There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16
The Carlsbad Caverns will be a destination for a lot of families in summer. You may have been there and remember: The tour guide leads you into a large underground chamber. Then, he turns off all the lights. It’s so dark, literally, you can’t see the hand in front of your face.
Then, with the flick of his wrist, the guide strikes a match and suddenly a tiny flame lights up the huge underground room.
That is the way light is in darkness. And that is the call for you and me in this dark world. You are God’s flame of witness to those around you who can’t see a thing – they need the truth and light of the Bible.
So strike a match, burn brightly, light the way for someone near you today
I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise will always be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the Lord; The humble will hear and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me, And let us exalt His name together. (Psalm 34:1–3)
Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous; Praise is becoming to the upright. (Psalm 33:1)
As for me, I will always have hope, And I will praise You more and more. My mouth will tell of Your righteousness And of Your salvation all day long, Though I know not its measure. I will come in the strength of the Lord God; I will proclaim Your righteousness, Yours alone. Since my youth, O God, You have taught me, And to this day I declare Your wondrous deeds. (Psalm 71:14–17)
Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing. The Lord, He is God. It is He who made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. I will enter Your gates with thanksgiving And Your courts with praise; I will give thanks to You and bless Your name. For the Lord is good And Your lovingkindness endures forever; Your faithfulness continues through all generations. (Psalm 100:1–5)
Pause to express your thoughts of praise and worship.
Confession
Have mercy on me, O God, According to Your loyal love; According to the greatness of Your compassion Blot out my transgressions. Wash me completely from my iniquity And cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge. (Psalm 51:1–4)
Who can discern his errors? Cleanse me from hidden faults. Keep Your servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, And innocent of great transgression. (Psalm 19:12–13)
Ask the Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the Lord and thank Him for His forgiveness.
Purge me with hyssop, and I will be clean; Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Cause me to hear joy and gladness, That the bones You have crushed may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins And blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence Or take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners will be converted to You. (Psalm 51:7–13)
Renewal
Lord, renew me by Your Spirit as I offer these prayers to You:
May I return to my God, Maintain mercy and justice, And wait on my God continually. (Hosea 12:6)
May I rejoice in my tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into my heart through the Holy Spirit who was given to me. (Romans 5:3–5)
May I rejoice in hope, persevere in affliction, and continue steadfastly in prayer. (Romans 12:12)
May I not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time I will reap a harvest if I do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)
Pause to add your own prayers for personal renewal.
Petition
Father, using Your word as a guide, I offer You my prayers concerning growth in holiness.
If I abide in You, and Your words abide in me, I can ask whatever I wish, and it will be done for me. By this is Your Father glorified, that I bear much fruit, showing myself to be Your disciple. As the Father has loved You, You also have loved me. May I abide in Your love. If I keep Your commandments, I will abide in Your love, just as You kept Your Father’s commandments and abide in His love. You have told me this so that Your joy may be in me and that my joy may be full. (John 15:7–11)
Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts, And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23–24)
O Lord, set a guard over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not let my heart turn aside to any evil thing. (Psalm 141:3–4a)
Direct my footsteps according to Your word, And let no iniquity have dominion over me. (Psalm 119:133)
May I be diligent to add to my faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are mine in increasing measure, they will keep me from being barren and unfruitful in the full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5–8)
I will not let sin reign in my mortal body that I should obey its lusts. Nor will I present the members of my body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but I will present myself to God as one who is alive from the dead and my members as instruments of righteousness to God. (Romans 6:12–13)
As an alien and a stranger in the world, may I abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against my soul. (1 Peter 2:11)
The works of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envyings, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:19–23)
May I put away all filthiness and the overflow of wickedness, and in meekness accept the word planted in me, which is able to save my soul. May I be a doer of the word and not merely a hearer who deceives himself. (James 1:21–22)
As I walk in the Spirit, I will not fulfill the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh; for they oppose each other, so that I may not do the things that I wish. But if I am led by the Spirit, I am not under the law. (Galatians 5:16–18)
Pause here to express any additional personal requests, especially concerning spiritual insight:Understanding and insight into the word Understanding my identity in Christ Who I am Where I came from Where I am going Understanding God’s purpose for my life
My activities for this day Special concerns
Intercession
Lord, I now prepare my heart for intercessory prayer for believers.
May your love abound more and more in full knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ—having been filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9–11)
Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in good health, even as your soul prospers. (3 John 2)
In the spirit of these passages, I pray for:Personal friends Those in ministry Those who are oppressed and in need Special concerns
Affirmation
Feed my mind and heart, O Lord, as I affirm these truths from Your word concerning my identity in Christ:
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, they have become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
If I died with Christ, I believe that I will also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, cannot die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. In the same way, may I consider myself to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:8–11)
I did not receive a spirit of slavery again to fear, but I received the Spirit of adoption by whom I cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself testifies with my spirit that I am a child of God. (Romans 8:15–16)
My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in me, whom I have from God, and I am not my own. For I was bought at a price; therefore may I glorify God in my body. (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)
Pause to reflect upon these biblical affirmations.
Thanksgiving
For who You are and for what You have done, accept my thanks, O Lord:
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High Will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust.” (Psalm 91:1–2)
The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27:1)
Lord, thank You that You have made these promises: For those who revere Your name, the Sun of righteousness will rise with healing in His wings. And they will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. (Malachi 4:2)
Because I love You, You will deliver me; You will protect me, for I acknowledge Your name. I will call upon You, and You will answer me; You will be with me in trouble, You will deliver me and honor me. With long life You will satisfy me And show me Your salvation. (Psalm 91:14–16)
Pause to offer your own expressions of thanksgiving.
Closing Prayer
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (Psalm 23:6)
Every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them, will sing: “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb Be blessing and honor and glory and power For ever and ever!” (Revelation 5:13)
May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip us in every good thing to do His will, working in us what is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. (Hebrews 13:20–21)
Boa, K. (1993). Handbook to prayer: praying scripture back to God. Atlanta: Trinity House.
MATTHEW HENRY’S “METHOD FOR PRAYER”
Introduction to Adoration
Adoration 1.0 | ESV
Of the First Part of Prayer, which is Address to God, Adoration of Him, with Suitable Acknowledgements, Professions, and Preparatory Requests
My spirit being composed into a very reverent and serious frame, my thoughts gathered in, and all that is within me charged in the name of the great God carefully to attend the solemn and awful service that lies before me and to keep close to it, I must, with a fixed attention and application of mind and an active lively faith, set the Lord before me, see his eye upon me, and set myself in his special presence, presenting myself to him as a living sacrifice, which I desire may be holy and acceptable to God and a spiritual service; Romans 12:1(ESV) and then bind this festal sacrifice with cords up to the horns of the altar, Psalm 118:27(ESV) in such thoughts as these:
Let me now lift up my heart, with my eyes and hands, to God in heaven. Lamentations 3:41(ESV)
Let me now with confidence enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for me through the curtain, that is, through his flesh. Hebrews 10:19-20(ESV)
Let me now attend to the Lord with undivided devotion, 1 Corinthians 7:35(ESV) and let not my heart be far from him when I draw near to him with my mouth and honor him with my lips. Isaiah 29:13(ESV)
Let me now worship God, who is spirit, in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. John 4:23-24(ESV)
In this new $100 million dollar ad campaign, Jesus has been reduced to nothing more than a social justice figure. In other words, we don’t get, “He Gets Us.”
How far did man fall in the Garden? How has sin penetrated into our souls? What did Jesus teach about man’s fallenness? While we may question some of the greatest teachers in the History of the Church about this topic, we must always look to the Lord Himself for truth as found in Scripture. In this message entitled “Man’s Radical Fallenness,” Dr. Sproul considers Jesus’ own words regarding man’s ability or lack thereof to achieve salvation.
To stand in the authority Jesus gave us to move mountains.
Scripture
“Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
– Matthew 17:20
Reflection
The past four weeks have been very difficult for my son, Noah. Things looked and felt so hard and dim. As a family, we prayed day in and day out during this time. We prayed that the mountains would move from Noah and for the boys who had threatened and bullied him.
During this time, Noah has made peace with himself and has a place of forgiveness for those boys. He has prayed the Lord’s Prayer fromThe Jewish Bibleover these young boys:
“Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. Bring us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.” (Matthew 6:10–13).
As the days went by, things started getting easier. He then started praying the declaration of confidence in God’s protection from Derek Prince, fromThe Power of Proclamation.
No weapon that is formed against me shall prosper and every tongue which rises against me in judgment I do condemn.
This is my heritage as a servant of the Lord and my righteousness is from You, O Lord of hosts.
If there are those who have been speaking or praying against me, or seeking harm or evil to me, or who have rejected me, I forgive them.
Having forgiven them, I confess any sin on my part towards them, and I bless them in the name of the Lord.
Now I declare, O Lord, that You and You alone are my God, and besides You there is no other – a just God and a Saviour, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – and I worship You!
I submit myself to You today in unreserved obedience.
Having submitted to You Lord, I do as Your Word directs. I resist the devil, all his pressures, his attacks, his deceptions, every instrument, or agent he would seek to use against me. I do not submit! I resist him, drive him from me, and exclude him from me in the name of Jesus.
Specifically, I reject and repel: infirmity, infection, inflammation, malignancies, allergies, pain, viruses, and every form of witchcraft.
Finally, Lord, I thank You that through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, I have passed out from under the curse, and entered into the blessing of Abraham whom You blessed in all things: exaltation, health, reproductiveness, prosperity, victory, God’s favour and God’s friendship. Amen.
On Thursday 25 April, we drove to Broome. During the drive, we listened to Paul Wilbur’s message, “Let the Weight of Your Glory Fall”. The Spirit spoke to me and said, “It’s time to sit back and see what I will do now”. I thought, “This is so interesting. What are you saying, Lord?” He spoke to me again, saying, “I will move mountains for you.” I thought, “Wow!”
So, we must remember that God can and will remove the mountain for Australia by our faith. Let’s sit back and watch what He is going to do.
Video
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we declare Australia is Yours and Yours alone. We declare the enemy has lost its hold on it.
We thank You for giving us authority through Jesus. We speak to the mountains holding our great nation back from stepping forth into the destiny You have for it. Let them be removed by Your authority, as Your Son taught us to do.
Amen.
Author Bio
Gloria Watkins was born in Tammin, a small wheat belt town in the central agricultural region of Western Australia. She is a descendant of the Noongar people, an Indigenous tribe from the southwest corner of Western Australia. She has six children and six grandchildren. Her ministry is called Shalom Ministries.
Prayer Points and Purpose for GO Month 2024
To worship Jesus and give extravagant praise to God.1 Chron 16:23–31.
To pray for revival, repentance and deliverance for Australia and for millions to find Christ.Acts 2:1–41.
To pray for five people by name to find Christ and share the gospel with those five in May.Matt 28:18–20.
We invite you to support this prayer campaign to multiply prayer in Australia for revival and see millions come to Christ. Every donation to the Canberra Declaration helps us promote prayer and make a stand for family, faith, freedom, life, and the good news of God’s love through Jesus Christ His Son.
In 2 Chronicles 17, Jehoshaphat takes the throne of Judah. Setting aside the fact that he was a king, the reign of Jehoshaphat provides us with a few warnings that often parallels our own life. Let’s take a look.
3 Now the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the former ways of his father David; he did not seek the Baals, 4 but sought the God of his father, and walked in His commandments and not according to the acts of Israel. 5 Therefore the Lord established the kingdom in his hand; and all Judah gave presents to Jehoshaphat, and he had riches and honor in abundance. 6 And his heart took delight in the ways of the Lord; moreover he removed the high places and wooden images from Judah. (2 Chronicles 17:3-6 NKJV)
We learn that Jehoshaphat walked as his father David had walked. In essence, he lived a life that pleased the Lord and isn’t this what each Christian should be focused on doing? The text explains what he did.
he did not seek the Baals
he sought the God of his father
he walked in God’s commands and not according to the acts of Israel
Because King Jehoshaphat avoided idolatry and sought God instead, God established the kingdom. The people of Judah also appreciated King Jehoshaphat and showed it by giving presents to him. Moreover, God increased Jehoshaphat’s riches and honor throughout the land. The bottom line for Jehoshaphat is that “his heart took delight in the ways of the Lord” (v 6).
Due to his zeal for the Lord, King Jehoshaphat sent leaders and Levites to teach the people throughout Judah from the book of the Law of the Lord. Because of this, the fear of the Lord fell on neighboring nations and cities so that they were afraid to attack Judah.
Everything so far, seems good and right in the land and with Jehoshaphat. It makes me realize that regardless of whether I feel like it or not, pursuing God and godliness is the only real way to approach life. The problem remains my sin nature that always seeks to interrupt my efforts.
When we get to 2 Chronicles 18, things begin to go a bit south for Jehoshaphat. We learn in the very first verse that King Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance and that he was also connected with Israel’s King Ahab through marriage to Ahab’s daughter.
1 Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance; and by marriage he allied himself with Ahab. 2 After some years he went down to visit Ahab in Samaria; and Ahab killed sheep and oxen in abundance for him and the people who were with him, and persuaded him to go up with him to Ramoth Gilead. 3 So Ahab king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, “Will you go with me against Ramoth Gilead?” (2 Chronicles 18:1-3)
So Jehoshaphat goes to visit King Ahab, who was notorious for his rebellion and sin against God. Ahab’s own wife – Jezebel – essentially made a living out of chasing down prophets of the God of Israel, replacing them with prophets of Baal in the palace. King Jehoshaphat surely knew this. How could he have not known?
When Jehoshaphat arrives to King Ahab’s palace, Ahab celebrates by killing an abundance of sheep and oxen. He then asks Jehoshaphat to help him fight an enemy of Israel. Of course, Jehoshaphat agrees immediately and then asks Ahab to inquire of the Lord about the upcoming military campaign.
Ahab gathers his prophets of Baal and they readily gave their consent to Ahab (v 5b). But King Jehoshaphat seems not to be taken in by this and wants to know, “Is there not still a prophet of the Lord here, that we may inquire of Him?” (v 6).
There’s a back and forth with Ahab moaning about Micaiah who “never prophesies good concerning me, but always evil,” (v 7b). Then again, this same King Ahab called Elijah the “troubler of Israel” at one point (1 Kings 18:17). In short, Ahab was simply opposed to God at every turn, aligning himself with Satan instead.
But rather than taking this as a cue to leave quietly and gracefully, Jehoshaphat stayed on, heard what Micaiah had to say about King Ahab’s upcoming death on the battlefield, and continued to join in with Ahab on the battlefield in spite of the prophet’s foretelling of the future. This, unfortunately, showed a clear lack of discernment on Jehoshaphat’s part. We are all capable of making this type of poor decision.
King Ahab was seriously wounded during the battle just as Micaiah said and eventually succumbed to his wounds in death. King Jehoshaphat escaped death because God protected him after the king cried out to Him (2 Chronicles 18:31). However, God was not done dealing with King Jehoshaphat. After Jehoshaphat returned to his own palace in Judah, God sent Jehu the son of Hanani the seer and told the king, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Therefore the wrath of the Lord is upon you. Nevertheless good things are found in you, in that you have removed the wooden images from the land, and have prepared your heart to seek God.” (2 Chronicles 18:2-3). This emphasized that Jehoshaphat had not used spiritual discernment and God took it as a serious affront.
While God rebuked Jehoshaphat, He also included praise. King Jehoshaphat had made a mistake by aligning himself with Ahab. Because of that, Jehoshaphat almost lost his life and please notice, he did absolutely nothing to help Ahab see the wickedness of his ways either. Ahab did what he did and nothing changed his outlook or character. He almost dragged Jehoshaphat down with him. Is this why the NT tells us repeatedly to avoid wicked people (2 Timothy 3:1-5 as one example)?
Jehu’s words to King Jehoshaphat were wise because though the first portion was a rebuke, it helped the king understand that he had erred by siding with the king of Israel, who stood against the Lord. Because of that misstep by King Jehoshaphat, Jehu announced that “the wrath of the Lord is upon you.” In other words, God’s discipline, however, Jehu also pointed out several things that were good that God had also noticed. King Jehoshaphat had removed the wooden images from the land of Judah and had conditioned his own heart to seek God. These are good things, but in and of themselves, they are not guarantees that a person will always do the right thing. It requires a constant effort on our part and this is what makes living the Christian life so difficult. We have to continually make decisions that consistently deny Self. That is difficult to do all the time.
The effort that we put in after we become Christians does not result in our salvation because salvation is a free gift of God, made available to us through the horrendously painful death of Jesus on Calvary’s cross. That part is the free gift. Yet, it is in the actual day to day living our life that we learn what it means to actually be a Christian where the rubber meets the road. This is our service to God, again not for salvation, but for God’s glory and honor and our growth.
Because our sin nature remains with us until we leave this life, we must always be on our guard and that can get tiring. We must always use discernment God provides and sometimes our energy fails us. Sometimes, we end up taking the easy way that leads to dishonoring God. Sometimes, our energy fails us and we cave into the urges of our flesh (Self).
King Jehoshaphat did many things that honored God and in doing so, pleased Him overall. God rewarded the king’s actions and behavior accordingly. At the same time, when King Jehoshaphat ignored the obvious and aligned himself with Ahab for whatever reason, Jehoshaphat clearly made a mistake because he ended up taking Ahab’s side against God.
After hearing what Micaiah had to say, Jehoshaphat should have taken that to heart and even tried to dissuade Ahab from entering the battle. In fact, when we consider the text, King Ahab states to King Jehoshaphat that he (Ahab), was going into battle undercover of disguise, but he told Jehoshaphat to wear his royal robes in battle (2 Chronicles 18:29). To me, this smacks of a set up and Jehoshaphat should have realized it. Maybe he did but didn’t know what else to do because quite possibly, King Ahab’s personality may have been much more domineering than Jehoshaphat’s. Who knows?
All in all, I doubt that King Jehoshaphat went to visit King Ahab intending to be dragged into a battle with him and nearly dying, in disobedience to the Lord. Nonetheless, he was dragged into it and only by God’s grace, was he saved from death or even wounding.
The lessons here in Jehoshaphat’s life are good for us as well. If we are not careful and allow our guard to drop, we could easily be dragged into a battle that we are unprepared for because we didn’t see it coming. Notice that King Jehoshaphat was not out riding one day and was attacked. He was on “vacation” visiting his father-in-law and was suddenly expected to join his father-in-law’s fight against another kingdom that God was using to destroy King Ahab for his evil and idolatry.
King Jehoshaphat should not have given Ahab any answer until they both learned from God what God wanted done. But it’s not as though Ahab’s reputation was not known. Certainly, Jehoshaphat knew how rebellious Ahab was, and how Ahab persecuted true prophets of God, favoring instead prophets of Baal (Satan). If Jehoshaphat knew this, then he should have been on his highest alert when he came around Ahab, knowing that something might happen.
That something did happen and almost got Jehoshaphat killed. Think of that. All for a lack of discernment and willingness to do what God wanted him to do. Is that a lesson for us? Sometimes it is and we are 100% responsible for our lack of discernment when we allow our guard to drop for whatever reason.
This is not to say that what Jehoshaphat failed to do was beyond repair because it wasn’t. He made a mistake that almost cost him his life, but God spared him. In fact, even though Jehu, delivering the words God wanted said to Jehoshaphat, reprimanded the king, Jehoshaphat seemed to have taken the words delivered by Jehu as a warning and adjusted his life accordingly. He then went about to continue to make reforms throughout the land of Judah (2 Chronicles 19:4-11). In essence, that warning strengthened his resolve toward God.
So Jehoshaphat learned from his mistake and used it as a reminder to do even more for God and His people of Judah. The king seemed determined to please God even more. 2 Chronicles 20 highlights how King Jehoshaphat committed himself even further to God’s mercies as numerous people from outside Judah came against Judah. Unlike King Asa previously, who had looked to other armies to help him defeat an enemy (instead of relying solely on God alone), King Jehoshaphat stood before the people of Judah and prayed to the God of Israel in a way that proved the king loved God and relied on Him more than anyone else.
6 O Lord God of our fathers, are You not God in heaven, and do You not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations, and in Your hand is there not power and might, so that no one is able to withstand You? 7 Are You not our God, who drove out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel, and gave it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever? 8 And they dwell in it, and have built You a sanctuary in it for Your name, saying, 9 ‘If disaster comes upon us—sword, judgment, pestilence, or famine—we will stand before this temple and in Your presence (for Your name is in this temple), and cry out to You in our affliction, and You will hear and save.’ 10 And now, here are the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir—whom You would not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them and did not destroy them— 11 here they are, rewarding us by coming to throw us out of Your possession which You have given us to inherit. 12 O our God, will You not judge them? For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You. (2 Chronicles 20:6-12)
Jehoshaphat obviously learned from his past mistake and did not want to repeat it. He threw himself on God and waited for God to respond and intervene. Because of King Jehoshaphat’s faith in God, God spoke to the king and the people of Judah telling them that the battle was the Lord’s, not theirs. God would deal with it. He would be victorious and the people of Judah would see it.
The response of both King Jehoshaphat and the people was seen in praise and worship of God for His response to them (2 Chronicles 20:18-19). God turned the tables on the attackers and they wound up killing each other. It was a great and powerful victory.
Yet, Jehoshaphat made another similar error that he had made with Ahab toward the end of his life. He allied himself with Ahaziah king of Israel, who was also very wicked.
Folks, as difficult as it is, we Christians must guard ourselves against the constant possibility of falling. Though we cannot fall to the point of losing our salvation, we can make costly mistakes if we are not careful. Who among us can honestly say that living the Christian life is easy? Who can say that it is automatic? Depending upon your personality, it can almost be too easy to allow laziness to overtake us so that we give ourselves permission to stop seeking God consistently and intently.
We will make mistakes in this life. The best thing we can do when this happens is to admit our mistakes and throw ourselves on God’s mercy, seeking His forgiveness, as quickly as possible. He will lift us up and restore us. While He might not remove consequences of our actions (depending upon how severe our actions were), He will never remove His love or forgiveness from us.
God knows our frame. He is most certainly aware of just how difficult it is for us to maintain a constant awareness of His Presence in us. We fight against many things; fatigue, illness, lack of energy, age, preoccupation with things that are of little value, temptation, sin, sometimes feelings of hopelessness, growing darkness and so much more.
One day, we will be completely free of our sin nature. After this life, we will then worship God in complete truth and freedom of spirit. Now, as Paul says, we see through a glass darkly, but then, when we see Him after this life, we will see Him face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12). Not sure about you, but I certainly look forward to that day!
Description:How far did man fall in the Garden? How has sin penetrated into our souls? What did Jesus teach about man’s fallenness? While we may question some of the greatest teachers in the History of the Church about this topic, we must always look to the Lord Himself for truth as found in Scripture. In this message entitled “Man’s Radical Fallenness,” Dr. Sproul considers Jesus’ own words regarding man’s ability or lack thereof to achieve salvation.
1 Samuel 18:1 — A good choice of friends for Jonathan (Proverbs 13:20). We will see that Rehoboam made the wrong choice of friends as a prince (1 Kings 12:8).
John 8:21 — A not so seeker-friendly message – “… ye shall die in your sins” repeated 3x (John 8:24). These statements echo Ezekiel’s warning that “the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4, 18:18, 18:20).
Psalm 111:1 — Why praise the LORD? His works are great (Psalm 111:2), honorable (Psalm 111:3), glorious (Psalm 111:3), memorable (Psalm 111:4), powerful (Psalm 111:6), verity (Psalm 111:7), and judgment (Psalm 111:7).
Psalm 111:10 — Echoed in Proverbs 9:10.
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Good old Jacob could no more be with Joseph, for his hour had come to die: but he left his son without anxiety, for he said with confidence, “God shall be with you.” When our dearest relations or our most helpful friends are called home by death, we must console ourselves with the reflection that the Lord is not departed from us but lives for us and abides with us forever.
If God be with us, we are in ennobling company, even though we are poor and despised. If God be with us, we have all-sufficient strength, for nothing can be too hard for the Lord. If God be with us, we are always safe, for none can harm those who walk under His shadow. Oh, what a joy we have here! Not only is God with us, but He will be with us. With us as individuals; with us as families; with us as churches. Is not the very name of Jesus, Immanuel—God with us? Is not this the best of all, that God is with us? Let us be bravely diligent and joyously hopeful. Our cause must prosper, the truth must win, for the Lord is with those who are with Him. All this day may this sweet word be enjoyed by every believer who turns to “faith’s checkbook.” No greater happiness is possible.
Pastor Jack Hibbs and David discuss growing intolerance toward the biblical worldview, Hibbs’ new book, “Living in the Daze of Deception,” why Jack’s opening prayer in the U.S. House of Reps was offensive to some, believers and “politics,” Christian Nationalism, and more.
US, Philippine troops sink China-made vessel in war games US and Philippine forces sank a decommissioned China-made Philippine Navy ship on Wednesday during South China Sea war games simulating an attack on an enemy vessel, officials said. The exercises are being held near the city of Laoag, around 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Taiwan, amid a backdrop of increased confrontations between Philippine and Chinese vessels around South China Sea features claimed by Manila and Beijing.
Blame Canada? Justin Trudeau Creates Blueprint For Dystopia In Horrific Speech Bill Trudeau was lying when he said C-63 was “very, very specifically focused on correcting kids.” The purview of the Online Harms Act extends far beyond speech, reimagining society as a mandated social engineering project, creating transformational new procedures that would: enlist Canada’s citizens in an ambitious social monitoring system, with rewards of up to $20,000 for anonymous “informants”
Rep. Scott Perry calls KKK ‘militant wing’ of the Democratic Party U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R., Pa., is facing criticism after he reportedly called the Ku Klux Klan the “military wing of the Democratic Party” in a closed-door briefing for lawmakers on antisemitism Tuesday,
Former CDC Director: ‘I Could Make’ Bird Flu ‘Highly Infectious For Humans In Months’ Leaked internal Pfizer email confirms separate vaxx batches for employees. colleagues and contractors at Pfizer’s Pearl River research site that site-essential workers would be offered COVID-19 vaccinations that are ‘separate and distinct’ What was in the free and widely available public shots that you didn’t want your employees exposed to? And why did it take a leaked email to confirm this practice in the United States?
Putin removes defense minister Shoigu Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday moved to replace defense minister Sergei Shoigu in a major shake-up to Russia’s military leadership more than two years into its Ukraine offensive. Putin proposed economist Andrey Belousov as Shoigu’s replacement, according to a list of the ministerial nominations published by the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament.
Hezbollah unveils new heavy rocket in attacks on Israel Terror group launches new rocket at Israel’s Mount Dov named after Jihad Mughniyeh, son of senior Hezbollah figure Imad Mughniyeh, both eliminated in Israeli-linked attacks. While the claim that this is a newly developed rocket has not been independently verified, reports from Lebanon describe it as a heavy rocket that was used for the first time.
Egypt threatens to ax treaty with Israel over Rafah op Egypt has again threatened to suspend its 45-year-old peace treaty with Israel if the latter further expands its offensive against Hamas in Rafah. Cairo has lodged formal protests with Israel, the United States and European governments following the Israel Defense Forces’ invasion of eastern Rafah, which was launched last week,
GOP senators sponsor bill to cut UN funding over PA benefits Current U.S. law prohibits funding to organizations such as the United Nations which give the Palestinians full membership or standing as a member state outside a political settlement with Israel.
Trump vows support for Israel’s ‘right to win its war on terror’ At a rally in New Jersey on Saturday, former President Donald Trump voiced his support for “Israel’s right to win its war on terror,” and claimed Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack would not have occurred under his watch.
Day 219: IDF continues operations in Central Gaza and Rafah despite warnings from Egypt According to Palestinian reports, the IDF again dropped tens of thousands of leaflets in eastern Rafah, warning civilians to evacuate to the expanded humanitarian zone in al-Mawasi. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) estimated that around 300,000 people have already evacuated Rafah since the IDF began to issuing warnings last week.
Israel salutes its fallen on first Memorial Day since Oct. 7 tragedy Israel’s Memorial Day, commemorating the soldiers who fell in the nation’s wars and victims of terrorist attacks, began at 8 p.m. on Sunday with a nationwide siren for a minute of silence. On this year’s particularly mournful Memorial Day, the people of Israel remembered 1,600 soldiers and civilians who perished – either in combat or due to an act of terrorism – over the past year
Thousands of homes destroyed, over 300 dead as flash floods ravage northern Afghanistan Northern Afghanistan is facing a catastrophic humanitarian crisis following severe flash flooding that began on Friday, May 10, 2024. The latest reports confirm 315 deaths and injuries to over 1 600 people, with Baghlan Province bearing the brunt of the devastation. Authorities fear the death toll will continue rising.
Strong M6.4 earthquake hits near the coast of Chiapas, Mexico A strong earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.4 hit near the coast of Chiapas, Mexico at 11:39 UTC (06:39 LT) on May 12, 2024. The agency is reporting a depth of 75 km (46 miles). EMSC is reporting the same magnitude and depth.
Severe dust storm strikes Delhi-NCR, killing three and injuring over 20, India A sudden and severe dust storm swept through Delhi-NCR on the evening (LT) of Friday, May 10, 2024, causing extensive damage. The storm, with wind speeds of up to 90 km/h (56 mph), resulted in three fatalities and 23 injuries, alongside causing widespread disruptions across the capital.
Russia’s New Invasion Is Targeting Ukraine’s Second Largest City, And That Could Bring Us To The Brink Of “Nuclear Armageddon” The war in Ukraine has just moved to an entirely new level, but most Americans do not even realize that we are closer to “nuclear Armageddon” than ever. Very early on the morning of May 10th, Russian forces began to pour across Ukraine’s border north of Kharkiv. In the short-term this will enable the Russians to create a buffer zone around the Belgorod region and force Ukraine to pull desperately needed forces away from the eastern front.
Pope Francis accused of ‘crimes,’ and is the Bible soon to be illegal? Prominent Catholics urge bishops and cardinals to declare Pope Francis has “lost the papal office” if he refuses to resign, presenting a detailed summary of Pope Francis’ scandals that have gravely harmed the Church. Meanwhile, a priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago has officiated at a homosexual blessing that looked very much like a wedding — with no sanction! And both in the USA and Canada, bills are proposed that threaten to make the Bible illegal under the charge of “antisemitism.”
“As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.” —James Madison (1792)
Fellow Patriots, on this day in 1607, settlers founded Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America. Over 80% of the colonists died in the first few years, but the rest persevered, and in a few years, it began to grow and thrive. —Mark Alexander
Leftists attack the fact that there is a Mother’s Day at all, but it rightly honors a profound relationship unique to the human experience.
Emmy Griffin
Happy belated Mother’s Day to all our mom readers. We hope you were cherished and loved by your families this weekend.
Sadly, some sour grapes out there (read: leftists) actively attack the fact that there is a Mother’s Day at all. They happily take the opportunity to remind us that not all mothers are wonderful and worth celebrating. Moreover, in the past few years, it has gotten even weirder. Anti-Mother’s Day advocates have decided, in the name of “inclusion,” to start declaring their absurd theory that not all mothers are women while simultaneously stating the obvious that not all women are mothers. It is an evil attempt to diminish and attack motherhood.
It’s true — not all mothers are wonderful. Some are neglectful, selfish, or abusive toward their children. (Here’s looking at you, mothers pushing gender “transition” on your kids.) But do these bad-acting mothers mean that motherhood as a whole is to be dismissed? That, of course, is absurd. By that logic, anyone could happily dismiss anything they don’t like. For example, one could say that some apples are rotten and, therefore, all apples should be cast away. This is a childish and irrational line of reasoning. It also misses the whole meaning of motherhood, which is more than just giving birth to someone.
Another ridiculous line of thinking is the notion that not all mothers are women (i.e., some mothers are men). This laughable, politically correct, harmful notion is demeaning to everyone involved. It takes away men’s natural gifts — protector, provider, and guide — that come with fatherhood. It takes away a unique dominion of women. A woman not only carries a baby inside her own body for nine months, but it is her post-birth gift and job to nourish that same infant from her own body. Most importantly, it takes away from the sweet little babies and children involved. Human babies need their mothers profoundly.
A newborn only knows the woman who carried him. He knows her smell and heartbeat. He doesn’t distinguish himself as a separate person for several months. That’s why many young babies want to be held by their mothers 24/7. It’s also why this newborn being placed on a gender-confused man’s chest is in agony. The baby only wants her mother, and it’s heartbreaking. This in and of itself is why surrogacy is so problematic.
That man wearing womanface is sitting on a hospital bed as if he just went through the physical trauma of carrying and birthing a baby. That’s little different from stolen valor.
As for the physical nurturing of an infant through breastfeeding, thanks to amoral scientists, some “transgender women” (i.e., men) are so jacked up on cross-sex hormones that they can lactate and have been permitted to feed an infant from their secretions. Who knows what sort of harmful chemicals and hormones are in his “milk” that he is carelessly feeding to a vulnerable infant? These gender-confused men’s perversion takes precedence over the needs of the actual child. It is the very opposite of what motherhood is.
For women who are longing to be mothers and struggling with infertility, thank you for your heart that desires to give all your love and nurturing to a child. Your road is difficult and painful, especially on days like Mother’s Day when you are reminded about what you can’t have or don’t have yet. I’ve been there. You are not alone.
Motherhood is more than giving birth to children. It’s an altruistic show of love and care for children in your life.
Another element of infertility needs to be pointed out. Some women have fallen for the lie that “wife” and “mother” are not titles worthy of them. According to this feminist philosophy, men are dogs (or bears), and children are an encumbrance. Tragically, some women realize too late in life how tragically false this thinking is. Money and a career can’t love you back.
Childless women can and are allowed to feel sad on Mother’s Day, but should their sadness mean that we shouldn’t celebrate motherhood? The obvious answer is “No.” Any childless woman who would advocate for the erasure of Mother’s Day because it reminds her of something she can’t have misses the essential part: Motherhood is about celebrating selfless love. To put it bluntly, it’s not about you!
Motherhood is about loving and caring for children openhandedly. As Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow Carrie Gress writes: “Bad mothers, absent mothers, women who long to be mothers, a rise in loneliness, depression, and anxiety all bring into stark relief the unconquerable truth that women’s lives are generally made richer and fuller with husbands and children. Whether we have a family or not, our lives are richer when outward-focused and not centered on self.”
As Gress states as a constant refrain in her article, it is the very attempted erasure of motherhood that points to its necessity as an institution, title, and crown of womanhood.
Mother’s Day doesn’t need to be more inclusive. It is the precision and exclusivity that honors a profound relationship unique to the human experience. Mothers and what they represent should be honored with one day in the calendar year to reflect on the amazing gift of self-denying love.
Biden makes Mother’s Day about Trump, court asserts constitutional right to lop off body parts, Target “Pride” successfully targeted, and more.
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Joe’s Mother’s Day message: Mother’s Day is supposed to be about mothers, right? And yet yesterday, Joe Biden and his handlers couldn’t resist their biological urge to make Mother’s Day about … Donald Trump. But it wasn’t enough to simply denounce the Orange Man in a Mother’s Day press release: “Daughters Have Fewer Rights than their Mothers or Grandmothers Did Because of Donald Trump,” went the headline, and the brief body copy wasn’t any better: “Happy Mother’s Day. At the Biden campaign, we are asking Americans to do the moms in their lives a favor. Stop Trump.” In a sad way, we can hardly blame Team Biden. Never before has a reelection team had as little to work with as this one, and never before has an incumbent been as desperate as this one. But that message wasn’t the only gift Biden and crew had in store for America’s moms yesterday. In addition, they trotted out a video whose caption read: “Donald Trump wants to separate mothers from their children and allow laws that rip away IVF access and monitor women’s pregnancies. This Mother’s Day, do the moms in your life a favor: Stop Trump.” The video then proceeded to show what appears to be an illegal immigrant family crying out as they’re being separated, but for all we know, it could’ve been Obama-era footage — although to be fair, the video doesn’t show any of those Obama-era cages. In any case, Trump the counterpuncher came back hard: “What a sad, miserable, cowardly existence Crooked Joe Biden and his campaign must have to make such a disgusting ad on such a joyous day,” said the Trump campaign. “Their lives are obviously filled with anger, hate, and resentment because they clearly suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome. President Trump continues to live rent-free in their pea-sized brains, even on Mother’s Day.”
Constitutional right to lop off body parts: The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that West Virginia’s Medicaid plan must cover gender mutilation surgeries. The state’s law explicitly noted that its health program “covers mastectomies to treat cancer, but not to treat gender dysphoria,” which the court found unconstitutional based upon a rather tortuous application of the 14th Amendment. The court justified its decision by pointing to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock ruling that the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans employers from discriminating based on sex, also includes homosexuality and “transgender” identity. Asserting the false notion that sex is assigned rather than confirmed at birth, the Fourth Circuit found that the law violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment because those expressing a “transgender” identity were being discriminated against. In fact, the actual discrimination that the Court engaged in was against the reality of immutable biological sex distinctions. This case is likely headed to the Supreme Court.
Biden intel hostility and UN revision on Gaza deaths: The Biden administration has withheld from Israel intelligence on the location of senior Hamas officials in an effort to prevent the Israel Defense Forces from invading Rafah, the last holdout of Hamas. Of course, one of the primary driving forces for Israel in this war is the rescue of hostages (including five Americans), and senior Hamas officials would know their location. In fact, those officials are likely using many of those hostages as personal human shields. Joe Biden’s concern is purely political, as he recently stated, “I made it clear that … if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah.” The publicly expressed reason is a concern for protecting civilians, as Hamas apologists falsely accuse Israel of killing thousands of Palestinian civilians indiscriminately. Exposing the bogus nature of this narrative is the UN’s recent revision to the number of deaths of Palestinian women and children. The initially reported number of over 14,500 was halved to 7,797. But what are the reasons to believe that even the revised numbers are accurate? Even if they are, Hamas is notorious for using women and children as human shields.
Gaza protest roundup: Another Ivy League president, this time Cornell University President Martha Pollack, has announced her resignation after months of anti-Semitic protests have riled the campus. Pollack is now the third Ivy League president to resign since last year. Speaking of university anti-Semites, Jerry Seinfeld received an honorary degree and spoke at Duke University’s commencement on Sunday. Not only was the famous comedian booed by students when he took the stage, but several dozen graduates also walked out to protest his presence. Meanwhile, down in Florida, a group calling itself “Queers for Palestine” foolishly sought to block the interstate near Orlando. After stopping their vehicles on the roadway, they held out signs that read, “Free, Free Palestine” and “No business as usual during the genocide.” Their illegal protest didn’t last long; all were arrested within 11 minutes by the Florida Highway Patrol. In New York City, a 16-year-old was arrested over the weekend and charged with vandalism. He was caught on camera defacing a WWI monument honoring the 107th United States Infantry regiment. He spray-painted “Gaza” on the memorial. How about a one-way ticket to Gaza for these goons?
Target’s “Pride” collection was successfully targeted: Hey, we get results. Last year, in addition to selling Satan-friendly gear, Target targeted children with “Pride” clothes and — let’s face it — grotesque swimsuits that were “tuck-friendly.” Justifiable outrage ensued, as did the boycotts, which caused Target’s stock to plunge right along with its reduced earnings. We hated to see it. But it appears that Target has since gotten the message, at least grudgingly so. As National Review reports: “Target is cutting back on its LGBT Pride month collection following the consumer backlash to last summer’s assortment that sent its sales tumbling. The retailer will only be selling its LGBT merchandise in select stores after some locations faced boycotts for selling LGBT Pride items, including transgender-oriented bathing suits and children’s items designed by a brand that also sells Satanist-inspired merchandise.” So the company is strategically “curating” its Rainbow Mafia gear, but, as we said, only grudgingly so. The company will continue holding internal LGBT Pride events and joining Pride events in its home base of Minneapolis, as well as funneling money to left-wing LGBT activist organizations.
Gay male couple sues for IVF benefits: The idea that two men could sue an American city — New York City — for denying in vitro fertilization benefits to thousands of homosexual male city employees and their partners would be downright hilarious if it weren’t such an undeniable symbol of our nation’s decline. On the one hand, we couldn’t wish such a lawsuit on a more deserving city — a city that went 85-15 for Joe Biden in 2020. But on the other hand, don’t we have more important things to worry about? The class-action lawsuit, as The Washington Post reports, is the first of its kind, as it claims that “the city’s denial of IVF benefits constitutes discrimination against gay men.” The Post sympathetically continues: “Brooklyn-based couple Nicholas Maggipinto, 38, and Corey Briskin, 35, claim the city is discriminating against male same-sex couples and violating federal, state and local laws by denying them IVF insurance benefits that other city employees are able to access. ‘We were disheartened to say the least when we were told that we aren’t eligible for the IVF benefit because of the way the policy is phrased. We are entitled to equal treatment under the law,’ said Briskin.” If this suit is successful, the possibilities for “equal treatment” are endless. So let’s hope, for our nation’s sake, that this suit ultimately finds its way before a right-thinking judge.
Panama president vows to shut migrant route: While Mexico’s leftist president is using the migrant crisis to leverage his agenda against the U.S. down in Panama, a different story is playing out. Newly elected Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino vows to shut down illegal alien migration through his country. “Panama and our Darien [Gap] are not a transit route. It is our border,” Mulino said. This represents a significant policy change for the Central American nation, which previously helped migrants cross through. “Because when we start to deport people here in an immediate deportation plan, the interest for sneaking through Panama will decrease,” Mulino explained. “I assure you they are going to say that going through Panama is not attractive because they are deporting you.” This is welcome news for the U.S. and Panama.
Acne-mask teens exonerated on “blackface” charge: Leftists see racism wherever they look, even when they’re looking at zit-faced kids. In a story that sounds almost as outrageous as one about the little Native American Kansas City Chiefs fan who donned KC-colored warpaint during a Chiefs game only to be libeled by a mediocre Deadspin sports “writer” named Carron (pronounced Karen) Phillips, this story involves two teens who were accused of wearing blackface and then booted from their elite Catholic school in California. Only trouble is, it was a lie from the pits of hell. As it turns out, these two pimply-faced adolescents were simply wearing green acne masks. So, in addition to being race-obsessed, their accusers were also colorblind. As the New York Post reports: “The then-students at Saint Francis High School in Mountain View were just 14 when they took a photo during a sleepover in 2017 of them wearing the treatment in solidarity with a friend suffering from severe acne, their lawsuit said. The treatment, bought by one of the boys’ mom, was light green when applied and turned dark green once dry.” The happy ending is that the teens have been jointly awarded more than $1 million for their troubles.
Headlines
Michael Cohen stands to make or break Trump hush money case (The Hill)
Senator Bob Menendez corruption trial set to begin in New York (Roll Call)
Israel moves toward a full assault on Rafah despite increased pressure from the U.S. (Washington Times)
Biden administration plans to raise tariffs on electric vehicles from China (NBC News)
Coalition of 22 state AGs calls on Biden to reject treaty drastically expanding WHO authority (American Greatness)
Fentanyl pill seizures are skyrocketing, 115 million pills seized in 2023 (The Hill)
Mexico’s president says he won’t fight drug cartels on U.S. orders, calls it a “Mexico First” policy (AP) | AMLO claims that criminal groups are “respectful” and “respect the citizenry” (AP) | Mexico’s cartels pick candidates, kill rivals (WaPo)
Putin to replace longtime Russian defense minister (Axios)
Humor: “Why would I get my wife a Mother’s Day gift, she’s not my mom,” says dead man (Babylon Bee)
It took long enough, but The New York Times is now paying at least cursory attention to those who claim to be suffering harm from the COVID vaccines.
Douglas Andrews
But the virus is worse.
That’s the intellectually lazy fallback response folks often get when they raise questions about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines.
But is it? Is the vaccine worse than the virus? Is the cure worse than the disease? For some, the answer is an unequivocal “Yes.” The National Institutes of Health tells us that COVID mRNA vaccine-induced myocarditis is a real thing, especially among men of an average age of 21, right around the peak of their athletic lives. So, a virus that feels like a common cold to otherwise healthy young people, or a heart attack. Is the former really worse than the latter?
The truth is that “the virus is worse” only applies to at-risk groups. COVID was never a mortal threat to healthy young people. And yet, our federal government pushed the vaccine on them. College students, in many cases, were forced to take the vaccine as a precondition for being on campus. And federal employees, including our nation’s warriors, were forced to take the vaccine under threat of being kicked out of the service. Yes, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin officially rescinded the vaccine mandate last January, but only after congressional Republicans forced his hand — too late for thousands of patriotic warriors who’d already been kicked out and forced to find new careers.
This question about the safety of the COVID vaccine is not an academic exercise. The Johnson & Johnson version of the vaccine has already been banned in the U.S., while the much more prevalent (and experimental) mRNA versions of the vaccine are still readily available and, indeed, being pushed to all of us. As The Daily Wire reported last February, the CDC now recommends “that children between six months and 15 months old receive a two-dose or three-dose primary series and booster; from 18 months to adulthood, children should likewise receive the primary series and boosters, according to the agency.” They’re talking about span-of-life coverage for the mRNA vaccine here.
We mention all this because of a recent New York Times article titled: “Thousands Believe Covid Vaccines Harmed Them. Is Anyone Listening?” Here’s how the Times describes one vaccine victim:
Within minutes of getting the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, Michelle Zimmerman felt pain racing from her left arm up to her ear and down to her fingertips. Within days, she was unbearably sensitive to light and struggled to remember simple facts.
She was 37, with a Ph.D. in neuroscience, and until then could ride her bicycle 20 miles, teach a dance class and give a lecture on artificial intelligence, all in the same day. Now, more than three years later, she lives with her parents. Eventually diagnosed with brain damage, she cannot work, drive or even stand for long periods of time.
True, Zimmerman got the now-banned Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but what vaccine did Dr. Gregory Poland get? Poland is the editor-in-chief of — we kid you not — the journal Vaccine, and, in the Times’s paraphrase, he says that “a loud whooshing sound in his ears had accompanied every moment since his first shot, but that his entreaties to colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to explore the phenomenon, tinnitus, had led nowhere.”
The Times treads far more lightly on incidences of mRNA vaccine harm. Could there be a political or financial reason for this? It’s hard to say. But in any case, as for the Times’s newfound awareness of vaccine victimhood, after the legacy media had mostly sneered at cases of vaccine reluctance and questions of vaccine safety raised by everyday Americans, we can only say, as John McClane famously said in “Die Hard,” “Welcome to the party, pal.”
If we could take a trip down memory lane, we’d see New York Times headlines such as “Despite Outbreak Among Unvaccinated, Fox News Hosts Smear Shots”; “Inside the White House-Facebook Rift Over Vaccine Misinformation”; “Citing Misinformation, Florida Health Official Call for Halt to Covid Vaccines”; and “No, Athletes Are Not Dying from Covid-19 Vaccines.”
The issue is as urgent as ever, given that a massive global study of nearly 100 million people who’d gotten the COVID vaccine were found to have a higher-than-expected increase in neurological- and heart-related problems after getting the stick. As The Daily Wire reports: “The Global Vaccine Data Network’s COVID Vaccine Safety study, which was the largest safety research conducted on COVID vaccines to date, found a higher risk of myocarditis than was expected from mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna, Bloomberg reported. The study also found an increased risk of a type of blood clot in the brain in people who received viral-vector vaccines, such as the one developed by the University of Oxford and produced by AstraZeneca.”
It’s not just the Times, though. Remember CNN’s disgraced Chris Cuomo? Remember his nightly comedy schtick with his even-more-disgraced older brother, Andrew? And remember the nightly sneer-fests with Don Lemon? It turns out that Chris is now an Ivermectin fan.
“I am taking … a regular dose … of Ivermectin,” Cuomo now says. “Ivermectin was the bogeyman early on in COVID. That was wrong. We were given bad information about Ivermectin. The real question is, why?” He added, “The entire clinical community knew that Ivermectin couldn’t hurt you. They knew it. How do I know? Because now I am doing nothing but talking to these clinicians.”
I guess it’s time to welcome Chris to the party, too.
Nothing like confirming the truth a few years after the fact.
Nate Jackson
Score another way-too-late admission for the “fact-checkers.” First, Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation real and revealed Joe Biden’s corruption. Now, Ashley Biden’s diary was unproven all too real and revealed Joe Biden’s creepy perversion.
A couple of weeks ago, the crack team of sleuths at Snopes — the amateurs who couldn’t tell the difference between The Patriot Post and a now-defunct left-wing parody site with a deliberately misspelled similar name — quietly changed the rating of their December 2022 story about Ashley’s diary from “unproven” to “true.”
The update cites Ashley Biden’s April 2024 letter to a New York judge saying, “I will forever have to deal with the fact that my personal journal can be viewed online.”
About that…
Project Veritas obtained the diary from a private party but, as our Thomas Gallatin said in 2021, “was unable to verify the diary’s authenticity, never published any of its contents, and turned it over to law enforcement.” The diary was leaked to another source that published it online in October 2020.
The diary received virtually no attention until the FBI raided the home of independent journalist and Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe in search of it. O’Keefe was ousted from Project Veritas last year. Just last month, in part thanks to Ashley’s letter, the thief was sentenced to a month in prison for stealing it. Her accomplice awaits sentencing.
The bigger story about the diary was that it contributed to the mountain of evidence that Joe Biden is not the decent guy 81 million* voters were deceived into believing in 2020.
In one particular excerpt from the diary, Ashley revealed some serious personal troubles. “I have always been boy crazy,” she wrote. “Hyper-sexualized @ a young age … I remember somewhat being sexualized with [a family member]; I remember having sex with friends @ a young age; showers w/ my dad (probably not appropriate).” She also detailed her struggles with drug addiction that resulted from all of this sexualization.
No wonder the FBI conducted that raid.
Snopes and other media outlets were arguably right to be skeptical in 2020 and 2021 until there was proof, though a 2021 FBI raid is pretty darn good proof. So was the 2022 guilty plea of the thief and the 2023 audio recording of Ashley admitting it. (Roughly the same could be said of Hunter’s laptop, which attracted a lot of FBI attention and legal action from the president’s son, who simultaneously denied it was actually his.) Instead, the Leftmedia’s fact-checking censors at Snopes waited a year and a half until Ashley herself admitted in a letter the diary was hers before quietly amending the story they waited more than two years to write in the first place.
Some of us knew Biden deserved every bit of that “Creepy Joe” moniker. The tragedy is that millions of Americans were not informed of these facts before casting their ballots for him, and that is gross dereliction of duty on the part of what should be a free press providing a check on people in power. Even now, when was the last time Biden was asked about his daughter or her diary?
Joe Biden likely at least behaved very inappropriately with his daughter, if not worse, contributing to her drug addiction. He exploited his drug-addled son to enrich his family. For years, he ignored his seventh grandchild because she was the product of Hunter’s infidelity. He was accused of sexual assault himself. And Jill Biden is propping up her husband in a sad episode of elder abuse.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is stuck in a courtroom as Democrat prosecutors and judges go after him for concocted felonies and phantom menaces. His true heinous crime, of course, was beating Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The military’s focus and emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion is having predictable results.
Brent Ramsey
In an earlier article, Patriot Post readers were introduced to DACODAI. In a nutshell, DACODAI is a secretary of defense-appointed committee that exists solely to promote the political ideology of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the Department of Defense (DOD).
Thousands of military veterans from across the nation have testified eloquently that DEI is harmful to our military. DEI is the opposite of what our military’s focus should be. Our military must be based solely on merit-based accessions, assignments, and promotions. However, the DOD continues to promote DEI despite Congress, in the FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act, calling for a halt to the advance of this ideology. For example, Congress placed a hiring freeze on DEI-related positions. Ignoring Congress’s intent to carefully study the impact of DEI on the Armed Forces, DACODAI continues to strongly promote DEI throughout the DOD.
This emphasis is harming readiness and recruiting. DEI is driving away the DOD’s number one demographic that has been the backbone of the military for many decades — white, southern conservatives. The services have now missed recruiting goals by more than 40,000. To compensate for the lack of personnel to fill out the ranks, quality standards for entry to the military are being lowered. For example, in the Navy, you no longer have to be a high school graduate to join. At a time when security threats are increasing around the world — in the Middle East, in the Pacific, and in Eastern Europe — it is an inopportune time to be pushing a radical racial ideology that weakens our Armed Forces when we need them the most.
DACODAI met again for a public hearing on May 2-3 in Washington, DC. Federal entities such as DACODAI must follow public law, and its meetings are supposed to be open to the public. Many members from a nationwide coalition of 16 organizations that advocate for returning merit to the military in recruiting, assignments, and promotions planned to attend this public hearing. The Patriot Post is a proud member of that coalition.
Unfortunately, due to “unforeseen circumstances” at the very last minute, the meeting was closed to the public, and all those who planned to attend in person had to cancel their flights and hotels and stay home. A limited number of 100 persons were permitted to watch the meeting via video conference, but no input or interaction from the public was allowed, not even through the chat feature. This limitation of public participation is not how it is supposed to work. Advisory committees established under public law have rules and guidelines that they are supposed to follow, including receiving public input in their deliberations.
At the very end of the second day of the meeting, the federal officer assigned to DACODAI announced that public statements had been received but would not be discussed. There was no public acknowledgment whatsoever regarding what experienced former members of the military, representing thousands of others, wanted to report to the committee. These statements urge DACODAI to take a serious look at the damage being done to morale, recruiting, and readiness from the mindless advocacy of DEI. Diversity, equity, and inclusion emphasizes the superficial, the color of one’s skin, over the critical, the actual skills and abilities of those who serve or want to serve.
Public statements by Stand Together Against Radicalism and Racism in the Services (STARRS) and 25 other organizations or individuals have now been posted to the DACODAI website and can be reviewed here. These statements are primarily from military groups with collectively thousands of members and vast experience in the Armed Services. The chairman announced that public statements were welcome and would be read by the committee, but this was a hollow promise. In effect, there was no public participation in this meeting whatsoever. For the previous meeting, statements were also submitted by many of these veterans groups, but no responses were made by DACODAI. It would be a surprise if this latest set of public input received any better treatment. DACODAI seems intent on promoting DEI to the max, and the facts about the negative impact are not analyzed or discussed and are completely ignored.
A complete summary of the DACODAI meeting and other events related to it, as well as the outrage of those who had planned to participate and express their views on the damage being done to the services, can be found in detail at the STARRS website. Let your voices be heard if you want our military to be merit-based. Lives depend on restoring merit. You can help. Call your congressional representatives and demand an end to DEI in our military.
The Lord knows who you are, where you are, and what you need — and He will move in His perfect timing.
Roger Helle
We flew out of Saigon, Vietnam, to Bangkok, Thailand. Nothing unusual was going on in Saigon, but when we arrived in Bangkok, the airport was full of armed Thai soldiers. That’s when we learned the much-anticipated war on Saddam Hussein and his Revolutionary Guard in Kuwait had begun.
It wasn’t a total shock — the buildup had been going on for months, with half a million U.S. troops deployed. When I got back to Iowa, that’s when it started. Protesters across the country began the “No blood for oil” chanting. Outside the State Capitol building in Des Moines, protesters, mostly students, wrapped themselves in black garbage bags, signifying the body bags everyone expected to be coming back home.
As a Vietnam combat veteran, my heart was heavy. Here we go again. All of the “Yellow Ribbons” and “Support Our Troops” signs were quickly forgotten, and insanity began to overwhelm reason. I prayed, “Lord, not again!” I didn’t want our warriors to endure what Vietnam veterans did.
Several weeks later, I was at a small gun shop in the “booming metropolis” of Huxley, Iowa. Even with a map (remember those?), it was hard to find. The store had not opened yet, and I noticed an event taking place in the town square. I walked over to where a dedication ceremony was taking place, with several veterans groups participating.
I noticed a family standing nearby, so I asked what was going on. A woman turned and said, “We’re dedicating this sign that has all the names of service members from our region who are deployed in Operation Desert Storm.” I said, “That’s great!” She then stated, “My son is there with the 101st Airborne Division.” I responded that they were a great unit and were deployed in Vietnam.
As I started to leave, I felt impressed to ask: “What is your son’s name? I want to pray for him until the Lord brings him safely home.” She gave me his name and introduced me to his wife, who was standing next to her, holding a small baby. I left and prayed for her son, Jarrod Vreeze, every day. The war was over, and I kept checking the news. Fortunately, Jarrod’s name never came up as a casualty.
Some weeks later, I was returning from speaking in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Landing at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, I went to my gate and was told it was a very light flight to Des Moines. I boarded, laid my briefcase on my aisle seat, and went to the bathroom. When I came back, a man and a woman with a baby were seated in my row. I buckled in and told the husband I would move after takeoff.
He looked to be in the military, suntanned and very fit. He said he served in the 101st Airborne. I asked if he was returning from the Gulf War, and he said he was. I gave my normal response: “Welcome home! We prayed for all of you every day!” He thanked me, and we were both quiet.
As the plane rose, I asked if he lived in Des Moines. He said he lived north of Des Moines in Huxley. I got this feeling that this was a divine appointment. “What’s your first name?” I asked. “Jarrod,” he replied. “Vreeze,” I shot back. His eyes widened, and he asked, “How did you know?” I said, “Because I’ve been praying for you for several months now.” That’s when his wife said, “I thought you looked familiar!”
The Lord knew my burden for the men and women in the Gulf War. They were our sons and daughters. To show how much He cared, He put me right next to a fellow warrior to let Jarrod know God cared about him. Several days later, Jarrod’s mother called and asked, “God put you next to my son, didn’t He?” I replied, “Yes, ma’am, He did.” Jarrod had drifted away from God before joining the Army but sensed His protection over him during the war. Now, he knew God cared about him.
Maybe you’re looking around our nation right now and asking, “God, do You even care?” He is still on the throne! The Lord knows who you are, where you are, and what you need — and He will move in His perfect timing.
Biden’s Senior Moment of the Week (Vol. 93) — Joe Biden paused a previously authorized weapons shipment to Israel, our democratic ally, in order to appease supporters of the terrorist group Hamas.
Illegal Migrants Send Demands to City Leaders — Migrants in Denver submitted a list of 13 demands that they say the city must meet before they leave their packed encampment and head into shelters.
“On my watch, when we make promises, we keep them. And we leave no one behind.” —Joe Biden
Yellow Journalism
“With Schools in Ruins, Education in Gaza Will Be Hobbled for Years.” —The New York Times (So Hamas terrorist indoctrination has been “hobbled”…)
Who, Other Than Politico, Was Surprised by This?
“Pro-Palestinian protesters are backed by a surprising source: Biden’s biggest donors.” —Politico
A Trip Down Memory Lane
“The idea that we would cut off military aid to an ally [Israel] — our only true, true ally in the entire region — is absolutely preposterous. It’s just beyond my comprehension anyone would do that.” —Joe Biden in 2019
Inquiring Minds Want to Know
“What happened to the Joe Biden who exhibited moral clarity toward Israel? Did he shuffle off the stage in search of ice cream?” —Matthew Continetti
Vote Buying
“Even as President Joe Biden was delivering his perfunctory Holocaust Remembrance speech [last] week … the president was planning to stop the Jewish state from destroying modern-day Nazis. On Wednesday, Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett that if Israel invades the city of Rafah in Gaza … the U.S. would stop supplying Israel with offensive and precision weapons. This is a historic moment, as it is surely the first time a president has sold out a stalwart U.S. ally to save a terrorist organization.” —David Harsanyi
“Israel is on the verge of eliminating a global terrorist threat. That terrorist threat is holding American citizens hostages and is a threat to the United States around the world. But, to secure his reelection, Joe Biden would force Israel to pull its punches, preserve Hamas and allow a terror threat to continue. This is unacceptable.” —Erick Erickson
“The Biden administration stood with Israel until late February of 2024, when too many Michigan primary voters voted ‘uncommitted’ in the Democrat primary. Biden began to shift after that, convinced he could lose in November if he did not have the votes of Jew hating Democrats in swing states like Michigan.” —Erick Erickson
For the Record
“Not even former President Barack Obama, who had been chummy with black supremacists and other antisemites for decades before reaching the White House, cut off aid to Israel. Democrats continue to lurch toward the hard left.” —David Harsanyi
“Like [Chuck] Schumer and many others in power, [Bernie] Sanders is Jewish when it suits his purposes, but first and foremost, he’s loyal to the Marxist wing of the Democrat Party that’s vehemently anti-Israel.” —Brian Mark Weber
“Israel is not waging war in places like Rafah for fun. Israel is fighting Hamas because Israel was attacked on October 7 and because the terrorist organization poses an existential threat.” —Matthew Continetti
“Hamas started this war. Every innocent life, every unnecessary death is on them. Plain and simple.” —Senator Tim Scott (R-SC)
“The Israelis have shown more caution and regard for civilian casualties than the U.S. did in 1941-45 or has done since, or as any other nation has ever done.” —Michael Barone
Village Academics
“Common sense tells us that people who are treated badly often behave badly in return, which is why people are favorably impressed by those who rise above adversity. Common sense teaches also that virtue and vice are intermixed in every human heart, that no category of people — not a political party, not an ethnic group, not a religious sect, not a nation — has or can have a monopoly of behaving badly or admirably. That’s not the lesson being taught, it appears, in many of the nation’s public and private schools.” —Michael Barone
CNN panics over the latest polling numbers showing President Donald Trump leading in all but one battleground states.
Fake News Freakout! CNN is in full panic mode today after the latest release of battleground polling data by The New York Times, Siena College and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
President Trump is leading in: Arizona by 6 points Georgia by 9 points Nevada by 13 points – “My goodness gracious!” Pennsylvania by 3 points Wisconsin by 1 point
The New York Times poll has Biden up in Michigan by 1 point for some reason.
CNN reporter Harry Enten called the latest swing state polling an “absolute disaster” for Joe Biden and the Democrat Marxists.
Harry Enton: Look, these Sunbelt battlegrounds say, frankly, for the Joe Biden campaign, these numbers are an absolute disaster. The smallest leaders are in Arizona. For Donald Trump, he’s up six. Look at this. Nine in Georgia, 13 in Nevada! My goodness gracious.My God! that is a huge lead! No Democrat has lost that state since John Kerry lost it back in 2004. How about these Great Lake battleground states? This is something that the Joe Biden campaign can work with. Look, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump up three, but that’s well within the margin of error. Wisconsin, Donald Trump up one. Well within the margin of error. And actually a Joe Biden lead, well within the margin of error. Up a point here. This they can work with the Joe Biden campaign. This the Donald Trump campaign absolutely loves. And it looks like a lot of the other polling out of the Sunbelt battle.
CNN then pretends that Trump is losing white voters to Marxist Democrats – complete nonsense!
Harry Enton: So this is among likely voters in all these battleground states we just spoke about. Back in 2020, 84% of the Trump campaigns of the Trump coalition was white. Look where it is. Now it’s 78%. The nonwhite portion of the Trump coalition, it was 13% in 2020. Look at this. Now it’s 19%. So the Trump coalition is becoming more diverse. And of course, those sunbelt battleground states are more diverse than the Great Lake battleground states.
U.S. — As former President Donald Trump continued to build a sizeable lead in a majority of swing states, the latest polls suggest President Joe Biden would need twice as many fake ballots to win the election this year.
The startling poll results presented the Biden campaign with a sobering reminder that the standard number of fake ballots used in previous election years needed to be increased significantly for him to win again in November.
“We’ve got to double our target number of fake votes this year,” said a Biden campaign insider under the condition of anonymity. “In previous years, we could just coast by with the standard quota of shenanigans, but this year, we’ve got to increase our production of hijinx and substantially raise the output of malarky.”
The polls also led White House insiders to express concern that there may not even be enough dead people casting votes to overcome the deficit. “We need more dead voters,” another insider said. “We’ve always done a good job of turning out the dead vote, but this year it will be even more crucial to get as many deceased people to the polls as possible.”
Democrat ballot production centers across the country have reportedly already been notified to ramp up production to have any chance of meeting the demand in November.
At publishing time, the Biden campaign was rumored to be in negotiations with foreign countries for permission to use large quantities of the dead voters they use to rig their elections.
Want proof that Jesus was a woke socialist? Look no further than these classic quotes straight from the Bible.
In our most recent podcast, Brian and I discuss our favorite debates. My debate picks include:
1. James Crossley vs. William Lane Craig – Was Jesus Raised from the Dead? (2012) – Highlights Craig’s case for the resurrection based on postmortem appearances – Contrasting styles of young Crossley vs distinguished Craig
2. Jeffrey Lowder vs. Frank Turek – What Better Explains Reality: Naturalism or Theism? (2016) – Appreciates Lowder’s formal case for naturalism reminiscent of Craig – Admires the cordiality and clash of Lowder’s logic vs Turek’s rhetoric
3. Christopher Hitchens vs. William Lane Craig – The “prizefight” lead-up and spectacle surrounding this legendary debate – Contrasts Craig’s arguments vs Hitchens’ emotional appeals
4. Braxton Hunter vs. Matt Dillahunty (2019) – Hunter exposes issues in Dillahunty’s epistemology – Effectively argues for Kalam cosmological argument and argument from free will
5. Craig vs Francisco Ayala – Is Intelligent Design Viable? (2013) – Craig debates an award-winning evolutionary scientist – Craig has to think on his feet against unfamiliar arguments from Ayala
6. Chris Date vs. Dale Tuggy – Is Jesus Human and Not Divine? – High-level, rich, respectful debate between able defenders of their positions – Highlights Date’s ancient bird imagery argument for Christ’s deity
7. Paul Draper vs. William Lane Craig – Craig debates a formidable philosophical adversary – Interesting to see Craig on his heels against some unfamiliar arguments
– Dr. Clark engaged in bizarre antics like throwing books, demanding miracles and challenging the audience to drink anti-freeze to demonstrate their faith – One of the most cringeworthy debates they’ve seen
It looks like Joe Biden’s betrayal of Israel is worse than we thought. According to a new report, Joe Biden has been withholding intelligence from Israel regarding the whereabouts of Hamas leaders and their underground command tunnels.
Former President Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden in five key battleground states expected to go a long way in determining this year’s race for the White House, according to new polls byThe New York Times
The war in Ukraine has just moved to an entirely new level, but most Americans do not even realize that we are closer to “nuclear Armageddon” than ever. Very early on the morning of May 10th, Russian forces began to pour across Ukraine’s border north of Kharkiv. In the short-term this will enable the Russians to create a buffer zone around the Belgorod region and force Ukraine to pull desperately needed forces away from the eastern front. But eventually I believe that the Russians fully intend to take Kharkiv, and that would be an absolutely devastating blow. Needless to say, losing Ukraine’s second largest city is not an option for Ukraine’s western backers, and they are determined to do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.
It would be hard to overstate the importance of what we just witnessed. Russian forces have come across the border in an area that is far away from any other current conflict zone. UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron says that Russia has basically “invaded [Ukraine] again”…
A Ukrainian regional official insisted Russia’s progress was not yet “significant” but admitted ground fighting in the area was spreading. Meanwhile, speaking on British television, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron acknowledged it was an “extremely dangerous moment,” adding that Russia had effectively “invaded [Ukraine] again.”
He is right.
This move by Russia really is essentially a fresh “invasion”, and it represents the most dramatic offensive that the Russians have undertaken since the early days of the war.
According to CBS News, the Russians were able to capture five villages on Saturday and four more on Sunday…
Evacuation teams worked non-stop throughout the day to take residents, most of whom were elderly, out of harm’s way.
At least 4,000 civilians have fled the Kharkiv region since Friday, when Moscow’s forces launched the operation, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said in a social media statement. Heavy fighting raged Sunday along the northeast front line, where Russian forces attacked 27 settlements in the past 24 hours, he said.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its forces had captured four villages, in addition to five villages reported to have been seized the day before.
It is being estimated that the Russians are in control of about 100 square kilometers in the border area, and this advance is going to force Ukrainian leaders to transfer forces from other areas…
Russian Federation forces have penetrated the defenses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from 3 to 5 km in Kharkov region, with a control zone in the border area to 110 square kilometers.
This will have a ripple effect in all the 600-mile-long frontline. As soon as Ukrainian top General Syrsky begins to transfer units to the northern regions of Kharkov and Sumy, the front in Donetsk will fold, and Chasov Yar, Kurakhovo and Krasnoarmeysk are expected to instantly collapse.
Ukrainian Armed Forces in fact have withdrawn some of the units of the 42nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade from the front near Chasov Yar and are hastily transferring troops north.
Of course the Ukrainians don’t have enough soldiers anywhere at this stage.
The Russians have been steadily gaining ground all over the map in recent weeks, and over the weekend significant gains were made near Chasiv Yar and Krasnohorivka…
It is not just in Ukraine’s north that Kyiv’s armed forces are losing ground.
DeepStateMap also shows Russia making further gains in two other key areas, most notably towards the town of Chasiv Yar, which has become an important forward military position, and further south in the industrial town of Krasnohorivka, where Russian troops are now in control of the town’s main facility, a brick factory.
Ukraine is clearly losing the war, and western leaders are getting desperate.
When asked about the new Russian offensive near Kharkiv, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Face the Nation that we “are not going anywhere”…
“We’ve been providing the systems to do that, but it’s a challenging moment. We are not going anywhere, and neither are more than some 50 countries that are supporting Ukraine. That will continue and if [Russian President Vladimir] Putin thinks he can outlast Ukraine, outlast its supporters. He’s wrong.”
The U.S. is going to continue to pour billions of dollars into Ukraine, but everyone can see that isn’t going to be enough to alter the trajectory of the conflict.
The only way that Ukraine will be able to win is for NATO to intervene directly, and that is dangerously close to becoming a reality.
There is a proposal to use NATO air defense systems deployed on the eastern borders of the Alliance to protect the western regions of Ukraine from Russian drones. In particular, Poland and Romania could do this.
This idea is supported by representatives of some German political parties, including the ruling Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Union 90/Greens.
According to the newspaper, the idea of using NATO air defense systems deployed in Romania and Poland and operated by NATO forces to shoot down Russian drones over Western Ukraine was proposed by Nico Lange, an expert at the Munich Security Council (MSC) and former NATO Deputy Secretary General, and was suggested by Lieutenant General Horst Heinrich Braus.
According to Lange, this would create a 70-kilometer safe zone on the Ukrainian border. This could relieve Ukrainian air defense forces in other parts of the front.
It is also being reported that the Germans are now considering conscripting all 18-year-olds…
Germany is considering introducing conscription for all 18-year-olds, as it looks to boost its troop numbers in the face of Russian military aggression.
Military planners in Berlin are in the final stages of discussing three options, two of which involve a form of conscription, according to leaked plans reported in the German media.
I was stunned when I saw that.
I don’t think that young people in Germany will be too thrilled about being forced to go into the military.
But this is where we are at.
NATO really is on the brink of a hot war with Russia.
Speaking of NATO, the largest military exercises that the alliance has organized since the Cold War are being conducted right now…
State-of-the-art attack helicopters today swooped in a show of force against Vladimir Putin for NATO’s biggest military exercise since the Cold War.
British and US troops performed a land assault in Estonia, amid the threat posed by the Kremlin. They were supported by two of our Apache AH-64E attack helicopters, making their debut in an alliance exercise.
Explosions rang out during the exercise, with troops simulating a battlefield scenario of seizing territory. Over two years on from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the wargame took place under Exercise Swift Response.
During the early stages of 2024, there has been a lot of chatter about the possibility of western troops being sent to Ukraine.
If that happens, that will put us just one step away from nuclear war.
What would you do if you were the president of the United States and you just learned that the Russians have launched their nukes?
Once the president learns from his nuclear command and control team that he must act, he has only six minutes to respond. To “respond” means responding with our own nuclear weapons. President Ronald Reagan lamented in his memoir that six minutes is an irrational amount of time to “decide whether to release Armageddon! …Six minutes to decide how to respond to a blip on a radar scope…How could anyone apply reason at a time like that?”
Yet, the president must respond anyway. In this six-minute window, the president must decide how many nuclear weapons to use and which targets to strike—while also being briefed on estimates of how many tens of thousands, or millions of people, would be instantly incinerated, with an almost equal number dying days, weeks, and months later from radiation poisoning. All this to consider under a literal ticking clock.
If the Russians launch missiles from ultra-quiet submarines parked just off our shores, the nukes will start hitting before they can even get the president out of bed.
It is imperative that we avoid such a scenario, and that is why I have been pushing for a peaceful solution in Ukraine for a long time.
Unfortunately, no peaceful solution is even being considered.
Leaders on both sides are absolutely obsessed with “winning” this war, and that means that “nuclear Armageddon” is getting closer with each passing day.
About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. You can find Michael on social media on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.
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