great controversy blog

building bigger barns (with red carpet!)

daniel — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 19:54:49 +0000

Yesterday i went to the McDonald Road SDA church just a 25-minute walk from where i stay. It is seen by most as a fairly “strong conservative” church. When i arrived in the sanctuary, i thot how luxurious it was, with the carpet being especially nice. I thot to myself (in my cynical/life experienced way), they probably are thinking about ripping it up to lay down new carpet. Well, in the announcement time, they announced…. “We have purchased new carpet and are asking for help on some Sunday to take the pews out so we can lay down the new carpet.” The first thing that went thru my head was “building bigger barns”. How can we read our Bibles and profess to follow and believe what God says, and then by our actions just totally ignore those words? So i guess those people in the Himalayan hills in Sikkim state, who finally got their very first church last year, will have to wait maybe a few more years/forever for electricity to their church, or a heater, or just about anything except a hard concrete floor and open-air windows. And yet, i haven’t heard anyone there complain - they’re actually happy to have an enclosed building to worship in. But who knows how long to wait for funds to build the next one in the province capital?

Do unto others what you want them to do to you.

Isn’t that part of everyone’s Bible? How will we be able to face the Creator of the heavens and the earth in that great day of judgment and he says: “Did you feed/water/clothe/visit/care for the needy?” Will we say “Oh Lord, we allocated 2% of church budget to those things”?

Maybe having red carpet on the church floor instead of blue will please God more than to have 2 extra churches where God’s family can grow?

“reaching islam made simple” review

daniel — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:52:32 +0000

Review of sermon given by Stephen Dickie at ASI meeting on August 6, 2010.

Well, this review is similar to my previous one of Stephen Dickie’s book: “Islam, God’s Forgotten Blessing” F.

This sermon does show refinement in the presentation of the message - that is, it doesn’t talk about the Qur’an as being a book from God, or about Allah being the same god as the Christian God, and in general, the tone is much better. The same error tho, about Islam being “good” and that we are all “God-Brothers” and the troubling scriptural twisting that somehow Ishmael’s line got the blessings of God is present.

Specific things regarding this sermon:
Right up front Stephen Dickie says the most egregious error of the sermon, the “block-buster” which seems to fail to awaken any reaction in the audience. He says near the beginning that after 9/11 he got interested in studying about Islam, and that it took him around 3 months to get up the courage to put what he thot was “satanic” material about Islam on his computer. He chuckles, and then says: “Islam…. is not satanic.” Now, with this blatant error out of the way quickly, and the audience not reacting, he then goes on mostly a true path for the rest of the sermon.

“I will never let a Muslim call me a Christian”. WOW. And no response from the audience, or from us listening today? How can us Seventh-day Adventists be promoting this kind of material with a pure conscience? How will we feel when the eyes of CHRIST are piercing us thru and thru when he gazes at us from that glorious cloudy chariot? “Um, oh, yes, i’m a Christian now?!”

“Tell them (Muslims) that you don’t eat pork in the first 45 seconds.” This seems like very good advice, as it opens a good wedge for the reception of the gospel.

He says when he reads Deut 21:15-17 to a Muslim, he changes the word “hated” to “unloved”, because he got badly verbally beaten up by a Muslim once! He uses these texts to try and prove that Ishmael must have received a double portion, and the right of the first-born is his!!! He says that God gave the land to Abraham’s descendants, and Ishmael’s line got twice as much as the Jews - plus all the oil! He says that they were never “cut off”, so i wonder what his position is on the Jews, who definitely WERE God’s chosen nation for over 1,000 years, until they killed him on the cross.

This fundamental misunderstanding about what is the “firstborn” derails everything that Brother Dickie is trying to produce - a reason why the Muslims are our “elder brother” and that we are all one family. Of course i recognize that they are humans, and we are all made in the image of God, but they are no more in favor with God than the Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, or even Satanists.
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maps - worldmapper, population maps, remotest place on earth, air traffic, etc.

daniel — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:59:13 +0000

I thot i’d blogged this before, but guess not. Here are some links to maps showing the remotest places on earth, the size of countries by population etc.

Here’s a cool site with lots of interesting maps. The one morphing from countries with people earning less than 1usd/day to those earning over 200usd/day tells a powerful story:
www.worldmapper.org

Remotest place. Notice how India is really lit up!:
remotest places on earth

24-hour air traffic around the world:
follow the planes

Lights on earth at nite:
are there any lights in North Korea?

giving

daniel — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 21:22:13 +0000

Warren Buffet, the man who gave 33,000,000,000 US Dollars or something like that a year or two ago to Bill Gates’ charity, has called on other wealthy people to give back to society, and 40 people have signed up so far. This is wonderful news, reviving a tiny glimmer of hope for mankind.

The reason this strikes me as important, is that God’s people should be doing such a marvelous mission work, that hearts would be touched, and billions of dollars would flow into God’s coffers. Of course, it is usually God’s way to touch hearts with his Holy Spirit to get the job done without the use of much money (like pulling it out of a fish’s mouth!) but still, there are rich people who are attracted to those making a full sacrifice for the good of others, and we should be like a shining beacon to them.
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/08/04/the-gates-buffett-giving-pledge-the-full-list-of-donors/

where’s the food?

daniel — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 21:12:36 +0000

I don’t often blog about current news, but the comment about the price of food potentially soaring late this year or early next year struck me, as Ellen White wrote about God’s people should not stock up on food when they see the price rising near the end time.
===========
Feast or Famine

As Asian governments grapple with too much rain, wheat- growing regions of Europe and Central Asia have the opposite problem.

Wheat has doubled in less than two months as drought slashed the harvest in Russia, the third-largest grower, prompting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to ban exports yesterday. Dry weather in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the European Union has also buoyed prices. Rice, a staple for half the world, rallied 9 percent in July, its biggest monthly advance since October.

The UN FAO Food Price Index, which tracks global prices of meat, dairy, cereals, sugar, oils and fats around, rose to 165.5 in July, the highest since February, according to its website.

The surge in wheat prices may fuel another food crisis as early as the fourth quarter this year, as millers seek cheaper substitutes for livestock feeds, sending prices of corn higher, and dragging with it the cost of soybeans, said Franciscus Welirang, chairman of the Flour Mills Association in Indonesia, Asia’s biggest importer of wheat.

Another global food crisis “is what we worry about in the fourth quarter or first quarter of next year,” Welirang said.

blessing after blessing - indonesia

daniel — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:22:00 +0000

I had not planned to go to Indonesia. Even after 4 1/2 years of travelling since leaving Japan, i had never made even one contact in Indonesia, and had no desire to go and visit. After getting the 1858 Great Controversy translated into Bahasa Malaysia in 2007, i had thot that maaaaaybe i should think about going to Indonesia because the languages were so similar. Of course i had read on the internet that there are many Seventh-day Adventists (200,000 in 2010), and knowing how the people in Sabah are very receptive to Ellen White books, i had slightly considered that perhaps a similar response would be seen in Indonesia.

Well, after 5 1/2 weeks of what appears to be mostly fruitless time spent in Malaysia (except for meeting one young SDA), wondering why pride, having maids work on the Sabbath, worldliness, and strange conspiracy theories (the last is probably stopped by now) had entered the church, and why not even one person would study the 1858 Great Controversy with me, i caught a late nite flight to Jakarta. The information on the internet was not good, saying that this city is bland, polluted, and a bit dangerous. Of course there was a bombing of the Marriott hotel here not too long back too, so that element is something to watch out for also. So i came a bit concerned about safety, and not expecting much in the way of spreading the Great Controversy book. But was i ever wrong! OK, the safety problem is mostly as described, but i didn’t actually encounter it. There are quite a few thieves, and the corruption of everybody, especially govt. officials, makes everybody out to be a thief it seems, but the reception of the 1858 Great Controversy book by Ellen White is just astounding! The only other place that has ever come close in reception of this book is Sabah Malaysia, and that was 4 and then 3 years ago. It is a different story there in both respects now tho.

At the Jakarta airport i had no hassle at all in purchasing a visa for 25 US dollars. The girl pasting the visa in the passport had the veil over her head, but her nice smile almost made me think i was at a tourist information center. I kind of made friends with one elderly man from Malaysia, and gave him a pamphlet on health, and then after around a 30-minute wait in a scene extremely different from the huge, efficient Bangkok airport, i walked thru customs and then into a little hallway lined with money changers and taxi booths. There were quite a few men there plugging for customers, but after changing 27sgd, i walked thru them just smiling and shaking my head “no”. Of course many of the taxi drivers would not take such an easy “no”, so they would follow me asking where i’m going, where i’m from, etc. etc. There was a large, outdoors all-nite fast food place, but that didn’t look too inviting outdoors, so i went back inside, and found a little cafe, and hung out there all nite nursing a cup of hot milk with some almond-taste chemical in it.
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southern publishing association building in nashville tennessee burns

daniel — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 02:07:41 +0000

This is sad: SPA burns down

Click on the following pics for larger view

Channel 5 TV News gave this report about the fire which occurred on July 20, 2010:

by Chris Cannon

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Investigators believe a 3-alarm structure fire Tuesday afternoon on 24th Avenue North near Clarksville Pike is suspicious. For nearly five hours, firefighters battled with intense flames and the extreme heat.

Crews responded to the blaze at the former Seventh Day Adventist publishing house around 1:20 p.m. Heavy black smoke could be seen from miles away.
PHOTOS: 3-Alarm Structure Fire

The fire went to three-alarms. Two alarms of the alarms because to the size of the fire.

“And the third alarm is so that our guys can rest and other guys can go in and fight the fire,” according to Nashville Fire captain Maggie Lawrence.

Officials said 120 firefighters responded to the scene.

Temperatures in Nashville were into the low 90s as crews fought the blaze. Heat coming off the burning structure added to the already hot conditions.

In the 1890s, son James Edson White piloted the riverboat Morning Star on the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. Through an onboard printing press he published a journal called Gospel Herald, which encouraged and evangelized blacks in the South.

Moving to Nashville, he set his press up in a former barn chicken house. In 1901 the Gospel Herald Publishing Company became the Southern Publishing Association.

So this looks to be the very end of the line for the Gospel Herald Magazine founded by Edson White, which became the Southern Publishing Association. My father worked there from 1962-1970 or thereabouts, and my brother worked there too. Many truth-filled books were printed there, and i thank God for raising up this light in this part of the world.

Fortunately, last year when in America, i was able to take 6 pictures of the old Southern Publishing Association building. These pics can be seen on my blog here.

Credits to WKRN, WTVF, and WSMV for the news reports and pictures of the blaze.

SDAの世界総会と近況

daniel — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:33:22 +0000

SDA教団の世界総会の場で赤城山で伝道してる人と会って、話し合った。　まず御主人（アメリカ人）と話したら僕が来て働くのに前向きだったけど、日本人の奥さん（昔一緒にカントリーライフで働いてた人）と話したら、「難しい」事分かって、行くのをやめた。　残念。　今赤城山で頑張ってる宣教師に報告したら彼は嘆いた。　通常のやりかたではうまくいってないのに、通常の考え方しか持ってないらしい。　とにかく、ダニーはしばらく日本に帰れない。　先週の火曜日に、帰りの時間になったらちょっと悲しくなってきた　:(

先週の木曜日からテネシー州にあるデビド・ゲーツ氏がやってるミッション関係の施設で働いている。　もちろんボランテーアで、無償です。　最初は雑業をやると言われたけど、もう既にビデオの編集とかの訓練を受けてて、嬉しい。　多くの人(３０人？）と一緒に住むのはどうかな、と思うけど、今のところでは大丈夫です。　昨日近くの教会まで２５分をかけて歩いて行ったけど、どうも肌に合わない。　７００人ぐらいの人が集まって、ちょっと戸惑った。　まっ、世界総会の６９，９８９人の出席者に及ばないけど、多すぎると思います。　はっきり言うと、あまりアメリカは肌に合わないのよ。　なぜか。　贅沢し過ぎというか、もっと貧しい兄弟姉妹の事を考えて欲しいな～。

テド・ウイルソンがSDA教団のトップと選ばれ、本当に神様に感謝します。　お父さんみたいにあやふやのような人じゃないらしい。　彼の最初の説教を聞いたら、4０年前のロバート・ピーサンのように真っすぐな真理が伝えられた事を思い出す。:)

warning, your blog may be next

daniel — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 14:40:53 +0000

The United States government shut down a Word Press blog host with 73,000 blogs affected, according to this report: authorities shut down wordpress host

Will your (my) web site be next?

back to tennessee

daniel — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:44:44 +0000

I was raised in Tennessee, living here until age 22, and then again for several months in 1997-1998 time frame. Now i’m back again.

I made it to the GMI “compound” near the McDonald road church near Collegedale Tennessee today after a couple of false starts the last two days I have a nice room, and the people seem nice. Please pray that i can have patience, and do what the Lord wants me to do here. They provide lunch, but breakfast and supper is on my own, so am about ready to cut up that big green pepper i put in the bag last Tuesday and maybe munch on some peanut-butter crackers.

It sounds like lots of people have just moved out, and lots moved in, so things are in quite a state of flux right now. Sounds like my first work will be helping in tidying up and maybe a little construction, and then maybe they will train me in video editing. So even if i don’t get a whole lot of private time to work on my animation project, hopefully there will be good results from the editing training. Of course i hope to be of service to them too. I sure hope and pray that the 1858 Great Controversy book and animation project can get propelled forward by my association here.

Lord, what do you want me to do? I’ve prayed much about this, and you’ve led me here. Here i am now, please use me. I need more patience, and pray for it abundantly, and also that i can give the straight truth to everyone i meet. I’ve tried and tried and tried to find places to get to working on the animation project, and nothing has ever worked out. PLEASE Lord, make it work out — soon. Amen.