There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)
Paul’s God is our God and will supply all our need. Paul felt sure of this in reference to the Philippians, and we feel sure of it as to ourselves. God will do it, for it is like Him: He loves us, He delights to bless us, and it will glorify Him to do so. His pity, His power, His love, His faithfulness, all work together that we be not famished.
What a measure doth the Lord go by: “According to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” The riches of His grace are large, but what shall we say of the riches of His glory? His “riches of glory by Christ Jesus”-who shall form an estimate of this? According to this immeasurable measure will God fill up the immense abyss of our necessities. He makes the Lord Jesus the receptacle and the channel of His fullness, and then He imparts to us His wealth of love in its highest form. Hallelujah!
The writer knows what it is to be tried in the work of the Lord. Fidelity has been recompensed with anger, and liberal givers have stopped their subscriptions; but he whom they sought to oppress has not been one penny the poorer, nay, rather he has been the richer; for this promise has been true, “My God shall supply all your need.” God’s supplies are surer than any bank.
“And now, dear children, continue in Him, so that when He appears we may be confident and unashamed before Him at His coming. “1 John 2:28
Wow! What a challenge. Well when I first read it I thought that it was. It is such a struggle at times to not do something that would have me be ashamed on that day of reckoning.
Then as I reread the verse I found the key! …continue “in Him”…
And it’s found again in Philippians 4:13. “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”
It is “through Him” because “Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. “In love.” Ephesians 1:4
We were chosen “in Him” before we were even born.
It sure makes sense to continue “in Him” then doesn’t it.
He died for my life and lives that He might be in my life!
“But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” Acts 20:24
My prayer for us
“Heavenly Father we rejoice in the knowledge that it is walking in the power of Your indwelling Spirit that we can be confident and unashamed at Your return. In Jesus name, amen.”
“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” Proverbs 4:23
Have you thought lately about your role as the “gate-keeper” of your heart? You play an active role in what you open the door of your heart to and what seeds you allow in the soil of your mind. What goes on in your heart and mind is not simply thoughts and feelings that come and go at random.
Yes, each one of us plays a role in the guarding of our hearts. Have sour attitudes, harsh words, fear or negativity been too close for comfort lately? God tells us how important it is to tend our hearts — the very well from which our words and attitudes spring. When that role is neglected we will find uninvited emotions and words taking root. With no attention to guarding what goes in, there will also be little attention to what comes out.
Invite God to help you guard the wellspring of your soul today by paying attention what you let settle into your heart and mind. He reminds us how important it is.
Father God, I confess that I have not paid enough attention to what is going on in my heart and mind. I’m sorry for the negative reactions this often causes me to have. Remind me, by the power of Your Holy Spirit, to guard my heart today. Help me to acknowledge what I allow to parade through my thoughts and to choose wisely. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
Take the next step here, in allowing the Holy Spiritto fill you afresh.
Archbishop Viganò: Catholics must seriously consider the possibility that Francis isn’t the pope We must ‘take seriously, very seriously, the possibility that Bergoglio intended to obtain the election by means of fraud… in order to do the exact opposite of what Jesus Christ gave a mandate to Saint Peter and his Successors to do.’ Pope Francis does not have and never did have the intention of serving as the head of the Catholic Church. Rather he hid his intentions from electors with the end goal of using the authority of the papacy to undermine the Church and to make it the “handmaid” of the New World Order.
FBI secretly targeting Trump supporters: Report The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has secretly developed a new category of “extremists” that targets Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters of former President Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to classified information obtained by Newsweek. Newsweek reported that the FBI is currently working to investigate and prevent what the agency considers domestic terrorism without referencing individual political affiliations in the United States. However, the information obtained by Newsweek indicates that an overwhelming majority of the FBI’s current “anti-government” investigations are related to MAGA Republicans.
Pope Francis In Greta-Style Rebuke Lambasts ‘Climate Deniers’ & Warns “Breaking Point” Coming Francis has made the ‘climate crisis’ a big focus of his papacy, and on Wednesday he has for only the second time issued a major ecology-focused encyclical, which is being called his strongest statement yet on the issue. he lambasted “irresponsible” Western lifestyles and big industries which are bringing to world to a “breaking point”. He went after Americans in particular.
Hawley Issues Workaround to Biden Policy: Let States Deport Illegal Aliens To get around President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) lax enforcement of federal immigration law, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has issued a plan that would authorize states to deport illegal aliens and help build barriers along the United States-Mexico border. On Wednesday, Hawley announced the “State Border Defense Act” which would, among other things, allow individual states to deport illegal aliens that local law enforcement encounters.
Building A Church Devoid Of Biblical Truth: The Rebellious Agenda Of The Deconstructionists Why would anyone want to tear down a perfectly good house? Unfortunately, some people are doing this with God’s house—the church! Jesus said He would build His church, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18, KJV). But new, postmodern theologians are trying to do just that—deconstruct the church and its authority, the Bible, even though the Apostle Paul insisted that the church was the “pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).
US to send seized Iranian weapons, ammunition to Ukraine The U.S. has sent Ukraine more than 1 million rounds of Iranian ammunition that had been seized last year, the U.S. military said on Wednesday. U.S. naval forces for years have been seizing weapons believed to be from Iran bound for Iran-backed fighters in Yemen, usually transported by fishing vessels. U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for military operations in the Middle East, said about 1.1 million 7.62 mm rounds were sent to Ukraine.
Disgusting Post’: Democratic Candidate Mocks Former House Speaker for Meeting With Orthodox Jews A candidate for a New York congressional district with the largest Jewish constituency in the country on Tuesday mocked former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for meeting with Orthodox Jews. “Well this was a waste of everyone’s time,” Jones wrote over the image of McCarthy wearing a yarmulke and sitting next to Lawler during a meeting with Orthodox Jewish leaders in Rockland County, New York. Jones’ post drew immediate criticism …
Police push to use live fire against those blocking roads during national emergencies Israel Police and the National Security Ministry have requested permission to use live fire against those who disrupt the public order by blocking roads during national emergencies, Kan News reported. According to Kan, the request is part of preparations for possible conflicts in which Arab-Israelis block roads used by IDF convoys, and it is one of the lessons learned from 2021’s Operation Guardian of the Walls.
Senators to Biden: No to defense treaty with Saudi Arabia as part of agreement with Israel A group of 20 senators from the Democratic Party on Wednesday sent a letter to US President Joe Biden in which they expressed their support for normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, but demanded that the agreement not include a defense pact or an agreement to Saudi Arabia having a civilian nuclear program.
‘They’re just meat’: Russia deploys punishment battalions in echo of Stalin Storm-Z is an unofficial term used by Russian troops, combining a term for assault troops with the letter Z, adopted by the military as a symbol of their invasion of Ukraine. Drunk recruits. Insubordinate soldiers. Convicts. They’re among hundreds of military and civilian offenders who’ve been pressed into Russian penal units known as “Storm-Z” squads and sent to the frontlines in Ukraine this year, according to 13 people with knowledge of the matter, including five fighters in the units. Few live to tell their tale, the people said.
Iran unveils newly-developed ‘Kaman-19’ drone Iran has threatened to use their drone technology against Israel and has aided Russia’s war effort in Ukraine by providing drones to the Russian army. The Islamic Republic of Iran Army unveiled a new drone they developed in a Tuesday drill, Brigadier General Alireza Sheikh announced via state media on Tuesday.
Can McCarthy’s ouster harm Israel and help sink the Saudi deal? The House of Representatives’ decision on Tuesday night to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker, for the first time in the body’s history, comes however as negotiations are underway for a US-brokered normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Until Tuesday, all eyes were focused on how political instability in Israel could prevent an agreement from materializing.
Debate heats up over proposed US-Israeli defense treaty Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer held discussions with Israeli security chiefs to secure support for his proposal to establish a bilateral Israeli-United States defense treaty. Dermer informed IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Mossad Director David Barnea that the suggested military alliance would exclusively address critical existential risks,
Christian Journalist calls out State Department for funding terror via UNRWA White House correspondent and Reporter for Intermountain Christian News, Dr. Anthony Harper, confronted Matthew Miller, the State Department’s spokesperson, about funding from the United Nations Works and Relief Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) being used for establishing terrorist centers inside Israel. “In light of UNRWA donors’ agency meetings at the UN, will the US ask the UN to inspect and disarm UNRWA refugee camps that have become well-equipped arsenals?”
Israeli police arrest 5 suspects for spitting at Christians in Jerusalem The Israeli police arrested five suspects who were seen spitting in the direction of Christian tourists in the Old City of Jerusalem, according to a police statement on Wednesday morning. One of the suspects was seen in video showing multiple ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and children demonstratively spitting on the ground in the direction of the Christian group and the church behind them as they began to exit the complex.
‘Missionaries go home!’ chant ultra-Orthodox Jews at ICEJ Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem A group of around 50 ultra-Orthodox Jews, mainly adolescent boys and children, came out to protest against the Israeli night of the International Christian Embassy’s Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem on Tuesday evening. The protesters were contained behind police barricades on a street corner opposite Jerusalem’s Pais Arena, where the IECJ holds its annual Feast of Tabernacles, the country’s largest annual Evangelical Christian event.
The numbers don’t lie: RFK Jr. would take votes away from Trump if he ran as an independent Given the intellectually honest assessment that RFK Jr., as an independent run, could never win the general election, it may annoy some people to accept his decision to run as an independent only carries one motive – to reduce the Trump vote. However, as much as you may not want to accept that reality, the data is clear – and it makes sense.
Strong M6.4 earthquake hits near the coast of Mindanao, Philippines A strong earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.4 hit near the coast of Mindanao, Philippines at 11:21 UTC on October 4, 2023. The agency is reporting a depth of 121.7 km (76 miles). EMSC is reporting the same magnitude and depth.
Severe storms bring giant hail and intense lightning to Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and Uruguay Late Tuesday, October 3, 2023, parts of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and Uruguay were struck by severe weather conditions that included giant hail and intense lightning. The hail ranged from “very large” to “giant”. Damage to homes, buildings, and infrastructure has been reported, although official estimates are not yet available. Further adverse weather conditions are forecasted for Wednesday.
Devastating flash flood in Sikkim’s Lachen Valley leads to deaths and widespread damage, India A cloudburst over Lhonak Lake in Sikkim, India, coupled with the release of water from Chungthang dam, triggered a rapid surge in water levels along the Teesta River basin at approximately 01:30 LT on Wednesday, October 4, 2023. The water levels soared to heights of 5 – 6 m (15 – 20 feet), resulting in significant infrastructure damage, at least three fatalities, and 23 individuals reported missing.
FDA Quietly Updates Emergency Use Authorization for Novavax Vaccine Despite No Current “Public Health Emergency” ….Yesterday, amidst the frenzy over the removal of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House, the Food and Drug Administration amended the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Novavax COVID-19 “vaccine” despite the Public Health Emergency officially ending almost five months earlier on May 11, 2023, according to the CDC. So how is the FDA seemingly able to approve an Emergency Use Authorization when, according to the CDC, there is no longer an emergency?
A 23-year-old was arrested for gun possession. It led the FBI to a global Satanic cult An arrest on gun possession charges in Queens, New York, in November 2021 has led the Federal Bureau of Investigation to a pedophilic, Satanist extortion cult that has victimized dozens if not hundreds of minors, according to law enforcement documents, court records and sources with knowledge of the investigation.
Supreme Court to consider Texas and Florida laws regulating social media platforms The Supreme Court on Friday said it would take up a pair of challenges involving controversial laws from Texas and Florida that impose new regulations on content moderation policies of social media companies, setting up a showdown over how far states can go to combat alleged censorship of users by online platforms.
We’re in the Middle of a Global Coup — Here’s How We Stop It In this interview board-certified internist and biological warfare epidemiologist Dr. Meryl Nass discusses the dangers posed by the World Health Organization’s upcoming pandemic treaty and the International Health Regulation (IHR) amendments. She also wrote about this in a recent article titled “The WHO’s Proposed Treaty Will Increase Manmade Pandemics.”
EV station charges electric vehicles by using diesel-powered generators because “renewable energy” can’t do it The Harris Ranch Tesla Supercharger station is an impressive beast. With 98 charging bays, the facility in Coalinga, California, is the largest charging station in the world. But to provide that kind of power takes something solar can’t provide – diesel generators. And it’s not the only EV station that relies on diesel to produce the power required to charge electric vehicles.
The WHO Power Grab Must Be Stopped – Our Silence is our Consent The 75th World Health Assembly adopted amendments to 5 articles of the International Health Regulations on May 27, 2022. The currently proposed amendments to the regulations are primarily designed to support the “Pharmaceutical” Hospital Emergency Industrial Complex (PHEIC) and will give the WHO power over worldwide health regulations that violate our human rights.
“Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)
Fellow Patriots, on this day in 1947, President Harry Truman gave the first televised White House address. In it, he encouraged Americans to conserve meat, poultry, and grain to assist Europe. Today, Bidenomics means we’re conserving meat, poultry, and grain because we can’t afford to buy more. —Mark Alexander
The Biden administration just paved the way for construction to begin again. What happened?
Nate Jackson
You know something? A border wall would be a good idea. That’s effectively the admission of … [checks notes] … the Biden administration.
“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Wednesday in an official filing in the Federal Register. To help this process along, the Associated Press notes that Mayorkas “waived 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow border wall construction,” including numerous environmental laws.
It was, the AP adds, “the administration’s first use of a sweeping executive power employed often during the Trump presidency,” and it’ll depend on money appropriated in 2019 while Donald Trump was still in office.
We can’t corroborate it, but we believe the AP’s reporter then fainted, and somewhere by a border fence, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez started uncontrollably sobbing.
During the Trump years, roughly 450 miles of border wall were erected. Though far from perfect, the problem of illegal immigration was far closer to being manageable than it had been or is now.
Just four years ago, a border wall was “racist.” During the 2020 campaign, Joe Biden promised, “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration.” On his first day in office, he issued a proclamation ending border wall construction while sanctimoniously declaring, “Building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.” In 2021, Mayorkas added, “We do not agree with a building of the wall.”
Team Biden even sued any Republican governors who dared continuing to set up border barriers. Administration lawyers are literally in court today trying to remove the floating barrier in the Rio Grande set up by the state of Texas.
The invasion that began in January 2021 and has exploded ever since was precisely Biden’s intent.
So why the sudden change of heart? The crisis has gotten so bad that Democrats in sanctuary jurisdictions are bitterly complaining and even declaring states of emergency. New York City Mayor Eric Adams is traveling to Mexico this week to tell would-be migrants not to come.
Biden’s ecofascist allies predictably started caterwauling about the wall. “It’s disheartening to see President Biden stoop to this level, casting aside our nation’s bedrock environmental laws to build ineffective wildlife-killing border walls,” said Laiken Jordahl at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It will stop wildlife migrations dead in their tracks. It will destroy a huge amount of wildlife refuge land. And it’s a horrific step backwards for the borderlands.”
You know who else it will stop? Human migrants, many with criminal records and intent. And as far as a “horrific step backwards,” let’s go back to the record to see what a few prominent Democrats said about building a border wall before it became politically advantageous to oppose it.
In 2006, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Chuck Schumer were among the 90 Democrats in both chambers who voted for the Secure Fence Act, which provided for 700 miles of physical barriers along the southern border. Obama said it would “help stem some of the tide of illegal immigration in this country.” They all said something similar about how important border security was.
Today, Democrats have the Leftmedia “fact-checkers” to debunk any comparison because the 2006 law was a fence not a wall and those are totally separate things.
Anyway.
Here’s President Joe Biden at least appearing to do something about the border crisis he created. Millions of illegals have come across the U.S. border since he took office, and most of them are still here. Stopping the flow is at least the first thing if not the most important thing that must be done. Reflexively doing the opposite of Donald Trump is the last thing Biden ought to be doing, though it’s been his guiding principle for three years. If that changes even a little, it’ll be a victory for America.
As the McCarthy dust begins to settle, Republicans now ponder what kind of party they want going forward.
Douglas Andrews
After a brief but predictable mainstream media freakout about the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republicans are now getting down to the business of naming their next speaker.
This isn’t to say that the media are finished freaking out yet. Indeed, get a load of this headline from The Amazon Washington Post: “Vote to oust McCarthy is a warning sign for democracy, scholars say.” The subhead, a quote from one of those esteemed “scholars,” was even more foreboding: “If you want to know what it looks like when democracy is in trouble, this is what it looks like.”
First, what would we do without “scholars”? Second, how rich is this faux concern, coming as it does from the very same Democracy Dies In Darknessers whose preferred political party voted unanimously to oust McCarthy? And third, what would be so awful about our too-big, too-profligate government grinding to a halt for a week or so? Would it kill us if instead of doing something, they all just stood there for a spell?
Matt Gaetz is the most hated man in Washington today, and he certainly bears responsibility for it. Stir up a Beltway hornet’s nest and that’s what you get. Even conservative stalwarts like Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin are incensed.
In a lengthy X woodshedding, necessarily excerpted, Levin wrote: “Let’s cut to the chase. Gaetz is a POS demagogue who repeatedly lied during the House floor debate yesterday, and then, of course, simultaneously was fundraising and collecting email lists on behalf of the people. … Gaetz said he’s sick and tired of deficit spending and pointed to the $33 trillion debt. I know of few conservatives who disagree. But what has he done about it? … The worst, to me, is Gaetz working with the Marxists in the Democrat Party, who are literally destroying our country politically, culturally, and every other way, then denying it, while accusing the former speaker of being the Democrats’ speaker, trashing Jim Jordan and Jamie Comer’s investigations, accusing Chip Roy of being a RINO, and not uttering one word against Hakeem Jeffries, AOC, or the rest of the reprobates.”
Still, once Levin and all the other huffers and puffers take a deep breath and get over the ugly way this went down, they’ll come to realize that, at least politically, there’s barely any breathing room between themselves and Gaetz, whose lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 91 speaks for itself. It’s not Jim Jordan’s 100, but still. What Gaetz and the other seven have done is rip off a Band-Aid. As one of them, Ken Buck, said shortly thereafter, “There were dozens more who would have voted for [McCarthy’s ouster] but didn’t need to. They didn’t need to stick their necks out. They didn’t need to make everybody in this town mad.”
Gaetz took the heat, which he surely knew was coming. But if the end result is a more effective, more conservative speaker, then his many critics of the Right will owe him a grudging measure of gratitude.
Moving on, and as we noted about the vacant speakership yesterday:
There are at least four candidates who’ve already emerged within the Republican caucus: Majority Leader Steve Scalise; House Majority Whip Tom Emmer; Republican Study Committee leader Kevin Hern; and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, who announced his bid this morning. Scalise, from Louisiana, has a lifetime ACU rating of 91 and is considered a natural frontrunner. His health is a consideration, though, as he was diagnosed earlier this year with multiple myeloma and has thus been undergoing aggressive chemotherapy. Emmer, whose lifetime ACU rating is a middling 80, comes from a contested district in Minnesota and would thus bring that reach-across-the-aisle perspective to the job. Hern, from Oklahoma, has a lifetime ACU rating of 98, leads the largest caucus within the Republican House, and is seen as having a good working relationship with both moderates and conservatives. And Jordan, the Freedom Caucus leader whose lifetime ACU rating is 100, would bring unmatched energy, toughness, and tenacity to the role.
Of these, Emmer is a non-starter. Too moderate. Kern is fascinating but unknown, and might ultimately be a sort of consensus pick between the more establishment Scalise and the more sharp-elbowed Jordan. Scalise is a good man, but his health must be a consideration. Which leaves Jordan, one of the founding members of the Freedom Caucus to which Gaetz belongs.
Asked about the “tyranny of the one,” the rule to vacate that cost Kevin McCarthy his speakership, Jordan told Fox News, “It is what it is.” Translation: Jordan thinks he can do the necessary blocking and tackling and relationship-building to keep such a rule from toppling him as speaker. He also says he made more phone calls yesterday than any other day in his life. Asked about whether he’s evolved over the years, he says he was fighting for the same things 10 or 12 years ago that he’s fighting for today. Which is good and right because folks who’ve been in and around the Swamp too long tend to develop a permanent case of Beltway Fever.
Asked about the battle ahead for Republicans, Jordan invoked Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s memorable quote from her State of the Union rebuttal: “The choice,” she said, “is between normal or crazy.”
A self-described free thinker and despiser of totalitarianism by the name of Cynical Publius had an insightful take on this whole speakership kerfuffle:
Let me explain why the ouster of Speaker McCarthy is a good thing. When Democrats are in power, they ruthlessly and aggressively pursue the agenda their voters elected them on, with a united front. When Republicans are in power, they immediately abandon the campaign promises they made, disregard the desires of their voters, and prioritize “comity” and “bipartisanship” while seeking to never anger the mainstream press that despises them anyway. As a result, when Democrats are in power we drive at warp speed into a totalitarian nightmare, whereas when Republicans are in power we drive at a slightly slower speed into a totalitarian nightmare.
This is good stuff. And It’s also an admonition: This time, let’s not opt for a go-along, get-along, fiscally conciliatory speakership. That’s the sort of thing that gets a nation $33 trillion in debt and puts its once-almighty dollar on the road to Palookaville.
Instead, this time, let’s elect a speaker who’s the Republican version of Nancy Pelosi — a committed conservative and fiscal adult who’s willing to break a few kneecaps eggs in order to make some five-egg constitutional omelets.
Trans Non-Parenthood: Pro-lifers long ago identified Planned Parenthood as not only merely abortion advocates and providers, but in fact practitioners of an abortion industry. Abortion for Planned Parenthood is about money. Similarly, with the “transgender” crusade, Planned Parenthood has been one of the leading advocates promoting the gender-bending of not only adults, but especially of children. “Transing the kids” is a growing revenue opportunity for Planned Parenthood. And the more children are convinced that they are gender dysphoric, the larger the revenue stream for Planned Parenthood. Which is why there are an increasing number of examples of children being “diagnosed” with gender dysphoria after just one visit to Planned Parenthood and almost immediately put on the gender-transition train. In fact, for some Planned Parenthood clinics, gender-bending services make up almost a fifth of their clientele. And these are repeat customers, which equates to more money.
More student loan games: Despite being shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court, Joe Biden is bound and determined to force socialism onto the American public in the form of his student loan “forgiveness” gambit. Strategically, he sees a voting block he needs to shore up, which is why his administration has been doggedly seeking to transfer billions of dollars in loan debt away from people who took out the loans and onto the backs of taxpayers. On Wednesday, Biden announced an additional $9 billion in student loan debt relief, which would help roughly 125,000 Americans. “This kind of relief is life-changing for individuals and their families, but it’s good for our economy as a whole as well,” Biden ridiculously claimed. “By freeing millions of Americans from the crushing burden of student debt, it means they can go and get their lives in order.” This move comes just days after the COVID-justified student loan repayment suspension finally ended.
A major healthcare strike begins: On Wednesday, 75,000 healthcare workers walked off the job, launching the largest healthcare strike in U.S. history. Roughly 60,000 of the Kaiser Permanente striking workers are in California. They are calling on the healthcare provider to supply more resources for their jobs, and they “want [Kaiser] to address the short staffing crisis.” Operation room surgical technician Joshua Barba believes the reason for the understaffing is deliberate. “The less people you have doing the same job, you are making more money,” he said. “You are charging the same to your patients, but you are not paying the labor to do so, right. So, it’s hard, we are burning out. We are quitting.” The strike is planned for three days.
“Tennessee Three” Dem sues: One of the infamous Tennessee Three Democrat state house lawmakers, Justin Jones, has filed a lawsuit against state House Speaker Cameron Sexton and other House officials over his expulsion earlier this year. Back in April Jones and his fellow Democrat lawmaker Justin Pearson were expelled from the assembly for breaking House rules when they led a group of protesters into the statehouse. Gloria Johnson was retained by one vote. Jones was subsequently reinstated after winning a special election, but he claims that the Republican-controlled legislature failed to follow due process, therefore infringing upon his rights. In reality, Jones is using this as yet another political gambit to push against a new rule aimed at punishing disruptive behavior that Republican Governor Bill Lee signed into law in August.
Commander gets the boot: Joe Biden’s German Shepard, Commander, who has bitten White House staff at least 11 times, has been removed from the residence. In announcing the dog’s removal, a White House official stated, “The President and First Lady care deeply about the safety of those who work at the White House and those who protect them every day.” The official added, “They remain grateful for the patience and support of the U.S. Secret Service and all involved, as they continue to work through solutions. Commander is not presently on the White House campus while next steps are evaluated.” Next up for removal: Joe Biden.
Tech CEO murderer should’ve been behind bars: Lava LaPere, a young tech CEO, was brutally murdered and found dead in her Baltimore apartment last week. The suspect for the crime is Jason Billingsley, a 32-year-old with a lengthy criminal record that includes a violent rape back in 2013. He pleaded guilty to first degree sexual assault of a 25-year-old woman, who he also attempted to strangle, and was given 14 years in prison, with an additional 16 years suspended sentence in 2015. Former Baltimore District Attorney Marilyn Mosby agreed to the deal. But Billingsley didn’t even serve 14 years, as he was released on parole in 2022 after just nine years behind bars. Billingsley is also a suspect in another violent rape and attempted murder that occurred two days before LaPere’s murder.
Headlines
Trump’s New York fraud trial grows testy on day three (The Hill)
State Department unveils official portrait of Hillary Clinton (National Review)
50,000 Venezuelans illegally crossed U.S. border last month, shattering previous record (Daily Wire)
Florida law allowing death penalty for child rapists goes into effect (Daily Signal)
‘Open category’ for transgender swimmers scrapped due to lack of interest at World Cup in Germany (Fox News)
Starbucks to close seven locations in downtown San Francisco during rampant crime surge (New York Post)
Jack Phillips to appear before Colorado Supreme Court for gender-transition cake case (National Review)
Humor: Nation votes to vacate all 535 seats of Congress (Babylon Bee)
Latest PodcastPopCon #16: Taylor Dates the Football StarTaylor Swift, America’s Sweetheart, has a new love interest — Travis Kelce, a two-time Super Bowl winner with the Kansas City Chiefs. She’s dating the football star for real, like a scene from her 2009 song “You Belong With Me.” Is this a genuine match, or an arrangement to result in Taylor’s next breakup album? Why is American culture so obsessed with these people anyway? We’ll dive into these questions and more.
The allegation that he betrayed his party and colleagues by not seriously going to budget war and shutting down the government is a grand distortion.
Star Parker
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley got to the heart of the government shutdown fireworks in her appearance on Fox News Sunday.
“Let’s be clear what the Freedom Caucus is really trying to do; they are trying to cut spending.”
That’s of course correct. One would be hard-pressed to find any Republican, Freedom Caucus member or not, who does not understand the gravity of the state of our federal budget and spending.
Unfortunately, now we have a small group of Republicans doing what liberals do — looking for whom to blame. You would think that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is personally responsible for $33 trillion in national debt and a $2.2 trillion deficit.
McCarthy is sent to do budget battles with his hands tied behind his back. The marching order regarding spending cuts is and has been that only on the table is discretionary spending.
Discretionary spending accounts for 27% of the federal budget.
Discretionary spending is funds that Congress has authority to appropriate annually. About half of it is the Defense budget. Given that our Defense spending is currently at a dangerously low level as a percent of GDP, it is, for practical purposes, also off the table.
So, what is left to target for spending cuts is miniscule in the grand scheme of things. The allegation that McCarthy betrayed his party and colleagues by not seriously going to budget war and shutting down the government is a grand distortion.
If we want to turn to reality, the real issue is what no one wants to talk about — the approximately 70% of the federal budget that is non-discretionary, which happens automatically.
The major non-discretionary items are interest on the federal debt and entitlement programs — the two largest being Social Security and Medicare.
Interest is a symptom rather than a cause. Interest rates, and hence interest expenditures, have been going up because of all the spending and the inflation that has resulted from this.
So, we wind up staring into the eyes of the elephants in the room.
Social Security and Medicare.
Even our champion of Make America Great Again, former President Donald Trump, has insisted that reform of Social Security and Medicare is off the table.
Federal spending is now around 25% of GDP. CBO projects it reaching 30% in 30 years. The average from 1962 to 2022 was 20.5%.
Most of the growth in that spending comes from interest, Social Security and Medicare.
We are a far different country today compared to when these programs were enacted — Social Security in 1936, Medicare in 1965.
The costs of Social Security, a retirement system, and Medicare, a health care payment system for the elderly, are driven by the percentage of elderly in the population. Lower birth rates, hence fewer children, and longer life spans means a higher percent of elderly and increasingly costly programs.
The median age in the U.S. in 1930 was 26.5. In 1960, it was 29.6. In 2021, it was 38.8.
Per a Cato Institute report, “unfunded obligations for Medicare and Social Security are equivalent to $650,000 for every U.S. household.”
Must our citizens take a beating with benefit cuts and retirement age increases? No.
We need to transform from tax-based government systems to market-based systems of ownership. Markets and ownership are what built our country. Our problems began when we start turning to government.
But major change takes courage and leadership. And in this we seem to be sorely lacking.
I invite those Republican members of Congress, so bent on dumping on Speaker McCarthy, who has done his job keeping the nation functioning and moving forward, to step out and speak to the nation regarding how they propose to reform Social Security and Medicare.
And I invite our Republican presidential candidates, including the one currently leading in the polls, to do the same.
When you’re famous, you believe that people should want your opinion. But casual divorce isn’t to be emulated.
Emmy Griffin
Celebrities from the glamour world of Hollywood or high fashion have a lot to say when it comes to marriage and divorce. They often give the worst advice and, sadly, there are some people who follow that advice.
They are at it again via a TikTok trend that glamorizes divorce.
For background, “Game of Thrones” actress Sophie Turner and pop star Joe Jonas are in the process of getting a divorce. Other famous personalities decided to chime in, ostensibly to make Sophie feel better about this. The most famous of these was model Emily Ratajkowski, who posted a video on social media saying that marriage was simply part of “being in the trenches” of your 20s — trying out that fantasy but still having your life ahead of you, and your own money, too.
This sparked a TikTok trend in which commenters posted about their divorce (or, in some cases, divorces) before their 30s. Any dissenting comment was silenced by these ladies, who asserted that Ratajkowski was only trying to destigmatize divorce. It was a sad and thinly veiled attempt to glamorize that which is actually heartbreaking. Divorce is sometimes merited (e.g., infidelity, abuse, or threats against life), but divorce for reasons like “we changed” or “we no longer love each other” is the worst kind because it denigrates what marriage is actually supposed to mean in the first place.
Miley Cyrus, child star and pop musician, is a perfect example of the latter case. She and her then-husband Liam Hemsworth got divorced essentially because she put her career above her relationship. Her exact words were: “The day of the show was the day I had decided that it was no longer going to work in my life to be in that relationship. That was another moment where the work, the performance, the character came first.”
What’s sad is that, in the case of Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas, they have two small children who are caught in the middle of this whole mess, and it’s starting to turn ugly. It is suspected that Jonas’s PR team is releasing statements to the press and starting rumors that Turner is a partier and an unfit mother, possibly in an attempt to win custody of their children and keep them in the states.
Celebrities giving advice on marriage and divorce is silly. The track record on most glitterati relationships speaks for itself. The problem, though, doesn’t necessarily lie with divorce. It lies with the fundamental misunderstanding of marriage. Marriage is not a “piece of paper.” It is a lifetime commitment to love, honor, and sacrifice for that one person. It is a covenant that literally means “a promise.” Breaking that promise because you are bored or because one of you has changed or because you see someone else you think you like better is bad. It is a comment on the moral character of that person under those circumstances, and it should be stigmatized.
Marriage has become a part of the larger cultural conversation because of a movement within the conservative wing asserting that men shouldn’t get married because they have more to lose in a divorce. Harkening back to Ratajkowski’s comments about getting the fantasy of marriage out of the way and then living the rest of your life with your own money seems to lend credence to this complaint. But this group of conservatives also contends that finding the “right person” is akin to winning the lottery, so men shouldn’t even try. This is baloney. Finding the right person means finding that person who shares your values and is serious in their commitments.
In conclusion, taking advice from those celebrities who are championing causes like early divorce is a recipe for disaster. All their money, fame, and wealth isn’t buying them stability or happiness; they are just able to lie about it better because they have PR teams at their disposal and more money than is good for them.
These glamazons are merely an exponentially more exaggerated expression of the culture at large, so it is both sad and interesting to see how they live. But it isn’t to be emulated.
The evangelical publication founded by the Reverend Billy Graham has drifted from its roots.
Thomas Gallatin
Christianity Today is a long-running evangelical Christian magazine that was founded in 1956 by the late, great evangelist Billy Graham. At the time of its founding, Graham envisioned CT as a magazine that would offer commentary on American culture from an explicitly evangelical Christian perspective. He wanted to “plant the evangelical flag in the middle of the road, taking the conservative theological position but a definite liberal approach to social problems.”
In its first issue, published on October 15, 1956, an editorial titled “Why ‘Christianity Today’?” explained: “Christianity Today has its origin in a deep-felt desire to express historical Christianity to the present generation. Neglected, slighted, misrepresented — evangelical Christianity needs a clear voice, to speak with conviction and love, and to state its true position and its relevance to the world crisis. A generation has grown up unaware of the basic truths of the Christian faith taught in the Scriptures and expressed in the creeds of the historic evangelical churches.”
In other words, the original aim of Christianity Today was to offer America and the wider world an accurate and historically faithful Christian perspective on culture and world events.
And throughout most of its history, CT, for the most part, sought to avoid presenting any explicit political opinions. The few exceptions were in 1974, when CT weighed in on the Richard Nixon scandal by suggesting that “the constitutional process should be followed,” yet observing, “If he is acquitted, the nation will have to wait out the term of a President whose ability to function has been seriously eroded.”
Again in 1998, CT printed an editorial prior on Bill Clinton’s impeachment to say that his “unsavory dealings and immoral acts” served to compromise his leadership.
But the most politically strident position CT took was following Donald Trump’s first impeachment, when CT’s chief editor Mark Galli asserted that Trump had used the office “to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit” his potential presidential opponent Joe Biden. Galli claimed that Trump’s action was “not only a violation of the Constitution,” but “more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.” Galli would leave CT not long after.
Following Galli’s anti-Trump take, many evangelical Christians took umbrage with CT, though the truth is CT has been drifting to the progressive Left for years. It merely took a polarizing figure like Trump for CT to more clearly expose this shift from conservative to liberal Christianity.
CT is far from the only conservative Christian organization to drift away from its original worldview and slide into liberalism. Indeed, like a boat in a lake, unless it is securely moored, it will invariably drift off.
For Christians, our anchor has always been Scripture, for it is by the Bible, God’s Word, that our faith and doctrine is established. The Bible does not change because God does not change, so as long as Christians hold fast and uncompromisingly to Scripture, they will be secure.
But of course, that’s exactly where the rub comes, the unbelieving world rejects Scripture, constantly challenging, dismissing, maligning, belittling, and mocking it. And when Christians are temped to become ashamed of the Bible because of its teaching on the nature of both God and mankind, what can result is a gradual abandonment of it. And what often results from this abandonment is an embrace of liberalism or even leftism, which offers a “Christianity” acceptable to the world because it is less offensive.
This liberal drift has plagued mainline Christian denominations for generations now. Almost all have them have become so overtaken by liberalism that there is almost no room for true biblically consistent Christianity.
At the root of this drift is often found a pride in human knowledge over that of biblical revelation. To believe in the Bible is viewed by many as embracing uneducated silliness and denial of reality. As noted above, the temptation is to bend to this pressure, to seek to find a way to not only find acceptance with the world, but even more boldly to seek to win the world’s embrace.
For CT, it appears that the temptation to gain wider acceptance with the world has been to become increasingly critical of conservative Christians, not merely over their political views, but more broadly in regards to their views on culture and society writ large.
Graham’s goal was to win people to Christ; to see souls saved for eternal life. Now, CT’s goal appears to be that of winning broader acceptance from the unbelieving world by agreeing with their liberal assessment that those Bible-thumping conservative Christians are the real problem holding back the nation from advancing into a more socially just society.
Editor’s Note: Each week we receive hundreds of comments and correspondences — and we read every one of them. Click here for a few thought-provoking comments about specific articles. The views expressed therein don’t necessarily reflect those of The Patriot Post.
‘Trans, Inc’ — Tucker Carlson talked to Chris Moritz about genital mutilation and the transgender issue.
KJP Tries to Blame DC Crime Spike on Republicans — “The president — unlike Republicans — has actually put forth billions of dollars,” Jean-Pierre said when asked about the carjacking of Democrat Henry Cuellar.
She Lied for His Cash — Pro baseball pitcher Trevor Bauer is cleared of a false sexual assault claim.
Lego My Planet — Based in Euro-weenie Denmark, Lego has spent years trying to do something that violates the laws of both nature and of man. Namely, it tried, and failed, to make Lego bricks out of recycled plastic.
“We’re grateful and relieved that the congressman [Henry Cuellar, who was carjacked at gunpoint] is unharmed. We understand what communities are going through across the country, not just in DC. That’s why the president took action very early on in his administration to get the American Rescue Plan done, without the help of Republicans. That’s why every time he puts forward his budget, he makes sure there are billions of dollars to deal with crime. That’s just a fact.” —White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
Belly Laugh of the Day
“That’s what the president’s gonna do. He’s gonna continue to figure out how we’re gonna lower costs for the American people. That’s Bidenomics.” —Karine Jean-Pierre
Upright
“America is not a country in decline, but under President Biden, we have been a country in retreat. The last time we saw this movie was in the 1970s when Jimmy Carter had us retreating from our values and retreating from hard work. Ronald Reagan restored our work ethic, and he inspired this nation.” —Senator Tim Scott (R-SC)
Kangaroo Courts
“It’s a tentative Western law that the punishment is supposed to fit the crime. And if you wanted to tell me that Trump should be fined a couple of million dollars for a pattern of exaggerating his assets, I don’t really think I’d have a big problem with that. If you want to tell me they should ruin a $2-3 billion real estate empire that’s done business for decades in New York and was regarded as an iconic business before Trump became a political enemy of Democrats, and now they’re trying to ruin this guy, over this? I think that’s way, way out of whack.” —Andrew McCarthy
For the Record
“It’s a good thing Merrick Garland never got that lifetime appointment as a justice on the Supreme Court. Perhaps some of the two-tiered justice Garland is meting out as attorney general for Joe Biden’s Social Justice Department is retribution for being denied that seat. Or perhaps he’s just proving to be unworthy of authority.” —Nate Jackson
Sad but True
“Trump defenders and apologists like to say the reason they support him is that he’s a ‘fighter.’ But even fighters are constrained by rules, like not hitting below the belt. Trump seems to spend all his time below the belt, and not just rhetorically, if you include his behavior with women and what he has said famous men (like himself) ought to be able to do to them.” —Cal Thomas
Re: The Left
“[Preferred pronouns] are only used to reinforce the lie that a person tells him or herself, and the preferred pronoun enforcer is denying physical reality. … There is a difference between being polite and going along with a lie. Forcing someone to lie in the name of politeness … is against many people’s religious and moral beliefs. In other words, it is a violation of religious liberty.” —Emmy Griffin
In 2009, it was a massive international affair that neared scandal when the US government, spearheaded by Barack Obama, pushed a $700 billion bailout to keep the American economy from tanking.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reacts to President Biden reversing his attitude on the border wall and slams the administration’s handling of the border crisis. #foxnews
A huge development involving the crisis on the southern border. The Biden administration has approved building a border wall in part of Texas. A health care strike hits several states affecting more than 30 hospitals. CBN News. Because Truth Matters™
“The more our officials, in gaslighting style, claim such alarm is all in our collective heads, the more they themselves are attacked by the very criminals their policies empowered.”
(Victor Davis Hanson – American Greatness) One common denominator that explains why previously successful societies implode is their descent into fantasies. A collective denial prevents even discussion of existential threats and their solutions.
Something like that is happening in the United States. Eight million illegal immigrants have entered the United States by the deliberate erasure of the southern border.
Apparently, the Biden administration sees some unstated advantage in destroying U.S. immigration law and welcoming in would-be new constituents.
Yet, the more the millions arrive, the more Joe Biden and his Homeland Security director Alejandro Mayorkas flat out lie that “the border is secure.” View article →
As the sun’s first light breaks through the darkness, I come before You with a heart filled with gratitude, but also a confession.
Lord, I confess that too often, I let worry and fear cloud my thoughts, forgetting to trust in Your unwavering love and wisdom.
Today, I cast my anxieties before You, knowing that You care for me.
“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
Father, I place my trust in You, for Your love never fails, and Your faithfulness is new every morning.
“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
Guide my steps, Lord, for I yearn to walk in Your ways.
I submit to Your wisdom and seek Your direction in every aspect of my life.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
May the words I speak and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, for You are my Rock and my Redeemer.
“May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”
Father, as I start this new day, I lean on Your love, grace, and guidance. I trust that You will make my path straight, filling it with purpose and meaning.
Help me to cast aside my worries, replacing them with unwavering trust in Your care.
31 Woe1 to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the LORD! 2 And yet he is wise and brings disaster; he does not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity. 3 The Egyptians are man, and not God, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD stretches out his hand, the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall, and they will all perish together. 4 For thus the LORD said to me, “As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey, and when a band of shepherds is called out against him he is not terrified by their shouting or daunted at their noise, so the LORD of hosts will come down to fight2 on Mount Zion and on its hill. 5 Like birds hovering, so the LORD of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it; he will spare and rescue it.”
6 Turn to him from whom people3 have deeply revolted, O children of Israel. 7 For in that day everyone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you.
8 “And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man; and a sword, not of man, shall devour him; and he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be put to forced labor. 9 His rock shall pass away in terror, and his officers desert the standard in panic,” declares the LORD, whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.
A King Will Reign in Righteousness
32 Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. 2 Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land. 3 Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention. 4 The heart of the hasty will understand and know, and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly. 5 The fool will no more be called noble, nor the scoundrel said to be honorable. 6 For the fool speaks folly, and his heart is busy with iniquity, to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning the LORD, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied, and to deprive the thirsty of drink. 7 As for the scoundrel—his devices are evil; he plans wicked schemes to ruin the poor with lying words, even when the plea of the needy is right. 8 But he who is noble plans noble things, and on noble things he stands.
Complacent Women Warned of Disaster
9 Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech. 10 In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women; for the grape harvest fails, the fruit harvest will not come. 11 Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and tie sackcloth around your waist. 12 Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine, 13 for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers, yes, for all the joyous houses in the exultant city. 14 For the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks; 15 until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. 16 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. 17 And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust4 forever. 18 My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places. 19 And it will hail when the forest falls down, and the city will be utterly laid low. 20 Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.
O Lord, Be Gracious to Us
33 Ah, you destroyer, who yourself have not been destroyed, you traitor, whom none has betrayed! When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betraying, they will betray you. 2 O LORD, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble. 3 At the tumultuous noise peoples flee; when you lift yourself up, nations are scattered, 4 and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers; as locusts leap, it is leapt upon. 5 The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness, 6 and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is Zion’s5 treasure. 7 Behold, their heroes cry in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly. 8 The highways lie waste; the traveler ceases. Covenants are broken; cities6 are despised; there is no regard for man. 9 The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is confounded and withers away; Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves. 10 “Now I will arise,” says the LORD, “now I will lift myself up; now I will be exalted. 11 You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble; your breath is a fire that will consume you. 12 And the peoples will be as if burned to lime, like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.” 13 Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge my might. 14 The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?” 15 He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil, 16 he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him; his water will be sure. 17 Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar. 18 Your heart will muse on the terror: “Where is he who counted, where is he who weighed the tribute? Where is he who counted the towers?” 19 You will see no more the insolent people, the people of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend, stammering in a tongue that you cannot understand. 20 Behold Zion, the city of our appointed feasts! Your eyes will see Jerusalem, an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent, whose stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of its cords be broken. 21 But there the LORD in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars can go, nor majestic ship can pass. 22 For the LORD is our judge; the LORD is our lawgiver; the LORD is our king; he will save us. 23 Your cords hang loose; they cannot hold the mast firm in its place or keep the sail spread out. Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided; even the lame will take the prey. 24 And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”; the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.
To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers2 and deacons:3
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving and Prayer
3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace,4 both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
The Advance of the Gospel
12 I want you to know, brothers,5 that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard6 and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. 14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word7 without fear.
15 Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. 16 The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
To Live Is Christ
Yes, and I will rejoice, 19 for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, 20 as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. 24 But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.
27 Only let your manner of life be worthy8 of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, 28 and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. 29 For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, 30 engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.
8:11a freshly-picked olive tree leaf The leaf must have come from a plant that had regrown to maturity after some time. Noah now knew that land had reappeared.[1]
Ver. 11.—And the dove came in unto him. Literally, to him. As the manner of doves is, partly for better accommodation both for food and lodging than yet he could meet with abroad, and partly from love to his mate (Poole). In the evening (of the seventh day). And, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. Not as if “Deo jubente, uno die germinavit terra” (Ambrose), but because the olive leaves kept green under water (Chrysostom). Rosenmüller, Lange, and Kalisch quote Pliny (xiii. 50) and Theophrastus (‘Hist. Plant.,’ iv. 8) to this effect. That the olive tree grows in Armenia is proved by the testimony of Strabo (xi. 575), Horace (Od. I. vii. 7), Virgil (Georg. ii. 3), Diodorus Siculus (i. 17), &c. On this point vide Kalisch. The leaf which the dove carried towards the ark was “taraf,” freshly plucked; hence rightly translated by “viride” (Michaelis, Rosenmüller) rather than by “decerptum” (Chaldee, Arabic) or “raptum” (Calvin). Κάρφος (LXX.) is just the opposite of “fresh,” viz., withered. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.[2]
[1] 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 (Ge 8:11). Lexham Press.
[2] Spence-Jones, H. D. M., ed. (1909). Genesis (p. 126). Funk & Wagnalls Company.
Jeremiah 4:22 — Take note of the phrasing “wise to do evil … to do good they have no knowledge.” This is in contrast to Paul in Romans 16:19 who wishes the Romans to be “wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.”
Jeremiah 4:23 — Where else have we read this? Genesis 1:2. God created the earth, and there will be a time when God will destroy the earth (Jeremiah 4:27).
Jeremiah 5:15 — Is it fair for God to use a wicked nation to judge His chosen people? It is just because God does it since He is just (Zephaniah 3:5). Paul speaks against those who make a “fair shew” (Galatians 6:12). Reminds us that “fair speeches deceive” (Romans 16:18), and Solomon says to believe not him who speaks “fair” (Proverbs 26:25).
Jeremiah 5:19 — The LORD says, “… as ye have forsaken me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours.”
How did it become their land? The LORD gave it to them (Genesis 12:7, Genesis 13:5, Genesis 13:7, Genesis 15:7, Genesis 15:18, Genesis 17:8, Genesis 24:7, Genesis 28:13, Genesis 35:12, Genesis 48:4, Exodus 6:4, Exodus 6:8, Exodus 12:25, Exodus 13:5, Exodus 13:11, Exodus 20:12, Exodus 32:13, Leviticus 14:34, Leviticus 20:24, Leviticus 23:10, Leviticus 25:2, Leviticus 25:38, Numbers 13:2, Numbers 14:8, Numbers 15:2, Numbers 20:12, Numbers 20:24, Numbers 27:12, Numbers 32:7, Numbers 32:9, Numbers 33:53, Numbers 34:13, Numbers 36:2, Deuteronomy 1:8, Deuteronomy 1:20, Deuteronomy 1:25, Deuteronomy 1:35, Deuteronomy 1:36, Deuteronomy 2:31, Deuteronomy 3:18, Deuteronomy 3:20, Deuteronomy 4:1, Deuteronomy 4:21, Deuteronomy 4:38, Deuteronomy 5:16, Deuteronomy 5:31, Deuteronomy 6:10, Deuteronomy 6:23, Deuteronomy 7:13, Deuteronomy 8:10, Deuteronomy 9:6, Deuteronomy 9:23, Deuteronomy 10:11, etc.) – well over 100 times God said He gave the land to them.
In the Book of Genesis, God swore to give them the land. In the rest of the Torah, God reiterates His covenant of the land. In Joshua, the gift is possessed. In the Historical books, we see the warning that they may be thrown out of the land.
The land would not be taken from them, but they would be taken from the land.
Jeremiah 5:25 — A great verse to memorize: “Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you.”
When we consider the activities and successes of the self-important who seem to be so carefree and uninhibited, it’s easy for our minds, our hearts, and eventually our lives to go off in the wrong direction.
We can relate to the psalmist’s angst when those who are so apparently opposed to God, to His word, and to anything that is morally right appear to flourish. They seem to do well financially. They seem to do well physically. They always look good. They travel in the right way. They use the right moisturizer. They look magnificent. Meanwhile, we’re trying to do the God thing, the Jesus thing—and nothing seems to go right. It can all feel so futile.
When he looked at the prosperity of the wicked, the psalmist began to entertain the idea that he had followed God in vain (Psalm 73:13)—until he adjusted his perspective:
“I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.
Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!” (Psalm 73:17-19)
As we learn to sit in God’s presence and have a view of this world that takes account of His divinity and our eternity, we come to understand, along with the psalmist, that there is a higher throne than all the thrones of this world. Justice will be served, though not in the courts of this world’s kingdoms, which will all be mere footnotes in history.
Do not become discouraged by those who seem to prosper unduly. Jesus Christ is King. He’s in charge of the great reversals, turning us from darkness to light, from sadness to joy, from death to life. God will achieve His purposes. He is holding you and guiding you—and, one day, you will stand with Him in glory (Psalm 73:23-24). There is nothing this world can offer that compares to Him and no reason to envy those who have everything here but nothing of ultimate value. When you are slipping into envy, look at Him, adjust your perspective, and say with the psalmist:
“Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:25-26)
“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” – Hebrews 11:6
The Heidelberg Catechism teaches, in Lord’s Day 24, the nature and reward of our good works. It begins with the fact that we are sinners. However, it continues by explaining that we do good which is rewarded. How can we do good? We can and must do good because we are renewed.
In Luke 6, Jesus teaches that a good tree bears good fruit. In Galatians 5, Paul talks about the rotten fruits of flesh and then he continues on and explains the fruit of the Spirit. Those who are grafted into Christ live through Him.
I knew a man who had an apple tree in his yard. Over the years, he had grafted four different kinds of apples onto that tree. Green, yellow and red apples testified to a very clear reality. That tree was not naturally that way. So too, it is with us. At the end of the day, we must conclude, but for the grace of God, what would we be? We are brought, supernaturally, to a position we are not in by nature. Praise be to God!
When we read a verse like Hebrews 11:6, we are both comforted and encouraged in the Christian walk. As you live in grace, seek to bear the fruits of righteousness.
Suggestions for prayer
Pray that the Lord would make you fruitful and diligent in your walk with Him. Ask the Lord to make His grace shine through you so that others may be won over to Christ.
Rev. Steve Swets was born and raised in NW Indiana. He graduated from Mid America Reformed Seminary in 2007, and he is currently the minister at Redeemer United Reformed Church in St. John, Indiana. Get this devotional delivered directly to your phone each day via our RP App. It is also available in print, for purchase, at NTGDevotional.com.
In every star that shines in the night sky and every flower that graces the earth, God’s power and majesty are on display. And for these reasons and more, God is worthy of our praise! Dr. Robert Jeffress explains why these truths should compel us to obey The First Commandment.
For those who might not have ever read the entire Bible from cover to cover, this article is a synopsis that follows the progression of main biblical events that comprise our Heavenly Father’s plan for humanity. Of course, there are many details to these biblical events that are best attained by reading the Bible cover to cover. Our Heavenly Father’s plan for humanity is also known as His “Week of Creation.” A “week” being seven millenniums (2 Peter 3:8; Psalm 90:4).
Before Almighty God created the earth, He had created the angels. Job 38:4-7 tells us that when God laid the earth’s foundation, the angels “shouted for joy.”
A third of the angels rebelled against their creator and became fallen.
Almighty God, the Holy One of Israel, the Creator, spoke all things into existence through His Son Jesus at least 4,000 years before Jesus came to earth in a human body (John 1:1; Genesis 1:1).
God, who is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, created the entire universe and everything in it. Suns, moons, stars, planets, solar systems, galaxies, nebula, black holes and everything else found in outer space, as well as the earth and everything on the earth (Genesis 1:1).
Animals of all kinds, birds that fly through the air, fish that swim in the oceans and rivers. He created all living creatures of every kind. He also created all of the elements such as gravity, an atmosphere full of air to breathe, and every other mineral and atomic component that allows living beings to exist comfortably and hold the universe together.
Our Heavenly Father is the all-time master chemist.
He created first Adam and then Eve in His own image and bestowed upon them free will (Genesis 2).
He created many fruit-bearing trees in the Garden of Eden to sustain Adam and Eve but instructed them not to eat of a certain tree in the midst of the garden called the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil because if they did eat of it, they would surely die” (Genesis 3).
The fallen angel called Lucifer took the form of a snake and tempted Eve, saying, “If you eat of this fruit, you will not surely die but rather, you will be like God and know good and evil.”
Lucifer was calling God a liar, and Eve believed him.
She shared the temptation with Adam, and together, of their own free will, they ate of the fruit.
Symbolically speaking, Pandora’s Box was opened, and evil began to leak out and then spill out and engulf the earth as the now fallen human population multiplied and grew until over one and one-half days of God’s “Week of Creation” had passed.
Wickedness and evil became so prevalent (partly due to the influence of the fallen angels) on the earth during this time that God decided to start over (Genesis 6:6-8).
About 1,600 years had passed since God created Adam. A little more than a day and a half of God’s “Week of Creation.”
God made a covenant with Noah to build an ark that took Noah and his sons 120 years to complete. Then God flooded the earth. Only Noah and his wife, his three sons and their wives, and two of each kind of animal that God led onto the ark survived to repopulate the earth in this new beginning.
Although Noah and his family were chosen by God, their genetics from fallen humans were imperfect.
It seems that the fallen human nature has a very hard time resisting evil, and as the years passed and new generations multiplied, wickedness once again reared its ugly head.
Lucifer, in his never-ending efforts to place himself above his creator, inspired some wicked humans to attempt building a tower to the highest parts of heaven. It was known as the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9).
God nipped that project in the bud by causing them all to speak in different languages and scattering them all over the earth.
Meanwhile, humans continued to multiply, and so did wickedness.
Human propensity to embrace evil led to God calling Abraham to become the father of a nation that would be called Israel. God planned to reveal Himself to and through the Israelites. Abraham’s wife Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Isaac’s son Jacob had twelve sons. God changed Jacob’s name to Israel. His sons became the fathers of tribes, and the nation of Israel was formed; yet, at this point, they still had no permanent land of their own.
Unfortunately, The nation of Israel began a pattern of drifting back and forth between obedience to God and rebellion, from its earliest inception as the tribes of Israel multiplied.
Looking for a place to call their own, the Israelites came into Egypt where they became enslaved for 400 years, until being freed by God through Moses and ten astonishing supernatural miracles to convince the Pharaoh of Egypt to let God’s people go.
The way of their escape led them through the miraculously parted waters of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:22).
After they were freed from bondage in Egypt, the Israelites spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness, sustained by manna from heaven and water that miraculously flowed out of rocks. After 40 years, when the younger generation had been raised up, minus the slave mentality, God gave the Israelites the land He had promised them. The same land we now know as modern Israel.
It was also in this time period that Moses received the Ten Commandments from our Heavenly Creator atop Mt. Sinai. Moses stood in the holy presence of God, who, as he had earlier in Exodus 3:14 (when He had first called upon Moses to free the Israelites from bondage to the Egyptian Pharoah), identified Himself to Moses as “I am that I am.”
God continued to reveal Himself to fallen humanity by doing miracles for and through the Israelites.
There were many struggles in establishing the nation of Israel in the land known as the Promised Land; however, eventually, the Israelites began to flourish as a nation.
God also, at this time, began to raise up a unique and select few Holy Spirit-led individuals that He called prophets.
The time of King David and his son, King Solomon, was and is still considered the golden era of Israel.
As the centuries rolled by, those Holy Spirit-led God-chosen individuals known as prophets had been prophesying.
The prophets detailed events that would occur in their own lifetimes, the more distant future, like the 1st advent of the Messiah, and the far distant future, like the 2nd coming of the Messiah and the times we live in this very day.
The prophets prophesied about the future regarding the nation of Israel itself and the future revealing the coming of a Messiah that would reconcile Israel and all nations and peoples back to God.
The prophets spoke of this Messiah coming to earth on two separate occasions and in two different epochs.
Hundreds of years before Jesus appeared on earth for the first time, over 300 prophecies about Him were made by prophets that lived hundreds of years apart from each other. Jesus fulfilled every single prophecy.
The first advent of Jesus saw Him come to earth as the Lamb of God. The “Only Begotten Son of God,” born to an Israelite virgin named Mary, by the conception of the Holy Spirit.
God’s only begotten son, Jesus, had supernatural powers to do miracles, overcome death, and forgive sins.
After three and a half years of ministry that saw Jesus spread the good news of God’s eternal kingdom and healing all manner of afflictions, raising the dead to life, and speaking words of great wisdom like no one before or after Him have ever spoken, Jesus did the most amazing thing of all.
He allowed the God-haters of that time and the jealous religious hypocrites (Pharisees) to convince the Romans to crucify Him on a cross at a place called Calvary.
As the sinless Lamb of God, hanging on that cross, He took upon Himself the punishment for all of the sins of everyone past, present, and future, and that includes you and me. He did this to reconcile any and all who believe in Him back to our Heavenly Father (John 3:16-17).
“For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Many of the 300 or so prophecies, made hundreds of years before Jesus spoke of these exact things (Isaiah 53:5-12; Leviticus 17:11; Isaiah 9:6-7; Deuteronomy 21:23; and Peter 2:24 (which explains the fulfillment of Deuteronomy 21:23) are just a few of the many prophecies that came to pass.
The 2,400 years that passed between the flood of Noah’s time and the appearing of Jesus Christ the Messiah, along with the 1,600 years from Adam to the flood, at this point equaled four days of God’s “Week of Creation.”
The next two days of creation leading up to the present time we live in is often referred to as the “Age of Grace.”
These two full days of creation are described as the time to fulfill the great commission given to His disciples by the Messiah Himself. In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus says to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Two thousand years or two days of God’s “Week of Creation,” known as the “Age of Grace,” have been blessed by God to bring the gospel, the good news of salvation by grace, to the ends of the earth.
When that has been accomplished, it brings us to the end of six days of God’s “Week of Creation.”
There are even more prophecies by those Holy Spirit-led Prophets of God concerning what is referred to as the “end times” or the “last days” and the 2nd coming of Jesus than prophecies about the 1st coming of Jesus.
Those who study prophecy today, they who allow the Holy Spirit to do the leading, can see by the signs of our times, as given by Jesus Himself, that we are in those last days.
We are right now at the very end of the sixth day when two prophesied events are about to take place, just before the seventh day of creation in God’s “Week of Creation” can officially begin.
The first is revealed in 1Thessilonians 15-17 and the second in 2Thessalonians 2:3. These two scriptures describe two things that happen at the same time. One is the Rapture of the remnant church, and the other is the removal of the restrainer so that the “antichrist” can be revealed. It is the Holy Spirit that guides the lives and beliefs of true born-again believers, and it is the Holy Spirit who restrains the forces of evil. The great “catching away, and the removal of the “restrainer” also dovetails with the great “falling away” of the church prophesied to happen in the last days.
Once these amazing events happen, the “antichrist” will be revealed and be instrumental (peace treaty with Israel) in opening the doors officially to a seven-year period that precedes the beginning of God’s seventh day of creation, which will be the last day in God’s “Week of Creation.”
This seven-year period following the rapture and the removal of the restrainer is known mainly by these three titles: “The Seven Year Tribulation,” “The Time of Jacob’s Trouble,” and “the 70th Week of Daniel.”
It will be a time when that ugly thing called evil will gush and rush like the foulest of raging rivers and will reach its apex of destructiveness.
This will bring about the long-prophesied wrath of God upon Satan/Lucifer and all of his God-hating Christ-rejecting minions as the judgments revealed in the Book of Revelation are released upon the world.
At the end of the Tribulation, aka “the Terrible Day of the Lord,” Jesus will return to the earth in great glory and supernaturally put an end to the madness of evil and an end to the wrath of God.
At that point will begin the seventh and last day of “God’s Week of Creation.” A thousand years of peace on earth with Jesus as King, ruling the world justly from the holy city of Jerusalem.
The “antichrist” and his false prophet, who together had deceived millions of people, will have been banished by Jesus to the Lake of Fire. Satan will have been chained up in a bottomless pit (Revelation 20:1-3).
Near the very end of the thousand-year final day of creation, Satan will be released temporarily to test the loyalties of those who have been born into mortal bodies as the progeny of the tribulation survivors. This one last rebellion will be short-lived, and then Satan will also be banished to the Lake of Fire.
Then comes the White Throne Judgment, where everyone who ever lived in the “Week of Creation” who embraced evil and/or rejected God’s amazing grace and free offer of salvation, will stand before the Judgment seat and accept the punishment for their sins.
These are all those who chose, by their own free will, to receive the perfect justice of God rather than the bountiful mercy of God.
Then they, too, will join Satan/Lucifer, the “antichrist” and his false prophet, and all of the fallen angels, as well as all lovers of and unrepentant doers of evil, in the Lake of Fire.
So many warnings along the way such as, “The day you eat of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, you will surely die” and “the wages of sin is death.” Also, much of the Book of Proverbs.
It is not God’s will that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9).
Though God provided a way to Eternal Life through repentance of sin and belief in His Son, many instead (when it is all said and done) will have chosen to believe in the lies of the evil one. As a result, they will perish into the Lake of Fire.
The seventh day of God’s “Week of Creation” at that time will be over, and God will then create a new Heavens and a new Earth.
In Isaiah 65:17, God declares: “For behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind.”
In the new Heaven and the new Earth, there will be no evil. No evil at all, zero evil. Think of it: all who choose to believe in Jesus and accept God’s grace upon your life, an eternity without even the slightest trace of that horrid thing called evil.
God’s Week of Creation. Seven millenniums. From being tempted by evil to realizing evil is no good and we are all far better off without it.
The Bible in a Nutshell…
Praise you, Holy God, my Creator, my Heavenly Father. Praise you, my Lord and Savior, my most Precious Jesus. Praise you, Holy Spirit, my most Wonderful Companion. Praise you Now and for all Eternity.
Understanding a word or Biblical turn of phrase can sometimes be difficult. The meaning of a particular text isn’t always apparent until we discover the potentially ill consequences of applying an unintended meaning. When we were young, married, and preparing to go somewhere, Joy might look at me and say, “You’re not wearing that, are you?” Now, that might sound like a question requiring a yes or no answer, but really, there is always only one correct answer. In this context, I discovered it wasn’t a question but rather a statement. “You’re not wearing that.” In my youthful inexperience, it may have sounded like a question, but no, not really. Communication can be fraught with landmine misunderstandings that need to be skillfully navigated.
Words have a range of meanings. For example, even the word we just used, “range,” has a complete spectrum of uses and meanings. It might be an open prairie (Home, home on the range…), a stove with a built-in oven, a series of mountains in sort of a row, and more.1See Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary under “Range” The problem can be compounded when we add figures of speech such as metaphors, similes, etc. We find such a wide range of usages in the Scriptures, though thankfully, many can be easily sussed out. In John 10:7, Jesus said He is the “door to the sheep,” but of course, He didn’t mean He was a piece of wood with hinges hanging in an opening. Shepherds in that day would lay in the opening of the sheep pen at night to protect the sheep from wolves, bandits, and even from wandering off into danger.
Two of the most abused passages of Scripture in the New Testament occur in the book of Matthew, in a fairly lengthy section beginning in Matthew 5 and ending in Matthew 7. In context, the speaker is Jesus, Who was a Jewish rabbi – and the Messiah – speaking to a Jewish audience – who likely had pretty good knowledge of the Old Testament scriptures. In Matthew 7:1a we read:
Judge not, that you be not judged.
This seems to be a favorite verse of people who know the least about the Bible. We often hear that verse quoted by those who have no idea about reading God’s Word in its historical-grammatical context and perhaps know nothing of Scripture period, but use that verse in pseudo justification of certain behaviors they may engage in. “You’re judging me,” they judgmentally assert. As we read on in the text, we find quite a different meaning altogether:
Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)
Jesus is telling them not to judge hypocritically or unfairly. We’d have a hard time living very long if we did not judge at all. Is it safe to cross the street now? Might that scary dog bite me? Is my mother-in-law within earshot? No, the point is to refrain from using a double standard in our judgment, to condemn another too harshly for some practice we might even engage in ourselves, which we must admit is frightfully easy to do. Obviously, it is far better to have good judgment than no judgment at all! It is a good thing we generally don’t personally enjoy the power to punish other people for their misdeeds or even perceived slights – and an even better thing, from our perspective, is that most do not have that power over us. How many people would wake up tomorrow? Better to personally leave consequences to the Lord. And why it is vitally important for earthly government to be good and fair also. Yet, of course, we must judge good from bad, safe from unsafe, and right from wrong in our personal lives. It is foolish to think otherwise.
The Lord makes an interesting statement in verse 6 that seems to be missed by many:
Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. (Matthew 7:6)
Leon Morris helps us here in The Pillar New Testament Commentary:
This little section is peculiar to Matthew. It is perhaps put here as the opposite extreme to what has occupied us in the preceding verses: there Jesus dealt with the error of being too harsh in judging those who ought not to be judged, here with that of being too lax in giving what is holy to dogs.2Leon Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1992), 167
This is fairly simple. Be fair in your judgments, applying the same standards to yourself and others. In addition, don’t go to the opposite extreme and ignore or even encourage sinful behavior. The Lord reiterates and encapsulates these concepts just a few verses later in Matthew 7:12. You know, the Golden Rule passage:
So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
The Law and the Prophets were the standard by which all will be judged. More importantly, as J. Gresham Machen pointed out in Christianity and Liberalism, Jesus wasn’t handing down ethical standards:
The Golden Rule becomes a powerful obstacle in the way of moral advance. But the trouble does not lie in the rule itself; it lies in the modern interpretation of the rule. The error consists in supposing that the Golden Rule, with the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, is addressed to the whole world. As a matter of fact the whole discourse is expressly addressed to Jesus’ disciples; and from them the great world outside is distinguished in the plainest possible way. The persons to whom the Golden Rule is addressed are persons in whom a great change has been wrought, a change which fits them for entrance into the Kingdom of God. Such persons will have pure desires; they, and they only, can safely do unto others as they would have others do unto them, for the things that they would have others do unto them are high and pure.3Machen, J. Gresham. Christianity and Liberalism (p. 58). E4 Group. Kindle Edition
This section is about judging rightly, living holy, and closely guarding what the Lord has given to His people. Jesus then gives yet another warning on, of all things, the subject of judging:
Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. (Matthew 7:15)
The text of Matthew 7:15-27 was a warning to the Messiah’s followers to be on guard for false prophets. Obviously, it requires judging whether said prophet is a true or false prophet. Being Jewish, His followers all had commonly understood definitions for the term “false prophet,” which are contained in the Hebrew Scriptures. In Deuteronomy 13:1-5 a false prophet was one who may have even made true predictions concerning the future – but led their followers to false gods and practices. In Deuteronomy 18:20-22, a false prophet was one who made even one false prophecy. In the Old Testament, living in a Theocracy (ruled directly by God), false prophets were to be stoned to death! It was a necessarily harsh sentence to protect God’s people from turning from the true God and to false gods and false teachings and practices. In the New Testament era, we no longer live in a Theocracy, yet false prophets are to still be publicly exposed and avoided.
Still referring to false prophets, the Lord continues:
You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? (Matthew 7:16)
A key word in this passage is the metaphor “fruits.” Quite often, we find folks going to Galatians 5:22-23 and confusing the fruits here in Matthew 7 with the fruits of the Spirit. At the time Jesus spoke the words in Matthew, not a single page of the New Testament had been penned – much less used as a test for discerning if someone is a false prophet. In fact, Jesus pointedly stressed that outward appearance is not the test. False prophets would be dressed in “sheep’s clothing,” looking for all the world as a man of God would be expected to look. The false teachers would look like true believers and seemingly fit right in, which is why it was essential to hold their teachings up to the test of truth. The “fruit” referred to in Matthew 7:16-20 are the prophetic utterances and core teachings on the nature of God. Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that Jesus was created as Michael the Archangel, ceased to exist, and was recreated as Jesus. Mormons teach that Jesus was born on another planet and was a man who became a god. In Matthew 7:21-23, He goes on to point out that simply because they use His name and even do seemingly miraculous stuff, they are still false prophets and must be “outed” and avoided. The Lord tells His people what the end of all such false prophets will be:
And then I will declare to them, ‘”I never knew you; depart from Me, You who practice lawlessness.”
We have written on this before, but the misapplication of these verses is so widespread these days we don’t feel it overkill to point it out again today. We are not to judge people based upon whether they look like believers, or use similar language, or seem “nice” since false prophets can easily mimic those things. We must, however, identify and call out false prophets and false teachers by carefully examining the teachings of whoever comes to us “in sheep’s clothing” in light of what the scriptures teach, rightly divided. Has there ever been a time when this was more important?Ω
Carl Kirby is an author and co-founder of Reasons for Hope; he was first introduced to apologetics by two pilots after he’d told them evolution was compatible with the Bible, which is what he’d been taught in Sunday school. These men pulled out their Bible and showed him that what the WORLD taught wasn’t the same as what the WORD taught. With 50% to 88% of the younger generation raised in the church leaving the church by the age of 18, Carl’s desire is for them to KNOW what they’re walking away from. This can only happen if they’re able to critically think and evaluate arguments so they can determine truth.
“The more our officials, in gaslighting style, claim such alarm is all in our collective heads, the more they themselves are attacked by the very criminals their policies empowered.”
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