Month: November 2013

FRIDAY MORNING MANNA
Nathaniel Fajardo
November 22, 2013
Email:[email protected]

Are We Preparing for the Latter Rain?– Part VI

Calamities always seem to bring out the best and worst in men—heroic and magnanimous efforts in the former and shameless looting and opportunism in the latter. But they and many of us, too, still don’t get it, this late.

While Haiyan’s multi-dimensional devastation in the Philippines were and are still hot in the news feeds, the Chicago Tribune, Nov. 18headlined:  “Deadly storm spawns more than 80 reports of tornadoes in Midwest.” An old ditty says, “Never on a Sunday.” But as the Tribune reports:  “The scale of Sunday’s [November 17] deadly storm became clearer . . : 8 people dead in Illinois, hundreds of homes flattened and splintered, more than 8o tornadoes reported through the Midwest, 40 reports of large hail. Since 1986, there have been 194 tornado warnings issued on the month of November in Illinois : More than half of them, 101, were issued Sunday, according to the Chicago Weather Center . . . .

FRIDAY MORNING MANNA November 15, 2013
Nathaniel Fajardo Email:[email protected]

Are We Preparing for the Latter Rain?– Part V

Resilient, patient, long-suffering, hospitable, hard-working, resourceful, religious, and forgiving to a fault as a people, “pliant as a bamboo, ” as the Filipino literary art critic and poet I. V. Mallari described in his essay, the Filipinos in the Philippines are still sifting through the horror that Typhoon Haiyan, or Yolanda (as known in the Philippines), left in its devastating wake exactly a week after our Christian Roman Catholic brethren celebrated their All Saints Day, November 1, All Souls Day the next day (their solemn feast commemorating those who died and are now in Purgatory). Halloween, celebrated by most other Christians, is the eve or vigil of All Saints Day.

If the death toll of more than 10,000 in Tacloban alone, provincial capital of Leyte Island, turns out to be correct, Haiyan would be the deadliest natural disaster ever recorded in the Philippines, packing record-breaking winds of 170 mph and causing tsunami-like storm surge to rise as high as 20 feet.

FRIDAY MORNING MANNA
November 8, 2013
Nathaniel Fajardo
Email: [email protected]

Are We Preparing for the Latter Rain?– Part IV

THE SCRIPTURAL FOUNDATION
(All from the King James or Authorized Version unless otherwise indicated)

The gospel prophet defined the basic rule and diagnostic tool for ascertaining Bible truth and distinguishing it from the counterfeits of the “sayings and commandments of men” or by the “traditions of the elders” or by the “wisdom of this world.” He declared: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isaiah 8: 20.

The means and process by which Bible truth is established and engraved in the heart and mind of true believers is not by “the popular will of the majority by surveys” or by the enforcement of church decrees by the civil power but by patiently gathering the preponderance of a “Thus saith the Lord” or “It is written” as Jesus Himself set the example in His battle with the devil.

FRIDAY MORNING MANNA November 1, 2013
Nathaniel Fajardo Email: [email protected]

Halloween and Pagan Friday

To mainstream Christianity, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, today, November 1, is All Saints Day. Wikianswers.com says some of the reasons Friday, when it falls on the 13th, carries superstitious beliefs with it, are as follows:

“In ancient Rome, Friday was execution day.
“In some Pre-Christian Religions Friday was a day of worship, so those who involved themselves in secular or self-interested activities on that day were not likely to receive the [heathen] gods’ blessing on their undertaking–which may go a long way to explain the superstition of not embarking on journeys or starting important projects on Fridays.

“From the Christian bible [which, if closely examined, are unscriptural!]:
“–Friday is reputed to be the day Eve gave Adam the apple.” The Bible never says it was an apple but fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and