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
President Trump is calling on Congress to give more aid to Americans and call out the amount of money given to the arts and foreign countries. #FoxNews
Peter Doshi, associate editor of the medical journal BMJ, and Eric Topol, Scripps Research professor of molecular medicine, wrote a devastating NY Times opinion piece about the COVID vaccine clinical trials.
They exposed the fatal flaw in the large Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Moderna trials.
September 22, the Times: “These Coronavirus Trials Don’t Answer the One Question We Need to Know”:
“If you were to approve a coronavirus vaccine, would you approve one that you only knew protected people only from the most mild form of Covid-19, or one that would prevent its serious complications?”
“The answer is obvious. You would want to protect against the worst cases.”
“But that’s not how the companies testing three of the leading coronavirus vaccine candidates, Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, whose U.S. trial is on hold, are approaching the problem.”
“According to the protocols for their studies, which they released late last week, a vaccine could meet the companies’ benchmark for success if it lowered the risk of mild Covid-19, but was never shown to reduce moderate or severe forms of the disease, or the risk of hospitalization, admissions to the intensive care unit or death.”
“To say a vaccine works should mean that most people no longer run the risk of getting seriously sick. That’s not what these trials will determine.”
The US government is stimulating everybody. Just not you.
Congress finally pulled together a stimulus deal. Both houses of Congress passed the $900 billion measure. It ranks as the second-largest spending bill in history, only behind the CARES Act passed earlier this year.
The headline provisions include $600 stimulus checks to individuals earning under $75,000 per year, a $300 per week unemployment supplement, more money for Paycheck Protection Program loans and funding for coronavirus vaccine distribution to the tune of over $8 billion. The bill extends the federal eviction moratorium through Jan. 31 and sets aside $25 billion in rental assistance.
Of course, there is a lot more in this 5,500-plus page bill. In fact, hardly anybody knows everything included in this massive spending boondoggle. But I can assure you, most of this money will do nothing to support that average American who will ultimately foot the bill.
In fact, the House voted to suspend the rule requiring 72 hours to allow members to read the bill before a vote. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) tweeted that the House was voting on the massive spending measure with less than 8 hours to read it. I don’t know about you, but I can’t read 5,500 pages in eight hours. “Most of my colleagues will vote for this 5000+ page bill without even knowing this is in it…” Massie tweeted.
I feel safe saying nobody who voted for this bill actually read it.
A Few Crumbs for Main Street
I want you to pause and think about this for a moment. Government policies have shut down businesses for months, wrecked the economy, thrown millions out of work and you get $600 for your trouble.
Sen. Mitch McConnell called it a “historic rescue package,” but if you ask me, it’s more like tossing a drowning man a Lifesavers candy tied to dental floss.
So, while you try to figure out how to spend your paltry $600, consider some of the other folks who will be getting a big fat handout from Uncle Sam.
The bill does include $13 billion for food aid to increase the maximum Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefit by 15%. I suppose that’s a benefit to Main Street.
Meanwhile, the airlines will get yet another bailout of $15 billion. That’s on top of the $25 billion US air carriers got in the CARES Act.
There is more transportation money in the bill. The legislation allocated $14 billion for transit systems and $10 billion for state highways. This seems a little silly given that we’re all supposed to stay home.
The bill includes $82 billion in education funding, including more than $54 billion for public K-12 schools and nearly $23 billion for higher education. Too bad a lot of kids around the country aren’t allowed to go to school.
There was $7 billion included in the bill to fund expansions in broadband access.
Now, I would argue that most of this spending is only peripherally related to the pandemic and it really more of a cash cow for various special interests. But you can at least argue that most of the funding I’ve mentioned so far is at least tangentially beneficial to average Americans. But if you do the math, you will quickly realize we’re nowhere close to $900 billion. Where is the rest of the money going? God only knows. But I am willing to bet that more than $600 will be going into the pockets of various Wall Street interests.
A Hot Loaf of Bread for the Rest of the World
Meanwhile, the coronavirus bill was tied to other spending measures that passed yesterday. While McConnel pats himself on the back for saving your bacon with a $600 handout, he and his minions in Congress just showered billions of dollars (that you and your progeny will ultimately have to pay back) on people all over the world. Here are just a few of the other things Congress funded yesterday.
$1 billion to Smithsonian
$40 million to Kennedy Center
$154 million to the National Art Gallery
$167 million to the National Foundation of Arts and Humanities
$14 million to Wilson Center
$500 million in foreign aid to Israel
$1.3 billion to the Egyptian military
$25 million to Pakistan including for “gender programs”
$453 million to Ukraine
$700 million for Sudan
$1.4 billion for implementation of U.S. foreign policy goals in the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act
130 million to Nepal
$85.5 million to Cambodia
$135 million to Burma
As a friend of mine put it,“It appears ‘economic stimulus’ for ‘working families’ actually means 4 out of every 5 dollars goes to special interests; you 320 million people split the last dollar.”
You’re Going to Pay for This
I feel compelled to remind you that somebody has to pay for this. That will be you.
It’s only a matter of time before Joe Biden and his buddies in Congress will be calling for tax hikes. But that’s not the worst of it.The real tax will be the inflation tax, and it won’t just be paid by “the rich.”
Lost in all of this is that all of this money will be borrowed. This coronavirus stimulus bill alone will add nearly $1 trillion to the already enormous budget deficit. This means more Treasuries flooding the market. In a sane world, this would push bond prices lower and drive interest rates higher. But we don’t live in a sane world. The Federal Reserve will put its thumb on the bond market and it will monetize all this debt through more bond purchases. It will create more money out of thin air and inject it into the economy, adding to a money supply that is already increasing at a record pace.
This means inflation.
As Peter Schiff said in a recent podcast, the dollar’s loss is not America’s gain. You will pay for your $600 stimulus check, and your enhanced unemployment, and your expanded broadband access. And you will pay dearly in a loss of purchasing power.
If it weren’t for the Fed backstopping the bond market and monetizing the debt, interest rates would already be rising, exposing the fact that the US government has already gone beyond the limits of “sustainable” deficits. The question is whether or not the Fed can keep doing this indefinitely and the answer is no. As Peter said after the last Fed meeting —
Sebastian Gorka details the ‘travesty’ of a relief bill Nancy Pelosi delayed for months while American receive next to nothing and more – via Newsmax TV’s ‘G…
US President Donald Trump is refusing to sign the coronavirus ‘relief’ bill adopted by both houses of Congress, calling it a “disgrace” and demanding that direct payments be upped to $2,000 per individual from the current $600.
“Congress found plenty of money for foreign countries, lobbyists and special interests, while sending the bare minimum to the American people, who need it,”Trump said in a video address, tweeted from the White House on Tuesday evening.
“I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000, or $4,000 for a couple,”the president added, as well as“immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation.”
The House and the Senate on Monday adopted the 5,593-page legislation that bundled together Covid-19 stimulus and relief with a 2021 omnibus spending bill. The mammoth law, which Trump noted“nobody in Congress has read because of its length and complexity,”was made public just hours before the vote. It passed with a 92-6 vote in the Senate and 359-53 in the House.
Critics across the political spectrum have slammed the“paltry”$600 one-time payment to individual Americans, the first since the $1,200 they received in April, after just a month of lockdowns imposed to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The $900 billion relief paled in comparison to the $1.4 trillion accompanying spending omnibus, which allocated billions to the US military, foreign aid, as well as a laundry list of pet causes and special interests.
If Congress doesn’t amend the bill, Trump said,“the next administration will have to deliver a covid relief package – and maybe that administration will be me, and we will get it done.”
While the mainstream media and the Electoral College have declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner of the November 3 presidential election, Trump has refused to concede and is alleging fraud, irregularities and misconduct in several key battleground states.
Many employees at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., have reservations about taking the COVID-19 vaccine,and CEO Anita Jenkins is trying to get workers to follow her lead by getting vaccinated, according to CNN.
The hospital, a major healthcare provider for the Black community, received 725 doses of the Pfizer vaccine Dec. 15 and expects to receive a second shipment this week. As of Dec. 18, only about 600 of the hospital’s 1,900 employees had signed up for the shots, according to Kaiser Health News.
“There is a high level of mistrust and I get it,”Ms. Jenkins told Kaiser Health News.
“People are genuinely afraid of the vaccine.”
The vaccination numbers, though low, still exceeded expectations, Ms. Jenkins told CNN. An internal hospital survey of about 350 employees in early November showed that70 percent were not willing to take the COVID-19 vaccine or would not take it immediately after it became available.
Ms. Jenkins received the shot Dec. 15 in hopes of inspiring staff to get vaccinated. She’s part of a widespread effort by healthcare experts and community leaders to combat vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans.About 35 percent of Black Americans said they probably or definitely would not get the vaccine if it was determined to be safe by scientists and widely available for free,according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study cited by CNN.
Howard University Hospital isn’t the only healthcare provider with workers who turned down the vaccine.
At Doctors Hospital at Renaissance in Edinburg, Texas, so many workers declined the COVID-19 vaccine that the hospital offered doses to other medical workers in the region,according to ProPublica.
The hospital received 5,850 doses of the vaccine, and it quickly became clear that not enough people eligible for the vaccine, like staff who work directly with COVID-19 patients, were opting to get it, DHR Health CMO Robert Martinez, MD, told ProPublica.
“You start to see similar numbers across the country, all this mistrust and misinformation,”Dr. Martinez said.
After the first day of distribution, DHR reached out to other hospitals and healthcare facilities in the region to offer doses of the vaccine. ProPublica reported that the vaccine ended up going to non-medical personnel as well, including state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. He told ProPublica he was invited to take the vaccine by DHR after officials explained to him that all eligible workers who wanted the vaccine received it.
President Trumpappeared to threaten to vetothe COVID-19 stimulus package that Congress passed almost 24 hours earlier, telling lawmakers toboost checks for Americans to $2,000as well as“get rid of wasteful and unnecessary items”in the spending bill
Trump said “throughout the summer,Democrats cruelly blocked COVID relief legislation in an effort to advance their extreme left wing agenda and influence the election…”
“it’s taken forever” to get a package andthe bill passed “is much different than anticipated.”
“It really is a disgrace,”he added.
Thenreeled off a list of disgusting ‘pork’(read the details here) that has been piled into this record-breaking 5,593 page bill.
As Axios notes, many of the items Trump listed, such as foreign aid, which were not related to COVID-19 are not part of the coronavirus relief package. These form part of the government funding bill, which was passed alongside the coronavirus relief package.
Then he took a shot at Biden and the election
“Send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package andmaybe that administration will be meand we will get it done.”
Due to holiday specials, this week’s news round-up came early but still had plenty to offer. Some of the stories included:
–More money was spent on non-COVID items than on true COVID relief in the roughly 2.4 trillion dollar pandemic spending package. It’s a whopping 5,593 pages long and legislators had only hours to review it.
–Kentucky Senator Rand Paul denounced the COVID relief bill, saying that it’s everything Republicans say they don’t believe in.
–Senator Ron Johnson also voted against the bill saying that the dysfunction of Washington, D.C., was on full display as Congress had combined COVID relief with a massive omnibus spending bill 3 months past the deadline and into the current fiscal year.
–Memory cards from Dominion’s voting tabulation machines are allegedly storage limited.
–The termination of 2 poll workers in Georgia who testified to election irregularities is deeply disturbing according to 3 Fulton County commissioners.
–Georgia’s elections director in November sent a memo warning counties that voting machine software was not subject to open voting record requests as public demand was growing for transparency over the Dominion Voting Systems software and other electronic poll book data.
–The Southern Poverty Law Center provided funding to Fulton County, Georgia, for 25 absentee ballot drop boxes to be used in the November 3rd general election.
–Almost 76,000 voters who did not vote in Georgia’s November elections have registered ahead of the runoffs January 5th.
–President Trump announced that his legal team has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court relating to Pennsylvania.
–Former Security Adviser Michael Flynn said foreign partners can provide evidence showing foreign influence at work in the November 3rd election.
–Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to sue the Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee over subpoenas related to the 2020 presidential election.
–Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama is urging people from across America to urge congressmen to block electors from the disputed states.
–President Trump has spoken to senator-elect Tommy Tuberville after he is mulling whether or not to join representatives next month in filing a challenge to the electoral votes.
–The new coronavirus vaccines are morally acceptable even if they were developed with stem cells from aborted babies according to the Vatican.
–A Chicago area hospital has resumed coronavirus vaccinations following a one-day pause after 4 healthcare workers experienced adverse reactions to the Pfizer injection.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death.—John 8:51.
SOME day you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody, of East Northfield, is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I shall have gone up higher, that is all; gone out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal, a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint, a body like unto His own glorious body. I was born of the flesh in 1837. I was born of the Spirit in 1856. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the Spirit will live forever.[1]
This is Your work, Lord God, that I believe in Him whom You sent.
Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Faith works through love. If I sow to my flesh I will of the flesh reap corruption, but if I sow to the Spirit I will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. I am Your workmanship, God, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which You prepared beforehand that I should walk in them. You gave Yourself for me, that You might redeem me from every lawless deed and purify for Yourself Your own special people, zealous for good works.
I thank You, God, because my faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of us abounds toward each other. I pray always that You, my God, would count me worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of Your goodness and the work of faith with power. It is You, God, who works in me both to will and to do for Your good pleasure.
Please continue to grow my faith and my love for You and Your people so that my works of faith will glorify You.
1 Thessalonians 1:3; John 6:29; James 2:17; Galatians 5:6; Galatians 6:8; Ephesians 2:10; Titus 2:14; 2 Thessalonians 1:3, 11; Philippians 2:13[1]
How can we, as Christians, respond to the growing social unrest? How can we survive and thrive in a pandemic? In this collective podcast (created from two separate interviews), J. Warner talks with John Hall and Kathy Emmons from The Ride Home with John and Kathy about the challenges we faced in 2020.
And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” (24:49)
Though believers are gospel witnesses, the gospel does not advance by human power, creativity, ingenuity, or zeal. “The weapons of our warfare,” Paul wrote, “are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses” (2 Cor. 10:4). Therefore the Lord told the disciples that He would be sending forth the promise of the Father upon them. In the meantime, they were to stay in the city of Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on high. The promise of the Father that would grant them divine power to witness is the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. Both the Old Testament (Ezek. 36:27; 37:14; 39:29; Joel 2:28–29) and Jesus (John 14:16–17; 20:22) promised the coming of the Holy Spirit, through whose indwelling Jesus is also with believers (Matt. 28:20). Since all Christians are indwelt by the Spirit (Rom. 8:9), all are empowered for effective witness. The question is, how faithful will they be?[1]
24:49 / what my father has promised: According to Tiede (p. 443), the Father’s promise constitutes “the fulfillment of the hopes for ‘the consolation of Israel’ (2:25), the ‘redemption of Jerusalem’ (2:38), ‘the kingdom of God’ (23:51), and the ‘redeeming of Israel’ (24:21). This will not be accomplished for these disciples until Jesus has been exalted and the Holy Spirit has been sent to authorize the renewal of Israel’s vocation. The ‘promise of my Father’ or ‘the promise of the Father’ (Acts 1:4) is a scriptural promise of the pouring out of the Spirit on Israel (see Joel 2:28–29; Isa. 32:15; 44:3; Ezek. 39:29). It will be fulfilled quite specifically at Pentecost (see Acts 2:16).”[2]
24:49I am going to send you what my Father has promised. If Luke’s Gospel is read alone, this statement is strangely cryptic, since Luke has recorded no such promise so far. It is only when we read on to Acts 1:8 and the fulfillment of the promise in Acts 2:1–4 that it becomes clear that the “power from on high” refers to the Holy Spirit, bestowed by the ascended Jesus (Acts 2:33).[3]
Ver. 49.—And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you. Promised on the last Passover evening (John 14–16; see especially John 14:16–26; 15:26, 27; 16:7, etc.), and fulfilled partly on the first Easter evening, when he breathed on them (John 20:22), and completely on the first Pentecost (Acts 2:1, etc.). But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. These words apparently were spoken on the day of his ascension (see Acts 1:4).[4]
49. And, lo, I send. That the apostles may not be terrified by their weakness, he invites them to expect new and extraordinary grace; as if he had said, though you feel yourselves to be unfit for such a charge, there is no reason why you should despond, because I will send you from heaven that power which I know that you do not possess. The more fully to confirm them in this confidence, he mentions that the Father had promised to them the Holy Spirit; for, in order that they might prepare themselves with greater alacrity for the work, God had already encouraged them by his promise, as a remedy for their distrust. Christ now puts himself in the place of the Father, and undertakes to perform the promise; in which he again claims for himself divine power. To invest feeble men with heavenly power, is a part of that glory which God swears that he will not give to another: and, therefore, if it belongs to Christ, it follows that he is that God who formerly spoke by the mouth of the prophet, (Isa. 42:8.) And though God promised special grace to the apostles, and Christ bestowed it on them, we ought to hold universally that no mortal is of himself qualified for preaching the gospel, except so far as God clothes him with his Spirit, to supply his nakedness and poverty. And certainly, as it is not in reference to the apostles alone that Paul exclaims, (2 Cor. 2:16,) And who shall be found sufficient for these things? so all whom God raises up to be ministers of the gospel must be endued with the heavenly Spirit; and, therefore, in every part of Scripture he is promised to all the teachers of the Church without exception.
But remain you in the city of Jerusalem. That they may not advance to teach before the proper time, Christ enjoins on them silence and repose, until, sending them out according to his pleasure, he may make a seasonable use of their labours. And this was a useful trial of their obedience, that, after having been endued with the understanding of the Scripture, and after having had the grace of the Spirit breathed on them, (John 20:22,) yet because the Lord had forbidden them to speak, they were silent as if they had been dumb. For we know that those who expect to gain applause and admiration from their hearers are very desirous to appear in public. Perhaps, too, by this delay, Christ intended to punish them for indolence, because they did not, in compliance with his injunction, set out immediately, on the same day, for Galilee. However that may be, we are taught by their example, that we ought to attempt nothing but as the Lord calls us to it; and, therefore, though they may possess some ability to teach in public, let men remain in silence and retirement, until the Lord lead them by the hand into the public assembly. When they are commanded to remain at Jerusalem, we must understand this to mean, after they had returned from Galilee. For, as we shortly afterwards learn from Matthew, though he gave them an opportunity of seeing him at Jerusalem, still he did not change his original intention to go to Galilee, (Matth. 26:32, and 28:10.) The meaning of the word, therefore, is, that after having given them injunctions at the appointed place, he wishes them to remain silent for a time, until he supplies them with new vigour.[5]
49. The risen Jesus has the power to send the Spirit. His authority is not limited as it was during the days of his earthly ministry. The promise of my Father is an unusual designation of the Holy Spirit emphasizing the place of the divine promise in his coming. The disciples are not to attempt the task of evangelism with their own meagre resources, but are to await the coming of the Spirit. The equipment he would provide is picturesquely described in terms of the disciples being clothed with power from on high. The note of power is significant, and on high reminded them (and reminds us) of the source of all real power for evangelism.[6]
Moreover, note well, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; but remain in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.
Although what is here recorded concerned especially The Eleven (soon again to become The Twelve, Acts 1:26), it had and has significance for every believer.
Jesus is telling the apostles that he is about to send upon them that which the Father promised, namely, the Holy Spirit. See John 14:16, 17, 26; Acts 1:8. That Spirit will qualify them to be true and effective witnesses. Until they receive this great gift they must remain quietly in Jerusalem. Cf. Acts 1:4.
This promise was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost; that is, on the fiftieth day after Christ’s resurrection, the tenth after his ascension. That by means of the words of Jesus when he opened their minds and by means of the outpouring upon them of the Holy Spirit these men indeed became effective witnesses is clear from the book of Acts. One illustration of this increased power and effectiveness is certainly Peter’s address on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14–36).[7]
[1] MacArthur, J. (2014). Luke 18–24 (p. 448). Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.
[2] Evans, C. A. (1990). Luke (p. 362). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
[3] France, R. T. (2013). Luke. (M. L. Strauss & J. H. Walton, Eds.) (p. 389). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
[4] Spence-Jones, H. D. M. (Ed.). (1909). St Luke (Vol. 2, p. 276). London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company.
This section of verses that show Jesus’ life are focused on His attributes & earthly ministry. We’ve seen Him through what He does, as servant, teacher, shepherd, intercessor, and healer. Now we look at who He is by looking at His attribute of omniscience yesterday and today we ponder His authority.
How to represent the authority of Jesus over life, in pictorial form? That was a tough one. I settled on the notion of the dock being the long journey of finite earthly life in the flesh, then we come to an inevitable end and launch up and into the eternal heavens. Jesus has authority over every step.
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