Dear Church Family,

We are seeing the rapid fulfillment of the following quote!

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 for the conversion of the world and the ushering in of the long-expected millennium.  GC 588

Let us be awake and vigilant, faithful in following our Lord’s directives.  I would invite you if you haven’t seen the three youtube video’s posted below to check them out. The first one is short and highlights the progress of unity between Catholicism and Methodism.  The 2nd video highlights the growing unity between Lutherans and Catholics.  I might add that here is an upcoming conference seeking to heal the wound.  (See Revelation 13 and note the similar language from the site) Then the 3rd video is one I have shared before. It is a bit dated and a bit primitive in its presentation style but offers a very clear picture of the emergent church which while the term “emergent church” seems to be dying a bit, the principles it promotes seem stronger than ever.  It’s worth your time I believe as it presents a clear picture of what the movement is about. This appears to reveal some of the ways in which spiritualism is uniting with Christianity.  I share this not to focus on the dark side of things but to remind us to be alert and faithful to the study of God’s Word and the counsel we’ve been given.

I just added a 4th video that I was made aware of from Kenneth Copeland. It’s amazing how things are coming together before our eyes.

In light of these things, let us be mindful of the Loud Cry message we’ve been given.  Notice as the theme of  this last day message is articulated in the following two paragraphs:

The Lord in His great mercy sent a most precious message to His people through Elders [E.J.] Waggoner and [A. T.] Jones. This message was to bring more prominently before the world the uplifted Saviour, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It presented justification through faith in the Surety; it invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God.
Many had lost sight of Jesus. They needed to have their eyes directed to His divine person, His merits, and His changeless love for the human family. All power is given into His hands, that He may dispense rich gifts unto men, imparting the priceless gift of His own righteousness to the helpless human agent. This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world. It is the third angel’s message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of His Spirit in a large measure.—Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 91, 92 (1895).

In the news:

1. This Sabbath we will share in a Bible Study entitled, “Salvation in one Word – YES.”
2. There will be a fellowship lunch this Sabbath.
3. AYA this week will be at 6pm with a report from the Marsa & Thomas families regarding their recent Maranatha trip to Africa.
4. Diabetes Undone began this week and is off to a good start. Tina is serving as one of the table hosts and has shared with me the enthusiasm that she’s seen at her table of guests.  Suranny is leading out on Tuesday’s and Kezia Finley is leading out on Thursdays.  We have a great team of volunteers and a great group of participants with many coming from the community.
5. This is the week to invite your friends and neighbors to the Pale Horse Rides event next weekend beginning Friday, Oct 27 @ 7pm. There will be flyers available this Sabbath as bulletin inserts and some extras in the foyer.  This is a great mini-series for you to invite your friends too.  The schedule is Friday at 7pm and Sabbath at 11am and 6;30pm.  Chuck Reese will serve as the host.
6. I wanted to share with you a few quotes from a book that I was recently reading from called, “Whole” by T. Colin Campbell & Howard Jacobson. Some of these reports I had heard before but if you are like me, I need reminders to encourage me along the way.  Sorry, I don’t have page #’s as these are highlights from my Kindle and the book expired before I finished reading it.  I had checked it out from the local library.
   • Plant-based nutrition tends to elicit enormous effect sizes. I first saw this in a set of experiments in India that I read about and then replicated with my graduate students at Cornell, in which researchers exposed laboratory animals (rats) to a powerful carcinogen (cancer-causing agent), then fed one group a diet of 20 percent animal protein and the other a diet of 5 percent animal protein. Every single animal in the 20 percent group developed cancer or cancer precursor lesions, while not one of the 5 percenters did. One hundred percent to zero percent. That kind of result is rarely seen in biological studies that have so many confounding variables. Yet that’s what we found.
   • Part of the significance of our findings was the relatively low animal protein levels needed to trigger cancer. Most carcinogen studies (for example, the ones on food dyes and nitrates in hot dogs and environmental toxins like dioxin) dose the lab animals with hundreds or thousands of times the amount they would ever encounter in nature. The extremely powerful carcinogenic effect we saw was occurring at levels of animal protein that humans routinely consumed, and were encouraged to consume.
   • In fact, in 1983, my Cornell University research group showed that we could switch early cancer growth on and off in rats simply by changing the amount of protein they consumed. Equally amazing, when cancer was switched off for a relatively long time by feeding a low-protein diet, it could be turned on again by switching to a high-protein diet.4 The effect was striking. When turned on, cancer growth was vigorous and robust. When turned off, it was totally shut down. Major changes in cancer development, both positive and negative, were triggered by only modest changes in protein intake.
   • Plant proteins, such as those from wheat and soy, had no effect on cancer development, even at high levels.
   • The most significant carcinogen, the substance that almost invariably led to cancer at 20 percent of the rats’ diet, was casein, or milk protein.
   • The ideal human diet looks like this: Consume plant-based foods in forms as close to their natural state as possible (“whole” foods). Eat a variety of vegetables, fruits, raw nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, and whole grains. Avoid heavily processed foods and animal products. Stay away from added salt, oil, and sugar. Aim to get 80 percent of your calories from carbohydrates, 10 percent from fat, and 10 percent from protein. That’s it, in 66 words. In this book I call it the whole food, plant-based (WFPB) diet, and sometimes the WFPB lifestyle (I’m not crazy about the word diet, which implies a heroic and temporary effort rather than a sustainable and joyful way of eating).
7. Pastor Alex & I along with our spouses and several others from the church will be attending AMEN next weekend and will sadly miss the Pale Horse Rides. The conflict was unfortunate but we are thankful for the opportunity the AMEN conference affords and will be praying for the success of the Pale Horse Rides program.  Randy & Kathy Nomura will be there as well to represent our school and promote it at the conference. We will have a booth there and will be educating attendees as to the many attractive reasons to make Greeneville their home.  If you think about it, it is rare to find such an idyllic setting with a school that offers all 12 grades.  We are indeed blessed to live in this community.
8. Looking ahead, God in Shoes is set to take place on Sunday, October 29. If you would like to be involved and help, contact Kathy Nomura.
9. Please remember to keep the community services center in your prayers.  We are still looking for leadership that can take over when the Coonleys and Turks retire.

Blessings as you prepare for the coming Sabbath!

In His Service,
Pastor Jeremy