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
Isaiah 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.
John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
One way of studying the Bible is to get from it practical lessons from our daily life. This is the purpose that is in mind in this book. It does not attempt to cover every chapter; to do this would make it altogether too long–it deals only with what appear to be leading and representative portions of the Bible.
It is a book for use in the inner chamber where life receives its impulses for conduct, for duty, for service, and for devotion. The Bible is a very ancient book, but it is also a book for to-day. It brings us face to face with God, and its teachings are meant to guide us in all our ways. (adapted from the Preface)
This is volume 2 of 8 and is subtitled “From the Crossing of the Red Sea to the Close of David’s Life”.
James Russell Miller was born on March 20, 1840 at Frankfort Springs, Pennsylvania and died on July 2, 1912. Besides authoring over 80 books, booklets, and pamphlets, Dr. J.R. Miller was the Editorial Superintendent of the Presbyterian Board of Publication and a very active pastor in a succession of churches.
The crucible of J.R. Miller’s education was his service with the United States Christian Commission, an agency set up to minister to the troops, during the civil war. When the war ended Miller completed his theological studies and was ordained and installed on September 11, 1867. On June 22, 1870, when he was thirty, he married Miss Louise E. King.
The end of life on earth came without warning on the afternoon of July 2, 1912. JR’s wife, Louise Miller, and their only daughter, Mary Wanamaker Miller (Mrs. W.B. Mount), were present, but it was impossible to summon the sons — William King Miller and Russell King Miller. One moment Dr. Miller seemed to be resting quietly; the next he was at rest.
JR Miller DD was one of the best selling Christian authors of his era. Rev. Miller’s books had a total circulation of over two million copies during his lifetime and in 1911 the Presbyterian Board of Publication, under his direction, published over 66 million copies of its periodicals.
FREE – The Warriors Prayer bookmark: https://bit.ly/3PZdADo Message Description: Dr. Jeremiah teaches us about Christ’s compassion and love for all. True happiness isn’t elusive…it comes from Jesus!: https://bit.ly/3PYu1Qo
Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me? JOHN 7:19
The theological battle line in our day is not necessarily between the fundamentalist and the liberal. There is a difference between them, of course. The fundamentalist says, “God made the heaven and the earth.” The liberal says, “Well, that is a poetic way of stating it—but actually, it came up by evolution.” The warfare, the dividing line today, is between evangelical rationalists and evangelical mystics. I will explain what I mean. There is today an evangelical rationalism which is the same doctrine held by the Jewish religion in the day of Jesus. They said the truth is in the word, and if you want to know truth, go to the rabbi and learn the word. If you get the word, you have the truth. That is also the view of evangelical rationalism in our day: “If you learn the text you’ve got the truth!” This evangelical rationalism will kill the truth just as quickly as liberalism will, though in a more subtle way. The evangelical rationalist wears our uniform but he insists that the body of truth is all you need. Believe the body of truth and you are on your way to heaven and you cannot backslide and you will get a crown in the last day! I believe the Bible is a living book, a revelation from God. But there must be illumination before revelation can get to your soul. It is not enough that I hold an inspired book in my hands—I must have an inspired heart. Truth has a soul as well as a body!
Tozer, A. W., & Smith, G. B. (2015). Evenings with Tozer: Daily Devotional Readings (p. 62). Moody Publishers.
Sweet thought, my soul, for thee everlastingly to cherish; thy Jesus is the same, and his love the same, amidst all thy changings: yet he abideth faithful. His love, and not thy merit, was the first cause of thy salvation; and the same love, and not thy deservings, is the final cause wherefore thou art not lost. But mark in this blessed scripture, how many sweet and lovely things are said. Jesus hath a people, and that people are in the world, and that people are his own. What! had he not a people in the other world? Yes! by creation all are his, in common with the Father. But by redemption he had none, until he had redeemed them from this present evil world. And observe how very graciously they are spoken of. They are his own, his peculiar people, his treasure, his Segullah, his jewels. And how dearly doth he prize them! They were first given to him by his Father—that made them dear. They are the purchase of his blood—this made them dear also. He hath conquered them by his grace—this endears them to himself as his own. And though they are in this world too much engaged in the affairs of the world, and too much in love with the world, yet Jesus’s love is not abated; their persons are still dear to Jesus, though their sins he hates. The same love which prompted his infinite mind to stand up for their redemption, the same love is going forth unceasingly, and without change or lessening, to accomplish and render effectual that redemption. Precious Lord Jesus! O for grace to love thee, who hast so loved us! And while thou condescendest to call such poor sinful worms thine own, and to love them as thine own, and to consider every thing done for them and done to them as to thyself, shall not a portion of such love be communicated to my poor heart, that I may love thee as my own and only Saviour, and learn to love thee to the end, as thou hast loved me and given thyself for me, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour?
Hawker, R. (1845). The Poor Man’s Evening Portion (A New Edition, pp. 63–64). Thomas Wardle.
See the faithfulness of divine love. You observe that this woman had daily necessities. She had herself and her son to feed in a time of famine; and now, in addition, the prophet Elijah was to be fed too. But though the need was threefold, yet the supply of meal wasted not, for she had a constant supply. Each day she made calls upon the barrel, but yet each day it remained the same. You, dear reader, have daily necessities, and because they come so frequently, you are apt to fear that the barrel of meal will one day be empty, and the cruse of oil will fail you. Rest assured that, according to the Word of God, this shall not be the case. Each day, though it bring its trouble, shall bring its help; and though you should live to outnumber the years of Methuselah, and though your needs should be as many as the sands of the seashore, yet shall God’s grace and mercy last through all your necessities, and you shall never know a real lack. For three long years, in this widow’s days, the heavens never saw a cloud, and the stars never wept a holy tear of dew upon the wicked earth: famine, and desolation, and death, made the land a howling wilderness, but this woman never was hungry, but always joyful in abundance. So shall it be with you. You shall see the sinner’s hope perish, for he trusts his native strength; you shall see the proud Pharisee’s confidence totter, for he builds his hope upon the sand; you shall see even your own schemes blasted and withered, but you yourself shall find that your place of defence shall be the munition of rocks: “Your bread shall be given you, and your water shall be sure.” Better have God for your guardian, than the Bank of England for your possession. You might spend the wealth of the Indies, but the infinite riches of God you can never exhaust.
Spurgeon, C. H. (1896). Morning and evening: Daily readings. Passmore & Alabaster.
AND all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. (When children cry for nothing, they soon have good cause for crying, and such was the case in this instance; but do we never fall into the same sin ourselves?) 2 And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt: or would God we had died in this wilderness! 3 And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? What a shameful slur they cast upon Jehovah when they asked whether he had brought them out to slay them, and truly we are equally guilty when we imagine that after leading us so far on the road to heaven, he will leave us to our enemies. 4 And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt. To avoid one evil they would rush into a worse. Without the cloud to guide them, or the manna to feed them, they talk of going back to Egypt. Unbelief is insanity. 5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel. The people ought far rather to have fallen on their faces before them; so is it often that the best men are worst spoken of. 6 ¶ And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes: 7 And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. 8 If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. 9 Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not. 10 But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. (The case had been well put, but stones were the reward of faithfulness.) And the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel. (God appeared for the defence of his servants. He who touches them, touches the apple of his eye.) 11 ¶ And the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them? 12 I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they. (This was a great offer, but how lovingly Moses declined it, thinking more of Israel’s good and of God’s glory than of his own honour.) 13 ¶ And Moses said unto the LORD, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, (for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;) 14 And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that thou LORD art among this people, that thou LORD art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night. 15 ¶ Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying, 16 Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness. 17 And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my LORD be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying, 18 The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. 19 Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now. 20, 21 And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to thy word: But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD. (See the value of an Intercessor to stand in the gap. Blessed be God; if any man sin, we have an advocate.)
Spurgeon, C. H. (1964). The Interpreter: Spurgeon’s Devotional Bible (p. 118). Baker Book House.
Leviticus 24:11 — Reading this verse reminded me of a scene from the movie “Time Changer” … amazing how few Christians are bothered to see the name of the Lord blasphemed.
Leviticus 25:10 — “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Does this sound familiar? The 1752 Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, contains this phrase around the top of the bell.
Leviticus 25:23 — As we discussed earlier, the land is the Lord’s, and He governs its use.
And let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the Lord go out before thee, to smite the host of the Philistines. (2 Samuel 5:24)
There are signs of the Lord’s moving which should move us. The Spirit of God blows where He listeth, and we hear the sound thereof. Then is the time for us to be more than ever astir. We must seize the golden opportunity and make the most we can of it. It is ours to fight the Philistines at all times; but when the Lord Himself goes out before us, then we should be specially valiant in the war.
The breeze stirred the tops of the trees, and David and his men took this for the signal for an onslaught, and at their advance the Lord Himself smote the Philistines. Oh, that this day the Lord may give us an opening to speak for Him with many of our friends! Let us be on the watch to avail ourselves of the hopeful opening when it comes. Who knows but this may be a day of good tidings; a season of soul-winning. Let us keep our ear open to hear the rustle of the wind and our minds ready to obey the signal. Is not this promise, “Then shall the Lord go out before thee,” a sufficient encouragement to play the man? Since the Lord goes before us, we dare not hold back.
Pastoring on a secular university campus, I use apologetics daily in my ministry. Occasionally, I’m asked what “school” or “method” I prefer to follow (classical, presuppositional, etc.), and I have to be honest—I’ve benefited from folks in various disciplines.
I’m convinced that the mode of your apologetics is going to be downstream from your basic theology, and if holiness isn’t at the center of your theology, you’ll go astray.
This is what we find in the classic proof text on apologetics from the apostle Peter’s letter where he encourages his readers,
Even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. (1 Pet. 3:14–17)
Apologetics is fundamentally a matter of testifying wisely, “giving a reason” for the Christian hope within you in a particular way. According to Peter, central to this practice is your ability to “honor Christ the Lord as holy” in your hearts, which is why he commands it.
Why is a focus on Christ’s holiness so crucial to our practice of apologetics? In this article, I’ll first offer exegetical judgments on what it means to honor Christ as holy. Second, I’ll reflect on how that heart posture cashes out in our concrete practice of apologetics in our secular age.
What Does It Mean to ‘Honor Christ the Lord as Holy’?
We need to grasp what Peter is doing behind the scenes in the text. As scholars as far back as John Calvin have noted, Peter is alluding to Isaiah 8. In that passage, the southern kingdom of Judah is facing an imminent invasion from hostile nations to the north—Aram, the northern kingdom of Israel, and even Assyria.
Right before this, the Lord assures Judah’s King Ahaz through Isaiah that the counsel of the nations will not stand because God is with his people (vv. 9–10). For that reason, Isaiah and those who hear him shouldn’t look at their enemies and “fear what they fear, nor be in dread.” God says, “The LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (vv. 12–13).
The people of Judah are told that instead of fearing earthly powers, other nations, or their kings, they should “fear”—respect, honor, give ultimate weight to—the Lord. This is what it means to honor him as “holy”: it’s to set God apart by recognizing him as the Lord, the King of the hosts of heaven, the One seated on the cherubim, hymned by the seraphim (6:3); the consuming fire of Israel, the divine flame whose glory consumes his enemies (10:17); the powerful One whose holy arm had redeemed his people time and again (52:10).
To honor the Lord as holy is to recognize he alone is God Almighty and he alone is their ultimate hope over and against these paltry earthly powers.
To honor the Lord as holy is to recognize he alone is God Almighty and he alone is their ultimate hope.
Peter has this context in view and urges his suffering readers to take heart in the same way. Despite the earthly powers arrayed against them, they should “have no fear” (1 Pet. 3:14), for their opponents can only kill the body. Instead, they should fear the One who is Lord over body and soul—Jesus Christ (Matt. 10:28). In 1 Peter 3:14, the apostle amends the Septuagint (Greek) translation of Isaiah 8:13 by adding “in Christ” (ton Christon). Karen Jobes notes that in doing so, Peter “freely identifies Jesus Christ with the Lord, Yahweh of the [Old Testament].”
What’s the payoff of all this exegesis? At the core of our ability to witness to the hope we have within us is a basic grasp and posture of the heart, mind, and soul to honor Jesus as God, the Holy One, the power above and beyond all earthly powers.
What Does It Look like to ‘Honor Christ the Lord as Holy’ in Apologetics?
How does keeping the Lord Jesus as our fear help us in the apologetic task? While we could draw out several principles, three come to mind on the basis of Peter’s admonition.
1. Willingness to Suffer
Honoring Christ as holy gives us the willingness to suffer because it cuts the taproot of that which undermines so much of our apologetic practice—simple fear of man. Peter encourages the believers not to fear what they might suffer at the hands of their opponents if they make their hope known. In the case of the Christians in Asia Minor, the temptation to keep their faith private came in the face of the threat of violence, property loss, public slander, and even death.
Most Christians in the contemporary, post-Christian West don’t face losing their lives. But slander and, in some quarters, the loss of a job or the occasional imprisonment may loom. All the same, the loss of face, the loss of relationships, or the loss of respect in the workplace, classroom, or home may be enough of a threat for many of us to keep quiet about the hope within us.
Working with students at a secular university, I can’t tell you how often I hear that fear of being perceived as awkward, pushy, or uneducated is what’s holding people back from sharing their faith or even inviting someone to church. This may be a particular danger for Gen Z’s anxiety around social conflict and interpersonal awkwardness.
For those who do speak up and engage in apologetics, the fear of losing respectability can tempt us to concede intellectual or moral points we don’t hold or massage “peripheral” or “secondary” doctrines (which just so happen to be the cultural hot-buttons right now) in order to “share the gospel.” This may be a particular temptation for those engaged in “cultural” apologetics, who try to be attuned to culture’s winds to convey not only the gospel’s truth but also its beauty and goodness.
The fear of being perceived as awkward, pushy, or uneducated is often what’s holding people back from sharing their faith.
However, these attempts to hedge are merely a form of intellectual cowardice. It’s a fear of the “philosophers of the age” and a lack of conviction that Jesus, the Holy One, is the foolishness of God that’s wiser than human wisdom (1 Cor. 1:25). Fearing Jesus Christ as holy includes remembering that the chief revelation of Jesus’s holiness—his atoning death and resurrection by which he suffered and conquered all we could fear most—truly is the power of God unto salvation.
Fearing man also means we’ve forgotten the blessing for those who suffer for righteousness’ sake, for the sake of sanctifying Jesus’s name, echoing his Lord (Matt. 5:12). If our fear is Jesus, we know we can lose nothing that his power cannot restore a hundredfold in the coming day of vindication (19:29). This includes our jobs, our names, and even the awkwardness in our relationships with our roommates.
2. With Gentleness and Respect
Fearing Christ as holy also plays out in our ability to defend the faith with “gentleness and respect” (1 Pet. 3:15). This might be surprising—it’s intuitive how the fear of man and what they can do hinders our willingness to publicly give an answer. But how does fear play a role in doing so respectfully?
In respecting and honoring Christ, you’ll be attentive to honoring people made in his image, blessing and not cursing—even in response to their curses (James 3:9–10; Matt. 5:11–12). This attentiveness also includes honoring the fact that they’re made with rational capacities that shouldn’t be hijacked with cheap, high-pressure tactics but addressed with appeals that honor both the affections and the intellect (or to borrow modern dichotomies—right- and left-brain approaches).
The more belligerent, disrespectful attempts to defend the faith often stem from a basic lack of trust in Christ’s power to convert or a lack of assurance of the gospel’s truth. Some of the times I’ve been most tempted to bluster, to browbeat, to speak dismissively or engage in ad hominem arguments stem from being worried my argument isn’t working.
The reality is, I don’t like to be wrong (or to be shown I’m wrong) and so sinful human pride gets in the mix of my witness, making my glory instead of Christ’s glory my heart’s aim. Commenting on the 1 Peter passage, Calvin says, “Unless our minds are endued with meekness, contentions will immediately break forth.”
In other cases, my anxious anger reveals I’m struggling to believe Christ really is holy—that his power, not my ability to persuade, saves the sinner. But when I recall that “salvation belongs to the LORD” (Jonah 2:9), this assurance can allow me to do my best to witness to my Lord and entrust the results to him.
At that apologetic moment, my fear needs to be in the God who vindicates himself and sanctifies his own name (Ezek. 39:7). Recall that famous saying, based on words from Charles Spurgeon: “The Word of God is like a lion. You don’t have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose, and the lion will defend itself.” Apologetics that honors Christ as holy sees the apologist not as the prime mover in the event but as a servant of the Lord, a tool in the hand of his ever-effective Master.
I have found that nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologist. No doctrine of that Faith seems to me so spectral, so unreal as one that I have just successfully defended in public debate. . . . That is why we apologists take our lives into our hands and can be saved only by falling back continually from the web of our own arguments, as from our intellectual encounters, in the Reality—from Christian apologetics into Christ himself.
3. With a Clear Conscience
Honoring Christ as holy and keeping him as our fear allows us to proceed with a clean conscience. This is a corollary of the last two points in a couple of ways.
First, when you proceed with gentleness and respect out of fear of Christ, there’s less chance you can rightly be reproached by your opponents for anything. (I say less chance because even Paul admits that a clean conscience may not indicate actual perfection of conduct; 1 Cor. 4.) This point could be expanded at length, but a key component of answering the hope within is a credible character consistent with that hope that begins to make critics’ accusations become unbelievable slander.
My anxious anger reveals I’m struggling to believe Christ really is holy—that his power, not my ability to persuade, saves the sinner.
Second, wanting to honor Christ as holy in all things keeps our focus on the One before whom we’re actually giving an account. Yes, we’re testifying to our neighbors, but we do so before the face of the Lord Jesus. And while I never want to add unnecessary offense to the gospel, if my chief fear is Christ, not their wounded (and perhaps aggressive) moral sensibilities, I’ll give clear testimony to the truth of his Word as best I can.
Third, attempting to have a clear conscience in your witness to Christ will also motivate you to engage in preparation to do so. It’s right and good to trust that the Holy Spirit will give you the words you need on the day you’re dragged before authorities (Luke 12:11–12). Nevertheless, that doesn’t rule out timely and reasonable preparation for that day by studying the Scriptures, reading apologetic works, growing in your knowledge of theology, and so on, so that you might indeed have an answer at hand.
Finally, honoring Christ as holy constantly involves a reminder that he’s the One who “suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18) and that this is the ultimate source of our clean conscience before the Father. At the end of the day, this keeps us humble before our opponents, over whom we have nothing to boast, and makes us eager to testify to his grace.
‘In Your Hearts’
Peter’s call to honor Christ as holy isn’t a mere abstraction—it’s rooted in his encounter with Jesus’s holiness in Luke 5 and reaffirmation in John 21.
When Peter first witnessed Christ’s divine power in the miraculous catch of fish, he fell to his knees like Isaiah before the throne (Isa. 6) and cried, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8). Peter recognized Jesus not just as a teacher but as the Holy One, exposing his unworthiness even as it called him into a new life as a fisher of men. And after the resurrection, when Jesus met him by the Sea of Tiberias with another miraculous catch, on the other side of Peter’s cowardly unwillingness to suffer, it was a gracious, visible sign of Jesus’s holy power still at work and available to him.
That same reverent awe shaped Peter’s call to witness, fearing Christ above all. Just as Peter moved from fearful failure to faithful witness, we too are called to let Christ’s holiness embolden us, freeing us from the fear of man and empowering us to testify with both courage and humility. When we anchor our apologetics in the transformative vision of Christ’s power, his majesty, his unique glory, we don’t defend mere arguments—we bear witness to the living Lord who alone is worthy of our ultimate trust.
Pope Francis, hailed as “Servant of the servants of God,” the leader of Roman Catholicism nears his death. Plans are in progress for his funeral. The backroom politicking that is the common form of government in the Roman Catholic Church is underway. Politicians, news media, and over 1 billion Roman Catholics worldwide are speculating about who will be the next Pope.
Upon Francis’s death, evangelicals and Lutherans, protestants and Roman Catholics, atheists and agnostics, republicans and democrats, will all express words of praise for the Primate of Italy. Instead of heaping praise, perhaps they should be asking, “Where do devout popes go when they die?”
1. The Pope and His Gospel
The gospel preached by Noah, Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, Peter, John, and Paul, was the gospel of salvation through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ alone. There is no way for a man to be saved but by the precious blood of Jesus shed for the justification of the ungodly.[1] The Spirit continues to use the gospel to give new birth and eternal life to perishing sinners. Most of the apostles died for the name of Christ and His gospel. Christians still die for the name of Christ. Nothing is more valuable to the Christian than Christ and His salvation. If we have not Christ we have not life. If we have Christ, we have eternal life.
To pollute or alter the gospel of God concerning Jesus Christ His Son is to ask for God’s curse. Paul said, “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.”[2]
Salvation and the gospel are altogether different for the pope and Roman Catholicism than what is found in the Bible.
The 2,010th item in the Roman Catholic Catechism says of grace and eternal life: “Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life.”
Grace for the pope only merits initial forgiveness and partial justification. To reach heaven and eternal life, a man must earn it himself. The Roman system teaches a gospel of faith plus works. Christ saves somewhat but not to the uttermost. The false Roman gospel is rightly called semi-pelagianism. Put simply, it is another gospel which is not a gospel at all. There is nothing good about it. Sinners are not saved in Rome’s gospel.[3]
Because another gospel is proclaimed and promoted, God says of the pope and his false religion, “let him be accursed.” By preaching the false Roman gospel, Francis was devoted to the Roman religion. Where do devout popes go when they die?
2.The Pope and His Title
In public the pope appears in long flowing robes and a large pointy, bejeweled hat under which he wears a skull cap to hold it on. His dress and throne remind his followers of some of his many titles: “Successor of the Prince of the Apostles;”“Patriarch of the West;” and “Head of the Holy See.” Roman Catholicism adorns high and lofty titles on its leadership. There are few greater titles for its supreme leader than “Pontifex Maximus”and the “Vicar of Christ.” The former refers to the pope as the supreme high priest. The latter promotes “the pope’s supreme and universal primacy, both in honor and of jurisdiction over the Church of Christ.”[4]
God never gave these titles or honors to mere men. Rather, Scripture says that Jesus is the great High Priest.[5]“He put all things under His feet and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”[6] Jesus is head of His church. Jesus is Captain of salvation. He is the author of salvation. Jesus is with His people to the end of the age. The pope is a usurper of Christ’s authority and full of blasphemy in his lofty titles.[7]
Before the pope, people bow. To the pope, people pray. For the pope, people sacrifice their worldly goods. Like King Herod long ago, the pope has taken God’s glory for himself and is being struck down. By accepting titles of blasphemy for himself, Francis was devoted to the Roman religion. Where do devout popes go when they die?
3.The Pope and His Queen
The pope has an accursed message and a blasphemous title, but he does not stop there. He goes much further. He has another redeemer. Her name is Mary. Rome calls her the mother of Jesus. But the Pope’s Mary is not the mother of Jesus. The Mary of Scripture who bore Jesus was a sinner. She rejoiced in God her Savior.[8] Rome’s Mary is an idol. She is held up in merit and work as equal to Christ Himself.
The Roman Catholic Church and her popes give Mary many titles including: “Advocate; Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.”[9] The basic worship of the Roman religion includes devotion to Mary.[10] Rome calls Mary, “Queen over all things.”[11] The 7th part of the vainly repeated rosary begins like this: “Hail Holy Queen, Mother of mercy; our life, our sweetness, and our hope…”[12]
1 Samuel 5:4
Pope John Paul II referred to Mary as “the co-redeemer.”[13] He invoked the Latin phrase “Ad Jesum per Mariam” (To Jesus through Mary) as “really fact.” “Wherever you are, you can say, the Mother of Christ is here!”[14]
The priests carry Mary statues on their shoulders. The peasants give their wealth for little statues of her. Devout papists travel great distance to see her in statue form who is supposedly everywhere. She is their co-mediator, so they venerate her as they venerate God.
Pope Francis said, “If we want to be Christians, we must be ‘Marians’, that is ‘children of Mary.’”[15]
To Roman Catholics, Mary is the co-mediatrix, co-redeemer, and co-sovereign and the Pope is her prophet. Long ago the Israelites offered incense to the queen of heaven and were destroyed.[16]Rome cries out to its queen and the pope faces the same end. Francis devoted himself to the Roman idol. Where do devout popes go when they die?
4. The Pope and His Sacraments
The Roman catholic church has a gospel that is not free, a Christ that does not save to the uttermost, and an idol that must be carried. Then it goes further. It has sacraments that lead people away from the true Christ and His gospel. In the mountain range of Roman blasphemies, the mass is one of the tallest peaks.
Few Roman Catholics can agree on what exactly is happening in the mass. The majority say, “Christ is being offered for sins again,” or “Christ is being recognized as continuing to be offered for sins.” In either case, Christ’s work on the cross is not finished. All agree that they are eating the physical body of Christ. Even after attending mass every day of every month of every year of every decade that God gives life, the followers of Rome still do not know the eternal state of their souls. They think they eat Christ’s actual flesh. The very devout have eaten two or more Christs during their lifetime.[17] All that eating has done nothing for them but pass out the other end.
God gave His word that His children might “know that they have everlasting life” (1 John 5:13). God desires His own to know with certainty the hope that is in them. If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ you will not perish but have everlasting life. There is a full stop. That is why the gospel is glorious. That is why Jesus is precious to those who believe. He did die. He rose. Jesus will not die again. He has finished the great work of salvation. Therefore, call upon the name of the Lord and be saved.
The pope and his army of priests cannot offer up Christ to death anymore. They cannot crucify Him again. He suffered once and for all. We partake of Christ’s body and blood spiritually in the Lord’s Supper for the things that Jesus spoke are spirit and life.[18]
Denying the once and for all sacrifice of Christ, Francis was devoted to Rome’s web of lies. Where do devout popes go when they die?
5. The Pope and His Death
The vicar of Christ is dying. Many men with this title have died before. The Lord said, “it is appointed for man once to die and afterwards the judgment.”[19] The pope has gone the way of all men for he is nothing but a man.
Unbelievers have only one place they go at the end of their days. The rich man of Luke 16 opened his eyes in that place and was in torment because he was burning. He was in hell. Unless a man repents of his sin, he will also go there.
Some in protestant circles consider the pope to be the antichrist. There is a strong tradition of such a view.[20]Whether we say the pope is an antichrist or the antichrist we can say that anyone who preaches another gospel, elevates himself to the throne of God, worships an idol, and blasphemes the name of the Lord with his own sacraments and titles, is an unbeliever. If he dies without repenting of sin and believing in Christ alone for salvation, he will open his eyes in destruction. The gospel and salvation are not in Roman Catholicism. Therefore, let the pope and all people repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.
We freely confess that there may be less devoted Romans Catholics in that religion. Despite the reproach to Christ’s name and the legion of heresies that assault each person upon entrance into a Roman Catholic church, God has brought some through to saving faith in Himself. Some Roman Catholics will read what Rome teaches and say, “I don’t believe that.” Thank God for that! God’s salvation is indeed great. If you find yourself among that number, come out from among them! Join a Bible believing, gospel proclaiming church. You will be warmly welcomed.
At the day of the Lord, reprobate popes will be openly condemned for their unbelief. They will be cast into outer darkness with the devil and his demons for all eternity, body and soul in hell fire forever. That is what happens to devout and unrepentant popes at their death.
Don’t Go With Them
For several decades evangelicals and Roman Catholics have been trying to re-engage with each other. Some evangelicals refer to Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, etc as “Christians.” But the gospel is not in Roman Catholicism or these other branches. The Roman religion proclaims idol worship as fundamental to Christianity. Roman doctrine blasphemes Christ’s name. Rome brings down the work of Christ. The papacy elevates men with titles reserved for God alone. What fellowship has light with darkness? Do we not know that friendship with the world makes us enemies of God?
This article has said some hard things. It is not for the sake of being provocative. Rather it is to emphasize the great gulf fixed between the Roman Catholic system and the Word of God. The Scripture alone proclaims the way to eternal life. The Roman Catholic system does not. If we pretend Roman Catholicism is Christian, how will the perishing hear, repent, and believe?
Christians must be about evangelizing Roman Catholics, telling them the gospel, warning them of God’s judgment, and praying for their conversion. Italy, Spain, central and south America, the Philippines and every Roman Catholic stronghold around the world needs more missionaries. God has saved many out of Roman Catholicism. Christ is bringing many sons to glory. May God save many millions more.
All the world may praise a devout unrepentant pope. God is not mocked. He shares His glory with no one. No idol, man, or church can take His place. Christ is the head. The church is His body. Follow Christ and escape the fate of devoted popes who have died in their unbelief. There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ.
As another pope dies, pray fervently that God would use his death to draw millions of Roman Catholics out of that religion and save them by His grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone who is revealed in the Scripture alone all for the glory of God alone.
[3] “There are no tears in Heaven when God puts the rod of judgment upon the pope. I know that in every age they say, ‘don’t say a word about his holiness.’ Well I won’t say a word, I will speak a few sentences. The only place in Scripture we are told they say, ‘Hallelujah,’ in Heaven is when the last pope in the whole papacy is sunk in Hell. If you don’t believe me, you read your Bible. That’s what God says.” Alan Cairns, Sermon on Matthew 5:8, https://web.sermonaudio.com/sermons/4689
[17] A slice of bread weighs approximately 40 grams. Approximately 11.5 slices of bread make a pound. It takes about 10 bites to eat a piece of bread. Every 115 masses, a person eats about one pound of bread. At one mass per day, a person would eat 180 pounds of bread in about 57 years. The most devout Roman Catholics will eat more than the weight of a whole person in their lifetimes.
Put another way, every 20,340 persons taking mass consume 180 pounds of bread, about the weight of an adult male. If a billion Roman Catholics partake of the mass in one day they have eaten either 49,165 Christs or they ate one Christ who weighed 8,849,700 pounds. What Christ are they partaking of? Certainly not the Christ of Scripture. The perversion, repugnancy, and blasphemy of transubstantiation is abundantly evident.
I was recently interviewed for Los Angeles Magazine due to our success over the years working Cold-Case Homicides in the County of Los Angeles (like the recent Lynne Knight case). As a result, Matthew Segal posted a story entitled, “How to Operate Like a Cold Case Detective.” He quoted me on several principles we’ve employed in our investigations and prosecutions. While reviewing the list, I realized it paralleled much of what I’ve described at ColdCaseChristianity.com related to the investigation of Christianity. Here is part of the text of the article with hyperlinks to posts I’ve written as a Christian Case Maker. I hope these investigative principles will also help you become a better defender of Christianity:
Don’t trust popular opinion: “We work the cases nobody wants to work, the ones where it’s like, ‘Hey, we’re not sure this case is winnable.’ For the most part everyone has abandoned it for years. We’ve had cases where the victim’s family was absolutely unconcerned and in fact didn’t even want us to work the case. Why would you want to file a case when nobody’s pressuring you? Nobody even knows about this case, so all you can do is bring shame to our agency. To file a cold case results in one of two things: a win, which is fine, or a loss, which makes you look really bad.”
Find jurors who can connect the dots: “People don’t realize that these trials are won and lost in jury selection. That’s typically an aspect that no one gets to see, because typically no reporters are there. But that’s where the most masterful work is done. For our cases, you have to ask the right kind of questions that along the way end up teaching the jury about circumstantial evidence—because they’re not going to know. I don’t want it to sound like we’re trying to brainwash juries. We’re trying to educate them in a way that we think is helpful to the kind of case we think we’re going to present. Both sides do this.”
Never consider any detail too small: “No one’s going to know the case as well as we do. We simply spend more hours on it. That’s what happened on the Douglas Gordon Bradford case. We knew the case far better, and I think we even knew their witnesses better, than the defense knew their witnesses. We actually call them. I’m the kind of person that does not want the defense to find a witness I haven’t first talked to, so if there are 50 potential witnesses, I’m going to have to talk to all 50.”
But look at the big picture: “My background is in the visual arts, so I’m always looking at crime scenes, trying to assess their composition the same way you would assess the composition of a piece of art. I’m inclined to look at it and ask myself why is every piece in the position that I see it in. I will very rarely bring a case to the D.A. that’s not visually represented in some way. So if you’re going to say, ‘Why should this piece of evidence be considered important?’ Let me show you why: If the victim had left it here, it would look like this; if it was part of the original scene, it would look like this—but this is how it really looks. You can learn a lot from blood spatter. If a knife blade is pointing outward, it’s going to make a certain kind of spatter. Blood spatter can actually tell you where the attack occurred. It can tell you at times about how tall the attacker was, or whether the guy was lying down. I love that stuff because visually you can communicate that to a jury.”
And never take human nature for granted: “John and I don’t work serial killers. Serial killers are the ones that you go next door to their neighbor after it’s over and you say, ‘I just arrested your neighbor for a murder,’ and he goes, ‘Man, I thought that guy was a nut job. It smelled bad over there. The lights were always on.’ All this weird behavior. But when you arrest a cold case killer and knock on their neighbor’s door, they’re going to say, ‘No way! That guy’s got keys to my house. He watched my kids when I’m not home.’ The difference is serial killers are constantly in the midst of their killer instincts…. People like Doug Bradford—or any of the other cold case murders we’ve worked over the years—demonstrate for us something even worse and in some ways more insidious: an ability that all of us have to do exactly what they did. The only difference is that, but for the grace of God, nobody has pushed us to that point. But if somebody did, we would be no different from Bradford. That guy is in all of us.
Insult to injury’: What’s behind the rising tensions between France and Algeria? The time for diplomacy, it seems, is drawing to a close. French Prime Minister François Bayrou on Wednesday announced that his government would be spending up to six weeks re-examining all of the immigration agreements struck between Paris and Algiers since Algeria won its independence from France in 1962. In the coming weeks, he added, the French government would also present Algiers with a list of Algerian nationals living in France that Paris was determined to send back to their home country.
Expert meeting in the USA on vaccines cancelled The laboratories that produce influenza vaccines have previously relied on the pharmaceutical authority FDA to annually select strains of the virus, based on the variants expected to spread in the USA. The selection is usually made by an expert committee convened by FDA based on information from the World Health Organization. This year’s meeting was cancelled on Wednesday evening. Paul Offit, a member of FDA’s expert committee, tells CBS News that everyone is trying to understand what is happening.
Outgoing Israeli Ambassador to US Herzog reveals deep mistrust of Israel within Biden administration During the interview, Herzog revealed several previously unknown details about the Biden administration’s relationship with Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Herzog confirmed what many Israelis had already suspected – that tensions between U.S. President Joe Biden and Netanyahu were often very high. “The corks popped off and people had to sweat to put the lid back on,” Herzog said. Tensions with Netanyahu and his coalition government were not only restricted to Biden, but extended to members of his cabinet as well.
Final and last month of God’s year (Adar) After sunset this Friday (28th February) we finally enter the last month of God’s biblical year, given the name Adar by man. This is traditionally known as a month for celebration and happiness, mainly because it contains the joyous “Chag” of The Feast of Lots (Purim), celebrating and remembering God’s deliverance of His people from the evil plot of Haman,
Netanyahu sends team to Cairo for Hamas ceasefire talks Hamas faces three possible paths: surrender, disarmament, and exile to bring the war to an end; extending Phase 1 of the truce through further exchanges of hostages for terrorist prisoners and increased humanitarian aid; or a return to full-scale combat. Netanyahu has directed the negotiation team to head to Cairo on Thursday to resume discussions on the continuation of the hostage deal with Hamas following the completion of Phase 1.
State Department completes foreign funding review, identifying 15,000 grants worth $60 billion for elimination The lion’s share of the grants identified for elimination, then, came from the USAID side, where Trump administration officials moved to slash 5,800 grants valued at $54 billion. Marco Rubio unveiled a 90-day freeze on foreign aid aimed at allowing the administration to review programs for their consistency with “U.S. foreign policy under the America First agenda.”
IDF seizes Hamas plans for mass attack in Judea, Samaria and central Israel Defense Minister Israel Katz revealed on Thursday that security forces recently discovered Hamas files proving the terrorist group had plans to carry out a large-scale assault on communities in Judea and Samaria and along the Seam Line security barrier. “The way to prevent this is a clear defeat of terrorism—not only through targeted operations, but in a comprehensive move that will neutralize the threat to the cities of the Center and Judea and Samaria,”
Trump on Gaza ceasefire: We have some pretty good talks going US President Donald Trump was asked on Thursday about a possible extension of the ceasefire in Gaza, after phase one of the deal between Israel and Hamas ended with the return of the bodies of four hostages. “We’re working very hard in the Middle East and Gaza and all of the problems, and it’s been going on for years and years and centuries and centuries. It’s a tough neighborhood, but it could be a very beautiful neighborhood, and I think we’re going to come up with some pretty good solutions,” Trump said
GOP Lawmakers Urge Trump to Recognize Israeli Sovereignty Over West Bank A group of Republican lawmakers is urging US President Donald Trump to formally recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the West Bank, citing the territory’s historical ties and importance to the Jewish people. Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), one of the most strident pro-Israel voices in Congress, spearheaded a letter to Trump, calling on the president to endorse an Israeli annexation of the West Bank.
Why There Is No Peace: Ordinary Palestinians Celebrated the Death of the Bibas Family Although Hamas’ disgusting tactics during the hostage exchanges had already shocked the world, what followed was worse. Infinitely worse. It was not just the presence of the four coffins that made the spectacle an echo of the savagery of October 7. It was the festive atmosphere — the casual, almost celebratory way a community gathered to watch a terrorist group display the bodies of murdered Jews. It is a society so desensitized to terroristic violence that even the sight of coffins holding two dead babies did not shock and did not horrify. Quite the opposite. It was a cause for celebration.
US Sanctions Six Firms in China, Hong Kong Over Iranian Drone Network The United States has sanctioned six entities in Hong Kong and China for allegedly participating in an Iranian drone procurement network, as the Trump administration advances its so-called “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.
This Ramadan, all eyes are on Gaza and Jerusalem Thirty-seven brand new television series are set to air across the Arab world, reaching hundreds of millions of homes, for the holy month of Ramadan (set to start on Friday night) — traditionally the peak season for television viewership.
World War III Is Still On The Table: Europe Wants Boots On The Ground In Ukraine In the lead up to the 2024 presidential elections in the US the Biden Administration in collusion with UK, European and Ukrainian partners devised a plan to “Trump Proof” the war in Ukraine. In other words, they openly admitted that they wanted to prevent Trump from taking any actions that might force an end to the war and render a serious peace agreement. The globalists wanted to create a catastrophe, blamed on the preponderance of nation states, that they could use to erase all borders and completely reshape the world. So far they have not achieved this goal, but it’s not from a lack of trying.
Supreme Court signals backing for ‘straight’ woman’s bias suit The US Supreme Court signaled it will revive a job-bias lawsuit by a straight woman and make it easier in some parts of the country for members of so-called “majority groups” to get to a jury with discrimination claims. Hearing arguments Wednesday, justices from across the ideological spectrum cast doubt on lower court rulings that require majority workers – including White people and men – to meet a more difficult legal test than members of groups that have historically faced discrimination.
Israel, Take Heart — God Will Judge Your Enemies … there is a very similar mindset adopted by Israel’s neighbors today which mirrors the actions and attitude of the Edomites. But, just like the Edomites, what the enemies of Israel completely overlook is that there will be an eventual reaping of what they have sowed. Obadiah 15 to 16 reads: “For the day of the LORD upon all the nations is near; as you have done, it shall be done to you; your reprisal shall return upon your own head. For as you drank on my holy mountain, so shall all the nations drink continually. Yes, they shall drink, and swallow, and they shall be as though they had never been.”
Trump dodges plea from Britain’s Starmer for Ukraine security guarantee President Donald Trump said on Thursday that a minerals deal with Ukraine is the security guarantee Kyiv needs against Russia, brushing aside a plea from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for a commitment of U.S. military support. “We are a backstop because we’ll be over there, we’ll be working,” as a result of the economic partnership, Trump said. “We’re going to have a lot of people over there.”
Trump’s First Cabinet Meeting Opens in Prayer, ‘Blessed Is the Nation Whose God Is the Lord’ President Trump’s first cabinet meeting of his new administration opened in prayer Wednesday, with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner asking God to bless the nation. Turner formerly served as an associate pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, where Jack Graham is senior pastor. During Trump’s first term, Turner was executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council. On social media, Turner called it the “honor of a lifetime” to be able to open the meeting in prayer.
Pentagon Will Track Down And Discharge Transgender Service Members Pursuing President Trump’s vision of a fighting force focused on readiness to wage war, the Pentagon is about to initiate a fast-paced program to ferret out transgender military members and discharge them from the military, according to a memorandum filed in federal court on Wednesday. “Service members who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria will be processed for separation from military service,” the memo says.
The Gold At Fort Knox Was Stolen From Americans In recent days, President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Senator Rand Paul, and some others have pressed for an audit of the US gold reserves, with a special focus on the gold at Fort Knox. This is perfectly reasonable given that the US gold reserves – which are the property of the US Treasury and not the Federal Reserve – have not undergone even a partial audit in at least forty years. Part of the reason for the audit is to discover if any of the gold has been stolen.
Treasonous CIA Insiders “Might Be Motivated” To Betray America If DOGE Fires Them Apparently one of the ‘six ways from Sunday’ the intelligence community has to get back at the Trump administration is threatening to leak sensitive information to ‘a foreign intelligence service’ if they’re fired as part of DOGE’s efforts to downsize government.
A Decimated Hamas Prepares for a New Fight With Israel The militant group’s armed wing has appointed new commanders and begun mapping out where to position fighters in the event of a return to war, according to Arab officials who talk with Hamas. The U.S.-designated terrorist group also has started repairing its underground tunnel network and has passed out leaflets to inexperienced new fighters on how to use weapons to mount a guerrilla war against Israel, these officials said.
Attorney explains how Obama-Biden admin prioritized race over merit for air traffic controllers Grady Block is an attorney with Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents a group of air traffic controller candidates. He said the Obama-Biden administration looked at their clients and said, “You know, this looks a little bit too white for what we want.” “the Obama-Biden administration looked at, looked at the hiring class and said, ‘You know, this looks a little bit too white for what we want. We want to expand DEI initiatives.’”
Red alert issued as Intense Tropical Cyclone Garance nears landfall over Réunion Island Intense Tropical Cyclone Garance is intensifying and approaching Réunion Island. The cyclone is expected to make landfall on Friday, February 28, with maximum sustained winds of approximately 190 km/h (118 mph) and gusts reaching up to 200 km/h (124 mph). Residents are advised to prepare for severe weather conditions, including heavy rainfall and potential flooding.
Alert! The Economic Numbers That We Are Getting Now Are Absolutely Staggering We haven’t seen an economic shift of this magnitude in a long time. Four years of “Bidenomics” absolutely devastated the U.S. economy, and that is one of the primary reasons why Kamala Harris lost the election. The American people truly hate what has happened to the economy, and they are desperate for change. Unfortunately, our long economic slide just continues to get even worse. In fact, we just got some new numbers that are simply staggering.
The First AI Computer Hunts Jews–The Last AI computer Hunts All of Us After, a half century of studies in eschatology, (Second coming of Christ) and a vision about the same, I have come to a few immutable conclusions. The first, is that most of Christianity has come to the belief that we are in the very last days preceding the return of Christ.
mRNA injections, the secret world government and Gatesian Grey skies In his latest passing observations, Dr. Vernon Coleman makes note of the potential intergenerational harm that mRNA injections might cause. He quotes a speech given by the late Prince Philip to the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos and explains what “Gatesian Grey” means.
Muslim rape gangs, a peril of multiculturalism “…What of those who have fallen victim? Well, first they were raped brutally. Then they were pillared or even arrested, for their hypothetically disorderly behaviour. Then they were told to remain silent for the sake of a social cohesion, that doesn’t truly exist, and gaslit when they dared to speak. And all at the hands of those directly charged with their protection.” “The rapes themselves were sickening, brutal, sadistic, low and criminal. The cover-up: cowardly, hypocritical and unforgivable. All of it, in a word, evil,” Dr. Peterson said.
Pastor Claims Calling Jesus ‘The Savior’ Is A ‘Stumbling Block’ To Church Attendance A United Church of Christ “minister” in LA (who refers to her sermon as “heretical”, so at least she admits it!) preached: Well, do I think that [the resurrection] could have happened and did happen? I believe so . . . I feel it probably did. But if I’m to be scientific or realistic I don’t know. And I say that because there’s no “proof.” Did it really happen? . . . Did Jesus really raise from the dead? I don’t know.
6G Is Not Just A Tech Upgrade, It’s A Preview Of The Global System Described In Prophecy 6G and AI integration—which are being promoted as a breakthrough for sustainability, efficiency, and convenience. But the reality is far deeper: this has been a slow, deliberate march toward total surveillance, control, and the erosion of individual autonomy. Let’s understand this has been forty years in the making.
BBC’s Gaza Cover-Up: Whitewashing Islamic Jew-Hatred Once Again The left’s unwavering protection of Islam’s genocidal Jew-hatred is on full display once again—this time at the BBC, which has been caught red-handed by LBC.UK., manipulating its own documentary to obscure the blatant antisemitism of its subjects. In a move that can justifiably be described as journalistic fraud and literally enemy propaganda. The BBC deliberately altered subtitles in its Gaza documentary, scrubbing references to “Jews” and replacing them with “Israel” or “Israeli forces” in an apparent attempt to make Hamas and their supporters seem more palatable to Western audiences and to make the issue seem geopolitical as opposed to Islamic supremacy and Islamic-antisemitism.
“Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue.” —John Witherspoon (1776)
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
So much for those Epstein Files: After a lot of hype about the imminent release of new information regarding the activities of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, it appears we were taken for a ride. Yesterday, the DOJ did a 200-page document dump that included Epstein’s contact list, flight logs, and the evidence against him, but nothing new in the materials. Instead, we got a list of celebrities and politicians who we’d already known or suspected to be on Epstein’s contact list. Having overpromised and underdelivered, AG Pam Bondi sent a scathing letter to FBI Director Kash Patel to investigate the screw-up and deliver the “thousands of pages of documents” that are apparently being held by the FBI. So stay tuned.
Judge blocks firings: U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled in favor of a group of labor unions challenging the Trump administration’s actions to issue mass firings of federal workers who were within the probationary period. The dismissals came from the Office of Personnel Management. Asserting that Congress empowered the agencies to hire and fire, however, the judge ruled that OPM “does not have any authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire and fire employees at another agency.” Does the president, as head of the executive branch, not have the authority to direct agencies to fire executive branch employees? Alsup’s ruling is a temporary restraining order, indicating this issue is far from over.
Zelensky meets with Trump: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in the U.S. yesterday ahead of today’s 1 p.m. press conference with Donald Trump, at which they’ll announce an agreement to jointly develop Ukraine’s critical bounty of rare earth materials. The deal is the culmination of Trump’s recent enmity toward Zelensky, and it moves the U.S. toward a lessened dependence on Communist China for these materials while moving Zelensky closer to a peace deal with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The agreement gives the U.S. a 50% stake in revenue without obligating our nation to any Ukrainian security guarantees beyond being able to protect our economic stake.
Vance calls out British PM’s free-speech fantasy: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been in Elon Musk’s sights of late, having been dismissive of the Pakistani rape gangs that have for more than 20 years preyed upon thousands of young girls. As constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley observed, Starmer laughably asserted that his country guards free speech “preciously” and doesn’t censor it. This just doesn’t pass the giggle test, and Vice President JD Vance said as much during an Oval Office meeting yesterday. Recall that Vance last week told the Munich Security Conference that free speech was “in retreat” across Europe. Doubling down while sitting just feet away from Starmer, he said that the UK’s “infringements on free speech” affect the U.S. as well as the British.
Gabbard blasts UK’s user data demand: While the British PM was pushing back on Vance’s rebuke of speech suppression, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was decrying demands from the British government that Apple give its security service backdoor access to users’ encrypted cloud data. The issue arose after Apple announced last week that it would stop offering its Advanced Data Protection feature to British users. Evidently, rather than allow backdoor access to UK officials, Apple chose to stop offering the service. The question is, why does the British government want unfettered access to its citizens’ private data? To expand its prosecution of “thought crimes”?
Trump EO declares English our official language: Never in the nearly 250-year history of our nation has English been the official language of the United States, but all that will change perhaps as soon as this afternoon, when President Donald Trump will reportedly sign an executive order that would make English the official language of these United States. Trump’s order would rescind Bill Clinton’s heavy-handed mandate that federal agencies and other recipients of federal funds provide language assistance to those who are unable or unwilling to speak English. The goal of the order would be to promote unity and make the government more efficient, as well as provide an incentive toward citizenship. Let’s hope so.
Musk warns anti-DOGE efforts tied to Soros: How much of the movement against DOGE is organic? According to Elon Musk, not much. Musk revealed that two George Soros-connected leftist groups, Indivisible and MoveOn, have been behind anti-DOGE protests across the country. For example, MoveOn targeted congressional districts in California, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Colorado with its “Congress Works for Us, Not Musk” mobilization effort. These groups feign the appearance of simply expressing constituent concerns about Musk, but this is clearly an organized effort to prevent DOGE from exposing the corruption in Washington.
Israel to eliminate Hamas: In the next month or so, Israel plans to flood Gaza with 50,000 IDF troops in a coordinated offensive to overwhelm Hamas. According to a former Israeli colonel, “We’re going to see four to five divisions simultaneously attack in the north, in the center, and in the south, to occupy every area and clear out the enemy.” With Donald Trump in the White House, Israel’s leadership is now freer to conduct its war effort against Hamas without being hamstrung by Joe Biden’s State Department. Meanwhile, a recent investigation into Israel’s lack of preparedness for Hamas’s October 7 attack reveals that Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate received “intelligence assessments” of the impending attack but dismissed it as unrealistic and not feasible.
Headlines
Senate advances Linda McMahon nomination for education secretary, setting up final vote for Monday (Just the News)
Washington Post journalists in “open rebellion” against Jeff Bezos (PJ Media)
Mexico agrees to send dozens of drug cartel members to U.S. for prosecution (Just the News)
Department of Defense to cut troops with gender dysphoria (Daily Wire)
More trans terror? Texas police thwart “mass casualty” plot (Townhall)
The NCAA’s transgender policy has a massive loophole (City Journal)
Humor: Gavin Newsom launches true crime podcast about how he killed California (Babylon Bee)
“Give me your tired, your poor, your … sex traffickers yearning to exploit women for money.”
Wait, what?
I had planned this morning to write about a sex trafficker named Jeffrey Epstein, expecting that we’d get a tranche of information about the powerful and wealthy people who participated with him in exploiting many young women over many years. (Epstein supposedly hung himself in a jail cell in 2019.) The big news about all that ended up being little more than a clown show yesterday, however, involving the Justice Department giving redundant and yawn-worthy information via a small band of prolific MAGA social media influencers. We learned nothing new or noteworthy.
The Epstein Files won’t release themselves.
Anyway, during our editors’ call this morning, I drew the short straw and will instead relay the story of two different (alleged!) sex traffickers — Andrew and Tristan Tate — and their arrival in Florida from Romania.
The Tate brothers hold dual American and British citizenship, and until yesterday, they have not been allowed to leave Romania since authorities opened an investigation of them in 2022. The two social media influencers are accused by numerous women of exploiting them to build their lucrative adult entertainment enterprise, and authorities are investigating allegations of money laundering and human trafficking. In the UK, the brothers are wanted on allegations of tax evasion, rape, and human trafficking, which seems odd given the British tendency to look the other way when Muslim men rape young women.
(Side note: Andrew claims to be a Muslim, though Tristan claims to be Christian.)
They both vigorously deny the charges, though both are, well, on video bragging about doing the things they’re accused of doing. When asked, their chief refrain is that they have not been convicted of any crimes. Andrew calls himself a misogynist pimp, and Tristan is the ever-present yes-man echoing his older brother. They blame the “matrix” for a conspiracy to silence them because they preach against the “woke mind virus.” I would readily concede that neither Romania nor the UK are paragons of justice, especially regarding free speech, but that hardly proves anything.
“This is a democratic society,” Andrew pontificated outside Fort Lauderdale airport yesterday. “It is meant to be innocent until proven guilty.”
Yes, that’s true, but I have a higher standard of morality than “Well, I wasn’t convicted.”
You might be asking, who cares about these guys? Why is it news?
Unfortunately, millions of people follow them — primarily disaffected young men who desperately want a masculine role model in a society that tells them they are the problem. They support Donald Trump, and they oppose feminism, DEI, and anything woke. They have enjoyed promotion from influencers like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Benny Johnson and even received praise from Trump attorney Alina Habba. It’s all what our Samantha Koch recently called “The Delusional Embrace of Andrew Tate.”
Because I have three teenage sons, I listened to one of their podcasts a few months back. I’ll summarize the 90-minute show this way: “We’re awesome. Unbelievably awesome, in fact. And all of you out there are total and pathetic losers who will never be awesome like us. Unless you give us some money and take our online courses, and then maybe you might achieve a shadow of our greatness.”
Truly, that was the thread for an hour and a half.
Their social media posts are even more tedious. Andrew proclaims the “virtues” of having “multiple beautiful baby mothers producing you children,” and he declares, “The Nuclear family has nuked masculinity to zero.” There’s plenty more, but their appalling commodification of women is often too vulgar for a family publication.
Yet when two buff and athletic guys (both international kickboxing champions) smoke cigars, drink whiskey, and generally exude machismo while boasting about the beautiful girls they’ve bedded, the exotic cars they drive, and all the money flooding into their bank accounts, it becomes almost irresistible for young men who also want those things.
Of course, the Tate brothers put the “toxic” in “toxic masculinity,” effectively making the argument against men better than any raving feminist ever could.
There is speculation that the Trump administration either pressured Romania for the Tates’ release or at least facilitated their entry back into the United States. When asked, President Donald Trump said, “I know nothing about that.”
Regardless, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis isn’t happy. “Florida is not a place where you’re welcome with that type of conduct,” said DeSantis. “We were not notified. I found out through the media that this was something that was happening.”
The brothers may end up having an uneventful trip to the U.S. before heading back to Romania in March for further proceedings. They may never be convicted of anything in a court of law. Still, two narcissists who run around bragging about exploiting women who aren’t worthy of anything more than that are not worth listening to, much less extolling. Just because they “make a great point” about the Left every now and then does not make them or their hollow vision of life worthy of respect.
Thomas Gallatin: Trump’s ‘Gold Card’ Play — Will expanding Green Card opportunities to wealthy foreigners really generate revenue?
Brian Mark Weber: Pentagon Pork Purge — Team Trump is scrutinizing government spending to root out waste, even in the military.
Douglas Andrews: Comey’s Secret ‘Honeypot’ Probe — The disgraced former FBI director has yet another blight on his record of having targeted Donald Trump.
Emmy Griffin: Canada’s Mass Grave Hoax Laid to Rest — Lots of Canadian taxpayer money was spent for no excavation at one site and no bodies at the other.
Maine Pulls a South Carolina — Victor Davis Hanson discusses a recent heated exchange between President Donald Trump and Maine Governor Janet T. Mills.
The DOGE Email — And Lo, the Angel of Death did sweep low among the Pharisees in Washington, and their inboxes ran red with blood, and they were sore afraid…
“[Elon Musk] was not born in this country. … I think this is just perfectly wonderful for Trump. He can take a nap and let this foreigner, foreign agent — you know, an enemy of the United States — do his job.” —”The View” co-host Joy Behar
“Mr. Musk has just been here just 22 years and he’s a citizen of three countries. I always ask myself the question: With the damage he’s doing here, when push comes to shove, which country is his loyalty to? South Africa, Canada, or the United States?” —Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur
“Elon Musk is not a scientist. He is not an engineer. He is a billionaire con man with a lot of money.” —Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Braying Jenny
“We can’t let them deport the millions of families across this country who have been doing the work that keeps our economy going every day. … If you look at the food that’s on your table, think about who picked it.” —Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
The Bottom Line
“The vast majority of that spending comes in the form of entitlements, means-tested welfare programs and interest on the national debt. DOGE will touch little of this. The reality is that the United States is in a debt spiral from which it is unlikely to emerge without serious fiscal restructuring.” —Ben Shapiro
“The national debt of $36 trillion is our biggest national threat. Nothing else is a close second.” —Clay Travis
For the Record
“Want to understand how Jeffrey Epstein got away with everything? Watch how Andrew Tate is getting away with everything.” —Ian Haworth
“Countless Americans voted for Donald Trump because he pledged to end human trafficking…and if his administration freed Andrew Tate, it’s an utter insult that will be a stain on his presidency.” —Ian Haworth
“No. Florida is not a place where you’re welcome with that type of conduct.” —Governor Ron DeSantis answering whether the Tate brothers would be welcomed in Florida
“Zero political capital should be spent on rescuing sex traffickers.” —Allie Beth Stuckey
And Last…
“I put out a directive … that they all will be terminated and their security clearances will be revoked.” —DNI Tulsi Gabbard outlining her response to the NSA perverted chat room scandal
This will be the first weekend in a month and a half that Israel will not be receiving hostages back. President Trump is set to meet with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy at the White House to discuss minerals and the war with Russia. Despite talks of ending the war, Russia continues attacking Ukraine’s power grid. More than 23-million Americans live in what’s known as food deserts. These areas are usually in low-income communities that don’t have big supermarkets to provide affordable, healthy food. Many of the men responsible for settling the Old West in the late eighteen hundreds were people of color. Historians estimate that 1-in-4 Cowboys was a black American.
Mary welcomes back JB Hixson to talk about his newest book, “The Great Last Days Apostasy“. Vance Havner once said, “The church is so subnormal that if it ever got back to the New Testament normal, it would seem to people to be abnormal.” So since that’s loaded with observational wisdom, we have to ask ourselves, “How did we get here?”. JB takes us through 7 categories of apostasy and how it affects our witness in these last days. The falling away of the church biblically, eschatologically, morally, socially, evangelistically, academically and politically pretty much covers every way the church interacts with the world. Each category gives a thorough explanation and in many cases, a warning, of the treacherous waters the church finds itself in due to compromise – biblical compromise. Especially concerning are the moral compromises that blind the heart and mind of the one who disregards God’s warnings when we trespass His protective boundaries. Whether read in a single setting or used as a resource, this book is a must have for these last times.
JERUSALEM, Israel – For Israelis, this will be the first weekend in six weeks that Hamas-held hostages, living or dead, will likely not be freed. Both the U.S. and Israel are sending top negotiators to Cairo to work out an agreement for the return of the remaining hostages.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar stated, “We are ready to make the framework longer in return for (the) release of more hostages.”
8 Now to sum up, all of you be like-minded, sympathetic, brotherly, tender-hearted, and humble in spirit; 9 not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but giving a blessing instead, for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing. 10 For,“THE ONE WHO DESIRES LIFE, TO LOVE AND SEE GOOD DAYS,MUST KEEP HIS TONGUE FROM EVIL AND HIS LIPS FROM SPEAKING DECEIT.11 HE MUST TURN AWAY FROM EVIL AND DO GOOD;HE MUST SEEK PEACE AND PURSUE IT.12 FOR THE EYES OF THE LORD ARE TOWARD THE RIGHTEOUS,AND HIS EARS ATTEND TO THEIR PRAYER,BUT THE FACE OF THE LORD IS AGAINST THOSE WHO DO EVIL.” 1 Peter 3:8-12 (LSB)
This era of the Church is one of extreme deception due to compromise with the standards and focus of the world. Separation between the Church and the world is not being kept. Instead, the holy barrier between the two has been breached as false prophets have welcomed in not only the world and its ways into their churches, but have also embraced the mysticism of the Eastern religions….
Syncretism is the new byword of the Emergent Village and the New Evangelism. On the other hand, God is good. He keeps His promises. The Lord told Peter that He is the one building His Church and no evil will ever be able to destroy it. (Matthew 16:18) If this is true, and it is because our Lord spoke it, then how do we reconcile the rapid apostasy of so much of the visible Church with what He said? God always keeps a remnant during times of rampant apostasy. These Christians are the small group whom God has reserved who have not bowed the knee to Baal. These are also the ones in whom God is developing Christlikeness and through the fires of persecution by those in the visible Church who have succumbed to the heresies and ungodliness going on in it, He is teaching them how to stand firm and never compromise with evil. In this they learn the difference between debate and dialogue and know that the former actually clarifies the truth and why they hold to it while the latter is only a conversation which has the intent of compromising the truth. <Continue reading post>
Despite a consistent decline in the share of adults in the United States who identified as Christians over the last 17 years, the trend appears to have slowed in the last five years of a long-term Pew Research study.
Thursday was “Phase One” of the release of files and documents related to former billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who is widely believed to have been using access to illegal sex in order to ‘compromise’ and blackmail international elites for intelligence-related purposes.
Several news outlets have been litigating the release of documents related to Epstein for several years, including the Miami Herald, author Mike Cernovich, and The Gateway Pundit.
Instead of those media outlets or Congressional leaders getting a copies, the released documents were given to 15 center-right social media influencers such as DC Draino, LibsofTikTok, Emily Austin, Jack Posobiec, Scott Presler, Rogan O’Handley, Liz Wheeler, and Turning Point USA, among others. Mike Cernovich was also invited and given a copy.
The Gateway Pundit filed a motion to intervene in the Guiffre v. Maxwell case in the United States District Court for the Southern District in July 2022 seeking to get media access to some of these documents that would reveal more about the Epstein saga.
The Gateway Pundit spent thousands to obtain
The district court denied the motion, and the appeals court denied the motion in an unpublished opinion.
It has been over five years since Epstein was found dead in his cell, a death widely speculated to have been murder, including by experts who reviewed his autopsy, on Aug. 10, 2019.
The delay in the release has been frustrating to many Trump supporters online. The NYPost quoted conservative influencers as saying, “You should feel frustrated.” Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna expressed her frustration on Twitter:
Attorney General Bondi also sent a terse letter to FBI Director Patel demanding all files to be turned over to her and also to explain why there has been a delay. In the letter, Bondi gave Patel a deadline for the “full and complete Epstein files to my office, including records, documents, audio and video recordings, and materials related to Jeffrey Epstein and his clients” by 8 a.m. Friday.
There are no statements as to when the next ‘batch’ or even how many batches, will be provided to the media. Influencer Mike Cernovich claimed the next “batch” will contain the “big” releases.
The excuse for the dud release is being shifted to the FBI and to the Southern District of New York. Notably, corrupt former FBI Director James Comey’s daughter is a DOJ prosecutor in the SDNY office, Maurene Comey.
Many have speculated, and some credible whistleblowers have come forward to say, that the delay was likely due to the government and the reported ‘deep state’ adjustment, amending, or redacting information in the documents in order to protect various elites, rich perpetrators, or foreign countries. Some sources claim this process started immediately after the November election.
The documents that are likely still being suppressed include:
11,571 responsive pages to a FOIA request by Radar Online, in a case the courts turned down in 2023 on questionable legal grounds.
FBI “FD-302” records, which are the written records of interviews conducted by agents.
Communications and memos related to the several cases related to Epstein, including his 2007 prosecution in Florida and his 2017 federal prosecution.
Palm Beach Police Department records from 2005-2007 from their initial investigation of Epstein.
Records from the shoddy investigation by corrupt Attorney General Bill Barr, who immediately ruled Epstein’s suspicious death as a ‘suicide’ in 2019.
It is widely speculated that Jeffrey Epstein was working for intelligence agencies, and was specifically working with his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell using sex with underage children as a way to compromise the nation’s political, economic, media, and social elites with videos for espionage and ‘influence operations’ on behalf of the state of Israel and its secret service, the Mossad. Reportedly Epstein’s ex claims he boasted about being an intelligence agent with the Mossad.
Ghislaine Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence on charges of child sex trafficking and perjury, among other counts. Maxwell’s father Robert died under suspicious circumstances in 1991. He is also alleged to have been an espionage agent for Israel.
Journalist Whitney Webb has claimed in a series of books and articles that Epstein and his powerful networks represent an organized elite criminal class that utilizes blackmail and coercion to maintain global financial and political control.
Federal authorities have regularly made a mockery of public information laws like the Freedom of Information Act. Federal agencies regularly overclassify information to protect it from public review, and also overuse the exemptions to FOIA for ‘privacy’ and ‘ongoing law enforcement investigation’ and ‘national security’ as ways to preclude the release of relevant public documents.
The Gateway Pundit filed a FOIA request to the DOJ in 2017 for specific records related to political persecutions which was denied, then granted upon appeal, and has been unfulfilled ever since. Other litigants for public records relate the same trends: federal authorities simply refuse to follow the law as it relates to the release of documents and federal judges refuse to hold such authorities liable or otherwise accountable.
In 2023, a New York federal court turned down a FOIA request for Epstein-related files requested by Radar Online, on the basis that there might be a pending appeal by Ghislaine Maxwell and that was sufficient to constitute a ‘law enforcement record.’
Key dates and past releases of Epstein-related documents:
2024: May 16 – A 64 page address book listing 349 people, from Epstein in 1997, was put up for auction. One of the prominent names it listed was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
2024: January 4 – 900 pages of previously sealed documents related to Giuffre’s civil suit against Maxwell.
2019: August 9th – 2000 pages of documents released as part of Virginia Giuffre’s defamation lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell, including the Epstein flight logs.
2015: January 23rd – Epstein’s former butler Alfredo Rodriguez tries to sell his contact book with 1,571 contact names in 2009, and the document ends up in court, and eventually published by Gawker.
Epstein had received a very lenient plea deal in 2008 from then-Florida US Attorney Alexander Acosta. Acosta later told Trump’s first term transition team, as he was being considered for Secretary of Labor when asked about this plea deal, “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to ‘leave it alone’”, and that Epstein was “above his pay grade.” Acosta was pressured to resign as Labor Secretary in 2019 because of his sweetheart plea deal with Epstein less than a month before Epstein was murdered.
The mainstream media gives the Miami Herald credit for pursuing the facts behind the Epstein case, for a series of stories in 2018. However Alex Jones and InfoWars was extensively covering Epstein and Epstein Island for nearly a decade prior. Jones has claimed that there is evidence that Epstein and elites participated in rituals, as part of the blackmail intelligence operations.
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