There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee.
TITUS 1:5
I have been for years much distressed about the tendency to overorganize the Christian community, and I have for that reason had it charged against me that I do not believe in organization. The truth is quite otherwise!
A certain amount of organization is necessary everywhere throughout the created universe and in all human society. Without it there could be no science, no government, no family unit, no art, no music, no literature, no creative activity of any kind.
The man who would oppose all organization in the church must needs be ignorant of the facts of life. Art is organized beauty; music is organized sound; philosophy is organized thought; science is organized knowledge; government is merely society organized.
And what is the true Church of Christ but organized mystery?
The throbbing heart of the Church is life—in the happy phrase of Henry Scougal, “the life of God in the soul of man.” This life, together with the actual presence of Christ within her, constitutes the Church a divine thing, a mystery, a miracle! Yet without substance, form and order this divine life would have no dwelling place, and no way to express itself to the community.
There is real danger in the efforts of some to substitute organization for life, so that while they have a name to live they are spiritually dead. Let us be reminded that there is no such thing as life apart from the medium through which it expresses itself!1
Scarcely could we rejoice at the thought of losing the glorious old ocean: the new heavens and the new earth are none the fairer to our imagination, if, indeed, literally there is to be no great and wide sea, with its gleaming waves and shelly shores. Is not the text to be read as a metaphor, tinged with the prejudice with which the Oriental mind universally regarded the sea in the olden times? A real physical world without a sea it is mournful to imagine, it would be an iron ring without the sapphire which made it precious. There must be a spiritual meaning here. In the new dispensation there will be no division—the sea separates nations and sunders peoples from each other. To John in Patmos the deep waters were like prison walls, shutting him out from his brethren and his work: there shall be no such barriers in the world to come. Leagues of rolling billows lie between us and many a kinsman whom to-night we prayerfully remember, but in the bright world to which we go there shall be unbroken fellowship for all the redeemed family. In this sense there shall be no more sea. The sea is the emblem of change; with its ebbs and flows, its glassy smoothness and its mountainous billows, its gentle murmurs and its tumultuous roarings, it is never long the same. Slave of the fickle winds and the changeful moon, its instability is proverbial. In this mortal state we have too much of this; earth is constant only in her inconstancy, but in the heavenly state all mournful change shall be unknown, and with it all fear of storm to wreck our hopes and drown our joys. The sea of glass glows with a glory unbroken by a wave. No tempest howls along the peaceful shores of paradise. Soon shall we reach that happy land where partings, and changes, and storms shall be ended! Jesus will waft us there. Are we in him or not? This is the grand question.1
THE elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder (He did not style himself Lord Bishop, much less Head of the Church; but though he was an apostle, he took the lowest room and called himself an elder), and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: (This last is best of all. It was an honour to be an elder, and a high distinction to have been an eye-witness of the sufferings of our Lord, but to be by faith an heir of the coming glory is far beyond both. It is a happy circumstance that we may all attain to this, though we cannot to the other two. If we believe in Jesus we are “partakers of the glory that shall be revealed.”)
2, 3 Feed the flock of God which is among you (this is what the Lord Jesus bade Peter himself do), taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.
Ministers may do more by their example than by their discourses. Let us pray for them that they may be upheld in the path of integrity.
4 And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
5 Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. (In the olden times servants wore long white aprons, and the original word here used alludes to that dress. We are not to assume a lordly style, but stand apron-ed with humility, ready to serve our fellow Christians in all lowliness of mind.)
6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: (If it should seem hard to yield to others, do it for the Lord’s sake, as under his hand, and he will in due time honour you.)
7–9 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. (If we were the only persons who were tempted of the devil we might be terrified; but since he is the common enemy of all believers, and has been defeated by them all in turn, let us show him a bold front, that it may be said of us as of Christian in “Pilgrim’s Progress.”
“The man so bravely played the man
He made the fiend to fly.”)
10, 11 But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
12 By Silvanus (or Silas), a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose, I have written briefly, exhorting, and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand. (To exhort and to bear witness were the chief works of an apostle, especially the latter. By these Peter fed the sheep and lambs of Christ. We also can exhort and testify if we know the Lord, and have experienced his goodness. Are we doing so?)
13 The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son.
14 Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen. (This blessing is given to all in Christ Jesus, but to none else. “There is no peace, saith my God, unto the wicked.” Restlessness here, and woe for ever, are the portion of those who are out of Christ. O Lord, let none in this household remain without faith in Jesus.)
He will bless them that fear the Lord, both small and great.Psalm 115:13
This is a word of cheer to those who are of humble station and mean estate. Our God has a very gracious consideration for those of small property, small talent, small influence, small weight. God careth for the small things in creation and even regards sparrows in their lighting upon the ground. Nothing is small to God, for He makes use of insignificant agents for the accomplishment of His purposes. Let the least among men seek of God a blessing upon his littleness, and he shall find his contracted sphere to be a happy one.
Among those who fear the Lord there are little and great. Some are babes, and others are giants. But these are all blessed. Little faith is blessed faith. Trembling hope is blessed hope. Every grace of the Holy Spirit, even though it be only in the bud, bears a blessing within it. Moreover, the Lord Jesus bought both the small and the great with the same precious blood, and He has engaged to preserve the lambs as well as the full-grown sheep. No mother overlooks her child because it is little; nay, the smaller it is, the more tenderly does she nurse it. If there be any preference with the Lord, He does not arrange them as “great and small” but as “small and great.”
FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS volume 23, number 51, December 19, 2024
Yes, it is He who will build the temple of the Lord, and He who will bear the honor and sit and rule on His throne. Thus, He will be a priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two offices, Zechariah 6:13.
One of my favorite books is entitled The Savage, My Kinsman, a pictorial biography of Elisabeth Elliot and her two year old daughter, Valerie, as they lived among the Auca Indians shortly after Jim, Elisabeth’s husband and Valerie’s father, was martyred, along with four other missionaries in January, 1956 in the Ecuadorian rain forest. These five brave men were seeking to bring the gospel of Christ to this Stone Age tribe. Shortly after the murders, Elisabeth, Valerie, and Rachel Saint (the sister of Nate Saint, one of the others killed) moved into the Auca village to learn their language in order to translate the Bible into Auca, in order to lead them to Christ and establish a church. What is so breathtaking and moving are the marvelous pictures taken by Cornell Capa who obviously was gripped by the story. It is clear that Elisabeth and Rachel have forgiven the murderers and have a deep affection for them. To see beautiful little Valerie with her blond hair playing with the Auca children and being carried by the Auca women is a moving tribute to the power of the gospel to break down barriers that keep people from coming to Christ or from serving Him.
But here’s my question—how could Elisabeth and Rachel muster the courage and love to do such a thing? They obviously grasped the glory of Christ’s incarnation. By this I don’t merely mean the example of the Lord Jesus, that they somehow ought to imitate Jesus and live among people who need help or inspiration. No, they went much further in their understanding. They were there because Jesus, very God of very God, ripped open heaven, came down, and took on human flesh. The hope Jesus gave them moved them to look for better days.
Zechariah the prophet, a contemporary of Haggai, who preached and lived in the mid 400’s B.C., gave a series of Messianic prophecies, all pointing to a better day for those Jews living in the shadow of their shameful exile due to idolatry. They had come back into the land of Judah but the glory has departed. The temple was being rebuilt and the wall around Jerusalem had been reconstructed, but they knew instinctively that things were not as they once were or ought to be. They longed for something more, and Zechariah promised it in spades. The first eight chapters are a series of eight visions, what scholars call dated prophecies, things which have or soon would take place. The last four chapters are undated prophecies, things to take place far into the future. Zechariah writes to encourage these Jews to look for better days through the coming of Messiah.
And this particular vision (Zechariah 6:1ff) refers to the high priest Joshua, son of Jehozadak, receiving a symbolic crown of silver and gold. From there God tells Zechariah that a man named Branch will branch out from where He is, and He will build the temple of the Lord. Branch is one of Messiah’s many names (see Isaiah 4:2, 11:1, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15, Zechariah 3:8) which stresses His wise, righteous, and just reign over all the nations. God is not referring to Solomon’s temple (it had been destroyed) nor the temple rebuilt by Ezra. He rather is referring to the temple of the Holy Spirit, that God indwells His own people by virtue of the person and work of the Lord Jesus (Acts 2:38, Romans 6:1ff, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Colossians 1:27). Then Zechariah says that the coming Messiah will sit and rule on His throne. That is, Messiah will have a two-fold office as priest and king. Theologians also speak of Christ’s three fold office as Prophet, Priest, and King but here the emphasis is on His priestly and kingly offices combined.
This prophecy promises a glorious future by virtue of Messiah’s incarnation and work of redemption. Bottom line for us—because Messiah has come we ought to look for better days. Perhaps you simply ask, “Why look for better days? The world is a mess.” Maybe you find yourself agreeing with Yahweh as He spoke through Isaiah, Woe to those who drag iniquity with the cords of falsehood (those who sin willfully, consciously, and blatantly) . . . woe to those who call evil good, and good evil (those who mock sexually pure young people and champion their own immorality and perversion) . . . woe to those who are wise in their own eyes (atheists who turn the phrase, “Jesus is the reason for the season”, to their own shameless unbelief, “reason is the reason for the season”) . . . and woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine (those who boast at how much liquor they can hold, how many sexual partners they have), (Isaiah 5:18-22). The sordid, rapid decline into debauchery in the west is staggering; and the possession of nuclear weapons by rogue nations like North Korea and Iran can bring a sense of despair into the minds of those who dare think of the dreadful possibilities. Or you may say, “Why should I hope for better days? My own life is a mess.” Perhaps your children have apostatized from the faith. Maybe they have forgotten you, rejected you. Maybe your marriage has failed. It may be that you are so far in debt you cannot see your way out of it. Or it may be that you go to work each day, expecting to be laid off or fired. Every now and then a young couple asks me, “In light of the wickedness in our world, should we bring children into the world?” And my answer always is, “Yes, of course. To marry, to bear children is a statement of hope born out of the goodness of God and the glory of the gospel. There will, indeed, be better days.” “The glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea,” (Habakkuk 2:14). My friend, you must determine to play “the long game,” not only in your personal life but also in the progress of the gospel to all the nations. We are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us (Romans 8:37).
Messiah has come. You ought to look for better days. That’s because He is the Branch who reigns, acts wisely, and does justice and righteousness (Jeremiah 23:5). That’s because He is the Rod of Jesse, who decides fairness for all the afflicted of the earth (Isaiah 11:1-4). That’s because Jesus is the Root of David who by virtue of His exaltation is able to open the book that is sealed up with seven seals (the book declaring God’s great plan of redemption) and to look into it (Revelation 5:5), showing that He is sovereign over all things, that nothing, including your circumstances, is an accident. There is no such thing as bad luck, being at the wrong place at the wrong time. You can look for better days because Jesus promises the morning star to those who overcome (Revelation 2:28) and He declares that He is the morning star (Numbers 24:17, Revelation 22:16). Because Jesus is your great High Priest (Hebrews 7:25-27) He will save you forever because He always lives to make intercession for you. The non-Christian is completely alone in this world. He has no heavenly Father, no elder brother to pray for him, but you do (John 17:9, Romans 8:31-34). And you can look for better days because Jesus is your king. He rules now (Psalm 110:1-2, 4) and forever (Revelation 19:1-6).
And what are those better days for which you ought to look? First, there are many present days in Scripture which are meant to encourage you. There is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:1ff) when you heard and responded to the effectual call of the Holy Spirit and believed the gospel (Ephesians 1:13-14). There is also the day of sanctification (Hebrews 3:13). We are instructed to encourage one another, day after day, as long as it is still called today, lest anyone be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. And there is the present day of peace (John 14:27, Philippians 4:6-7) that Jesus promises to all who trust in Him. But there is also a future day of glorification when to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8), when the hope of a resurrected and glorified body will become reality (1 Corinthians 15:42-57).
God calls his people to see things the way he sees them. If God considers something good, so should we. If he reckons something evil, we must reckon it likewise.
Unfortunately, this does not come naturally for us. We are descended from Adam, born in sin, and live among those of the same lineage (Rom. 5:12). So our moral instincts are faulty from the start, and the world we inhabit has set itself against its Creator and Savior. So what hope do we have of not adopting the world’s values and priorities?
Praise be to God, we have hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ, God’s power to save all who believe (Rom. 1:16–17). This gospel plucks us out of the world and places us into the kingdom of Christ, and yet we struggle to be what we are — to bethe holy, consecrated people God has objectively made us in Christ. Our Lord summarized this struggle when he prayed for us: “They are not of the world… I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (John 17:14–15).
The Apostle Paul turns that prayer into an exhortation: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:2).
So how do we go about this supernatural endeavor? What resources do we have to fend off worldly conformity and pursue transformation? In his infinite wisdom, the Spirit of God has inspired the word of God so that we might have everything we need for life and godliness. The whole of Scripture is there for our instruction and edification, and yet we all likely have portions of the Bible where we feel more at home.
In what follows, I want to encourage you to avail yourself of the Psalms and add them to your armory, so that you can take up the Psalter in this holy war against worldliness and the noble pursuit of renewing your mind.
Here’s why the psalms are indispensable for the Christian life.
The Psalms Are for Praying
Pray without ceasing, be constant in prayer, and pray at all times in the Spirit. Those are all instructions the New Testament gives us. Most of us, if we’re honest, struggle in this discipline, in part because it’s so easy to fall into ruts and routines in our prayer life. Employing the psalms in prayer is a great way to infuse some fresh vigor into your communion with God. What can be better than praying God’s own words back to him, allowing him to renovate your desires and align them with his purposes?
As you pray the psalms, you’ll find yourself praying for things you may not otherwise pray for, you’ll find the vocabulary of the Psalter becoming your own, and you will experience what David promised: “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4). It is not that delighting in the Lord is the key to getting everything you want, it’s that delighting in the Lord will transform what you want — and those who have the Lord possess all they could ever want. In other words, your desires and mind will be renewed.
The Psalms Are for Singing
Why is it that God inspired a carefully arranged collection of 150 songs for his people? Because the combination of text and tune makes it so that we internalize what we sing. And the words we internalize stay with us, finding their way into our thoughts, our speech, and our desires. Over and over again, God commands us to sing within the psalms themselves: “Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name” (Ps. 30:4; see also 33:3, 47:6; and 68:4 for a sampling of such exhortations).
You may not be in a position to choose psalms for your church to sing, but this is a practice you can adopt for your own edification. Find some good recordings of psalm settings, listen to them, and sing with them. The words, and the poetic devices that convey them, will burrow into your mind and heart, and you’ll find yourself not only repeating the words, but loving them. It was Augustine who said, commenting on Psalm 72, “He who sings praise, not only sings, but also loves.” This is the heart of transformation.
The Psalms Are for Fighting
Paul was not simply being creative when he referred to the word of God as “the sword of the Spirit” (Eph. 6:17); he was preparing us to fight against the forces of darkness in us and around us. The psalmists saw things the same way: “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Ps. 119:11). David says that, because the righteous has God’s law in his heart, “his steps do not slip” (Ps. 37:31). And the path to righteous flourishing is to meditate on the law of God day and night (Ps. 1).
The Lord Jesus rebuffed the evil one by quoting the Scriptures, and we would be foolish to think we can survive with lesser weaponry. Read, meditate, and memorize verses from the psalms, and challenge yourself to memorize psalms in their entirety. There are imprecations that will challenge whether you think evil is truly evil, there are promises held out for those who fear God and hope in him, and there are confessions that express true contrition. If you want to fight temptation and worldliness, hide these words in your heart and be renewed.
The Psalms Are for Longing
The people of God have rarely been at home. Adam and Eve were briefly where they should be, dwelling in the presence of God in the place he provided. Then they sinned and were sent into exile. There were times when Israel resided peacefully in the Promised Land, but those periods were interrupted by enemies both without and within. Then, exile. And when they returned, the former glory was gone.
Christians now reside under a New Covenant, but with the same status as those Israelites of old: “sojourners and exiles” (1 Pet. 2:11) in a world with “no lasting city,” but seeking the city to come (Heb. 13:14).
You will find no more poignant expression of this homeward yearning than in the psalms. David declares that “one thing” he seeks is to “dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life” (Ps. 27:4). Israelites in exile recorded their heart’s desire: “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion” (Ps. 137:1). And every time you read, “Wait for the Lord” or, “How long, O Lord?” you are reading the words of an Israelite eager to be back in God’s presence in the place he provides.
The psalms anticipate not just our final home, but the king who will lead us there. As articulated in Reading the Psalms as Scripture, the psalms teach us what to expect from the promised king. He will fulfill all that the Old Testament anticipated, and he will be king from David’s line, great David’s greater son whose dominion will be from sea to sea (Ps. 72:8). And the New Testament authors refer to the psalms with such frequency that, if we want to understand and anticipate the return of the Messiah rightly, we must know the psalms.
An important part of not conforming to the world is to give our allegiance ultimately to this royal Son and to long for his reign. We are not escapists — we want to love our neighbors and seek the welfare of our cities — but the path of faithfulness in the world is to have the highways of Zion engraved on our hearts (Ps. 84:5).
Conclusion: Hide the Psalter in Your Heart
One day, God will set things right, and he will call us out of Babylon: “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins” (Rev. 18:4). Those who will be ready to respond to that sovereign summoning will be those whose minds have been renewed and have kept themselves ready. Hide the Psalter in your heart, and ready you shall be.
The psalms cultivate a life of prayer grounded in Scripture.In Reading the Psalms as Scripture, James M. Hamilton Jr. and Matthew Damico guide the reader to delight in the spiritual artistry of the psalms.
Psalms is a carefully arranged book saturated in Scripture. The psalmists drew from imagery and themes from earlier Scripture, which are then developed by later Scripture and fulfilled in Christ. The book of psalms advances God’s grand story of redemption, and it gives us words to pray by drawing us into this story. When we meditate on the promises and patterns in the psalms, we can read, pray, and sing them with faithfulness.
It would be a shame to let 2024 close without marking a significant anniversary – 350 years since the birth of Isaac Watts. (Much in the same way as it would be a shame to let the 5th of November pass without remembering Guy Fawkes).
“In the Beginning was Watts”
Watts was born in Southampton on 17th July 1674. In 1699, at the age of 24, he was appointed assistant pastor at an independent church in London which had been founded by Joseph Caryl, and where John Owen and David Clarkson had also ministered. In 1702, he became the sole pastor, and ‘Though his Stature was low, and his bodily Presence but weak, yet his Preaching was Weighty and Powerful’.[1] In both his own day and ours, however, Watts would be best known for his hymns.
Indeed, Watts’ influence on the development of English hymnody, on both sides of the Atlantic, was so significant that a recent study on Hymns in American Protestant History and Theology starts: ‘In the beginning was Watts’.[2]
Trinitarian Experimentation
Critics of Watts often point to the fact that he voted against subscription to orthodox Trinitarian doctrine at Salters’ Hall in 1719. Donald Macleod says there is good reason to believe that Watts, along with Philip Doddridge, ‘were, or became, Arians, but what is more important is that they bequeathed to Evangelicalism a contempt for the great creeds and for the Fathers who had formulated them’.[3]
(Macleod goes on to say: ‘This lack of contact with Patristics has bedevilled Evangelicalism ever since, resulting in a truncated doctrine of God, a limited Christology and a defective worship’.[4])
Certainly, Watts ‘struggled to find a way of explicating the doctrine of the Trinity that would keep him within the bounds of orthodoxy’, and ‘these attempts aroused the suspicions of the rigidly orthodox’ – including one of his correspondents, Cotton Mather.[5]
John Owen’s most recent biographer, Crawford Gribben, says:
‘After his death, Owen’s congregation did not long continue in his theological footsteps. Isaac Watts, his successor in the pastoral office, experimented with Trinitarian doctrine to such an extent that, by the 1720s, London Unitarians were suggesting that he had come to support their cause’.[6]
However it is perhaps safer – and more damaging – just to let Watts speak for himself.
‘A sea change in Western Christianity’
George Eliot’s first published work of fiction was entitled Scenes of Clerical Life. It describes a rural Anglican congregation, around 1830, where ‘the innovation of hymn-books was as yet undreamed of … for the lyrical taste of the best heads in Shepperton had been formed on Sternhold and Hopkins [a 1562 edition of the metrical psalms]’.
Eliot’s congregation may have been fictional, but it was true to life. Calvin’s ‘stern embargo’ on the use of uninspired material in worship, had, by the early 1700s, been broken by ‘the obscure hymns of Mason, Keach, Barton, and others’.[7] Yet even by 1800, hymns were still ‘a relative novelty’ in worship. By the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, however, they had become ‘a staple part of services in almost all Christian denominations’.[8]
We cannot understand this ‘sea change in Western Christianity’, as Mark Noll describes it, apart from Isaac Watts.[9]
‘Opposite to the Spirit of the Gospel’
Watts’ two most important collections were Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707) and The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament (1719). In the first, he complained that some of the Psalm, were ‘almost opposite to the Spirit of the Gospel: Many of them foreign to the State of the New Testament, and widely different from the present Circumstances of Christians’.[10] Christians feared to sing them, he claimed, lest they should ‘speak a Falsehood unto God’.[11] Useful enough in their day, all the psalms managed to do for the eighteenth century non-conformist was to ‘sink our Devotion, and hurt our Worship’.[12]
His views were a radical departure from those of contemporary theologians such as Jonathan Edwards, who argued:
‘The main subjects of these sweet songs were the glorious things of the gospel, as is evident by the interpretation that is so often put upon them and the use that is made of them in the New Testament’.[13]
Watts’ belief that ‘there are a thousand Lines in it which were not made for a Saint in our Day, to assume as his own’ was reflected in his Psalms of David Imitated twelve years later.[14] In it, he was ‘prevented by his theology from using twelve entire psalms and 285 verses of other psalms which he declared unfit for the New Testament church’.[15]
Philip Ross takes up the story:
‘Dissatisfied with previous Psalters that “only make David speak English”, Watts wanted “David converted into a Christian”, offering the church an opportunity to purify her “extreamly Jewish and cloudy” Old Testament songs “with the spirit of the Independent meeting house”.
As Ross concludes: ‘Were David able to see the result, he might wonder if Watts had done him more harm than Saul and Shimei combined’.[16]
‘Why may not a Christian omit all those Passages?’
Watts felt that he and his followers should not have to make ‘Confession of Sins which you never committed’.[17] No man could be persuaded, he was convinced, that an inspired sermon or prayer from Ecclesiastes, Ezra or Daniel was as edifying as a ‘well composed Prayer or Sermon’ delivered in ‘gospel’ language.[18]
(Such alarming views on inspiration would be echoed by Watts’ followers. While arguing that the Presbyterian Church in Ireland should introduce hymns, one minister at the 1895 General Assembly declared that ‘there was more inspiration in the hymn “Rock of Ages” than in the lines of the first Psalm’.[19])
Watts’ greatest problem was with the so-called ‘Imprecatory’ psalms. He asked his readers:
‘Why must I joyn with David in his legal or Prophetic Language to curse my Enemies, when my Saviour in his Sermons has taught me to love and bless them? Why may not a Christian omit all those Passages of the Jewish Psalmist that tend to fill the Mind with overwhelming Sorrows, despairing Thoughts, or bitter personal Resentments, none of which are well suited to the Spirit of Christianity, which is a Dispensation of Hope and Joy and Love?’.[20]
Such an attitude was repudiated by the Scottish RP minister J. P. Struthers in 1888, when he referred to:
‘Psalm 109, which Dr. Watts sinfully calls the “cursing Psalm.” David was a most generous man to his foes. Just as Psalm 110 refers to Christ, so Psalm 109 refers to his enemies’.[21]
For Watts however, ‘should the Sweet-Singer of Israel return from the Dead into our Age, he would not sing the Words of his own Psalms without considerable Alteration’.[22] Thankfully, Watts could provide him with just such a considerably altered Psalter.
Trojan Horse
Watts said that in all places he had kept his grand design in view – ‘to teach my Author to speak like a Christian’.[23] He did not specify whether he meant David or God. Apparently considering himself as belonging to a different religion from that of the patriarchs, he asked why he should wrap the honours of his Redeemer in ‘the dark and shadowy Language of a Religion that is now for ever abolished?’.[24] No wonder that a decade-old article on this website (not by an exclusive psalmist) suggests that Watts’ take on the Old Testament is very similar to Dispensationalism.
Finally he reminded his readers that as Christians face many circumstances that cannot be expressed by any paraphrase of the Psalms, he has already provided his own book of hymns.[25] Indeed, as he later wrote, he imitated the Psalms ‘not as the fittest book that could be made for Christian worship, but as the best which the churches would yet hearken to’.[26] Thus, congregations in Britain and America accepted Watts ‘Psalms’ and were soon singing his hymns, due to his ‘Trojan horse technique [which] had opened wide the closely guarded gates of the Christian system of praise.’[27] In the words of Louis Benson – an authority on hymnology and the author of numerous hymns himself – they served ‘as a bridge over which numerous Psalm singers crossed almost unconsciously into hymnody’.[28]
Watts did face opposition, of course, with many pamphlets written against him because of a ‘deep seated prejudice against hymns among many British Puritans’.[29] In the Established Church, the Revd William Romaine, rector of St. Anne’s in London, attacked the decision of congregations to ‘shut out the divinely inspired psalms and take in Dr. Watt’s flights of fancy’.[30]
The floodgates, however, had been opened. Watts’ predecessor John Owen, along with Thomas Manton, Thomas Watson, Matthew Poole, Edmund Calamy and many others may have written in their preface to the 1650 metrical psalter that ‘to us David’s Psalms seem plainly intended by those terms of Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs, which the Apostle useth’.[31] From here on, however, the average Christian would hear ‘hymn’ and think Watts.
Conclusion: Are the Psalms intended for New Testament Worship?
Many advocates of hymnody today would hopefully distance themselves from Watts’ views of Scripture. A reminder of how we got here, however, is instructive.
The key issue remains whether the Psalms are meant for New Testament worship. For Watts, the was only one answer:
‘Though the whole Book of Psalms was given to be read by us as God’s Word for our Use and Instruction, yet it will never follow from thence that the whole was written as a Psalter for the Christian Church to use in Singing’.[32]
Again, Edwards’ answer is very different:
The Psalms spoke of Christ’s ‘incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension into heaven, his satisfaction, intercession, his prophetical, kingly, and priestly office, his glorious benefits in this life and that which is to come, his union with the church, and the blessedness of the church in him, the calling of the Gentiles, the future glory of the church near the end of the world, and Christ’s coming to the final judgment.’
As such they are:
‘appointed in the New Testament to be made use of in the Christian church in their worship…And so they have been and will to the end of the world’.[33]
[2] Richard J. Mouw and Mark A. Noll (eds), Wonderful words of life: hymns in American Protestant history and theology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2004), p. 2.
[3] Robert Letham and Donald Macleod, ‘Is Evangelicalism Christian?’ in Evangelical Quarterly, 67:1 (1995), 23.
[6] Crawford Gribben, An Introduction to John Owen: a Christian vision for every stage of life (Wheaton, Il: Crossway, 2020) p. 40. See also: Crawford Gribben, John Owen and English Puritanism: experiences of defeat (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 272
[7] H. L. Bennett, ‘Watts, Isaac (1674–1748)’, in Dictionary of National Biography (1899) <http://www.oxforddnb.com /view/olddnb/28888>.
[8] John Wolffe, ‘“Praise to the holiest in the height”: Hymns and Church music’ in J. Wolffe (ed.), Religion in Victorian Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 61.
[9] Mark A. Noll, ‘The Defining Role of Hymns in Early Evangelicalism’ in Mouw and Noll, Wonderful Words of Life.
[10] Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, in three books (London, 1707), p. iv.
[13] Jonathan Edwards, “Sermon Seven,” in A History of the Work of Redemption, ed. by John F. Wilson and John E. Smith, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1989), ix, 210.
[15] E. R. Crookshank, ‘”We’re Marching to Zion”: Isaac Watts in Early America’ in Noll and Mouw, Wonderful Words of Life, p. 21.
[16] Philip S. Ross, Anthems for a dying lamb: how six psalms (113-118) became a songbook for the last supper and the age to come (Ross-shire: Christian Focus Publications, 2017), p. 23
[17] Isaac Watts, The Psalms of David imitated in the language of the New Testament (London, 1719), p. xv.
[19] Cited in Stephen Steele, ‘The debate over the introduction of hymns in the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in 1896’ (Unpublished thesis, Queen’s University Belfast, 2007).
[21] A. L. Struthers (ed.), Life and Letters of John Paterson Struthers, M.A., late minister of Greenock Reformed Presbyterian Church (London: Hodder and Stoughton, [1919?], pp 157-8.
[26] Cited in Michael Bushell, Songs of Zion: a contemporary case for exclusive psalmody (Pittsburgh, PA: Crown & Covenant Publications, 3rdedn, 1999) p. 202.
[28] Louis F. Benson, The English hymn its development and use in worship (Richmon, VA: John Knox Press, 1915), p. 217
[29] Crookshank, ‘”We’re Marching to Zion”’, p. 22.
[30] Cited in Crookshank, ‘”We’re Marching to Zion”’, p. 22.
[31]The Psalms of David In Meeter. Newly Translated and diligently compared with the Original Text, and former Translations: More plain, smooth and agreeable to the Text, than any heretofore (London: Company of Stationers, 1673).
Have you heard the prayer, “Father, forgive us our Christmases, as we forgive those who Christmas against us”?
I hope you don’t need to pray that prayer of mercy for yourself or toward others, but chances are you do, or you will, by the time we get to December 26.
So far, I have attended three Christmas Presentations and watched two Hallmark Christmas movies. The five landed on a spectrum from OK to outstanding.
But none of them compare with the beauty, simplicity, and life-changing power of the Christmas story in Luke 2. Let me review three postcards in that chapter.
Postcard 1: Joseph and Mary
Luke 2:21–25 tells of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus eight days after his eternity-changing birth.
This might be called the baby’s first “outing,” always a big deal for a new baby. God has a sense of humor.
Jesus’ conception was miraculous. His birth was messy. Scholars believe Mary was a teenager. Let’s guess she was fifteen! Joseph might have been in his early twenties. Faith among teens and young adults in our day may be waning, but not for this couple. They were caught up in God’s story.
Their response to revelation and invitation is one of trust and simple obedience. Here, they keep following. They come to do what the Law prescribed for a firstborn son: circumcision, dedication, offering. Their peasant offering, two pigeons, reveals their simple status and reminds us of the widow who offered “all she had.”
Being “nobodies from nowhere Nazareth” points us to the response we should have. Trust God, obey the last thing he told you to do, look to Scripture for guidance, and let God put the pieces of your obedient faith into his story as he desires.
Postcard 2: Simeon
The second snapshot gets a little postcard and sermon time.
Simeon is a character who maybe pastors can relate to. He’s a waiter in both meanings of the term: he waits on people as a servant of God and he’s been waiting on God to fulfill a promise that is both prophetic for the world and personal for him.
I think we pastors sense something like that in our calling.
He’s also an example for pastors. Being “righteous and devout” before God ought to be our daily ambition. Simeon was waiting for “Israel’s consolation” or comfort. He believed that when God showed up, things would change. Things would get better for the people of faith and hope.
It also says the “Holy Spirit was on him.” That’s a pregnant statement. I wonder if he knew when the Holy Spirit was or wasn’t “on” him. I wonder if I do!
The longer I’m a Christ-follower, the more I long for it to be true every moment. I heard Anne Graham Lotz say a few years ago, after the death of her husband and the impending death of her dad, “All I want anymore is Jesus.”
I think Simeon spoke something like that under his breath and God promised it to him. In a likely crowded courtyard, the Spirit led this senior saint to exactly the right couple and their divine child. Now filled with overflowing satisfaction and death-readying joy, Simeon burst out in praise like the angels and the shepherds had eight nights earlier. Then, he blessed Jesus’ earthly parents and prepared Mary for what was ahead.
How can you and I be a worshiping waiter like Simeon?
Postcard 3: Anna
The last snapshot is even smaller, just a thumbnail in the Christmas story of an old widow named Anna, short for Hannah. To challenge our views about ministry leadership, the text says she was a “prophetess.” It uses no such word about Simeon! Jesus was already drawing women and exalting their value in God’s kingdom in a culture that sometimes abandoned baby girls at the city landfills in disappointment that they weren’t boys.
Living through and past heart-crushing disappointments in her earlier life, Anna had taken a position of desperation for God. At least eighty-four, she’d held that position for decades! She stood out in her day because of her age. Few lived as long.
She stood out even more that day for her deep gratitude for what God was now doing and for her delightful witness! God revealed his Son to her. Her humble response was thanksgiving and testimony. Like the theme of The Chosen Christmas movie, Anna had the sense, “Everyone must know!”
Let’s join her in her thankful witness to a world in desperate need of Jesus!
We mustn’t deceive ourselves. Our allegiance to our risen and exalted King will incite the jealousy of a power-hungry world. Today, R.C. Sproul prepares us to confess our faith with the persecuted church in every age: Jesus is Lord. Hear more from Ultimately with R.C. Sproul: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL30acyfm60fWxph9skWjvcCF41XqShypw
Erdoğan: ‘Turkey is bigger than Turkey, we can’t limit ourselves’ Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Wednesday that it is his country’s destiny to expand its borders, particularly into Syria. “Just as a person cannot escape his destiny, Turkey and the Turkish nation cannot escape or hide from their destiny. As a nation, we have to see the mission that history has assigned to us and act accordingly. We see this, we do not turn a deaf ear to the calls.” Erdoğan’s address comes as he continues building troops on the Syrian border near a majority Kurdish area. Senior US officials … said that the invasion could be imminent and the current troop buildup appears similar to Turkish military moves ahead of its 2019 invasion of northeast Syria.
France’s Sarkozy first former head of state ordered to wear electronic tag after losing graft appeal France’s highest court on Wednesday upheld former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s corruption conviction, ordering him to wear an electronic tag for a year. Sarkozy, who denies all wrongdoing, faces additional legal battles, including an upcoming trial over alleged illegal Libyan funding for his 2007 presidential campaign.
Vatican quietly returns LGBT Jubilee ‘pilgrimage’ to official calendar On September 6, a pilgrimage to the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica will take place for the ‘Jonathan’s Tent’ association and other groups. ‘Tenda di Gionata’ is one of the most prominent pro-LGBT ‘Catholic’ organizations in Italy. After a scandal and contradictory statements from the Vatican, an LGBT specific pilgrimage is now back in the official calendar of the 2025 Jubilee events.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a superweapon: How drones are reshaping modern warfare On a crisp morning in late 2023, at a military base near Tel Aviv, radar operators watched helplessly as a small, commercially available drone – worth perhaps a few hundred dollars – evaded millions of dollars worth of air defense systems. The drone, barely larger than a dinner plate, zigzagged through the sky at low altitude, its plastic frame barely registering on radar. This scene would repeat itself countless times as Israel found itself at the forefront of a new kind of war.
UNPRECEDENTED: Pope to Open Five Sacred Portals on Christmas in Manner Described by Talmud The ceremony, dubbed “doorway to salvation” by the Vatican, involves the opening of five “Holy Doors” at ancient basilicas. The doors are located at the basilicas of St. Peter, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Paul Outside the Walls, all within a 30-minute drive of the Vatican. The ceremony began on December 2 at the door of St. Peter’s Basilica. Prayers were held at the site, and a metal box containing a key was removed from a metal box. Pope Boniface VIII was the first to Christianize the ceremony in 1300 …and later proclaimed it to be held every 100 years. But two years later, the Jubilee was changed to every 50 years. The ceremony is highly reminiscent of a section of the Talmud (Sanhedrin 98a) dealing with signs the Messiah is imminent:
Tucker Carlson Interviews Jeffrey Sachs: Hits the Trifecta of Anti-Semitism Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson earned the renewed ire of the pro-Israel crowd when he hosted a two-hour interview with Jeffrey Sachs, an economist at Columbia University who has repeatedly accused Israel of genocide. Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs and combating antisemitism, Amichai Chikli, characterized the interview in a Twitter post: “Congratulations to Tucker Carlson for becoming the leading platform for fringe Holocaust deniers, conspiracy theorists, and blood libel enthusiasts who oppose the State of Israel,”
Michigan imam says Jews in Israel sent from European countries to steal Michigan Imam Abdou Zindani ssif that peace in the Middle East can be achieved only after Israel is removed from the land, claiming that the Jews currently in Israel were sent to annihilate everyone in the region and steal their wealth.
First-ever binary star found near our galaxy’s supermassive black hole An international team of researchers has detected a binary star orbiting close to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. It is the first time a stellar pair has been found in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole. “Black holes are not as destructive as we thought,”
Over half of Arab Israelis believe war created a shared sense of destiny with Jews Over half (57.8%) of Arab citizens in Israel, including Muslims, Druze, and Christians, believe the multi-front war has created a shared sense of destiny between Jews and Arabs, a survey by the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation at TAU’s Moshe Dayan Center revealed Wednesday.
‘Post’ unveils Syrian army logs documenting final days of Assad regime One of the books is a logbook of military activity observed by Syrian soldiers on guard duty, The logbook is signed by the brigadier general of the Syrian army’s 87th regiment. Probably the most noteworthy section … is a period of several days at the end of November describing the beginnings of Syrian army units fleeing as well as their observation of Israeli military moves.
Markell: 2025 Could See A Stunning Convergence Of Bible Prophecy I think 2025 could see the most stunning line-up of fulfilled Bible prophecy—ever. When looking at what’s lining up, how can one come to any other conclusion? Governments are falling everywhere, many of them quite evil, resulting in a “business as usual” mentality globally. Things are going to get better and aren’t we going back to normal now? Maybe not. The Deep State is in a panic and will throw roadblocks at every effort of Donald Trump.
The Tone Regarding Ukraine’s Future Has Shifted Significantly And Fast While Trump still has to be officially inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States of America, it almost seems he already entered the White House. While it is unsure yet what has been exactly discussed during the meeting between the three leaders, the tone regarding the future of Ukraine has definitely shifted significantly and fast!
NATO State Warns Against Western Troops In Ukraine: “Discussion Has Gone Off The Rails” One of NATO’s two newest members, Finland, is urging caution as some European leaders are considering a negotiated end to the Ukraine war which would involve sending Western peacekeeping forces. The incoming Trump administration is reportedly keen on the idea.
Russia Airlifting Air Defense Systems From Syria To Libya Recent satellite imaging has shown that for the past several days Russia is rapidly packing up heavy equipment at its Khmeimim airbase in Latakia and evacuating it in the wake of the collapse of the Assad government on December 8. This is happening even as Moscow is in contact with new governing HTS rulers in Damascus concerning the future fate of the bases, which also includes the strategic naval base at Tartus.
Russian military: Moving from Syria to Libya? Open source investigators, looking at satellite pictures and online air traffic tracking, have noted significant moves by Russia at its long-held Syrian bases since the regime of its ally, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, was toppled nearly two weeks ago. They’ve seen attack helicopters and an S-400 long-range air defense system dismantled for travel, people with suitcases waiting to leave and large cargo planes being loaded. … Russia was relocating air-defense systems and other advanced weapons from Syria to bases it controls in Libya,
Watch: China Shows Off Mach 7 Hypersonic Drone Launched From Near Space Balloon China has released a military propaganda video boasting its hypersonic weapon capabilities as the military arms race between global superpowers kicks into high gear and the world splits into a dangerous multi-polar state, prompting some global observers to ask the daunting question: “Is World War III already here?”
Biden Quietly Extends Covid ‘Emergency Declaration’ to Protect Big Pharma From Liability Until 2029 The Biden Administration quietly rushed to extend the “Emergency Declaration” under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act until December 31, 2029, to protect Big Pharma and mRNA vaccine makers from lawsuits for injuries and deaths. The act also provides immunity from liability to healthcare providers, nurses, pharmacists, pharmacy interns, and pharmacy technicians who administered the COVID-19 vaccines.
Here It Comes: California Has Declared A State Of Emergency Due To The Bird Flu, And A “Severe” Human Case Has Been Confirmed in Louisiana Are we on the verge of another major public health crisis? Will we soon see the return of lockdowns, shutdowns, testing, masks and mandates? Since 2022, the H5N1 bird flu has been causing chaos all over the globe. According to NBC News, 123 million birds “have been killed or euthanized” in the United States, and a new wave of the outbreak has arrived this winter with a vengeance. That is one of the primary reasons why eggs are now so expensive all over the country. Unfortunately, the H5N1 bird flu is also spreading like wildfire among dairy cows. This month it is ripping through hundreds of dairy herds in the state of California, and as a result a state of emergency has just been declared…
Islamized 2034 World Cup: FIFA’s Surrender to Saudi Arabia and Betrayal of the West FIFA’s decision to award the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia is a shameless betrayal of Western values, forcing iconic Western cultural events to bow to Islamic laws, legitimizing an oppressive regime through sportswashing, and sacrificing human rights, fan freedoms, and moral integrity for Saudi oil money.
Pro-Life Advocates Stop Massive Push to Legalize Abortion in Peru Five years ago the international abortion movement launched a well-funded effort to promote “safe abortion” in Peru. Their devious strategy was to bypass the pro-life protections of the Peruvian Penal Code by expanding so-called “therapeutic” abortions.
High Altitude Unmanned Balloon Passes Near DC, New Jersey A high-altitude unmanned balloon once operated by Loon, formerly an Alphabet subsidiary and now registered to Raven Aerostar as “N254TH,” traveled just north of the Baltimore-Washington, DC, airspace at 64,500 feet, moving east at 34 mph towards New Jersey.
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
Inflation, interest, and everyone’s retirement: The economy, which has yet to get hot under Bidenomics, is cooling. The rate of inflation continues to stubbornly remain above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%, ticking up to 2.7% in November. The Fed is now estimating that inflation won’t hit the 2% target until 2026. Despite this, the Fed moved forward on Wednesday with an interest rate cut, the third this year, dropping it to between 4.25% and 4.5%. The job market has also cooled, but consumer confidence has remained high, with sales rising 0.7%, slightly above the forecasted 0.6%. Furthermore, October’s sales numbers were revised to 0.5% from 0.4%. “The U.S. economy has been remarkable,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell optimistically stated. “If you look around the world, there is a lot of slow growth and continuous struggle with inflation. So I feel very good about where the economy is.” That said, the markets have been sliding, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average on a 10-day losing streak, the longest since the 1970s. That is not good for the retirement accounts of millions of Americans.
SCOTUS to rule on TikTok ban: On the one hand, it’s undeniably Communist Chinese spyware. On the other hand, it’s a hugely popular platform among young Americans. Place a dollop of First Amendment protection on top, and you get a sense of our nation’s current TikTok tug-of-war. Yesterday, the Supreme Court announced that it’ll hear TikTok’s last-ditch challenge to a law that could ban the social media app in the U.S. The company claims the ban violates the First Amendment. Even Donald Trump, who launched his political career with tough talk on China, is conflicted: “I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” he said Tuesday. The High Court will hear arguments on January 10, and barring a ruling that the law is unconstitutional, the ban would begin on January 19, the day before Trump takes office. If the president-elect wants to save TikTok in the U.S., he’ll likely need to engineer a divestiture deal between the app’s parent company, ByteDance, and any number of potential American buyers.
A secret Senate border deal? Beware Republican senators bearing border-related legislation. That’s the clear message the American people sent to Washington when they resoundingly returned Donald Trump to office. We mention this as Axios is reporting that a “small, bipartisan group of senators have been quietly sketching out a possible new border deal for early 2025.” Our porous southern border and the illegal immigration it invites is Trump’s foremost priority, and Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin’s involvement in the group indicates that this will be a much tougher Republican negotiating team than the appeasement-minded one headed by his Oklahoma colleague, James Lankford, earlier this year. The product of that negotiation was a deal so bad that Republicans ran away from it en masse as soon as its contents became clear. Mullin described the discussions this time around as “very” serious and its details “very secret.” As for the Senate’s 60-vote procedural hurdle, Axios reports that the plan of top Senate Republicans is to “move quickly on a border package, using the budget reconciliation process” to get around a potential Democrat filibuster.
Appeals judge boots Fani Willis from Trump’s Georgia case: On the lawfare front, a Georgia appeals court judge this morning disqualified Fulton County DA Fani Willis and her team from prosecuting Donald Trump in the Left’s RICO-infused election interference case against him. The decision is based on the much-publicized misconduct of Willis, who nonetheless refused to remove herself from the case. As the court’s ruling stated: “Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s denial of the appellants’ motion to disqualify DA Willis and her office. As we conclude that the elected district attorney is wholly disqualified from this case, ‘the assistant district attorneys — whose only power to prosecute a case is derived from the constitutional authority of the district attorney who appointed them — have no authority to proceed.’” What happens next with the case is unclear, but Trump has a suggestion: “The case has to be thrown out because it was started corruptly by an incompetent prosecutor. … Therefore, the case is entirely dead. Everybody should receive an apology, including those wonderful patriots who have been caught up in this for years.”
Trump threatens to fire work-from-home federal employees: Last week, we called attention to the Six Percenters — the tiny total of federal employees who, according to a report by Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst, show up to work in the office full-time. Good on them, but what about the other 94% who either split in-office time with telework or telework full-time? As it turns out, they may soon have a decision to make. As Just the News reports, “Donald Trump blasted federal ‘work from home’ policies Monday, calling them ‘ridiculous’ and stirring up pushback from federal employee unions. ‘If people don’t come back to work, come back into the office, they’re going to be dismissed,’ [said] Trump.” How he’d carry out such a massive house cleaning is unclear, but Trump isn’t the only one who’s fed up with work-from-homers. “AT&T will require its employees to report full-time to their offices five days a week … starting in January,” reports The Washington Times, adding that the telecom giant joins “Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Tesla and other companies in ending the hybrid and remote work schedules installed during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Teamsters strike against Amazon: This morning, workers went on strike at various Amazon locations nationwide. Following Amazon’s rejection of a bargaining request, the Brotherhood of Teamsters warned last week that “thousands of Amazon workers who organized with the Teamsters” would engage in the “largest strike against Amazon in American history.” Indeed, 10,000 workers are participating, potentially negatively impacting package delivery just days before Christmas. “If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed,” argued Teamster head Sean O’Brien, who added that Amazon “ignored” the Teamsters’ “clear deadline.” Amazon spokesman Kelly Nantel disputed that characterization: “For more than a year now, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public — claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers.’ They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative.” Worse, she added, “The Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal.” She pointed out that Amazon has increased its starting wage for workers by 20% and also noted that the base salary was increased in September to $22 an hour.
Rand Paul blocks drone control bill: Amidst all the recent drone hysteria in New Jersey, Senate Democrats pushed a bill granting state and local authorities greater power to regulate drones. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer argued the law was needed because the federal government is limited in its ability to respond to all these drones on its own. “The most logical thing to do is say let the localities have the authority,” Schumer stated. However, Kentucky Republican Rand Paul rejected that excuse, noting that the federal government has repeatedly insisted that the drones don’t pose a threat; therefore, why would state and local authorities need to be empowered to do something? Paul blocked the bill, arguing, “This is not just about security. It’s about unchecked government overreach. It’s about capitalizing on fear.” Paul further contended that this bill is an excuse for an opportunistic power grab unless an actual problem is clearly identified that would justify granting more regulatory power to state and local authorities.
House to release Gaetz report: The House Ethics Committee voted to release its investigative report on former Congressman Matt Gaetz. He resigned his seat after being nominated by Donald Trump for attorney general but subsequently withdrew after reports that the Ethics Committee was about to publicly release its years-long investigation into allegations of his having sex with a minor and illicit drug use. Following his withdrawal, the committee hit pause on releasing the report. Democrats on the committee immediately cried foul, with Susan Wild accusing Chairman Michael Guest of having “betrayed the process.” Now that the committee has agreed to release the report, that means at least one Republican has sided with the Democrats. Gaetz responded, “I was charged with nothing: FULLY EXONERATED. Not even a campaign finance violation. And the people investigating me hated me. Then, the very ‘witnesses’ DOJ deemed not-credible were assembled by House Ethics to repeat their claims absent any cross-examination or challenge from me or my attorneys. I’ve had no chance to ever confront any accusers. I’ve never been charged. I’ve never been sued.” Gaetz also asserted that he “NEVER had sexual contact with someone under 18.”
Headlines
Senate passes $895 billion defense bill (The Hill)
Tulsi Gabbard’s chances of getting confirmed in jeopardy (Newsweek)
George Stephanopoulos signs new deal with ABC News amid Trump lawsuit turmoil (Los Angeles Times) | Stephanopoulos “apoplectic, humiliated” over defamation suit settlement (NY Post) | Was repeatedly warned not to use word “rape” by producer but said it anyway (NY Post)
Biden-Harris admin green-lights electric vehicle mandate for a dozen states (Washington Free Beacon)
Biden posts his worst approval rating yet (Not the Bee)
Supreme Court to hear case over Planned Parenthood Medicaid funding (Roll Call)
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The budget bill that is dead on the House floor isn’t the problem; Congress is the problem.
Congress’s budgeting process has been badly broken for 50 years, and it arguably started with the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. According to National Review’s editorial board, “Congress has never actually passed an entire budget on time according to its rules.” Instead, we get increasingly consequential battles over massive bills that no one has time to read but without which the government will shut down.
The results are inexcusable, infuriating, and destructive.
In 1974, the $475 billion federal debt reached a postwar low of 24.6% of GDP. The current debt, at $36.2 trillion, is about 123% of GDP. Fox News reports, “The federal government’s budget deficit in the recently concluded fiscal year also totaled $1.834 trillion, ranking the third largest in U.S. history.” Servicing the debt now costs more each year than the Pentagon’s budget.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is facing some well-deserved criticism for the latest budget bill disaster, a 1,547-page monstrosity that contained the usual eye-popping doozies. It was released Tuesday, leaving little time before Friday night’s shutdown deadline. Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna artfully compared it to “a certain sandwich that’s made of feces.”
Johnson promised in September that there would be no more of this legislative malfeasance, and yet here we are again — more malfeasance and more promises to do things differently next time. “By doing this [now],” Johnson explained, “we are clearing the decks, and we are setting up for Trump to come in roaring back with the America First agenda. That’s what we’re going to run with gusto, beginning January 3, when we start the new Congress when Republicans again are in control.” He added that fiscal conservatives will “finally do the things that we’ve been wanting to do for the last couple of years.”
Like the battered woman listening to the drunk guy ask to be let back in the house, we’ve heard that one before.
Still, calling Johnson the best speaker Democrats have ever had and other similar criticism is overwrought and unfair given what he has to work with — a tiny majority that isn’t exactly unified. Of some Republicans, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie quipped that they’d “rather run over their own mom with a car than to vote to cut spending.” Massie also became the first Republican to say he’ll “vote for somebody else” as speaker come January. Meanwhile, this fractured 219-211 GOP majority must combat a unified Democrat-controlled Senate and Democrat president.
Arguably, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer bears more blame than Johnson does. “The GOP House actually passed nearly half of appropriations bills this year,” notes the Wall Street Journal editorial board, “and Susan Collins and Patty Murray passed almost all the Senate bills through the Appropriations Committee. But Mr. Schumer refused to bring them to the floor. He wants the end-of-year jam session when everyone wants to leave for Christmas, and he prevailed again.”
To that point, Schumer gloated that he was “pleased” with the measure being “free of cuts” to spending “while also securing Democratic priorities.”
This bill is inexplicable and inexcusable, but Johnson is only one player in a half-century history of gross dereliction of duty and violation of constitutional oaths. Course correction will take a long time.
Today is a great day to start. Thanks to Donald Trump, JD Vance, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy, it might begin to happen.
The four men joined forces to defeat this awful spending bill. Their campaign began with Musk’s X post early Wednesday: “This should not pass.” He later added, “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!”
Likewise, Trump took to social media to inveigh against “the ridiculous and extraordinarily expensive Continuing Resolution, PLUS.”
Within hours, the deal had all but collapsed, and Republicans are returning to the drawing board.
Trump and Vance aren’t exactly spending hawks, mind you. “Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, and set our country up for success in 2025,” the duo said in a statement, adding that they want “a temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with an increase in the debt ceiling.” Later, Trump said “the smartest thing” Congress could do would be to “get rid of” the debt ceiling entirely. “It doesn’t mean anything, except psychologically,” he added.
Musk isn’t quite on the same page with them, however. Musk demanded, “No bills should be passed [by] Congress until Jan 20,” and he criticized the exact spending provisions touted by the president- and vice president-elect.
Other Republicans totally rejected attaching the debt ceiling to this deal at the last minute. Representative Mike Rogers huffed, “It’s complicated enough without that.”
Regardless, the deal’s collapse leaves Congress once again scrambling to stave off a shutdown before midnight tomorrow. That’s precisely how Democrats want it.
Emmy Griffin: KBJ on Broadway: Peak Leftist Privilege — Ketanji Brown Jackson makes her Broadway debut while conservative SCOTUS justices live in fear of assassins.
Samantha Koch: The Goal: Go Viral. Period. — The sad stories of two women — one who indulges herself with treats at home, and who debased herself with 100 partners in a day.
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Reader Comments
Editor’s Note: Each week we receive hundreds of comments and correspondences — and we read every one of them. Click here for a few thought-provoking comments about specific articles. The views expressed therein don’t necessarily reflect those of The Patriot Post.
Latest PodcastPopCon #75: MaryThis Christmas season, Netflix has released “Mary” — its take on the life of the mother of Jesus. With Joel Osteen (Protestant) as executive producer and D.J. Caruso (Catholic) as director, one might draw certain conclusions about where the film could take this story. Join Thomas, Sterling, and Andrew as they explore the life of Mary.
BEST OF VIDEOS
15 Venezuelan Gang Members Arrested — An apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, went viral a few weeks ago due to the same type of activity from the same type of people who have just been arrested.
Is Social Media Making Young Teens More Violent? — Tristan Harris discusses Australia’s social media ban for kids, the Wisconsin school shooter, and young people finding assassination “acceptable.”
Can We Tax Our Way to Equality? — Is income inequality our biggest social problem? If we take more from the rich and give more to the poor, can we solve it?
“The Founders themselves created a path to amend our Constitution, to keep it a living document, to be adapted as future generations and circumstances and times require. For the Electoral College, that time has come. Unfairly, less populated states have outsized influence, and in effect, the votes of their residents count more than the residents of a state like New York.” —New York Governor Kathy Hochul (Actually, the Founders disagreed with the concept of a “living document,” which is why the threshold for amending the Constitution is so high. Moreover, giving less populated states an equal voice was the entire point.)
“I’ve got news for Donald Trump: USPS isn’t for sale. It’s a public good that’s supposed to serve Americans in every corner of the country — not boost some billionaire’s bottom line.” —Senator Elizabeth Warren
A Broken Clock Is Right Twice a Day
“[Trump] will always reward weakness with more humiliation, and that includes foreign leaders like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who went to Mar-a-Lago last month to kiss the ring.” —”The View” co-host Joy Reid
Clown World
“Well, that’s news to me. It’s good news. What has it been, 10 years, 14 years with no COLA, no change at all? I think it’s about time.” —Senator Dick Durbin upon being informed that the stopgap spending bill gives him a pay raise
For the Record
“Ever seen a bigger piece of pork?” —Elon Musk on the stopgap spending bill
“How can this be called a ‘continuing resolution’ if it includes a 40% pay increase for Congress?” —Elon Musk
“The bill could have easily been under 20 pages. Instead, there are dozens of unrelated policy items crammed into the 1,547 pages of this bill. There’s no legitimate reason for them to be voted on as a package deal by a lame-duck Congress.” —Vivek Ramaswamy
The BIG Lie
“We’ve been working, I don’t know, before DOGE was DOGE. … We’ve been doing civil service reform in this state. … California’s been a leader in that space.” —California Governor Gavin Newsom
Belly Laugh of the Day
“The next four years will determine whether the incoming administration builds on our economic progress. If it does, then 10 or even 50 years from now, U.S. economic leadership will be even stronger than it is today.” —Joe Biden
Insight
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” —Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
And Last…
“Men and women are designed as perfect complements to one another. Whether it’s feminism or the ‘red-pill, alpha male’ movement, pitting them against one another is only setting our society up for failure.” —Isabel Brown
Israel strikes Houthi rebels after they launch another missile at the Jewish state; Israel still working on deal to free the Hamas hostages; after the wars against Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel sees the possibility of a new Middle East- including a new government in Iran; Ken Timmerman, author of “The Iran House,” tells CBN’s “The Global Lane” he believes Turkey is preparing for a military conflict with Kurds in northeast Syria, where they ‘re protecting prison camps with ISIS fighters, who could get free; and discusses a potential Israeli strike on Iran, and says a Biden official may have encouraged an attack on the US Embassy in Tehran to help Biden’s 2020 campaign; Congressional spending deal put on hold after revolt by conservatives, who said it was packed with wasteful spending, along with pressure from Elon Musk and President-elect Trump, leading to a possible government shutdown this weekend; with trust in the media at record lows, Americans have shifted their news habits away from the major media to new media like podcasts; and two Senators from each party are going after the Federal Bureau of Prisons for discriminating against faith-based non-profits, including those which lead people to Jesus.
Ken Mikle and Josh Schwartz talk to Barry Stagner for the hour. What is the application today for “as in the Days of Noah?” How are we even now seeing a foreshadowing of the “lying signs of wonders” of II Thessalonians 2? We can barely see through today’s fog of deception. The post appeared first on Olive Tree Ministries .
Radiation levels have spiked in New York City, fueling conspiracy theories that the drones terrorizing the Northeast are searching for a missing nuclear warhead.
The real power behind the Biden Crime Family’s throne remains infuriated that her mentally shot husband was forced out of the presidential race in an undemocratic coup only to see his replacement lose in a landslide. Now, she is focused on settling scores with their enemies.
An exclusive report from the Daily Mail reveals how the Bidens are now focused on applying the screws to their former allies just one month before departing the White House. Not surprisingly, Jill is the one leading the charge and dragging Joe along.
Jill has a multitude of fellow elitists in her crosshairs, including the Obamas, White House staffers, and the national media. However, arguably, the biggest target on their list is Nancy Pelosi.
“Jill views Democrats on Capitol Hill, the [wider] party, the Obamas, staff inside and outside the White House, the media, and all of Washington DC with such misguided resentment that I can’t imagine she [isn’t] encouraging [Joe] to burn the whole thing down, despite his better judgment,” an insider said.
A particular target for the First Couple is said to be former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who led the effort to push Biden out of the 2024 election race—personally calling him and demanding he quit in the hours before he withdrew on June 21.
The Mail notes that the Bidens have not spoken to Pelosi for months and that the 50-year friendship Joe and Nancy once shared is gone. One can thank Pelosi’s insatiable lust for power for this reality.
At the annual Kennedy Center Honors held earlier this month in DC, the outlet revealed that Pelosi was seated far away and out of the Bidens’ sight. She and her husband Paul had previously been guests of honor in the presidential box.
The Gateway Pundit previously reported Kamala Harris, another target of Jill’s, was given the cold shoulder at the event by the Bidens.
The hatred the Bidens share for Pelosi and also Barack Obama is now so intense that Democratic mega-donor Floridian attorney John Morgan believes that Biden deliberately forced Harris just to spite them.
“Biden basically had the palace coup from all directions, from George Clooney to Pelosi. I think he got pissed off and said, ‘F*** you’, and gave us Harris,” Morgan told the Mail.
“Pelosi had told her delegation that there would be a convention and a nominating process. And Barack Obama did not endorse her (Harris) for five days,” he added.
This news perfectly tracks TGP’s reporting on the coup and Biden’s response.
Let’s hope the Bidens spill all the beans and rip the Democrat party completely to shreds before going back to Delaware. This will prove a proper punishment for ruining the greatest country on Earth in less than four years.
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