June 26 Evening Verse of The Day

15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Jos 24:14–15). (2016). Crossway Bibles.

---

24:15 “As for me and my family, we will worship the Lord.” Joshua and his family were committed to the Lord regardless of the decision of the people. Joshua spoke as the head of his household and the spiritual leader of his family. His words reflected an undivided devotion to the Lord that served as an example of faithfulness for all the people and an incentive for them to reaffirm their loyalty to the covenant. His undivided devotion is a source of encouragement for Christian believers today.^[1]

24:15 Joshua was not inviting, but demanding that Israel serve the Lord. The choice he laid before them only existed if they refused his demand. The issue was whether to obey or to choose. If they refused to obey the Lord, they had to choose which pagan god to serve. Our contemporary pluralistic society presents us with a confusing display of values, goals, and life-styles. It is not a godless society, but a society full of gods pleading for our attention. The issue is whether to obey our mighty and loving Creator, or to be lost in a hellbound madhouse of confusion.^[2]

24:15 choose this day whom you will serve. There is some irony in offering a kind of choice after the Lord is rejected. The choice is between the gods Abraham left behind (vv. 2, 3) and the gods of the dispossessed Amorites (vv. 12; 2:10 note).

me and my house. See 6:25; 7:24; Acts 16:15.^[3]

24:15 the gods that your ancestors served Shechem was the place at which Jacob had earlier buried the gods that his wives and concubines had brought from Haran (Gen 35:2–4). See Josh 24:14.

the Amorites Here “Amorites” refers generally to the Canaanites. Often refers to the Transjordan region (the territory of Og and Sihon; see vv. 12; Num 21; Deut 2–3).

as for me and my household Joshua and his extended family.^[4]

24:15 choose this day whom you will serve. Joshua has urged the people to serve the Lord alone, and to put away the false gods (v. 14). Now he makes his admonition even sharper: if it is evil in their eyes to serve the Lord (i.e., if they prefer not to be loyal to the one true God, the Lord alone), then they must choose between two different categories of false gods: (1) their ancestral gods from Mesopotamia, or (2) the gods worshiped by the peoples they have dispossessed in Canaan. Joshua exercises leadership by example, committing himself and his household to serving the Lord. The people’s response was to decisively reject false gods and to serve “the Lord our God” (vv. 16–17)—which Israel did “all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua” (v. 31), but which Israel failed to do in subsequent generations, as is tragically evidenced in the book of Judges.

24:15 God must be served with exclusive loyalty (Deut. 5:7), prefiguring the exclusivity of commitment to Christ as the one way of salvation (Matt. 6:24; 10:34–39; John 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Cor. 10:21–22).^[5]

24:15 choose … today whom you will serve. Joshua’s fatherly model (reminiscent of Abraham’s, Ge 18:19) was for himself and his family to serve the Lord, not false gods. He called others in Israel to this, and they committed themselves to serve the Lord also (vv. 21, 24).^[6]

24:15 The choice here was not between the Lord and idols: Joshua assumed that the people had already decided against serving God. So he challenged them to choose between the gods which their ancestors had served in Mesopotamia and the gods of the Amorites that they had found in Canaan. Joshua’s noble decision for himself and his household has been an inspiration to succeeding generations of believers: “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”^[7]

Ver. 15. Choose you this day whom ye will serve.—The Christian’s choice:—

“Seem evil unto you to serve the Lord!” How can the service of the Lord seem evil to any one who is not either wholly void of understanding or altogether hardened against religious impressions? The service of God is exclusive. It does not admit of interference, or of competition, or of divided homage. It must have the whole man. He requires your whole heart—with all its principles, and dispositions, and sensibilities. And if your heart be thus surrendered to Him, the conduct, which is but a demonstration of its influence and actings, will exhibit, in all its departments and in all its bearings a single regard to His will and glory. Now, apply this test to yourselves. It is no doubt a strict and searching one. But it is scriptural and true.

I. Choose you whom you will serve—the Lord, or those idols which an evil heart of unbelief has substituted in His place. You may allege that it does not seem evil to you to serve the Lord. And, speculatively, this may be true; but, practically, it is false. You think, you feel, you act, as if it did seem evil unto you to serve the Lord. There is a latent repugnance in your minds to His service. There is a real devotedness to those whom you ought not to serve which is essentially and irreconcilably inconsistent with a real devotedness to Him whom you ought to serve. And the idea that you are submitting to His sway, when you are, in fact, their slaves, merely because you reject the atrocious saying, that it is “evil to serve the Lord,” and are not disinclined to do many things included in that service, is all a delusion, which, however long it may last in this land of self-deception and shadows, must inevitably be broken. Now, it is our wish that this delusion, so sad and so fatal, under which you labour, should be broken before the day of retribution comes. You have been “halting between two opinions”; embrace one of them and abide by it. You have been trying to amalgamate two systems: abandon the one, and cleave to the other.

II. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” Having acknowledged that you have been in error—grievous, perilous error—why should you delay forsaking it? Is not this to belie your own professed convictions? “Choose you this day whom ye will serve”; and instead of hesitating, as if you might still snatch another pleasure before you renounce your connection with the world, account the time past as far more than sufficient to have wrought the will of the flesh. Wonder at the forbearance of God in not making you long since a monument of His righteous anger against the unholy and impenitent. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve”; because the sooner that you enter on God’s service, in its full import, the sooner will you consult the dignity of that rational nature which He has given you, and which you have been hitherto degrading. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve”; because to delay the change which a right choice implies will be the means of rendering it more difficult in the end. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve”; for if you do not embrace the existing opportunity of devoting yourselves wholly and heartily to God, which is your reasonable and bounden service, another opportunity may never be afforded. (A. Thomson, D.D.)

Promptitude of choice recommended:—

I. The act of choice.

1. Our choice should be Divine in its object. We should choose the Lord for our God.

2. Our choice should be rational in its character. Let us wisely consider what we are doing.

3. Our choice should be decisive in its nature.

4. Our choice should be practical in its operations. Having chosen God, serve Him—

(1) Totally;

(2) uniformly;

(3) evidently.

II. The period of choice.

1. We should make our choice this day, because of the criminal neglect of which we have been guilty.

2. From a view of the shortness and uncertainty of our time.

3. Because the present is the only time when God has promised the aid of His Spirit.

4. Because the difficulty of choosing will increase in proportion to our neglect of it.

III. The motives for choice.

1. The capacity which we have for choice is a reason for its exercise. God gives nothing in vain.

2. The perilous state in which we are without this choice is another motive.

3. The happiness that results from our choosing God should prompt us to comply with the requisition in the text. He who has chosen God is in a state of safety and tranquillity. (Sketches of Sermons.)

Religion voluntary, personal, powerful:—

I. Religion is voluntary.

1. The choice, however, is not between religion and no religion. Man is a religious being. Religion is as necessary to his soul as breathing is to his body. To be religious is a necessity, but the kind of religion adopted is a matter of choice. In selecting religion, care should be taken to understand fully the merits of each. The antiquity and popularity of a system, though they show that such a system ought to be examined, are in themselves no arguments in favour of its truth. Truth is beautiful though hated and hooted by the majority of men. The diamond glitters however mean the setting. Like the diamond and the star, truth is beautiful everywhere and always.

2. The choice of religion is limited as to time: “Choose you this day.” The present time is God’s time and ours: “Now is the acceptable time.” We know that; but as for to-morrow, as for the future, we know nothing.

II. Religion is personal. He says, “Choose you.” It cannot be done by proxy. Every man must come to God himself.

III. Religion is powerful. Religion is life; life is example; and example is almost omnipotent. The smallest pebble cast into the quiet pool causes a series of undulations, and the smallest of these leaves its impression, for millions of ages, on the shore; so does the feeblest soul of man, renewed by grace, make a series of moral impressions on the world—impressions whose record will be legible throughout all eternity. (Evan Lewis, B.A.)

On choosing the service of God:—

It is an act of choice, of preference, to which you are called; one of the most familiar, every-day acts of the mind. You are called to change masters; to renounce the world as your portion and to choose God as your portion; to submit to His authority and control, and henceforth live, not to yourself, but to Him who died for you and rose again. And this act of choice or preference is of the nature of a supreme, governing purpose of the mind—such a purpose as gives direction to the current of feeling and desire in the soul.

1. Is it not right that you should choose God as your portion and His service as that which should engage your supreme regards? He is in Himself a being of boundless excellence and glory; your creator, preserver, benefactor, and ruler.

2. The duty in question is enjoined by express command of God.

3. This is a duty which perfectly accords with the nature and destiny of the intelligent, immortal mind with which the Creator has endued you.

4. The choice of God, as the being whom you will serve, is the sum and substance of religion; and you ought all to be religious; friends of God and followers of the Saviour.

5. Every man must choose either God or the world as his portion; and according as he chooses the one or the other, so is his character in the sight of God, and his condition in eternity.

6. There is nothing either within or without you which need prevent your choosing the service of God. He who knows perfectly your frame, your intellectual and moral faculties, and all the circumstances of your condition—He, the God who made and upholds you in being, calls you to enter into His service, to choose Him as your Lord and portion.

7. The service of God is the highest glory of your nature, the most perfect freedom of rational moral beings; the surest and most abundant source of inward comfort and outward prosperity. It exalts those who are devoted to it to an alliance with the purest and noblest beings in the universe, with prophets and apostles, and glorified spirits in heaven; with ministering angels on high, and with God Himself, the supreme good. It sets the soul upon an endless career of improvement in all that is worthy and good, opens before it bright visions of heavenly glory, secures God’s presence and favour for its support and guidance while passing through this world; brings Divine comforts into the bosom in the hour of death, and finally exalts to everlasting rewards in heaven. (J. Hawes, D.D.)

Our choice:—

I. Serve the Lord because of his goodness.

II. Serve the Lord because of His wondrous mercy.

III. Serve the Lord because of His love. Let His love in dying for us cause us to serve the Lord.

IV. Serve Him because of His providence.

V. Serve the Lord also because of His salvation. (W. Birch.)

Serving the Lord:—

I. True religion is a service to the Lord. How well this was understood under the old dispensation by truly good men! The Lord was set foremost as the aim of all piety, not man. If you are in another’s service you do not follow your own wishes, but his; you do not aim to please yourself, but him; your business is to help him and promote his interests.

II. The beginning of religion in the heart is with the choice of that service. Shall Christ have dominion over you or the world? Who has the first right? What says reason? what says conscience? what says the voice of your immortal interests? Thus deliberates the soul in the crises of its history. All persons are to be addressed in this matter as free moral agents.

III. To some persons it seems an evil thing to choose the Lord’s service.

1. One reason is that which Joshua gives in the lesson: “Ye cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God.” To choose His service is to renounce sin. This is the secret of many irreligious lives.

2. It seems evil to give up idol-worship.

3. There is a mortification of pride in the choice of God’s service which often seems evil.

IV. Whether it seems good or evil to choose the Lord’s service, there is a necessity of choosing, and of choosing now.

1. Those Israelites were to weigh the fact that they did that day make some choice. That is the serious dilemma of every awakened soul. You are under the necessity of preferring the service of God or some other.

2. The more important, then, to note that the choice of to-day is likely to be that of to-morrow and all time to come.

3. Last, but not least of all, your choice will have a controlling effect on others. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” What a lesson to all who are in high places! What an example for men of prominence in every community! What an admonition to every father of a family! How wide-reaching is the influence of such persons over the decision of others! (W. E. Knox, D.D.)

The only alternative:—

There are few delusions more fatal, and yet more common, than that of persons labouring to negotiate a treaty betwixt the service of sin and the service of holiness, striving to reconcile the claims of Christianity with the claims of the world. In many cases of every-day life, neutrality is not only lawful, but commendable. But it is far otherwise in matters of religion and in the high interests of immortality. Here no reserve can be admitted—no demur or debate sanctioned—no discreet caution allowed.

I. The two sides of the alternative proposed.

1. The first particularised is the tragical or fatal side. If you choose this day to give yourselves up to the thrall of your turbulent passions, and to become the slaves of all ungodliness, then drown every rising conviction, strangle in the birth all boding apprehensions and all gloomy forecastings of the future.

2. But if you choose an opposite course, if you prefer the service of Jehovah to the service of Satan, the pleasures of holiness to the pleasures of unrighteousness, then stand not for a moment in fatal hesitation, but range yourselves at once under the standard of the Cross and resign yourselves, without reserve and without condition, to the faith and obedience of the gospel, to the love and service of Christ. Let everything bear attestation to the fact that you consider you have a work to execute of great difficulty and of infinite importance, on the issue of which the whole burden of the destinies of endless ages is staked, and therefore you cannot permit your attention to be for a moment diverted away from this one grand and all-absorbing business of your existence, or your faculties to be engrossed by an inferior object.

II. The special time when this option is to be made and this decision come to: “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.” In every relation and condition of human life much depends on the cultivation of favourable junctures and the improvement of propitious moments. The greatest revolutions that have taken place, the most splendid victories that have been won, and the most permanent conquests that have been achieved, have all depended upon a judicious estimate and critical application of time. If it be true what a writer has observed, “that it is possible to live a thousand years in a quarter of an hour,” it holds still truer, that a few minutes lost or improved may decide the complexion of our whole destiny for eternity. Seeing, then, that there is equal hazard and criminality in every moment’s delay, in a business so critical and so momentous as the restoration of the soul to God’s favour and image, and the insurance of its eternal well-being, we would with all earnestness press it upon you as your first, your predominant, and your ultimate interest, to give yourselves to God now, to give yourselves to God wholly, and to give yourselves to God for ever. (Joseph Sommerville.)

God’s service as a choice:—

“Choose.” God speaks this word to every man amid the thunders of Sinai and the pleadings of Calvary.

1. Christianity is a religion of reason, intelligence, not of authority and force; it appeals to motives; it sets right and wrong, life and death, before every man’s mind and calls upon him to choose between them.

2. The choice is voluntary. No deception is used, and no compulsion of any kind. God never coerced a creature’s will, and He never will, even to save him!

3. The choice in all cases is a personal one, in view of motives: “Choose you,” &c. Each soul will decide his course and destiny, and will be required to give account of himself at the judgment.

4. Every one is at liberty to decline God’s service just the same as he is to enter it; but to refuse is to choose. Not to serve Christ is to serve the devil.

5. Hence the entire responsibility of choosing rests on each individual’s mind. (J. M. Sherwood, D.D.)

Reasons for choosing God’s service:—

1. Justice and equity imperiously demand this of us.

2. The claims of gratitude join in enforcing it.

3. The mysteries of redemption.

4. Our best interests are necessarily involved in it. (The Pulpit.)

Joshua’s permission and determination:—

I. First as to the permission. There is no leave given—and this we wish to be well observed—for the renouncing religion altogether, but only of choosing between the true and the false. Joshua does not say, “Choose whether ye will have the Lord or no God”; but, “Whether ye will have the Lord or the gods of the idolators.” But we may not suppose that Joshua here distinguishes atheism from idolatry, as though the people might choose idolatry with a less degree of guiltiness than atheism. He only assumes a broad principle, which the experience of mankind has all along verified, namely, that a nation must have some religion, and that they will worship false gods if they do not worship the true. And then observe, in respect of this permission, that it does not argue indifference on the part of Joshua as to the religion which the people might adopt. He leaves them indeed free to make their election; but still he takes the most effectual mode of recommending truth to their acceptance. His declaration as to the religion which he himself would uphold was the giving all his influence to the side of righteousness; and it were not easy to imagine a more dexterous, and at the same time a more powerful, method of bringing the Israelites to vow allegiance to God than thus leaving them their choice, whilst he gave the weight of his own example to the cause which he desired to support. And yet there is more than this to be advanced with regard to the apparent refusal of Joshua to interfere otherwise than by example with the national religion. It would be easy to misrepresent the permission in question—to construe it into an intimation that in matters of religion rulers should leave a people altogether to themselves; but if you consider the circumstances of the Jewish nation when Joshua delivered the address you will perceive that toleration is the only thing enjoined, and not the non-interference of rulers with religion. The Jews were not without an established religion when Joshua bade them choose between truth and error. Their rulers, acting under the immediate direction of God, had woven a system of worship into all the national institutions, and provided, by every possible means, for the instruction of the people in the fear of the Lord. Rulers cannot interfere with conscience, and having established what they know to be the true religion, and determining to uphold it by their example, toleration, and not persecution, is their business. Therefore “choose you this day whom ye will serve”; decide whether ye will be worshippers of Jehovah or idolators with the Amorites. The intrepid leader of Israel’s thousands resolved, even if deserted or opposed by his countrymen, that he would remain staunch in his loyalty to Jehovah. He had satisfied himself as to the nature and demands of true religion; and if none had espoused the same side, his purpose was fixed—to stand alone in the championship of truth. This was sublime, because moral heroism; and Joshua was not a thousandth part as glorious when crossing the Jordan as the captain of the Lord’s host, or bidding the sun stand arrested in the firmament as when, contemplating the possibility of national apostasy, with the image before him of the tribes whom he had led on to victory abandoning the God who had fought all their battles, he uttered the permission and the resolve—“Choose you this day whom ye will serve; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

II. Now, we had intended to speak at length on Joshua’s determination, as we have done on his permission; but, in handling the one, we have touched on most of the points suggested by the other. The wisdom, for example, of Joshua’s choice is demonstrated by the insufficiency of the reasons which were likely to produce a different choice in the Israelites. Neither the antiquity nor the extent of idolatry could justify its adoption; and if, therefore, the ranks of idolators were swelled by accessions from God’s professed people, there would be nothing to warrant a change of purpose in Joshua; and it would still be his wisdom, though it would ask great courage to act on the principle that the Lord alone should be worshipped. Hence the wisdom of the determination requires no proof, whilst its boldness may well put us to the blush, when deterred, as we often are, by a frown or a sneer, from avouching ourselves the resolved servants of God. (H. Melvill, B.D.)

The evil and danger of fickleness in religion:—

I. An intimation of the danger there is that a great part of the world may grow weary of religion, even whilst it is taught in simplicity and truth.

II. An admonition that such as are disposed to throw off the bonds of duty to their Maker would think seriously what sort ot change they are about to venture upon, and how they hope to be gainers by it.

III. The resolution which prudent men will make, whatever others do, to continue in the practice of it themselves, and preserve a conscientious regard to it amongst all that are placed under their inspection. (Archbp. Secker.)

National religion:—

1. It is here supposed that a nation must be of some religion or other. Joshua does not put this to their choice, but takes it for granted.

2. That though religion be a matter of choice, yet it is neither a thing indifferent in itself nor to a good governor, what religion his people are of.

3. That true religion may have several prejudices and objections against it: “If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord”; intimating that, upon some accounts, and to some persons, it may appear so.

4. That the true religion hath those real advantages on its side, that it may safely be referred to any considerate man’s choice.

5. The example of princes and governors hath a very great influence upon the people in matters of religion. (Archbp. Tillotson.)

Choose God now—a sermon to children:—

I. Choose. The melancholy majority of men never did choose their course of life, but have been content to take it from circumstances, from accident, from teachers, from outward influences in which they happened to find themselves. And although they may, step by step, have chosen immediate action for immediate results, what a host of people there are that never set clearly before them the definite aim for which they were living. Choose. Standing as you do at the parting of the ways, get a clear notion of what you are aiming at, and do not let yourselves be moulded by mere accident; do not let yourselves be mere children of impulse; do not owe the shape of your lives to the pressure of circumstances; do not let yourselves be ruled by the moment’s inclination; do not be like the weeds in the stream, that move only as it flows. Do not be like the jelly-fishes in the sea, that have no locomotion, or next to none, who are borne along helplessly in the current. “Be a hammer, and not an anvil.” Choose! Do not let the world shape you. Exercise your will, your reason, your conscience. Formulate your purposes, say to yourselves what you mean to be and to do; and say it strongly, for this world is no place for weaklings; and wishes and inclinations and good intentions are all very well, but they are not enough. Will and choose, and in the name of God choose the right.

II. Choose God. I mean choose the God that has come near to you in the Saviour that has loved you and lived for you and died for you; and give your hearts up to Him to be cared for, to be blessed, and your spirits to Him to be cleansed, and to be saved; and then, yielding yourselves to Christ, you will have taken God for your portion. Contrast for one moment the objects that are set before you for your love, trust, and service. And opposite: what a rabble of bestial divinities! Surely there need be no question where a man’s heart may fold its wings, like a weary dove, and rest for evermore. For not only is there a contrast between the objects, but there is also a contrast between the results.

III. Choose God now. It can never be too soon to do what is right and noble; it can never be too soon to do what is duty and safety. And let me tell you four reasons why I pray you this. First, the peril of delay. It is not likely that many of you will be laid in your graves before this day next year; it is certain that some of you will. And because no hand can point to the one that will, let us all listen to the beseeching, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” Second, because of the rapidly increasing difficulty of making a choice, which is a change. When the clay is on the potter’s wheel the lightest touch of the finger can impress it with any form that he desires; when it is taken off and hardened, nothing will change the shape of the vase but smashing it to fragments. Thirdly, because of the loss that you sustain by delay. Why should you be another day without the best blessing that a man can have? Why should you be another day poorer than you need to be? Fourthly, because of the bitter fruits which you are laying up for yourselves by delay, if ever you come to Christ. I would have you “innocent of much transgression.” I would have you to “grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” that you may never have to look back, in the event of a late return to Him, on a life all given to idols, consumed for self and wasted by sin. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)

Moral masterhoods:—

I. All men have some moral master. The moral monarch of the soul is the object of its supreme regard; the predominant love evermore sways the soul.

II. The moral master is always the object of choice. No soul is coerced into the service of any object.

III. The sooner men choose their moral master the better.

1. Because a wrong moral master will ruin you.

2. Because there is only one right moral Master—the Supreme One. (Homilist.)

Religion founded on reason and the right of private judgment:—

I. I observe that religion is a voluntary thing and a matter of choice. For mankind are beings endued with reason and liberty, and this alone makes them capable of religion and virtue. Without these powers they would be upon a level with brute creatures, and it is the right or wrong exercise of them that constitutes the moral good or evil of actions.

II. We may infer from the text that no man can be obliged to embrace a religion that is evil, i.e., contrary to reason and the moral fitness of things; but, on the contrary, is bound to reject it. If any scheme of religion undermines the perfections of God, which the reason of our minds can demonstrate from certain principles, it cannot be true. Again, that scheme of religion must necessarily be false, and ought to be rejected with detestation, which dissolves or weakens the obligations to universal purity, and tends to licentiousness and vice. And though religion must be a voluntary thing and a matter of choice, it is, however, our duty, in order to the making this choice, to be diligent and impartial in our inquiries. For the great Author of our nature hath endued it with such faculties, as are proper to distinguish betwixt truth and error, and appear to have been given us for this very purpose. There is also a fixed and certain standard of truth in the reason of things which, in all cases of importance and necessary influence upon our happiness, is sufficiently clear and explicit to well-disposed minds. And again, though we may with safety reject a religion that is unreasonable, that patronises vice, and is dishonourable to Almighty God, yet it must be allowed that, in order to our being able to judge whether it deserves that character or no, we must carefully and calmly examine it.

III. We should learn, from Joshua’s example, to be faithful to the cause of God and the interest of religion and virtue even in times of most general corruption and depravity. Singularity in things indifferent may generally perhaps be an argument of weakness and folly, or of unbecoming stiffness and obstinacy; but men have carried the argument much too far when they have paid so great a compliment to custom as to urge it against the practice of virtue itself. For the obligations of virtue are upon no considerations whatsoever to be dispensed with, much less for a piece of foolish fawning complaisance, and a man of reason would never consent to do a thing that was really dishonourable for the sake of avoiding undeserved reproach. Again, to dare to be singularly good is an argument of great resolution and strength of mind, and of a confirmed and established virtue: for such must that virtue be which repels the contagion of ill-examples, and flags not at reproaches and ill-treatment.

IV. I shall conclude all with observing that the design of Joshua, to use his utmost credit and influence with his more immediate dependents for the support and maintenance of religion, was truly noble and generous, and what it will be highly for the honour of every one of us to imitate. (James Foster.)

Joshua’s proposition and resolution:—

First, Joshua took it for granted that a nation must have a religion of one sort or other. His whole address is built upon this principle; and if there had been a middle way between serving the God of Israel and serving other gods, his discourse would have been inconclusive. Some have pretended that a society of atheists might be tolerably good, and regulated by humane motives, by present rewards and punishments, by shame, disgrace, fear, honour, good-nature, reputation, and self-interest. But this cannot be. Take away religion, and you take away with it the influence of conscience and the strongest motives to social duties. Nothing remains on which mutual reliance can be firmly grounded. All will be done in compliance with external power, and every law will be disregarded, when it may be done with secrecy or impunity and with any present pleasure or profit. Religion, then, is a matter of deliberation and choice. Amidst the diversity of opinions and of worship which divide the world, to walk at hazard in the first path that lies before us, and to which birth and education direct us, and to continue boldly in it without any sort of conviction that it is the right way, this is not the behaviour of rational agent. God will be loved freely and unconstrainedly, and served by choice and preference. He requires a reasonable service, and man being a rational, a free agent, ought to be able to give some account and some reason for his belief and his actions, and to be afraid to compare truth and falsehood, God and an idol, and to examine which deserves the preference, is doing wrong to God and to His truth. A third remark is upon the time when this is to be done. There is an age of life, and there are occasions, when every one should resolve and make his choice. “Choose you this day,” says Joshua. To-day, with every person, is the time when his understanding is mature and opportunities offer. In a Christian nation everything invites us to remember our Creator—the voice of conscience, the example of the wise and good, and the public religion. Here is another thing observable in the text. Joshua supposeth that the Israelites might be weary of serving God, and think His laws to be an unsupportable burden. If it seem evil to you to serve the Lord, how can it seem evil to any rational creature to serve the true and the living Lord? But consult experience and matter of fact, and you will find that men have often been disgusted at truth, and weary of a reasonable service. Thence the inconstancies, rebellions, idolatries, and apostasies of the Jewish nation. True religion hath its difficulties and its dark side, and in some respects may be disagreeable. False religions have in some respects more allurements, are more easy, and more accommodated to indolent inattention, to carnal and corrupted minds. And yet, notwithstanding these advantages of error, no reasonable person can make it a doubt which ought to be preferred. Religion hath its difficulties relating both to faith and to practice, both to the understanding and to the heart. As to faith, it contains things hard to be received by worldly-minded persons. I observed before that false religions may in many respects be more agreeable than the true one to persons of a carnal and sensual temper. Joshua supposed that the religion of the Chaldeans or of the Canaanites might appear such to the people of Israel, when he said to them, “If you will not serve the Lord, choose whether you will serve the gods of your forefathers or the gods of the nations where you now dwell.” Here, then, were two false religions to choose out of. Both might please them by their antiquity; and as to that of the inhabitants of Palestine, the Israelites by adopting it might make themselves acceptable to their neighbours. And both these religions, though they might have different objects of worship or different names for their gods, agreed in this, that they taught the worship of many deities and the use of images, and such ceremonies as amused the senses, and required no integrity and purity of heart. If you consider all the more remarkable false religions that have been or are in the world, and all the corrupted systems of true religion, you shall find that they recommend themselves by one or other of these four privileges and characters—either antiquity or extent or ceremonious pomp, or an accommodation to the follies and vices of men. “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” If the doctrines of revealed religion concerning the perfections and the providence of God and the doctrines of revealed religion taught us in the gospel have in them some obscurity and difficulty, it is no more than might justly be expected from the sublime subject. All atheistical and idolatrous systems are, beyond comparison, harder to be admitted by a reasonable man. The moral part of religion is conformable to our nature; and if it be contrary to our depraved inclinations, that is our own fault. Religion hath motives to induce us, examples to direct us, assistances for our infirmities, and helps in time of distress; and if God be a holy and a jealous God, He is also a God of mercy, who forgives and receives the penitent. The boasted advantages and prerogatives of false religions are false and unsound at the bottom. Having considered the wisdom of Joshua’s choice, let us consider his person. He was the prince of God’s people, and, like Moses, had the authority though not the title of king. Princes and rulers of nations are as much obliged as the meanest of their subjects to serve God. Their example is of great consequence, and whether they walk in the paths of virtue or of vice they induce others to walk after them. Observe also that the prince of Israel answers for himself and for his family: “I and my house will serve the Lord.” He was a wise and a happy man; happy to be so fully assured of the good disposition of his household. (J. Jortin, D.D.)

An honourable servitude:—

There are words which will never be popular—as service, servant, master. They carry the idea of humiliation. Every man seeks independence; all aim for position to be at least equal to the highest, the best. Yet service is honourable, if the master is sufficiently honourable. All men are servants of some master. We are all under authority.

I. The service of God is the most honourable in the world.

II. The honour is to be seen in the work the Christian is called upon to do.

III. Observe the treatment received by those who serve God. A servant wishes kind, generous, just treatment. The service of Satan is at first pleasant, then ends in shame and remorse. Where is the liberty of him who serves appetite, passion? Ask Lord Byron. Said he, “I have not had ten happy days.” Lord Chesterfield declared, “I have been the whole round of pleasure, and I am disgusted; and for myself, I mean to sleep in my carriage for the rest of my journey.” Sinners, you think you are free; loaded with shackles, yet know it not.

IV. The time will come when the final settlement will be made. (G. E. Reed.)

Betweenites:—

I can see where you are, you betweenites. The saints will be ashamed of you, because you did not join with Christ in the day of battle, and the adversary himself will despise you because you shrank away even from him. Be one thing or the other. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

A fatal decision:—

A young soldier from Glasgow was talking to a comrade. In their ears was the muffled sound, the “Dead March in Saul,” as a comrade was carried to his last resting-place; and this Glasgow soldier, converted up there at Maryhill, was talking to his friend, and pleading with him to come to Christ. The young Highlander there in the funeral march was terribly impressed, and he said, “Jack, I will be a Christian when I leave the service.” He had just nine months to put in. He said, “I am determined to be a Christian when I leave the service.” Ah! that was his decision. Next week there came orders for the 79th to embark for Egypt. The two friends were in the march across the sands to the Arab encampment of Tel-el-Kebir, marching side by side—the one with the acceptance of salvation in his heart, and the other putting it off till he should leave the service. Softly did they walk across these sands, silently did they steal through the darkness of midnight to the camp of the slumbering Arabs; but the sentinels were on the alert, and they saw a flash of light, and five hundred rifles from the Arab encampment poured their bullets on the advancing Highlanders; and there, dead and cold, was the body of the man who put off the acceptance till he should leave the service. Oh, comrade, what a fatal decision! (J. Robertson.)

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.—Joshua’s choice:—

I. If we attend to the writings of some, and the manners of more, in the present age, we shall be led to think that we are not to serve either God or man; in a word, that we are born free and independent. Why, we should not live six hours after our birth in such a state. From the first moment in which we see light, we depend, for preservation and support on the good offices of those around us; they depend on others, and all on God. Man being thus dependent, it is but reasonable that he should acknowledge such dependence, and that he should serve.

II. Whom he should serve. For, as the apostle has remarked, “there are gods many and lords many,” who, in different ages, have obtained the homage of mankind. The oldest and first idolaters worshipped the powers of nature instead of the God of nature. The world, with its fashions and its follies, its principles and its practices, has been proposed in form to Englishmen as the proper object of their attention and devotion. A late celebrated nobleman has avowed as much with respect to himself, and by his writings said in effect to it, “Save me, for thou art my god!” At the close of life, however, his god, he found, was about to forsake him, and therefore was forsaken by him. “I have run,” says this man of the world, “the silly rounds of business and pleasure, and have done with them all. I have enjoyed all the pleasures of the world, and, consequently, know their futility, and do not regret their loss. I think of nothing but killing time the best I can now he has become mine enemy. It is my resolution to sleep in the carriage during the remainder of the journey.” When a Christian priest speaks slightingly of the world he is supposed to do it in the way of his profession, and to decry, through envy, the pleasures he is forbidden to taste. But here, I think, you have the testimony of a witness every way competent.

III. How we are to serve God. A concise way of coming at this will be, to reflect upon the qualifications you require in a good servant, and to see that they be found in yourselves, considered as the servants of God. These qualifications may all be reduced to two—that he be careful to know the will of his master and diligent to do it. In our inquiries after the will of God we are often apt to be partial. We inquire after only such parts of it as may happen to coincide with our circumstances, our situation, our tempers, our constitutions, our interests. But there are no reserves in St. Paul’s question: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” Whatever it may be, whatever the difficulties, whatever the consequences, I am ready. There is yet a different error in the conduct of men. It is when they employ themselves to discover the obligations and the failings of others, entirely forgetful of their own. The last mistake that shall be mentioned, relative to our inquiries after the will of God, is, when we make those inquiries as matter of speculation only, as an amusement of the mind. (Bp. Horne.)

Decision for the Lord:—

I. First, let me describe it. It means many things, all of which must be wrought in us by Divine grace, or we shall never possess them, though we may have their counterfeits.

1. Decision implies, first, that all hesitation is gone. You will make no journey, O traveller, if, now that the sun is in its zenith, you do not decide which way to walk! Mariner, your voyages will be scant if you much longer lie at anchor! The season of favourable winds is passing away, and yet your sail remains unfilled; will you never have solved the problem, “To what port shall I steer? With what cargo shall I load my ship?” Is our life to end in a constant repetition of the question, “What shall I be?”

2. This state of heart indicates superiority to the evil influence of others. Our own understandings should now be exercised, or else why are they given to us? God waits to guide us, but He would have us cry to Him, and not follow the trail of our fellows.

3. Right decision for God is deep, calm, clear, fixed, well grounded, and solemnly made. Joshua does not speak his determination lightly. He speaks with immovable resolve: his soul is anchored and defies all storms—“As for me and my house we will, despite crowds and customs, we will, despite temptations and trials, we will, despite idols or devils, to the end of the chapter serve Jehovah.”

4. That resolve on the part of Joshua was openly avowed. That is sorry courage which skulks behind the bushes: that is poor loyalty which never utters the king’s name; that is questionable decision which dares not own itself to be on the Lord’s side. Are you not ashamed of being ashamed, and afraid to be any longer afraid?

5. In Joshua’s case his resolve was not only openly avowed, but earnestly carried out. He was a soldier, and if any one had asked him, “Whose soldier are you, Joshua?” he would have answered, “I am God’s soldier.” “Whose battles do you fight?” “I fight the battles of Jehovah.” “And what is your object in fighting?” “To glorify Jehovah.”

6. Joshua’s decision was adhered to throughout the whole of his life. He had begun early in the service of God, and he never repented of it. Blessed are they who have this abiding thoroughness in the cause of the Lord their God.

II. Let me now praise decision. In religion nothing is more desirable than to be out-and-out in it.

1. To enjoy religion you must plunge into it. To wade into it up to the ankles may make you shiver with anxieties, doubts, and questionings, till you resemble a trembling boy unwillingly entering a bath on a cold morning; but to plunge into its depths is to secure a glow of holy joy. The central position in religion is the sweetest. The nearer to God the sweeter the joy.

2. Decision for God enables a man to direct his way. David prayed, “Lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies,” and the man who has made up his mind by Divine grace that he will serve the Lord has that prayer fulfilled.

3. This saves many men from temptation. As a giant walks along unconscious of the cobwebs across his path, so does a thoroughly consecrated man break through a thousand temptations, which indeed to him are no longer temptations at all.

4. Thorough-going men wield a mighty influence. Joshua was able to speak for his house as well as for himself. Many fathers cannot speak for themselves, and therefore you may guess the reason why they cannot speak for their families.

III. I close by demanding this decision for Christ which I have described and praised. Decision is required because the Lord deserves to have it. He who made us ought not to be served hesitatingly; He who gave His Son to die for us ought not to be trifled with. By the splendour of Deity, and the glory of the Cross, I claim your whole hearts for my Lord. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Joshua’s resolution to serve the Lord:—

I. The occasion of these words.

II. What is included in the resolution?

1. A solemn and exclusive worship of God from the heart.

2. In all the actions of our life to have respect to the will of God, to seek to please Him, to seek to glorify Him.

3. There are three ingredients in the service of God that may be considered as giving vitality to it.

(1) The first is sincerity. The servant of God makes an entire surrender of himself to the service of God, and keeps back nothing from Him.

(2) Next, this obedience must be minute—His service must be universally adhered to. There is a harmony and consistency between all the parts of real practical religion, so that they cannot be separated one from another, and if we separate them we deceive ourselves and lose sight of God.

(3) Another ingredient in the service of God, if it be true and genuine, is that, like the principle from which it proceeds, it is permanent and abiding.

III. Some of the reasons why we should close with the resolution of Joshua.

1. It is our duty to serve the Lord from the relation in which we stand to Him and the unspeakable benefits we derive from His goodness.

2. The grand distinction of man above the other creatures consists in such a constitution of our nature as appears to have no other end or object but that of qualifying us for the end of worshipping God.

3. Consider, next, the great rewards which hereafter necessarily accompany the service of God.

4. Recollect, again, the impossibility of neutrality and the danger of delay.

5. Recollect, in a very short time, if you are not employed in the service of God, you will have no portion, no employment beneficial or dignified or delightful to all eternity. (R. Hall, M.A.)

Concerning resolution and steadfastness in religion:—

I. Of the brave resolution of a good man, that if there were occasion, and things were brought to that extremity, he would stand alone in the profession and practice of God’s true religion.

1. The matter of this resolution. Joshua here resolves that, if need were, he would stand alone in the profession and practice of the true religion. And this is not a mere supposition of an impossible case, which can never happen; for it may, and hath really and in fact happened in several ages and places of the world.

2. The due limits and bounds of this peremptory resolution. In all matters of faith and practice which are plain and evident, either from natural reason or from Divine revelation, this resolution seems to be very reasonable; but in things doubtful, a modest man—and every man hath reason to be so—would be very apt to be staggered by the judgment of a very wise man; and much more of many such, and especially by the unanimous judgment of the generality of men, the general voice and opinion of mankind being next to the voice of God Himself.

II. To vindicate the reasonableness of this resolution from the objections to which this singular and peremptory kind of resolution may seem liable.

1. It may very speciously be said that this does not seem modest for a man to set up his own private judgment against the general suffrage and vote. And it is very true that about things indifferent a man should not be stiff and singular, and in things doubtful and obscure a man should not be over-confident of his own judgment; but in things that are plain, either from Scripture or reason, it is neither immodesty nor a culpable singularity for a man to stand alone in defence of the truth, because in such a case a man does not oppose his own single and private judgment to the judgment of many, but the common reason of mankind and the judgment of God plainly declared in His Word.

2. It is pretended that it is more prudent for private persons to err with the Church than to be so pertinacious in their own opinions. To which I answer, that it may indeed be pardonable in some cases to be led into mistake by the authority of those to whose judgment and instruction we ought to pay a great deference and submission, provided always it be in things which are not plain and necessary; but surely it can never be prudent to err with any number, how great soever, in matters of religion which are of moment, merely for numbers’ sake; but to comply with the known errors and corruptions of any Church whatsoever is certainly damnable.

3. It is pretended yet further, that men shall sooner be excused in following the Church than any particular man or sect. To this I answer, that it is very true, if the matter be doubtful, and especially if the probabilities be equal, or near equal, on both sides; but if the error be gross and palpable, it will be no excuse to have followed any number of men, or any Church whatsoever.

4. It is objected, that as, on the one hand, there may be danger of error in following blindly the belief of the Church, so, on the other hand, there is as great a danger of schism in forsaking the communion of the Church, upon pretence of errors and corruptions. Very true; but where great errors and corruptions are not only pretended, but are real and evident, and where our compliance with those errors and corruptions is made a necessary condition of our communion with that Church, in that case the guilt of schism, how great a crime soever it be, doth not fall upon those who forsake the communion of that Church, but upon those who drive them out of it by the sinful conditions which they impose upon them. (Abp. Tillotson.)

Concerning family religion:—

I. I shall show wherein the practice of this duty doth consist. The principal parts of it are these following:—

1. Setting up the constant worship of God in our families.

2. Instructing those committed to our charge in the fundamental principles and in the careful practice of the necessary duties of religion.

3. I add further, as a considerable part of the duty of parents and masters of families, if they be desirous to have their children and servants religious in good earnest, that they do not only allow time and opportunity, but that they do also earnestly charge them to retire every day, but more especially on the Lord’s day, to pray to God for the forgiveness of their sins, and for His mercy and blessings upon them, and likewise to praise Him for all His favours conferred upon them from day to day.

4. One of the most effectual ways to make those who are under our authority good is to be good ourselves, and by our good example to show them the way to be so. Without this our best instructions will signify but very little, and the main efficacy of them will be lost.

II. Our obligation to it.

1. In point of duty. All authority over others is a talent entrusted with us by God for the benefit and good of others, and for which we are accountable, if we do not improve it and make use of it to that end.

2. We are hereto likewise obliged in point of interest; because it is really for our advantage that those that belong to us should serve and fear God, religion being the surest foundation of the duties of all relations and the best security for the true performance of them. Would we have dutiful and obedient children, diligent and faithful servants? Nothing will so effectually oblige them to be so as the fear of God and the principles of religion firmly settled in them.

III. The causes of the so common and shameful neglect of this duty, to the exceeding great decay of piety among us.

1. This may in good part be ascribed to our civil confusions and distractions.

2. This great neglect and decay of religious order in families is chiefly owing to our dissensions and differences in religion, upon occasion whereof many, under the pretence of conscience, have broke loose into a boundless liberty.

IV. The very mischievous and fatal consequences of the neglect of this duty.

1. To the public. Families are the first seminaries of religion, and if care be not there taken to prepare persons, especially in their tender years, for public teaching and instruction, it is like to have but very little effect.

2. To ourselves. We can have no manner of security of the duty and fidelity of those of our family to us if they have no sense of religion, no fear of God before their eyes. If children were carefully educated, and families regularly and religiously ordered, what a happy and delightful place, what a paradise, would this world be in comparison of what now it is? (Ibid.)

Joshua’s resolution:—

I. True religion consists in the service of God.

II. They who truly serve God make His service a matter of choice.

III. If the service of god is the object of our choice, it is our duty to engage ourselves to it by open profession and solemn covenant.

IV. If we have devoted ourselves to the service of God it is our duty to use every means to engage others in it. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)

Historical and family religion:—

The valedictory charge of Joshua clearly shows that the Jewish religion was built upon a definite historical experience; was founded on the rocks of impregnable fact. Never in the whole course of their history had the Israelites found God unfaithful to His promises or forgetful of His threatenings; and as God had been from the beginning, so (said Joshua) will He continue to the end. What God has been He will ever be, what He has done He ever will do—therefore “choose ye,” said Joshua, “this day whom you will serve.” If history proves that the Lord Jehovah is God, then follow Him and faithfully obey His voice. This, then, is what we mean by an historical religion. An historical religion is an appeal to the witness of the past as a groundwork and reason for present allegiance to God. And as the Jewish religion was an historical religion, so also is the Christian religion. The Christian religion is not a doctrine of ideas, an untested philosophical theory: it is founded on the life of an historical Person, for Christ is no less historic than Divine. And as Jewish leaders and prophets appealed to the witness of history, so likewise have Christian guides and teachers, from the earliest times, made history a principal reason for faith. All true religion, however, and most notably the religion of the Bible, is much more than an historic faith. Its foundations lie deep and strong in history; but its superstructure is continuously and essentially practical. Historic religion, like historic knowledge, is useless unless it serves as the guide and inspiration of daily conduct. The use of history chiefly consists in its application of the experiences of the past to the circumstances and resolutions of the present. It was this use to which Joshua applied the striking historical survey of his great valedictory charge. Upon the ground of their historical experiences he based his fervid appeal to the Jewish people to make choice of Jehovah as their national Deity, and to remain consistently faithful in their allegiance to Him. Whatever became of the national religion, his own family religion at least should be settled and unwavering in its loyalty to Jehovah. Family religion is the best beginning for all religious life. The Church in the house is the best temple for the education of righteousness and true holiness. As the sun is the centre of the earth’s light and heat, so from the family radiates throughout the world the heat and light of religion. When families are religious, nations are religious; when families are religious, individuals also are religious. Even the very structure of the Bible seems to lend authority to the conviction of the primary importance of family religion. The three great divisions of the Old Testament—the law, the prophets, the psalms or hagiographa—broadly represent the three great spheres in which religion ought to work. The book of the law, the foundation of all revelation, was written during the patriarchal period. It describes the origin, the management, the sacred functions, of the family. In the New Testament, also, great stress is laid upon family religion. As nature makes families into little kingdoms, so Christianity makes families into little Churches. It was in the devotion of family life that Jesus nursed His faculty for worship and His character for holiness. It is impossible to conceive any institution hedged round with more firm and higher walls than the institution of the family. The New Testament regards the family as a Divine institution, and its relationships as sacred, heavenly, relationships. It cannot but be that an institution with an origin and sanctions so Divine, should be intended to work out great blessings for humanity. And all experience proves that family love and family religion are more fruitful of happiness and holiness than any other single source; and that family discords and family irreligion are the cause of endless miseries and countless iniquities. (Canon Diggle.)

The cluster of grapes; or, family prayer:—

Man, we all know, is not made to live alone. None of us could do so, even if we wished it. As no man can come into the world without a father or mother to bring him into it—as no child, when it has received the gift of life, could keep that gift for much more than a single round of the clock without some one to tend and feed it—in like manner, after we are grown up, and have gained strength to stand alone, we still need the help of our brethren in a thousand ways. Every worthy and reasonable and honourable work which man is permitted to perform can only be performed by him so far as he lives in union and communion with his brethren. Thus too is it with the highest and most precious of all the gifts which God has bestowed on mankind, the religion of Christ. This also is a gift which cannot be received alone, which cannot be enjoyed alone, which cannot be turned to any use alone. In giving it to man God did not give it to him as standing alone, but as living in communion with his brethren. He purposes that in spiritual things, as well as in temporal things, we should help and feed each other, that we should nourish each other with the bread of life, as well as with the bread that perishes. You remember our Lord’s beautiful parable in which He compares Himself to the vine and His disciples to the branches. All the members of the same family, all the members of the same parish, should draw their spiritual life from the heavenly Vine, not singly, but together, joining heart and soul in the exercises and offices of devotion, and keeping in mind that it is when two or three are gathered together that our Lord has promised to be in the midst of them. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” This should be the plain, the avowed, the steadfast resolution of every one who bears rule in a house, of every master of a household, of every father, of every mother of a family. When God ordains that every one should be the master or the mistress of a household, He likewise ordains that they should take care of those who are under their authority, and should look upon them as committed to their special charge. In like manner when He is pleased to grant any one the blessing of being a father or a mother He links this blessing with the duty of taking care of the children, of bringing them up, of providing for them. We shall have to give account, not only for our own souls, but also, more or less, for the souls of those whom God has committed to our charge. Let this then be your watchword, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” It is not enough for you to say, “As for me, I will serve the Lord.” A grape never stands alone: it is always part of a cluster. In truth no one can feel any hearty desire to serve the Lord himself, without being at the same time anxious that others also, that his friends and neighbours, above all, that the members of his own household, should bear their part in this godly service. And one of the ways in which it behoves you to provide that your house shall serve the Lord is by setting up His worship in your house, by taking care that you and your whole house join day by day in serving Him with prayer and thanksgiving and praise. Most important, too, is it that every family should be perpetually reminded that, as a family, it is a Christian family—that the Church is not God’s only house in the parish, but that every house in the parish ought to be a house of God. We have been led by our Lord’s parable to liken a Christian family and a Christian congregation to a cluster of grapes. Such are they, if they hang from the true Vine, if the life which springs from the true Vine be ever flowing into them through prayer—through prayer offered up in brotherly communion one beside the other. And what can give a more beautiful image of the love, the neighbourly kindness, the peace, which ought to prevail in a brotherhood of Christians, than a cluster of grapes? None of them seems to have any desire of thrusting itself forward before the others, or of pushing them into the background, or of showing itself off at their cost. On the contrary each seems contented to stand just peeping out of its cell, half hidden by its neighbours, retiring behind them, and almost, as it were, in honour preferring them. Such are the grapes of the true Vine. Such are the families in the living Church of Christ. They hang from Him. Their love flows into them from Him; and therefore they love each other. (J. C. Hare, M.A.)

The Christian household:—

The household is not an accident of nature, but an ordinance of God. The household is a representation, on a small scale as regards numbers, but not as regards the interests concerned, of the great family in heaven and earth. The father of a household stands most immediately in God’s place. Of all the influences which can be brought to bear on man, paternal influence may be made the strongest and most salutary, and whether so made or not is ever of immense weight one way or the other. For remember that paternal influence is not that which the father strives to exert merely, but that which in matter of fact he does exert. None so keen to see into a man’s religion as his own household. He may deceive others without, he may deceive himself, he can hardly long succeed in deceiving them. But if, on the other hand, his religion is really a thing in his heart; if he moves about day by day as seeing One invisible; if the love of Christ is really warming the springs of his inner life, then, however inadequately this is shown in matter or in manner, it will be sure to be known and thoroughly appreciated by those who are ever living their lives around him. But in treating of a household ruled in the fear of God another most important influence comes to be considered—one which, without holding so paramount a place as the first, yet ever lies closer to the hearts of children, and is more wound about all their schemes and plans. From the very necessities of life the father is kept ordinarily at a distance from his family during a great portion of his time. He is that one of the household who goes forth into the external world and savours of it; and thus not only in continuity, but in character also, his influence is in some measure broken; lying at some little distance, not employed on the thoughts and schemes of his children till they have acquired some degree of consistency; not called in to mould and cherish their first openings of intention and desire. This necessary deficiency is, however, amply and most graciously supplied by the mother of a household. She is ever the ministering angel to her children; with the same hand guiding their infant steps, and smoothing the fevered pillow of after-life; with the same voice teaching them their infant prayers, and with quiet and loving admonition tempering the waywardness of the rising spirits of youth. And thus while she shares in many of the feelings of reverence and affection due to the father, she yet has a narrower circle of her own. To her is committed by God the training and forming of each individual character among her children; in her bosom will take root those finer fibres of personal feeling from which, after all, our strongest emotions are fed. Oh that every Christian mother were living and moving in her household in the full consciousness of this power and this responsibility! Much might be said on a mother’s share in the after-training of her children, even when other help is requisite and necessary; but it is only one very short and simple thing which need be said on their earliest training—it is a matter to which a mother alone is competent, a sacred duty which she can never neglect, and ought never to delegate. (Dean Alford.)

The charities of the Christian household:—

I wish now to speak of the good works of the Christian household, its religious standing and progress within, and its beneficent employments without, for the good of man and the glory of God. Now we must lay the foundation of all such external duties in the religion of the household. Let the well-spring of the religion of the family be in the closet and by the bedside of the father and mother. And not only this, but let the children, let the servants see that it is so, and learn to take not precept only, but pattern from them. And if the foundation be thus laid, let us go on to inquire what, and how raised, must be the building. First of all, it must be real, consistent with itself; raised for a dwelling, and not for a show. In a man’s own religion reality is the first and most constant requisite; but where influence is to be exerted over others it is even doubly necessary. Hearts are not won by words, nor will knees ever so often bended prompt one syllable of prayer. And here is often a fault in Christian heads of families. Their own religion is real—felt in their hearts, and shown in their lives. But their way of putting it forth is unreal. They are perhaps the bondsmen of a rigid system, or they fall into the opposite extreme, and leave that on which they themselves feel so deeply to take its chance among those whom God has given them to train for Him. In the one case, that of rigid adherence to system, the force of their own example is marred, the attraction of their own faith and love disturbed; in the other they are bearing indeed good seed, but sow it not, letting human nature, which ever wants help from above and from around, get its good as it best may. How often do we see heads of families, whom we know to be earnest and genuine Christian men and women, yet attempting to guide their households by the merest and emptiest commonplaces, which never had, and never can have, life or power in them. Oh that we knew and remembered this—that nought unreal will ever stand God’s test of time and trial. You may teach the child his theological lesson ever so well; he may be apt to distinguish, apt to retain, ready to profess; yet meantime, if you have not preoccupied it, the heart, which really guides the life, will have been learning from things themselves another and a surer lesson, and you will find, when the voyage of life begins, that voyage which you had expected would be so straight and so sure, that another hand than yours is on the helm. In promoting family religion let parents study the hearts of their children. Let them see what those cords really are which, according as they are drawn one way or the other, turn the course of life itself. Let them remember what it was in their own case which really influenced them for good, and reflect that their children are like themselves. Win the heart, and the victory is yours. Lose that, and you have lost all. Before I pass to the outward acts and fruits of family religion let me exemplify these remarks in two departments of the inner life of the household: in their use of the Bible and in family prayer. The Bibles of a household, if they could testify, would be no bad witnesses respecting its religion. And I fear their testimony would be often of a sad and a startling kind. The Bible in the chamber, how often is it taken down for genuine use? The contents of that Bible, how much is known of them? I do not believe there ever was an age when the Bible has been so much printed and so little read as in our own. And this is the book which is to be a light to our feet and a lamp to our paths. And therefore one of the very first cares in a Christian and Protestant household ought to be that the Bible may be known by all its members: known, I mean, by familiarity with its contents, and a habit of thinking and speaking intelligently on them, and a habit also—for this should never be forgotten—of their devotional use. It is plain that this subject might be pursued much further, but we must drop it now, to mention another nearly connected with it—I mean that of family prayer. Family prayer is an absolute necessity of the Christian household. It is indeed an affecting and solemn sight; and it might be a vast opportunity for good. Here is a priest of whose power we can never speak too highly, a teacher standing in the place of God Himself. But what are, for the most part, his ministrations—what his instructions? To judge from the books which have been printed for use at such times, for the most part, I fear, formal, disconnected, lifeless; or if earnest and fervent, then passing perhaps into another fault equally fatal to usefulness—lengthy and tedious. The effect of this must be mischievous. You cannot expect children, you cannot expect servants, to love and consult and study a work which you have accustomed them to loathe and to be weary over. Nor, to recur back to the other fault again, can you expect them really to feel wants which have been so long lifelessly and formally expressed; uttered perhaps in words far above their comprehension, and in a strain to which their simple minds never attained. Of all united acts of the family this one should most bear the impress of life and reality. Read no more than the ear, no more than the mind can retain—and that little with earnestness and solemnity. If explanation is given let it be short and to the point—neither dilating nor diluting. And with regard to prayer, the rule should be of the same kind. The simpler the better. And I may also say, without fear of being misunderstood, the shorter the better. But from these counsels respecting the inner life of the family we must pass now to its outward fruits of its religion. And here at once let me say that such fruits ought always to be found. There never ought to be such a thing as a hidden family religion in any sense, and least of all in the sense of being without visible and sensible fruit for good. And in family charity, as in all other family duties, the spring must ever be found in the heads of the household. Let them be known by their children and dependents to be engaged in works of charity and mercy. And in their places and proportions let each, even the humblest member, be encouraged, as soon as self-control and responsibility begin, to bear a part in such works. And I cannot impress it too strongly on young persons that this duty is binding on them from the moment that they can call money or time their own. Whatever is allowed you by your parents for ordinary purposes, all of it belongs to God, and you are but His steward. On the beneficence due from every Christian household to the poor and needy around it I will not at present enlarge; it is a wide subject, and comes before us in the course of our teaching in various ways. I will only say no household can escape its claims or venture, from any excuse, to set them aside. But I would especially now speak of that other department of a Christian family’s benevolence which should be spent in their work as disciples of Him who commanded us to enlighten all nations with the word of His truth. Every Christian is described in Scripture as holding forth the word of truth, shining as a light in the world. Every Christian is a missionary, and ought to be employed in the work of one—either in personal labour and influence, or by contribution to institutions established for the purpose. And as a family duty this possesses peculiar interest. In Christ are all families of the earth blessed. (Ibid.)

The mutual duties of the family:—

From the tone of these words we see that they are not the voice of one man only. There is about them a concerted determination, they bear evidence of deliberation having been had, and a combined resolution come to. There is something even of triumphant union about them, something of a challenge to Israel to look and see whether they of whom they are said did not fulfil them by serving the Lord. Every member of a household, whether among children or domestics, has a place assigned by God and a solemn account to render to Him. I will touch on this portion of our subject—the duties of the members of a household, and their reflection on those who are set at the head of it. If I were to ask what is the first duty of a child to a parent the answer would be one and uniform. All would say, obedience. Yet is this quite understood? At all events, is it generally acted on? What I understand by obedience being the first duty of young persons to their parents is this—that, irrespective of all concurrence of their own individual approval with what is ordered, there is a sacredness about a parent’s word, because it is so, which ensures prompt and ready compliance. I would say, then, to my young friends, guard carefully and with all diligence this your chief jewel and treasure—constant and scrupulous obedience. It is the bloom of your whole character. Nothing becomes you so well—nothing contains so great promise for your future days. It is a link which, between a loving and wise parent and a Christian child, is never dissolved; and I know of no sight so pleasing as to see men and women, moving in life and filling important posts which God has assigned them, and yet with reverence and affection retaining the pious habits of childhood and youth—observing the wishes and ruling themselves by the guidance of an aged parent. I am sure I need not remind ourselves who are parents how very solemn is the position of one who is thus to be obeyed—how necessary the wisdom which is from above to guide us in guiding them. I need not say how much love, how much consistency, how much temper is required to lead up and train this sacred principle of obedience, so that it be not relaxed on the one hand nor overstrained on the other. Before I pass on to the other great division of the members of a family, let me say a word to young persons as to the direct subject of the resolution in our text—the service of the Lord. You will some day know and feel, on looking back over these first years of life, that it is the memory of the service of God which constitutes the real charm of your recollections of home. And if it is but fitting to say something of those others who dwell under the roof of a household to minister to their wants, I would say to the servants in our households, Your gracious Father in heaven has called you out of your own country and from your own father’s house, and He has caused you to be adopted into other families, of a rank and situation in life different from your own. If you are His servants your position is one full of interest, and full of honour. He has put you in reach of many blessings, both temporal and spiritual, to which others of your family have not access. And more especially is this so if your lot is cast in a household where God is feared and served. But as the servant’s life is one of much and undoubted privilege for good, so is it one of enormous temptation to evil. There is no class of persons in our days the contemplation of whom more fills the Christian mind with sadness, or suggests more forcibly the frightful account which the votaries of fashion and pleasure will one day have to give. How many souls have the ungodly heads of a household helped to ruin, or been the means of ruining altogether? God sent to them, to be kept and influenced for Him, dependents whose souls were as valuable as their own; whose account before Him will be as solemn, their condemnation or justification as final, as theirs. They came to them from the Sunday school and the village pastor’s instructions; they came with the Bible which was to be the guide of their lives, with the prayer which had been the practice of their childhood, with the resolution which the last communion prompted and the mother’s parting words urged forward. Where are those Bibles now? What is become of that daily prayer? Where, but under your roof, and with your sanction, was that resolution laughed to scorn? Who made it impossible for them to keep up those monthly communions? If you have in your family and before your dependents denied Christ, He also will deny you. And let servants themselves remember that no circumstances can excuse them in unfaithfulness to Him whom they have once learned to know and to serve; that on themselves the ultimate burden must rest, and the final condemnation come, if they allow themselves to be laughed or tempted out of Christian habits of life. I would willingly think, too, that I am speaking to some of this class whose lot God has mercifully cast in families such as that in our text, where their souls are cared for, and their moral and spiritual welfare attended to. Then I say to you, Blessed indeed is your lot, and great in proportion will be your accountableness. (Ibid.)

Hindrances to home religion:—

I. The want of a vivid sense of God, as personal and present.

II. The loose manner in which the present home life is conducted.

III. The diminished regard for the Sabbath.

IV. The overlaying of the Bible and the family altar by the newspapers, and especially the Sunday papers.

V. The dispersion of families among Churches having different views of Divine things.

VI. The division of families on the line of Christian discipleship.

VII. The lack in some homes of an expressive and impressive piety in such as do profess to be believers, such as will quietly control and at last convert the household. (J. L. Withrow, D.D.)

We should think about the religious welfare of others:—

A poor woman came into a village one dark night and asked her way to the house of a friend. It was three miles off yet, and the road was strange to her, and it was so dark. “If you make haste,” some one said to her, “you will overtake the doctor. He has just gone down the road to go to the same place, and he carries a lantern.” This was glad news to the timid woman, and off she started looking eagerly ahead in the hope of catching some glimmer of the lantern’s light, but never a flash of it could she see. At length, after a weary trudge, she reached the house of her friend, and there she found the doctor newly arrived. “Oh, sir!” she said, “I have had such a weary run after you. They told me you had a lantern, but I saw nothing of its light.” “Very true,” said the doctor, showing a dark lantern fastened to his belt; “I had a lantern, but I did not think of drawing the slide so as to let the light shine, for I know the road very well myself.” Now there are people in the world very like this doctor. They know the right way themselves, and don’t trouble about others who may not know it. Make it very clear to others that you not only know the right road yourself, but that you have also a heart to think of them and influence them for good. (W. Francis.)

Decision for God:—

“I was the guest of Colonel—, a leading man in his county, Master of the Hounds for two counties, keeping the hounds at a cost of $20,000 a year. He was a man of passionate character, and, when excited, very profane. He attended the meetings every evening. But he complained that he had a headache the next morning. One morning at breakfast he said, ‘I don’t think I shall go to the meetings any longer. My head aches with the bad air, and then I do not think you are quite fair. You make everybody out as no better than heathen. That may be true of the common people; but you will drive all the gentry away.’ I said, ‘Colonel, I am your guest, and I did not introduce this subject. But let me ask you, Are you a Christian?’ ‘What do you mean? I support a Church and two or three ministers.’ I said, ‘Unless you will take a stand as a Christian as plainly as you do as Master of the Hounds, I do not think you have any claim to be called a Christian.’ To my surprise, he was in church that night, with his wife, who was a Christian. I preached on the Pharisee and the Publican. At the close I said, ‘If there is any man or woman who is ready, with the publican, to say, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” I invite him to rise.’ To my surprise, up rose the Colonel, and folded his arms, and his wife by his side. I thought, ‘Will it do to call the Colonel up here and ask him to go on his knees? ‘I did so. The Colonel moved right forward with his wife. And the next that came was the Irish servant, and he kneeled down by his master. Next morning, as I opened the Bible for prayers, the Colonel rose and said, ‘Before the Doctor reads, I want to say that last night I went forward and took God as my Saviour. I ask you, my friends, to pray for me.’ This in the presence of all the servants.” (Dr. Pentecost.)

Who will volunteer?—

One night, in the army on the banks of the Potomac, the colonel came for volunteers to cross over the river in flat boats. “Who’ll volunteer? I want so many men.” “I’ll go!” “I’ll go!” Their decision made up the number; the colonel’s heart was rejoiced. They went, and returned with 150 or 200 contrabands and other trophies of war. That was the result of decision. They took their lives in their hands and went on reckless of consequences. In order to spiritual success we need decision. How long would it take the Lord Jesus to do His part if you make the decision? There are a hundred strings whereby you are holding on to the interests of the world. You cut a string here and a knot there, but there are more left than you have cut off; come right to the central point where they all come to a focus, then you can cut them all at once. The work is all in a nutshell. Some are converted by piecemeal. The better way is to take it in a lump. How long does it take to give away a house and land? Only while you sign your name, that is all. When we go forth, a troop of decided souls, we can take the world for Christ. Take Christ fully, completely, that will give us inward power.^[8]

Ver. 15.—Or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell. There is a reductio ad absurdum here. “Had ye served those gods ye would never have been here, nor would the Amorites have been driven out before you.” The reference to the gods of their fathers seems to be intended to suggest the idea of an era long since lost in the past, and thrown into the background by the splendid deliverances and wonders which Jehovah had wrought among them. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Or, Jehovah. Here speaks the sturdy old warrior, who had led them to victory in many a battle. He invites them, as Elijah did on another even more memorable occasion, to make their choice between the false worship and the true, between the present and the future, between the indulgence of their lusts and the approval of their conscience. But as for himself, his choice is already made. No desire to stand well with the children of Israel obscures the clearness of his vision. No temptations of this lower world pervert his sense of truth. The experience of a life spent in His service has convinced him that Jehovah is the true God. And from that conviction he does not intend to swerve. In days when faith is weak and compromise has become general, when the sense of duty is slight or the definitions of duty vague, it is well that the spirit of Joshua should be displayed among the leaders in Israel, and that there should be those who will take their stand boldly upon the declaration, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”^[9]

15  The choice which Joshua presents to Israel (either the gods beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites) can hardly be regarded a real choice in the light of the Bible’s resolute rejection of all deities except the Lord. On the other hand, the choice between serving the Lord and the serving of all other deities was real, and that is Joshua’s main concern. If the service of the Lord does not look good to you (lit. “is evil in your eyes”), then the way is open to that other choice which really is no choice, even though the possibilities are many and seemingly a choice is there. Local and regional gods, or ancestral gods, the Israelites may choose to their hearts’ content. Joshua himself, however, wants it to be known that as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,^[10]

---

^[1] Keller, K., & Fentress, K. (2017). Joshua. In S. McDowell (Ed.), The Apologetics Study Bible for Students (p. 284). Holman Bible Publishers.

^[2] Criswell, W. A., Patterson, P., Clendenen, E. R., Akin, D. L., Chamberlin, M., Patterson, D. K., & Pogue, J., eds. (1991). Believer’s Study Bible (electronic ed., Jos 24:15). Thomas Nelson.

^[3] Sproul, R. C., ed. (2005). The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (p. 332). Ligonier Ministries.

^[4] Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., Whitehead, M. M., Grigoni, M. R., & Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Jos 24:15). Lexham Press.

^[5] Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (p. 430). Crossway Bibles.

^[6] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2006). The MacArthur study Bible: New American Standard Bible. (Jos 24:15). Thomas Nelson Publishers.

^[7] MacDonald, W. (1995). Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments (A. Farstad, Ed.; pp. 256–257). Thomas Nelson.

^[8] Exell, J. S. (n.d.). The Biblical Illustrator: Joshua, Judges, and Ruth (Vol. 1, pp. 288–304). Fleming H. Revell Company.

^[9] Spence-Jones, H. D. M., ed. (1909). Joshua (p. 350). Funk & Wagnalls Company.

^[10] Woudstra, M. H. (1981). The Book of Joshua (p. 352). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Searching for Lost Sheep | Alistair Begg Daily Devotional

“Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?””

John 9:35

Jesus’ encounter with the blind man in John 9 is part of the great panorama of God’s redemptive purpose from all of eternity. This apparently inconsequential stop in the middle of the day was part of the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham that “in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). It’s part of the great, ongoing, unfolding purpose of God to put together a company of people that no one can count from every tribe, nation, language, and tongue (Revelation 7:9).

The healing of this man, as well as what follows from it, is remarkable. It raises questions: How did Jesus find this man? And how did Jesus change this man? In the answers, we gain a better understanding of how Jesus finds men and women in their lostness and then changes them into sheep that have been found.

This story is not only an illustration of saving faith but also, as C.H. Spurgeon says, “an example of what you may do in endeavoring to lead [souls] to exercise faith in Jesus.” If you want to follow Christ’s example in reaching people, the first thing you must do, says Spurgeon, is “seek out the oppressed … seek out the sick, the sad, the weary, the poor, the broken-down ones, and especially such as have been put out of the synagogues.”[1]

The people that no one wants and no one will have, Jesus wants and Jesus will have. Jesus has every right to anticipate that His followers will do the same. It’s only in knowing that you were once lost that you understand what it means to be found. Jesus has sought you and found you—and if He did that for you, He can do it for anyone! Our tendency is to spend time with those who are like us. But the Son of God did not do that—otherwise He would never have been born as a man, to seek and to save sinners like us. Who are the “broken-down ones” the Lord is calling you to reach out to with the gospel of the Son of Man? With God’s help, go out and tell them that Jesus is alive and that He seeks and saves those who are lost.

Going Deeper: Luke 15:1-7

Footnotes:

[1] “A Pressed Man Yielding to Christ,” The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 46, no. 2667, p 142.

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg, published by The Good Book Company, thegoodbook.com. Used by Truth For Life with permission. Copyright © 2021, 2022, The Good Book Company.

Source: Searching for Lost Sheep

The Right to Holy Things | VCY America

https://www.vcyamerica.org/charles-spurgeon/2023/06/26/the-right-to-holy-things/

But if the priest buy any soul with his money, he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his house: they shall eat of his meat. (Leviticus 22:11)

Strangers, sojourners, and servants upon hire were not to eat of holy things. It is so in spiritual matters still. But two classes were free at the sacred table, those who were bought with the priest’s money and those who were born into the priest’s house. Bought and born, these were the two indisputable proofs of a right to holy things.

Bought. Our great High Priest has bought with a price all those who put their trust in Him. They are His absolute property—altogether the Lord’s. Not for what they are in themselves, but for their owner’s sake they are admitted into the same privileges which He Himself enjoys, and “they shall eat of his meat.” He has meat to eat which worldlings know not of. “Because ye belong to Christ,” therefore shall ye share with your Lord.

Born. This is an equally sure way to privilege. If born in the Priest’s house we take our place with the rest of the family. Regeneration makes us fellow-heirs and of the same body, and, therefore, the peace, the joy, the glory, which the Father has given to Christ, Christ has given to us. Redemption and regeneration have given us a double claim to the divine permit of this promise.

Freedom Reigns in This Place | Daily Devotionals by Thoughts about God

Freedom Reigns in This Place

---

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17

---

If you’ve been in the church for a while, a song probably started playing in your head as you read that verse. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Can you hear the chorus? “Freedom reigns in this place/ showers of mercy and grace/ falling on every face/ there is freedom.”

One of the most incredible things God gives us is the gift of freedom. He lifts the burden of sin and the wages of death and He sets us free.

Free from our past.
Free from our failures.
Free from the pressure to measure up.
Free.

We don’t have to do more to make God love us. He already loves us, even more than we know. It takes a lot of faith (and practice!) to step into that freedom and truly believe that we’re enough – right now, just like this.

I think sometimes we’re uncomfortable with the idea that we can’t earn God’s love because it makes us feel powerless. But the truth is that we are loved and we are in the family. God has sent the Holy Spirit – Comforter, Counselor, Advocate – to live in us. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

God, Thank you for the gift of freedom. When I get all tied up in my thinking you quietly whisper that I am loved and I am enough. You are more than enough. Thank you for the promise that You are renewing my mind. You are rewriting the story. Help me to rest in Your promise and breathe easy in Your freedom today. Amen.

Take Action: If freedom is an uncomfortable idea for you – shame might be getting in the way. Read Isaiah 41:9-10. Personalize it and pray it back to God.

By Claire Colvin
Used by Permission

---

Further Reading

•  A Yoke of Freedom or Bondage – by Karen Woodard

•  Use Freedom to Flourish or to Fall – by Fab Batsakis

•   A Prayer of Freedom – by Roy Lessin

God, Our Peace | Daily Devotionals by Thoughts about God

God, Our Peace

---

“So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord Is Peace.” Judges 6:24

---

The story of God calling Gideon to deliver his people Israel begins unceremoniously. The Midianites are bullying their way through Jewish territory routinely, taking crops, slaughtering animals, and scaring Gideon’s people into the caves and ravines of local mountains. So desperate the times and dire their future, even Gideon, a soldier, threshed grain in the bottom of a dried up wine press so as to avoid detection from his enemies.

And then God’s angel approached him, saying, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior” even though Gideon looked more like a scared school boy in a hopeless fight with recess meanies. But the Lord continued, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

When Gideon later realized that he had come face-to-face with the angel of the Lord and lived, he humbled himself and took up God’s call. He also built an altar and called it “The Lord Is Peace.”

I wonder why Gideon called God peace. Was it for sparing his life despite their close encounter? Was it for strength to know he could take on the Midianites and win? In the end Gideon didn’t raise a sword as God worked miraculously through 300 men to turn the Midianites upon themselves. Perhaps in this instance God wanted us to understand his peaceful intentions, his presence to find peace despite adversity all around.

God, you are Yahweh-Shalom, The Lord Is Peace. Help me know your peace and your ways to handle difficult people and situations today.

Thought:  One peaceful option for handling conflict is to forgive the perpetrator. Forgive someone who has hurt you.
Can you call God your peace? Do you lean on his peaceful ways to get through trials?

By Dr. Bill Strom
Used by Permission

---

Further Reading

•  My Search for Peace – by Eva Reinhart

•  Piece versus Peace– by Julie Cosgrove

•  Salvation Explained

26 Jun 2023 News Briefing

Drought hits the Midwest, threatening crops and the world’s food supply
City leaders in Storm Lake, a rural community of 11,000 in Northwest Iowa, are asking residents not to wash their cars or water their yards and gardens during the hottest part of the day. The city also has cut back on watering public recreational spaces, such as ballfields and golf courses. These are highly unusual steps in a state that is normally flush with water and even prone to flooding. But the rain in Iowa, along with the rest of the Corn Belt states of the Midwest, has been mysteriously absent this spring, plunging the region into drought.

Who are you, Yevgeny Prigozhin? Wagner Group’s powerful Jewish leader
This week, the same oligarch and close confidant of the Russian president, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has once again made headlines, lobbing accusations that his private militia Wagner Group was attacked by the Russian army under the orders of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Britain could be facing invasion of killer Asian hornets
The explosion of the dangerous bugs has been recorded on the Channel Island of Jersey – their UK “frontline HQ.” The battle there is seen as vital to stop the spread of the insects that could invade Britain and decimate the native bee population. In 2022 on Jersey, 55 queens were caught and 174 nests discovered. This year 438 queens were trapped,……..

Senator Ted Cruz: ‘Joe Biden is pathologically obsessed with undermining Israel’
“Joe Biden and Biden administration officials are pathologically obsessed with undermining Israel. Since day one of their administration, they have launched campaigns against our Israeli allies that are granular, whole of government, and done in secret,” the Senator stated. “This new boycott of Israeli Jews is yet another example. The State Department is telling the entire US government not to cooperate with Jews in Judea and Samaria. And, of course, it was sent to Congress in secret and only revealed because reporters found out,” he added.

German Jews express shock as far-right AfD party wins breakthrough vote
A far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) candidate won a vote on Sunday to become a district leader in Europe’s biggest economy for the first time, a breakthrough for the party which has hit record highs in national polls. The 10-year old AfD, with which Germany’s mainstream parties officially refuse to cooperate due to its radical views, won a run-off vote in the Sonneberg district in the eastern state of Thuringia with its candidate garnering 52.8% of the vote.

Shin Bet investigating rocket found in east Jerusalem during Jerusalem Day Flag March
The rocket was found during the Jerusalem Day Flag Parade and authorities are now examining whether there was an intention to fire it or not.

How Wagner’s mutiny in Russia impacts Iran’s threat to Israel
Wagner’s attempted coup in Russia could be a paradigm shift for how the Ukraine-Russia war impacts Israeli security regarding Iran.

Justice Minister Levin planning ‘putsch’ to force Netanyahu to back full judicial reform plan, say senior Likud officials
Justice Minister Yariv Levin (Likud), one of the two architects of the Israeli government’s judicial reform plan, is reportedly working with right-wing allies in the coalition to force Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pass the entire overhaul package.

South Florida neighborhoods under quarantine due to disease-spreading giant African land snails: ‘One of the most damaging snails in the world’
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, … has implemented a quarantine for some South Florida neighborhoods after giant African land snails were spotted recently, officials said Tuesday. Giant African land snails pose health risks to humans by carrying parasite rat lungworm,

Risk of mosquito-borne diseases rising in Europe, health agency says
Europe recorded almost as many locally caught cases of dengue in 2022 as it had over the previous 11 years, new figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) show. The health agency warned at a press conference on Thursday there is an increasing risk of a number of mosquito-borne diseases in the European region, including dengue, zika, chikungunya and West Nile virus,

Great Reset: Macron Suggests International Taxation System to Subsidise Green Agenda
Speaking at the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in Paris on Friday, Mr Macron argued that actions from individual governments would be insufficient to deal with the alleged armageddon set to descend upon the world and therefore a new international taxation framework should be established.

Tropical Storm Bret racing toward Caribbean as forecasters monitor Tropical Depression Four
Bret is no longer expected to become a hurricane, but it will still deliver impacts to parts of the Caribbean. Meanwhile, AccuWeather forecasters say another named storm could form on the heels of Bret in the Atlantic.

RFK Jr.: Obama ‘made a golden handshake with the devil’
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Democrat candidate for the 2024 nomination for president, reveals how it was Barack Obama who actually made Big Pharma a part of his political party. And, he said, it was when Obama “made a golden handshake with the devil.” which, … “was to say the government now will pay for the purchases of drugs and we will agree not to bargain.”

Durham’s warning: Nation ‘can’t stand’ with ‘2-tiered system of justice’
special counsel John Durham, … was asked, by Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., … How long do you think that this country will survive with a two-tiered justice system that seeks to persecute people on their political beliefs?”

Shallow M6.0 earthquake hits south of Tonga – The Watchers
A shallow earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.0 hit south of Tonga at 07:16 UTC on June 25, 2023. The agency is reporting a depth of 7.1 km (4.4 miles). EMSC is reporting M6.0 at a depth of 49 km (30 miles).

Drag Marchers At NYC Pride Event Shout ‘We’re Here, We’re Queer And We’re Coming For Your Children!’
LGBTQ activists participating in New York City’s annual Drag March on Friday sparked outrage for chanting “we’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children” in a Manhattan park. The marchers, many wearing flamboyant dresses and clothing, walked through Tompkins Square Park in the East Village Friday night as part of the city’s Pride Month celebrations. What was all that about? Oh nothing, just the Pride Movement announcing their plans to groom and recruit your kids.

Fully Naked Men Expose Their Genitalia to Children at Seattle Pride Parade
Meanwhile in the Democrat hellhole of Seattle…Fully naked men exposed themselves to children at a pride parade in Seattle, Washington on Sunday. The naked men rode bikes and flashed children as they rode by.

‘Disgusted’ New Zealand Surgeons Now Required To Consider Ethnicity Of Patients
Surgeons in Auckland, New Zealand are ‘disgusted’ over a new policy rolled out in February which requires them to address “historical disparities in healthcare access” for Māori and Pacific Island communities, which will be factored into a new ranking system that determines priority for surgical procedures.

International Monetary Fund ‘working hard’ on a global Central Bank Digital Currency platform 
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is “working hard” on a “global CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) platform,” the IMF managing director announced Monday.

In First-of-Its-Kind Lawsuit, Vermont Alleges Monsanto Knew PCB Contamination in Schools Was Toxic 
Vermont’s attorney general this week sued Monsanto alleging the chemical giant knew its commercial PCB formulations were highly toxic and would inevitably produce the contamination and human health risks that have occurred.

Democrat Attorney Generals Send Threatening Letter To Target After It Pulled ‘Pride-Themed’ Items Due To Conservative Boycotts
After Target pulled a number of its ‘Pride-themed’ items from its shelves due to a conservative boycott, Democrat Attorney General’s in 15 states retaliated by sending them a letter accusing them of ‘succumbing to bullying’ and accusing the boycotters of being ‘hateful and disruptive.’

AMC Theatres Pulls Documentary About Detransitioners After Transgender Backlash
AMC Theatres has pulled screenings of an upcoming documentary critical of gender transitions after a transgender activist group launched a pressure campaign against the movie.

Sixteen years ago, the United Nations was told that chemtrails are bad for agriculture and bad for natural resources
In 2007, Dr. Rosalind Peterson gave a presentation at the United Nations in which she stated that chemtrails form man-made clouds that trap warmth in the atmosphere, exacerbate global warming, contribute to long-term climate change, and affect natural resources and agriculture.  Chemtrails are not a “conspiracy theory,” they are fact – they know and they have always known.

It wasn’t “bird flu” that killed wild birds in Europe last spring, it was radiation sickness
“It is striking: the areas with colonies that were heavily affected by bird flu last year remained vacant this year, including those of Waterdunen (ZL), Wagejot and De Petten on Texel (NH), Griend and De Putten near Camperduin (NH)” – wrote Ruud van Beusekom of BirdLife Netherlands. Everyone is assuming that the birds nesting successfully this year have acquired immunity from the H5N1 influenza virus. But the areas chosen this year by the birds are lower-radiation areas.

Japan experiences super excess mortality post-vaccination campaigns 
In March 2023, Joel Smally wrote a scathing attack on Japanese Covidians for not recognising the elephant in the room:  the “super excess” mortality post-vaccination campaigns.  Yesterday he provided an update on Japanese data to reveal that the trend continues.

New York City Is a Democrat Hellhole
New York’s becoming Hell with all our loosey-goosey bail laws and a District Attorney who ignores most laws. We also have a million illegal aliens in NYC – a half million came in since 2020. Who knows how many are criminals? Homeless, mentally ill drug addicts are everywhere. Soros-funded District Attorney Alvin Bragg said we’d see that his policies would work. How many people must get hurt or die before this clown sees they don’t work?

Climate change fanatics demand a new financial system
The climate change cult is not only paving the way for the destruction of healthcare and scaring our children to death, but it is also demanding a new international monetary system because there are trillions of dollars waiting to be invested in the new system. Meanwhile, researchers who have integrity, expose the plan for what it is.  So, which is the biggest scam: climate or covid?

Massive Corruption in the NYPD – Incoming Police Commissioner Reportedly so Corrupt that He Will Not Take the Job, Former NYPD Officer Says
In a bombshell interview on the Joe Hoft Show on Thursday, former NYPD officer Sal Greco claimed that incoming Police Commissioner Edward Caban is so deeply entangled in corruption that he would quit if Mayor Eric Adams awards him the position.

Secret CDC Reports confirm .6 Million American Children & Young Adults have died since the FDA approved the COVID-19 Vaccine 
A shocking report secretly released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has revealed that COVID-19 vaccines, touted as the solution to the alleged SARS-CoV-2 virus, may actually be killing tens to hundreds of thousands of children and young adults in the United States.

26 Jun 2023

Headlines – 6/26/2023

Senator Ted Cruz: ‘Joe Biden is pathologically obsessed with undermining Israel’

Biden Reverses Trump’s Policy on Cooperation with Academic Institutions beyond ‘Green Line’

Foreign minister says Israel ‘very optimistic’ on normalization deal with Saudis

Contradicting Ben Gvir, Netanyahu says illegal West Bank land grabs ‘unacceptable’

IDF sends 2 more battalions to West Bank after series of settler attacks

‘Ensuring jihad will continue’: Gaza summer camp teaches youth to fight, hate Israel

Neo-Nazis wave swastika flags outside Georgia synagogues

Prodded by Jerusalem, UN confirms Hezbollah has set up outpost in Israeli territory

Cyprus thwarts Iranian attack targeting Jews and Israelis – reports

After Cyprus plot, Israel vows to thwart Iran terror ‘wherever it raises its head’

Erdogan Tells NATO Sweden Must Stop Kurdish Protests

NATO hesitated when Ukraine begged for weapons. Now their counteroffensive against Russia is hitting snags, analysts say.

Putin Faces Historic Threat to Absolute Grip on Power in Russia

Blinken: Wagner mutiny reveals ‘real cracks’ in Putin’s authority

China, Russia Diplomats Meet in Beijing After Wagner Mercenary Uprising

China Backs Russian ‘National Stability’ as Diplomats Meet

Macron says a global agenda is ‘impossible’ without US-China cooperation

Whistleblower: Full Timeline of DOJ Obstruction of IRS investigation into Hunter Biden, 2018-2023

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Says Hunter Biden Wrote Off Human Sex Trafficking as a Business Expense

Rep. Comer: More Hunter Wires to Be Released- Biden Family “Has Received Millions From Our Adversaries and They Can’t Explain What They Did to Produce That Money”

Congress unmasks a multi-year government plot to protect Biden, sully Trump

FBI validated Hunter Biden laptop months before experts claimed Russian disinformation

IRS Whistleblower Fights Back: Names Additional Six Witnesses in Response to Garland’s Denial of Interference in Biden Investigations

McCarthy: AG Garland Impeachment a Possibility

Jim Jordan: ‘High Crimes, Misdemeanors, Bribery, Treason’ Could Bring Biden Impeachment

Cruz urges House to investigate impeaching Biden over ‘direct evidence’ he abused power

Prosecution vs. the presidency: Trump cases present looming legal crisis for nation

Trump says liberals are ‘waging war on faith and freedom’ as 2024 hopefuls woo evangelicals

Nation’s two biggest public pensions funds, both in California, hit by massive cybersecurity breach

They Want To Implement A Global System Of Digital Identification “For All” That Would Be Connected To Our Bank Accounts

5.0 magnitude earthquake hits the Kermadec Islands region

5.0 magnitude earthquake hits near Lata, Solomon Islands

Sabancaya volcano in Peru erupts to 24,000ft

Ubinas volcano in Peru erupts to 23,000ft

Ruiz volcano in Colombia erupts to 21,000ft

Fuego volcano in Guatemala erupts to 15,000ft

Reventador volcano in Ecuador erupts to 15,000ft

Mayon volcano in the Philippines erupts to 10,000ft

Nearly 10,000 power outages remain in Texas as historic heat wave enters day 11 with no end in sight

Record-breaking heat spreads across the U.S. South

NYC to Crack Down on Wood-Fired Pizza Joints to Reduce Carbon Emissions by Up to 75%

NYC Gets $25 Million for E-bike Charging Stations, Seeking to Prevent Deadly Battery Fires

Energy Corporation Says Up to 30 Percent of Its Wind Turbines Could Be Malfunctioning

Lazy river chlorine spill leaves 12 people, including children, in need of medical treatment

USDA Decides on Bill Gates-Approved Fake Meat – Are These Cancer Tumors or Totally Safe to Eat?

Urgent warning over ‘Dracula’ horseflies that can ‘rip and tear flesh apart’

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Explains Why Taking People’s Guns Won’t End School Shootings – He believes the focus should shift from guns to investigating how psychiatric drugs impact kids

Parents and teachers warned not to ridicule schoolkids who identify as animals

National Parks Sponsor Pride Marches, Create LGBTQ ‘Teaching’ Resources with Taxpayer Dollars

‘Busiest day of the year’: Seattle business owners say Pride Parade crowds felt like pre-pandemic

Fully Naked Men Expose Their Genitalia to Children at Seattle Pride Parade

‘We’re Coming for Your Children’: NYC Drag Marchers Chant Ominous Message at Pride Event

Lance Armstrong: Can Someone Support Trans Community While Questioning Fairness of Trans Athletes in Sports?

Clinton-Appointed Judge Rules Taxpayers Must Fund Florida Sex Changes Through Medicaid – Including for Minors

Harris claims US in ‘health care crisis,’ pushes harder for codifying abortion access

Top German court strikes down prayer ban near abortion clinics

AI helps dentists catch more cavities and gum disease: It’s ‘unbiased’ and gives ‘more accurate’ diagnoses

Shock: After Covid Pandemic’s End, Over 500 Excess Heart Deaths are Being Recorded Every Week in England

http://trackingbibleprophecy.org/birthpangs.php

Mid-Day Snapshot · June 26, 2023

 “From The Patriot Post (patriotpost.us)”.

THE FOUNDATION

“It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.” —Thomas Paine (1776)

Your input can help us preserve liberty for future generations. Please take our one-minute Patriot Post survey.

IN TODAY’S DIGEST

• Putin’s Prigozhin Problem
• Musk Sanitizing ‘Cis’ and ‘Cisgender’ Slurs
• 1 Step Forward and 1 Step Back in Immigration Enforcement
• Executive News Summary
• The Coming Rainbow Rift
• ‘No Justice, No Peace!’
• DAILY FEATURES: Videos, Best of Right Opinion, Short Cuts, Memes, and Cartoons.

FEATURED ANALYSIS

Putin’s Prigozhin Problem

A weekend mutiny in Russia fizzled out, but it exposed some serious problems with Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.

Douglas Andrews

There was a little dust-up over the weekend — perhaps you heard about it: a mini military mutiny in Russia.

The Wagner Group — a large, powerful, and popular Russian mercenary force of some 25,000 men — expressed its deep dissatisfaction with the war effort in Ukraine, left its battle posts there, crossed back over into Russia, briefly took over a military headquarters in the city of Rostov-on-Don, and from there began a march toward Moscow, ostensibly to demand the resignations of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the nation’s top general, Valery Gerasimov.

Then it stopped. And that was mostly that.

The rebellion was led by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, 62, an eccentric character and longtime friend and business associate of Vladimir Putin.

As the Associated Press reports: “Under terms of the agreement that ended the crisis, [Prigozhin] will go into exile in Belarus but will not face prosecution. But it was unclear what would ultimately happen to him and his forces. Few details of the deal were released either by the Kremlin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who brokered it. Neither Prigozhin nor Putin has been heard from, and top Russian military leaders have also remained silent.”

On Saturday, Putin used a televised speech to the nation to denounce the mutiny as a “betrayal” and “treason,” adding: “All those who prepared the rebellion will suffer inevitable punishment. The armed forces and other government agencies have received the necessary orders.”

Prigozhin’s response: “As for ‘betraying the motherland,’ the president is deeply mistaken. We are patriots of our motherland.”

That might be so, but if we had to guess, we’d say Putin won’t take kindly to a public charge that he’s “deeply mistaken” about a question of treason. As the AP reported, Prigozhin had earlier vowed that his 25,000-man fighting force wouldn’t surrender because, he said, “We do not want the country to live on in corruption, deceit and bureaucracy.”

Frankly, we wonder whether Prigozhin will live on period given Putin’s reputation as a cold-blooded killer of his political foes. Just ask Alexei Navalny, the charismatic Russian opposition leader who was mysteriously poisoned in 2020. It’s unclear at this point just how popular Prigozhin is across Russia, or whether he has designs on political power.

Prigozhin, to be sure, isn’t a conventional warrior. He goes back some three decades with Putin, to their days in what was then Leningrad and is now St. Petersburg. Prigozhin’s nickname, “Putin’s Chef,” stems from his ownership of several restaurants and some lucrative catering contracts with the Kremlin. His Wagner Group paramilitary force was founded in 2014, when it helped Russia fight in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine. Since then, the group has earned a reputation as Putin’s private army.

Prigozhin also meddles in the political affairs of other countries — ours, for example. Indeed, he was bragging before the 2022 midterms about having used an internet troll farm to interfere in our recent presidential elections, and he’s been sanctioned for these activities by our Treasury Department.

So, how did Putin and his former friend get to this thorny place? In May, the Wagner Group was engaged against Ukrainian forces in the eastern territory of Bakhmut, and it met its match, taking heavy losses against the determined Ukrainian fighters. Prigozhin said his fighters would withdraw from Bakhmut due to a lack of Russian support, and he found a scapegoat in Defense Minister Shoigu.

This brings up another point: If you’re in the warfighting business, it’s probably not a good idea to pick a fight with the guy who supplies you with your bullets.

In any case, it appears Prigozhin has badly overplayed his hand, just as his forces did in Syria in 2018, when an airstrike ordered by Donald Trump killed 200-300 of them.

Is Prigozhin a rational actor? What was his grand strategy in taking Rostov-on-Don, a city of one million that offered no resistance, and then marching on Moscow? Did he think his 25,000-man force was a match for Russia’s 800,000-member military? Does he trust Putin to just let him walk away from this? Our sense is that this deal, which was brokered by Lukashenko, will have a very short shelf life.

The only question now, it seems, is whether the old guy stays alive and out of prison.

As for the war in Ukraine, there are plenty of questions on that front, too. The Wagner Group has been among Russia’s best fighting forces, and now it’s been pulled from the battlefield. Who replaces it? In addition, there are the questions of Russian troop morale, which has been understandably poor throughout the bloody war, and also of Vladimir Putin’s popularity, which, as historian Timothy Snyder notes, isn’t what it used to be.

And this leads to the ultimate question in the wake of this short-lived but surprising mutiny: How much longer is a weakened Putin willing to fight?

Comment | Share

Musk Sanitizing ‘Cis’ and ‘Cisgender’ Slurs

Is it censorship, or re-instilling normality?

Emmy Griffin

Elon Musk, mercurial owner of Twitter, announced last week that he would be adding the terms “cis” and “cisgender” to the list of slurs that are banned on the social media platform. “Cis” and “cisgender” refer to a person who is a particular sex and identifies as that sex. As the late great Norm McDonald said, “It’s a way of marginalizing a normal person.”

The term “cisgender” was introduced to the lexicon in 1991 by a person named Volkmar Sigsuch. Surprise, surprise, Sigsuch was a German sexologist who promoted pedophilia. This underlines once again the intrinsic link between transgender ideology and the ultimate goal of normalizing pedophilia. To be clear, this man’s depraved ideas are not particularly at issue. However, the words he created to marginalize normal, productive people who are not struggling with gender identity are.

It is also of a piece with any LGBTQ+ orientation to use words to describe normal male-female sexual attraction as a way to demean rather than describe. “Heterosexual” and “straight” are the typical words, but “cis” and “cisgender” are wielded like a cudgel against people with identify with reality.

In fact, the very use of these words was the impetus for the ban. James Esses, cofounder of Thoughtful Therapists, posted on his Twitter platform: “Yesterday, after posting a Tweet saying that I reject the word ‘cis’ and don’t wish to be called it, I receive a slew of messages from trans activists calling me ‘cissy’ and telling me that I am ‘cis’ ‘whether or not I like it’. Just imagine if the roles were reversed.” To which Musk personally replied: “Repeated, targeted harassment against any account will cause the harassing accounts to receive, at minimum, temporary suspensions. The words ‘cis’ or ‘cisgender’ are considered slurs on this platform.”

The immediate reaction to this news from Musk was jubilation. This nonsensical word that is thrown in regular people’s faces is tiresome. Having a social media platform that is a relief from the abuse is refreshing.

However, there was the niggling thought about Musk’s stance on free speech. Musk is a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist. If transgender terms are censored, is it not restricting speech? Does that not violate Musk’s own principles?

Then again, Twitter’s own policy on hate speech is, “You may not directly attack other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.” When viewed in this light, not permitting “cis” and “cisgender” is actually being fair. Perhaps it has been so long since conservatives have had someone who captains culture bring nuance to the conversation that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to have fair treatment.

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling — who is by no means a conservative — commented on Musk’s enforcement of the Twitter policy on this matter. She said: “‘Cis’ is ideological language, signifying belief in the unfalsifiable concept of gender identity. You have a perfect right to believe in unprovable essences that may or may not match the sexed body, but the rest of us have a right to disagree, and to refuse to adopt your jargon.” To which Musk replied, “Exactly.”

We are at a tenuous point in our battle for truth. Musk has given users a place where they will no longer be harassed because of their beliefs about sexuality, and that is creating a public square where more productive conversations can be had.

Comment | Share

Why We Ask

Here at The Patriot Post, we work hard to ensure an accurate and penetrating analysis of the week’s news, policy, and opinion — all from a constitutional perspective. Reader funding alone has kept our analysis coming for more than 26 years, allowing us to reach a vast reader audience with the message of Liberty without the limitations of a subscription fee. We humbly request your support for this important mission as we work to meet our daily operating budget requirements. From each of us here, our sincerest thanks for your support. —Nate Jackson, Managing Editor

1 Step Forward and 1 Step Back in Immigration Enforcement

The Supreme Court issued two important decisions on Friday, one that benefits the enforcement of the law and one that, unfortunately, does not.

Hans von Spakovsky & Thomas Jipping

When it comes to our immigration laws, the Supreme Court issued two important decisions on Friday, one that benefits the enforcement of the law and one that, unfortunately, does not but instead will allow the Biden administration to continue to endanger public safety due to, as Justice Samuel Alito said in his dissent, its “federal policy of releasing illegal aliens with criminal convictions for serious crimes.”

In U.S. v. Texas, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion, which was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, holding that Texas and Louisiana do not have standing to challenge guidelines issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2021 that outlined the deportation priorities of the Biden administration.

The guidelines prioritize the arrest and removal of suspected terrorists and criminals that, in its discretion, DHS determines to be “dangerous.” The states argued these guidelines violate two federal statutes that contain a long list of specific crimes that require the arrest and removal of aliens convicted of those crimes, as well as aliens for whom a final order of deportation has been issued.

A federal district court agreed and vacated the guidelines based on a finding that the states would incur the costs of the executive branch’s failure to comply with these statutory mandates. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit agreed.

But on Friday, the Supreme Court disagreed, providing a detailed explanation of why Texas and Louisiana did not have standing to make such a claim against the federal government. Kavanaugh relied on precedent that says a plaintiff lacks standing to sue when he is not himself being prosecuted or threatened with prosecution.

Here, the states were actually suing over the Biden administration’s failure to arrest and prosecute. Such a claim, said Kavanaugh, runs up against the executive’s constitutional authority to prioritize and determine how aggressively to enforce the law, and the majority declined to wade into that issue.

Kavanaugh made it clear, though, that claims involving the executive branch’s failure to enforce the law were not completely barred. Courts can intervene in selective prosecution claims under the equal protection clause; when Congress elevates de facto injuries to the status of legally cognizable injuries redressable by a federal court; if the executive branch wholly abandons its statutory responsibility to make arrests and prosecutions; in a challenge that involves both arrest or prosecution priorities and the executive branch providing legal benefits or legal status; and policies governing the continued detention of aliens who have already been arrested.

Kavanaugh also noted that this was a procedural opinion, and the court was not expressing a view on whether the executive branch is complying with its statutory obligations. Although the opinion doesn’t say so, the Biden administration is clearly not fulfilling those obligations.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, concurred in the judgment, but concluded that the problem isn’t standing, because, in his view, Texas and Louisiana have incurred costs and suffered injuries due to the administration’s policy. The problem, Gorsuch concluded, is a lack of redressability or the ability to remedy the problem.

This traces back to a federal immigration law that specifically bars any court other than the Supreme Court from enjoining or restraining the operation of certain immigration laws, including the ones at issue in this case. Thus, the district court had no authority to issue an injunction. The Constitution gives federal courts considerable power, but it does not, he stated, establish “government by lawsuit.”

Alito dissented, recognizing the “substantial harm” being inflicted on the states and their residents by a federal policy of releasing illegal aliens with criminal convictions for serious crimes. In his view, the majority brushed aside a major precedent that directly controls the standing question, refused to apply the court’s established test for standing, disregarded factual findings made by the district court, and held that the only limit on the power of a president to disobey a law is Congress’ power to employ the weapons of inter-branch warfare — withholding funds, impeachment, and removal. Alito stated that he “would not blaze this unfortunate path” but “would simply apply settled law, which leads ineluctably to the conclusion that Texas has standing.”

The bottom line is that the effort by Texas and Louisiana to force the Biden administration to comply with federal immigration law requirements to remove criminal aliens has struck out based on a procedural rule, not because their claim lacks merit. This is a very serious issue with profound public safety consequences, and this decision means that it is now up to Congress to use the “weapons of inter-branch warfare” to try to remedy it.

In the Supreme Court’s other immigration decision, U.S. v. Hansen, a man ran a very profitable scam, charging foreigners thousands of dollars by promising they would “inherit” U.S. citizenship by getting adopted. He was convicted under a federal statute that prohibits “encourag[ing] or induc[ing]” foreigners to enter or stay in the country illegally. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said that the terms “encourage” and “induce” include lots of speech protected by the First Amendment, so the statute was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court disagreed in a 7-2 decision written by Barrett.

Cases that require picking apart individual words and splitting textual hairs can seem overly technical and even tedious, but they can also be very important. This case is one of them. The difference between Barrett’s majority opinion and Jackson’s dissent, which was joined by Sotomayor, boiled down to whether the key terms should be read in the specific context of this criminal statute or read in isolation as we would use them in everyday conversation. It’s the difference between giving those words a narrow or a broad meaning, which means the difference between upholding or striking down the statute.

Barrett focused on these terms in their criminal law context, explaining how “encourage” and “induce” are related to other technical terms such as “facilitation” or “solicitation.” She concluded that, with that narrower focus, the statute “reaches no further than the purposeful solicitation and facilitation of specific acts known to violate federal law” and, therefore, is not overbroad.

Jackson accused the majority of narrowing “this statute in order to save it.” Read “literally,” Jackson wrote, the provision would be overbroad. But that is because Jackson was looking at “encourage” and “induce” in isolation, as used “in ordinary parlance.”

Barrett’s approach avoided striking down a duly enacted statute by employing a limited and focused judicial approach. When judges are asked to invalidate statutes, they do not have free reign to make statutes mean whatever they want. Their job is to discern what Congress intended by what Congress enacted.

Jackson’s “ordinary parlance” approach has virtually no limits at all. When Thomas and Kagan agree on something, as they did in supporting Barrett’s opinion, it is tough to argue that they’re wrong. With all due respect, Jackson’s dissent would have given free rein to cartel members, smugglers, scam artists, and human traffickers to encourage and induce aliens to break our immigration laws and illegally enter the country.

With the current crisis at the border, that is the last thing we need.

---

Republished from The Daily Signal.

Comment | Share

Executive News Summary

“Trans” Dem arrested for child porn, Rainbow Mafia says the quiet part out loud, weaponized ChatGPT, and more.

Thomas Gallatin & Jordan Candler

Cross-Examination

• “Trans” Dem arrested for child porn: In 2012, “Stacie” (Barry) Laughton became the first openly “transgender”-identifying individual to become a state lawmaker in the country. The Leftmedia celebration of this LGBTQ “progress” was short-lived, as the New Hampshire Democrat would soon resign following revelations of a previous felony credit fraud conviction. Despite his criminal past, the Democrat would win election again in 2020 only to resign in 2022 after he was arrested for stalking and harassing a woman online. Now the troubled former lawmaker has been arrested yet again, this time on four counts of distribution of child pornography. It would seem this man’s gender-bending deviancy should have been a dead giveaway that he was not a fit lawmaker, but this is the result of crusading for sexual deviancy as normative and inclusive.
• Rainbow Mafia says the quiet part out loud: Speaking of crusading for sexual deviancy, over the weekend marchers at a New York City “Pride” parade were captured on video chanting: “We’re here! We’re queer! We’re coming for your children!” While some have dismissed the chant as sarcasm aimed at conservatives over the charge of “grooming,” the actions of these Rainbow Mafia adherents defending the euphemistically labeled “gender-affirming care” for minors and the promotion of sexual deviant materials in America’s public schools say otherwise. They are indeed targeting America’s youth seeking to corrupt them into embracing a worldview that sees their deviant sex cult as normative and “good.”
• TCU drag course: Texas Christian University has apparently fallen far from the faith indicated by its name, as the school is offering a course titled “The Queer Art of Drag.” The course is offered through its Women and Gender Studies Department and is taught by a professor who engages in drag shows. One of the course requirements is for students to “engage queer theories in relation to performance practice” by creating their own drag persona, and they will perform during the school’s Annual Night of Drag. The Bible makes clear that God created human beings in His own image, male and female. Jesus himself reiterated this fundamental binary truth of human sexuality when referencing marriage. Evidently, TCU believes it knows better than the Creator.
• Woke, weaponized ChatGPT scolds female athlete: Recently, in an effort to create a more succinct message for a Twitter post, NCAA volleyball player Macy Petty decided to employ the new artificial intelligence ChatGPT to help her out. However, after inputting her paragraph and instructing the AI tool to shrink down her message, she received an unexpected reprimand. According to Petty, ChatGPT effectively undercut her attempt to present the message she wanted emphasizing that “girls’ sports are for girls only” and that allowing “transgender”-identifying boys to play in girls’ sports amounts to “robbing girls of their chance to play.” ChatGPT responded by arguing that “it’s important to emphasize inclusivity and equality in sports rather than promoting exclusion based on gender.” It added, “Sports should be accessible and welcoming for all individuals, regardless of gender.” What this episode demonstrates is that, despite the claims otherwise, AI tech will naturally reflect the bias of its human creators. So don’t let AI do your thinking for you.
• COVID origins: On Friday, the Biden administration finally released its declassified report on the question of the origin of COVID. Importantly, the report noted that “all” U.S. intelligence agencies now believe the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China to be the source of the deadly virus. Other than that significant conclusion, there is little other new information from the report. Given the recent revelations of the first individuals to become infected with the novel virus being Chinese scientists working in the Wuhan lab, and the fact that they were engaged in studying coronaviruses, combined with the preponderance of evidence pointing to a lab rather than natural origin, the report’s conclusion is not surprising. That said, the report further notes that “almost all” intelligence agencies believe that COVID was not engineered, while also observing “that some scientists” in the lab did engage in genetic alterations of coronaviruses.

Headlines

• Merrick Garland calls criticism of DOJ “attack” on democracy (Free Beacon)
• With Russia revolt over, mercenaries’ future and direction of Ukraine war remain uncertain (AP)
• House intel chairman: Prigozhin had “a number of accomplices” inside Russia (Daily Wire)
• House GOP: “Almost all” migrants at ports of entry are being freed into U.S. (Breitbart)
• U.S. files first-ever charges against Chinese fentanyl manufacturers (Free Beacon)
• Montana becomes third state reporting suspicious letters received by GOP officials (Daily Wire)
• New poll shows staggering “wrong track” number under Joe Biden (RedState)
• Bud Light sponsors pride event with naked people and other concerning things near children (RedState)
• Judge blocks Wyoming’s first-in-the-nation abortion pill ban while court decides lawsuit (AP)
• New York City turns up the heat on wood- and coal-fired pizzerias, demands restaurants slice emissions by 75% (Blaze Media)
• States weigh charging by the mile as fuel taxes plummet (Fox Business)
• Sweden shocks Europe: Abandons “unstable” green energy agenda, returns to nuclear power (RedState)
• Foreign intel agencies say Iran on cusp of testing first nuke (Free Beacon)
• Satire: NASA commits to planting pride flag on the moon by 2030 (Babylon Bee)
• Humor: New study finds bizarre connection between being liberal and having giant, googly eyes (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.

Comment | Share

The Coming Rainbow Rift

The transgender movement appears to have hit a wall, and the Democrat Party has a decision to make.

Douglas Andrews

For some time now, we’ve been watching an ever-growing rift on the Left — a rift in which Democrats are beginning to distance themselves from the transgender cultists.

All during “Pride” Month, we’ve seen this rift pick up steam. And we think it’s only a matter of time before it forces a reckoning.

The problem for the Democrats, whose ultimate aim is always political power, is that they’ve tethered themselves to a political loser. Because that’s what the cult of transgenderism is: a political loser.

The Democrats aren’t used to losing — at least not on this particular battlefront of the culture wars. Where gay rights are concerned, the Rainbow Mafia’s long and smartly executed PR campaign has persuaded a majority of Americans to their side and has even resulted in some wrongly decided legal victories. (Marriage, for example, is a compact between one man and one woman, regardless of what nine black-robed justices might decree.)

But the same can’t be said for its efforts on the transgender front. There, just the opposite is occurring: The tide of public opinion is turning against them.

Why? The participation of men against women in sports is certainly one part of it, and the polling is beginning to turn against this awful idea, especially as brave truth-tellers like Riley Gaines are stepping into the fray. (Women, generally, have been targeted by the transgender movement, as our Emmy Griffin reported recently.)

But the big issue is children — whether they’re being brainwashed in the classroom or exploited by our perverse popular culture. Because whereas the former issue, gay rights, mostly involves consenting adults (gay adoption being a deeply disturbing exception), the latter issue almost invariably involves vulnerable and unsuspecting children, many of whom haven’t even reached the age of consent.

Bridget Phetasy hits this point head-on in The Spectator, and she employs some prominent gay thinkers to make her case.

“The core reason for the backlash is pretty simple: children.” So says one of the thinkers, Andrew Sullivan, who adds: “The attempt to indoctrinate children in gender ideology and to trans them on the verge of puberty has changed the debate. Start indoctrinating and transing children … and you will re-energize one of the oldest homophobic tropes there is: ‘gays are child molesters.’”

A trope? Not exactly. Back in January, our Nate Jackson, himself an adoptive father, reported on the unspeakable crimes committed by two gay Georgia men — prominent activists who’d been put up by a complicit media as picture-book adoptive parents. As it turns out, they were monsters, and they’ve been indicted by a grand jury for incest, aggravated sodomy, aggravated child molestation, felony sexual exploitation of children, and felony prostitution of a minor. Their victims? Two elementary-aged brothers.

Intrepid independent journalist Glenn Greenwald largely agrees that when it tried to co-opt children, the transgender movement went for a bridge too far: “What destroyed the culture war consensus was their cynical and self-interested decision to transform the LGBT cause into one that no longer focused on the autonomy of adult Americans to live freely — which most people support — but instead to demand the right to influence and indoctrinate other people’s children.”

If Social Security is the third rail of American politics, then we might look back one day to note that children were the third rail of gender-identity politics.

But the transgender cult won’t go down without a fight. As Sullivan said: “It was once ‘live-and-let-live.’ Now it’s ‘embrace the ideology — or else.’”

As Phetasy concludes: “Herein lies the problem with Pride. You can no longer opt out of the ideology. The trans activism changed everything. It is coercive. It is everywhere. Big Tech acts as an enforcer, in conjunction with the state, policing language, pronouns, exacting punishments for refusing to repeat the mantras ‘trans women are women’ and ‘gender-affirming care is reproductive freedom.’”

Somehow, though, despite these institutional advantages, the transgender cult appears to have hit a wall. And that’s a good thing to take away as Pride Month draws to a close.

Comment | Share

‘No Justice, No Peace!’

Roger Helle

How many times have we heard this chant from the Left? Every time there’s an incident where Marxists can stir up anger, they take advantage of it. Race baiters like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have made a great living off of race baiting.

If there’s a shooting involving a white person and a black person, Sharpton’s going to show up. It doesn’t even have to be a shooting. Witness the unfortunate death of a mentally disturbed, violet person on a subway, Jordan Neely. Sharpton was at the funeral to stir up hate. Others called Neely’s death vigilante justice. Former Marine Daniel Penny has been charged with manslaughter, but Sharpton wants street justice.

I wonder if Neely’s family sees a big payout for their son’s death? This seems to be a pattern before any trial or verdict. I’m sure this has been going on for some time, but it hit high gear under President Barack Obama. While Sharpton and Jackson have made a decent living off of race baiting, Joe Biden has put racial hatred on steroids. Everything is racist now.

I believe most Americans are getting tired of the same old song, day after day. It seems Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) find something new to charge as racist weekly. Do they ever take a day off from their ranting? Inquiring minds want to know.

Add to that our two-tiered justice system and normal people start to get nervous. January 6 offenders are still being hunted down, arrested, and incarcerated while their cases literally crawl through the corrupt legal system in Washington, DC. The sad part is, very few Republican lawmakers seem to be concerned about this abuse of power.

Trump gets an armed raid on his home while Hillary Clinton, Joe “Big Guy” Biden, and even Mike Pence get treated differently. Hunter Biden, who’s failed to pay his taxes since 2018, gets a sweetheart deal from the prosecutor in Delaware. Oh, and lying on a federal application when buying a weapon is pretty much ignored. Trump is being charged with anything they can throw at him — in New York, Miami, Atlanta, and DC. Granted, some of this he brought on himself, but still, equal justice has become a joke.

And while it’s a joke to those on the Left, it’s deadly serious to the rest of us. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know we can’t go on for very long with the rich and powerful being treated one way and the rest of us another way. If citizens can be arrested and jailed for being in the nation’s Capitol on January 6, even those who were “escorted” into the building, while serious crimes by the elite are ignored and buried, we’re in trouble.

This may cause some of you Patriots to lose sleep. I’m concerned because if they can do this to a former president, they can do it to anybody. While the Left screams “no justice, no peace,” I live by a different code:

“Know Jesus, know peace. No Jesus, no peace!”

We are a nation that was established on biblical principles. The power of prayer still has the ability to change situations. We must earnestly seek God in prayer and fasting for the next revival leading to another Great Awakening!

Something to pray about!

Comment | Share

On the Web

• Biden Backs Down to China — From COVID to national security, Biden has allowed China to strengthen its global position.

VIDEOS

• Biden’s Senior Moment of the Week (Vol. 48) — Someone had the brilliant idea last week to let Joe Biden and John Fetterman speak on the same stage.
• ‘We Face a New Marxism’ — Senator Josh Hawley delivered a fiery speech in which he held nothing back against the cultural rot that has taken over so many American institutions.
• America Is the Least Free We’ve Ever Been — A new ranking of economic freedom shows that America’s performance is getting worse.
• The Depopulation Bomb — Stephen J. Shaw is a data scientist and demographer. He is the writer and director of “Birthgap — Childless World,” a documentary exploring the global decline in birth rates.
• Trump Impersonator’s Voicemail for Adam Schiff — Shawn Farash leaves a voicemail message for Democrat Representative Adam Schiff after he was censured by the House.
• Humor: How to Be Absurdly Patriotic on the 4th of July! — JP Sears explains how to proudly display your Red, White, and Blue.

Share

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

• GARY BAUERThat Didn’t Take Long
• JEFF JACOBYThe Scandal at the Harvard Morgue Is Not a Reason for More Government
• IMPRIMISThe Most Important Decision in Life
• GUEST COMMENTARYThe Curious Silence About a Key Component of the Climate Story

For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion.

SHORT CUTS

The BIG Lies

“Some Americans don’t quite know all the full impact of the president’s economic policies.” —White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre

“Whatever documents a president decides to take with him, he has the absolute right to take them. He has the absolute right to keep them or he can give them back to NARA if he wants.” —Donald Trump

“Some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Justice Department … by claiming that we do not treat like cases alike. This constitutes an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy and essential to the safety of the American people. Nothing could be further from the truth. You’ve all heard me say many times that we make our cases based on the facts and the law. These are not just words; these are what we live by. They’re the foundation of the way we make these decisions.” —Attorney General Merrick Garland

Leftmedia Lobs

“The prosecutor has gone out of his way to charge [Hunter Biden with] everything that could have been charged.” —MSNBC’s Frank Figliuzzi (After the persecution of Trump for things he did NOT do as president, suggesting Hunter is being prosecuted to the full extent of the law is laughable. Still waiting on any prosecuting of Joe.)

“The premise that Hunter Biden is getting favorable treatment from [the] DOJ just isn’t true. … Hunter Biden actually has a plausible case that he’s being treated worse because of the scrutiny that he’s received as the president’s son.” —NBC News legal analyst Paul Butler

Village Idiots

“[Trump] needs to be shot — stopped.” —Virgin Islands Delegate Stacey Plaskett (D)

“Supremacy is at the root of why people think it’s okay to eat other animals.” —PETA (At least they didn’t claim it was “white supremacy.”)

Observations

“One explanation for Democratic voters’ stubborn and arguably irrational allegiance to Joe Biden is that they’re reacting to Republican voters’ stubborn and arguably irrational allegiance to Donald Trump. One explanation for Republican voters’ stubborn and arguably irrational allegiance to Donald Trump is that they’re reacting to the Democrats’ and most of the press’s grossly unfair treatment of him, from the Russia collusion hoax to the ‘Democracy Dies In Darkness’ suppression of the Biden laptop story. One solution would be a constitutional amendment setting an age limit on presidents. A more feasible solution is for one or both parties’ voters to start assessing candidates by their capacity to govern and achieve positive policy results. Republicans at least have alternatives running who can make that case against Trump.” —Michael Barone

“Maybe Americans who elected a scatterbrained and tired 80-year-old deserve to be governed by him — good and hard, as H.L. Mencken might say. But please stop pretending Biden is OK. He’s not.” —David Harsanyi

For the Record

“The reason we have women’s sports is because women could never compete with men because of the biological differences that make men superior at sports. It’s kind of insulting to say out loud, but we never had to say it out loud until people pretended to not understand this.” —Frank J. Fleming

“First transgender elected official: Arrested for child pornography. First transgender Army officer: Arrested for selling military secrets to the Russians. First non-binary government official: Arrested for stealing luggage from airports.” —Greg Price

Insight

“Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt.” —Robert Lindner (1914-1956)

Comment | Share

TODAY’S MEME

Share

For more of today’s memes, visit the Memesters Union.

TODAY’S CARTOON

Share

For more of today’s cartoons, visit the Cartoons archive.

 “From The Patriot Post (patriotpost.us)”.

Cartoons and Memes · June 26, 2023

“From The Patriot Post (patriotpost.us)”.

He Loves Bacon

Comment | Share

---

Time to Delete Cookies

Comment | Share

---

Let’s Be Mentally Balanced

Comment | Share

---

Less an Erosion, More a Demolition

Comment | Share

---

Worst Remake

Comment | Share

---

Saving Fuel to Buy Guns

Comment | Share

---

Gipper vs Tripper

Comment | Share

---

Just Gorges

Comment | Share

---

Time’s Up Apparently

Comment | Share

---

Trailer Swift

Comment | Share

---

It’s a Mini Krakatoa

Comment | Share

---

Finally, Someone Knows My Passwords

Comment | Share

---

Holds 30 Rounds

Comment | Share

---

Gender Neutral Restrooms

Comment | Share

---

Early Florida Man

Comment | Share

---

Anything Else On Your Mind?

Comment | Share

---

Gray Pride

Comment | Share

---

---

---

“From The Patriot Post (patriotpost.us)”.

Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Want US To Recognize Taiwan’s Independence – Conservative Review

A large majority of Americans say the United States should recognize democratic Taiwan as independent from Communist China, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released Monday.

The post Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Want US To Recognize Taiwan’s Independence appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

https://www.conservativereview.com/poll-americans-overwhelmingly-want-us-to-recognize-taiwan-s-independence-2661893473.html

McCarthy teases potential impeachment for AG Garland for ‘weaponization of DOJ’ | Sara A. Carter

An impeachment may be underway for Attorney General Merrick Garland as part of an inquiry into his “weaponization of DOJ” tweeted Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The Speaker’s tweet made headlines Sunday after bombshell text messages from President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, emerged in an IRS whistleblower’s testimony.

The IRS whistleblower told Congress that President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, threatened a Chinese business associate in Biden’s presence, whistleblower Gary Shapley testified. Biden has vehemently denied having any knowledge of his son’s business dealings.

However, the damning text message from Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao, the director of Harvest Fund Management, reads:

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me, and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

“We need to get to the facts, and that includes reconciling these clear disparities. U.S. Attorney David Weiss must provide answers to the House Judiciary Committee,” McCarthy tweeted. “If the whistleblowers’ allegations are true, this will be a significant part of a larger impeachment inquiry into Merrick Garland’s weaponization of DOJ.”

We need to get to the facts, and that includes reconciling these clear disparities. U.S. Attorney David Weiss must provide answers to the House Judiciary Committee.

If the whistleblowers' allegations are true, this will be a significant part of a larger impeachment inquiry into… https://t.co/Q3LLeJhW85

— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) June 25, 2023

Source: McCarthy teases potential impeachment for AG Garland for ‘weaponization of DOJ’

They’re TWISTING the Bible for the LGBT Movement | Answers in Genesis

Certain Christian leaders have recently been attempting to fit LGBT ideologies into the Bible. In this episode of Answers News, our hosts share their perspectives on this topic as Bible-believing Christians.

Subscribe to us for more biblical content every week.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27, ESV).

How Minds and Hearts Change: 10 Steps in My Journey Toward Full LGBTQ+ Inclusion – Part 4
https://goodfaithmedia.org/how-minds-and-hearts-change-10-steps-in-my-journey-toward-full-lgbtq-inclusion-part-4/

A Scientist’s Sexuality Shouldn’t Matter
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-scientists-sexuality-doesnt-matter-nsf-dei-agenda-census-gender-awards-3e1e7ac2

How did snakes lose their limbs? Mass genome effort provides clues
https://www.science.org/content/article/how-did-snakes-lose-their-limbs-mass-genome-effort-provides-clues

407-Million-Year-Old Fossil Overturns Thinking on Evolution of Leafy Plants

407-Million-Year-Old Fossil Overturns Thinking on Evolution of Leafy Plants

School District Returns Bible To Libraries After Pulling It For ‘Vulgarity’
https://www.dailywire.com/news/school-district-returns-bible-to-libraries-after-pulling-it-for-vulgarity

Your Brain Has Tricked You Into Thinking Everything Is Worse

Skipping Evolution: The Kangaroos That Didn’t Hop

Skipping Evolution: The Kangaroos That Didn’t Hop

Source: They’re TWISTING the Bible for the LGBT Movement

Monday Briefing, June 26, 2023 | AlbertMohler.com

download(size: 16 MB )

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

PART I (12:7 – 12:7) A Coup Against Putin, a Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma: What We Can and Cannot Know About the Moves of the Wagner Group Over the Weekend

PART II (20:49 – 20:49) The Staggering Challenge Before the Pro-Life Movement: One Year Post-Dobbs and the Future of the Fight for Life

• How a Year Without Roe Shifted 
  American

   Views on Abortion by New York Times (Kate Zernike)

PART III (28:52 – 28:52) An Ironic and Tragic Parable of Human Hubris and Life or Death Drama: The Titan Submersible Implodes During Dive to the Titanic Wreckage

Source: Monday, June 26, 2023

Russia Without Putin? | CBN NewsWatch June 26, 2023

How the weekend revolt against Vladimir Putin and the Russian military has left Putin looking weakened, and opened up the possibility for Russians to imagine a future without him; White House has no answer to media questions about Hunter Biden… CBN News. Because Truth Matters™

Source: Russia Without Putin? | CBN NewsWatch June 26, 2023

Bombshell revelation: Hunter paid for secret $300/month ‘global phone’ used by VP Biden while in office

Shades of Hillary Clinton’s “home brew” email server!

Source: Bombshell revelation: Hunter paid for secret $300/month ‘global phone’ used by VP Biden while in office

Biden’s DOJ has ‘no credibility’: Chris Swecker

Former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker reacts to Attorney General Merrick Garland denying any interference in the Hunter Biden investigation. #foxbusiness

Source: Biden’s DOJ has ‘no credibility’: Chris Swecker

Beware the Deliberate Distractions from the Distracted

 

Source: Beware the Deliberate Distractions from the Distracted

Impeachment Is The Only Way To Check Biden’s Abuse Of Power – Conservative Review

Constitutional impeachment prevents what the revolution sought to stop — the reign of a ruler with unchecked power.

https://www.conservativereview.com/impeachment-is-the-only-way-to-check-bidens-abuse-of-power-2661880062.html

Rep. Tenney: Congress Has Evidence Joe Biden Was in the Room With Hunter When Shakedown WhatsApp Message Sent to Chinese Business Associate (Video) | The Gateway Pundit

Rep. Tenney: Congress Has Evidence Joe Biden Was in the Room With Hunter When Shakedown WhatsApp Message Sent to Chinese Business Associate (Video)

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) said on Monday that Congress has evidence Joe Biden was in the room with his son Hunter Biden when Hunter sent a threatening WhatsApp message on July 30, 2017 from the Biden family home in Wilmington, Delaware to a Chinse business associate, Henry Zhao. Tenney serves on the House Ways and Means Committee which last week released the WhatsApp message as part of a package of evidence and testimony obtained from IRS whistleblowers.

Tenney made the revelation in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on the Fox Business show Mornings with Maria.

Tenney: “All we need to prove is that Joe Biden was in the room and he’s part of this. And we have other evidence showing that Joe Biden was in the room from various witnesses who were involved in the Biden scheme. Joe was there to show Hunter had the connections…”

“…So that WhatsApp message, we found evidence that Joe Biden and the whole family were in Wilmington on the night of the phone call, the WhatsApp message, when it happened. That was July 30, 2017 and Joe Biden was a private citizen, but this is a continuation of the tax evasion, money laundering and what was going on to get that money through Hunter to Joe Biden and his family.”

Tenney also said the communist Chinese gave the Bidens a cellphone that they tracked the information on, but she did not elaborate on that allegation or whether the phone was given to Joe or Hunter, “Now the Chinese have data, they have a phone that was issued to him by the Chinese Communist Party.”

Tenney also said the FBI are “dirty cops” and accused the Department of Justice of obstruction of justice in the Biden investigation.

The WhatsApp message:

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my directions. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

The Washington Free Beacon reported Thursday that photos on Hunter Biden’s laptop of him in his father’s Corvette were geo-located to the Biden’s Wilmington home on the same day as the WhatsApp message was sent, July 30, 2017.

Tenney last week asked where Joe Biden was that day. Now she says she knows.

This photo appears to show Hunter Biden, in his father’s infamous corvette, hours after texting his Chinese business partner: “I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

Where was Joe Biden when Hunter sent that text? pic.twitter.com/Nds3xts8Nz

— Claudia Tenney (@claudiatenney) June 23, 2023

Just days after the threatening WhatsApp message was sent, the Chinse firm CEFC sent payments to to Hunter Biden related accounts totaling $5.1 million.

The post Rep. Tenney: Congress Has Evidence Joe Biden Was in the Room With Hunter When Shakedown WhatsApp Message Sent to Chinese Business Associate (Video) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Media Uses Failed Russia ‘Coup’ To Knock Bombshell Biden Scandal Off The Front Page

Don’t take the bait.

Source: Media Uses Failed Russia ‘Coup’ To Knock Bombshell Biden Scandal Off The Front Page

IMF Proposes Global Central Bank Digital Currency in Move Toward Cashless Society (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit

IMF Proposes Global Central Bank Digital Currency in Move Toward Cashless Society – So They Can Control the People (VIDEO)

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva

In a development that seems more dystopian than dynamic, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced its plans to develop a global Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) platform. This decision raises significant questions about monetary sovereignty, financial privacy, and global equity.

While IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva argued for the need for global CBDCs at a conference attended by African central banks in Rabat, Morocco, critics are skeptical.

This is great. We have the World Bank pushing through the digital IDs and now the IMF calls for global CBDCs.

That’s it. Those are the final two organisation below the BIS in the global power hierarchy.

— _Esc (@_Escapekey_) June 20, 2023

“CBDCs should not be fragmented national propositions… To have more efficient and fairer transactions we need systems that connect countries: we need interoperability,” Georgieva told a conference.

“For this reason at the IMF, we are working on the concept of a global CBDC platform,” she said.

Reuters reported:

The IMF wants central banks to agree on a common regulatory framework for digital currencies that will allow global interoperability. Failure to agree on a common platform would create a vacuum that would likely be filled by cryptocurrencies, she said.

A CBDC is a digital currency controlled by the central bank, while cryptocurrencies are nearly always decentralised.

Already 114 central banks are at some stage of CBDC exploration, “with about 10 already crossing the finish line”, she said.

“If countries develop CDBCs only for domestic deployment we are underutilizing their capacity,” she added.

CBDCs could also help promote financial inclusion and make remittances cheaper, she said, noting that the average cost of money transfers stands at 6.3% amounting to $44 billion annually.

Georgieva stressed that CBDCs should be backed by assets and added that cryptocurrencies are an investment opportunity when backed by assets, but when they are not they are a “speculative investment.

"At the IMF we are working hard on the concept of a global CBDC platform": IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva https://t.co/Py7JLMovuc pic.twitter.com/N6txNHBaaE

— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) June 19, 2023

The move toward a single, universally accepted digital currency, one controlled by an international body, is concerning for a number of reasons.

First, there’s the issue of monetary sovereignty. Currently, each nation maintains control over its own monetary policy, allowing for adjustments based on specific domestic economic conditions. With a global CBDC, however, that power could be severely diminished, raising questions about the potential for unequal economic influence among nations.

Secondly, the concept of financial privacy could be entirely uprooted. As more transactions become digital, the potential for surveillance and control increases exponentially.

Rather than engaging in an open, thoughtful discourse on the merits and drawbacks of decentralization, this stance leans towards fear-mongering. It appears to be more of a power grab than an attempt to create a fair financial future.

To trust grifter Joe Biden or the Democrats with a digital currency is naive, to say the least. It will be another tool in their arsenal to punish and starve their political opponents.

We must NEVER let this happen.

The post IMF Proposes Global Central Bank Digital Currency in Move Toward Cashless Society (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.