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The events at Tokyo bay aboard the Missouri in 1945 helps me understand this issue when Japan signed the papers of surrender and peace treaty. All hostilities were to cease. All those who accepted it were free to go home. However, a number of Japanese soldiers kept on fighting. Likewise, peace, forgiveness, or justification was declared at the Cross, if you please, but it's blessings cannot be mine unless I accept it and give up fighting.

For an interesting approach to Payday Lending see: http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2015/march/how-twitter-feud-over-same-sex-marriage-doom-payday-lending.html

For more on this see: http://www.adventistreview.org/church-news/story2443-first-woman-gets-adventist-doctorate-in-theology-in-south-korea 1) She graduated with a doctorate. 2) She was blind! 3) That school had never before admitted a female student. 4) For another interesting aspect of her life, read the sidebar as to her marriage.

The First Angel’s Message http://www.jacksequeira.org/3angels2.htm

At work some staff listen to music. This confuses my concentration (although if my head needs I will listen to hymns) but I do go to YouTube and play nature sounds for background ambience. Running water is one of my favorites. The other day I played the sounds of being on a sailing ship, a tall ship (the wooden kind) in the ocean. Sometimes it will be beside a babbling brook; others it will be on a tropical beach listening to the quiet waves lapping the shore with seabirds in the distance. It reminds me of where I wish to be.

Being in the world but not of the world is the ability to glean these God moments. I imagine the angels do it all the time.

The OP has the positive fact All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalieneable rights, among them life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I am not sure were I writing the article I would call them moral facts. Probably true moral values. Love thy neighbor as thyself I would consider to be another one. Or the golden rule- do unto others. Living in a society in which we attempt to be kind is more pleasant than in a society in which anything goes- embezzlement perhaps murder- if we don't get caught. In the context of the OP, I have lived in California and even though I lived a comfortable middle class existence, I knew someone who knew someone who was killed in a gang shooting as an innocent bystander in a car, someone who just caught a ride with the wrong guy. I had to think long and hard about where I would live because of the violent crime levels in that city. There is a big difference between saying that there are some rare instances, such as preventing someone else from being killed, that taking life may not be wrong, and saying murder is not wrong because nothing is wrong, there is no real right and wrong. Seriously who would want to live in a society where murder was thought of as acceptable as long as you did not get caught? I am guessing only sociopaths gang bangers and psychopaths and their ilk. I have done substitute teaching, and I have seen quite a few kids who seemed to have few values. I tried to help them by talking about the kinds of behavior that were necessary to get and keep a good job, putting desired behavior in a positive framework, or sometimes a negative one, as in "Congratulations, you would just have been fired." They actually seemed to like it. Many young men from certain backgrounds wind up in jail for decades. Ben Carson shares how he could have been one of them. For him, a strong moral compass and a belief in God made the difference, not an empty belief, but a transformative belief. (Read his autobiography for details on how he almost killed someone as a teenager) Pilate said "What is truth" before he allowed them to execute Jesus. Perhaps it made him feel better, that day, but Ellen White says ever after his conscience tortured him, and I believe it. There are values of right and wrong that supersede our ideas of proof and are within the conscience of most, such as cold blooded murder. Pilate ordered the murder of someone he had just declared innocent because it was politically expedient to do so. Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life no man comes to the Father but by me, implying that there are higher truths and they are of God. While I do not believe in teaching religion in the public schools, sanitizing them of all moral values is in my opinion without merit.

Maybe we should consider developing an approach to life akin to Newton's first or second law of motion. Hint - Life as it was intend might have more of a trajectory like what one might experience as an example of the first law of motion. Climb out of the box and set your thinking in motion...

I know this wasn't addressed to me but I thought I'd point to Revelation 20 as the place I've seen to identify that reality. 4.........And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.5The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed..... 7When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison,.... 8and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore. 9And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them.... Revelation 20 God is Love! Jesus saves!

I have no definitive answer Pam but Sister White wrote (someplace) that "whoever preaches Christ let him preach" The HS will follow up with the truth. Just my 2-cents ...I shall defer to the more authoritative persons on this board

I like the theme too. Here is a little thought from Desire of Ages, Peace "is harmony with God". (DA p.302). To me this says a lot. It says that real peace is not dependant on circumstances. Real peace is dependant on one thing alone, and that is, "harmony with God" : to be "at one" with Him is to be at peace with Him... and with one another. It is true isn't it? We may walk with God, just as Enoch "walked with God". But the prophet asks a question -- "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" (Amos 3:3) To be in "agreement" with God is [in a sense] the goal of the Christian walk. To live in harmony with God is everything. I suggest that to walk with God implies a meeting, a harmony, a conformity, of mind and spirit, and where-ever that kind of harmony exists, there will, I believe, be peace. It will enable us to be at peace, even when people around us are panicking, frantic with fear. We will not be rendered "useless" in a time of trouble.

Sheep good. Wolves bad. G