CHEERS, #VOLTAIRE! Cardinal Aveline stresses that pastoral care for the newly baptized is a national priority for the Church in #France. This past Easter, over 10,000 adults received baptism. https://www.uccronline.it/eng/2025/08/05/the-church-in-france-has-new-priorities-caring-for-converts/

Amazing Facts Daily Devotional May 18th Not Expected To Live. Sir Isaac Newton was one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. It was Newtonian physics that contributed most to man landing on the moon. More than any other scientist, Newton was responsible for laying the foundation for classical mechanics, optics, and even mathematics. As with many famous people, some of the stories about Newton have grown with time. For instance, Voltaire says that Newton was walking among his family’s apple orchard when he saw an apple fall from a tree, giving him help in formulating the theory of universal gravitation. Newton says he was actually staring out a window in his house when he saw an apple fall from a tree. Some other interesting details about his life: Isaac’s mother remarried after his father’s death and he so disliked his stepfather that he threatened, as a teenager, to burn their house down with them inside. His interest in school grew as a result of a conflict with a school bully who threatened young Isaac. He was smaller than the bully but decided to fight back and won. He then determined to beat the bully in scholastics as well. He later attended college and, because of the Great Plague, went home for a time while the school was closed down. It was during this two-year period that he developed his theories on calculus, optics, and the law of gravitation. In his later life he became interested in the interpretation of the Bible and even wrote on the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. What many don’t know is that baby Isaac wasn’t expected to live. He was born prematurely on Christmas Day in 1642. Isaac was named after his father, who died three months before he was born. He was so small his mother thought he might not survive. She said he was tiny and could fit into a quart mug jar! There are many stories in Scripture of babies who almost didn’t live. Perhaps the greatest is the life of Jesus. Herod was angry when the wise men from the East did not return from paying a visit to the Christ-child, and he later ordered that all the children less than two years of age in Bethlehem be slaughtered. But God intervened and Joseph was warned in a dream to escape to Egypt. God had plans for Isaac Newton and he lived to be one of the greatest God-fearing scientists of all time. KEY BIBLE TEXTS For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Jeremiah 29:11

Amazing Facts Daily Devotional April 2nd Sunrise Killed for Their Testimony. Scripture tells us how long the two witnesses prophesy: 1,260 prophetic days (Revelation 11:3), which, we have learned, ended in AD 1798. Today’s verse tells us that the two witnesses were then killed. The heinous deed is done by “the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit.” A “beast” in Bible prophecy represents a kingdom, or, in modern language, a nation (Daniel 7:17, 23). At the turn of the century, one nation indeed declared “war” on the Bible. Beginning in 1789 and lasting a full decade, the French Revolution was characterized by its terror, licentiousness, and atheism. This was the consequence of the papacy’s iron hold. It had trampled God’s truths for 1,260 years, and now the nation of France had turned against it, with the culmination occurring in 1798, when Napoleon Bonaparte took Pope Pius VI captive, crippling the papal power. Long oppressed by the Church’s taxes and hypocrisy, the French government legislated against the Church’s role in the nation. Divorce was legalized, and clergy were made employees of the state, required to sign loyalty oaths to the regime on the threat of death. Churches were converted into “temples of reason,” where anti-Christian messages were preached. The Cult of Reason, a worship of atheism, became the state’s official religion. Remember who was responsible for loosing terrors from “the bottomless pit”—the fallen angel, the devil, he who wants to “exalt [his] throne above the stars of God” (Isaiah 14:13). This was another of Satan’s attempts to replace God with himself and God’s law with his own religion. Out of this came atheism, a seething hatred of all things God. Take a look at Voltaire, the famed French philosopher and adamant atheist; his scathing diatribes against the Bible campaigned unrelentingly for its ban, an act that eventually came into law. Indeed, the two witnesses (the Bible) were “murdered” in France. This is what occurs when the true character of God is appropriated, obscured, and assassinated: A counterfeit Christianity takes its place, and God is blamed for what the devil did. Father God, help me store Bible truth in my heart for difficult times that will soon come, that I may stand strong and ready in Your power. For Further Study: Daniel 7:25; John 19:30; 2 Timothy 4:7 KEY BIBLE TEXTS And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. Revelation 11:7

Matthew 24:1-44 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away (24:35). Sunrise Instead Of Sunset So deadly and so merciless was the poison of rationalism in the schools, in the universities, in the seminaries, and in the pulpits, that it seemed the prophecy of the atheist Voltaire might come to pass. Voltaire said, “One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker.” It has sometimes looked as though what the infidel Hume envisioned might come to pass: “I see the twilight of Christianity,” he said. Yet one hundred years from the time of Voltaire’s prediction, a first edition of Voltaire’s work sold in the market in Paris for eleven cents. And on that identical day, the British government paid to the Czar of Russia five hundred thousand dollars for the Codex Sinaiticus, a copy of the Word of God discovered by Count Tischendorf in a monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai. When Hume talked about the twilight of Christianity he was much confused. He could not tell sunrise from sunset. Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith’s door And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime; Then looking in, I saw upon the floor Old hammers, worn with beating years of time. “How many anvils have you had,” said I, “To wear and batter all these hammers so?” “Just one,” said he, and then with twinkling eye, “The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.” And so, thought I, the anvil of God’s Word For ages skeptic blows have beat upon; Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard, The anvil is unworn--the hammers gone! --John Clifford