John Wycliffe the "Morning Start of Reformation"

John de Wycliffe, born about 1324, styled the “Morning Star of Reformation,” was an English divine, whose piety and talents procured for him one of the highest ecclesiastical positions of honor.  Having openly preached against the corruptions of the Roman Church, he was displaced, the pope issuing several bulls against him for heresy.  Accordingly, he was examined by an assembly, but made so able a defense that it ended without determination.  Continuing to denounce the papal corruptions, and power, he was again summoned before a synod, but was released by order of the king’s mother.  It is remarkable that although he continued his vehement attacks upon vital of Romish doctrine, he escaped the fate of others similarly accused; but over forty years after his death, which occurred in 1384, his bones were exhumed, burned, and cast into the River Swift, which bore them through the Severn to the sea, his very dust thus becoming emblematic of his doctrine, now diffused the world over.  His most important work was the first English version of the Bible.   BRT

The 2300 day prophecy of Danel 8

If men would but take the Bible as it reads, a great work would be accomplished

The truths most plainly revealed in the Bible have been involved in doubt and darkness by learned men, who, with a pretense of great wisdom, teach that the Scriptures have a mystical, a secret, spiritual meaning not apparent in the language employed. These men are false teachers. It was to such a class that Jesus declared, “Ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God.” The language of the Bible should be explained according to its obvious meaning, unless a symbol or figure is employed. Christ has given the promise, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.” If men would but take the Bible as it reads, if there were no false teachers to mislead and confuse their minds, a work would be accomplished that would make angels glad, and that would bring into the fold of Christ thousands upon thousands who are now wandering in error.   RH June 28, 1906

What does the bible say about Christ's pre-existence?

Daniel 3:25 “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.”

Micah 5:2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

Other Translations: 

Micah 5:2 Good News Translation (GNT) "The Lord says, “Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are one of the smallest towns in Judah, but out of you I will bring a ruler for Israel, whose family line goes back to ancient times.”

Micah 5:2 God's Word Translation (GW) "You, Bethlehem Ephrathah, are too small to be included among Judah’s cities. Yet, from you Israel’s future ruler will come for me. His origins go back to the distant past, to days long ago."

Micah 5:2 Easy-to-Read Version (ERV) "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, are the smallest town in Judah. Your family is almost too small to count, but the “Ruler of Israel” will come from you to rule for me. His beginnings^[a] are from ancient times, from long, long ago."

Micah 5:2 Contemporary English Version (CEV) "Bethlehem Ephrath, you are one of the smallest towns in the nation of Judah. But the Lord will choose one of your people to rule the nation— someone whose family goes back to ancient times.^[a]" 

John 1:1-3 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

John 3:17 “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

John 8:58 NLT “Jesus answered, “The truth is, I existed before Abraham was even born!”

John 16:28 “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.”

John 17:5 “And now, O Father, glorify you me with thine own self with the glory which I had with you before the world was.”

John 17:24 “Father, I will that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which you have given me: for you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

Colossians 1:15-17 “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”

Hebrews 1:1-2 “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 2 Has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;”

Hebrews 1:10 “And, You, Lord, in the beginning have laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:”

1 John 4:9 “because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.”

Revelation 22:13 “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”

BRI: The term “Son” is used metaphorically

BRI 

Fifth, the father-son image cannot be literally applied to the divine Father-Son relationship within the Godhead. The Son is not the natural, literal Son of the Father. A natural child has a beginning, while within the Godhead the Son is eternal. The term “Son” is used metaphorically when applied to the Godhead. It conveys the ideas of distinction of persons within the Godhead and the equality of nature in the context of an eternal, loving relationship.

For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.

Note: Out of the shadows documentary is the name for the full version of this.

The masters of deception

Throughout Christendom, Protestantism was menaced by formidable foes. The first triumphs of the Reformation past, Rome summoned new forces, hoping to accomplish its destruction. At this time the order of the Jesuits was created, the most cruel, unscrupulous, and powerful of all the champions of popery. Cut off from earthly ties and human interests, dead to the claims of natural affection, reason and conscience wholly silenced, they knew no rule, no tie, but that of their order, and no duty but to extend its power. (See Appendix.) The gospel of Christ had enabled its adherents to meet danger and endure suffering, undismayed by cold, hunger, toil, and poverty, to uphold the banner of truth in face of the rack, the dungeon, and the stake. To combat these forces, Jesuitism inspired its followers with a fanaticism that enabled them to endure like dangers, and to oppose to the power of truth all the weapons of deception. There was no crime too great for them to commit, no deception too base for them to practice, no disguise too difficult for them to assume. Vowed to perpetual poverty and humility, it was their studied aim to secure wealth and power, to be devoted to the overthrow of Protestantism, and the re-establishment of the papal supremacy.  

When appearing as members of their order, they wore a garb of sanctity, visiting prisons and hospitals, ministering to the sick and the poor, professing to have renounced the world, and bearing the sacred name of Jesus, who went about doing good. But under this blameless exterior the most criminal and deadly purposes were often concealed. It was a fundamental principle of the order that the end justifies the means. By this code, lying, theft, perjury, assassination, were not only pardonable but commendable, when they served the interests of the church. Under various disguises the Jesuits worked their way into offices of state, climbing up to be the counselors of kings, and shaping the policy of nations. They became servants to act as spies upon their masters. They established colleges for the sons of princes and nobles, and schools for the common people; and the children of Protestant parents were drawn into an observance of popish rites. All the outward pomp and display of the Romish worship was brought to bear to confuse the mind and dazzle and captivate the imagination, and thus the liberty for which the fathers had toiled and bled was betrayed by the sons. The Jesuits rapidly spread themselves over Europe, and wherever they went, there followed a revival of popery.        Great Controversy pp. 234

Fauci's mentors: The Jesuits

Major retail and grocery stores closing for Easter ‘day of rest’ amid coronavirus pandemic

NJ Apr 05, 2020

Major grocery and retail stores that usually stay open on Easter Sunday have announced plans to close for the day to give employees a break during the coronavirus pandemic.

BJ’s Wholesale Club and Trader Joe’s have both announced closures on April 12. BJ’s says the day off will give employees “a day to rest and recharge," while Trader Joe’s has called the day off a “much needed day of rest.”

Both stores have typically remained open on Easter Sunday.

Sam’s Club, Costco, Target, and Aldi have typically closed on Easter Sunday, and will also close this year.

Trump On Coronavirus Outbreak: 'This Was Artificially Induced'

Kushner’s team seeks national coronavirus surveillance system

Politico 04/08/2020

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s task force has reached out to a range of health technology companies about creating a national coronavirus surveillance system to give the government a near real-time view of where patients are seeking treatment and for what, and whether hospitals can accommodate them, according to four people with knowledge of the discussions.

The proposed national network could help determine which areas of the country can safely relax social-distancing rules and which should remain vigilant. But it would also represent a significant expansion of government use of individual patient data, forcing a new reckoning over privacy limits amid a national crisis.

Health privacy laws already grant broad exceptions for national security purposes. But the prospect of compiling a national database of potentially sensitive health information has prompted concerns about its impact on civil liberties well after the coronavirus threat recedes, with some critics comparing it to the Patriot Act enacted after the 9/11 attacks.

Already, the Trump administration has sought to ease data-sharing rules and assure health data companies they won’t be penalized for sharing information with state and federal officials — a move driven in part by Kushner’s push to assemble the national network, according to an individual with knowledge of the decision.

“This is a genuine crisis — we have to work through it and do our best to protect people’s health,” said Jessica Rich, a former director of the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer protection bureau. “But doing that doesn’t mean we have to destroy privacy.”

Viganò: Has the Pope now ‘disavowed’ being Vicar of Christ and declare himself 'absolute monarch?

Life Site Apr 4, 2020

Former papal nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has called the dropping of Pope Francis’ essential title “Vicar of Christ” from the 2020 Pontifical Yearbook an act that appears to “officially alter the Papacy,” such that the Pope “no longer recognizes himself as guardian.”

“This change in the layout and content of an official text of the Catholic Church cannot be ignored, nor is it possible to attribute it to a gesture of humility on the part of Francis, which is not in keeping with his name being so prominently featured,” wrote Viganò in a statement he sent to LifeSiteNews (read full statement below). 

“Instead, it seems possible to see in it the admission — passed over in silence — of a sort of usurpation, whereby it is not the “Servus servorum Dei” [The Servant of the Servants of God] who reigns, but the person of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who has officially disavowed being the Vicar of Christ, the Successor of the Prince of the Apostles and the Supreme Pontiff, as if they were annoying trappings of the past: only mere ‘historical titles,’” he added. 

LifeSite reported April 2 that  Pope Francis, in a surprise move, dropped the historic and essential title “Vicar of Christ” from the 2020 Pontifical Yearbook, the Holy See’s annual directory, relegating the title to a footnote, calling it a “historical title.”

While previous yearbooks listed the title “Vicar of Christ” and the name of the reigning Pope under that title, this year’s annual directory simply lists the name “Jorge Mario Bergoglio,” the name of the man who became Pope Francis in 2013. The title “Vicar of Jesus Christ” stems from Holy Scripture where Jesus granted St. Peter the power of the keys in the Church.

Archbishop Viganò said it’s as if Pope Francis now views himself as becoming “master of the Church, free to demolish it from within without having to answer to anyone.”

 

“In short, a tyrant,” he said.

Happy Sabbath

So your church is closed, now what do you do?

NTEB March 30, 2020

As a society, Americans in 2020 are largely a pampered lot of people, me included. True, we have our share of the poor, but not poor like what you see in Indonesia, or Afghanistan and Africa where they lick dirt to find the nutrients. In America there is abundance, and we are not used to living any other way. We have churches in nearly every town, and a lot of time there are massive million dollar megachurches. What do you see when you go inside? A lot of people “going to church” but it’s really become more of a social club where people meet to gossip, hook up, socialize and drink coffee. They roll their eyes if the preacher goes longer than usual, lukewarm as the day is long. Maybe God is doing you a favor by allowing your church to be shut down, maybe God is trying to wake you up.

I think we’ve forgotten that born again Christians are the Church, it was never about the building. There were no church buildings in the First Century AD, where did they meet? They met at people’s homes, in small groups, and they made the word of God of primary importance. Many of them suffered persecution by Rome for doing so, and were put to death. It cost them something to meet to worship the Lord like that, and it caused them to walk very closely with Him.

Now we get to see who the Christians are.

Fauci: ‘No doubt’ Trump will face surprise infectious disease outbreak

Archive January 11, 2017

Anthony S. Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said there is “no doubt” Donald J. Trump will be confronted with a surprise infectious disease outbreak during his presidency.

Fauci has led the NIAID for more than 3 decades, advising the past five United States presidents on global health threats from the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s through to the current Zika virus outbreak.

During a forum on pandemic preparedness at Georgetown University, Fauci said the Trump administration will not only be challenged by ongoing global health threats such as influenza and HIV, but also a surprise disease outbreak.

“The history of the last 32 years that I have been the director of the NIAID will tell the next administration that there is no doubt they will be faced with the challenges their predecessors were faced with,” he said.

While observers have speculated since his election about how Trump will respond to such challenges, Fauci and other health experts said Tuesday that preventing disease pandemics often starts overseas and that a proper response means collaboration between not only the U.S. and other countries, but also the public and private health sectors.

“We will definitely get surprised in the next few years,” he said.

Anthony Fauci background: 

Fauci was born December 24, 1940, in Brooklyn, New York, to Stephen A. Fauci and Eugenia A. Fauci, owners of a pharmacy, where his father worked as the pharmacist, his mother and sister worked the register, and Fauci delivered prescriptions.^[2] The pharmacy was located in the Dyker Heights section of Brooklyn.

Fauci's paternal grandparents, Antonino Fauci and Calogera Guardino, were from Sciacca, Italy. His maternal grandmother, Raffaella Trematerra, from Naples, Italy, was a seamstress. His maternal grandfather, Giovanni Abys, was born in Switzerland and was an artist, noted for landscape and portrait painting, magazine illustrations (Italy) as well graphic design for commercial labels, including olive oil cans. His great-grandparents emigrated to the US in the late 19th century. Fauci grew up Catholic.^[2][3][4]

Fauci attended Regis High School in New York City where he graduated in 1958. He then enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross where he received a BS in classics in 1962. Fauci then went on to attend Cornell University Medical College where he graduated first in his class with an MD in 1966.^[2] He then completed an internship and residency at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.^[5]

^{1) Regis High School: is a private Jesuit university-preparatory school for Roman Catholic young men located on Manhattan's Upper East Side.[4] Annual class enrollment is limited to approximately 135 male students from the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut tri-state area. The school is ranked as both the best Catholic high school in the United States and the best all-boys school in New York.}

2) College of the Holy Cross:  is a private Jesuit liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1843, Holy Cross is the oldest Catholic college in New England and one of the oldest in the United States. Opened as a school for boys under the auspices of the Society of Jesus, it was the first Jesuit college in New England. Today, Holy Cross is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) and is part of the Colleges of Worcester Consortium (COWC).

People who intentionally spread the coronavirus could face criminal charges under federal terrorism laws

Politico 03/24/2020

People who intentionally spread the coronavirus could face criminal charges under federal terrorism laws, the Justice Department’s No. 2 official said Tuesday.

In a memo to top Justice Department leaders, law enforcement agency chiefs and U.S. Attorneys across the country, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said prosecutors and investigators could come across cases of “purposeful exposure and infection of others with COVID-19.”

“Because Coronavirus appears to meet the statutory definition of a ‘biological agent’… such acts potentially could implicate the Nation’s terrorism-related statutes,” Rosen wrote. “Threats or attempts to use COVID-19 as a weapon against Americans will not be tolerated.”

Ex-PM calls for global government to tackle coronavirus

The Guardian 26 Mar 2020 

Gordon Brown has urged world leaders to create a temporary form of global government to tackle the twin medical and economic crises caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The former Labour prime minister, who was at the centre of the international efforts to tackle the impact of the near-meltdown of the banks in 2008, said there was a need for a taskforce involving world leaders, health experts and the heads of the international organisations that would have executive powers to coordinate the response.

A virtual meeting of the G20 group of developed and developing countries, chaired by Saudi Arabia, will be held on Thursday, but Brown said it would have been preferable to have also included the UN security council.

Rhode Island Door Knocks in Search of Fleeing New Yorkers

US News March 28, 2020
WESTERLY, RI (AP) — The Rhode Island National Guard started going door to door on Saturday in coastal areas to inform any New Yorkers who may have come to the state that they must self-quarantine for 14 days while Gov. Gina Raimondo expanded the mandatory self-quarantine to anyone visiting the state.

Raimondo also ordered residents to stay at home, with exceptions for getting food, medicines or going to the doctor, and ordered nonessential retail businesses to close Monday until April 13 to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. She also directed realtors and hotel operators to include new requirements that any out-of-state residents must quarantine for 14 days in their purchase agreements.

State Police set up a checkpoint on I-95 in Hope Valley on Friday where drivers with New York license plates must stop and provide contact information and were told to self-quarantine for two weeks, WPRI.com reported.

Could we quarantine the constitution?

RT  22 Mar, 2020

 Do we really think “it can’t happen here” in America? Could we quarantine the constitution? Are we doing it already?

Panics from pandemics unleash unchecked governmental power. The very premise of popular films like V for Vendetta reveal this: a group uses a virus to seize power and create a totalitarian society. Anyone could witness this from far-off lands, watching the news about China locking people up in their own homes and then removing them screaming from those homes whenever the state wanted. World War I and the Great Depression birthed virulent forms of governments with leaders like Hitler, Mao, Mussolini and Stalin.

Governments across America already used the pandemic, and the media-stoked panic around the pandemic particularly, to limit, restrict or remove First Amendment freedoms of speech and free association, with officials complaining about the potential restraints the freedom of religion imposed upon them. Others denied or declared the right to deny Second Amendment rights of gun purchase for personal safety (at a time governments are issuing no-arrest and no-detention orders for a wide range of crimes in their community while publicly freeing inmates from jails and prisons). They want to coordinate with tech companies to surveil and spy on your everyday movements and activities, in violation of the Fourth Amendment and potentially waive, unilaterally, your medical right to privacy in multiple contexts. Stay-at-home orders deprive you of your profession, occupation, business and property, without any due process of law at all beyond an executive fiat in violation of the Fifth Amendment right to due process. Governments request the authority to involuntarily imprison any American on mere fear of infection without any probable cause of crime or clear and present danger of harm by that person’s volitional conduct, deny access to personal counsel in an unsupervised, un-surveilled manner in violation of the Sixth Amendment, and act as judge, jury and executioner in violation of the Seventh Amendment right to a trial by jury, as jury trials themselves get suspended around the country in the nation’s quieted courts and fear-muted public.

The real pandemic threat is here. It’s the panic that will quarantine our Constitution.

Global Lord’s Prayer “united for humanity”

Oikumene 24 March 2020

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit invites all member churches for a joint prayer, saying the Lord’s Prayer together on Wednesday 25 March at noon.

Pope Francis has extended an invitation to all Christian leaders, including the World Council of Churches (WCC), to join in praying the Lord’s Prayer simultaneously on 25 March at noon Rome time, or noon local time at any location across the world.

In a letter of invitation, Cardinal Kurt Koch expressed his hope that all will join “this initiative in which all Christians invoking together the graces from heaven, will ask for the end of this pandemic, trusting in the power of God.”

WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit welcomed the invitation and the opportunity for so many people to participate in a united prayer for all of humanity as the world faces the pandemic of COVID-19.

“As people across the globe are in their scattered working places at home, we will have the opportunity to unite our voices in praying to God with the words that our Lord Jesus Christ taught us” said Tveit. “At this challenging time, prayerful activities that unite us are a reminder that we are one human family.”

UN Chief Calls For 'Global Ceasefire' To Unite Against COVID-19

Abplive 24 Mar 2020

United Nations: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has made an emotional plea to put all "armed conflicts on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives" against coronavirus.

Calling for a "global ceasefire," he said at a news conference on Monday, "The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war. That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world."

He was overcome by emotions as he started to speak and broke off and gathered himself to start again to speak to a world where conflicts rage even as it is engulfed by coronavirus.

In keeping with the UN headquarters directives and New York City regulations against gatherings, Guterres held the news conference via interactive teleconferencing.

Guterres also appealed for a coordinated international response to the coronavirus pandemic.

"We need a much stronger coordination, coordination in suppression of the disease, coordination in making sure that not only the developed countries can respond effectively to the disease but that there is massive support to the developing world not to let the disease spread like wildfire in the developing world," he said.

Where on earth were all the penguins?

Science Magazine Mar. 19, 2020

Where on Earth, wondered Henri Weimerskirch, were all the penguins? It was early 2017. Colleagues had sent the seabird ecologist aerial photos of Île aux Cochons, a barren volcanic island halfway between Madagascar and Antarctica that humans rarely visit. The images revealed vast areas of bare rock that, just a few decades before, had been crowded with some 500,000 pairs of nesting king penguins and their chicks. It appeared that the colony—the world’s largest king penguin aggregation and the second biggest colony of any of the 18 penguin species—had shrunk by 90%. Nearly 900,000 of the regal, meter-high, black, white, and orange birds had disappeared without a trace. “It was really incredible, completely unexpected,” recalls Weimerskirch, who works at the French national research agency CNRS.

Soon, he and other scientists were planning an expedition to the island—the first in 37 years, and only the third ever—to search for explanations. “We had to go see for ourselves,” says CNRS ecologist Charles Bost.

As the researchers prepared for the journey, they had to grapple with the logistical, political, and scientific challenges that have long bedeviled biologists trying to understand Antarctica’s remote ecosystems. The vast distances, rough weather, and rugged terrain make travel difficult and expensive. They needed a ship—and a helicopter, because frigid seas and rocky shores make for perilous boat landings on Antarctic islands. Complying with the tough permitting and biosecurity rules governing the French-controlled island—meant to prevent researchers from disturbing fragile ecosystems—required careful planning and paperwork that took months to complete. And once they arrived, they would have precious little time: just 5 days to investigate a multitude of suspects in the disappearance, including disease, predators, and a warming Southern Ocean.

This I Believe

Bill Gates always seems to know when it’s time to go

Computer World   Mar 16, 2020

Bill Gates resigned from Microsoft’s board of directors last week, pretty much ending his official ties to the company he co-founded. He says he’s still available as a technology adviser to CEO Satya Nadella and other Microsoft leaders, but otherwise he’s devoting himself completely to his other pursuits, like philanthropy.

Gates and the company he started very nearly 45 years ago with Paul Allen transformed the computing landscape. Throughout the period of Microsoft’s early growth and maturation, Gates was at the helm as CEO, demonstrating business leadership and competitiveness that, even more than technology, were keys to the company’s success.

The competitiveness eventually led to Microsoft’s antitrust issues. The technology world was changing (I’ll go through some of that history in a bit), and the leader who had made Microsoft a tech giant was perhaps no longer tuned in to the changes as he once had been. That happens a lot with founders. What rarely happens is that the founder sees the writing on the wall and takes a step back. But Gates did. He resigned as CEO, staying on as chairman of the board.

Not everything Gates did was brilliant. By the time the internet had become a force in the tech world, Gates and Microsoft had made a series of missteps that almost made the company irrelevant. And in resigning as CEO, Gates left Steve Ballmer in charge. Ballmer clearly had earned the right to lead Microsoft as CEO, but he wasn’t right for the job, and Gates eventually had to remove him. The men had always been close, and it couldn’t have been easy to do it, but he did.

Founder power

This is the third step back from Microsoft that Gates has taken. He dropped his day-to-day duties as CEO in 2006, and gave up ultimate oversight as chairman of the board in 2014. Now he has relinquished his seat on the board.

This is actually a remarkable record. Founders have extraordinary power at a company, and they often don’t know when to step down, sometimes doing the company so much harm in their later years that the firm doesn’t recover. Even if they step away from day-to-day activity, they often step in and exert their influence at critical times, undermining the sitting CEO and setting the company up for failure. As chairman, Gates seemed to have refrained from that sort of thing, until the day came when Ballmer had to go.

The China That Emerges After Coronavirus Will Be A Cashless Society

Wealth Advisor  

Freezing cross-province transfers and replacing $86 billion in paper yuan is only consolidating a process of surveillance where Beijing can monitor all transactions.

It’s still getting bad in China, where reported coronavirus cases are doubling every 7-10 days. Until that exponential contagion curve flattens out, we just don’t know how far the outbreak spreads or how fast the government will ultimately be able to contain it.

The society that emerges is going to play by different rules. And it starts with Beijing locking down even more of the second-biggest economy in history. 

Cash was already going away in China. Now it turns out that the virus shows up on old paper money and can live there for days.

Every time every one of those infected yuan notes moves from hand to hand, it’s another infection vector. If you handle the wrong money, you’re literally carrying the plague.

Naturally that makes people much less eager to accept cash. Luckily there are payment apps to keep everything clean and digital.

But coincidentally enough, the big apps from Alibaba and We Chat already work hand in glove with the central bank. There’s no privacy there. The transactions are open to surveillance.

And with true crypto driven deep underground, cash was the best way left to operate in the country without leaving a transparent digital trail. 

Is it any wonder Beijing has started impounding yuan notes in the quarantine zone while stopping transfers between provinces? 

Old currency just isn’t getting replaced. Instead it’s being withdrawn from circulation so it can be sterilized. In theory, new money will take its place.

Actress Julia Roberts Shares Poem on Shabbat Observance

Algemeiner March 16, 2020

Amid the ongoing coronavirus crisis, US actress Julia Roberts posted on Instagram on Sunday a poem about quarantining and social distancing that begins by discussing Shabbat.

“What if you thought of it as the Jews consider the Sabbath — the most sacred of times?” the poem by Lynn Unger asked. “Cease from travel. Cease from buying and selling. Give up, just for now, on trying to make the world different that it is. Sing. Pray. Touch only those to whom you commit your life. Center down.”

Unger wrote the three-paragraph poem, titled “Pandemic,” last week. She said thinking about the “restrictions” observant Jews face during Shabbat helped her form her poem.

“We generally think of restrictions as being a negative,” she told the Chicago Tribune. “But the idea of the Sabbath is that accepting these restrictions — you can’t exchange money, drive a car, work — can be a spiritual discipline that is a source of beauty, a source of the holy, as opposed to just being a pain in the ass.”

Is this the event leading to the big event?

There is no union between the Prince of light and the prince of darkness

The apostles encountered those in the church who professed godliness while they were secretly cherishing iniquity. Ananias and Sapphira acted the part of deceivers, pretending to make an entire sacrifice for God, when they were covetously withholding a portion for themselves. The Spirit of truth revealed to the apostles the real character of these pretenders, and the judgments of God rid the church of this foul blot upon its purity. This signal evidence of the discerning Spirit of Christ in the church was a terror to hypocrites and evildoers. They could not long remain in connection with those who were, in habit and disposition, constant representatives of Christ; and as trials and persecution came upon His followers, those only who were willing to forsake all for the truth's sake desired to become His disciples. Thus, as long as persecution continued, the church remained comparatively pure. But as it ceased, converts were added who were less sincere and devoted, and the way was open for Satan to obtain a foothold.  

But there is no union between the Prince of light and the prince of darkness, and there can be no union between their followers. When Christians consented to unite with those who were but half converted from paganism, they entered upon a path which led further and further from the truth. Satan exulted that he had succeeded in deceiving so large a number of the followers of Christ. He then brought his power to bear more fully upon these, and inspired them to persecute those who remained true to God. None understood so well how to oppose the true Christian faith as did those who had once been its defenders; and these apostate Christians, uniting with their half-pagan companions, directed their warfare against the most essential features of the doctrines of Christ.  

It required a desperate struggle for those who would be faithful to stand firm against the deceptions and abominations which were disguised in sacerdotal garments and introduced into the church. The Bible was not accepted as the standard of faith. The doctrine of religious freedom was termed heresy, and its upholders were hated and proscribed.  

After a long and severe conflict, the faithful few decided to dissolve all union with the apostate church if she still refused to free herself from falsehood and idolatry. They saw that separation was an absolute necessity if they would obey the word of God. They dared not tolerate errors fatal to their own souls, and set an example which would imperil the faith of their children and children's children. To secure peace and unity they were ready to make any concession consistent with fidelity to God; but they felt that even peace would be too dearly purchased at the sacrifice of principle. If unity could be secured only by the compromise of truth and righteousness, then let there be difference, and even war.  

Well would it be for the church and the world if the principles that actuated those steadfast souls were revived in the hearts of God's professed people.     Great Controversy pp. 44,45