“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell

End of year holiday blog break

Merry Christmas 🎄🎁 and happy new year 🎊🎈🎆

What is Christmas? This article shows the surprising connection between Christmas and the creation of the world.

https://answersingenesis.org/christmas/what-is-christmas/

December 22 Morning Verse of The Day

20:29 Though they have not seen the risen Christ, readers of the Gospel of John may yet believe because John, by aid of the Holy Spirit, has written the truth about God’s Son.^[1]

20:29 This verse includes Jesus’ last beatitude in John’s Gospel. Thomas did not need to touch Jesus. It was sufficient that he saw, and, therefore, he believed. Jesus pronounces blessings on those who have exercised faith, yet never saw Him as He was seen by people like Thomas. Peter may have had these words in mind when he wrote, “whom having not seen you love” (1 Pet. 1:8).^[2]

20:29 Blessed are those who have not seen. While commending Thomas’s faith, Jesus blesses those who will come to believe through the witness of the disciples (17:20; cf. 1 Pet. 1:8, 9). This blessing introduces the reason for the writing of the Gospel (vv. 30, 31).^[3]

20:29 have not seen and have believed Refers to people—like John’s audience, and believers today—who have not seen the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes (see note on 2:11; note on 14:11; compare 9:38).^[4]

20:29 Jesus foresaw the time when such tangible evidence as Thomas received would not be available. When Jesus ascended permanently to the Father, all those who believe would do so without the benefit of seeing the resurrected Lord. Jesus pronounced a special blessing on those who believe without having Thomas’ privilege (1Pe 1:8, 9).^[5]

20:29. Jesus gave only a small number of people (about 500, 1 Cor 15:6) the privilege of seeing Him bodily after His resurrection. Most who believe do so without benefit of such direct revelation. Thomas and the others saw and heard, and thus their eyewitness testimonies have benefitted many people since then (John 20:30; 21:24–25; 1 John 1:1–3).^[6]

20:29 The important thing to notice is that Jesus accepted worship as God. If He were only a man, He should have refused it. But Thomas’ faith was not the kind that was most pleasing to the Lord. It was belief based on sight. More blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

The surest evidence is the Word of God. If God says a thing, we honor Him by believing it; but we dishonor Him by demanding additional evidence. We should believe simply because He said it and because He cannot lie or be mistaken.^[7]

29. Jesus said to him, Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are they who, though not seeing, are yet believing. There was nothing wrong with the words of the confession which Thomas uttered. There was something wrong with the manner in which he reached this level of faith. He should have believed even apart from sight. For the benefit of those who would come to believe in him in the years that were to follow, Jesus now says, “Blessed are they who, though not seeing, are yet believing.” Faith which results from seeing is good; but faith which results from hearing is more excellent. This is the clear lesson of Scripture throughout; see, for example, Matt. 8:5–10; John 4:48; Rom. 10:14; and 1 Peter 1:8.^[8]

Ver. 29. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen Me thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen yet have believed.—

Who is blessed?:—Thomas’s conduct was strange but honest. How much better to be doubting Thomas than the believing priests! They believed the resurrection, or they would never have given to the soldiers the price of a lie. They believed, but they would not believe. Thomas doubted, but would gladly have believed. In the matter of faith and unbelief men may be divided into four classes.

I. Those who will not believe even what they see. Such were the men who apprehended our Lord. Not one of them in his past life had fallen, or seen another fall, at a word. But now they all fall. Yet they apprehend the mysterious Man, just as if nothing special had occurred. Such was Pharaoh. What evidence will ever convince him that he had better let Israel go? But nothing less than ruin will convince him. Such was Ahaziah (2 Kings 1). More sad and shocking still, perhaps, is the case of Stephen’s judges. Whether the accused be like an angel or a fiend, matters little or nothing to the Sanhedrim. Yes; there is a class of men like Solomon’s fools, whose folly will not leave them, though they be brayed in a mortar; men who can hear nothing softer than thunder, who can feel nothing lighter than vengeance.

II. Those who believe only when they see. To this class Thomas for a time belongs, and Abraham and the apostles Our Lord, in the plainest words, and more than once, had said that He should rise on the third day. Who believed it? To this class, of course, belong the men of the world. One can hardly draw a line between saint and worldling so strong and so clear as this. The worldling trusts in himself, or his friends, or his wealth, or his stars; the saint trusts in God.

III. Those who have not seen, and yet have believed. Without this faith it is impossible to please God. Without faith a man may be a logician, a mathematician, a general, a man of business; but by what possibility can he be a child of God? Take faith from the earth; let everything be done by sight; let the consequence of every action be immediate and irresistibly evident; and what is left but calculation and business, time-tables and statistics? Life has become a counting-house, in which all we want is a sharp eye and a strong hand. With faith has gone every high and holy feeling—all patience, courage, largeness of heart. The believer is every way blessed. 1. He has the best moral education which even the All-wise can give him. What better exercise than to rise from the seen to the unseen? Who can be more noble than he who, in the very sunshine of prosperity, refuses to trust flattering appearances, or even flattering facts? And of all brave men is not he the bravest who, in the darkest and saddest hours, maintains an unflinching trust in the God who hides Himself? 2. He wins an infinite prize. Eternal life is the goal of faith. Do we want an example of steady faith? See it in Noah, who for one hundred and twenty years built the ark. How the faith shines through the long, slow years!

IV. Those who believe not only without but against appearances—as Abraham when commanded to offer Isaac, and Job when he said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,” and the three Hebrew children. (W. J. Frankland.)

The blessedness of faith:—

I. Religious privilege now under the common grace of the gospel is greater than that possessed by those who companied with Christ in the flesh. This is the case as regards—1. The evidences of Christ’s Godhead and Divine Apostlate. At first sight it would seem impossible that any evidences should transcend that accorded to Christ’s contemporaries. Yet against this was the constant presence of the Lord’s manhood, which must have been fruitful in misgivings. But this wellspring of incredulity is now sealed. We know not Christ after the flesh. When we connect this with the moral effects of Christianity, the testimony of millions to Christ’s power to bless and save, it is clear that a return to the Apostle’s position would be a loss. 2. The substance of Christian truth. The multitudes to whom Christ spake in parables had no pre-eminence over ourselves; for they were left in ignorance of much that Christ taught His disciples. But these disciples were left in ignorance of many things they were not able to hear until the descent of the Spirit, and all the fruits of their subsequent inspiration we enjoy. 3. The prime grace of the gospel, the knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins. Here, perhaps, more than anywhere, we are apt to draw unfavourable contrasts. Could we but bring our spiritual pollution to where the leper knelt! The music of that word “forgiven,” uttered by Christ’s own lips—did that but fall upon our ears! But are we sure that if Christ were upon earth we should be inclined to seek Him? That the same hindrances of shame, worldliness, &c., would not still operate? And then why should the utterance of Christ’s own lips be more satisfactory than the inward witness of the Holy Spirit? But in two respects one privilege is immeasurably higher. (1) We understand better than they did the way of salvation by Christ. (2) Christ is accessible to us, as He was not to the bulk of mankind then. 4. The comparative means for obtaining a perfect preparation for eternal life. (1) The aids incentive to holiness with which Christ’s attendants were privileged were transcendently great. Think of His teaching on the character of God, the evil of sin, the excellence of religion; His miracles; the moral force of His example. (2) Yet we may easily over-estimate this privilege. It was not of itself, and as a matter of course, an instrument of salvation, as the case of Judas makes only too clear. (3) Besides, the disciples had no such opportunity of securing holiness as we have, for the Holy Spirit was not given till Jesus was glorified.

II. In accordance with the general principles upon which God governs His creatures, it is better that we are called to live for a while by faith and not by sight. 1. Inward satisfaction in the service of God is in proportion to the difficulties of the service. Were it not for the renunciation of the world, the crucifixion of self, the wrestling with evil, which go hand in hand with the return of a sinful spirit to God, there would be little of that joy which come so often with the first revelation of Christ. If evangelical truth in its sublimer mysteries were accessible to every vagrant aspiration, how poor a harvest of Divine delight would they furnish compared with that now yielded to the toilsome husbandry of thought and devotion! And when we pray, and labour, find peace, thereby we owe it to the spiritual hindrances which block our approach to God and to outward pressure and trial. 2. A life of faith is fitted to produce a symmetry and perfection of Christian character such as could scarcely come by a less trying process. Those Christians are the wisest, and meekest, and most spiritual to whom the largest share of providential trouble has fallen, and the perfecting of the Church for the duties of time and for the felicity and services of heaven is only to be secured under the operation of faith in the unseen Saviour. Were the presence which faith imposes lifted off the Church, pride would take the place of humility, and self-worship consecration to Christ, and hardness charity. 3. The ultimate rewards of creatures like ourselves are determined by the severity of the ordeal which constitutes moral probation. If there be creatures whose final estate is determined apart from probation, we can hardly imagine them possessors of a blessedness comparable to those who have suffered and so are perfected. There is not a good, even of this world, the fruits of pains and trouble, which is not the sweeter from the price we pay for it.

III. The text has other significant aspects. 1. Towards Christian belief. It shows a strong shadow on millinarianism. Whatever advantage such a state of things might be supposed to confer on the Church, on the principle of the text it would be a diminution, not a heightening, of its present privilege. 2. Towards Christian sentiment and observance. It distinctly frowns upon all interposition of the material and human between God in Christ and our souls. The entire genius of Christianity is hostile to religious symbolism, and the history of the Church utters a strong caution against the use of sense as a helpmate to faith. Faith needs it not. It is impious to set up Moses’ candlestick again now that the Sun has risen. 3. Towards Christian character and life. (1) It rebukes the spirit of religious discontent and envy. (2) It suggests the greatness of our religious obligation as Christians. (3) It opens a glorious prospect of blessing from God as the recompense of faith. (J. D. Geden, D.D.)

A simple faith:—A peasant of singular piety, being on a particular occasion admitted to the presence of the King of Sweden, was asked by him what he considered to be the nature of true faith. The peasant entered fully into the subject much to the King’s comfort and satisfaction. When the king was on his death-bed he had a return of his fears as to the safety of his soul, and still the same question was perpetually put to those around him, “What is real faith?” The Archbishop of Upsal, who had been sent for, commenced in a learned and logical manner a scholastic definition of faith, which lasted an hour. When he had finished, the king said, with much energy, “All this is ingenious, but it is not comfortable; it is not what I want. Nothing but the farmer’s faith will do for me.” (J. Everett.)

Faith and sight:—

I. Sight without faith—sin. 1. Ancient—the sin of the Jewish people. 2. Common—the sin of many now. 3. Great—since that which in Christ is presented to the eye of faith and reason ought to lead to heart acceptance of Christ.

II. Faith after sight—salvation. Exemplified—1. In the disciples (except perhaps John) (ver. 8), who believed in Christ risen after they had seen Him. 2. In those who to-day believe in Christ only after their intellectual difficulties as to Christ have been solved.

III. Faith without sight—blessedness. 1. It implies a larger measure of Divine grace. 2. It exhibits a higher degree of Christian virtue. 3. It secures a richer experience of inward felicity. 4. It wins a readier commendation from the lips of Christ. (T. Whitelaw, D.D.)

The Bible a help to the sight of faith:—You may have stood on the sea coast while a friend has been looking out to sea through a telescope, perhaps it was when you were at Douglas waiting the arrival of a steamer from Liverpool, on which you were expecting a beloved relative. While you are standing on the rock, your friend is looking through the glass, and saying, “Yes; I see him!” You reply, “Let me have the glass! I cannot believe it, unless I see too.” You lift the glass, and in a little while, you say, “Ah, I see him; now, he sees us, and is waving his handkerchief to us!” Here is a telescope which God has provided for every man. We can see, through it, that the record of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, are facts, as plainly as if we had seen Him with our eyes and touched Him with our hands. We also see that He is our Saviour, who died in our room and stead; and that we are saved from the penalty of eternal death, because our iniquities were laid on Him instead of on us. We see through this Divine telescope, that when Jesus was nailed to the cross, He died, not for His own sins, but for ours! Through this glass we see the water of life, and notice to our joy that any thirsty soul may drink thereof, without money and without price. Through this blessed glass, we see the hand of the Lord directing our paths, and holding us up in slippery ways. It is the most wonderful telescope in the world. It shows us our departed friends and children in a beautiful land, where they wear white robes and have neither any sorrow nor sin; and it shows that we have a mansion in paradise on which our names are written; but, best of all, it reveals that we—we!—shall actually enjoy the blessedness of heaven! (W. Birch.)

Meditation a help to the sight of faith:—Meditation and contemplation are often like windows of agate, and gates of carbuncle, through which we see the Redeemer. Meditation puts the telescope to the eye, and enables us to see Jesus after a better sort than we could have seen Him if we had lived in the days of His flesh; for now we see not only Jesus in the flesh, but the spiritual Jesus; we see the spirit of Jesus, the core and essence of Jesus, the very soul of the Saviour. O happy you, that spend much time in contemplations! I wish that we had less to do, that we might do more of this heavenly work. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Sight and faith:—Walking by sight is just this—“I believe in myself;” whereas walking by faith is—“I believe in God.” If I walk by sight I walk by myself; if I walk by faith, then there are two of us, and the second one—ah! how great, how glorious, how mighty is He—the Great All-in-all—God-all-sufficient! Sight goes a warfare at its own charges, and becomes a bankrupt, and is defeated. Faith goes a warfare at the charges of the King’s Exchequer, and there is no fear that Faith’s bank shall ever be broken. Sight builds the house from its own quarry, and on its own foundation but it begins to build and is never able to finish, and what it does build rests on the sand and falls. But faith builds on the foundation laid in eternity, in the fair colours of the Saviour’s blood, in the covenant of grace. It goes to God for every stone to be used in the building, and brings forth the top-stone with shoutings of “Grace, grace unto it!” (Ibid.)

Sight of faith:—Sight is the noblest sense; it is quick; we can look from earth to heaven in a moment: it is large; we can see the hemisphere of the heavens at one view: it is sure and certain; in hearing we may be deceived; and, lastly, it is the most affecting sense. Even so, faith is the quickest, the largest, the most certain, the most affecting grace: like an eagle in the clouds, at one view, it sees Christ in heaven, and looks down upon the world; it looks backwards and forwards; it sees things past, present, and to come. (R. Sibbes, D.D.)

Faith, not sight:—By constant sight, the effect of objects seen grows less; by constant faith, the effect of objects believed in grows greater. The probable reason of this is, that personal observation does not admit of the influence of the imagination in impressing the fact; while unseen objects, realized by faith, have the auxiliary aid of the imagination, not to exaggerate them, but to clothe them with living colours, and impress them upon the heart. Whether this be the reason or not, the fact is true, that, the more frequently we see, the less we feel, the power of an object; while, the more frequently we dwell upon an object by faith, the more we feel its power. (J. B. Walker, M. D.)

Faith without sight:—1. Those who saw and believed not were far from being blessed. 2. Those who saw him, and believed, were undoubtedly blessed. 3. Those who have not seen, and yet have believed, are emphatically blessed. 4. There remains the superlative degree of blessedness in seeing Jesus face to face without need of believing in the same sense as now. 5. But for the present this is our blessedness, this is our place in the gospel history—we have not seen, and yet have believed. What a comfort that so high a degree of blessedness is open to us!

I. Do not let us diminish this blessedness—1. By wishing to see. (1) By pining for some imaginary voice, or vision, or revelation. (2) By craving marvellous providences, and singular dispensations. (3) By hungering for despairs or transports. (4) By perpetually demanding arguments and logical demonstrations. (5) By clamouring for conspicuous success in connection with the preaching of the Word, and the missionary operations of the Church. (6) By being anxious to believe with the majority. Truth has usually been with the minority. 2. By failing to believe. Believe—(1) Practically, so as to act upon our faith. (2) Intensely, so as to laugh at contradictions. (3) Livingly, so as to be simple as a child. (4) Continually, so as to be evenly confident. (5) Personally, so as to be assured alone, even if all others give the lie to the doctrines of the Lord. (6) Thoroughly, so as to find the rest of faith.

II. do not let us think this blessedness unattainable. 1. This blessedness is linked for ever with the faith which our Lord accepts: in fact, it is the appointed reward of it. 2. God deserves such faith of us. He is so true that His unsupported word is quite enough for faith to build upon. Can we only believe Him as far as we can see Him? 3. Thousands of saints have rendered, and are rendering, such faith, and are enjoying such blessedness at this moment, We are bound to have fellowship with them in like precious faith. 4. Hitherto our own experience has warranted such faith. Has it not? 5. Those of us who are now enjoying the blessed peace of faith can speak with great confidence upon the matter. Why, then, are so many cast down? Why will they not believe?

III. Do not let any of us miss it. The faith which our Lord described is exceedingly precious, and we ought to seek after it, for—1. It is the only true and saving faith. Faith which demands sight is not faith at all, and cannot save the soul. 2. It is in itself most acceptable with God. Nothing is acceptable without it (Heb. 11:6). It is the evidence of the acceptance of the man and his works. 3. It is a proof of grace within: of a spiritual mind, a renewed nature, a reconciled heart, a new-born spirit. 4. It is the root-principle of a glorious character. 5. It is exceedingly useful to others: in comforting the despondent, in impressing unbelievers, in cheering seekers, &c. 6. It enriches its possessor to the utmost, giving power in prayer, strength of mind, decision of character, firmness under temptation, boldness in enterprise, joy of soul, realization of heaven, &c. Conclusion: 1. Know you this faith? 2. Blessedness lies that way. Seek it! (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Faith with and without sight:—

I. What were some of the advantages enjoyed by those who lived and served God in the times of miracle? 1. To a considerable extent the pious Jews and the first Christians believed because they saw. Not that they walked wholly by sight. Noah was “warned of God of things not seen as yet.” Abraham went out of his old home, “not knowing whither he went.” And those worthies mentioned in Heb. 11 acted without assistance from the objects of time and sense, in the instances that are specified. But taking into the account the whole course of their lives, they were much more aided by sight than we are. (1) For it was a dispensation of supernaturalism. Who could be an atheist as he stood under Mount Sinai. Who could query the possibility of miracles, when he saw the waters of the Red Sea rising up; when he saw the shadow go back upon the sun-dial: when he heard Christ call up Lazarus from the tomb. (2) Now there was something in this, unquestionably, that rendered faith in God’s power comparatively easy. Jacob, e.g., must have found it no difficult thing to trust in a Being who was directing him, watching over him, and delivering him. 2. How differently the modern believer is situated! Generation after generation has come and gone, but no celestial sign has been given. Christians have believed that God is, but they have never seen His shape nor heard His voice. They have had faith in immortality, but no soul has ever returned to make their assurance doubly sure. In some instances, this reticence has produced an almost painful uncertainty, and wakened the craving for some palpable evidence of unseen realities. And all the attempts of Spiritualism are another testimony to the craving natural to man for miraculous signs. Sceptics contend that the miracle is irrational. But, certainly, nothing is irrational for which there is a steady and constant demand upon the part of human nature.

II. Some of the advantages which the Church of God experiences in these latter days, when there is no miracle to assist faith. Believing without seeing—1. Is a stronger faith; and the stronger the faith, the greater the blessedness. (1) If Thomas had put credit in the affirmation of the other disciples, it is evident that his faith in Christ would have been greater. For Christ had foretold that He was to be crucified and to rise. Thomas had witnessed the crucifixion, and knew that this part of his Lord’s prophecy was fulfilled. If, now, he had believed the remainder, he would have believed the disciples’ report. But his demand evinced that his faith needed to be helped out by sight. (2) If we examine the Scriptures, we shall find that that faith is of the best quality which leans least upon the creature and most upon the Creator. Take the case of Abraham. He was the subject of miraculous impressions; but there were some critical points in which His experience resembled more that of the modern believers, and it is with references to them that he is styled the “father of the faithful.” Consider the trial of his faith when commanded to sacrifice Isaac. (3) It is to this high degree of faith that the modern believer is invited. We have never seen a miracle. We have only read the record of what God did, in this way, thousands of years ago. Our faith must therefore rest more upon the simple authority of God, and be more spiritual. The inward powers of the soul are nobler than the five senses; and their acts have more worth and dignity than the operations of the senses. There is no very great merit in following the notices of the five senses. An animal does this continually. But when I believe that God is great and good, when phenomena seemingly teach the contrary; when my faith runs back to the nature and attributes of God Himself, and is not staggered by anything that I see, then I give God great honour. All that this kind of faith requires is, to be certain that the Divine promise has been given; and then it leaves all to Him. 2. Honours God more. We cannot show greater respect for any one than to take his bare word. There are comparatively few men of this first class and standing. And just as far as we withhold our confidence in God until we can see the wisdom of His ways, we dishonour Him. Suppose a sudden and inexplicable sorrow—a missionary is cut down in the midst of great usefulness; a wise and kind father is taken away from a family that leans entirely upon him: if in these instances no doubts are felt, what an honour do they render to God by such absolute confidence. For the faith in such cases terminates upon the very personality and nature of God. It passes by all secondary causes and reposes upon the First Cause. Oftentimes our faith is of such a mixed character, that it honours the creature as much as the Creator. For example, if we expect that the whole world will be Christianized, partly because of the Divine promises and partly because the wealth and civilization and military power of the earth are in the possession of Christian nations, we honour the creature in conjunction with the Creator; and this is to dishonour Him, for He says, “My glory will I not give to another.” The faith of the Church is of the purest, highest kind only when she trusts solely and simply in God, and looks upon all favouring circumstances as results, not as supports, of His promise. Take away the promises and agency of God, and where would be the wealth, &c., of Protestant Europe and America? “Sufficient is Thine arm alone, and our defence is sure.” The early Church, with the civilization of the Greek and Roman world arrayed against them, could not lean upon it in conjunction with God, if they would. They were shut up to the mere power and promise of the Most High. And what honour did they give Him in this: and how did He honour them in return? Conclusion: From this subject it is evident—1. That God is the sole object of faith. There is a difference between belief and faith. We may believe a man; but we may believe in and on God alone. Faith is the resting of the mind; and the mind can find no rest in a creature. 2. If God is the sole object of faith, then we must beware of a mixed or partial faith. We must not trust partly in God, and partly in His creatures. He will receive no divided honours. As in our justification we cannot trust partly in the blood of Christ, and partly in our own good works, so in our more general relation to God, our confidence must not rest upon any combination or union between Him and the works of His hands. 3. We know these things, happy are we if we do them. (Prof. Shedd.)

Faith of Thomas:—Faith, resting upon the word of promise, upon a Divine testimony, is more noble, spiritual, and ingenuous; displays more candour and humility, and brings more glory to God, than that which is the result of sensible manifestation. In illustrating these words, let us—

I. Examine the nature of that faith which is here commended by our saviour. Faith, in its most general sense, is the strong persuasion of any truth, the firm assent of the mind to it. This persuasion may be founded on the evidence of our senses: thus Thomas believed that Jesus was risen, because he saw, felt, and heard Him; thus I believe there is a sun, because I behold it, and am warmed by its beams. Sometimes this persuasion is founded on the deductions of reason: thus, because I discover in the universe so many effects, to produce which there must have been an intelligent First Cause, I believe there is a God (chap. 10:37.) But though the word faith is thus used, both in common language and in the Scriptures, to signify that persuasion which is founded on the evidence of the senses or the deductions of reason, yet, in its more strict and proper reason, it denotes that assent of the mind which is founded on testimony. It is in this manner we believe, although we do not see. Thus I am told that there is such a city as Rome, such a river as the Nile; and though I have never seen them, I am persuaded of their existence, because it is confirmed to me by witnesses who had opportunities of knowing, and who had no interest in deceiving me. Their testimony fully supplies the place of the evidence of the senses or the deductions of reason. If the testimony be that of man, there results from it human faith; if the testimony be that of God, there results from it Divine faith; if it be of God through Jesus Christ and His apostles, there results Christian faith. But that we may more fully understand the nature of this faith, let us consider a few of its properties—1. It is enlightened. To believe without seeing is very different from believing without evidence or proof. The believer is not a weak being, receiving every thing without examination; nor any enthusiast, assenting without motive or light. 2. This faith is humble. A thousand objects connected with the being, attributes, and purposes of God, with the schemes of providence, or the plan of redemption, necessarily present to him abysses which no finite mind can fathom; but, filled with veneration and wonder before the Infinite, the incomprehensible, he submits his understanding; he strives not to break through those barriers which the Eternal has placed around His throne. 3. This faith is firm. The foundation of his belief is more stable than the heavens and the earth. It is not a mere probability, a wavering hope, an uncertain guess; but the declaration of God, on which he rests his assured belief and his everlasting interests. 4. This faith is universal in its object: receiving as true the whole of the sacred volume, its histories, its predictions, its doctrines, its precepts, its threatenings, its promises. 5. Finally, this faith is active, efficacious, purifying. It is not confined to a barren admiration of the truths and facts that are revealed; it descends into the heart, and sanctifies all its powers; it receives the precepts and commands of God as well as His promises; it requires the sacrifice of corrupt passions as well as the submission of our reason. Let us not deceive ourselves; the conviction of the understanding must pass to the heart, and then be manifested in all the actions of a holy life.

II. Inquire why those who thus believe, although they do not see, are blessed. 1. They are so because they display true wisdom, both in the choice of objects to occupy their mind, and in the rules they follow in giving their assent to them. They select for their belief, and contemplation, the most important truths. Place by their side the most sublime human sciences; and in comparison these sciences, to Him who judges without prejudice, and with a reference to the eternal duration of man, will appear only a vain and pompous ignorance. How trifling in reality are the pursuits of the greatest earthly philosopher, if he is ignorant of the science of salvation! More happy and more wise are they who are contented to behold with the eyes of God what they cannot behold with their own; who submit to be directed by the infallible Father of lights; who, “though they see not, yet believe.” 2. Happy also because they act not only in the wisest, but also in the most advantageous manner, since they thus avoid misery and secure felicity. Without this faith, what overwhelming doubts, what cruel uncertainties, what multiplied fears surround us! Without it, what hope has the penitent? Can God forgive the rebel, in consistence with His holiness? In what mode can the remission of our sins be secured? These and a thousand other questions are unanswerable. Without it, what adequate consolation is there to the persecuted and oppressed? What relief to the bereaved? What comfort to the dying? (H. Kollock, D.D.)

Faith in an unseen Christ:—Here is another “beatitude” in addition to what Matthew gives. Christ was Himself the “Blessed One”; and well knew who were “blessed,” and what made them so. But how and why are believers so specially “blessed?”

I. They throw themselves upon the bare word of God. So that their faith rests on no divided evidence; and the foundation they build on is not partly strong and partly weak, partly iron and partly clay, partly rock and partly sand, but wholly rock, iron, strong. Sight may change; to-day bright, to-morrow dim; but God’s testimony changes not.

II. They come directly into contact with God Himself. No medium comes between them and God. The soul touches Him who is a Spirit, needing no interpreter nor introducer.

III. They get more into the heart and reality of the things of God. Sight often crusts over spiritual things, or builds a wall. Simple faith goes in at once to the heart and core of things. Instead of cruising along the rocky sea-board, it strikes inland, and pitches its tent amid the gardens and by the streams of a richer and more glorious country. It is in itself simpler, purer, and more direct; and hence it finds its way into regions into which faith of a grosser kind could never penetrate: it rises up, with a buoyancy all its own, into a higher atmosphere, disentangled from the things of earth. Like a being without a body to clog it, it moves more at will, and rejoices in a liberty to which faith of a more material kind is a stranger.

IV. They take fewer false steps, and make fewer mistakes. Simple faith sees, as it were, everything with God’s eyes, and hears everything with God’s ears; and thus comes to no false conclusions, and is kept from the continual mistakes into which sense is falling. It not only sets the right estimate on the evidence of sense and feeling, but it puts the true interpretation upon all the facts and phenomena coming under the eye or sense. Exercising simple faith on the bare word of Him who has given me the record respecting His crucified, dead, buried, risen Son, I see myself crucified, dead, buried, risen with Him. Though seeing in myself the chief of sinners, I know and believe that there is no condemnation for me. Thus I believe not only without, but against seeing; and put the right construction upon things seen and temporal, looking at everything with the eyes of God.

V. They are thus subjected to discipline of the best and most effectual kind. This life of believing keeps the body under, while it lifts up the soul; it loosens us from the earthly, and fastens us to the heavenly. It calms us, too, in a stormy world. It awakes us and keeps us awake, amid scenes fitted to lull us asleep. It makes us more truly “children too of the light and of the day,” by transporting us beyond this world of night and darkness, into the kingdom of the unsetting sun. (H. Bonar, D.D.)

Dr. Arnold’s death:—When Dr. Arnold was suddenly stricken with his mortal agony, he was seen, we are told, lying still, with his hands clasped, his lips moving, and his eyes raised upwards as if in prayer; when all at once he repeated, firmly and earnestly: “And Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen,” &c. (Bp. Westcott.)^[9]

A Great Benediction

John 20:29

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

It is a remarkable characteristic of the Word of God that it is filled far more with blessings than with curses. There are curses, to be sure. There are warnings of judgment. But when all is put together, the blessings are far more numerous and more wonderful than any of these more somber elements.

The Bible begins with a blessing, for we are told that after each day of creation God commented upon the work, saying, “It is good.” The Bible ends with a blessing, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen” (Rev. 22:21). In between are such verses as: “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it’ ” (Gen 1:28); “I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing” (Gen. 12:2); “After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him” (Gen 35:9); “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace” (Num 6:24–26); “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked” (Ps. 1:1); “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Ps. 33:12); “Blessed are they whose ways are blameless” (Ps. 119:1); “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him” (Rom. 4:7–8; cf. Ps. 32:1–2); “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord” (Rev. 14:13). In my concordance I find 375 Old Testament passages that deal with God’s blessing. I find 108 separate passages in the New Testament.

It is not surprising in view of this wonderful characteristic of our God and of his revelation to find that the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate God, also had many words of blessing during the days of his ministry. We think of the beatitudes of Matthew 5, an obvious example (vv. 3–11). There are blessings pronounced upon children (Mark 10:16), upon one or more of the disciples (Matt. 13:16; 16:17), upon faithful servants of God (Matt. 24:46), upon those who hear the Word of God and keep it (Luke 11:28). There is the benediction at the close of John’s Gospel, which is our text: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

This blessing, the fifth of Christ’s “last” words in John’s Gospel, is great for several reasons, among them that it is the last of Christ’s blessings spoken while on earth. Appropriately, it is one that concerns not just a single person or a limited group of people but rather all who should believe on him as Savior.

What Does Christ Mean?

What does Jesus mean when he says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”? Does he mean that a subjective faith is better than an objective faith, that a faith that has no relation to evidence is better than a faith that has? Does he mean that only a faith like that is blessed? It is hard to think that this is his meaning, because he has just provided tangible evidence of his resurrection for Thomas by appearing to him and inviting him to put his finger into the holes of his hands and thrust his hand into Christ’s side. Again, it is clear that John did not interpret Christ’s words in this way, because immediately after this John says that he has written certain things in his Gospel in order that those who read might believe.

So we may grant that Jesus is not advocating a faith entirely without evidence. But that still does not answer the question. What does Jesus mean? I believe he is speaking, not of a subjective faith, but of a satisfied faith. He is speaking of faith that is satisfied with what God provides and is therefore not yearning for visions, miracles, esoteric experiences, or various forms of success as evidence of God’s favor. More than that, he is saying that a faith without these things is not inferior to but is actually superior to a faith based upon them.

Take these things one at a time and see why this is so. Take visions, first of all. If you are a normal Christian, I am sure there have been times when you have been discouraged, perhaps overcome with doubt, and you have said, “Oh, if God would only reveal himself to me in some special way so that my sight, touch, or hearing could assist my faith.” We remember that there were people in the Bible who had such evidence. Abraham saw visions; he spoke with the three angelic visitors; he heard the voice of God from heaven on Mount Moriah. Moses met God on the mountain; on one occasion Moses was hidden in a cleft of the rock and witnessed the fire, wind, and earthquake as Jehovah passed by. Isaiah had a vision of God high and lifted up. The disciples saw Christ in the days of his flesh. Paul was caught up to the third heaven. John himself had the magnificent visions recorded for us in the Book of Revelation. “Why can’t we have something similar?” we argue. “Surely we could believe much better and be far more effective in our Christian walk and witness if we did.”

But that is not true, even though we like to tell ourselves that it is. For one thing, we usually want such experiences for the wrong reason—vanity. We would have a far higher opinion of ourselves if we should be granted an experience which most do not have. For another thing, visions do not necessarily lead to greater faith. In the opening pages of Miracles by C. S. Lewis, the well-known Oxford professor and author tells of a friend of his who once saw a ghost. Before the vision, she disbelieved in an immortal soul. After it, she still disbelieved. Obviously, faith gives meaning to experience rather than the other way around.

Second, there are miracles or other special acts of God’s providence. Do you pray for miracles? Do you think you could believe God better if you saw some? The opposite is the case. If you are looking for miracles (which God sometimes does provide, but seldom), you will gradually become insensitive to the thousands of normal evidences of God’s mercy which you receive constantly.

Third, there are people who think they would be stronger in faith and be better able to live the Christian life were they to have some special esoteric experience. We read a passage like 1 Corinthians 12:9–10, where Paul speaks of God granting to some “gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues,” and we think that if we could only do or experience something like that, we would be stronger and happier as Christians. But that is not true either. God sometimes grants such experiences for the good of his church; the very fact that Paul lists these gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 is evidence that he does. But surely anyone who reads these chapters carefully will note that Paul does not encourage us to seek these experiences. If anything, he seems to warn against them, and he certainly does not pronounce any special blessing upon their exercise. Why? Because the blessings of the gospel are for those who live by faith and not by sight, who live by their faith in the character and benevolence of God and not in the evidence of visions, miracles, or other such experiences.

There is one other item which must not be left out, if only because it is so common in our day. It is the supposed evidence of success, measured by the number of people converted, church growth, income for Christian institutions and other such things. Does this mean that we are not to work to see as many people converted as possible? Does it mean that we are not to be concerned with church growth? Does it mean that we should not be concerned with the level of income necessary to run Christian schools, missions, churches, and other institutions? Not at all. But it does mean that we are not to tie our faith in God to such circumstances. We are to pray and believe and go on working even when we do not see this kind of numerical blessing.

What is faith? Faith is believing God on the basis of his Word and then acting upon it. This is true faith. It is this that God blesses. God promises a blessing upon those who have faith. We cannot repeat that enough. God blesses faith, and not the living out of some unusual experience.

How could it be otherwise if (1) God is to be fair in his dealings with his people and (2) the blessings of which he speaks are to be for all? Suppose it to be the other way. Suppose God’s blessing were linked to the unusual. In that case, either his blessing would be for a small and select company only, or else the things we consider unusual would have to become commonplace, in which case they would cease to have the character of “special evidences.” They would be like those other countless evidences of God’s providence which we enjoy daily but do not regard so highly, simply because they are common. No, the blessings of God are for all; and they are based, not upon the unusual in Christian experience, but upon faith which by its very nature and definition is common to all who call upon the name of Christ as God and Savior. This is why the Gospel of John ends on this note. It ends here because John wants to encourage everyone to believe on Jesus and enjoy God’s blessings.

What Blessings?

What are those blessings? There are many ways to answer that question, because faith is discussed again and again throughout the Bible. But we may answer it at this point just from John’s Gospel, remembering that John’s Gospel is the Gospel of faith preeminently. In John the Greek word for faith (pistis) always occurs in its verbal form (pisteuō) and is therefore translated “believe.” But in that form it occurs more often in John than in any other biblical book, even Romans (which has much to say about faith) or books that are longer. We find the word 101 times in John’s Gospel, compared with a combined use of “faith” and “believe” 64 times in Romans and only 22 times in Mark. So John is obviously concerned with faith and considers it of prime importance. What does he say of the blessings that flow from it? The following ten items are prominent.

       1.    It is by faith that we become children of God and thus enter into the privileges of being in God’s spiritual family. John indicates this at several points but especially in the first chapter, where he says, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (1:12). Certainly this is a great blessing and the source of many others that follow.

       2.    It is through faith that we have eternal life. This is the teaching of the best-known verse in the Gospel, John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Death is an “enemy” (1 Cor. 15:26). But death shall be conquered by faith, which unites us to Christ who conquered it.

       3.    By faith we are delivered from judgment. John quotes Jesus as saying, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (5:24).

       4.    John 6:35 teaches that faith ushers us into the blessings of spiritual satisfaction now: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” To come to Christ is to believe on Christ; that is what the parallelism suggests. So belief in Christ is set forth as the key to having all spiritual longings fulfilled.

       5.    Jesus also calls faith the means for entering into the final resurrection: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (11:25–26). The blessings of the resurrection are for those who believe on Jesus.

       6.    Faith in Jesus is also said to be the way in which we become blessings to others, as the Holy Spirit who communicates all God’s blessings works through us. This is taught in John 7:38–39: “ ‘Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.” The image is of a broad river flowing through a desert land, giving life and joy to all who come upon it.

       7.    Through faith we see the glory of God. “Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ ” (11:40). Without faith we will be like the heathen, who are surrounded by the glory of God in nature, yet either do not see it or else attribute it to that which is not God by a worship of idols. It is only as we look to God that our eyes are increasingly opened to see what he is doing.

       8.    Faith is the secret of a holy life. Jesus said, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness” (12:46). In biblical language, darkness is the darkness of sin (cf. 1 John 1:5–10). So walking in the light means walking in holiness by means of the spiritual and moral life which God gives.

       9.    The blessing of a fruitful and effective life comes by faith. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (14:12). This does not necessarily refer to what we would call miracles, though taken together the disciples may well have performed more miracles than Jesus did. It refers rather to the many works of witnessing, preaching, and Christlike service performed by Christian people. They are performed by those who take God at his word and go out boldly to do his bidding.

     10.    Finally, it is through faith that we receive the benefits of Jesus’ prayers on our behalf. He said, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message” (17:20). If, as we are told in James, “the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (5:16), how much more shall the prayers of the Lord Jesus Christ avail for us! If we lacked all other promises of blessing through faith, this alone should be enough.

Only Believe

What I have written here applies most directly to those who are Christians, to those who have believed on Jesus and to whom these blessings are therefore given. But it applies to non-Christians too in that you are challenged to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.

Do not say, as many do, “I think I could believe in Jesus if he would just appear to me in some special way. I could believe if I had some miraculous vision.” That is not true, though you may think so. Pharaoh did not believe though he witnessed the greatest collection of signs and wonders ever granted to one man at one period of history. Those things are of no use to you. The problem is not miracles or the lack of them. The problem is sin. You are a sinner, and Jesus is the answer to your sin. He died for you, bearing your punishment. Now you must come to him in simple faith. You cannot see him. But you can find him if you seek him with your whole heart.^[10]

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^[1] Köstenberger, A. J. (2017). John. In E. A. Blum & T. Wax (Eds.), CSB Study Bible: Notes (p. 1710). Holman Bible Publishers.

^[2] Criswell, W. A., Patterson, P., Clendenen, E. R., Akin, D. L., Chamberlin, M., Patterson, D. K., & Pogue, J., eds. (1991). Believer’s Study Bible (electronic ed., Jn 20:29). Thomas Nelson.

^[3] Sproul, R. C., ed. (2005). The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (p. 1554). Ligonier Ministries.

^[4] Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., Whitehead, M. M., Grigoni, M. R., & Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Jn 20:29). Lexham Press.

^[5] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2006). The MacArthur study Bible: New American Standard Bible. (Jn 20:29). Thomas Nelson Publishers.

^[6] Wilkin, R. N. (2010). The Gospel according to John. In R. N. Wilkin (Ed.), The Grace New Testament Commentary (p. 475). Grace Evangelical Society.

^[7] MacDonald, W. (1995). Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments (A. Farstad, Ed.; p. 1569). Thomas Nelson.

^[8] Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Gospel According to John (Vol. 2, p. 466). Baker Book House.

^[9] Exell, J. S. (n.d.). The Biblical Illustrator: St. John (Vol. 3, pp. 441–448). James Nisbet & Co.

^[10] Boice, J. M. (2005). The Gospel of John: an expositional commentary (pp. 1611–1616). Baker Books.

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Your Kingdom Come – Pastor Patrick Hines Sermon (Luke 11:1-2)

Your Kingdom Come – Pastor Patrick Hines Sermon (Luke 11:1-2)

Luke 11:1 It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, when He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.” 2 And He said to them, “When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come.”

Your Kingdom Come – Pastor Patrick Hines Sermon (Luke 11:1-2)

▶️Pastor Patrick Hines has recently had a brand new book published, called, “Earth’s Foundational History – Part 1: Genesis Chapters 1 Through 5.” (Paperback – May 4, 2023) https://cutt.ly/16RCeZ0

These two books are also available on Amazon. All proceeds go directly to Pastor Hines:

▶️Am I Right With God?: The Gospel, Justification, Saving Faith, Repentance, Assurance, & The New Birth https://cutt.ly/S6RCbuM

▶️Redrawing the Battle Lines: 23 Sermons on Critical Issues Facing the Church https://cutt.ly/m6RCTi0

▶️Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church http://www.bridwellheightschurch.org/

▶️Reformed Presbyterian Pulpit Supplemental (Pastor Hines’ YouTube Channel):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClW5Qzh27Zx7HO2fKkCcR5g

From the church website:

We subscribe to the Westminster Standards as our doctrinal statement. It consists of the following documents:

The Westminster Confession of Faith
The Westminster Larger Catechism
The Westminster Shorter Catechism

We also believe that Christian Worship is to be regulated and defined by God’s Word, the Bible.

Our worship services are designed to please and honor the Triune God of the Bible. We place Scripture reading and the preaching of the word of God at the center of worship along with Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. These are God’s gifts to His church and ought to always be at the center of Christian worship. We are a congregation that loves to sing God’s praises, recite His Word back to Him, and actively engage in hearing and learning from God’s Word.

We embrace and promote a comprehensive Christian world and life view.

There is no area of life which is not under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is to God and His law which all people, including governments and civil rulers, will answer. The Word of God embraces and informs the way we view marriage, the family, children, education, politics, worship, law, government, war, the church, missions, evangelism, and worship. In the world today there is a battle of opposing worldviews. There are basically only two positions: God’s Word and man’s ideas. We stand positively for Biblical truth and negatively against man’s ideas which are opposed to Biblical truth.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only hope for mankind.

Because all men fall short of obeying God’s law, all men everywhere are in need of divine grace and salvation from God. This salvation is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ who died for sinners, was buried, rose again, and is alive today seated at God the Father’s right hand.

We Worship God Together as Families.

We offer nursery during the morning worship service for newborns and infants but encourage people to keep as many of their children as they can with them for morning worship. The audio of the service is in the nursery via speakers. There is also a crying room with a video screen and audio of the sermon. We offer Sunday school classes for all ages, but worship together as families. We do not offer “children’s” church.

All who profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and are members of an evangelical church are cordially invited to participate with us in the Lord’s Supper.

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He Freely Gives | VCY

He Freely Gives

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?Romans 8:32

If this is not a promise in form, it is in fact. Indeed, it is more than one promise, it is a conglomerate of promises. It is a mass of rubies, and emeralds, and diamonds, with a nugget of gold for their setting. It is a question which can never be answered so as to cause us any anxiety of heart. What can the Lord deny us after giving us Jesus? If we need all things in heaven and earth, He will grant them to us: for if there had been a limit anywhere, He would have kept back His own Son.

What do I want today? I have only to ask for it. I may seek earnestly, but not as if I had to use pressure and extort an unwilling gift from the Lord’s hand; for He will give freely. Of His own He gave us His own Son. Certainly no one would have proposed such a gift to Him. No one would have ventured to ask for it. It would have been too presumptuous. He freely gave His Only-begotten, and, O my soul, canst thou not trust thy heavenly Father to give thee anything, to give thee everything? Thy poor prayer would have no force with Omnipotence if force were needed; but His love, like a spring, rises of itself and overflows for the supply of all thy needs.

“Dat Baby Jesus – He Makes me Laugh” | Daily Thoughts about God.

“Dat Baby Jesus – He Makes me Laugh”

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“I have set the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure.” Psalm 16:8-9

Brennan Manning, in his book, The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, tells of an experience he had at an airport. It was just before Christmas

and he was in the Chicago airport waiting to get a flight to Texas for a week-end retreat. But because of a severe storm, he and thousands of others were not going anywhere. The flights were all delayed. Public address systems were blaring, people were at the ticket counter demanding a projected departure time, children were crying, some people were just sitting and staring.

Then he noticed a middle-aged black woman cradling a child in her arms and laughing. Manning asked her,

“Would you mind telling me why you’re so happy?”

“Sho,” she said. “Christmas is coming and dat baby Jesus—He make me laugh.”

According to the Psalm 16, verses 8 & 9, focusing on Jesus at all times is the key to a happy and joyful heart.

How about you?

During the Christmas season, our already busy life become more busy.

Are you ‘setting the Lord before you’ today?

Do you want to have a merry Christmas?

Bring Jesus into all your activities.

Talk to Him all day long.

He will make you laugh!

Father, you fill us with joy in your presence. Give us the grace to remember to enjoy your presence. We want to laugh, Lord. Amen

By Katherine Kehler
Used by permission

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Whatever is going on in your world this Christmas, there is no greater gift you could give yourself than to receive the One who came to earth for us. He offers you complete forgiveness, a relationship with Him, a more abundant life and eternal life. As long as we trust in ourselves, our own good life, God will remain distant, and we remain separated from him by our sin. He asks us to empty our hands of our efforts and receive him and his gift.

I’d like to give you the opportunity right now to ask him to come into your life. There is no greater offer, nor more important decision you could make in your life. Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him….”

I’ll help you put this into words. You could say to him,

“Jesus, thank you for dying for my sins. Right now I open the door and ask you to come into my life. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me an eternal relationship with you.”

Unlike other possible relationships, if you asked Jesus into your life right now, he promises never to leave you. Jesus said, (speaking of us as his sheep), “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.”

I found that one of the best ways to get to know him better was to read the gospel of John, which is the fourth book of the New Testament, in the Bible. You’ll be amazed. It seemed like he was speaking straight to me, answering my questions, like an intimate chat over coffee. Also, you might find it helpful to look for a church where the Bible is taught.

There is no greater joy at Christmas than coming into a relationship with Jesus. Too many times we have worn ourselves out, driven by our expectations to have the “perfect” Christmas. It’s a set-up for disappointment.

All of the shopping, decorating, entertaining never fully meets our deepest longings. For Christmas to be special, we simply need to receive Jesus’ gift to us…a relationship with him. Knowing him brings great meaning and enjoyment at Christmas, no matter who knocks over the Christmas tree.

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FURTHER READING

More Christmas Articles and Devotionals

Learn more about knowing Jesus at: https://thoughts-about-god.com/four-laws/

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The post “Dat Baby Jesus – He Makes me Laugh” can be found online at Daily Thoughts about God.

21 Dec 2023 News Briefing

Netanyahu to Hamas: ‘Surrender or die’
Israel’s prime minister pushed back Tuesday on calls for Israel to wrap up its ongoing ground operation in the Gaza Strip, vowing to continue the war “until victory” has been achieved. “Whoever thinks that we will stop is detached from reality. All Hamas terrorists, from the first to the last, are dead men walking. They have only two possibilities: Surrender or die.”

Uber-Hawk Graham Blows A Gasket At Report Xi Warned Biden He Plans To Reunify Taiwan With China
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham issued a blistering response to fresh reports that Chinese President Xi Jinping directly warned President Joe Biden during their recent summit in San Francisco that China will move to unify Taiwan with the mainland. Graham expressed outrage…

“You Expect Me To Tip For That?”: Americans Are Tired Of Tipflation
In an August survey of 11,945 U.S. adults, 72% of respondents said they opposed automatic service charges that appear on their bills. One-half of respondents strongly opposed this practice. Consumers are also irritated by the tipping recommendations they receive at the checkout screen; according to Pew, 40% oppose this practice. The problem isn’t tipping per se—it’s the pressure of leaving a gratuity when the service doesn’t warrant it. This so-called “tipflation” is irritating

Biden Admin Linked To Trump Ballot Ban In Colorado
The Colorado case against Trump was brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), headed by President and CEO Noah Bookbinder… .who sits on the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Advisory Council .

And It’s Gone: “War In Ukraine” Quietly Scrubbed From WaPo Masthead
“It’s over” – comments investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg after noticing that The Washington Post quietly deleted a prominent tab from its Masthead. What was a long featured “War in Ukraine” tab, which had been there from the start of the war going back to Feb. 2022 has disappeared…

Israel has reportedly nearly caught Yahya Sinwar twice
Israeli forces are hot on the heels of Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, and twice in recent days nearly caught up with him, according to Israeli media reports.

Yemenis fear repercussions of Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping
In the streets of Sanaa, Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital, support for the Palestinian cause is everywhere, with many cars displaying Palestinian flags, photos of Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida, or slogans showing support for the Palestinian people. Al-Huraibi said there would be repercussions for targeting ships in the Red Sea. “The first casualty of such targeting is the Yemenis, Al-Qadhi said that Yemenis fear the repercussions from any upcoming war, especially the economic repercussions.

North Korea’s Kim warns of ‘nuclear attack’ when enemy provokes it with nukes -KCNA
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Pyongyang would not hesitate to launch a nuclear attack if an enemy provokes it with nuclear weapons, state media reported on Thursday. Kim remarked as he met with soldiers under the military’s missile bureau over its recent launching drill of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), KCNA news agency said.

Inside Hamas leaders’ subterranean city | IDF takes control of Hamas’ ‘Elite Quarter’
The IDF announced on Wednesday that its troops secured control over Hamas’ “Elite Quarter” in the center of Gaza City, including the area of the ‘Palestine Square’, from where Hamas’ administrative and military leadership operated. The complex includes a large network of tunnels that connects terrorist hideouts, bureaus, and residential apartments belonging to Hamas’ senior leadership.

US indicts Hezbollah terrorist who planned AMIA bombing
The US announced today (Wednesday) indictments against Samuel Salman El Reda, a member of the Hezbollah terrorist organization who took part in the planning of the 1994 AMIA bombings in Buenos Aires, Argentina in which 85 people were killed. El Reda, 58, is accused, among other things, of providing material aid to a foreign organization classified as a terrorist organization, US State Department … has offered a $7 million reward for information on his whereabouts.

Hamas official who proundly flaunted massacre thanks Canada
Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas figure, published a video in which he thanked Canada, Australia, and New Zealand for their support of a stable ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. “We congratulate these developments and see them as a step in the right direction to the isolation of the fascist Israeli government in the world and to bring the end of this long occupation,”

Syrian president denies holocaust, says Jews have no claim on Israel
Assad declared, “There is no evidence that six million Jews were killed. Perhaps there were holocausts, nobody denies this.” He added that the Nazis targeted many people during World War II and didn’t single out the Jews in any way, “ In addition, Assad repeated the conspiracy theory that the United States funded the Nazis.

Biden admin holds 73 million-acre lease sale after appeals court steps in
The Biden administration will hold a massive offshore oil and gas lease sale Wednesday after its efforts to scrap the auction over potential climate and environmental impacts failed. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will hold Lease Sale 261, which spans more than 73 million acres across the Gulf of Mexico and is expected to garner hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bids from industry. BOEM’s sale comes a month after an appeals court forced the agency to scrap eco restrictions on the sale and nearly two years after the White House tried to cancel the sale altogether.

US aircraft carrier ordered to remain near Israel
Lloyd Austin has ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and one other warship to remain in the Mediterranean Sea for several more weeks to maintain a two-carrier presence near Israel as its war with Hamas grinds on, U.S. officials said. It would be the third time the Ford’s deployment has been extended, underscoring the continued concerns about volatility in the region during Israel’s war in Gaza.

Hamas’ plan for the continuation of the war: Expansion of tensions on Syrian border
The organization has established an infrastructure numbering dozens of operatives Syrian refugee camps and in the south of country; goal is to ‘heat up’ Golan front with rockets. …there has been bad blood between the Assad regime and Hamas due to the terrorist organization’s support for the regime’s opponents a decade ago. However, the parties seem to be reconciling their differences.

Hackers warn Supreme Leader of Iran: ‘Khamenei, playing with fire has a price. This is just a taste of what we have in store’
“Khamenei, playing with fire has a price,” the group said. “This is just a taste of what we have in store.” A group of hackers previously linked to Israel said on Monday that it successfully hacked gas stations across Iran and disabled them. Iranian state media reported that almost 70% of the regimes’ gas stations were out of service, The hacker group sent a clear message to the leaders of the Islamic Republic, saying the attack was in response to Iran’s “aggression.”

US and its allies are considering a military attack on Houthis after rebels take over a cargo ship
According to the report, U.S. allies are already preparing plans to attack Houthi bases to stop the Houthis’ ability to harm merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Sources in the Pentagon defined the emerging plan as a “heavy response” to the Houthi attacks.

IDF believes it could take months to dismantle Hamas terror capabilities in southern Gaza
In operational terms, the effort to neutralize Hamas could extend into “Stage 3,” referring to the period of time after the “main war” in the Gaza Strip is over and becomes a lower-intensity fight against an insurgency. Such an operation may require an additional 3 to 9 months to complete, the unnamed Israeli military sources said.

IDF hits over 300 targets in Gaza; hundreds of terrorists surrender
Justice done is a joy to the righteous, To evildoers, ruination. Proverbs 21:15 Israeli ground, air and naval forces struck more than 300 targets in the Gaza Strip over the past day, causing heavy Hamas casualties and destroying terror infrastructure, the Israel Defense Forces reported on Wednesday morning. Soldiers from the 55th Brigade raided a Hamas military headquarters in the terror group’s stronghold of Khan Yunis in the southern Strip,

Propaganda Roundup: Hillary Claims Climate Change™ Targets Pregnant
Women
Mother Nature is a known domestic terrorist misogynist. Hillary Clinton: “We’re seeing and beginning to pay attention and to count and record the deaths that are related to climate.” *For the record, not to mansplain to the esteemed First Lady, “knowing” and “estimating” are definitionally not the same thing.

Strong M6.2 earthquake hits southern Peru 
A strong earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.2 hit southern Peru at 12:11 UTC (07:11 LT) on December 20, 2023. The agency is reporting a depth of 93 km (58 miles). EMSC is reporting the same magnitude and depth.

Rare snowfall hits southern China as north endures deep freeze
China is experiencing a severe cold wave, with rare snowfall reported in Guangdong province in the south, while northern regions face near-historic low temperatures.

NWS warns of excessive rainfall in California
Tamil Nadu’s Chief Secretary Shiv Das Meena reported that heavy rainfall and floods in parts of the state have resulted in 10 deaths and significant livestock losses.

Extremely heavy monsoon rains in Tamil Nadu lead to fatal flooding, significant livestock losses, India
Tamil Nadu’s Chief Secretary Shiv Das Meena reported that heavy rainfall and floods in parts of the state have resulted in 10 deaths and significant livestock losses.

It Looks Like “The Gates Of Hell” Have Opened In Iceland As Our Planet Continues To Tremble In Wild And Unpredictable Ways
…Iceland experiences quite a bit of seismic activity, but one prominent volcanologist named Porvaldur Póroarson is warning that the eruption that just took place is “a different creature” from anything we have ever seen before.  The eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula sent fountains of lava shooting up to 330 feet into the air, and residents of Reykjavik are being warned that toxic gas is heading their way…

China Boasts of Vast Coal Supply as Record-Low Temperatures Hit
The Chinese Communist Party assured citizens on Sunday that it had prepared for the record-low temperatures hitting the country this weekend by stockpiling hundreds of millions of tons of coal, defying calls from climate change alarmists to replace coal capacity with “renewable” energy.

Trudeau’s Department of Health paid Twitter ‘influencers’ over $680k to promote federal programs
Canada’s Department of Health has paid social media influencers over $680,000 to voice support for federal programs, reportedly including the experimental COVID shot, since 2021.

Deceptive Abortion Initiative in Florida Must Be Rejected
As pro-abortion activist groups try to establish unlimited human genocide in Florida with a proposed amendment that would codify unrestricted abortion as a right in the state constitution, Liberty Counsel continues to urge the Florida Supreme Court not to approve it.

Facebook and Instagram Steer Predators to Children, New Mexico Attorney General Alleges in Lawsuit
Facebook META -0.31%decrease; red down pointing triangle and Instagram recommend sexual content to underage users and promote minors’ accounts to apparent child predators, the state of New Mexico alleges in a lawsuit against parent company Meta Platforms and its CEO.

Blue State Democrats Demand Jail Time for People Caught Using Gas-Powered Gardening Tools
Democrats in the state of Washington are pushing for members of the public to be jailed for up to one year if they are caught using gas-powered gardening tools. According to State Reps. Amy Walen and Liz Berry, jailing law-abiding citizens over their lawn mower’s power source will help to fight “climate change.”

Most American bishops are going along with Pope Francis’ ‘blessings’ for homosexual couples
In the aftermath of Pope Francis’ new document attesting that priests are permitted to bless “couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples,” the majority of prelates so far have sought to defend and downplay the document’s significance, with others welcoming it as a sign of change.

EU To ‘Permanently Shut Down X’ If Musk Doesn’t Ban Alternative Media
The European Union has vowed to permanently shut down X if Elon Musk doesn’t immediately ban alternative media from the platform. Alex Jones is calling for us to defend Musk and seems to think that the “unelected body” has launched this plan to silence Americans ahead of the 2024 election. and says, “This amounts to a foreign coup!

We Have Become An Extremely Gluttonous Society That Consumes Far More Than It Produces
…No matter how much we have already consumed, we feel compelled to consume even more.  But of course our level of production is not keeping up with our level of consumption.  So  in order to maintain our ridiculously inflated standard of living we must endlessly go even deeper into debt, and all of the debt that we have accumulated is literally destroying the bright future that our children and our grandchildren were supposed to have. As a nation, we should be mourning for what we have lost.

62 Percent Of Americans Live Paycheck To Paycheck And The Bottom Of The Economic Food Chain Is Already Collapsing
Thanks to a soaring stock market, the wealthy are feeling very good about things right now, but the rest of the country is really hurting.  Homelessness is rising at the fastest pace ever recorded, the number of children that are suffering from hunger is rapidly growing, and more than 60 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

WATCH — Gaza Hospital Manager: Hamas Turned Us into Military Installation
Israel’s Army Radio reported Tuesday that the manager of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza told interrogators that Hamas terrorists had commandeered the hospital and forced staff to do its bidding, believing that the IDF would not strike there.

Heterodox German bishops laud new Vatican document on gay ‘blessings’ as a ‘real Christmas present’ 
‘It is an expression of respect for the reality of life and the life choices of people who want to be there for each other. And it gives us the opportunity to bless without demanding anything,’ one German bishop said of the new norms for ‘blessing’ homosexual couples published by the Vatican.

Islamized France: Armed ‘North African’ Storms Nursery School, Threatens Jewish Director with ‘Gang Rape’ and Dismemberment ‘Like in Gaza’ 
The knife-wielding North African man threatened, “You are a Jew, you are a Zionist. I am going to kill you. You dirty Jew. Five of us will come here and rape you, chop you up like in Gaza.”

HARD PROOF OF A HIGHLY ORGANIZED, LONG PLANNED & GLOBAL COVID ‘VACCINE’ GENOCIDE
…What’s most distressing about this latest analysis is the stunning degree of premeditation and calculation to murder and/or injure millions of Covid ‘vaccine’ recipients throughout New Zealand.

Game-Changer in India’s Fight Against Demographic Jihad: Assam Passes 2024 Law Banning Polygamy, Muslims Enraged
Enacting a ban on polygamy among Muslims in India, as Assam has strategically done, is crucial in averting demographic imbalances that could turn natives into minorities in their own lands, echoing concerns heightened by today’s Muslim immigration crisis in Europe

Prepping for ‘Disease X’: Gates-Backed Group Funds Needle-Free mRNA Vaccine ‘Wafer’ Technology
Funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has helped the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to invest $1.2 million in a startup with Jurata Thin Film Inc. to create under-the-tongue vaccine wafers for needle-free vaccines. CEPI’s mission is to fund the development of “rapid response platforms to develop vaccines against ‘Disease X’

Schwab’s warnings to Globalists about Black Swan events
In 2013, Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, began predicting “Black Swan” events threatening global security. He predicted them again in his book ‘Covid-19: The Great Reset’ released in July 2020 and again in an interview with EuroNews later the same year. In 2023, at the World Government Summit, he again warned about the possibility of Black Swan events, “the unpleasant surprises which will come in our way.” His use of the word “our” could easily, and probably should, be read as “their.”

21 Dec 2023

Headlines – 12/21/2023

Blinken: Ending Israel-Hamas war ‘as quickly as possible’ top priority for US in 2024

UN delays ceasefire vote again after US request; Biden says ‘we’re pushing’ for new hostage deal

UN Again Delays Gaza Aid Vote Amid Talks on Wording to Avoid US Veto

Israel and Hamas no closer to new deal to pause fighting, says Biden

Hamas’s Haniyeh arrives in Cairo as reports swirl of talks on new truce, hostage deal

Taking flak from right, Netanyahu vows war with Hamas will continue ‘until the end’

Hamas said to reject Israeli offer for 7-day truce in Gaza, release of 40 hostages

How an unprecedented medical committee determines when a hostage held in Gaza is dead

Noa Argamani was abducted not by Hamas but by civilian mob, NBC report suggests

Fatally Shot Israeli Hostages Were Recorded on IDF K9 Camera, but Footage Went Unchecked

IDF probe said to find troops who killed hostages not briefed on Hebrew sign in area

‘Not your fault’: Mother sends love, support to troops who killed son in tragic error

Pope Francis Charges Israeli Army with “Terrorism” over Firefight near Holy Family Church with RPGs Fired at IDF – Israel Denies the Accusations

Muslims Worldwide Throw a Fit over Israeli Bomb-Sniffing Dog Named after Mohammed’s Child Bride Aisha

IDF says it’s nearing end of ground offensive in north Gaza, is fighting in new areas

IDF says it’s started fighting Hamas in new neighborhoods of Gaza City

At least 12 people killed in explosions near Rafah hospital, says Gaza health ministry

Under the heart of Gaza City, IDF digs up a vast hive of lairs where Hamas’s elite hid

In Berlin, Israeli Opposition Head Lapid Urges Germans to Shut Accounts Funding Hamas

Video shows Hamas commander alive and well after 7 assassination attempts

IDF says it is probing deaths of several Gazans at its detention centers

Outrage as Israeli council leader says Gaza strip should be “left empty, just like Auschwitz”

Commentary: In a war that’s far from over, renewed infighting is a luxury Israel cannot afford

In Cyprus, Foreign Minister Cohen backs plan to ‘fast track’ aid to Gaza via island

‘I don’t want to be a number’: Gazans live in fear of dying

‘Barely a drop’: UN warns water shortages a deadly risk for Gaza children

Gaza children dizzy from hunger as war impedes food deliveries

Commentary: Manipulating Images of Atrocities From Syria Doesn’t Help Suffering Gazans

Egypt Completes Wall to Keep Out Palestinians from Gaza

Thousands of Palestinians to return to work in settlements for first time since Oct. 7 – IDF Central Command issues security guidelines for Israeli businesses in the West Bank that wish to allow employees to return to work; Ben Gvir demands decision be reversed

Arab-Israeli Doctor Leaves Job After Being Wrongly Accused of Supporting Terrorism

Antisemitic Activism Hurting Job Prospects as Academics, Doctors Kicked Out

Nationwide swatting spree targeting Jewish institutions appears coordinated, coming from outside US: FBI

Lincoln Memorial steps vandalized with ‘Free Gaza,’ red paint

College admissions consultant in ‘complete shock’ as multiple students reject Harvard early acceptance offers

Less than half of Jewish students feel supported on campus, poll finds

New York’s Penn Station mobbed by anti-Israel agitators who stage mass Muslim prayer – In the middle of the protest, attendees took a break to pray, using a sound system to blare the Islamic call to prayer

Alec Baldwin shouts down NYC protester who slammed him for not condemning Israel

MAGA Rabbi Pesach Wolicki Releases Powerful Video: “Re-electing Donald Trump is Vital to Israel’s National Security”

Gun-toting rabbi leads push to arm, train Jewish community amid high tensions: video

IDF freezes operations of ‘hilltop youth’ unit linked to anti-Palestinian violence in the West Bank

IDF Chief, Ben-Gvir Clash Over Disciplining Israeli Soldiers Reciting Jewish Prayer on Mosque Speakers in the West Bank

Israel hits Hezbollah command center in Lebanon; 4 rockets from Syria target Golan

Hezbollah fires overnight rocket salvo at northern towns after IDF strikes in Lebanon

Malaysia bans Israeli-flagged ships from using its ports in response to Gaza war

More than 100 container ships rerouted from Suez canal to avoid Houthi attacks – Cape of Good Hope diversion adds 6,000 nautical miles and three or four weeks to delivery times and has driven up oil prices

US launches Red Sea force as ships reroute to avoid attacks by Houthis

China’s ‘Solution’ to Houthi Red Sea Threat: Cave In to Terrorists and Attacks Will Stop

Is the U.S. Navy Prepared For A Prolonged War With Yemen?

‘Coalition of the Unwilling’: U.S. Won’t Attack Houthis, Can’t Get Major Arab Countries to Join Effort Openly

Energean CEO: Israel is sole energy independent Mediterranean country

Syria’s Assad claims Holocaust was a lie fabricated to justify creation of Israel

DOJ announces terror charges against operative linked to Hezbollah’s 1994 attack on Jewish center

Iran hangs ‘child bride’ for murdering husband despite international calls for clemency

Leaked Iran hijab documents call for mobile courts and jail terms for celebrities

Putin ratchets up military pressure on Ukraine as he expects Western support for Kyiv to dwindle

Ukraine’s Front-Line Troops Are Getting Older: ‘Physically, I Can’t Handle This’ – Corruption and fear are hindering effort to rebuild army

Ukraine ‘Scales Back’ Military Operations, Blames Lack of Foreign Aid

Senators leave Capitol Hill for winter recess without passing Ukraine aid

Zelenskyy: ‘US Will Not Let Us Down,’ Questions Mobilization

Xi Jinping Is Fighting a Culture War at Home

Chinese Communist Leader Xi Jinping Bluntly Told Joe Biden to His Face that China Will Take Taiwan – During San Francisco Summit

North Korea: We’re Prepared to Nuke America if It Makes a ‘Wrong Decision’

John Kirby Denies Biden Regime Left U.S. Weapons in Afghanistan, Calls Accusations a ‘Fallacy’ and ‘Farce’

U.S. reaches a deal with Venezuela to release an ally of President Nicolas Maduro in exchange for 10 jailed Americans

Biden Frees Venezuela’s ‘Financial Brain’, Granting Narco-Socialists a Major Win

First protests in Argentina as groups react to Milei austerity plan

Florida man pleads guilty to threatening murder of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts

WH Defends Decision to Omit Hunter Biden From Flight Manifests

Hunter Biden faces disbarment if convicted for felonies, already suspended by one state Bar

Optics of a Biden ‘revenge impeachment’ inquiry could hurt Republicans, GOP Rep. Bacon warns

Judge Napolitano: US Not Democracy if Colorado Trump Ruling Stands

Dershowitz on Colorado: ‘Never Seen a Decision That’s So Anti-Democratic,’ ‘Absurd’

“The Actual End of Democracy” – Tucker Carlson on Colorado Supreme Court’s Decision to Bar Trump From 2024 Ballot

Gingrich says Colorado close to ‘becoming the new Venezuela’ after barring Trump from ballot

El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele: U.S. Can’t ‘Lecture’ About Democracy After Trump Colorado Ruling

NYT Writer Says Americans Who Oppose Colorado Supreme Court Ruling on Trump – Support the Confederates

The Last Time Democrats Took a GOP Candidate Off the Ballot Was in 1860 – They Would Not Allow Abraham Lincoln’s Name on the Ballot in Their Slave States

N.C. House Speaker: Colorado’s Trump Move ‘Act of Desperation’

Trump Lawyer Alina Habba Says ‘Desperate’ Colorado Ruling to Keep Trump off Primary Ballot ‘Will Be Overturned by the Supreme Court’

Bolton: Colorado Disqualification Decision ‘Incoherent,’ SCOTUS ‘Will Reverse’

Dem-appointed Colorado justice says Trump ballot ban undermines ‘bedrock’ of America in fiery dissent

Former Federal Judge: Court challenge to keep Trump off GOP Presidential Primary in Colorado is not about politics

Colorado Supreme Court Relies on January 6 Committee for ‘Insurrection’ Claim

Pollster Frank Luntz: Donald Trump Is ‘More Likely to Beat Biden’ After Colorado Ballot Removal

Colorado GOP Will Move to Caucus System If Trump Decision Stands

Colorado’s ineligibility ruling threatens profound disruption in 2024

Vivek Ramaswamy Withdraws from Colorado Primary Until Trump is Reinstated – Challenges DeSantis, Haley, and Christie to Do the Same

Ramaswamy to withdraw from Colorado primary unless Trump is on the ballot: “This is what an *actual* attack on democracy looks like in an un-American, unconstitutional, and *unprecedented* decision, a cabal of Democrat judges are barring Trump from the ballot in Colorado”

Chris Christie Disagrees with Colorado Ruling: Let the Voters Decide

Ron DeSantis Says Removal of Trump from Ballot is Part of a Scheme to Secure His Nomination – Urges Voters to Vote DeSantis

Republicans float booting Biden off state ballots after Trump Colorado ruling

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick: “Maybe We Should Take Biden Off The Ballot For Allowing 8 Million People To Cross The Border”

Ron DeSantis floats idea that Biden could be removed from ballot for ‘letting 8 million illegals into the country and violating the Constitution’

Trump faces calls for removal from California ballot after Colorado ruling: ‘Explore every legal option’

California Lt. Gov. Kounalakis urges removing Trump from the ballot

Michigan could be the next state to remove Trump from its ballot

Biden weighs in: ‘No question’ Trump supported an insurrection – “Now whether the 14th Amendment applies, I’ll let the court make that decision,” he added

Proud Boy who cooperated with U.S. gets 3 years in Jan. 6 attack

Houston man who bragged about Jan. 6 involvement on Bumble dating app pleads guilty

Rep. Perry ordered to give federal prosecutors over 1,600 messages in Trump 2020 election case

Donald Trump Asks Judge to Toss Georgia Election Interference Charges on Free Speech Grounds

Judge Reportedly ‘Skeptical’ of Lawsuit to Remove Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones from Office over 2020 Election Contest

Smoke and Mirrors: New Evidence Suggests That NO Audit was Performed by Election Machine Testing Company as Claimed by Georgia Secretary of State

Voting for president in Congo begins as fears persist over safety, credible election

EU to Investigate X Over Lack of Disinformation Censorship

Comcast Admits Data Breach Impacting 36 Million Xfinity Customers

Scientists create AI they claim predicts when you’ll die with 78% accuracy

AI cannot patent inventions, UK Supreme Court confirms

China’s Spaceplane Has Released Multiple Mystery Objects In Orbit

6.2 magnitude earthquake hits near Iray, Peru

5.6 magnitude earthquake hits the South Sandwich Islands region

Sabancaya volcano in Peru erupts to 24,000ft

Sangay volcano in Ecuador erupts to 21,000ft

Popocateptl volcano in Mexico erupts to 20,000ft

Fuego volcano in Guatemala erupts to 15,000ft

Reventador volcano in Ecuador erupts to 15,000ft

Santa Maria volcano in Guatemala erupts to 15,000ft

Semeru volcano in Indonesia erupts to 15,000ft

Dukono volcano in Indonesia erupts to 11,000ft

Jaw-dropping before and after video of river highlights devastating impact of Cyclone Jasper floods in north Queensland

Drone video shows devastating floods in Northeast after deadly storm walloped East Coast – Damaging winds with gusts up to 90 mph toppled trees and power lines

Los Angeles, San Diego face serious flood risk as storm threatens California with days of significant rain

Peter Schweizer: Bill Gates’ ‘Genius’ Food Takeover Scheme About Making Money Not Saving Planet

Washington State proposes bill threatening jail time, $10,000 fine for using gas-powered leaf blowers in attempt to combat climate change

Fire Shuts Down GM’s Electric Car Plant, Executives Blame ‘Battery Materials’

World Economic Forum demands $3.5 trillion per year to ‘decarbonize’ the planet, ‘reach net-zero and restore nature’

Canadian Oil Companies Delay Emission Cuts, Eyeing Looming PM Trudeau Defeat in 2025 Elections

California-Based Green Energy Company That Received Millions From Biden Regime Failing

Biden Admin’s Natural Gas Crackdown Runs Into Legal Challenge: ‘Increased Costs with Little Environmental Gain’

Natural Gas Industry Files Legal Challenge Against DOE Rules Targeting Gas Furnaces

Mark Zuckerberg Engaging in ‘End of the World’ Prep in Hawaii: Report

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is building a sprawling, $100 million compound in Hawaii – complete with plans for a huge underground bunker

NY Dems Target Chick-fil-A’s Sundays Off Policy in Thruway Bill

Florida man killed after putting child he thought was ‘possessed’ into fire, striking deputy with rod: sheriff

Biden Regime Removes Iconic Confederate Reconciliation Memorial at Arlington Cemetery After Trump-Appointed Judge Clears the Way – Judge Takes Shot at Memorial During Hearing

Expansive terror watchlist for travelers ineffective, undercutting security, Senate report warns – Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs panel latest to warn anti-terrorism efforts trouncing civil liberties

Fmr. Obama Acting ICE Director: Numbers ‘Far Bigger’ than ‘Crisis’ Will Continue Unless We Deport People

Migrant Crisis Near ‘Breaking Point’ at Southern Border

Single-Day Illegal Immigrant Record Shattered as Biden’s Border Crisis Gets Even Worse: Report

Commentary: Biden is breaking the border on purpose – he wants mass amnesty

MTG presses Biden impeachment inquiry to expand to border crisis, suggests treason involved

Biden Admin Ordered to Stop Removing Texas Razor Wire

Live from the Jungle: Migrants Become Influencers on Social Media

To Avoid the Jungles of Central America, Migrants Are Taking a Treacherous Sea Route

Texas begins flying migrants to sanctuary cities with first flight to Chicago

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Accuses TX Governor Abbott of ‘Attacking Our Country’ for Sending Illegal Border Crossers to the City

Eric Adams: New Yorkers Should ‘Mobilize’ Against Joe Biden’s Illegal Migration

Study: Nearly 3-in-5 Illegal Alien Households Are on Taxpayer-Funded Welfare

Over a half-billion dollars in railroad freight stuck at Texas border crossings amid migrant battle

San Francisco claims to be clearing out ‘open-air drug markets’ – Locals not persuaded by mayor’s campaign, citing continued scourge of fentanyl deaths

Switzerland considers plan to legalise cocaine in ‘world-first’ trial after influx of high quality drug as cheap as beer

Three porn sites, including Pornhub, to face tougher EU safety regulations

Elementary students at Minnesota school exposed to porn during school Zoom call – School officials said an automated voice made a ‘threat of violence’

AI image-generators are being trained on explicit photos of children, a study shows

Jury convicts boy and girl in England of murdering transgender teenager in frenzied knife attack

Thailand’s LGBTQ+ community hopeful as marriage equality bill is set to be discussed in Parliament

Pope Francis Gay Edict Poses Danger to Church’s Future, Leaders Say

Bishop Strickland Leads the Revolt Against Globalist Pope Francis – Conservative Catholics Won’t Incorporate His ‘Gay Couple Blessings’ in the Life of the Church

Austrian Archbishop Says Catholic Priests Cannot Refuse Blessing to Gay Couples

Teachers in England instructed they don’t have to accept all student gender transition requests

Planned Parenthood’s Trans Hormone Business Is Booming, Creating Thousands of New Patients ‘For Life’

Ontario judge rules that calling drag queens ‘groomers’ is defamatory

Polish PM Donald Tusk Ushers in EU Globalist Policies, Appoints LGBT Activist as ‘Minister of Family’, Shuts Down Opposition TV Channels

Elon Musk calls out ‘woke’ Microsoft Word feature that scolds users when ‘language’ isn’t ‘inclusive and diverse’

This weed killer is banned in 50 countries. U.S. workers say it’s giving them Parkinson’s

New study shows Israel experiencing unprecedented outbreak of fifth disease

JN.1, the WHO’s newest ‘variant of interest,’ has spiked COVID wastewater levels to all-time highs in some countries

Embarrassed by Your Cough? ‘Sick Shaming’ Leads to Overuse of Cold Medicine

US FDA Finds Control Lapses at Moderna Manufacturing Plant

States Trashing Troves of Masks, Pandemic Gear

Millions of student loan borrowers missed first payment after pandemic pause

IRS Announces $1 Billion in Penalty Relief for Unpaid Taxes from Pandemic

Americans struggle with $88 billion in unpaid medical debt: survey

Source: http://trackingbibleprophecy.org/birthpangs.php

Mid-Day Snapshot · December 21, 2023

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

THE FOUNDATION

“Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.” —Thomas Jefferson (1803)

Fellow Patriots, on this day in 1861, Congress established the Medal of Honor to recognize valorous actions in battle that went above and beyond the call of duty. I recently wrote about the first Medals of Honor for actions less than a year later between Chattanooga and Atlanta. Since 1861, American presidents and military commanders have, in the name of Congress, presented 3,535 Medals to 3,516 recipients, a very elite few among the almost 40 million American veterans who have served our nation.

IN TODAY’S DIGEST

• The Border: Worst Story of the Year
• Executive News Summary
• Punishing Voter Fraud Is Racist?
• Houthis Disrupt Supply Lines, Mock Biden
• Leftmedia Smears Homeschooling as Dangerous
• Barring Trump From Ballots Is a Recipe for Violence
• DAILY FEATURES: Reader Comments, Videos, Best of Right Opinion, Short Cuts, Memes, and Cartoons.

ON THE WEB

• Betsy McCaughey: The Profiteering Migrant-Industrial Complex
• Scarlen Valderaz: Raising Boys: A Mother’s Thoughts
• RNC: Bidenomics Hits the Holidays

FEATURED ANALYSIS

The Border: Worst Story of the Year

The numbers are mind-boggling, the costs are incalculable, and the Democrats are to blame.

Douglas Andrews

Try to imagine every single person in Alaska.

Now add everyone in Delaware. And in Hawaii. And in Maine. And in Montana. Now add New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Add together every single person in each of those states. Now you have a sense of how many illegal immigrants our demented Democrat president, Joseph Robinette Biden, has allowed to invade our country by refusing to secure our southern border.

We cease to be a country when we cease to control our border. And anyone who doubts that this “browning” of America is a key component of Barack Obama’s third term in office and the Democrats’ long-held plan for permanent political power hasn’t been paying attention.

This isn’t the sexiest story of the year. Let’s face it: We’re all sick of hearing about the border. Not a week goes by here in our humble shop when we aren’t struggling for a way to put a novel spin on a broken record of a disaster. But Joe Biden’s refusal — as opposed to “failure,” which implies effort — to abide by his constitutional duty to secure our southern border is without a doubt the most consequential story of the year.

It’s also an impeachable offense, and it speaks to Republican myopia that they fixate on the Biden Crime Family’s influence peddling rather than having charged the president with this inarguably high crime long ago. We can’t absorb a Pennsylvania of low-skilled and unskilled, non-English-speaking immigrants and not have it permanently change our national fabric. As we wrote earlier this year, the costs are incalculable.

Customs and Border Protection says we recently saw a record 14,509 illegals in a single day, Tuesday. In addition, as Fox News’s Bill Melugin reports, we’ve already had more than 200,000 border encounters in December alone. That’s the equivalent of a Birmingham, Alabama, crossing our border in just 20 days.

They’re coming from everywhere — from Guinea, Senegal, Liberia, Oman, Lebanon, Bangladesh, India, and elsewhere. They’re flying from Africa into Central America, then heading north. As our Emmy Griffin challenged earlier this week, “Tell us again how it’s not an invasion.”

But don’t worry. A Colombian woman was given her confirmed appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement for — we kid you not — Thursday, January 23, 2031. This is called back-door amnesty, and this is what Democrat governance gets you.

“It’s deliberate,” says Newt Gingrich, stating the obvious before adding something less obvious: that the Democrats’ next phase is to grant illegals the right to vote.

Estimates vary when it comes to the scale of this calamity. And why wouldn’t they? How can we keep track of a nearly 2,000-mile border when our president isn’t interested in doing so? As the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard reports, “A new estimate this week put the growing population of ‘gotaways’ at a sky-high 13 million, more than the population of every state except four: California, Texas, New York, and Florida.”

That shockingly large number comes from an expert: Steven Camarota, the research director for the Center for Immigration Studies. “He provided the new estimate at a conference held this week,” Bedard continues, “during which he released a new census-based report showing that there are almost 50 million foreign-born citizens in the country, far more than previously expected by the government and likely driven by the spike in Biden administration-approved immigrants flooding into the country.”

Camerota’s paper also studied the ruinous economic impact of such a massive migration, noting that 54% of immigrant households — including naturalized citizens, legal residents, and illegal immigrants — used at least one major welfare program. The rate is even higher, 59%, for noncitizen households, which include green-card holders and illegal immigrants. As for U.S.-born households, “only” 39% are on the government dole.

Any suggestion that the Democrats have been powerless to stop this invasion — and this depletion of our treasury — is a lie, and that was made clear this week when news began to trickle out that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a band of establishment Republicans have been working in secret to tamp down the flow of illegals in exchange for $61 billion in aid for Ukraine. North Carolina moderate Thom Tillis and his fellow Republicans proposed a trigger of 3,000 illegal crossings per day for closing the border, which was down from the Democrats’ opening offer of 5,000 per day.

Huh? How about zero? Does zero work for these people? And why are we bartering on behalf of Ukraine to secure our border? As the New York Post editorial board puts it:

If Washington can tell border agents to stop waving in illegals when the total hits some arbitrary threshold, then it can tell them to do it from the get-go. In other words, by dickering over just how many illegal migrants can come through in a day before the door slams shut, the Biden administration has at long last said the quiet part out loud: The law doesn’t actually require treating the word “asylum” as a magic “Open sesame.”

Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, who wasn’t invited to the private powwow, spoke for many of us: “Conducting rushed and secret backroom negotiations is not the way to address the unprecedented border crisis. That’s the kind of business-as-usual process that Washington leadership has relied upon to mortgage our children’s future and weaken our country.”

Thanks to Joe Biden, every state is now a border state. That’s because this administration has long been packing up and sending illegals all over the country, to every congressional district in the 50 states.

Texas Governor Gregg Abbott has been returning the favor. Abbott, who followed the lead of Ron DeSantis but recently endorsed Donald Trump for president, is flying illegals to sanctuary cities like Chicago while noting that every sanctuary city is fair game. “Until Biden steps up to secure the border,” he said, “we will continue to provide overwhelmed Texas border towns with much-needed relief.”

Chicago’s sanctuary mayor, Brandon Johnson, is squealing like a stuck pig: “We have a governor … that is placing families on buses without shoes, cold, wet, tired, hungry, afraid, traumatized. And then they come to the city of Chicago. … The governor of Texas needs to take a look in the mirror of the chaos that he is causing for this country. This is not just a Chicago dynamic. He is attacking our country.”

Republicans haven’t been as strong on securing our border as they should be, largely because they’ve been cowed by a phony political calculus: They mistakenly believe that Hispanics will hold it against them at the polls. But Hispanics, as it turns out, are sick of this situation too. Judy Gutierrez, a lifelong resident of the border town of El Paso and the daughter of Mexican immigrants, calls the situation “unsustainable” and says that the normally solidly Democrat city will reflect its displeasure at the polls. “They’re really frustrated. … They just feel nothing is being done and their voices aren’t being heard.”

If you like what’s been happening at our southern border under Joe Biden, then the Democrats are your party. If you deplore it, if you want your voice to be heard, then it’s your duty to vote for the party that believes national borders are not optional, not a bargaining chip, not a “nice to have.”

As for that national fabric we mentioned earlier, what are the effects — over weeks and months and years and generations — of an influx of people unlike any in American history that is forcibly distributed across the land by the Biden administration? Does our patriotism and our sense of Americanness grow stronger or weaker? Do we become more inclined to fight for our country or less so? More inclined to obey our nation’s laws or less so? More inclined to pay taxes or less so? More inclined to work or less so? More inclined to vote or less so?

If recent polling is any indication, the American people are finally waking up. According to a recent Fox News poll, the percentage of voters who see illegal immigration as the most important issue facing the country has nearly doubled since August.

As for what ought to be done by the first post-Biden administration, 89% of Republicans favor deporting illegal immigrants, while Democrats are divided, with 48% in favor and 44% in opposition.

The 2024 presidential election will have consequences, and none will be more profound or long-lasting than our nation’s border security.

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Executive News Summary

Colorado GOP may cancel its primary, LGBT activist puts porn in Little Free Libraries, yet another reason to leave California, and more.

Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler

Cross-Examination

• Colorado GOP may cancel its primary: When Colorado legalized marijuana back in 2012, a lot of folks shrugged and thought, Federalism. And while we had a hunch that the societal impact of easy dope would one day be readily apparent, we had no idea that it would strike the state’s judicial branch so forcefully. It’s hard to explain what those four justices were thinking when they used a Civil War-era amendment to kick the opposition party’s standard-bearer off the state’s presidential primary ballot, but this political charade has galvanized the state’s Republican Party. On Tuesday night, shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision, the Colorado GOP said that if former President Donald Trump isn’t restored to the state’s primary ballot in 2024, the party would cancel its primary altogether. We’re not sure what the strategy is here, nor how it punishes anyone except Republicans, but the plan has been in the works for months. It’ll mean that instead of filling out and depositing a primary ballot, Republican voters would go to their individual precinct’s caucus on March 7 to determine their preferred presidential candidate. It all seems unduly complicated. And, we believe, unnecessary. Colorado went for Joe Biden by 13 points in 2020 and is unlikely to figure in the outcome of the 2024 election. Beyond that, the caucus will likely be rendered moot by a fast-tracked Supreme Court ruling to overturn Colorado’s dopey decision. As columnist and constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley writes, “The moment has come for nine justices to speak in one voice.”
• Xi to Biden: We will take Taiwan: It’s no surprise that Chinese President Xi Jinping is committed to the “reunification” of Taiwan with China. What’s newsworthy, though, is that he evidently warned Joe Biden in no uncertain terms last month that he “intends to end Taiwan’s decades-long de facto independence — peacefully, if possible.” Weakness is provocative, and Biden is thus a highly, er, successful provocateur. First with the Taliban in Afghanistan, then with Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, now with Hamas in Israel, and coming soon, perhaps, with China across the Straits of Taiwan. As the New York Post reports, “Xi told the 81-year-old commander-in-chief that ‘Beijing will reunify Taiwan with mainland China but that the timing has not yet been decided,’ NBC News reported Wednesday.” Biden’s National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, added: “I’m not gonna get into the specifics of the discussion between the two leaders. I think you can understand I’m not gonna read out that private conversation.” Oh, we can understand — probably because Biden said something stupid, like when he told Putin and the rest of the world that a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine would be no big deal. Why is news of Xi’s weeks-old warning to Biden being revealed only now? Perhaps because the mainstream media now sees Joe Biden as damaged goods, as expendable, as unworthy of their continued protection.
• Plagiarism is so Gay: A fresh new batch of plagiarism allegations has hit Harvard President Claudine Gay, and it’ll be interesting to see how far the “Veritas” university is willing to go to protect this disgraceful quota hire. After all, Harvard has an honor code, and students have been dismissed from the university for the crime of plagiarism. Heck, Teddy Kennedy was once suspended from Harvard for a year when he paid a fellow student to take a Spanish test for him. How is that any worse than stealing the thoughts of others and pawning them off as one’s own? On Tuesday, Harvard’s research integrity officer, Stacey Springs, received a complaint of more than 40 allegations of plagiarism against Gay. As The Washington Free Beacon reports, “The document paints a picture of a pattern of misconduct more extensive than has been previously reported and puts the Harvard Corporation, the university’s governing body — which said it initiated an ‘independent review’ of Gay’s scholarship and issued a statement of support for her leadership — back in the spotlight.” Ultimately, this story is about much more than just the scalp of a dishonest Ivy League president. It’s about a university president having presided over an environment of hatred toward Jews, and about whether the color of one’s skin amounts to a permanent “get out of jail free” card against accountability. As The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley observes, “Once you lower standards for hiring administrators or admitting students, you are forced to lower standards for evaluating their conduct and performance.” We think Gay is on borrowed time, and Harvard’s defense of her will soon become untenable.
• LGBT activist puts porn in Little Free Libraries: In a blatant effort to corrupt children with deviant sexual material, the president of Northern Indiana Atheists, Troy Moss, has successfully launched a fundraising effort to build and place multiple book exchanges known as Little Free Libraries to “share banned and challenged diverse books.” Moss’s rationale for his campaign is a response to “local religious extremists” getting local government-run libraries to put books that describe, depict, and promote queer sex acts on request-only shelves. As Moss states, “We want the bottom shelf to be accessible by littles.” Originally seeking $800 for his deviant book-access crusade, Moss has pulled in nearly $1,000 to build and place several of his book exchange boxes in neighborhoods in and around South Bend and Mishawaka. A spokeswoman for Little Free Libraries, Margret Aldrich, explained that the national organization “does not police what stewards put in their Little Free Libraries,” though the organization’s website notes that “everyone who uses the library has the right of helping make sure the types of books in it are appropriate to neighbors of all ages and backgrounds.” So, parents might want to keep tabs on the books entering their neighborhood Little Free Library and remove any objectionable material.
• Tennessee sues BlackRock for climate deception: As we take stock of the past year, we can confidently report that it’s been tough for the Diversicrats, at least on Wall Street. There, the Environmental-Social-Governmental movement met with the reality of free-market capitalism, as investors clawed back more than $14 billion from their so-called sustainable funds this year. Ya hate to see it. Likewise, we hate to see what’s happening in Tennessee, where, in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, the Volunteer State sued one of the leading pushers of the globalist ESG movement, BlackRock, for harming everyday Tennessee investors by way of the investment firm’s radical ESG commitments. As The Federalist reports, the suit details how BlackRock, thanks to its alliances with a group of ESG entities, “makes key company decisions based not on what will obtain the highest profit, but on what will instead move the world closer to radical ‘net zero’ goals.” In short, BlackRock has been misleading its investors by talking out of both sides of its mouth — the green side and the “green” side.
• Yet another reason to leave California: On Tuesday, the State Water Resources Control Board in California unanimously voted to approve standards that will allow for the “direct potable reuse” of sewage by treating and recycling it for drinking water. The Golden State now becomes the second state in as many years to green-light the recycling of sewage for drinking water. Colorado became the first just last year. California’s chairman of the state water board, E. Joaquin Esquivel, praised the decision, claiming it will help “ongoing efforts to find innovative solutions to the challenges of extreme weather driven by climate change.” With California having struggled with droughts for years, this decision comes after years of state leadership bowing to demands from environmentalist groups, which has prevented the building of more reservoirs and stymied sensible water-collection efforts. The question is, how much more will the cost of water rise for California residents?
• Civic illiteracy from California leadership: After seeing the Colorado Supreme Court’s unprecedented decision to have Donald Trump removed from the state’s primary ballot based upon a dubious interpretation of the 14th Amendment, California Democrat Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis wants to do the same in the Golden State. On Wednesday, Kounalakis sent a letter to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber calling on her to “explore every legal option” to see Trump removed from the ballot. Kounalakis ridiculously asserted, “This decision is about honoring the rule of law in our country and protecting the fundamental pillars of our democracy,” but she then later demonstrated her lack of civic literacy by writing, “The constitution is clear: you must be 40 years old and not be an insurrectionist.” Actually, the minimum age threshold the Constitution sets for the presidency is 35. Furthermore, speaking of the rule of law, Trump has not been convicted of insurrection, no matter how much Democrats and the Leftmedia repeat the word.
• Confederate monument removal proceeding: Well, that didn’t last long. The temporary stay ordered by U.S. District Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. on Monday to pause the removal of The Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery has been lifted. Alston issued his temporary injunction following an objection raised by the group Defend Arlington over concerns about the potential desecration of graves. However, after touring the site on Tuesday, Alston lifted his injunction, stating: “I saw no desecration of any graves. The grass wasn’t even disturbed.” Sadly, the monument erected in 1914 for the express purpose of encouraging reconciliation is being removed for the false claim that it is divisive.

Headlines

• U.S. sanctions other countries for doing what Colorado just did (Daily Signal)
• Second gay sex tape allegedly filmed in U.S. Capitol (Daily Wire)
• ACLU sues Texas over new law authorizing arrest, deportation of illegal immigrants (National Review)
• U.S., Venezuela swap 10 American prisoners in exchange for close Maduro ally (New York Post)
• Anti-gun group investigated after destroying weapons in “buyback” program, might have violated universal background check law (Not the Bee)
• Newsom’s 10-year plan to end homelessness enters its 20th year (Townhall)
• One million fewer men attended college last year than a decade ago (Daily Wire)
• Israel condemned by UN twice as many times as rest of world (National Review)
• Policy: Protect the Red Sea (National Review)
• Satire: Colorado Supreme Court demands Jack Phillips bake cake to celebrate Trump ruling (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.

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Punishing Voter Fraud Is Racist?

The Leftmedia presents another election story in which minorities are hardest hit by applying the law.

Nate Jackson

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Republicans are racists.

That’s the not-so-stunning conclusion offered by The Washington Post in a new “exclusive” and “first-of-its-kind analysis” about how minorities (and Democrats) are the most frequent “targets” of the GOP’s “voter-fraud crackdown” in various states.

If it feels like we’re picking on The Washington Post a lot lately (Thomas Gallatin also does so today for its hit piece on homeschooling), it’s because the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” crowd running one of the nation’s leading newspapers has a big impact on how news is reported nationally. And it seems that the over-the-top left-wing propaganda at the Post has accelerated.

According to the Post, “Black and Hispanic people made up more than 75 percent of defendants and Democrats nearly 60 percent in a controversial push by Republicans to prosecute election cheating.”

This reminded us of Barack Obama’s obsession with the “disparate impact” of school discipline, which likewise hit minorities more frequently. There’s also the fact that more minorities are arrested and incarcerated for crimes in American cities.

It’s all just systemic racism, right? Right?

The Post’s reporting certainly both depends upon and reinforces that narrative.

The trouble is that laws only have to be enforced against people who break them. As we recently noted in a blockbuster story about one in five voters admitting to illegal mail-in ballot practices, a far higher number of Democrats cast ballots by mail, and younger voters and minorities — who skew heavily Democrat — were “significantly more likely to admit to engaging in fraudulent election activity” than were older or white voters.

It only stands to reason then that if state officials are “targeting” minorities and Democrats, it’s because they’re more likely to break the law. Are state officials supposed to charge more Republican white people just for the sake of “equity”? Or let minorities and Democrats commit crimes just because they’re minorities and Democrats?

And as our Mark Alexander wrote just three months ago:

Of the votes cast in 2020, 43% (66 million ballots) were cast by mail — and a majority of those were in states where authentication of the person receiving and casting the ballot is not required. Of all those who voted in person, 66% voted for Trump versus 42% for Biden — which is to say that 58% of Biden ballots, almost 47 million votes, were cast by mail.

Rather than screaming about “racism,” perhaps the Post’s crack team of journalists could answer why Democrats and minorities are so much more likely to vote by mail and cheat while doing so.

Instead, the story also goes to great lengths to minimize the problem of voter fraud. “The election integrity units established or expanded in six states after [Donald] Trump’s loss obtained only 47 convictions during a period in which tens of millions of votes were cast,” the Post notes with an unmistakable sneer. Furthermore, “The vast majority of the convictions represent small-bore cheating — or, as some defendants argue, mistakes — by individual voters, such as casting two ballots, falsifying a registration or voting even if barred by a conviction.”

Up next is a quote from a left-wing activist group that “tracked the work of the units” and says that “the units have been a waste of money and have undermined democracy.”

This is from the paper and the political party that spent years trumpeting the Big Lie that Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election, culminating in his first impeachment and, frankly, seeding the ground for the trouble in the 2020 election and the second impeachment.

For a crowd constantly fretting about the precarious state of our “democracy,” they sure are trying to have it both ways. Voter fraud is a minuscule problem and a waste of time chased down by racist Republicans. Also, Trump threatens democracy itself by his mere presence on a ballot. (To be fair, though, even the Post’s editorial board isn’t sold on the Colorado Supreme Court’s reasoning.)

Speaking of Trump, he’s a big reason the Post even thinks this story is a story. Trump did well with minorities in 2020, and many poll respondents are gravitating toward him and the GOP more generally again. Therefore, it’s time to bang the “racist” drum even louder. All the better to do it about voting, like the whole Georgia fiasco with Major League Baseball.

A final point about voting. With all the rancor and distrust of our election system coming from both sides, a lot of it with very good reason, it seems to us there’s a simple solution: voting in person with a photo ID on Election Day. It’s awfully hard to cheat that way, and no one comes away thinking an election was stolen when the same rules apply to everyone.

Democrats don’t want this, of course, because they benefit from every expansion of voting to include early voting and mail ballots, sometimes in bulk. Even if no fraud is committed, Democrats know that low-information and low-effort voters break heavily for Democrats. Why give up that advantage when, instead, they and their Leftmedia propagandists can accuse Republicans of racism for trying to establish election integrity?

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Houthis Disrupt Supply Lines, Mock Biden

The Iranian-backed terror group in Yemen threatens shipping bottlenecks and makes the U.S. look weak.

Emmy Griffin

When Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States, he was faced with a state-sponsored group of pirates plaguing shipping lanes in Tripoli and targeting U.S. shipping vessels. They were known as the Barbary Pirates. Jefferson had a choice: pay tribute to the pirates or go to war. The young country couldn’t afford the exorbitant amount the pirates were demanding, so Jefferson chose war — and won.

Today, America and the free international trading community face a similar situation. Iran, the biggest troublemaker in the Middle East, has terror proxies all over the region. In Gaza, it’s Hamas; in Lebanon, it’s Hezbollah; and in Yemen, it’s a group of pirates called the Houthis. Under President Donald Trump, the Houthis were a designated terror group. Bt under the disastrous helmsmanship of President Joe Biden, the Houthis are no longer on that list. Why? Because Biden was doing all he could to make an Iran nuclear deal happen.

Shortly after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, the Houthis were emboldened by the West’s lackluster and confused response and took that opportunity of moral blindness to start attacking ships in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea. This is a strategic shipping bottleneck, and the U.S. — as the global hegemony — has a responsibility to protect it from such incursions to ensure free trade. The response has been … slow.

It was only after several ships had been seized or damaged and the U.S. military in the area had shot down several drones that a “red line” was finally drawn.

Over the weekend, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin declared, “Iran’s support for Houthi attacks on commercial vessels must stop.” Austin went on to explain: “This is an international challenge that demands collective action. Therefore today I am announcing the establishment of Operation Prosperity Guardian, an important new multinational security initiative.”

Austin’s demands that Iran must stop could be interpreted as a red line. However, there have been few ramifications for the actions of the Houthis thus far, which leads many to wonder if this is yet again all talk with no real deterrent for Iran. If all the coalition military vessels are doing is intercepting ballistic missiles or shooting down drones, it’s little more than a Band-Aid solution.

An international coalition comprising the U.S., UK, Italy, Canada, France, Bahrain, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, and Spain is going to be providing protection to commercial vessels at that particular bottleneck and hopefully deter any of these pirates.

But this action is a little late. Major shipping companies such as Maersk, BP, Hapag-Lloyd, and CGM Group have diverted their vessels the long way around Africa to mitigate the known risk of the Houthi pirates. These companies are hedging their bets because if they are depending on the military might and political will of Joe Biden and the U.S. — the political will, in particular, being excessively and demonstratively lacking — that is an even bigger gamble. This has projected ramifications for countries such as the UK that are now fearful of a further rise in prices, particularly on gas and oil. It will also eventually affect the prices and scarcity of goods here in the U.S. should the Houthi attacks continue to be successful.

As the Wall Street Journal editors also explain: “It’s good to work with allies, but the truth is that this effort will depend largely on U.S. military power and political will. The details of how the task force will operate aren’t clear, and many of the countries barely have a navy.”

Operation Prosperity Guardian is a tepid gesture that is consistent with Joe Biden’s foreign policy tactics. By not wanting to escalate conflicts via direct action, he makes conflicts worse by pussyfooting around the problems (see the Russia-Ukraine war).

The Houthis aren’t intimidated by the new international coalition. Their chief negotiator, Mohammed Abdel-Salam, posted this on social media after Austin’s announcement: “The American-formed coalition is to protect Israel and militarize the sea without any justification, and will not stop Yemen from continuing its legitimate operations in support of Gaza.” He added this well-calculated threat: “Whoever seeks to expand the conflict must bear the consequences of his actions.”

This is a ragtag group of pirates/terrorists on a level with Hezbollah. They are not an army, but they can cause international annoyance at the behest of Iran. It seems pretty clear that Biden is going to do little more than nothing for fear of Iran.

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Leftmedia Smears Homeschooling as Dangerous

In a blatant hit piece, The Washington Post ridiculously makes the claim that homeschooling allows for child torture.

Thomas Gallatin

The Washington Post recently ran an anti-homeschooling propaganda hit piece titled “What home schooling hides: A boy tortured and starved by his stepmom.” The article, which is part of a series the Post is running to smear homeschooling, notes the tragic story of a young 11-year-old boy whose repeated abuse by his stepmother eventually led to his death.

The obvious culprit and perpetrator of this crime is the boy’s stepmother, and she is now in prison as a result. The boy’s father was apparently not present, as he is also doing time in prison, but the article does not make clear whether his incarceration is related to the crime against his son.

The Post covers this heartbreaking story at the outset but then takes a rather twisted turn with the following loaded statement: “Little research exists on the links between homeschooling and child abuse.” What? It sure seems that the conclusion the Post wants to infer is that homeschooling is to blame for this boy’s death.

The biggest reason behind the young boy’s abuse and death had to do with his broken home life. But the Post avoids that glaring factor.

Interestingly, after observing that “little research exists” to link homeschooling and child abuse, the article then goes on to state, “But the research also suggests that when abuse does occur in home-school families, it can escalate into especially severe forms — and that some parents exploit lax home education laws to avoid contact with social service agencies.”

Does the research exist or doesn’t it? This game of sleight-of-hand “journalism” is played to inject an entirely unrelated study from 2014 as “evidence” to support the Post’s preconceived conclusion — the strong implication that homeschooling is more dangerous for children than public schooling.

If it weren’t so serious, it would be laughable, but the Post notes for the study that of more than two dozen children treated for torture from five different states, “17 victims [were] old enough to attend school, eight were home-schooled.”

Once again, homeschooling is the Post’s implied villain. Logically, one could just as easily point out that more than half of the 17 victims old enough to attend school went to public or private schools. So, we can now blame public or private schools for the abuse these children suffered?

Absent other specific criteria, that statistic is as meaningless as suggesting that more victims were from states with colder climates than warmer ones. Correlation is not causation, no matter how hard the Post plays like it is.

The real reason for this anti-homeschooling hit piece is the fact that homeschooling has become an increasingly popular option for parents, especially since the COVID pandemic, when the vaunted public school system across much of the country bowed to the increasingly extreme and illogical demands of teachers unions rather than parents.

Furthermore, COVID opened many parents’ eyes to the reality of what their children were being taught. In many instances, they saw that their children were being indoctrinated in leftist ideologies like critical race theory. Schools also pushed the gender-bending nonsense of “transgenderism,” which resulted in preferred pronouns and accesses for “transgender”-identifying students to use the bathroom and locker room of their choice. Some schools are even pushing pornography. And don’t forget about all the ridiculous masking rules.

At the most basic level, schools are failing to educate children adequately. And then schools are dropping testing standards because they are “racist.”

Parents have every right to be upset and out of genuine concern for their children’s education and well-being pull them out of public school and homeschool if possible. Far from damaging their kids, the data overwhelmingly shows that homeschooled children test well ahead of their public school contemporaries.

The Washington Post, by contrast, would have readers think that government and public school officials have more love and concern for the welfare of children than their parents. However, the fact of the matter is that stories of parental abuse are far from the norm, as parents naturally have a greater love for their children than even the best teachers.

So why the spate of hit pieces against homeschooling? The Wall Street Journal’s Matthew Hennessey says it’s simple: follow the money.

“The lockdowns and lockouts of 2020 dealt a reputational blow to the education blob — that quasipublic syndicate of teachers unions, government bureaucracies, brand-name credentialing institutions and their media allies whose mission is to keep taxpayer money flowing to public schools. Most of that money is linked to students, many of whom left during the plague year and haven’t returned. Now the crisis is over and the blob wants its monopoly back.”

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Barring Trump From Ballots Is a Recipe for Violence

It sets up a perverse set of incentives for both political sides.

Ben Shapiro

On Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court of Colorado ruled that former President Donald J. Trump had to be removed from the state ballot, for both the primaries and the general election. They cited Amendment 14, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States, which states, in relevant part, that candidates are ineligible for office if they “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution of the United States. It is unclear whether the provision applies to presidential candidates; it is even more unclear whether such a provision is “self-enforcing,” meaning that any electoral official in any state can simply declare for himself whether a candidate has been an “insurrectionist.”

Nonetheless, the court said it is qualified to determine who is guilty of “insurrection” under the 14th Amendment without any criminal case or impeachment case. And the court says that “the events of January 6 constituted an insurrection and… President Trump engaged in that insurrection.”

On a legal level, this is extraordinarily strained. Section 3 was designed to prohibit those who had served in the Confederacy from holding public office in the United States. The Confederacy, as we know, was an armed rebellion against the United States that ended in the deaths of some 600,000 Americans on both sides. Trump, by contrast, made a series of legal challenges to the election, all of which were denied, and then claimed — on the basis of specious legal reasoning — that the vice president could simply throw out electoral slates that had already been certified. He then called for his supporters to protest at the Capitol building and a riot broke out. This hardly qualifies as an “insurrection,” let alone proving that Trump engaged in one. Trump, let us not forget, has not been charged with insurrection. He was not even convicted in his impeachment trial over Jan. 6.

Yet the Colorado State Supreme Court says it can bar him from electoral eligibility anyway.

This is, to put it mildly, unbelievably dangerous.

It sets up a perverse set of incentives for both political sides.

Trump can and will rightly claim that lawfare has been used to thwart the workings of democracy — that a slate of judges in any state can simply negate the will of the voters, and that President Joe Biden’s own Department of Justice has been attempting to drag him into court before the election in order to stymie his shot at the presidency.

Meanwhile, the Colorado Supreme Court has now set up expectations for Democrats across the country that Trump can be legally barred from the presidency — and when the Supreme Court overturns that Colorado Supreme Court ruling, they will claim that the Supreme Court itself is rigged.

All of which means that 2024 is going to be the most insane and ugly presidential election in American history. And that’s saying a lot, since 1968 and 2020 are both years that existed. Under what circumstances, precisely, would Democrats accept the result of a Trump election? Under what circumstances, precisely, would Republicans accept the result of a Biden election?

The weaponization of the legal system creates an all-consuming fire, burning everything in its path. There is simply no 2024 result likely to result in anything but complete — and perhaps violent — chaos at this point.

COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM

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Latest PodcastPopCon #26: 2023 Year-End Wrap-UpOur final episode for PopCon: Season 1! Thomas, Sterling, and Andrew cover our top viral moments, woke defeats, prophesies, pitfalls and consider what we’ve got planned ahead for Season 2 in 2024.

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• Is This Movie Predicting Future Events? — Recently, the Obamas produced a movie that predicts nationwide cyberattacks. Days later, the U.S. experienced eerily similar attacks in real life. Is this movie warning us about something?
• Gene Editing: How CRISPR Will Change Everything — Patrick Bet-David explains why the FDA has officially approved CRISPR gene editing as a treatment for Sickle Cell Disease, marking a historic milestone in medical science.
• Satire: Harvard Ends 24-Hour Search for Replacement President — Harvard has announced that Claudine Gay will not resign because, even though she’s a plagiarizing anti-Semite, she’s black, so that’s okay.

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BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

• LAURA HOLLISDestroying the Rule of Law to Get Trump
• LARRY ELDERTrump’s an ‘Insurrectionist’ — But Hillary Was Exercising Free Speech
• JEFF JACOBYA Generation of Antisemites
• ARMSTRONG WILLIAMSSodomy in the Halls of Congress
• CAL THOMASMerry Tifton

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

SHORT CUTS

Dumb & Dumber

“We should all be encouraged by any action that makes it less likely that [Trump] will return to the presidency.” —Senator Chris Coons (D-DE)

“[Trump] certainly supported an insurrection. There’s no question about it. None. Zero.” —President Joe Biden (“J6 was not an insurrection. It was a riot. None of the more than 1100 Trump supporters arrested over J6 have been charged with insurrection. In any case, insurrection is overthrowing a government and Trump was still the president so did he insurrect himself?” —Miranda Devine)

“The constitution is clear: you must be 40 years old and not be an insurrectionist.” —California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis (“It actually says in the Constitution you have to be 35 to be president.” —Greg Price)

For the Record

“In the name of ‘saving democracy,’ leftist judges just denied the people of Colorado their right to vote. That doesn’t sound very ‘democratic’ to me.” —Gary Bauer

“The Colorado Supreme Court just disqualified Trump from the 2024 election. You can have your own opinions, but here’s the thing: American citizens have the right to vote for whoever they want. That’s democracy. The Supreme Court needs to set this right.” —Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX)

“There was no trial on any of this. They basically just said, what, you can’t be on the ballot? I mean, how does that work? … Could we just say that Biden can’t be on the ballot because he let in eight million illegals into the country and violated the constitution, which he has? Can we just say, oh, well, they have money coming to Hunter [Biden]?” —Ron DeSantis on the Colorado ruling barring Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot

“Next year, you’re going to have a choice. You can spend tens of millions of dollars destroying the dementia patient in the White House and the Democrats, or you could spend tens of millions of dollars next year trying to make sure our nominee is even on the ballot.” —radio talk-show host Steve Deace

The BIG Lies

“We wanna ban assault weapons, they wanna ban books.” —Vice President Kamala Harris

“[Biden will] never make a decision that’s gonna be damaging to our national security interests.” —National Security Council spokesman John Kirby

“President Biden has been committed to improving the security of our border. … He’s the only leader in our country who’s put forward the kind of robust investments to secure our border.” —Chris Coons

“Let’s have a robust debate on immigration. But don’t hold the issue hostage. … It will have real consequence for these folks to play these kinds of games with who we are as America in terms of our role of global leadership.” —Kamala Harris

Useful Idiot

“It is important … that there be a lessening of the intensity and more precision around how Israel goes after Hamas.” —Kamala Harris

Projection

“Every election cycle we talk about, ‘This is the most [important] election of our lifetime.’ … This one is. We are literally talking about people who are attempting to divide our country in the most crude, frankly, and profound way.” —Kamala Harris

Veep Thoughts

“I have been fortunate and blessed to, during the course of being vice president, have many situations where it becomes clear to me that there are — you know, people of every age and gender, by the way, who see something about being the first that lets them know they don’t need to be limited by other people’s limited understanding of who can do what.” —Kamala Harris

Belly Laugh of the Day

“Everything I read is they’re trying to get him to cut back his hours because he’s got too much energy. ” —Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) on Joe Biden

A Broken Clock Is Right Twice a Day

“A lot of people are getting their perspective from TikTok. And I think if you’re kind of getting your perspective on the world on TikTok, it’s going to tend to be kind of warped or not reflective of the history and actually the way things absolutely are.” —Senator John Fetterman (D-PA)

“I hope Democrats can understand that it isn’t xenophobic to be concerned about the border. It’s a reasonable conversation, and Democrats should engage.” —John Fetterman

And Last…

“Karine Jean Pierre is attacking Governor Greg Abbott for sending a few thousand illegal immigrants to Chicago, saying it’s a dehumanizing stunt, while the Biden administration sends millions of illegal immigrants to the same cities. This is total gaslighting.” —Katie Pavlich

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TODAY’S MEME

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

TODAY’S CARTOON

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

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

Israel Secures a Hamas Tunnel Inside Gaza | CBN NewsWatch – December 21, 2023 – YouTube

Israel says it has secured a vast Hamas tunnel network inside Gaza. Anti-Israel bias continues to rage, especially among many in the western media. One of the largest Jewish firms in New York city is asking America’s leaders to stand with Israel. On the southern border – historic apprehensions, as surges of migrants keep coming. In the wake of the October 7th tragedy, people are honoring the victims and showing solidarity with Israel by visiting communities impacted by the violence. The Boys in the Boat” is an upcoming film based on the true story of the University of Washington’s rowing team who went from rags to Olympic Gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

CBN News. Because Truth Matters™

— Read on www.youtube.com/watch

Bidenomics: US Homelessness Hits Record High, Families Impacted Most | The Western Journal

Bidenomics: US Homelessness Hits Record High, Families Impacted Most

The well-being of American families has been decimated under Joe Biden’s failed presidency amid crushing inflation and unfettered illegal immigration.

Homelessness in the United States has soared by a record high of 12 percent this year, according to a new report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“The sharpest rise in homelessness was among people in families with children — this measure rose by 15.5 percent,” The Epoch Times reported. “Next was homelessness among unaccompanied youths, which increased by 15.3 percent.”

The 12 percent spike in homelessness — which comprises about 653,100 people on a single night — was the biggest one-year increase since the federal government began compiling the statistics in 2007.

“The latest estimate indicates that people becoming homeless for the first time were behind much of the increase,” The Associated Press reported. “A rise in family homelessness ended a downward trend that began in 2012.”

Researcher Dennis Culhane — a University of Pennsylvania professor whose primary expertise is homelessness — said unfettered illegal immigration was a key driver of the unprecedented surge in homelessness.

“To me, the story is the migrant crisis,” Culhane told The New York Times. “Even without the migrant crisis we would have seen some increase, but certainly not to this extent.”

Today’s cover: Record 12,600 migrants encountered at border in 24 hours — as backlog for immigration hearings breaks 3 million https://t.co/h0lpRmoGyW pic.twitter.com/4TjuNKBRmw

— New York Post (@nypost) December 20, 2023

This isn’t surprising, since homeless shelters and other housing programs have been bogarted by illegal aliens who have flooded the nation under Biden’s dumpster-fire presidency.

Is Bidenomics is hurting Americans?Yes No

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Last year, a 95-year-old Korean War veteran was kicked out of his nursing home in Staten Island, New York, so the facility could house migrants.

Jeff Olivet, the executive director of the Interagency Council on Homelessness, said several factors are fueling the record homelessness roiling the nation.

“The most significant causes are the shortage of affordable homes and the high cost of housing that have left many Americans living paycheck to paycheck and one crisis away from homelessness,” Olivet said in a Dec. 15 statement.

Again: If there’s a dire shortage of affordable housing and rents are so high that many Americans are “one crisis away from homelessness,” why are taxpayer-funded resources being drained by illegal aliens who aren’t even supposed to be here in the first place?

Does it make any sense that hundreds of thousands of Americans — including many families with children — sleep on the streets while their tax dollars are being diverted to shelter and feed illegal aliens?

If this doesn’t piss you off, I don’t know what will! America meet Peter Weelmaa. He is a disabled American who’s been left homeless because of a federal government which has prioritized illegals over American citizens. Watch as he and his dog are left out in the cold and… pic.twitter.com/z9JDKgsMLr

— Ben Bergquam – Real America’s Voice (RAV-TV) News (@BenBergquam) December 19, 2023

Living in Los Angeles means you’ll be fined for cars parked in your own yard while homeless people set up camp on the sidewalk and do whatever they want. pic.twitter.com/JxroQQv29G

— Catch Up (@CatchUpFeed) December 14, 2023

In three short years, Biden’s America has devolved into a crime-infested dumping ground for unvetted armies of migrants whose presence endangers public safety and drains taxpayer resources.

Hundreds of illegal immigrants here in Lukeville, AZ now marching towards an outdoor processing area set up by Border Patrol. 500+ came through a breach in the border wall hours ago. There are only a handful of agents here to handle this huge group as BP remains stretched thin. pic.twitter.com/XNPPZVyxdX

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) December 20, 2023

It’s bad enough that many Democrat-run cities have become squalid cesspools of homelessness, open-air drug use and rampant crime with streets littered with human waste and trash.

But at the rate things are going now, it’s only a matter of time before the entire country becomes engulfed in this tragic self-immolation.

---

Here’s a chilling fact for conservatives this Christmas: At this point, most conservative digital publishers like The Western Journal have had their traffic slashed by Big Tech and find that about 90 percent of advertisers have blackballed them. 

Imagine if Big Tech suddenly took away 90 percent of your annual salary. That’s what conservative publishers are facing daily now.

To be honest, things are tight here at The Western Journal, but thanks to readers like YOU we are still in the fight. 

And we literally cannot do it without you. When you join The Western Journal, you directly support journalists who actually do their job — they write the truth and demand accountability from the people with power over us all.

This Christmas, will you officially join us in the fight? 

Right now we’re offering $10 off some of our most popular membership options. You’ll get access to ALL of our content — news, commentary and premium articles — you’ll experience a radically reduced number of ads and, most importantly, you’ll be supporting the fight against leftism.

Thank you for reading The Western Journal and for helping fight for our country.

Please become a member today.

But whatever you choose, please…

… Have a merry Christmas,

Josh Manning

Deputy Managing Editor

P.S. If you prefer, a simple direct donation can be made here. Again, thank you and Merry Christmas!

“I Am Going To Red-Pill You About Vegetable Oils” | ZeroHedge

To summarize Goddek’s list, he noted that the extraction process for vegetable oils like canola, soybean, and corn oil involves unnatural methods such as high heat and chemical solvents, leading to oxidation and trans fats. These oils, a modern dietary phenomenon, have seen tremendous use since the early 1990s, paralleling the increase in chronic health issues.

He pointed out that Omega-6 fatty acids can cause chronic inflammation and are linked to autoimmune diseases due to an imbalance with Omega-3. Studies link diets high in vegetable oils to oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, genetic damage, and an increased risk of cancer and heart disease.

Goddek provided two notable studies that found significantly higher rates of heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular deaths in groups consuming high amounts of these oils.

Here’s the list:

Unnatural Extraction Process: Unlike coconut or olive oil, which can be extracted through pressing, seed oils like canola, soybean, and corn oil require unnatural methods for extraction. They undergo processes involving high heat and chemical solvents like petroleum, leading to oxidation and the formation of trans fats even before they reach your kitchen?.

?A Modern Dietary Addition: Industrial seed oils are a recent addition to our diet, exploding in consumption from virtually zero in the early 1900s to 70 lbs per year per person today. This dramatic increase corresponds with a surge in chronic health issues, suggesting a link between seed oil consumption and modern diseases.

Omega-6 and Inflammation: Vegetable oils are high in Omega-6 fatty acids, especially linoleic acid, which is a precursor to pro-inflammatory eicosanoids. These molecules can cause chronic inflammation and contribute to autoimmune diseases. The excessive consumption of Omega-6, without the balance of Omega-3, exacerbates these health issues.

— Read on www.zerohedge.com/commodities/i-am-going-red-pill-you-about-vegetable-oils

MegaSchism! 25% of United Methodist Churches Have Left Over Same-Sex Acceptance – Protestia

MegaSchism! 25% of United Methodist Churches Have Left Over Same-Sex Acceptance

The United Methodist Church in the United States has lost one-fourth of its churches in the last four years over their acceptance of same-sex marriage, in what has become the most significant denominational divide in the country in the last 150 years. 

According to United Methodist News, 7660 congregations have disaffiliated from the demented denomination, including 5642 this year alone.

The UMC has over 30.000 churches in the United States and is the second biggest denomination behind the Southern Baptist Convention. In many cases, however, the UMC did not let them leave on peaceful terms but rather requested huge fees to keep their church buildings- sometimes up to half the cost of the property. Some state conventions have refused to offer buyout options, insisting that those choosing to leave must leave their church behind- real estate that is often worth millions- resulting in lawsuits and other legal action.

With the latest exodus, the faithful are by and large all gone, with the remaining churches populated by goatlings with Christian ideations that can’t agree on how badly they hate the bible or on the best way to molest it into affirming the doctrine of demons.

While the main reason for splitting is the long-fought war within the UMC over homosexuality and the UMC’s acceptance of it, it’s of note that the conservatives within the UMC aren’t particularly conservative either. For years the UMC has supported a woman’s right to choose abortion as an option to be considered. In fact, for over 40 years, their Book of Resolutions affirmed the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. 

They support strict gun control and even guns being banned altogether. They allow women leadership into the highest level of leadership, condemn capital punishment, and condemn creationism.

Out of the 7660 churches leaving, only a fraction would even be worth attending. 

The post MegaSchism! 25% of United Methodist Churches Have Left Over Same-Sex Acceptance appeared first on Protestia.

Church of England and Catholic Church offer blessings to same-sex couples | Wintery Knight

Church of England and Catholic Church offer blessings to same-sex couples

In this post, I wanted to first review Jesus’ position on marriage, and then we’ll look at a couple major churches that have decided to bless same-sex relationships. And not minor churches, either. The Church of England and the Roman Catholic church. Let’s take a look at what Jesus says, and then what these two major churches say.

We find Jesus’ teaching on marriage in Matthew 19.

Matthew 19:1-6:

1 Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.

2 And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”

4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,

5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?

6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

To be a Christian, minimally, is to be a follower of Jesus Christ. That means that we accept what Jesus teaches, on whatever he teaches about. We don’t overturn the teachings of Jesus in order to make people who are rebelling against God feel better about their rebellion. It is central to the Christian worldview that Christians care more about what God thinks of them than what non-Christians think of them. In fact, Christians are supposed to be willing to endure suffering rather than side with non-Christians against God’s authority.

So, with that said, let’s take a look at what the Church of England is doing about marriage.

Look at this article from the UK Telegraph:

For the first time in history, same-sex partners can receive a blessing to celebrate their unions…

[…]With the rainbow LGBTQIA+ flag waving outside, Jane Pearse and Catherine Bond became one of the first couples in England to receive a prayer that would publicly affirm and celebrate their union. A move made legal at the turn of midnight Saturday – instead of the usual clink of teacups, the pop of champagne corks punctured the post-service chatter, with congregants and the women, both vicars, well aware of the magnitude of the morning’s celebration.

I thought this part was interesting:

Bond and Pearse got together six years ago, when working in the same benefice (an ecclesiastical office), and now live in Felixstowe and are both associate priests… Both have adult children from their prior marriages, to men.

So both of these women were married to men, and left those marriages. That’s how they got their children. And they inflicted divorce on those children.

The Church of England was not the only organization trying to gain the respect of the secular left by compromising on the plain meaning of Jesus’ words about marriage. They are event investigating a vicar who called the the institution’s first transgender archdeacon a “bloke”.

The UK Telegraph reported on that, too:

The Church of England (CofE) is investigating a vicar after he called the institution’s first transgender archdeacon a “bloke”.

The Rev Brett Murphy faces an official rebuke from the CofE over “intentionally derogatory and disrespectful” remarks he made about the Rev Canon Dr Rachel Mann shortly after her appointment in June.

LGBT+ campaigners had hailed her appointment as a “beacon of light and hope”.

For Protestant Christians, it’s easy to switch from Bible-denying denominations to Bible-believing denominations. But it’s not so easy for Roman Catholics to do the same.

Here’s another story reported by Crux, a Catholic news source:

In the hours that followed release of a Vatican note outlining the pastoral grounds for same-sex blessings, reactions among American Catholics seemed to run the gamut from styling it as a major step forward to insisting on hitting the brakes, on the grounds that not much has really changed.

[…]The declaration outlines situations in which blessings are appropriate for same-sex couples or those in irregular unions. It states that these blessings should never be given “in concurrence with the ceremonies of a civil union, and not even in connection with them.”

The declaration continues that the blessing cannot be performed with any clothing, gestures, or words that are proper to a wedding. Conversely, the declaration states that the blessings can be provided in informal situations such as a visit to a shrine, a meeting with a priest, a prayer group, or during a pilgrimage.

Still, despite its narrow scope, LGBTQ Catholics view the declaration as a significant step forward.

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of the Catholic advocacy organization New Ways Ministry, said in a statement that “it cannot be overstated how significant the Vatican’s new declaration is,” for the fact that it “expands the ways that LGTBQ+ Catholics can know God’s love.”

Father James Martin, a leading minister to and advocate for LGTBQ Catholics, in a series of statements called the declaration “a major step forward in the church’s ministry to LGBTQ people and recognizes the deep desire in many Catholic same-sex couples for God’s presence in their loving relationships.”

“Along with many priests, I will now be delighted to bless my friends’ same-sex unions,” Martin said.

So, that’s where we are now. Major denominations have abandoned Jesus’ teaching on marriage. And why? Who are these church leaders trying to impress with their faithlessness? Wouldn’t it be much better if they dug into some studies and make a defenseof the teachings of Jesus using evidence? It’s not that hard. I’ve been doing it for nearly 15 years on this blog. But you just have to accept that it may not win you respect from the secular leftists who run the corporate news. I accept that. Why can’t they?