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
50 Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 1 Corinthians 15:50 (NASB)
There are only two religions in the entire world. There is genuine Orthodox Christianity and then every other form of religiosity including humanism. The latter are all opposed to the truth and are part of the rebellion against the sovereignty of God. Genuine Orthodox Christianity is made up of those who have been redeemed from the slave market of iniquity….
This slave market preys on people and keeps them in bondage to the flesh. On the other hand, Genuine Orthodox Christianity, which is the Church, is spiritual. Those in it are adopted into the family of God. Those spiritually alive right now await the completion of their redemption. Those who have already died are with the Lord now. Those who remain are in process. This process is their progressive sanctification, which is the mortification of the deeds of their flesh, which is sin. However, all outside of the Church are in their sins and can only operate in the flesh. View article →
February 2 Exodus 15:19-17:7 Matthew 22:1-33 Psalm 27:1-6 Proverbs 6:20-26
Exodus 15:24 – Murmur is used 10 times in this passage, and this passage is the only times murmur is found in Exodus. (While browsing the complete text of Exodus, push Control-F and type ‘murmur’). Murmuring is not open, blatant rebellion; it’s a quiet grumbling – more like half-hearted obedience (or half-hearted disobedience). How do you think God feels about murmuring?
Exodus 16:15 – Manna will be feeding the Israelites from now until Joshua 5:12. It’s mentioned in Nehemiah 9:20, Psalm 78:24. According to Hebrews 9:4 it was stored in the Ark of the Covenant. Jesus talked about it in John 6:31, John 6:49, and John 6:58. Wonder what it tastes like? Overcome and you can eat of the hidden manna! (Revelation 2:17).
Matthew 22:7 – About 40 years after they slew the Servant (Matthew 12:18), the armies of Titus burned up the city of Jerusalem.
Matthew 22:13 – John Bunyan footnotes this verse on p.201 of Pilgrim’s Progress in the chapter, The Fearful End of Ignorance.
Matthew 22:19 – What did the coin look like? Probably like this:
Matthew 22:29 – Congratulations on being committed to not erring! The way you can avoid erring is by knowing the Scriptures and reading thru the Bible is a great way to know the Scriptures!
Solomon sagely ponders why we strive, often desperately, to prolong our lives forever? Is something backwards in our human existence?
Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.
The Searcher’s theme is stated in verse 4: Humanity is transient, but nature is permanent. A generation comes and a generation goes—the human race passes on from this life, comes into life, lives its term, and goes on—but the earth remains forever.
He has three proofs for this, the first of which is the circle of the sun. The sun rises in the east; runs across the heavens, apparently; and sets in the west. Then it scurries around the dark side of the earth while we are sleeping, and there it is in the east again in the morning. That cycle has been going on as long as time has been measured, as far back as we can read in human history. It is endless; it continually repeats itself.
Then he speaks of the circuit of the winds. This is unusual, because we have no evidence that people in Solomon’s time understood scientifically the fact that the wind, the clouds, and the great jet streams of earth run in circles. This is evident to us in our day because we can see from a satellite picture in any news broadcast the great circles of the winds. I do not know how they knew this back then. But Solomon knew it, though the scientific world of that day did not seem to understand it.
His third proof is the circuit of the evaporative cycle. Where does all the water that endlessly drops out of the sky come from? The answer, of course, is that it comes from the ocean. An invisible evaporative process is at work by which the water that runs into the sea never raises the level of the sea because there is an invisible raising of that water back up into the clouds. These clouds then move east by the circuit of the winds and drop their moisture again, and this goes on forever.
The writer is suggesting that there is something wrong in this. It is backwards, somehow. Humans ought to be permanent, and nature ought to be transient. There is something within all of us that says this. We feel violated that we learn all these great lessons from life, but just as we have begun to learn how to handle life it is over, and the next generation has to start from scratch again.
The Scripture confirms that something is wrong. The Bible tells us that people were created to be the crown of creation. They are the ones who are in dominion over all things. People ought to last endlessly and nature ought to be changing, but it is the other way around. Humans feel the protest of this in their spirit. Something is wrong that all of this is suddenly taken away from us, while the meaningless cycle of nature goes on and on endlessly. Yes, the human spirit feels that strongly. That pertinent question is going to be developed in the theme of this book.
Lord, as I look around and see the endless cycles of nature, I feel my own transitoriness. Thank You for that fuller revelation that in Christ, who conquered death, I have the hope of eternal life.
This is the voice of unalterable truth. In none of the Jewish ceremonies were sins even typically removed without blood-shedding. In no case, by no means can sin be pardoned without atonement. It is clear, then, that there is no hope for me outside of Christ; for there is no other blood-shedding that is worth a thought as an atonement for sin.
Am I, then, believing in Him? Is the blood of His atonement truly applied to my soul? All men are on the same level in terms of their need of Him. Even if we are moral, generous, amiable, or patriotic, the rule will not be altered to make an exception for us. Sin will yield to nothing less potent than the blood of Him whom God has set forth as a propitiation. What a blessing that there is the one way of pardon! Why should we seek another?
Persons of merely formal religion cannot understand how we can rejoice that all our sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake. Their works and prayers and ceremonies give them very poor comfort; and their unease is no surprise, for they are neglecting the one great salvation and endeavoring to get remission without blood.
My soul, sit down and recognize that a just God is bound to punish sin; then consider how that punishment all falls upon the Lord Jesus, and fall down in humble joy at the feet of Him whose blood has made atonement for you. It is useless when conscience is aroused to trust in feelings and evidences for comfort; this is a bad and sorry habit. The only cure for a guilty conscience is the sight of Jesus suffering on the cross. “The blood is the life,” says the Levitical law, and let us rest assured that it is the life of faith and joy and every other holy grace.
Oh! how sweet to view the flowing
Of my Savior’s precious blood;
With divine assurance knowing
He has made my peace with God.
The corruption of the whole man: Irregular appetites towards those things that are pleasing to sense, and inordinate passions against those things that are displeasing, and an alienation of the mind from the principles, powers, and pleasures of the spiritual and divine life.
We are born of the flesh, and we are flesh. John 3:6(ESV) Dust we are: Genesis 3:19(ESV) We have borne the image of the man of dust; 1 Corinthians 15:49(ESV) and in us (that is, in our flesh) dwells nothing good. For we have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out; for we do not do the good we want, but the evil we do not want is what we keep on doing. Romans 7:18-19(ESV)
We have a law in our members waging war against the law of our mind and making us captive to the law of sin that dwells in our members; Romans 7:23(ESV) so that when we want to do right, evil lies close at hand, Romans 7:21(ESV) and clings to us so closely. Hebrews 12:1(ESV)
The whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint; from the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in us, but bruises and sores and raw wounds. Isaiah 1:5-6(ESV)
There is in us a bent to turn away from the living God: Hosea 11:7(ESV) Our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand them? Jeremiah 17:9(ESV) They start aside like a treacherous bow. Hosea 7:16(ESV)
In this week’s lessons, we learn what it means that the church is the pillar and foundation of God’s truth, and how we are to live as a result.
Scripture: 1 Timothy 3:14-16
In yesterday’s study, we saw that when Paul talks about the church as being the pillar and foundation of the truth, he is not saying that the church is therefore the foundation for Christ. It also does not mean that the church is the foundation of the Bible. The Bible is the truth, of course, but the church did not invent the Bible; nor did the church decide which books would be in it and which would not. Some people maintain that. They think that the church held a council to decide what books should go in the Bible and which should not. Well, that isn’t true because it wasn’t mere men who wrote the Bible, but it was God speaking through those men. And the reason the books of the Bible came to be included in the canon was not because the church decided that these books would belong and other books would not belong, but rather because the Holy Spirit, speaking through the books themselves, commended the books to the churches. All the church did was recognize formally those books that were already being used as sacred Scripture.
So if the church is neither the pillar and foundation of Christ nor the Bible, in what sense is this description true of the church? How is it “the pillar and foundation of the truth”? I think what we have to understand at this point is that Paul is simply speaking in terms of the church in the world, and what he is saying is that so far as the world is concerned, the church is the only place where men and women are going to come to know the truth. The reason for this is because God, in his infinite wisdom, has chosen to reveal the most precious truths about salvation there.
Let me explain this, because in this we will see how this comes to bear upon our life and witness. First of all, the church really has the truth, according to this teaching. Now when we say that, of course, we’re not saying that the church is itself the truth. Jesus Christ is the truth. God is the God of truth, and the Scriptures are truth. The church is not the truth, but to say that is not to deny that the church has the truth. We are not saying that the church is the place you go for every form of truth. For example, the church is not the depository of scientific truth or historical truth. Although we certainly believe that when the Bible makes a scientific or historical comment, it is true. But what we are really talking about when we say that the church has the truth is that the church has the revelation of God, which has been given to the church in Scripture. This is what Francis Schaeffer has meant in saying that the church has what he calls “true truth”—that is, the real thing, the most important truth there is. Outside of the church, apart from the revelation of God in the Scripture, concerning our need as sinners and God’s provision for that need in Christ, the world does not have the truth. And because the world does not have the truth, and largely does not pursue that truth, it does not have a sure foundation upon which it can build for its needed salvation and spiritual security.
Not only does the world not have the truth, but today the world is happy to deny that there really is such a thing as truth. If you deny the reality of truth altogether, then you are not really all that concerned about whether you have the truth or not. Let me use an illustration. If you believe in the Holy Grail and you want to find out its location, you search for it earnestly. Year after year you travel all over the world, studying where various people believe it is. You do all this careful research, but still you are never able to locate it. Well, after many years, even decades of searching, you might come to the conclusion that there is no Holy Grail after all.
That’s what the world has done in a certain sense with truth. All of the philosophical systems of this world have been brought forward at one time or another to tell us what the truth is. With all these different approaches, you have some trying to correct others, indicating where one system believes a previous system had neglected some point or misunderstood some piece of information. Since other attempts at arriving at the truth had failed, another option then rises in popularity as people continue their pursuit of truth. After all these failed attempts to discover truth, eventually the world begins to say that maybe there isn’t any such thing as truth, after all. In a simplistic way that is what happened, philosophically.
Study Questions:
What mistake do some people make in how they view the relationship between the church and the Bible?
What is the first way we are to understand that the church is the pillar and foundation of the truth?
Reflection:How does the world understand truth today?
“And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7
Contrary to popular belief, peace is not attained by manipulating circumstances. People think that if they could just rearrange their situation—find a new job, overcome depression, stop a spouse from filing for divorce—then life would be wonderful. But that kind of self-reliance is both misleading and unbiblical. We might arrive at a temporary calm, but fixing a problem outside of the Lord’s will won’t provide lasting peace.
The truth is, God’s peace is available no matter how painful and hopeless your situation seems. A tranquil heart comes from trusting Him. Though warning that believers would have trouble on this earth, Jesus assures us that He has overcome the world. In other words, we can have peace in the midst of our trials because the Lord walks alongside us. Our relationship with Christ provides all we need to face difficulty—including courage, wisdom, guidance, and comfort.
Jesus promised peace for those who trust in Him, and He delivers on His promises. Our part is to take one day at a time and believe that He will carry us through. Our Father wants to see us demonstrate faith; we can depend on Him to meet our needs and bestow the divine peace that surpasses all comprehension
“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” Psalm 46:10 ESV
I woke up this morning with this verse going through my mind.
I wonder if sometimes we breeze over this verse. Be still, and know that I am God. In our world today, be still makes us think of doing nothing, but ‘doing nothing’ hardly seems accurate here.
The Hebrew word raphah (raw-faw‘) means to release or let go; refrain from or let alone; to relax or wait for. Making yourself ‘let go’ of something is hardly doing nothing. Letting go can be hard work.
Children often struggle against their parents, thinking they know what’s best and wanting to do everything themselves. As a parent, I remember all the times I wanted to cry out, “Stop struggling! Let me help you!” Or when I explained, “I know you don’t agree or understand, but you just have to trust me on this.”
Don’t we do the same as adults? We want what we want, and we want it now! We want to understand. We ask When? Why? and How?
I imagine if we stopped struggling and trying to comprehend everything, we might hear Him say, Stop striving and worrying. Let Me be God. I know you don’t understand why or how…you just have to trust Me with this.
It’s not easy, but it is freeing. God is on His throne, no matter what happens, personally or nationally. And for that, I am forever thankful.
Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness and delight; Come before His presence with joyful singing. Know and fully recognize with gratitude that the Lord Himself is God; It is He who has made us, not we ourselves [and we are His]. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with a song of thanksgiving And His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, bless and praise His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy and loving kindness are everlasting, His faithfulness [endures] to all generations. Psalm 100 AMP
Dear Father in Heaven, thank you for your everlasting love, truth, and mercy. Please help us to remember that no matter what happens, You are in control. You are on Your throne. May we learn to be still, let go of all we’re struggling to hold on to and worrying about, and let You be God. In Jesus’ sweet name we pray, Amen.
King David found the burden of his sin unbearable. Realizing that if he just did his part, God would take care of the rest, David ran to, rather than from, the Lord. Hear more of this incredible story of redemption on Truth For Life with Alistair Begg. Listen…
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As a teenager I read a paperback Living Bible. At the back was a section entitled: “Where to find help when you are…” Bible references were given for “Angry,” “Grieving,” “Tired,” “Lonely,” and so on. The section that I most often went to was “Anxious”: “Where to find help when you are feeling Anxious.” I guess everyone went to that section.
Anxiety is a nasty thing. It gnaws at your stomach and looms dark and heavy over everything else. It wakes us in the middle of the night and makes it difficult for us to sleep again. And when we finally wake in the morning (after that brief moment of blissful forgetfulness), that sense of foreboding soon arises.
We all feel anxiety, and it is not just the grownups. When I think back to childhood, it was probably the time of greatest anxiety: anxiety about a school project that was due soon; anxiety about a piano lesson for which I hadn’t practiced (Mrs. Lewis could be fearsome); or anxiety about a teacher or student who made me miserable at school. These anxieties are no less real just because you are young!
The Reality of Anxiety
Our Father knows that we feel anxiety, and he wants to remove it from us—and not by just throwing it away or ignoring it and pretending that the things that make us anxious are not there. He does not ask us to use mental tricks or mantras to make us forget our anxiety. Instead, he says in 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you” (NIV).
Peter was writing to Christians who had lots of reasons to feel anxious. They were “scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,” which were provinces of Asia Minor under Roman rule, and culturally pagan.
Peter was writing when Nero was Rome’s emperor. Nero was notorious for his monstrous vanity, his deep-rooted paranoia, and his vicious persecution of Christians beginning in AD 60. Peter is writing to Christians who, because of their faith, were losing family members, losing work, and losing their status in the community. Each day they were exposed to arrest, torture, beatings, and death. They had a lot to be anxious about. And Peter said, “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.”
How Does Your Dictionary Define Anxiety?
My dictionary tells me that the adjective “anxious” means to feel “uneasy with fear and desire regarding something doubtful,” and that in 1947 the poet W. H. Auden described Western society as “the age of anxiety.” (Is that not every age?)
The Latin word anxietas is itself derived from angor, which refers literally to being choked, and metaphorically to mental distress. Angor refers to a transitory distress, and anxietas to prolonged distress. All of this matches what we think of as anxiety. But what did Peter himself mean by anxiety? We know what we mean by the word, but it is more important to ask what he meant.
What Did Jesus Mean by Anxiety/Worry?
The Greek word μεριμνα (merimna, noun), was used by Jesus to describe “the worries (merimna) of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth” (Matt. 13:22), that choke and destroy a person’s Gospel faith. Jesus also used the word in a strong warning in Luke 21:34: “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties (merimna) of life.” In Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus commands his disciples not to be anxious about life’s necessities and says that a fixation on these things is inherently pagan:
“So do not worry (merimnaō, verb), saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” (Matt. 6:31-32)
In Luke 10:41, Jesus tried to calm poor harassed Martha, who was cross that Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to him rather than bustling around cooking for him:
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried (merimnaō) and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42)
Notice how Jesus pairs “worry” with “upset” and “distraction.” And in Matthew 10:19, Jesus reassured his disciples, who were certain to be persecuted for the gospel: “But when they arrest you, do not worry (merimnaō) about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say.”
What Did Paul Mean by Anxiety/Worry?
In 1 Corinthians 7:32-34 Paul, with surprising candor, urges unmarried Christians to consider remaining single, for the practical reason that marriage and family bring many concerns and anxieties that make it difficult to focus on promulgating the gospel:
I would like you to be free from concern (merimna). An unmarried man is concerned (merimnaō) about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife—and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned (merimnaō) about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband.
In 2 Corinthians 11 Paul describes his many sufferings, including, in verse 28, “the pressure of my concern (merimna) for all the churches.”
So we can see that merimna is not in itself an evil: a person can be filled with sinful anxieties or good and worthy anxieties. In either case, we are to take these anxieties, worries, concerns, and pressures, and we are to “cast them all upon the LORD.”
What Does “To Cast” Mean?
The Greek word cast (ἐπιριπτω, epiriptō) is a rare word in the Bible. In Joshua 23:4 it describes how God “allotted“ the Promised Land as an inheritance for the tribes of Israel. And in Luke 19:35 it describes the people “throwing” their cloaks upon a colt as a makeshift saddle for Jesus. It is derived from another word ῥιπτω (rhiptō) that usually describes the forceful propulsion of something: throwing those who lead little children astray into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck (Luke 17:2); a demon throwing a man down on the ground (Luke 4:35); and sailors throwing their ship’s tackle and anchors overboard (Acts 27:19, 29).
An exception is Matthew 15:30, where “great crowds came to Jesus, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them.” They didn’t of course literally toss their loved ones at the feet of Jesus, but there was energy in their action—they were desperate to get those in need to Jesus for healing.
Peter commands us to take our worries, cares, and anxieties and to energetically transfer them from ourselves. But notice that he does not simply say, “Throw them away!” “Forget about them!” “Pretend they don’t exist.” No. We are to cast them “onto the LORD.” We place them in his care.
One the of the most beautiful scenes in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables is when Cosette, an abused orphan struggling bare-footed on a black forest path with a gigantic wooden pale of water half her weight, suddenly feels the weight miraculously lifted. A kind and powerful stranger approaching from behind miraculously and effortlessly lifts the bucket out of her hands. This is Jean Valjean, who cared for Cosette’s dying mother, Fantine, and has now come to adopt Cosette and care for her as his own. Her heavy burden is lifted by him. Her lifelong pain and struggle is now borne by him.
How Do We Cast Our Burdens on Jesus?
The apostle urges us to take our burdens, not to drop them or walk away from them, but to put them into Jesus’ hands. You are weak, he is strong. You are sinful, he is pure. You are foolish, he is wise. You are the creature, he is the Creator. You are fallen, he is the Savior!
Which anxieties? He wants all of them. He wants your unworthy anxieties for transitory things and wicked things. With him you don’t need to worry about what you will have to eat, drink, and wear. He will take care of these things! He will show you that you don’t need sinful things to be happy—that all you need is him.
How exactly do we “cast our cares” upon him? By asking him to take them. By prayer. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Phil. 4:6). “Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken” (Ps. 55:22).
Jesus—the One Who Cares for You
Why should we do this? Yes, because he is strong and capable to lift the things that crush us. But Peter points us far beyond the strength of the LORD, to his love: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
The word “care” is usually used negatively to describe a real or perceived lack of care. The disciples on the stormy lake cried out to Jesus, who was slumbering deeply on a cushion, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” (Mark 4:38). And busy, bustling Martha said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?” (Luke 10:40). Jesus described the hired shepherd as the mercenary “who cares nothing for the sheep” (John 10:13), and John described Judas as someone who did not care about the poor, but only about money (John 12:6).
Thus to understand “care,” we need to reverse these scenarios. Jesus did care for his disciples in the storm. He did care about Martha. He cares about his sheep and the poor. And he cares for you.
Your government will usually do its best for you, but it doesn’t love you. It has no more affection for you than your computer or dishwashing machine. Cast your worries, cares, and anxieties on the Lord, because not only is he strong and capable, but he also cares for you, loves you, and has great affection for you. He wants the absolute best for you and will ensure that you do not miss out on a single good thing, or suffer even one thing that unnecessarily or finally harms you.
I finish with a beautiful quote from the nineteenth-century French theologian Adolphe Monod:
Am I poor? All the riches of this world are mine; for they belong to Christ, who belongs to God. He knows exactly how to give to me, with him and by him, all the riches of the world, if they are useful to me.
So if in the place of riches he gives me poverty, this is better for me, and the result of God’s choice.
The entire world with all its glories and its power belongs to me, for they belong to my Father, who would give them to me tomorrow, and who could give them to me today, if this was good for me; for he disposes of these things according to his will.
I am sick? Health is mine, strength is mine, wellbeing is mine, and a perfect enjoyment of all the good things of life is mine. For all these things are Christ’s, who belongs to God, and who gives these things according to his will.
Upon whom will he scatter these things if not upon me, his child? So if he refuses these things to me today, for a fleeting moment which passes like a weaver’s shuttle, he has his reasons for this: that there are in these sufferings and in this bitterness hidden blessings, which are better for me than this health which seems so precious, and this wellbeing which seems so sweet.
He does not withhold anything good, except to give me something better. This is my consolation, it is everything in His love.
What is making you anxious right now? Cast your anxieties upon the Lord. He cares for you.
Thousands of episodes of SNL mocking “idiot” Trump and not a single joke about the new Joe Biden administration following the inauguration – is a level of hypocrisy to live up to, notes American comedy star Adam Carolla.
Comedians from shows like “Saturday Night Live” are “scared” of making fun of the new Biden administration or New York’s Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo over fears of being “cancelled”, US podcaster Adam Carolla told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” on Monday.
The actor and comedian reflected on why the first SNL episode after Biden took office had avoided making any jokes about the new White House team, despitebeing largely critical– sometimes to the extreme – of the Trump administration in the past.
“Unfortunately, their hand is forced now”, Carolla argued. “They have to show their hypocrisy… You’ve done7,000 episodeson what an idiot Trump is, and then you don’t touch the next administration? I would do one even if I loved Biden if I’m SNL, just so I don’t appear hypocritical”.
But it isthe fear of pushing away the liberal crowd and sinking into oblivion that has something to do with SNL’s careful choice of topics to joke about, the comedian maintained.
“Honestly, I get what there is to hate about Donald Trump”, Carolla noted. “What is there to love about Joe Biden? That’s the bigger question if you’re SNL. OK, you hated Trump, fine. Why do you love Joe Biden?”
“There’s nothing to love about Joe Biden, unless you’re scared of being cancelled, and the fact that this cancel culture has drifted over to comedy is absolutely insane”, the actor added.
The first episode of the satirical show following the inauguration of the Biden administration contained sketches on Georgia’s Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her state’s now-Democratic inclinations, butdecided not to mention the unfolding scandalover the underreported number of deaths in nursing homes in the state of New York that put its Governor Cuomo in an uneasy situation with voters.
“Where are the comedians? They’re scared. And that’s a scary place to be”, Carolla concluded.
New York Senator Chuck Schumer is calling on Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency.
If Biden did this, he could use emergency powers to enact all sorts of far left policies without any push back from Congress and this is likely why Schumer wants him to do it.
Democrats are obsessed with climate change and so is their base, so they would get plenty of support for this.
Schumer calls for Biden to declare climate emergency
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Monday night that President Biden should consider declaring an emergency when it comes to the climate.
“It might be a good idea for President Biden to call a climate emergency,” Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
Schumer appeared to be referencing Biden making a national emergency declaration, with the Senate leader noting that former President Trump used it for the border wall.
“He can do many, many things under the emergency powers … that he could do without legislation,” Schumer added about what authority Biden would have if he used his emergency powers.
“Trump used this emergency for a stupid wall, which wasn’t an emergency. But if there ever was an emergency, climate is one,” Schumer added.
Declaring a national emergency would give Biden more leeway on combating climate change, including being able to direct additional funding.
See the video below:
WATCH: Senate Majority Leader Schumer calls on President Biden to “explore” using emergency powers to declare climate an emergency.
Guests: Mike Lindell and Mary Fanning. Topic: Today Mike Lindell joins Brannon live in studio to explain how Brannon and Mike Lindell and Mary Fanning are producing a documentary together on the 2020 election fraud. They explain the numerous experts they assembled in the WVW Broadcast Network studio and filmed as they laid out solid evidence that cannot be refuted that documents the stolen elections of 2020. They discuss such experts that are appearing as Dr. Shiva, Jovan Pulitzer, Colonel Waldron, attorney Matt DePerno, former state Senator Patrick Colbeck, and many, many more. Topic: Mike announces that minutes before going not the air Mattress Firm announced they were ceasing to do business with MyPillow. Mike explains why this cancel culture is about punishing patriots and people that speak truth. Listen and be informed on the facts not being reported by the mainstream media on voter fraud.
By his own definition, Biden is already governing like a dictator
“I have this strange notion, we are a democracy … if you can’t get the votes … you can’t [legislate] by executive order unless you’re a dictator. We’re a democracy. We need consensus.”
Those are the words of Joe Biden. And, no, this isn’t a matter of unearthing a clip from the 1980s or ’90s in an attempt to play a game of gotcha on some antiquated flip-flop. That’s Democratic nominee Biden, less than three weeks before the 2020 presidential election, talking to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos about the dangers of governing like a dictator.
In President Biden’s first week alone, he has signed 37 executive orders and actions as of Thursday. That’s 33 more than the guy he indirectly referred to as a dictator, in the form of predecessor Donald Trump. It’s 32 more than his old boss, Barack Obama, and 37 more than George W. Bush, who signed zero in his first week as president.
“With unity we can go do great things, important things,” Biden said during his inaugural address. “Unity is the path forward. We must meet this moment as the United States of America. We’ve never failed in America when we’ve acted together.”
See the October video below:
.@JoeBidenin October: “I have this strange notion, we are a democracy … if you can’t get the votes … you can’t [legislate] by executive order unless you’re a dictator. We’re a democracy. We need consensus.”pic.twitter.com/7UotJCXSm3
it’s a “near certainty” that the coronavirus pandemic originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, where so-called “gain-of-function” research was funded by Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, according to Steve Hilton, who is leading a special investigation for his Fox News show “The Next Revolution.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, addresses his remarks at a roundtable on donating plasma Thursday, July 30, 2020, at the American Red Cross-National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Official White House photo by Tia Dufour)
China, the World Health Organization and the U.S. National Institutes of Health have dimissed the theory that the virus causing the global pandemic that has killed more than 2 million people and devastated economies worldwide escaped from the Wuhan, China, lab funded by the United States.
But there’s no disputing the fact,as Newsweek reported in April 2020, that NIH executive Dr. Anthony Fauci promoted a highly controversial type of research involving the manipulation of viruses to explore their potential for infecting humans. And it’s known that more than 200 scientists pressured the Obama administration in 2014 to temporarily halt U.S. funding for that research because of the risk of a manipulated virus accidentally escaping a lab and igniting a pandemic. Nevertheless, under Fauci’s direction, the dangerous virus engineering resumed in 2017 and continued until April 2020.
Now, documentary evidence makes it a “near certainty” that the coronavirus pandemic originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, where so-called “gain-of-function” research was funded by Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, according to Steve Hilton, who is leading a special investigation for his Fox News show “The Next Revolution.”
Significantly, his investigation found a direct link between a bat coronavirus discovered a decade ago in a mine in Yunnan province and one that had been engineered in the Wuhan lab, 1,000 miles away.
Hilton noted on his show Sunday night that scientists at the Wuhan lab published a paper in February 2020 stating they had recently discovered a virus in Yunnan province that “showed high sequence identity” to COVID-19.
However, Hilton discovered after running the virus’s genome sequence through the NIH’s GenBank database that only one virus was an exact match to COVID-19. It wasn’t the virus discovered recently. It was the once discovered a decade ago in Yunnan province that killed miners who had stirred up bat feces.
Hilton found it curious that the Wuhan researchers not only didn’t reveal that fact, they changed the name of the Yunnan virus, as indicated by GenBank.
As evidence that the Yunnan virus was manipulated in the Wuhan lab, Hilton pointed out that the two viruses are the same, except for two key elements: The COVID-19 virus is more infectious and can enter human cells in the respiratory system.
“Those are the exact places in the viral sequence where gain-of-function techniques would be applied, if … you were funded by the NAID to research bat coronaviruses to explore emergences or spillover potential,” he said.
“Spillover potential” refers to the ability of a virus to jump from animals to humans.
That exact gain-of-function research, he pointed out, was touted in a Nov. 30, 2017, progress report tied to an NAID grant.
The crucial question, Hilton said, was whether the virus at the center of that U.S.-funded work was the one that was discovered in the mine a decade ago.
“The match between that virus and the work commissioned by NAID is so perfect, it’s impossible to believe they weren’t,” he said.
He noted that workers in the Wuhan lab were the first identified cases of COVID-19 in the fall of 2019.
Implausible coincidences
The WHO and others are leaning toward a “natural” explanation for the pandemic, Hilton noted. But if the COVID-19 pandemic originated naturally in the Yunnan mine – as the genome sequence indicates – but had nothing to do with research at the Wuhan lab, you would “have to believe in a laughably implausible set of coincidences.” The bats in Yunnan province would have had to infect each other and another unknown animal or a human and then travel 1,000 miles – without infecting anyone else – until they got to Wuhan.
Before any mutations, he argued, the virus was 10 to 20 times more infectious than any previously observed virus occuring in nature.
“And most incredibly of all,” he added, “the infected animal or human would have somehow chosen to make that 1,000-mile trek to the only place in all of China that had been working for years on the virus it was already infected with,” the Wuhan lab.
Significantly, the Chinese regime has blocked access to the Wuhan lab. Last week, NBC News reported that a Wuhan Institute of Virology database with 20,000 entries was removed last spring for “security reasons.”
But Hilton said the U.S. government also has not been forthcoming. After two weeks, the NIH finally responded last Friday to his request for comment on the coronavirus gain-of-function research project that began after the Obama administration’s halt in funding.
The NIH replied that the project did not involve gain-of-function research. But Hilton noted that the project to which NIH referred was not the project he was asking about, which clearly was gain-of-function research.
Calling the response “deceptive,” he wanted to know whether or not the director of NIH, the famed scientist Francis Collins, was aware of the statement.
The Chinese regime can certainly be blamed for a cover-up allowing the outbreak to become a global pandemic, Hilton said. But the reason the virus exists and is so contagious, he asserted, can be traced back to the decision of Collins and Fauci to go ahead with the gain-of-function research as a “risk worth taking” after the Obama administration stopped the funding.
“Of course Dr. Collins or Dr. Fauci didn’t create the pandemic on purpose. That is obviously ludicrous. They’ve dedicated their careers to fighting disease,” Hilton said.
“But there’s little doubt that one of their weapons of choice in that fight did lead to this pandemic.”
And they were warned that it could happen.
Finding the Achilles’ heel
A Newsweek report in April 2020confirmed that NAID funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses. In 2011, Fauci played an important role in promoting the work, arguing the research was worth the risk, because it could enable scientists to prepare treatments and vaccines in advance if a pandemic occurred, Newsweek said.
Fauci and two co-authors defended the work in the Washington Post in December 2011, arguing that “determining the molecular Achilles’ heel of these viruses can allow scientists to identify novel antiviral drug targets that could be used to prevent infection in those at risk or to better treat those who become infected.”
The work was halted by the Obama administration in 2014 under pressure from scientists but resumed in December 2017 when the NIH lifted the moratorium. Going forward, scientists had to get approval from a panel of experts who would determine whether or not the risks were justified.
The research was conducted in secret until, in early 2019, a reporter for Science magazine discovered that the NIH had approved two gain-of-function projects, drawing rebuke from scientists in an editorial in the Washington Post.
“We have serious doubts about whether these experiments should be conducted at all,” wrote Tom Inglesby of Johns Hopkins University and Marc Lipsitch of Harvard. “[W]ith deliberations kept behind closed doors, none of us will have the opportunity to understand how the government arrived at these decisions or to judge the rigor and integrity of that process.”
See Hilton’s segment:
Wuhan lab the ‘most likely’ source
In April 2020, a U.S. government report concluded the Wuhan lab was the “most likely” source of COVID-19, finding other explanations “highly unlikely.”
The report noted the activities of Shi Zhengli, a leader in bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab. A 2015 academic report in Nature Medicine by Shi and 14 other scientists said that while researching the potential for bat coronaviruses to infect humans, “we built a chimeric virus encoding a novel, zoonotic (animal-origin) spike protein … that was isolated from Chinese horseshoe bats.”
The U.S. government analysis,reported by the Washington Times, found virus-carrying animals had been “sold as pets, dead laboratory animals were not properly disposed of, and lab workers were known to boil and eat laboratory-used eggs.”
The report noted that China was clamping down on efforts to investigate whether the virus came from a lab, issuing a “gag order” and putting a military microbiologist in charge of the Wuhan lab.
Less than one week after advising Americans that wearing two or even three masks would be ‘more effective’ against the spread of coronavirus, Dr Fauci has done a complete 180 (again) and admitted that there is no data to suggest it will make any difference.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that Fauci has flip-flopped continuously on masks, having originally said that“there’s no reason to be walking around with a mask,”and that they are little more than symbolic.
Later, Fauci fully embraced the masks and stated that they ‘need to stay on’ until everyone is vaccinated.
Why concern yourself with trivial matters such as breathing when the wearing of multiple face coverings is so effective in delivering social media clout?
King David found the burden of his sin unbearable. Realizing that if he just did his part, God would take care of the rest, David ran to, rather than from, the Lord. Hear more of this incredible story of redemption on Truth For Life with Alistair Begg.
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