1600 years during the Dark Ages.

Where would the world be without the recognition that all men were created in the image of God, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, such as the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? You don’t think that’s a Catholic teaching, do you?

And if you are blessed today to live in a land that permits you, for a little while longer, to believe and worship as your conscience dictates, you should perhaps wonder how it is that this came to be.

There is absolutely nothing sadder today for humanity than that those Protestant watchmen have fallen silent.

Lutherans. Methodists. Evangelicals. All quiet. They have all, apparently, lost their Bibles. And so they have lost their bearings. They have sacrificed principle and the plain Word of Scripture to again grasp the bejeweled fingers of the Roman Pontiff, that man of sin who proudly proclaims the Papacy has never changed.

A quick glance shows this is true: It is still the haven and teacher of vice, idolatry, blasphemy, oppression, murder and lust that it has always been.

It is the protest that has changed. The cry that should be crescendoing today, right now! has tapered into a pathetic denial of the Risen Christ.

And instead of protests, there is a strange sound in the land – it is the sound of blessing, while supposedly protestant leaders bless the Roman Pontiff, forgetting somehow, that his teachings are no more sound today than they ever were.

Kenneth Copeland is only the most recent Judas Iscariot.

The silence of the Protestant Watchmen is not unnoticed today by Rome. Woe to the land! For the gate is unguarded.

John Chapter 4

Beautiful and Faith Affirming

AVATAR

So, I recently chanced to see most of this movie – you know, the one that came out several years ago. I know, I’m behind the times. I just don’t watch many movies.

The movie is a sensory buffet, with the most unreal (or real) special effects I think I may have ever scene (and take into account I don’t get out much). It’s a very seductive piece of film making, and it is meant to be.

There were many scenes which caught my attention, but the one particularly I would like to draw attention to happens close to the beginning of the movie, and is a perfect illustration of the dangers of Hollywood and the agenda that permeates its offerings.

Perhaps the most significant and symbolic scene in the entire movie, the one that likely goes right past peoples’ heads nowadays (but into their sub-conscious mind with the intended message) is when Jake Sully first goes into his Avatar.

He’s in a lab. There are technicians who try to help him with his new body. He is a bit unstable, standing in it for the first time, and they tell him to sit back down – he is knocking things down, making a mess. He repeatedly disobeys, lost in the joy of discovery. Then, because he’s not listening, they try to sedate him, and he escapes from the lab, and first haltingly, then with more assurance, begins to run. Discovering, and reveling in the profound joy of being able to walk (he’s paralyzed in his other body).

So. It’s his first day being a new being. The new being, the new body, rather, was created in the lab. He expressly and repeatedly disobeys the people in control, and decides to explore and discover for himself – he does not need their constraint. He escapes, and first stumbles, then walks, then runs, faster and faster – learning and experiencing. Remind you of anything yet?

Then the moment of tremendous significance that James Cameron shows his hand and reveals his agenda in this movie. He puts it all together for you.

Sully is standing in a boring cultivated garden. The female scientist (in her Avatar body) isn’t upset that he has come out of the lab so quickly. She throws him a beautiful, amazing looking piece of fruit, and says something like, “your motor skills look good” – i.e. – you’re ready. He bites it into this amazing looking piece of fruit, and the look of delight on his face says he’s found something amazing. The juice runs down his face. Then he leaves the cultivated garden, and begins to explore the real world, one full of beauty and wonder and danger and everything else Cameron can tell you is on this pretend, non-existent world. Everything that happens next, everything Jake Sully becomes, every amazing thing he experiences, happens after he eats the fruit, after he disobeys the people in the lab, after he leaves the cultivated, boring garden.

Cameron is sending a message. This is the creation story and fall in a few frames. You can read about it in the Bible, in the first 4 chapters of Genesis. Adam, in the garden, disobedient to his Creator. His body was created for him, but Adam disobeyed in eating the forbidden fruit. The Serpent told him it would make him wise, and that God was trying to keep it away from him because if he ate it he would be like God. The Serpent said God was trying to keep him down. Just like the people in the lab. And the movie Avatar then tells you that everything good – and enlightening – everything worth having, comes from disobedience to your Creator. That is the message of this scene, and ultimately, the central theme of this movie. It’s rebellion, with an environmentalist twist.

It’s a lie though, people. Rebellion against God has brought every misery you see around you on this world. Every sickness, every death, every decaying, polluted thing, is ultimately a result of sin and rebellion. Creation at the beginning was perfect. What you see around you was never what the Creator intended.

The portrayal that He is like a bunch of pygmy scientists (compared to the intellectual and physical capacity of His creation) is a blasphemous lie. The idea that the garden of Eden was this boring row of carrots (or whatever the humans are growing on Pandora) is a ridiculous lie. Eden was perfect, and gorgeous beyond anything the movie Avatar could come up with. The lie that you will be rewarded for rebellion is a destructive falsehood. God sent His Son to save the world from sin, and life and immortality come only through Him. God is not like He is portrayed in Avatar. He is good, and loving, and cares for humanity, as evidenced by Him sending His Son to die on behalf of humanity and save them from the consequences of their rebellion.

There are many other highly symbolic themes in the movie, for example, Jake Sully’s arrival on a great red dragon to save the world, and everyone on the planet (all the tribes) following after him, as one. Revelation 12 and 13 talks about a great red dragon, and that dragon gives his authority to the next beast that comes up with 7 heads and ten horns, symbolizing the transfer of power from pagan Rome to papal Rome (the Roman Catholic Church). I won’t go into that particularly at the moment, but it is telling. Then there is the false religion aspect of the movie – the paganism new age pantheism voodoo that runs through the whole thing, teaching that god is everywhere, that she (for god is female in Avatar) comes from the earth and that you can access her earth magic, etc. The very name – Pandora – is telling, and is a reference to the story of Pandora’s box, and all the horrible consequences that came from her disobedience.

The central theme, that runs throughout this movie, is that disobedience to God in whatever form – in rebellion and disobedience, in pagan (new age) worship, in pre-marital forbidden sex, in pride and violence, etc. is rewarded. It is enlightening. The god symbol in the movie is the established corporate/military order that keeps trying to prevent Sully from experiencing, keeps interrupting his experience with the Avatar, etc. James Cameron (and Hollywood in general) consistently has this agenda, and Avatar delivers it in fantastic, seductive, otherworldly fashion. It’s a dangerous movie, and people don’t see it. They’re dazzled by the flash of the CGI Serpent who, little by little, is bringing the whole world around to his way of thinking.

Don’t be deceived, beloved.

UFC is Evil

UFC is evil. Period.

Our world increasingly calls “darkness” “light”, and “light” “darkness”. The Protestant reformation awakened the consciences of millions around the world to the rights of conscience, of the high place that humanity is called to in Christ, to the self-evident truth that man was created in the image of God, and endowed by His maker with inalienable rights. But our society is forgetting the Bible and the beautiful, sacred truths that it holds. We are lapsing back to Rome – to the ignorance, the superstition, the sexual immorality, the crime and yes, the violence and brutality of that most degenerate and self-indulgent age. UFC is now main stream, like a malignant cancer on what was a fair land, with its ugly violence, sexual exploitation and glorification of brutality.

And UFC is a perfect symbol of how the entertainment tastes of the world are changing.

If you are a Christian, you should turn your face away from the sorrowful sight of thousands of blood thirsty people screaming and cheering, watching with debased and sick fascination while two men made in the image of God bludgeon and bloody each other. You should turn away. You should be ashamed of this age. Your heart should sorrow for the decline of sensibility, of sympathy, of the hearts of many growing cold.

How can you expect to go to heaven while you love something so terrible and so disgraceful? This is the deception of Satan – he dulls the sensibilities until people do not realize that he is ensnaring them. He tells people that they are “saved” because they said some words, and convinces them that they do not need a change of heart, that it is OK to continue in sin, indulging every fallen passion. There will be nothing like UFC in heaven.

Below is a link to a cockfight. Cock fighting is a gambling event where two roosters are pit against each other in combat, with razor blades tied to their legs. It is illegal in America and many other places because of its brutality and its violence.

See the cheering, blood thirsty crowd, intent on the violence and suffering of a living creature. See their focus and their glee at the bloody contest. No cable t.v. station would broadcast it in the so-called “developed” world. Our sensibilities are too refined.

Now watch this:

Note the similarities. The lust for blood, the love of violence, the pride of domination, the lack of compassion, the lack of empathy, the joy in violence and brutality, the maddened throng.

As the Lord lives, God and angels turn away their faces from this horrible sight, and weep. And if you, reader, think that you can love something satanic like UFC, and be right with God at the same time, consider Him who gave His life for you – the meek and gentle Jesus.

You cannot love God and the world. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or visa versa. The two are incompatible.

Do not be deceived, beloved.

Chiropractor = Dangerous Fraud

PT 1

You see their “practices” in strip malls. You hear about them at dinner parties. They are featured in cool Hollywood movies. Your friends go for “adjustments”. You yourself may have attended, on the advice of a friend, or worse, a misguided physician. Chiropractors, after a century of mostly skepticism and scorn from the medical community, little by little have become main stream and acceptable. Some of their treatments are even covered by health insurers today.

But some chiropractors, whether knowingly or unknowingly, at best are practicing the same art as the snake-oil salesman. At worst, they are practicing under the same banner as the palm-reader and the psychic. We’ll get to that in part II of this subject.

Very few people know the history of the chiropractic art, or the names behind it. The credulous masses today accept  chiropractors as healers and treaters of ailments by virtue of their “scientific” credential. Thus, few know that chiropractic was founded by a man who practiced magnetism and hypnosis and believed in something called ‘Innate Intelligence’ – a controlling exterior force that accesses the human body through the spinal chord.

The following paragraph by B.J. Palmer, the son of the founder, Daniel David Palmer, describes his relationship to the concept of Innate Intelligence (all emphasis original):

IT WAS HERE IN THIS ONE ROOM, the Great Teacher and Master of ALL people of ALL times, was Innate. IT WAS HERE with these retired personalities, with their every-day personal products, I learned the basic truths of Chiropractic and how to become a Chiropractor.

Up till THIS period of MY life, I was INVOLVING MY thots, words, and acts much like so many have done and were doing. The “I” was egotistic as well as egoistic.

After THIS period of OUR life, WE began EVOLVING like few people do or have done. From then on, WE thot, spoke, and acted. From then on, “I” was humble in the presence of Innate within as WE lived together.IT WAS THERE, plus time, IN THIS ONE ROOM, I found MYself. WE found OURselves—INNATE AND I—until EACH lost his or her singular and single identity and became a plural duality, to eventually walk down the byways and highways together the rest of OUR lives (1961, p. 163).

That should be enough to weird you out of the chiro office forever. But there’s more.

In public, Palmer, the aforementioned 19th century hypnotist and practitioner of animal magnetism, related that he ‘discovered’ chiropractic while doing a treatment on a partially deaf janitor. Palmer said he perfectly manipulated or adjusted the man’s spine, and that this adjustment was the most perfect adjustment ever made. Palmer was a bit of an ego-maniac, apparently.

According to Palmer Senior’s daughter, however, she saw her father hit the fellow in the spine with a book he was holding during the telling of a joke. Some days afterward, the patient remarked that he thought his hearing was better after being hit in the spine. Palmer called it chiropractic because he had “healed” his patient with his hands.

In private, however, Palmer revealed the source of chiropractic as something else entirely – messages received during seances from a dead doctor named Jim Atkinson. Palmer was a practicing spiritist. (Spiritism is a doctrine founded upon the existence, manifestations and teachings of the spirits, or in other words, the dead.) The Bible expressly forbids forbids attempting to communicate with the dead (Deuteronomy 18:10-12), says that the dead are asleep, without any conscious thought (Ecclesiastes 9:5), and that God alone has immortality (1 Tim 6:16). Those who speak with the dead are speaking with demons, Satan’s fallen angels, who are well able to impersonate the dead and so pass a multitude of deceptions to humanity.

The vast majority of chiropractors today still believe in Innate Intelligence, and that the misalignment of the spine is the cause of 95% of all diseases because I.I. can’t flow through your nerves properly. Which of course also means they believe they can cure just about everything from the flu to cancer with a spinal adjustment. Palmer attributed the ‘cure’ of the janitor to his perfect adjustment to the spinal chord so that the Innate Intelligence could flow uninterrupted.

Education wise, the average chiropractor (DC) graduates with over $100,000 in student loan debt, yet can usually make only around $30,000 as an associate doctor. This figure often includes no health insurance, retirement, vacation, or other benefits.

As an associate doctor, their main job is to recruit patients, which basically means to indoctrinate them into the idea that they need to come to your office three times a week for the rest of their lives.

This is accomplished by scaring patients and telling them they have a fake lesion called a chiropractic subluxation (which they say is different than an orthopedic subluxation). This is, of course, pure quackery. Only chiropractors believe that chiropractic subluxations exist. No other doctor or scientist has ever found one. Of course, the Livestrong Foundation says they are real, which just goes to prove they’re fake.

Here is a list of all the websites started by people who have suffered from some fool trying to do a neck manipulation: http://chiropracticstudent.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/is-chiropractic-safe-ask-an-injured-patient/

Neck manipulations, the mainstay of all chiropractors, can cause stroke, paralysis, torn neck arteries, and a host of other less severe ailments, including a progressive loosening of spinal ligaments (and not to mention the funds in your wallet).

It’s worse than quackery. It’s potentially dangerous.

Stay Tuned for PT 2.

Death to Accountability

We sometimes get a glimpse of the deeper psychological health or state of being of society generally in a microcosm experience. A snap-shot can be revelatory. If we think back we can remember hundreds of them, each of them mini-lessons, of the health and general well-being of our world.

I work out at a well-known fitness facility that has franchises all over the U.S. I joined because the rates are reasonable and its important to stay in shape.

Working out is like life – you only get what you put in. Perseverance is rewarded with gains and advances. The gains and advances are added motivation to the primary fear that if you do nothing with your body it will degenerate until it eventually closely resembles a bloated garden slug. The efforts made bring their own rewards – increased quality of life, improved self-respect, progress. Progress is key.
Soon after enrolling in said fitness facility, I finished working out one day and went to the men’s locker room to weigh myself. Strangely enough, I could not find a scale. I returned to the floor, thinking I would find it amongst the equipment, but it wasn’t there either. Finally, I checked the front desk, thinking that this was the last obvious place. No scale at the front desk.

Confused, I asked the desk worker where the scale was.
Here’s a part of our exchange:

Desk Worker (DW): Oh, we’ve recently remove the scale from the gym. We no longer have one.

Me: What?! You guys run a gym. You’re telling me there’s no scale anywhere in here?

DW: No.

Me: Why?

DW: Management has decided that it’s bad for the clientele.

Me: How is it bad?

DW: They think its bad for morale.

Me: Shouldn’t the client be able to decide whether they want to weigh themselves?

DW: No, because management has decided the clients are intimidated by the scale, and having it in the building interferes with their enjoyment of their workout. We don’t want them to feel judged.

Me: Well, how are they supposed to know if they are making progress?

DW: They can go to the scale at home if they want.

Me: Well, then why can’t they have the same choice at the gym? I mean, if they don’t want to weigh in – they don’t have to. Nobody is forcing them to get up there. Those who want, to can; those who don’t, don’t have to.

DW: Management has decided, sir. There’s a personal trainer who has an office in this complex who will let you use his scale if you like.

Me: (Trying again). Look, I’m not trying to lose weight. The scale isn’t intimidating to me. I’m sure there’s lots of people who are like me who go here who’d like to be able to check. I’d like to gain weight. How am I to tell if I’m making progress or not?

DW: You can use the scale in the personal trainer’s office.

…

There’s the microcosm. In the most obese country in the world, even people at the gym don’t want to be told their overweight. It’s an unwanted intrusion. They want to hear “you’re doing well”, “you went to the gym, and now its fine if you go home and eat potato chips all day and watch Oprah.” There is even a slogan on the wall at the this particular gym that says, “Judgment Free Zone.”

The scale judges them. It says, “you’re fat.” And that means it has to go.

Death to accountability.

It reminds me of the law of God. You know, the Ten Commandments that say you will not commit adultery, or steal, or kill, or covet, or take God’s name in vain. The same law of God that the Christian church today says is done away with. And the rationale and the reasoning is the same.

Pastors say, “the law is not binding. You are under grace now, so there’s nothing to condemn you.” That’s just another way of saying, “you’re a sinner, and God doesn’t care now if you sin because He died to save you.”

It’s a lie. God didn’t die to save you so that you could continue to live in sin (in violation of His law). He made a sacrifice on your behalf so that He could remake you so that you would stop violating His law, and instead, live in harmony with it and Him. When you come to Him, you come as you are, and He remakes you so that you cease to be a law breaker. God doesn’t want you to continue living in sin anymore than your personal trainer wants you to stay fat. Unless you workout at my gym.

Paul says that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:1. Did Christ Jesus sin? How can we be in Christ Jesus if we are committing adultery? Or worshiping idols? The answer is simple – we can’t. That’s why you have to repent if you sin and ask forgiveness. That’s why the false Christian churches need the further lie of “once saved always saved.” One lie necessitates another, until the Christian no longer is a creature who Christ remakes in His own image, in conformity with His character and requirements. The modern Christian looks just like everyone else, and acts just like everyone else, because the modern churches have gotten rid of the scale of measurement. They have said there is no law. “Righteousness” has become nothing more than a magic cloak to continue doing all the sinful things you used to do.

The law of God doesn’t make you righteous – it’s of a measurement of character and behavior. It is confirmation of whether you are, so to speak, fat. You can’t work to gain God’s favor – its true. The Good News is that He sent His Son to die to save you, because you can’t save yourself. But He didn’t go to all the effort to live and die on your behalf so that He could leave you just the way you are. He came to set you free.

And part of freedom will always be accountability. Romans 6:16,17

Cure for Cutting, Cure for Depression

In this world of sorrow, there are an increasing number of people, who, for a variety of reasons, are cutting themselves. Physicians and psychologists are powerless to stop it – no drug, no therapy, can make a sorrowful person truly happy.

But there is a cure.

Click the below link to find out more.

 

http://gycweb.org/media/broken-chains/

Mayan Calendar, Connecticut and Harbingers of the End

 

 

No error accepted by the Christian world strikes more boldly against the authority of Heaven, none is more directly opposed to the dictates of reason, none is more pernicious in its results, than the modern doctrine, so rapidly gaining ground, that God’s law is no longer binding upon men. Every nation has its laws, which command respect and obedience; no government could exist without them; and can it be conceived that the Creator of the heavens and the earth has no law to govern the beings He has made? Suppose that prominent ministers were publicly to teach that the statutes which govern their land and protect the rights of its citizens were not obligatory–that they restricted the liberties of the people, and therefore ought not to be obeyed; how long would such men be tolerated in the pulpit? But is it a graver offense to disregard the laws of states and nations than to trample upon those divine precepts which are the foundation of all government?

It would be far more consistent for nations to abolish their statutes, and permit the people to do as they please, than for the Ruler of the universe to annul His law, and leave the world without a standard to condemn the guilty or justify the obedient. Would we know the result of making void the law of God? The experiment has been tried. Terrible were the scenes enacted in France when atheism became the controlling power. It was then demonstrated to the world that to throw off the restraints which God has imposed is to accept the rule of the cruelest of tyrants. When the standard of righteousness is set aside, the way is open for the prince of evil to establish his power in the earth.

Wherever the divine precepts are rejected, sin ceases to appear sinful or righteousness desirable. Those who refuse to submit to the government of God are wholly unfitted to govern themselves. Through their pernicious teachings the spirit of insubordination is implanted in the hearts of children and youth, who are naturally impatient of control; and a lawless, licentious state of society results. While scoffing at the credulity of those who obey the requirements of God,

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the multitudes eagerly accept the delusions of Satan. They give the rein to lust and practice the sins which have called down judgments upon the heathen.

Those who teach the people to regard lightly the commandments of God sow disobedience to reap disobedience. Let the restraint imposed by the divine law be wholly cast aside, and human laws would soon be disregarded. Because God forbids dishonest practices, coveting, lying, and defrauding, men are ready to trample upon His statutes as a hindrance to their worldly prosperity; but the results of banishing these precepts would be such as they do not anticipate. If the law were not binding, why should any fear to transgress? Property would no longer be safe. Men would obtain their neighbor’s possessions by violence, and the strongest would become richest. Life itself would not be respected. The marriage vow would no longer stand as a sacred bulwark to protect the family. He who had the power, would, if he desired, take his neighbor’s wife by violence. The fifth commandment would be set aside with the fourth. Children would not shrink from taking the life of their parents if by so doing they could obtain the desire of their corrupt hearts. The civilized world would become a horde of robbers and assassins; and peace, rest, and happiness would be banished from the earth.

Already the doctrine that men are released from obedience to God’s requirements has weakened the force of moral obligation and opened the floodgates of iniquity upon the world. Lawlessness, dissipation, and corruption are sweeping in upon us like an overwhelming tide. In the family, Satan is at work. His banner waves, even in professedly Christian households. There is envy, evil surmising, hypocrisy, estrangement, emulation, strife, betrayal of sacred trusts, indulgence of lust. The whole system of religious principles and doctrines, which should form the foundation and framework of social life, seems to be a tottering mass, ready to fall to ruin. The vilest of criminals, when thrown into prison for their offenses, are often made the recipients of gifts and

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attentions as if they had attained an enviable distinction. Great publicity is given to their character and crimes. The press publishes the revolting details of vice, thus initiating others into the practice of fraud, robbery, and murder; and Satan exults in the success of his hellish schemes. The infatuation of vice, the wanton taking of life, the terrible increase of intemperance and iniquity of every order and degree, should arouse all who fear God, to inquire what can be done to stay the tide of evil.

Courts of justice are corrupt. Rulers are actuated by desire for gain and love of sensual pleasure. Intemperance has beclouded the faculties of many so that Satan has almost complete control of them. Jurists are perverted, bribed, deluded. Drunkenness and revelry, passion, envy, dishonesty of every sort, are represented among those who administer the laws. “Justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” Isaiah 59:14.

The iniquity and spiritual darkness that prevailed under the supremacy of Rome were the inevitable result of her suppression of the Scriptures; but where is to be found the cause of the widespread infidelity, the rejection of the law of God, and the consequent corruption, under the full blaze of gospel light in an age of religious freedom? Now that Satan can no longer keep the world under his control by withholding the Scriptures, he resorts to other means to accomplish the same object. To destroy faith in the Bible serves his purpose as well as to destroy the Bible itself. By introducing the belief that God’s law is not binding, he as effectually leads men to transgress as if they were wholly ignorant of its precepts. And now, as in former ages, he has worked through the church to further his designs. The religious organizations of the day have refused to listen to unpopular truths plainly brought to view in the Scriptures, and in combating them they have adopted interpretations and taken positions which have sown broadcast the seeds of skepticism. Clinging to the papal error of natural immortality and man’s

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consciousness in death, they have rejected the only defense against the delusions of spiritualism. The doctrine of eternal torment has led many to disbelieve the Bible. And as the claims of the fourth commandment are urged upon the people, it is found that the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath is enjoined; and as the only way to free themselves from a duty which they are unwilling to perform, many popular teachers declare that the law of God is no longer binding. Thus they cast away the law and the Sabbath together. As the work of Sabbath reform extends, this rejection of the divine law to avoid the claims of the fourth commandment will become well-nigh universal. The teachings of religious leaders have opened the door to infidelity, to spiritualism, and to contempt for God’s holy law; and upon these leaders rests a fearful responsibility for the iniquity that exists in the Christian world.

Yet this very class put forth the claim that the fast-spreading corruption is largely attributable to the desecration of the so-called “Christian sabbath,” and that the enforcement of Sunday observance would greatly improve the morals of society. This claim is especially urged in America, where the doctrine of the true Sabbath has been most widely preached. Here the temperance work, one of the most prominent and important of moral reforms, is often combined with the Sunday movement, and the advocates of the latter represent themselves as laboring to promote the highest interest of society; and those who refuse to unite with them are denounced as the enemies of temperance and reform. But the fact that a movement to establish error is connected with a work which is in itself good, is not an argument in favor of the error. We may disguise poison by mingling it with wholesome food, but we do not change its nature. On the contrary, it is rendered more dangerous, as it is more likely to be taken unawares. It is one of Satan’s devices to combine with falsehood just enough truth to give it plausibility. The leaders of the Sunday movement may advocate reforms

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which the people need, principles which are in harmony with the Bible; yet while there is with these a requirement which is contrary to God’s law, His servants cannot unite with them. Nothing can justify them in setting aside the commandments of God for the precepts of men.

Through the two great errors, the immortality of the soul and Sunday sacredness, Satan will bring the people under his deceptions. While the former lays the foundation of spiritualism, the latter creates a bond of sympathy with Rome. The Protestants of the United States will be foremost in stretching their hands across the gulf to grasp the hand of spiritualism; they will reach over the abyss to clasp hands with the Roman power; and under the influence of this threefold union, this country will follow in the steps of Rome in trampling on the rights of conscience.

As spiritualism more closely imitates the nominal Christianity of the day, it has greater power to deceive and ensnare. Satan himself is converted, after the modern order of things. He will appear in the character of an angel of light. Through the agency of spiritualism, miracles will be wrought,the sick will be healed, and many undeniable wonders will be performed. And as the spirits will profess faith in the Bible, and manifest respect for the institutions of the church, their work will be accepted as a manifestation of divine power.

The line of distinction between professed Christians and the ungodly is now hardly distinguishable. Church members love what the world loves and are ready to join with them, and Satan determines to unite them in one body and thus strengthen his cause by sweeping all into the ranks of spiritualism. Papists, who boast of miracles as a certain sign of the true church, will be readily deceived by this wonder-working power; and Protestants, having cast away the shield of truth, will also be deluded. Papists, Protestants, and worldlings will alike accept the form of godliness without the power, and they will see in this union a grand movement

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for the conversion of the world and the ushering in of the long-expected millennium.

NHL STRIKES OUT

Hockey fans, give me your tired and depressed, your vacant seats and foam fingers. You have nothing to lose but your chains.

You have yet to realize what a great opportunity the NHL 2012 lockout brings you. As the lockout grows (and your NHL meds start wearing off), you will come to remember things long forgotten:

1. Fandom is for cultural robots. It’s nothing but mass herd mentality and marketing. You don’t need it. You’ve never needed it. This is an opportunity to remember how to be a father again, and do something that is actually meaningful with your time, your kids, your wife, instead of watching for 3+ hours while millionaires with only a rudimentary understanding of anything beyond their hockey bags chase the puck around.

2. The NHLPA showcases EVERYTHING that’s wrong with normal unions that you forgot because you like to watch them dangle the puck and shoot and slide (in between off-seasons where they complain about wages endlessly and plan their next walkout.) You will realize that you are being held intellectually, monetarily and temporally at gunpoint by overgrown high school students who think their million dollar salaries are only a pittance compared with what society REALLY owes them.  That calculation is made using the following equation: 30(Poor Me x Poor Me x Poor Me) x (Lets make everyone suffer until we get what we want) x (we know that society is full of spineless jelly fish that will give in, eventually) = Every Union in North America.

The fog will clear and you will realize that the NHL and the NHLPA can only hold you hostage as a consumer if you let them have your brain.

Don’t give them your brain, people. You need your brain. Shut your t.v. off, take all your jerseys and make a pile in the backyard, and light it on fire.

Then repeat after me – “1, 2, 3…………. Wake-Up!”

When you do, you’ll look back at the zombie world of fandome, and you won’t give a frozen puck what the NHLPA does or does not decide to do.

Opportunity

My wife and I recently went hunting for an elderly lady we used to know about five years ago. She once lived in an adjacent area and had an unusually magnificent backyard, complete with a large pond and a creek, rare plants and gorgeous trees. She had had a breakdown some years before and her doctor had advised her to garden if she wanted to recover mentally and physically. Her therapy turned out to be her legacy, at least for my wife and I. We took our engagement pictures in her pond in a flat bottomed boat and will always remember her as the lady who transformed her small suburban area into a small edenic paradise.

As we approached her house, however, we could tell that much had changed in the intervening years. Her front yard had been reduced to a few generic shrubs, and an SUV with some children’s toys decorated the driveway. My wife knocked at the door, and a young man came out to speak with us. We inquired about the elderly lady who once made the house so special and were told that his grandma no longer lived there. She had developed Alzheimers and his parents had put her in a local elderly residence. It was too much work to maintain her yard the way it was so they ‘simplified it.’ He gave us the name of the facility she was in now, and said it would be fine if we visited, although he was pretty sure she wouldn’t recognize us.

Sometimes directions aren’t my forte, especially when I’m internally musing about this David Livingstone book I’m reading while taking them (it’s a truism that I have a hard time multi-tasking), and we consequently visited several ‘old folks homes’ before we found the right one. When we did, we were ushered into the dining area through a security-coded door. We heard Maxine before we saw her. She had gained some weight, and looked as bright and chipper as always, and greeted my wife immediately when she saw her with the words, “Well there you are! and just as lovely as ever.” She embraced my wife warmly.

It proved to be a fleeting lucid moment, however. She spent the rest of the next hour and a half dialoging in the most conversational and sadly charming manner about a wide variety of unconnected subjects, often in the same sentence. We had a really nice visit for all of that, and it was probably the first she’d had in awhile. She confessed at one point to feeling sad before we came to visit but not being sure over what, but now feeling much better in her heart. We promised to visit again soon. She walked us to the door like it was her own place we remembered so well, and waited while the nurse punched the code into the security door. She smiled sweetly as she said her good-byes.

As we drove away I reflected on the experience.  The facility was well constructed, clean, tasteful and had a very nice courtyard (which incidentally was the sunning spot for one of the residents who had taken her clothes off.) The staff seemed mostly helpful, although there were a couple notable hard faces that made me wonder how gentle they were with their charges when visiting hours were finished. The niceties, however, could not mask the nature of the place – it was where people went to deteriorate, and then die. Or more accurately probably, it was a place people were sent to deteriorate and die. The living room was full of people who had reached their zenith and soon would set. Their work, their loves and hopes and aspirations all were mostly behind them. Their ability to influence others limited largely to the shells around them.

I reflected on this, and on the pertinency of some of the following wisdom.

“For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.” Ecclesiastes 9:4

“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.” Psalms 90:12

“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” Ecclesiastes 9:10.

Are you upset with your life, reader? Is it not much better than the hidden reality of the dementia ward?

Do not despair.  It is easy to find ourselves overcome with worries and anxieties, dissatisfied with our circumstances. But we are surrounded with blessings, as well. Where there is life there is hope. A living dog is better than a dead lion. And we have much to be thankful for. If you are reading this it means you are not in an old folks home, eating overcooked carrots and peas, with instant mash potatoes and talking madness.

Do you know the old hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul”? You can find it on many a website if you have never heard it. Give it a listen, and remember – There is a God, and He sent His Son for you. He loves you. Do not despair. Today is the day to live. Hope. Help others. Make your life a living sacrifice, and a legacy of good. And say, in hard times because of the love of God and the peace that He brings amidst the storm – It is well with my soul.