427: A SIGNIFICANT DAY: OCTOBER 31, 1517 - THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION 500 YEARS AGO

For most, today is just another Halloween... celebrated by millions with costumes and candy. It is a day when we justify eating unhealthy candy and even hand it out in handfuls to little children dressed up as monsters. Not one of my favorite holidays.

I was surprised to see that the LDS Church joined in the celebration this year by releasing this "scary" video of Richard Elliott, the Mormon Tabernacle Organist, playing an eerie solo on the historic Tabernacle Organ. This iconic LDS Tabernacle which has been used for sacred religious services for well over a century now was transformed to look haunted with eerie lighting and filled with fog for this video below.

Sidenote: In my opinion, the above video is relatively mild compared to the event held in a London Catholic Church that was used to host a Satanic Fashion Show last month.  LINK to video.


HOWEVER... Today is should be observed differently than previous Halloweens. Today marks the 500 year anniversary of the Protestant Reformation which began when Martin Luther expressed his concerns and took his written greivances, known as The 95 Theses, and nailed them to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517.

Today people just blog.

I think Martin Luther chose Halloween, 500 years ago today, which was on the eve of All Hallows Day or known as All Saints Day on purpose.  All Saints Day,  observed on November 1, is the day that the Catholic Church celebrates and honors the worshipped Saints. It was a way to show gratitude to them for allowing their grace and excess good deeds to be sold for the sinner to receive forgiveness. So Luther probably used this important day as one more way protest to show his disgust of the Catholic Church for the corrupt practice of selling indulgences.

So instead of just celebrating today like previous Halloweens, I would recommend taking a moment to read more about the Reformation here or even watching the movie Luther which can be watched for free on Youtube. Below is the full movie. 

Happy Reformation Day!

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Sidenote:

I received an email yesterday from an LDS ward member. Concerned  that some might have negative reactions over the recent announcements released this week from the LDS Church, he first listed all of the changes that the Church announced recently (see below)...

• The Deletion of one of the Priesthood Conference Sessions
• Changes to the Missionary Program
• Standard Questions for Prospective Missionaries  

then said he said the following:

"I for one am grateful that we have been blessed with prophets and leaders who are continuously evaluating programs and policies to determine how they can be improved and then moving forward with necessary changes as they are inspired by revelation from God to act on their decisions. I also believe as members of this church we need to do our best to learn of and support these changes in every way we can." 

BTW: I probably would have included one more to list of the recent changes to LDS Church's endorsed programs. The decision to allow girls into the Boy Scouts. . I found it impeccable timing to have the Friends of Scouting Drive to conclude one week prior to the announcement. After receiving the required amount of money from the LDS faithful, a HUGE policy change was made to have Girls to now become Boys Scouts. LINK TO DESERET NEWS STORY

426: END TIMES?

My Neighbors, Family, Ward Members and Co-workers have asked me my thoughts about all of the recent events after the solar eclipse occured this summer. Fires, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Flooding, and now the latest with mass murders/shootings in Las Vegas. Things are not quite right when a family from Utah goes on a vacation cruise and the wife started to laugh at the husband and the husband then kills her. He then tried to throw her overboard... or when newlywed husband after taking cold medicine was dreaming he was stabbing his wife and he woke up, and she is dead because he really did stab her in his sleep. Below is from a talk I recently heard:

 "The spirit of God is withdrawing from the world. Men are increasingly more angry without good cause. The hearts of men are waxing cold... This process with the spirit withdrawing, will end on this continent, as it did with two prior civilization in fratricidal and genocidal warfare. For the rest of the world, it will be as in the days of Noah in which, as that light becomes eclipsed, the coldness of men’s hearts is going to result in a constant scene of violence and bloodshed. The wicked will destroy the wicked." 

SO, DESPITE ALL OF THE NEGATIVE GOING ON THIS VIDEO HAS BEEN CREATED.

This video will hopefully give hope despite many reasons to lose it.  My prayer would be that we recognize our precarious circumstance and turn to the Lord and ask for His mercy. We have the choice to ripen as wheat if we only repent.