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 the success of all endeavors for the reformation of manners, the suppression of vice and profaneness, the support of religion and virtue, and the bringing of them into reputation.
O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and establish the righteous – you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God. Psalm 7:9(ESV) Spirit many to rise up for you against the wicked and to stand up for you against evildoers. Psalm 94:16(ESV)
Let the Deliverer come to Zion and banish ungodliness from Jacob; Romans 11:26(ESV) and let the filth of Jerusalem be cleansed from its midst by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning. Isaiah 4:4(ESV)
Let all wickedness shut its mouth; Psalm 107:42(ESV) and let the infection of that plague be stayed by intervening judgment. Psalm 106:30(ESV)
Let those who are struggling against sin never grow weary or fainthearted. Hebrews 12:3-4(ESV)
Remove the spirit of uncleanness from the land, Zechariah 13:2(ESV) and change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that they may call upon the name of the LORD. Zephaniah 3:9(ESV)
Set your people high above all nations in praise and in fame and in honor by making us a people holy to the LORD our God. Deuteronomy 26:19(ESV)
Nehemiah 1:1-11 In this week’s studies, we see that the first thing that is necessary for true leadership is prayer.
Theme
The ACTS Acrostic
Today we continue our look at the ACTS acrostic in the prayer of Nehemiah.
Nehemiah has reminded himself of what he is doing and the greatness and character of the God to whom he is directing his prayer. The second element in Nehemiah’s prayer is confession of sin. “I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses” (vv. 6-7).
Nehemiah knew that the sin of the Israelites had caused the judgment of God that resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem. If Jerusalem were to be restored, it would need to be restored upon the basis of a confession of these sins. So Nehemiah is specific about them: “We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.” What is most striking about his confession is that he includes himself in the acknowledgment of these sins. There are two important principles here. First, Nehemiah recognizes the principle of solidarity, namely, that he is one with the people so that his sins are their sins and theirs are his. He does not try to distance himself from them. Second, Nehemiah recognizes that he is himself a sinner. That is, there is no sin of the people which led to the fall of Jerusalem of which he is not guilty or which he is not capable of having done in the same circumstances.
Here is a secret of true leadership. A true leader is not so much aware of the talents or gifts he has that others do not have as he is of the fact that he is as weak and as capable of sin as anyone. It is when leaders forget their sinfulness that they fall into sin and lose their leadership ability.
The third element in this and all good prayers is thanksgiving. In this case it is expressed in Nehemiah’s review of God’s promises. “Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’ They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand” (vv. 8-10). These words express the great covenant principle of Deuteronomy, expressed most clearly in chapters 28 and 30. That covenant had two sides: 1) blessing and 2) judgment. It was conditional. If the people would obey God, He would bless them and establish them securely in the land. But if they should disobey Him, then He would scatter them—as He had done through the overthrow of the northern kingdom in 721 B.C. and the southern kingdom in 586 B.C. Nehemiah reviews this promise because, although it contains a warning of judgment following upon disobedience it also suggests a time of blessing if the people should repent.
By his repentance Nehemiah wants to represent the people in a way which will cause God to be merciful to them once again.
Study Questions
Review the meaning of the ACTS acrostic. What are the first three characteristics of Nehemiah’s prayer?
List and describe a secret of true leadership mentioned in today’s study.
Application: Do your prayers contain the four elements found in the ACTS acrostic? Do you find your prayers focused more on supplication, and less on adoration, confession, and thanksgiving?
Key Point: Here is a secret of true leadership. A true leader is not so much aware of the talents or gifts he has that others do not have as he is of the fact that he is as weak and as capable of sin as anyone. It is when leaders forget their sinfulness that they fall into sin and lose their leadership ability.
For Further Study: Download for free and listen to James Boice’s message, “The Secret of Effective Prayer.” (Discount will be applied at checkout.)
Have you ever heard the term “New Apostolic Reformation” or “NAR” and have some idea of what it is?
If not, I’m so glad the Lord led you here, because, over the last 20 years or so, the New Apostolic Reformation has become the predominant form of false doctrine in Protestant American evangelicalism, and you’ve probably encountered it in some way, even if you’re just now learning what it’s called.
In my opinion, the NAR is the most dangerous form of false doctrine in the United States today because so many people think it is biblical Christianity and unknowingly import it into reasonably doctrinally sound churches. I mean, I’ve never heard of Anytown Baptist Church teaching (as Christianity) that Mohammed was a prophet or that God lives next door to the planet Kolob, but you’ll certainly see NAR beliefs and practices like dominionism, unbiblical manifestations of the “Holy Spirit” and NAR prayer practices gradually creeping into many average evangelical churches.
And, to our shame, America has so diligently exported this false doctrine to other countries under the banner of “missions,” that in many areas of the world – particularly Africa – the New Apostolic Reformation is the primary representation of so-called “Christianity”.
It is pervasive, it is heretical, it is blasphemous, and it is sending people to hell at an alarming rate.
Because this is an article (albeit a long one) rather than a book, I want to give you an overview of a few of the major points of New Apostolic Reformation doctrine, and then I want to focus in on unbiblical NAR practices and experiences so you’ll be able to more easily spot an NAR church*, recognize when a loved one is straying into NAR false doctrine, and keep NAR false doctrine from creeping into your own church.
*New Apostolic Reformation organizations are heretical, which means their organizations are not “churches” and their adherents are not “Christians”. Typically, when I write about the NAR, I use “scare quotes” when referring to NAR “churches” and other Christian terminology the NAR has co-opted. However, because of the volume of this terminology in an article of this length, I felt that attempting to do so would be distracting to the reader and burdensome to the writing process. I have, therefore, left most of them out. But please understand, NAR “churches” are no more real churches than a Mormon “church” or a Jehovah’s Witness “church”.
Because that’s the immediate danger here. You’re not going to go to an NAR “church’s” website, go read their statement of faith page, and see – clearly spelled out for you – the doctrines explained below. But you probably will notice the outward signs and practices. So I do want to give those unbiblical practices and experiences some emphasis.
So let’s start by taking a look at…
Major NAR Doctrines
The first thing you need to understand is that one thing the NAR has in common with the rest of the evangelical world is that there are variations in beliefs and practices from church to church and individual to individual. I mean, I’m Baptist. You ask ten random Baptists what they believe, and you’re going to get ten different answers, even though there will be a lot of similarities.
It’s the same with the NAR. And on top of that, because this is a doctrine of demons, and its leaders disguise themselves as angels of light, some of them will flat out deny right to your face that they believe, teach, and practice some of these things, when you’ve read in their books, and heard in their sermons, and watched in videos of their worship services that they do.
Another thing that leads to variations in beliefs is that the NAR is not an organized denomination like the PCA or the ELCA. There’s no defined structure of leadership or governance. There’s no headquarters building, no national president, no official creed, confession, or statement of beliefs that all its churches hold to, no membership criteria for admitting or dismissing churches, or, indeed, even the concept of “membership” itself, because there’s no denomination for churches to be a member of.
So just keep that in mind. If you walk up to your friend NAR Nancy and say, “I heard your church believes X, Y, and Z,” she’s very likely to say either, “No, it doesn’t,” or “I never heard of that,” because NAR “churches” really minimize teaching and doctrine and maximize feelings and experiences.
But let’s look at some of those doctrines that most NAR churches and those in leadership in the NAR hold in common:
False Doctrine 1: Restoration of the offices of Apostle and Prophet
Probably the most definitive, stake your claim doctrine of the NAR that separates them from typical, Bible believing Protestant churches, is that they believe God has restored the offices of Apostle and Prophet. “Capital A” Apostle, as in Peter and Paul. “Capital P” Prophet, as in Isaiah and Jeremiah.
NAR doctrine holds that the offices of Apostle and Prophet have been restored to the church, and that God places people in those offices today to rule and run the church. The prophets (supposedly) receive new revelations from God and the apostles take that revelation and apply it to govern the church.
Here’s why that’s unbiblical: Acts 1:21-26 clearly spells out the normative requirements for the office of Apostle:
1. He had to have followed Jesus during His entire earthly ministry, from his baptism by John the Baptist to His ascension. And/or (in the case of Paul)…
2. He had to have been an eyewitness to the resurrected Christ.
3. He had to have been personally appointed to the office by Christ Himself.
Now, NAR apostles will skirt around numbers 2 and 3 by telling you that Jesus appeared to them and personally appointed them in a dream or a vision. But even if you give them that, not a single one of them followed Jesus during His earthly ministry, the very first requirement of an Apostle.
Furthermore, if God wanted Apostles and Prophets running the church today, why doesn’t He say in the New Testament that He wants Apostles and Prophets running the church? There is no mention whatsoever of the office of Prophet in the New Testament, or any qualifications a man must meet if he wants to hold the office of Prophet in the church. And none of the original Apostles in Acts were replaced when they died.
We have the pastoral epistles – 1&2 Timothy and Titus. These are the policy and procedure manuals for the church. You’ve read them (and if you haven’t you can stop right now and read all three of them in 30-40 minutes). Do they say anything about Apostles and Prophets running the church? No, they don’t.
The Apostle Paul, an actual Apostle – under the divine, theopneustos inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes these words to Titus, who’s getting a bunch of new churches up and running…
For this reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you.Titus 1:5
Not Apostles. Not Prophets. Elders. And then he goes on in verses 6-9 (and in 1 Timothy 3:1-7) to list the qualifications of elders, or overseers, or pastors, not Prophets and Apostles. If God wanted Prophets and Apostles running the church He would have said so right here. And He doesn’t.
False Doctrine 2: Dominionism and the 7 Mountain Mandate
The NAR believes that the biblical gospel isn’t good enough. You know the gospel, right? If not, or if you’re not sure, click here. That’s the gospel. That is the complete gospel. We don’t add to it or take away from it.
But the NAR says that’s not the complete gospel. They have what they call the Kingdom Gospel, which is the gospel plus the idea that Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection made it possible for NAR “Christians” to take dominion of the earth, and gave them a mandate to do so.
Now, this is not your Genesis 1:28 dominion where God tells Adam to take dominion over the fish and the birds and every living creature. This is also not the idea of sharing the gospel and being salt and light – being a godly influence on the world – like Scripture tells us to.
This is the idea of the NAR taking over every institution and government of every nation, and eventually, literally ruling the world in order to usher in the second coming of Christ. That’s dominionism.
They even have a plan for doing this called the 7 Mountain Mandate, which basically breaks society down into seven different categories or “mountains” to move – government, media, family, business & finance, education, church & religion, and arts & entertainment.
The NAR twists two main Scriptures to teach this.
The Great Commission- Matthew 28:19 says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…”. What does that mean? It means “as you go,” as you walk through life each day, share the gospel with people and disciple them if they become Believers. Send out missionaries. That’s what the Great Commission means.
The NAR teaches that “make disciples of all the nations,” means make every nation disciples. Infiltrate every corner of every nation and make that nation NAR.
The other Scripture they twist is in the Lord’s Prayer. Matthew 6:10: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Does that mean we’re supposed to literally take over the world and establish God’s kingdom on earth by force or by stealth? Of course not. But that’s what the NAR believes and teaches.
“Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What does that mean? It’s similar to “Maranatha: come Lord Jesus”. It is our prayer that Christ will come soon to rule and reign over all the earth.
This is not the biblical spiritual warfare we find in Ephesians 6 with the full armor of God – standing firm in Christ with prayer, study of the Word, righteousness, truth, and so on.
This is more like something out of a scary Hollywood movie. The NAR believes that there are powerful, high ranking demons and evil spirits that control various geographical regions or territories as well as those 7 mountains in the 7 Mountain Mandate. These evil spirits have to be driven out before the NAR can take dominion of all of the seven mountains, and, thus, each nation.
You’ve read your New Testament. Does the Bible teach this? Of course not. Say it loud. Say it convictionally. Say it fearlessly and without shame:
THE BIBLE DOESN’T TEACH THAT.
That is spiritual warfare. Stand firm against the schemes of the devil -like the false teaching of the New Apostolic Reformation- by girding your loins with truth and taking up the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. That is spiritual warfare.
False Doctrine 4: Signs and Wonders
This is probably the best known doctrine of the NAR because it’s the most visible and publicized. The NAR teaches that you can do all the same miracles you saw Jesus do during his earthly ministry.
For many, the reason they believe this is that they believe a twisted version of Philippians 2:6-7. They think when that passage says Jesus “emptied Himself,” that He gave up His deity. That when He came to earth, He was not God. This is called Kenoticism, or the Kenotic heresy.
Bethel Church in Redding, California, is basically ground zero for the NAR in the United States- and that’s what they believe. That’s why you’ll hear discerning Christians say that Bethel and the NAR are heretical. Because they are. They literally deny the deity of Christ. You can’t get more heretical than that.
Both Bethel and most of the NAR believe Jesus was just a regular human being like you and me who was so faithful to God and so filled with the Spirit that He was able to work miracles. So, of course, if you’re able to be that faithful to God and filled with the Spirit, you can do those miracles, too.
They’ll also take you to John 14:12, where Jesus said: “…he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do…”
Now, if you’re a good student of your Bible, you will read this verse in context and you will quickly see that it is not promising or commanding Christians today to go out and work miracles.
But the NAR twists this verse to mean that they are to do all the same miracles Jesus did. Mostly healing the sick and raising the dead. And then you’ve also got speaking in tongues, and prophecy, and extra-biblical revelation.
But they don’t even get their own Bible twisting right, because Jesus didn’t just say they would do the same works He did. Jesus said those of us who believe on Him would do greater works than He did. What’s greater than healing the sick, or raising the dead?
There’s only one thing greater than that- it’s the miracle that takes place when God raises the spiritually dead to newness of life in Christ. We have the privilege and the honor of being entrusted by Christ to take the gospel – the true gospel – to those who are dead in their sins so that Jesus can give them life.
That’s the greater work. Jesus could not do that work during His earthly ministry the way we can, because He had not yet died and risen from the grave. And another thing – Jesus’ entire earthly ministry was spent in that little tiny area of Israel. It wasn’t God’s plan for Him to take the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth like we’ve been able to do. So it’s a greater work in that sense, too.
But the NAR not only gets it wrong in that they don’t understand what the greater work is, they don’t even do the same works Jesus did. They have never genuinely healed one person. They have never genuinely raised one person from the dead. They’ve never multiplied food for thousands or calmed a storm or caused a fig tree to wither instantaneously. Never. If they had, there would be evidence of it.
Now, as I said, your average NAR churchgoer who just shows up for the worship experience on Sunday morning is likely not to even be aware of these doctrines or that her church subscribes to them, because, while some of these things might be hinted at, implied, or assumed on Sunday morning, generally speaking, NAR churches don’t usually sit their members down and formally teach and explain these doctrines to them.
They don’t have a church covenant you sign, or a creed you recite, or a statement of faith, confession, or catechism that says these things. In fact it’s often the opposite – they try to hide these things because they know it’s weird and unbiblical and it’s going to turn people away. And they don’t want to do that, they want to draw people in so they can deceive them.
So, if NAR false doctrine starts creeping into your church, it’s not going to look like your pastor standing up in the pulpit and saying, “Please turn to Philippians 2 and let us learn the Kenotic heresy.” And if your brother and sister-in-law start going to an NAR church, she’s not going to tell you over coffee that they learned all about strategic level spiritual warfare in Sunday School last week.
What you will see and hear is the NAR’s unbiblical practices, experiences, and street level Bible twisting.
Unbiblical NAR Practices and Experiences
I opened this article by asking if you were familiar with the NAR. If not, you might be familiar with the Word of Faith or prosperity gospel:
Name it and claim it / blab it and grab it
It’s never God’s will for you to suffer, be poor, or be sick.
It’s always God’s will for you to be healthy, wealthy, and successful.
To live your best life now, as Joel Osteen would have us believe.
Because the NAR and the Word of Faith movement both have their roots in charismatic Pentecostalism, there is a great deal of overlap between the two as far as what they look like to most people. In fact, the way I usually explain it is that the NAR takes the Word of Faith and kicks it up a notch with outlandish “supernatural” manifestations and signs and wonders, and blasphemously attributes these to the Holy Spirit.
So let’s take a look at some of the NAR’s unbiblical practices and experiences. Some of these will be common to Word of Faith/prosperity gospel churches as well.
Street Level Bible Twisting
Health, Wealth, and Prosperity
Like the Word of Faith, the NAR teaches followers that it is never God’s will for Christians to be poor, unsuccessful, or sick. It’s always God’s will for you to be healthy, wealthy, and successful. The Word of Faith tends to place a little more emphasis on the “wealthy and successful” part. The NAR tends to place a little more emphasis on the “healthy” part.
There are a couple of Scriptures they twist for this. One is John 10:34, where Jesus, in order to demonstrate to the Pharisees that they were being hypocritical and inconsistent, quoted Psalm 82:6: “Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?”.
Now, obviously, Jesus was not saying that you and I possess any level of deity whatsoever, because the entirety of the Bible clearly teaches against that. Take the time to read those verses in context and you’ll plainly see that. But both the NAR and the Word of Faith rip these verses out of context so they can say that we are “little gods” – we are divine.
Now, think about it: God can’t get sick. God can’t be poor. So if we’re little gods, we can’t be sick or poor either.
They will also take you to Isaiah 53:5, which, speaking of Jesus’ crucifixion, says, in part, “by His [stripes or] wounds we are healed.” Now, we understand, just by reading the rest of that verse, that what’s being said there is that Jesus’ death on the cross paid for our sins. We are “healed” from our sinful state of spiritual unwellness by the physical unwellness -the wounds- Jesus suffered on the cross that led to His death for us.
And we can even go so far as to say that Jesus’ wounds did ultimately pay for our physical healing, because those of us who are in Christ will all be completely, totally healed the moment we step into eternal life with Jesus.
But the NAR and Word of Faith will tell you that Isaiah 53:5 means that Jesus’ death on the cross purchased your healing in this life on earth. And that’s demonstrably not true. Any pagan can look around and see that even the most godly person he can think of gets sick, gets injured, and eventually dies.
I mean, just take a look at the Johnson family. They have plenty of health issues. Bill Johnson, the leader of Bethel, wears glasses. He had a serious intestinal blockage several years ago that required surgery. I would guess that, at 73 years old, he takes just as many medications for high blood pressure, or diabetes, or cholesterol, or whatever, as most 73 year olds take. Bill’s wife, Beni, who literally wrote the book on health, called Healthy and Free, tragically died of cancer in 2022.
Their own theology doesn’t even work for them.
Love Bombing, Ego Boosting, and Environmental Manipulation
Just the general air and experience of attending an NAR worship service is also Bible twisting. Everything is centered around and focused on you rather than on Christ, even though the whole time they’re saying the focus is on Christ.
But their view of Jesus is that He’s a life enhancement accessory. Jesus is there to serve me, to make my life better, to give me all the stuff my greedy little heart desires. Remember John 6:26? After He fed the 5000, Jesus said to the crowd of people following Him, “you seek Me, because you ate of the loaves and were filled”.
In other words, they weren’t following Jesus because they wanted Jesus. They were following Him to get something out of Him: food, healing, miracles. Something to make their earthly lives easier and better. That’s what the NAR is. They don’t want Jesus, they want a genie.
So even when an NAR church is supposedly focusing on Jesus – singing about Jesus, preaching and teaching about Jesus, praying to Jesus – they’re really still focused on you, because their false Jesus is just a means to an end to get you what you want.
So you walk in the front door, and you’re immediately love bombed – especially if you’re new. You get a million hugs, and everyone’s so thrilled to see you: “Can I help you with that?” “Here’s a coffee and a swag bag for first time visitors.” “Why don’t you come out to lunch with us after?”. You’re made to feel like a queen. Like you’re the most important person in the building.
This is not biblical hospitality – because this place isn’t biblical – this is Satanic manipulation and deception. It’s the same kind of thing cults do to draw people in.
You go in and find your seat, and the house lights go down, and the band comes out, and you get an hour long concert that you can sing along with if you want. It’s music that’s written specifically to get a hold of your emotions. It stirs you and makes you feel good.
The music is often very repetitive and literally mind numbing, because that puts you in a suggestive state, very much like hypnosis. Sometimes they will even tell you something like, “Just empty your mind and sing with your heart and let the spirit move.”
Then someone they call a pastor will come out on the stage, and he or she will give you a word salad with a few Bible verses for croutons, some general truisms and tips you could get from Dr. Phil or Oprah, and tell you a bunch of emotionally manipulative stories.
It’s all about how much God loves you, how great He thinks you are, and how wonderful He wants your life to be. And so quickly that you can’t even catch it, they’re weaving in unbiblical ideas here and nuggets of false doctrine there.
And you’ll get out of there high as a kite, feeling like you can conquer the world and God just thinks you’re awesome… until about 6 a.m. on Monday when the alarm goes off and real life sets in. And you still have all the same problems. And you still have all the same bills you’re struggling to pay. And you’re still taking all the same medications you were taking yesterday.
It’s cotton candy Christianity. It’s fake. They’re not teaching you what the Bible really teaches, and they’re teaching you to worship yourself instead of Christ.
Unbiblical Signs and Wonders
This is what really has marked the NAR in recent years because it’s so obvious and attention grabbing, and in most cases, so clearly fake and unbiblical.
Some of these things are rooted in the NAR’s misunderstanding and twisting of the events surrounding Pentecost. For example…
Speaking in Tongues, etc.
If you will sit down with your Bible and carefully read Acts 2, you will see two things about the phrase “speaking in other tongues”.
The first thing you will see is that “tongues,” in this passage, means known, legitimate, foreign languages. Verse 5 says, “there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven.”
In verse 8, those devout men from every nation under heaven said of the apostles, “We each hear them in our own language in which we were born.”
And verse 11 bookends the whole thing by saying, “We hear them in our own tongues [languages] speaking of the mighty deeds of God.”
Why were the apostles speaking in all these different languages? To preach the gospel to all these people who spoke different languages. They didn’t have Google Translate. And this purpose is borne out by the rest of the chapter where you can read Peter’s sermon on the gospel.
That’s not how speaking in tongues is practiced in NAR churches. It’s not a legitimate tool for explaining the gospel to someone who doesn’t speak your language. Again, it’s all about you, and how you can have this supposedly supernatural experience of speaking meaningless syllables that makes you feel good and supposedly brings you closer to God as you worship Him. That’s not what the Bible teaches about speaking in tongues.
Furthermore, 1 Corinthians 14:27-28 says that in the church setting, a maximum of three people can speak in a tongue and someone must interpret it from the foreign language being spoken into the common language spoken by the church. And you will rarely, if ever, see those two commands being obeyed in NAR churches.
Did any true prophet in the Bible ever say, “Thus says the Lord…” and then get it wrong? Of course not. One reason for this was that the punishment for false prophets was execution.
If a prophet’s prophecy comes true, but he leads you astray to false gods (like the false god of the NAR) or
If a prophet speaks something God has not commanded him to speak (like the “prophets” of the NAR do) or
If a prophet speaks in the name of a false god (like the false god of the NAR)
…that prophet is to be put to death.
Am I advocating for the death penalty for false prophets today? No, I am not. All I’m saying is, in the Old Testament, all of the NAR prophets would be dead three times over.
The God these people teach isn’t the God of the Bible. The things these people tell you aren’t prophecies. They’re much more like the false prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah warned about who just tell you what you want to hear to make you feel good.
And from the prophet even to the priest everyone practices lying. They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace.Jeremiah 6: 13-14
And listen to what God says about His people who prefer the message of false prophets over true prophets:
For this is a rebellious people, false sons, Sons who are not willing to listen to the law of Yahweh, Who say to the seers [the true prophets of God], “You must not see,” And to those who have visions [the true prophets of God], “You must not behold visions for us of what is right, Speak to us pleasant words, behold visions of illusions. Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, Cease speaking before us about the Holy One of Israel.”Isaiah 30:9-11
In other words, God’s people are telling the true prophets, like Isaiah, “Stop telling us the hard truths of God’s Word. Be nice! Tell us nice things that make us feel good! Scratch our itching ears!”.
NAR prophecies, extra-biblical revelation, words of knowledge – these supposed revelations from God that are found nowhere in the Bible – are the vain imaginings of their own minds. Case in point, the 2020 Presidential election.
Anybody on the planet had a 50-50 chance of correctly guessing who would be the next President, Trump or Biden. Every single NAR prophet who gave a public prophecy got it wrong. Every single one of them. They all said Trump would win the election and occupy the White House, serving as president.
There’s no New Testament special dispensation for prophets to get things wrong. They don’t have the gift of prophecy. They aren’t prophets.
You’ve probably seen videos of Benny Hinn and other fake faith healers calling people up on stage and pretending to heal them.
Maybe you’ve even seen the man on the street videos of Todd White going up to random people and pretending to lengthen their one leg that’s shorter than the other.
You might have even heard of Todd Bentley who has been known to try to heal people by kicking or punching them, such as the man with stomach cancer whom he kicked in the gut.
None of these so-called miracle healings are real. Benny Hinn only allows people into his healing lines who have invisible or fake illnesses, so you can’t tell whether they’re really healed or not. Todd White’s leg lengthening has been demonstrated to be a parlor trick. Todd Bentley has injured more people than he’s healed.
If you still think these things are real, ask yourself, “Where are the doctors and hospitals publicly coming forward and saying, ‘Yes, this person was genuinely, medically healed,’ and why wasn’t it splashed all over the news?”.
Why don’t these fake healers ever heal someone medically documented to be paralyzed, or brain injured, or with cerebral palsy?
Why don’t they walk into hospitals and heal everyone there?
How come there’s not one video of a fake healer instantly growing back an amputee’s arm or leg, or healing someone’s badly disfigured face, or making the skin of a burn victim like new?
God still heals people all the time. He heals people in answer to our prayers, usually through modern medicine and the body’s own healing properties, but sometimes miraculously and inexplicably by His own hand. He is not giving people the sign gift of healing today, and even if He were, it certainly wouldn’t be to these rank heretics.
Resurrections
I’m not really sure why, but these people think they can raise the dead. They’ve never done it. There’s never been any medical documentation of it. And in this age of everyone having smart phones, there’s never been photographic or video evidence of it.
And, I mean, if somebody who was certifiably dead was resurrected, where is he? He ought to be up walking around among us and telling his story on every news channel and talk show.
No one raised Bill Johnson’s wife from the dead when she died of cancer a few years ago. Why not?
In December of 2019, a precious 2 year old little girl named Olive tragically died in her sleep. As a mother and grandmother, I can only imagine the excruciating heartbreak and agony her family went through.
Olive’s parents were members of Bethel Redding where her mother was also a worship leader. Instead of making funeral arrangements for Olive, they contacted Bethel’s dead raising team.
No, I’m not kidding. Your church has a hospitality committee, Bethel has a dead raising team.
And for – not one, not two, – but five days, they cried out to their god, they sang, they jumped around, they chanted “Wake up Olive! Wake up Olive! Wake up Olive!”. And “there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention.” The false god of Bethel did not answer them.
And this story went viral – all over the world. And I remember following this story, and how all I could think about when I saw the pictures and videos of all of this was the 1 Kings 18 story of the prophets of Baal crying out to their false god to answer them with fire and consume their sacrifice. But, verse 29 tells us, “there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention.”
On the sixth day the parents announced that they were planning Olive’s funeral. And how do you think that momma and daddy felt, when, at the worst moment of their lives, their false god failed them and didn’t give them back that precious baby?
Bill Johnson, their pastor whom they trusted, failed them. Their church that so believed they could resurrect the dead, that they had a dead raising team, failed them because Bethel believed and taught lies.
Second only to the fact that NAR heresy sends people to Hell, the cruelest of their false teachings is that they can resurrect the dead.
These are just a few of the more notable unbiblical signs and wonders of the NAR. There are so many more.
NAR People and Organizations to Be Aware Of
I’ve covered some of what the NAR believes, teaches, and practices, but I think it might help you to know some of the movers and shakers in this movement, so if your friend comes to you and says, “I’m reading a book by this lady,” or “I started listening to a podcast by that guy,” you’ll immediately be on the alert.
But please understand, the NAR has been the fastest growing version of so-called Christianity over the last 20+ years, so this is by no means anywhere near a comprehensive list.
If you want to avoid false teachers and heretical organizations in the New Apostolic Reformation, mark and avoid:
Anyone who calls him or herself an apostle, prophet, or prophetess
Bill Johnson (Bethel’s pastor), Brian and Jenn Johnson (Bethel’s worship leaders and founders of Bethel Music). Pretty much anybody with the last name of Johnson who’s associated with Bethel.
If you hear one of these names, you’re dealing with someone in the New Apostolic Reformation. (And if you’d like more information on any of those listed above, try the ministries listed here.)
Now you may have just read a name that surprised and offended you because you like that person. I want you to think about something. If I told you that person was a Mormon, or a Muslim, or a Jehovah’s Witness, or a Hindu, and because of that, you shouldn’t listen to him, you wouldn’t have any problem with me saying that.
The New Apostolic Reformation is just as false, and heretical, and blasphemous as any of those other false religions, but because it calls itself “Christian,” and because your church might use music or materials from some of those people, it’s not as obvious.
The NAR in Music and Women’s Ministry
If you listen to contemporary Christian music, you probably recognized the names of some musicians in the list above: Bethel Music, Jesus Culture, Brandon Lake, Cory Asbury, and Phil Wickham. And there are many more.
Two of the main ways NAR false doctrine usually begins infiltrating otherwise healthy churches is through the music ministry and the women’s ministry.
Bethel Music and its production and publication companies practically have a monopoly on the contemporary worship music industry. If your church sings contemporary worship music in the worship service, you’re probably using music from Bethel, Phil Wickham, Hillsong, and/or Elevation. In order, those are the top four most widely used sources for worship music.
When you bring music like that into your church – even the songs with seemingly biblical lyrics – people like it, they start listening to the music outside the church, and that acts like a gateway drug to draw them in to the NAR and its false doctrine.
Bill Johnson has proudly and publicly boasted about doing this – on purpose. That’s why they’ve built up this music empire. It’s by design, to draw people in.
I, and many others who teach against the NAR, have heard the testimonies of hundreds of people who have told us that’s exactly how they got drawn away into a New Apostolic Reformation church.
Don’t think it can’t happen to you.
Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.1 Corinthians 10:12
Can a man take fire in his bosom And his clothes not be burned? Or can a man walk on hot coals And his feet not be scorched?Proverbs 6:27-28
You don’t know when you’re being deceived. That’s why it’s deception.
I explain things like this when I teach, and I explain all the blasphemies and cruelties the NAR commits against vulnerable people, and I still have Christians come up to me and argue with me that it’s perfectly fine to for them to listen to NAR artists like the ones I just mentioned.
Also, examine the materials your women’s ministry is using and the conferences they’re attending. It’s extremely likely that the authors and teachers your women’s ministry follows are in the NAR themselves, or they’re partnering with and embracing NAR teachers, or they are in some way being influenced by NAR teachers.
Research the authors and teachers your church uses and that you follow. See who they surround themselves with. First Corinthians 15:33 says, “Do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals.” Or if you want the country version: If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Birds of a feather flock together.
This is one of the reasons why Romans 16:17-18, and 2 John 9-11, and 2 Corinthians 6:14-18, and Titus 1:9 and so many other passages of Scripture command us to have nothing to do with false teachers.
If you find NAR false doctrine infiltrating your church, kindly, lovingly, gently, take what you’ve learned today, go to your pastor, and express your concerns.
Why is any of this important?
A lot of well meaning Christians look at NAR “churches” and think, “Well, they may worship a little differently, but it’s no big deal. We all love Jesus!”
No, we do not.
Regardless of what they say, people who believe and teach damnable heresy, by biblical definition, do not love Jesus. And it is harmful to those people and the vulnerable people they’re deceiving, to say – or treat them like – they do.
I told you about baby Olive and her parents. I didn’t mention the thousands of direly ill and disabled people, the parents of children with terminal cancer, or who are horribly disfigured, who give their life savings to these fake healers because that is their last hope. And they’re either turned away, or they’re not healed, and they’re told it’s their fault because they just didn’t have enough faith.
Or how about the young woman who was almost murdered because she believed a false prophecy that it was God’s will for her to marry this certain guy who turned out to be unspeakably abusive.
The NAR is evangelically-sanctioned spiritual abuse. It has destroyed countless lives, ruins everything it touches, and has sent untold millions to Hell for all eternity.
And as unfathomably awful as that is – exponentiallyworse than all of that – New Apostolic Reformation heresy is a slap in the face to our precious Jesus who hung on a cruel Roman cross in agony for your sins and for mine.
It is blasphemy of the highest order against God, our Father. It is lying about, slandering, and maligning the Holy Spirit.
The New Apostolic Reformation is heresy and has no place in a Christian church in any way, shape, or form. Stay far away from it. Protect yourself. Protect your loved ones. Protect your church.
He shall save his people from their sins. (Matthew 1:21)
Lord, save me from my sins. By the name of Jesus I am encouraged thus to pray. Save me from my past sins, that the habit of them may not hold me captive. Save me from my constitutional sins, that I may not be the slave of my own weaknesses. Save me from the sins which are continually under my eye that I may not lose my horror of them. Save me from secret sins; sins unperceived by me from my want of light. Save me from sudden and surprising sins: let me not be carried off my feet by a rush of temptation. Save me, Lord, from every sin. Let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
Thou alone canst do this. I cannot snap my own chains or slay my own enemies. Thou knowest temptation, for Thou wast tempted. Thou knowest sin, for Thou didst bear the weight of it. Thou knowest how to succor me in my hour of conflict; Thou canst save me from sinning and save me when I have sinned. It is promised in Thy very name that Thou wilt do this, and I pray Thee let me this day verify the prophecy. Let me not give way to temper, or pride, or despondency, or any form of evil; but do Thou save me unto holiness of life, that the name of Jesus may be glorified in me abundantly.
A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in his time. (Isaiah 60:22)
Works for the Lord often begin on a small scale, and they are none the worse for this. Feebleness educates faith, brings God near, and wins glory for His name. Prize promises of increase! Mustard seed is the smallest among seeds, and yet it becomes a treelike plant, with branches which lodge the birds of heaven. We may begin with one, and that “a little one,” and yet it will “become a thousand.” The Lord is great at the multiplication table. How often did He say to His lone servant, “I will multiply thee!” Trust in the Lord, ye ones and twos; for He will be in the midst of you if you are gathered in His name.
“A small one.” What can be more despicable in the eyes of those who count heads and weigh forces! Yet this is the nucleus of a great nation. Only one star shines out at first in the evening, but soon the sky is crowded with countless lights.
Nor need we think the prospect of increase to be remote, for the promise is, “I Jehovah will hasten it in his time.” There will be no premature haste, like that which we see at excited meetings; it will be all in due time, but yet there will be no delay. When the Lord hastens, His speed is glorious.
Ver. 18. I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin.—Of confession of sin:— I. WHAT CONFESSION OF SIN IS. It is a declaration of acknowledgment of some moral evil or fault to another. II. HOW FAR CONFESSION OF OUR SINS IS NECESSARY.
It is a necessary part of repentance, that we should confess our sins to God, with a due sense of the evil of them (Prov. 28:13; 1 John 1:9).
As for our confessing our sins to men, both Scripture and reason do, in some cases, recommend and enjoin it. (1) In order to the obtaining of the prayers of good men for us (James 5:16). (2) In order to the ease and satisfaction of our minds, and our being directed in our duty for the future. (3) In case our sins have been public and scandalous, both reason and the practice of the Christian Church do require, that, when men have publicly offended, they should give public satisfaction and open testimony of their repentance. (J. Tillotson.) Sorrow for sin:— I. THE NATURE OF THIS PASSION. Sorrow is a trouble or disturbance of mind, occasioned by something that is evil, done or suffered by us, or which we are in danger of suffering, that tends greatly to our damage or mischief: so that to be sorry for a thing is nothing else but to be sensibly affected with the consideration of the evil of it, and of the mischief and inconvenience which is like to redound to us from it; which, if it be a moral evil, such as sin is, to be sorry for it, is to be troubled that we have done it, and to wish with all our hearts that we had been wiser, and had done otherwise; and if this sorrow be true and real, if it abide and stay upon us, it will produce a firm purpose and resolution in us, not to do the like for the future. II. THE REASON AND GROUNDS OF OUR SORROW FOR SIN.
The great mischief that sin is like to bring upon us.
Another and better principle of sorrow for sin is ingenuity; because we are sensible that we have carried ourselves very unworthily towards God, and have been injurious to Him, who hath laid all possible obligations upon us. III. THE MEASURE AND DEGREE OF OUR SORROW FOR SIN.
Sin being so great an evil in itself, and of so pernicious a consequence to us, it cannot be too much lamented and grieved for by us; and the more and greater our sins have been, and the longer we have continued and lived in them, they call for so much the greater sorrow, and deeper humiliation from us; for the reasoning of our Saviour, “She loved much, because much was forgiven her,” is proportionably true in this case—those who have sinned much, should sorrow the more.
If we would judge aright of the truth of our sorrow for sin, we must not measure it so much by the degrees of sensible trouble and affliction, as by the rational effects of it, which are hatred of sin, and a fixed purpose and resolution against it for the future. IV. How FAR THE OUTWARD EXPRESSION OF OUR INWARD GRIEF BY TEARS IS NECESSARY TO A TRUE REPENTANCE. The usual sign and outward expression of sorrow is tears; but these being not the substance of our duty, but an external testimony of it, which some tempers are more unapt to than others; we are much less to judge of the truth of our sorrow for sin by these, than by our inward sensible trouble and affliction of spirit. He that cannot weep like a child may resolve like a man, and that undoubtedly will find acceptance with God. Two persons walking together espy a serpent; the one shrieks and cries out at the sight of it, the other kills it: so it is in sorrow for sin; some express it by great lamentation and tears, and vehement transports of passions; others by greater and more real effects of hatred and detestation, by forsaking their sins, and by mortifying and subduing their lusts: but he that kills it does certainly best express his inward displeasure and enmity against it. The application shall be in two particulars—
By way of caution, and that against a double mistake about sorrow for sin. (1) Some look upon trouble and sorrow for sin as the whole of repentance. If this were so, there would be store of penitents in hell; for there is the deepest and most intense sorrow, “weeping, and wailing and gnashing of teeth.” (2) Another mistake which men ought to be cautioned against in this matter is, of those who exact from themselves such a degree of sorrow for sin as ends in deep melancholy, as renders them unfit both for the duties of religion, and of their particular callings. The end of sorrow for sin is the forsaking of it and returning to our duty; but he that sorrows for sin, so as to unfit him for his duty, defeats his own design, and destroys the end he aims at.
The other part of the application of this discourse should be to stir up this affection of sorrow in us. If the holy men in Scripture, David, and Jeremiah, and St. Paul, were so deeply affected with the sins of others as to shed rivers of tears at the remembrance of them, how ought we to be touched with the sense of our own sins, who are equally concerned in the dishonour brought to God by them, and infinitely more in the danger they expose us to! Can we weep for our dead friends; and have we no sense of that heavy load of guilt, of that body of death which we carry about with us? Can we be sad and melancholy for temporal losses and sufferings, and “refuse to be comforted;” and is it no trouble to us to have lost heaven and happiness, and to be in continual danger of the intolerable sufferings and endless torments of another world? I shall only offer to your consideration the great benefit and advantage which will redound us from this godly sorrow; “it worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of.” If we would thus “sow in tears,” we should “reap in joy.” (Ibid.) Hindrances to repentance:— I. There are various ways, and there are many ways, in which men try to hide themselves from themselves; to escape their own detection; wilfully to evade their own nominal search. (1) One of these is the sorcery of words. Men call sins, which they see others commit, by their true names; they call their own sins by false and glozing names. What is pride in others is in themselves proper spirit; what is slander in others is in themselves moral indignation; what is cheating in others is in themselves legitimate profit; what is in others an immoral acquiescence is in themselves a practical common sense; what is in others licence is in themselves Christian liberty. (2) Men will hardly ever look at their own actual deeds in connection with their own true motives. They live two lives. One is their common, habitual round of conduct, which is often base, and mean, and unworthy. The other is their traditional and imaginative homage to righteousness, which is upright and respectable. Their lives are a stately temple front; its frieze is sculptured with heroic imagery; its entablature, like that of our Royal Exchange, is enriched with a pious inscription. Alas! alas! Enter beyond the vestibule, and in some inmost shrine, noiseless and far away, approached, it may be, only by secret stairs and half-hidden entrances—there, in little, mean, dark closets, so completely behind their ostensible lives and their expressed opinions, that they almost succeed in hiding it from themselves, all the bad, the impure, the dishonourable work of their lives is done! (3) They freely condemn every other sin but the one to which they are themselves addicted. (4) They find the sweet, soft pleadings of egotism and of self-love so irresistible, that anything seems to be at least excusable which results from yielding to such temptations. Religion appeals to the reason and to the spirit; it nerves and braces; it puts iron into our resolutions; it infuses the soul with manliness, and the will with strength. And, on the other hand, sins—the sins of the world, the flesh and the devil—degrade us into the animal: they unnerve, they effeminate, they debase, they paralyze; they bid us listen to the base pleadings of a “miserable, hungry, shivering self,” which is, like a crawling serpent, ever rustling amid the dead leaves of our weakened purposes, and ever hissing in our own ears: “Only this once.” “There is no harm in it.” “Thou shalt not surely die.” This is the explanation, and the only possible one, of the insane infatuation which so often marks either the whole lives or the sudden actions of many men.
What should be our protection against these specious thoughts of our own heart and our own counsel? God has not left you unshielded. He has assigned the soul of man to the special, immediate guardianship of two pure and strong holy spirits. The name of one of those great archangels of our being is Duty—Duty, that angel so stern and yet so beautiful! And the name of the other great archangel is Conscience—Conscience, “that aboriginal vicar of Christ, a prophet in its informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its blessings and anathemas,” with a voice now like the blast of a trumpet, now thrilling, and still, and small. (Dean Ferret.)
Exell, J. S. (1909). The Biblical Illustrator: The Psalms (Vol. 2, pp. 280–282). Fleming H. Revell Company; Francis Griffiths.
“For I will declare mine iniquity.” The slander of his enemies he repudiates, but the accusations of his conscience he admits. Open confession is good for the soul. When sorrow leads to hearty and penitent acknowledgment of sin it is blessed sorrow, a thing to thank God for most devoutly. “I will be sorry for my sin.” My confession shall be salted with briny tears. It is well not so much to bewail our sorrows as to denounce the sins which lie at the root of them. To be sorry for sin is no atonement for it, but it is the right spirit in which to repair to Jesus, who is the reconciliation and the Saviour. A man is near to the end of his trouble when he comes to an end with his sins.
Spurgeon, C. H. (n.d.). The treasury of David: Psalms 27-57 (Vol. 2, p. 202). Marshall Brothers.
To be left uncorrected would be a fatal sign: it would prove that the Lord had said, “He is given unto idols, let him alone.” God grant that such may never be our portion! Uninterrupted prosperity is a thing to cause fear and trembling. As many as God tenderly loves He rebukes and chastens: those for whom He has no esteem He allows to fatten themselves without fear, like bullocks for the slaughter. It is in love that our heavenly Father uses the rod upon His children.
Yet see, the correction is in measure”: He gives us love without measure but chastisement “in measure.” As under the old law no Israelite could receive more than the “forty stripes save one,” which ensured careful counting and limited suffering; so is it with each afflicted member of the household of faith-every stroke is counted. It is the measure of wisdom, the measure of sympathy, the measure of love, by which our chastisement is regulated. Far be it from us to rebel against appointments so divine. Lord, if Thou standest by to measure the bitter drops into my cup, it is for me cheerfully to take that cup from Thy hand and drink according to Thy directions, saying, “Thy will be done.”
For today’s worship help we are going to talk about delight. Delight was a word that showed up in the sermon yesterday from Proverbs 13:4. What does it mean to delight in God, and most especially to delight in His praise? Delight is kind of a funny word to type, to be honest. It makes me think of Tattoo on Fantasy Island exclaiming about the plane, the plane! De-light! De-light! Seriously though what does this word mean? Well to delight in something is to find not just happiness, but to have a deep satisfaction in it. In other words when we delight in a particular person, place, or thing it completes us. We go from being without to then being full. Thinking about this word and the pleasure we are to have in the Lord and His worship changes how we approach Him on the Lord’s Day, or really any other day. We are to be satisfied in Christ because He alone is able to provide us what we need, which is reconciliation with the Lord, a return to what was lost in Adam.
Can there be something worth more praise more than this?
If we learn anything about Christ’s deconstruction of the Pharisees it is that their problem rests squarely in the middle of their chest. Their hearts are far from Him because what they seek on the Sabbath is not to be satisfied in God, but in themselves. By adding man-made pomp and circumstances to liven things up in their lives they actually drive away their souls from being grounded in the sufficiency of the Redeemer. That is part of the reason why they cannot understand or hear what Jesus is saying. They are so focused on their own needs and wants they can’t see that what they really need is standing right in front of their eyes. This is why Jesus rebukes them for searching the Scriptures and coming up empty. It is because they desire not to find delight in what God has said, but they look through the Bible to defend what they want to be the truth. Becoming spiritually hollow they then keep trying to find outward things to fill the hole in their heart. This is what we do when we take our eyes off the one who worship is for and make it about ourselves. When we seek to delight not in what the Lord has provided in His word, but in what we want.
There is a cult system for everyone. There are more cults and cult-like organizations in our society today than I have space here to list. Each holds appeal for a different type of person, and it seems that all the bases are covered.
For example, if you are a college student, there are groups on campus, tailor-made for idealistic young people who are away from home and looking for some “truth” to believe in. The Moonies, the International Churches of Christ, and the University Bible Fellowship are only a few of these.
If you are a stay-at-home mom, lonely for company, there are cultic wolves that will waltz right up to your door and offer you a free home Bible study or an eternal marriage. For the record, marriage is not eternal, according to Jesus (Matthew 22:30), though some may seem more eternal than others!
Are you a person with a grievance against society and a penchant for conspiracy theories? Do you believe that your race is superior to all the rest? Would you like the comfort of blaming others for all your current life’s troubles and failures? There are wolves out there who are more than willing to dance with you. There is an important color coding requirement for these particular types of cult groups, however. For example, if you are black, the Nation of Islam may be just the ticket for you, but a white man will probably feel a bit more comfortable in the KKK or the Identity Movement. Nevertheless, these groups have much more in common with each other than people would think. They make excellent dance partners, since they are shuffling to the same tune. Cataloging their similarities would make an interesting topic for another day.
Do you enjoy science fiction? There is a cult enjoying worldwide membership whose founder was a science-fiction writer who used his talents to make the big bucks, and get himself worshipped in the process. Engrams, E-meters, Thetans, and the like can be very seductive, I’m sure, but that is hardly your only science fiction option. You could join a UFO cult, and swap abduction stories and/or government cover-up theories all the day long. Tired of the patriarchal, male-dominated, religious system of your experience? Would you rather worship a goddess and gain empowerment?” Like to do your dancing by the light of a full moon? The Fellowship of Isis may be just what you are looking for. We met and interviewed the founder of the Fellowship of Isis, the Most Honorable Lady Olivia, at the Parliament of the World’s Religions here in Chicago in 1993. We asked her if the spirit beings that she communes with were real or mere Jungian archetypes, as some prefer to see it. She was incensed at the very concept! “Of course they’re real!” she retorted quite crossly. “How would you like to be referred to as a Jungian archetype?” Chill, Ms. Olivia! Remember: One person’s “real goddess” is another person’s “Jungian archetype!” Let’s be tolerant of each other’s “truth.”
Sadly, even Christians are not automatically exempt from participation in this evil hoedown. Jesus warned His followers to be on the lookout for the ravenous wolves that would attempt to seduce them (Matthew 7:15). You think you’d be safe at Grandma’s house, but the wolf is in the bed! Ron Henzel was an evangelical pastor who found himself sucked into a psychotherapy cult that nearly destroyed his life. And these days, most cults and even major world religions are willing to add Jesus to the mix, no matter how opposed to Christianity you would suppose the belief system to be. We would expect Bible-based cults to have a Jesus “lure” on their hook, but these days even Hindus and Buddhists speak often and highly of Jesus, though the Jesus they speak of is not the Jesus of the Bible,
Cults are not the only dangerous wolves around these parts. False beliefs and pseudo “spirituality” abound in our culture. There are a wide variety of seemingly harmless paths that lead to the deep woods. Love animals? Worried about the environment? Think intolerance is the one thing that must not be tolerated? Watch out! You may buy into much more than bird feeding, recycling, and “live and let live” … and become convinced that God is everything and everything is God, including you and me and Jack the Ripper!
The June 24, 1996 issue of TIME magazine ran an article entitled “Faith and Healing,” where they led off with the question on the cover, “Can prayer, faith and spirituality really improve your physical health?” I’m just the type of small-minded bigot who would immediately pose a counter question. . . Prayer to whom and faith in what? And does the “spirituality” they mention have anything to do with the God of the Bible? These are questions that even Christians fail to ask sometimes, and it can lead them into cultic teachings.
The article states that “Western medicine has spent the past 100 years trying to rid itself of remnants of mysticism,” but that recently there has been a:
shift among doctors towards the view that there may be more to health than blood cell counts and EKG’s. and more to healing than pills and scalpels
Christians have always known that God, THE God, was in the business of healing, but the mysticism that today’s doctors are leaning toward has a lot more to do with Shamanism than Biblical Christianity. This article does not even mention Jesus Christ, and clarifies for us what type of “spirituality” they are highlighting in these statements:
Many seek solace in the offices of alternative therapists and faith healers, to the tune of $30 billion a year. . . millions more are spent on best-selling books and tapes by New-Age doctors such as Deepak Chopra, Andrew Weil, and Lam Dossey, who offer an appealing blend of medicine and Eastern flavored spirituality.
Sociologist Paul Ray, who has been studying the makeup of the self help and healing movements for eight years, calls the eager listeners ‘cultural creatives,’ some 44-miilion strong, 60% women, mostly middle and upper class, with auxiliary interests in ecology and women’s issues.
What danger could there be in “spirituality,” whether Eastern or not? Plenty. Yet, even many Christians or people calling themselves Christian do not seem to understand the dangers of involving themselves with Eastern mysticism. TIME quotes a Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ nun, Sister Judian Breitenbach, as saying:
We’re moving toward the integration of the East and West, and its happening through health care
TIME goes on:
A fan of Chopra’s, she sees no conflicts between the new and the old age: ‘People are so uptight about this kind of thing. We used to call it trust in God.
No, Judian, we used to trust in the God of the Bible, which is certainly not Chopra’s god. Chopra, who has been called by some the Billy Graham of the New Age Movement, holds to Hinduism’s pantheistic view that everything is God and God is in everything. TIME says of him:
Like all great teachers, he was telling Americans something they already know, in this case, about health. At the same time, he was hinting at something they didn’t know, a simplified Hinduism that was fascinating to a nation of seekers”[emphasis added]. Chopra says that on a cosmic level, we all exist simultaneously throughout the universe,
Riiiiight.. . I’m here, I’m on Mars, I’m now. I’m seven million years ago, I’m ageless. I’m timeless . We’re to reject the Bible but believe this? I don’t think so.
The Bible teaches that God is omnipresent, but people are finite. Chopra disagrees. TIME condenses Chopra’s religio/philosophical belief as follows:
Our bodies, which seem so solid and finite, are not. For one thing, we replace most of our component cells regularly; thus, rather than collections of aging organs, we are works in constant progress. On the subatomic level, moreover, we are no denser than the air around us and indistinguishable from our surroundings. Finally, since quantum physics asserts that matter and energy are interchangeable are not individual beings at all but merely physical expressions of an infinite universal field of energy.
Chopra’s god is. . .US! Yep, we’re all just parts of the universal mind: chips off the old block, each “chip” divine. No offense, Sister Judian, but is this the sort of thing you learned about God, the real God, in Catechism class? Do you remember hearing anything at all about the uptight God of the Bible who warns us over and over again not to follow after strange gods, but to remain loyal to Him?
Concerning our own death, Chopra teaches that:
Death should hold little fear, since we understand that in our essential identity, as parts of that universal field, we are immortal.
Hmmmmm. . The 23rd Psalm, revisited: “Yea. though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for my essential identity is universal fieldness. . .” In opposition to Chopra’s rosy outlook, however, Hebrews 9:27 teaches that:
it is appointed to man to die once, and after this comes judgment.
It is true that Christians need not fear death or judgment, because our faith in Christ’s substitutionary death frees us from the penalty our sins. But folks who are trusting that their identity as parts of some universal field will assure them of immortality (eternal life) will be horribly surprised come judgment day. 1 John 5:11-12 makes it pretty clear:
And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son does not have the life.
Why should anyone trust Chopra’s wisdom with his/her eternal destiny, especially when Chopra himself admits these grandiose pronouncements of his are “vast assumptions.” More like presumptions, I would say! Chopra was once dubbed the “Lord of Immortality” by the Maharishi, but someday he will stand before the real Lord of Immortality to give an account for his “assumptions.” It would not be a good idea, I don’t imagine, to be standing too close to him when that day arrives. I charitably believe that Sister Judian hasn’t a clue about what she has gotten involved with. Perhaps she has only a passing knowledge of the Bible, or perhaps someone has convinced her that the Bible is an outdated book for uptight fundamentalists. I have to believe that she does not realize that, in her search for greater wellness and fulfillment, she has left Christianity behind.
Soracco, an Estonian-born ‘healer’ who draws on Christian, Buddhist, and Native American traditions”
Her technique?
Picturing a patient in her mind, she would ask for ‘permission to heal’ and then start to explore his body in her mind: ‘I looked at all the organs as though it is an anatomy book. I could see where things were distressed. These areas are usually dark and murky. I go in there with a white shower and wash it all out.
I don’t know what “Christian” traditions she is supposedly drawing from, but I do not see that form of healing in the Biblical record. In the book of Acts, the apostles did not take the time to “picture” the infirm or “explore their bodies in their minds.” As far as we have been told, they did not look for dark and murky areas. “In the name of Jesus, walk!” they said (Acts 3:6-8). They had a mission to heal in the “name of Jesus,” something Soracco does not mention at all. As for healing prayer today, God does the healing, not us.
Another form of “spirituality” TIME featured in the article, “Ambushed by Spirituality,” was the practice of meditation for stress reduction. Many people, some of them Christians, have told me over the years that meditation is a neutral practice with no real connection to religion. Jewish screenwriter and producer Marty Kaplan writes:
What attracted me to meditation was its apparent religious neutrality. You don’t have to believe in anything: all you have to do is do it.
He goes on to say:
The spirituality of it ambushed me. Unwittingly, I was engaging in a practice that has been at the heart of religious mysticism for millenniums. To separate 20 minutes from the day with silence and intention is to worship, whether you call it that or not” (emphasis added).
I heartily agree with Marty on this point, but I disagree with his contention that the God he found is “common to Moses and Mohammed, to Buddha and Jesus.” How do I know that? He tells us that he experiences his God:
not only in roses and sunsets but right now, as something not out there but in here .
The God of Moses, YHWH, created sunsets, roses, and Marty, but He is not part and parcel of His creation. That is an Eastern belief, and antithetical to Christianity and Judaism, which Mr. Kaplan seems not to have noticed. He says:
I used to think of psychic phenomena as New Age flim flam. I used to think of reincarnation as a myth. I used to think the soul was a metaphor. Now I know that there is a God, my God, in here, demanding not faith but experience.
Marty’s new-found god is certainly not the God of the Bible, who teaches us that faith is absolutely necessary to Him (Hebrews 11:6), that psychic phenomena is not mere “flim flam” but deadly occultism (Deut. 18:9-12), that reincarnation is not a myth but a counterfeit and that souls like Marty’s can be lost forever. I feel for Marty. As he himself said, he was “ambushed“, by a savage wolf who appeared as a stress reducer, I believe.
The main focus of the TIME articles was to ask if these “spiritual” techniques “work” to cure disease or to reduce stress. Whether something “works” is not the first question for a Christian to ask. The Christian’s priority is to determine if such techniques line up with the revealed truth of Scripture, and other outdated, uptight ideas like that .Adultery “works” just as well as marital relations to produce sexual pleasure, but adultery is not for Christians! Yet, being uptight, stick-in-the-mud, left-brained empiricists, we would also like to examine the evidence that these New Age healing techniques truly produce the promised benefit. Do they “work?” Well, Soracco’s results are claimed to have been “encouraging,” but what that means in practical terms is not defined, and no evidence is offered for objective scrutiny.
In Chopra’s case, TIME informs us that he has decided to shift his focus to writing fiction books, because “Nonfiction, he told Publisher’s Weekly, leaves people saying, ‘Where is the evidence?’ And it is so boring to try to address that!” Ooooh yes. .. boring old evidence often gets in the way of “truth”. . It’s so much more fun just to make truth claims than to prove them! “It’s my destiny to play an infinite number of roles,” concludes Chopra philosophically. And the one he plays most convincingly these days involves mangy fur and large canines… the better to eat you with, my dears.
Love to all.
“Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; but from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. “
Apostle Paul’s farewell message to the Ephesians (Acts 20.-2J-30)
Truth is so important to Christians. Ours is the living and true God and the God of truth. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. The Spirit sanctifies us through the truth. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth. Yet the Christian church is constantly having to resist erroneous doctrines, false teachings, and heresies. Why does God allow such dangerous untruths and half-truths to continue even within His church and among those who profess to be His people? A large part of the answer is that it provides an opportunity for those who love the truth to make this clearly apparent. Paul explains to the church of Corinth, “There must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you” (1 Corinthians 11:19). In the way same way as the furnace makes it obvious what is precious metal and what is dross, so when heresies crop up, they test the quality of church members as to whether they resist or accept the false teaching. In the following updated extract, George Gillespie offers some reflections on Paul’s explanation.
Why must there be heresies?
The point I want to make here that God in His most wise and sovereign providence can and does make a good use of heresies, “so that they which are approved may be made manifest.”
“They which are approved” means those who are true and sincere saints, approved and accepted of God, or (as the Reformed theologian Bullinger puts it) the “truly godly.” The same word is used in this sense in Romans 16:10; 2 Corinthians 10:18; 2 Timothy 2:15, etc. The word is basically means good money, or well-refined silver, and it refers to saints with special reference to their mortification, i.e., their being refined from the dross of their corruptions. The opposite is “reprobate,” something to be rejected or thrown away, like dross (1 Corinthians 9:27; 2 Corinthians 13:5–6).
How is it that by heresies the godly are made manifest? Clearly the authors and followers of heresies are not the godly ones, for the apostle calls heresy a “work of the flesh” (Galatians 5:20) and wants heretics to be rejected, as those who are self-condemned (Titus 3:10). Rather, those who are approved are known by this, as one of their characteristics, that they hate, avoid, and resist heresies, and earnestly contend for the faith. They hold fast the truth of Christ without wavering.
Those who introduce or adhere to heresies are by that very fact known to be un-approved, like reprobate silver. So, anyone who sides with heresies or heretics, or commits themselves to them — anyone who does not stand fast in the faith — ipso facto declares that he is not included in the group Paul regards as godly. This is how contrary the Holy Ghost’s language is to the tone of the sects in our times.
Not only in this Scripture, but in various other Scriptures, the Holy Ghost distinguishes those who are approved by God, (a) from those who turn away from the truth after false doctrines, and believe seducing spirits, as well as (b) from those who live an ungodly life. In Deuteronomy 13:3, when a false prophet arose, and the sign or wonder he prophesied came to passe, what was God’s meaning in permitting this? “The Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul.” Anyone who hearkened to the false prophet, even when his sign or wonder came to pass, made it known about themselves that they had not been loving God with all their heart.
Similarly, in Matthew 24:24, those who are elect are not deceived by false christs and false prophets. Conversely, those who are deceived by them, and go on in their error to the end, are not elect but reprobate (Galatians 5:20–21).
Heresy is a work of the flesh, and is included among the things which render a person incapable of inheriting the kingdom of God. Therefore, those who walk in the Spirit, and not in the flesh, and are made ready to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, are not only not heretics themselves, but they resist and oppose heresy, as a work of the flesh. Those who are Christ’s “disciples indeed” continue in His word: those who do not continue in His word are not his “disciples indeed” (John 8:31; see also 1 John 2:24 with 2 John v.9).
The wonder of providence
Justin Martyr, a theologian from the 2nd century, responded in one of his books to those who questioned God’s providence, saying, “If God has taken away the idolatries of the heathen and also abolished the Jewish worship, why has He allowed heresies to enter the Christian church?”
He gives this solution, that although heresies come into the church through people’s negligence and slothfulness (while men slept, the enemy sowed the tares among the wheat, Matthew 13:25), yet the providence of God is in no way slothful in this. God foresaw and foretold that heresies would come, and has given plain warning of it in His Word. He adds that the same God who has destroyed heathenish worship and abolished the Jewish religion will also destroy heresies, after He has permitted them for a time.
Even if we had no distinct knowledge of what God intends to bring out of heresies, yet we ought not to censure providence, but humbly and reverently adore God’s most wise and most holy (though secret and unsearchable) ways of working. If we saw some deadly poison among some drugs which a skilled and qualified physician is using, we would not rashly criticise the physician, for he knows how to disabuse that which is in itself poisonous, and to make it one of the ingredients in a most effective medicine.
Or if we came into the workshop of a skilled craftsman, and saw some ugly-looking instruments, which we think can serve no good, yet it would be deeply foolish to censure the craftsman, who knows to make an excellent good use of these things, though we don’t.
How much more foolish and sinful it is, to allow thoughts to rise in our hearts against the wisdom and providence of God, just because we do not know what He intends to work out of such things! And all the more inexcusable to accuse His providence, when He has made known to us in His Word that He is using heresies in order to make manifest who are and are not approved! As Chrysostom says, God permitting heresies to arise will not hurt you, if you are among the approved, for this will be the means of making you more manifest!
The inexcusableness of heretics
Yet all this cannot excuse either the heretics or schismatics themselves, or these who connive at them. What Christ says of scandals in general is true of heresies in particular. “It must needs be that heresies come, but woe to him by whom they come!” I add, “and woe also to him who does not work towards extirpating them, according to his place and calling!”
The text 1 Corinthians 11:17 does not have reference to the will of God’s commandment (which is the rule of our duty), but to the will of God’s decree, i.e., the secret counsel of His will. It is God’s purpose to permit heresies, and to overrule them so that His graces in His children may shine forth more, and that, contrary to the intentions of Satan and heretics, even heresies may make manifest who are approved, namely (as Tertullian says), those who cannot be corrupted by them.
Can God’s people be taken in by heresies?
Is it possible for someone who has been chosen and justified, and is regenerate, be drawn away, and infected with heresy through the sleight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive?
I would reply that it is possible for a regenerate person to be tempted and drawn into heresy, just as he may be tempted and drawn into other great sins. Heresy is as inconsistent with the state of grace in any person as the other “works of the flesh,” such as adultery, fornication, drunkenness, or the like. We must think of an elect and justified person poisoned with heresy in the same way as we think of an elect and justified person lying in some great sin (for instance, Noah, Lot, David, Peter).
But then, that person, being elected, justified and regenerate, cannot be supposed to live and die in that sinful state. God will certainly heal his backslidings, and rescue his soul out of the snare of the devil by repentance, for the elect cannot be deceived in such a way as to continue and die in a heresy (Matt. 24:24). And, while he continues in such a gross sin or heresy, you may truly say that for that time, he is “unapproved,” or like dross, and unrefined silver. He is unapproved, greatly reproveable, to be rejected and cast away to the furnace like drossy and unrefined silver. And no wonder, for in that state he is not exercising his graces but his corruptions, and by his great sin he extremely grieves and dangerously quenches the Holy Spirit once given to him.
What if unbelievers resist heresies?
Is it possible for those who are not approved of God to be preserved from being infected with heresies, and indeed be forward in resisting them?
I would reply that we must remember it is not the aim of this text to give us the distinguishing features between these who are “approved,” and all counterfeit Christians (“unapproved”), but between these who are approved, and these who foment or follow heresies. Those who are approved of God will continue in the truth of Christ, grounded and settled, and will stand fast in the faith and contend for it, and this is one of the characteristics found in all who are approved. Meanwhile, anyone who turns away from the truth, and from the doctrine of Christ, and turns aside after heresies, in doing so infallibly declares themselves to be unapproved, whatever profession or show of holiness they have. Whatever happens to the white mark of those who are “approved,” most certainly, this black mark cannot fail on the side of the “unapproved.” It is impossible for anyone who is of a heretical belief and faction to be holy, spiritual, mortified, and “approved,” or one who “walks in the Spirit, and not in the flesh.”
I do not doubt, but by the heresies and schisms of these times .God is exposing many unapproved, unmortified nominal Christians, who only claim to be pious. I may apply to our time what Chrysostom observed of his own day. “How many who are clothed with a shadow and show of godliness, and who have a counterfeit meekness, and who were thought to be some great ones, have been quickly manifested in this time, when so many fall away. Their hypocrisy has been detected, and they have appeared as they are, not what they feigned themselves to be.”
This is no small matter, but very much for the profit and edification of those who will observe it, to know distinguishingly those who are clothed in sheep’s clothing, and not to include hidden wolves indiscriminately among the true sheep. This time has become a furnace which exposes the false copper coin, melting the lead, burning up the chaff, and making the precious metals more manifest.
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (6:19–21)
Layup (thēsaurizō) and treasures (thēsauros) come from the same basic Greek term, which is also the source of our English thesaurus, a treasury of words. A literal translation of this phrase would therefore be, “do not treasure up treasures for yourselves.” The Greek also carries the connotation of stacking or laying out horizontally, as one stacks coins. In the context of this passage the idea is that of stockpiling or hoarding, and therefore pictures wealth that is not being used. The money or other wealth is simply stored for safekeeping; it is kept for the keeping’s sake to make a show of wealth or to create an environment of lazy overindulgence (cf. Luke 12:16–21). It is clear from this passage, as well as from many others in Scripture, that Jesus is not advocating poverty as a means to spirituality. In all of His many different instructions, He only once told a person to “sell your possessions and give to the poor” (Matt. 19:21). In that particular case, the young man’s wealth was his idol, and therefore a special barrier between him and the lordship of Jesus Christ. It provided an excellent opportunity to test whether or not that man was fully committed to turning over the control of his life to Christ. His response proved that he was not. The problem was not in the wealth itself, but the man’s unwillingness to part with it. The Lord did not specifically require His disciples to give up all their money and other possessions to follow Him, although it may be that some of them voluntarily did so. He did require obedience to His commands no matter what that cost. The price was too high for the wealthy young ruler, to whom possessions were the first priority. Both testaments recognize the right to material possessions, including money, land, animals, houses, clothing, and every other thing that is honestly acquired. God has made many promises of material blessing to those who belong to and are faithful to Him. The foundational truth that underlies the commandments not to steal or covet is the right of personal property. Stealing and coveting are wrong because what is stolen or coveted rightfully belongs to someone else. Ananias and Sapphira did not forfeit their lives because they kept back some of the proceeds from the sale of their property, but because they lied to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3). Holding back some of the money was selfish, especially if they had other assets on which to live, but they had a right to keep it, as Peter makes plain: “While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control?” (v. 4). God expects, in fact commands, His people to be generous. But He also expects, and even commands, them not only to be thankful for but to enjoy the blessings He gives—including the material blessings. The Lord “richly supplies us with all things to enjoy” (1 Tim. 6:17). That verse is specifically directed to “those who are rich in this present world,” and yet it does not command, or even suggest, that they divest themselves of their wealth, but rather warns them not to be conceited about it or to trust in it. Abraham was extremely rich for his day, a person who vied in wealth, influence, and military power with many of the kings in Canaan. When we first meet Job he is vastly wealthy, and when we leave him—after the testing that cost him everything he possessed outside of his own life—God has made him wealthier still, in flocks and herds, in sons and daughters, and in a healthy long life. “And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning” (Job 42:12–17). The Bible gives considerable counsel for working hard and following good business practices (cf. Matt. 25:27). The ant is shown as a model of the good worker, who “prepares her food in the summer, and gathers her provision in the harvest” (Prov. 6:6–8). We are told that “in all labor there is profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty” (14:23) and “by wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches” (24:3–4). “He who tills his land will have plenty of food, but he who follows empty pursuits will have poverty in plenty” (28:19). Paul tells us that parents are responsible for saving up for their children (2 Cor. 12:14), that “if anyone will not work, neither let him eat” (2 Thess. 3:10), and that “if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8). During his exceptionally long ministry, which spanned most of the eighteenth century, John Wesley earned a considerable amount of money from his published sermons and other works. Yet he left only 28 pounds when he died, because he continually gave what he earned to the Lord’s work. It is right to provide for our families, to make reasonable plans for the future, to make wise investments, and to have money to carry on a business, give to the poor, and support the Lord’s work. It is being dishonest, greedy, covetous, stingy, and miserly about possessions that is wrong. To honestly earn, save, and give is wise and good; to hoard and spend only on ourselves not only is unwise but sinful. Some years ago, I happened to have contact with two quite wealthy men during the same week. One was a former professor at a major university who, through a long series of good investments in real estate, had accumulated a fortune of possibly a hundred million dollars. But in the process he lost his family, his happiness, his peace of mind, and had aged far beyond his years. The other man, a pastor, also acquired his wealth through investments, but they were investments to which he paid little attention. Because of his financial independence, he gave to his church over the years considerably more than he was paid for being its pastor. He is one of the godliest, happiest, most fruitful, and contented persons I have ever met. The key to Jesus’ warning here is yourselves. When we accumulate possessions simply for our own sakes—whether to hoard or to spend selfishly and extravagantly—those possessions become idols. It is possible that both our treasures upon earth and our treasures in heaven can involve money and other material things. Possessions that are wisely, lovingly, willingly, and generously used for kingdom purposes can be a means of accumulating heavenly possessions. When they are hoarded and stored, however, they not only become a spiritual hindrance but are subject to loss through moth, rust, and thieves. In ancient times, wealth was frequently measured in part by clothing. Compared to our day of mass-produced clothes, garments represented a considerable investment. Rich people sometimes had golden threads woven into their clothing, both to display and to store their wealth. But the best clothes were made of wool, which the moth loves to eat; and even the richest persons had difficulty protecting their clothes from the insects. Wealth was also often held in grain, as we see from the parable of the rich farmer who said, “I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods” (Luke 12:18). Brōsis (rust) literally means “an eating,” and is translated with that meaning everywhere in the New Testament but here (see Rom. 14:17; 1 Cor. 8:4, “eating”; 2 Cor. 9:10, “food”; and Heb. 12:16, “meal”). It seems best to take the same meaning here, in reference to grain that is eaten by rats, mice, worms, and insects. Almost any kind of wealth, of course, is subject to thieves, which is why many people buried their nonperishable valuables in the ground away from the house, often in a field (see Matt. 13:44). Break in is literally “dig through,” and could refer to digging through the mud walls of a house or digging up the dirt in a field. Nothing we own is completely safe from destruction or theft. And even if we keep our possessions perfectly secure during our entire lives, we are certainly separated from them at death. Many millionaires will be heavenly paupers, and many paupers will be heavenly millionaires. But when our time, energy, and possessions are used to serve others and to further the Lord’s work, they build up heavenly resources that are completely free from destruction or theft. There neither moth nor rust destroys, and … thieves do not break in or steal. Heavenly security is the only absolute security. Jesus goes on to point out that a person’s most cherished possessions and his deepest motives and desires are inseparable, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. They will either both be earthly or both be heavenly. It is impossible to have one on earth and the other in heaven (cf. James 4:4). As always, the heart must be right first. In fact, if the heart is right, everything else in life falls into its proper place. The person who is right with the Lord will be generous and happy in his giving to the Lord’s work. By the same token, a person who is covetous, self-indulgent, and stingy has good reason to question his relationship with the Lord. Jesus is not saying that if we put our treasure in the right place our heart will then be in the right place, but that the location of our treasure indicates where our heart already is. Spiritual problems are always heart problems. Sinful acts come from a sinful heart, just as righteous acts come from a righteous heart. When the exiles who came back to Jerusalem from Babylon began turning to God’s Word, a revival also began. “Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people” and various leaders took turns reading “from the law of God” (Neh. 8:5–8). Through hearing God’s Word the people became convicted of their sin, began to praise God, and determined to begin obeying Him and to faithfully support the work of the Temple (chaps. 9–10). Revival that does not affect the use of money and possessions is a questionable revival. As the Tabernacle was being built, “everyone whose heart stirred him and everyone whose spirit moved him came and brought the Lord’s contribution for the work of the tent of meeting and for all its service and for the holy garments” (Ex. 35:21). As plans were being made to build the Temple, David himself gave generously to the work, and “the rulers of the fathers’ households, and the princes of the tribes of Israel, and the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, with the overseers over the king’s work, offered willingly.… Then the people rejoiced because they had offered so willingly, for they made their offering to the Lord with a whole heart, and King David also rejoiced greatly” (1 Chron. 29:2–6, 9). G. Campbell Morgan wrote:
You are to remember with the passion burning within you that you are not the child of to-day. You are not of the earth, you are more than dust; you are the child of tomorrow, you are of the eternities, you are the offspring of Deity. The measurements of your lives cannot be circumscribed by the point where blue sky kisses green earth. All the fact of your life cannot be encompassed in the one small sphere upon which you live. You belong to the infinite. If you make your fortune on the earth—poor, sorry, silly soul—you have made a fortune, and stored it in a place where you cannot hold it. Make your fortune, but store it where it will greet you in the dawning of the new morning. (The Gospel According to Matthew [New York: Revell, 1929], pp. 64–65)
When thousands of people, mostly Jews, were won to Christ during and soon after Pentecost, the Jerusalem church was flooded with many converts who had come from distant lands and who decided to stay on in the city. Many of them no doubt were poor, and many others probably left most of their wealth and possessions in their homelands. To meet the great financial burden suddenly placed on the church, local believers “began selling their property and possessions, and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need” (Acts 2:45). Many years later, during one of the many Roman persecutions, soldiers broke into a certain church to confiscate its presumed treasures. An elder is said to have pointed to a group of widows and orphans who were being fed and said, “There are the treasures of the church.” God’s principle for His people has always been, “Honor the Lord from your wealth, and from the first of all your produce; so your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine” (Prov. 3:9–10). Jesus said, “Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return” (Luke 6:38). Paul assures us that “he who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly; and he who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully” (2 Cor. 9:6). That is God’s formula for earning dividends that are both guaranteed and permanent. At the end of His parable about the dishonest but shrewd steward, Jesus said, “I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the mammon of unrighteousness; that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings” (Luke 16:9). Our material possessions are “unrighteous” in the sense of not having any spiritual value in themselves. But if we invest them in the welfare of human souls, the people who are saved or otherwise blessed because of them will someday greet us in heaven with thanksgiving.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1985–1989). Matthew (Vol. 1, pp. 409–413). Moody Press.
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Saudi Arabia builds trade corridor to circumvent Houthis amid continued attacks on Israel & shipping lanes Port of futuristic ‘Neom’ desert city becomes hub for trade corridor. Saudi Arabia is building a new regional trade corridor linking Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iraq to circumvent the southern Red Sea, where the Yemeni Houthi terrorists continue to fire on ships while launching missiles at Israel. The Saudi Press Agency announced Wednesday that the Neom port, located in northern Saudi Arabia, relatively close to the Jordanian and Iraqi borders, completed a trial run of a new trade corridor, which would cut cargo times to Egypt and Iraq in half.
Arab Nations Call for Hamas to Disarm and End Gaza Rule Several Arab countries are joining other countries and urging Hamas to disarm and end its rule over Gaza. Middle East expert Anders Persson sees it as part of an emerging diplomatic tsunami to increase pressure on the parties.
Two medical researchers say tick-borne meat allergy should be allowed to spread because eating meat is “morally impermissible” In their paper, they used the warped argument that “eating meat is morally impermissible” and so “efforts to prevent the spread of tick-borne AGS are also morally impermissible.” AGS, or alpha-gal syndrome, is an allergy to mammalian meat which can be life-threatening. It is caused by a tick bite. Essentially, because the two medical researchers feel that eating meat is morally impermissible, they feel that justice is done if people develop this potentially life-threatening condition as a result.
This Isn’t About Israel — It’s About Global Jihad While Americans debate from thousands of miles away, Israel just made one of the most consequential decisions in its modern history: to vote toward the annexation of Judea and Samaria. Predictably, Western voices—our most popular pundits, politicians, and yes, pastors—are in an uproar, clutching the pearls of the long-dead “two-state solution.” But let’s be clear: this move isn’t about peace treaties, land swaps, or failed diplomacy. This is about survival. And it’s about stopping the march of radical jihadist Islam before it reaches your doorstep.
8.8-Magnitude Earthquake Triggers Pacific-Wide “Gog and Magog” Tsunami Rabbi Yekutiel Fish, author of the Hebrew Torah blog, Sod HaChashmal, emphasized that forces of nature, such as earthquakes and volcanoes, are manifestations of God’s judgement, denoted in the Bible by His name ‘elohim.’ The rabbi noted that the seismic aspect of God’s influence in the world was explicitly described in Psalms, which describes earthquake-generated tsunamis as an end-of-days phenomenon. Therefore we are not afraid though the earth reels, though mountains topple into the sea. Its waters rage and foam; in its swell mountains quake. Selah. Psalms 46:3-4
Colonel Hezi Nehama: The war in Gaza can be won in a month He also argues that Hezbollah’s weakened posture in the north makes it possible for Israel to shift forces southward, thereby enabling a full-scale ground operation in Gaza. Col. Nehama believes the war against Hamas can be won—and won swiftly—but only through a decisive and aggressive strategy that goes beyond the current approach.
Iranian general was killed in street chase, not airstrike, daughter claims The daughter of a top Iranian general killed in June says her father died in a street chase with Israeli agents, not an airstrike. Mahdieh Shadmani made the explosive claim in a video posted Monday to Instagram, according to Iran International. “Some might think my father was killed in an airstrike, but it was a direct chase with the Israelis,” she said. The general, Ali Shadmani, was head of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters—Iran’s main war command. He was officially reported dead on June 17. Iranian state media said he died from injuries sustained in an Israeli airstrike in Tehran.
Cotton: Israel not obligated to send aid to Gaza Israel has no responsibility to supply aid to Gaza during wartime, U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on Monday, defending Israel’s actions in the face of mounting international pressure. Speaking in Washington, the Arkansas Republican praised the Israeli military for what he called its efforts to help civilians despite the October 7 Hamas assault.
Hezbollah’s southern front no longer exists – IDF In summarizing its last nine months of action against the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon, the IDF said that the Iranian proxy’s southern front, which faces Israel, no longer exists. The Shiite village strongholds remain destroyed and empty, with some 12,000 terrorists either dead or injured.
Smotrich: Rebuilding of Gaza Jewish communities ‘closer than ever’ Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Tuesday declared that the rebuilding of Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip was now “closer than ever,” outlining a vision for a plan even larger than previous efforts. “This is a realistic work plan,” he stated. Speaking at a conference organized by the Gush Katif Heritage Center, Smotrich stressed that the sacrifices made by Israel during the war against the Hamas terrorist group were not intended “just to hand Gaza from one Arab to another.” He called the coastal enclave “an inseparable part of the Land of Israel.”
Hostage families welcome Arab League’s call for Hamas to relinquish Gaza The Hostages and Missing Families Forum responded on Wednesday to a rare unified statement from Arab League nations – including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt – calling for Hamas to disarm and relinquish control of the Gaza Strip. “We welcome this important progress and the Arab League’s recognition that Hamas must end its rule in Gaza,” the Forum said in a statement. “Kidnapping innocent men, women, and children is a blatant violation of international law and must be unequivocally condemned.”
Half of ‘very liberal’ US Jews believe Israel is comitting genocide, JPPI survey finds Of US Jews in general, 45% say Israel is too aggressive in its war in Gaza, while around 33% say Israel is not aggressive enough. Split socio-politically, the majority of liberal Jews believe Israel is overly aggressive, while most conservative Jews (a smaller cohort) believe that Israel is not aggressive enough. 70% of Jewish Trump voters (roughly a quarter to a third of US Jews) believe Israel isn’t aggressive enough,
A Podcast Had Guests Calling on People to ‘Take Down’ and ‘Kill’ Jews — and Nothing Happened Is a podcast guest in America permitted to call for the killing of Jews? As far as I know, that’s incitement. A random antisemitic female guest appeared on the Fresh and Fit Podcast with host Myron Gaines, whose real name is Amrou Fudl. The show has more than 1.5 million subscribers. Gaines pretends to be an intellect, and he is not a very good actor.
US takes ‘massive action,’ sanctions 115 people, entities who smuggle oil for Iran The U.S. The Treasury Department took its largest action against Iran since 2018, announcing sanctions against a shipping empire managed by Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, whose father Ali Shamkhani is a senior political adviser to the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader. A senior Treasury Department official told reporters on … Wednesday that the federal government’s “massive action” includes sanctioning 15 shipping firms, 52 vessels—including oil tankers and container ships—12 people and 53 other entities.
Microsoft reveals: These are the jobs AI may soon replace Published recently, the study analyzes 200,000 anonymous interactions with Bing Copilot and provides a fresh perspective on the professions most impacted by AI assistance. Unlike previous studies based on forecasts, this one examines how people are already using AI across different industries. The result is a clearer view of how AI is integrating into day-to-day work, and which roles are most vulnerable.
Widow of one of last Yemenite Jews leaves for Israel The widow of Yahya Ben Youssef, one of the last Yemenite Jews who died in June 2024, has left Yemen for Israel, a source in Yemen told Ynet on Tuesday. The couple had no children. Only four Jews now remain in Yemen,
As Parental Skepticism Increases, The American Academy Of Pediatrics Calls For An End To All Non-Medical Vaccine Exemptions As public and parental skepticism over Big Pharma’s never-ending vaccine schedule for children grows, the push to inject young Americans by force, even against their parents’ wishes, is growing too. But as tax-funded tyrants call for eliminating what medical and religious freedoms remain, anger and suspicion are exploding. The latest shoe to drop: The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) just released a policy statement calling for an end to all non-medical exemptions from immunization mandates imposed on school children. It’s being taken seriously. But the backlash to the draconian proposal to trample religious liberty and parental rights is escalating quickly.
Powerful M8.8 earthquake and tsunami strike Kamchatka Peninsula, sixth strongest earthquake on record A powerful earthquake registered by the USGS as M8.8 hit near the coast of Kamchatka, Russia, at 23:24 UTC on July 29, 2025 (11:24 local time on July 30). The earthquake occurred at a depth of approximately 21 km (13 miles) and generated a Pacific-wide tsunami, prompting warnings, advisories, and evacuations across multiple countries and territories.
Another Canary: The Las Vegas Economy Is Tanking Just Like It Did In 2008 And 2009 If you want to get a really good indication of where the U.S. economy is heading, just look at what is happening in Las Vegas. During good times, hotel occupancy rates are very high and lots of money is thrown around in the casinos. But when times are getting tough, less people head to Las Vegas and those that do go tend to be tighter with their money. We saw a perfect example of this during the Great Recession. Once the global financial crisis hit, gambling revenues in Las Vegas plunged. The following comes from an ABC News article that was published in 2009…
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Pitches Eyeball-Scanning World ID to Bankers Shut out by privacy regulators skeptical of his iris-scanning ID scheme, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is taking a different route. He’s now turning to the financial sector to pitch World ID, a digital identity platform built on the premise that artificial intelligence has made it impossible to tell humans from machines. It’s a solution aimed at solving a problem AI itself has created.
Is The Federal Reserve Purposely Trying To Destroy The U.S. Economy? Oops, they did it again. Even though the housing market has been in a depressed state for an extended period of time and even though economic conditions are slowing down all over the country, the Federal Reserve has once again refused to lower interest rates. What in the world are they thinking? I certainly share President Trump’s frustration with the Fed. Central banks all over the world have been cutting rates, but our central bank just won’t budge. Have Fed officials gone completely insane, or are they purposely trying to destroy the U.S. economy?
Big Tech proposes European Commission adjust water efficiency rules to allow data centres located where water is scarce to be viable A collaboration of Big Tech and data centre operators has submitted a paper to the European Commission detailing the issues it has with the Commission’s policies on the restriction of water and energy requirements for data centres. Data centres require enormous amounts of energy and water to operate. So Big Tech and data centre operators are proposing that the Commission adjust their policies to include a statistical trick that will allow data centres to operate in locations where water is scarce.
AI in Wyoming may soon use more electricity than state’s human residents On Monday, Mayor Patrick Collins of Cheyenne, Wyoming, announced plans for an AI data center that would consume more electricity than all homes in the state combined, according to The Associated Press. The facility, a joint venture between energy infrastructure company Tallgrass and AI data center developer Crusoe, would start at 1.8 gigawatts and scale up to 10 gigawatts of power use.
UK Government Spends £850m to Cover Up Stupid Afghan Mistake In September 2021, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) accidentally leaked a spreadsheet. The file contained personal information – including names, locations and contact details – of 100 British officials including special forces and MI6 personnel, as well as thousands of Afghan nationals. The Afghan names were applicants for relocation under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) having assisted the British Forces. The leak meant Taliban-linked accounts were then able to access the information and were reportedly using the data to trace survivors within hours, posing critical safety risks to UK intelligence staff and the Afghans who helped them. The UK government called it an isolated mistake. It wasn’t.
Americans Spend Nearly Half Of Their Days Online, And Young People Are More Suicidal Than Ever Our society is more addicted to the Internet than ever. So how has that affected us? Are we happier than we once were, or are we less happy? Are we more mentally healthy than we once were, or are we less mentally healthy? I don’t have to give you the answers to those questions, because you already know. Our society has gone completely nuts, and our suicide rate has soared. In particular, we are seeing historically high levels of suicide and depression among our young people. We have a major national crisis on our hands, but hardly anyone is talking about it.
It’s A Trap: We Are Escalating A War Against The One Nation On Earth That Could Completely Destroy Us Just six months ago, there was so much optimism that we were going to have peace with Russia. It was never going to be easy, but at least President Trump was willing to talk to the Russians to see if an agreement would be possible. Unfortunately, Trump is now telling us that he is “not so interested in talking anymore”, and instead he is making threats. As I have warned repeatedly, threatening the Russians will backfire severely. Someone that is close to Trump needs to explain to him that this approach is only going to make things worse.
“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.” —Thomas Jefferson (1781)
FBI’s Russiagate “burn bags”: FBI Director Kash Patel has turned over thousands of previously classified and other sensitive documents he recently discovered to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley. The documents in question were found in multiple “burn bags” inside a secret room at the FBI’s Hoover Building headquarters. This annex of documents is directly related to the FBI’s investigation into the alleged Trump-Russia collusion, which the bureau dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane.” The FBI’s “burn bag” system is how it destroys documents designated as classified. According to an unnamed intelligence source, “The release of the classified annex will lend more credibility to the assertion that there was a coordinated plan inside the U.S. government to help the Clinton campaign stir up controversy connecting Trump to Russia.” The source added, “It’s really hard to see how [John] Brennan, [James] Clapper, and [James] Comey are going to be able to explain this away.”
Federal Reserve stalls while GDP grows: The Federal Reserve held interest rates in place Wednesday despite (or because of) Donald Trump’s pressure on Chairman Jerome Powell to lower rates. Two Federal Reserve governors dissented in the vote on rates for the first time since 1993; the final vote was 9-2, with one absence. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department released its GDP report the same day, showing a healthy 3% growth for the economy after a 0.5% decline in the first quarter. However, there are some unusual numbers lower in the report. Imports fell 30% after climbing 37% in Q1, resulting in net exports adding 4.99% to the GDP. Private investment fell 15.6% after a climb last quarter, but inflation only increased 1.9% after a 3.4% increase previously. The line item for personal consumption expenditures, which excludes food and energy and is the Fed’s favorite inflation measure, rose 2.5%.
Trade updates on Canada, South Korea, Pakistan, India: The “Summer of Trade Deals” is ramping up. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced that he will recognize a Palestinian state in September if the Palestinian Authority makes certain concessions. Trump said this will make a trade deal with Canada “very hard” to reach, as he doesn’t like “rewarding Hamas.” Meanwhile, South Korea will invest $450 billion in the U.S., focusing on energy and investments directed by Trump, while also dropping all tariffs on American products. Pakistan and the U.S. will collaborate to develop the former’s oil reserves, potentially selling oil to India in the future, according to Trump. India, meanwhile, faces a 25% tariff in addition to penalties for purchasing Russian oil. Trump has repeatedly warned India that its tariffs on U.S. products are too high.
Trump lambastes Grassley over “blue slip” ritual: President Trump criticized Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley over the slow progress on confirming his nominees. Specifically, Trump blamed the “blue slip” tradition, which gives senators of either party the ability to effectively veto nominees for positions in the senators’ home states. Democrats have been using the slips to block Trump appointees. Grassley fired back that Trump’s message was “offensive” because the president resorted to “personal insults.” He also defended blue slips, as they affect each state’s district judges and attorneys. Grassley is siding with Trump on the need to get nominees through the Senate, agreeing that not taking an August recess may be necessary to recover lost time. Senate Majority Leader John Thune warned Democrats that their obstructionism is setting a “dangerous and ugly precedent.”
Kamala Harris will not be California’s governor: Kamala Harris has announced that she will not run in the Democrat primary to be California’s next governor, despite leading the field in early polling. Former Harris lover and mentor Willie Brown is likely pleased with her decision, as he had cautioned against her candidacy, touting instead the ability of Rick Caruso to offer California voters something new. Other party members worried that Harris’s political baggage might have prevented Democrats from retaking the House of Representatives in 2026. Harris has promised to focus on helping other Democrats get elected and will provide an update on her plans in the near future. Her name still tops polls for the Democrat presidential candidate in 2028; perhaps she still has her eyes on the White House.
Anti-Trump NSA lawyer fired: The National Security Agency fired one of its top lawyers, April Doss, after The Daily Wire revealed that she has a history of expressing anti-Trump views. That’s not surprising given that she previously worked for Democrat Sen. Mark Warner. “When serving as the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence panel,” the Wire said, Warner “hired Doss to tie Trump to Russia.” Doss is hardly apolitical — she advocated for cracking down on COVID “misinformation,” blamed Republican “extremists” for the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and labeled the January 6 Capitol riot an “insurrection,” which she blamed on Donald Trump. Warner called her firing “the result of a politically motivated smear campaign driven by a far-right conspiracy theorist, not any legitimate concern about her conduct or qualifications.” In truth, evidence suggests that Doss was a Democrat activist positioned to undermine the Trump administration’s agenda.
BBC instructs humanitarian propaganda in Gaza: The United Kingdom’s premier news organization, the BBC, has been exposed for pushing blatant, anti-Israel propaganda. A leaked internal email dated June 25 directed staff on how to report on the humanitarian situation. “The argument over how much aid has crossed into Gaza is irrelevant,” the email says. “We should say” that Israel’s U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution system “doesn’t work.” Furthermore, the email characterizes GHF as amateurish and feckless compared to Hamas-linked NGOs. The BBC is not interested in reporting the truth but in promoting an anti-Israel narrative. The Spectator’s Jonathan Sacerdoti, who broke the story, observes, “The BBC is publicly funded and legally obligated to remain impartial. This latest leaked email suggests it is failing in that duty. As ever, there is virtually no chance the organisation will admit, redress or be penalised for this failing. They never are.”
Reduced traffic accidents in NY, LA: An interesting before-and-after statistic has been noted since Donald Trump began his crackdown on illegal immigration. In America’s two largest cities, Los Angeles and New York City, the number of traffic accidents from last year to this year has fallen precipitously. In LA, from January 20, 2024, to March 14, 2024, there were 2,289 collisions reported. Over that same period this year, there were 2,076 collisions reported, which represents a drop of 9.3%. In NYC from January 20, 2024, to July 23, 2024, there were 46,267 collisions reported. Similarly, over that same time period this year, there were 41,459 reported collisions, a 10.4% decrease. While correlation is not causation, could it be that a smaller number of illegal aliens has impacted these cities’ accident rates? It’s worth investigating.
Hamas is a terrorist organization that uses any money it can get its hands on to build tunnels and military infrastructure to attack Israel. Its jihadis murdered 1,200 Israelis and took 250 more hostage on October 7, 2023, prompting a strong and necessary response from Israel. Hamas has long governed the people of Gaza (who foolishly elected the terrorist monsters), and one way it controls them is by being in charge of distributing the humanitarian aid brought in by the UN and other organizations.
It’s a terrible scandal. Right now, food is getting particularly scarce — not because of a lack of aid or Israeli blockades, but because aid groups like the UN are refusing to distribute it as a form of protest against Israel.
The Hamas propagandists at The New York Times, Axios, the BBC, and elsewhere have been circulating images of starving children (some AI-generated) and the devastation of war (not necessarily related to the Israel/Hamas conflict).
The Times recently featured an image of a skeletal young child in the arms of his not-so-malnourished mother to illustrate the starvation happening in Gaza. There were several issues with the image. First, the child has a genetic condition that makes him look emaciated. Second, his mother doesn’t look particularly starved. The mistake was so egregious that the Times quietly issued a correction days later.
Moreover, BBC writers, according to a leaked memo, were admonished to structure their pieces in a way that villainizes Israel and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a new U.S.-Israel humanitarian aid group. As The Spectator’s Jonathan Sacerdoti reports:
Leaked internal email from a BBC executive editor reveals that the Corporation has issued prescriptive instructions to staff on how to cover the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The memo, titled ‘Covering the food crisis in Gaza’, amounts to a top-down editorial diktat that discards impartiality, elevates one side of a deeply contested narrative, and imposes a specific anti-Israel legal-political framing as settled fact. The existence of this email is a telling sign of how the Corporation works to ensure its journalists stick to its own ideological angles.
There can be no doubt that the vulnerable people of Gaza are suffering. There is probably starvation. Cities in the Gaza Strip are mired in a war that Palestinian leaders started — and sadly, civilians are paying a price. However, Hamas doesn’t view the plight of its people as an incentive to cease terrorist activities or release the remaining Israeli hostages. No, it views the Palestinian suffering as a perfect opportunity to manipulate the world and maintain power. If children die, so be it.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been the main target of these Leftmedia hit pieces. This new group has been successful in getting aid directly to Gaza’s hungry civilians free of charge, which has hurt Hamas’s bottom line so much so that it’s strapped for cash.
Hamas sees the Foundation as a direct threat to its power, so it has continually attacked GHF sites. (The UN and other agencies refuse to help.) Hamas even aimed a rocket at one GHF distribution site. Why? Because the group was getting food to the terrorists’ main source of propaganda. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation provides at least two million meals a day free of charge to the people of Gaza, and it’s trying to figure out ways to get food to the weak and vulnerable, not just the strong. One such effort was the creation of a women-only distribution center. According to The Wall Street Journal:
Instead of working with the GHF to make its sites safer for Gazans to access, the U.N. and other aid groups want it gone. Were the pressure to shut down the GHF to succeed, a U.S. official adds, “say goodbye to the hostages.” Hamas will have all the aid and control it needs and won’t make a deal. “The answer is more aid, not less,” a GHF spokesman said Friday. Aid also needs to get to the weak, not only the strong, which is difficult when aid sites are rushed and trucks are looted. Opening an aid site to women only, as the GHF did Thursday, is one promising idea. Israel is running out of time to ensure more aid gets through to Gazans. Blaming the U.N., though fair, doesn’t suffice. In a good sign on Friday, Israel allowed Arab states to resume aid airdrops. Jerusalem will also have to prove to its allies that the GHF can work and scale up operations, or risk losing their support.
Israel’s best weapon at this point would be ending the war quickly, but Hamas, despite being on the ropes, is using every last social and political capital it has left to prolong the conflict. Speed is more essential than ever for both Israel and the people of Gaza.
Nate Jackson: GOP Fights Fire With Fire on Gerrymandering — Democrats are aghast at the new Texas congressional map, but Lone Star Republicans are simply responding in kind to the gerrymandering games Democrats play in other states.
Samantha Koch: Gender Clinics Are Done — A Return to Sanity — It’s long past time for the medical community to remember that healthcare is about healing instead of harming, even when there’s a lot of money to be made by harming.
Thomas Gallatin: The Big Picture on Deportation — Democrats object to ICE’s efforts to enforce our nation’s laws, smearing immigration enforcement as evil. The truth is, the vast majority of those illegal aliens being targeted by ICE are criminals.
Patrick Hampton: The New Era of Black Conservatism — Support for President Donald Trump and Republicans is rising among black Americans, threatening to upend the political calculus that Democrats have depended on for decades.
Gary Bauer: The Victims Tour — The Human Rights Campaign, whose rhetoric bears no relationship to anything that is actually happening in America, is launching a tour of red states to convince conservative voters of the righteousness of the LGBTQ cause.
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Dems Roasted as They Fume Over Bombshell GDP Report — The U.S. economy grew at a much stronger-than-expected pace in the second quarter, powered by a turnaround in the trade balance and renewed consumer strength.
‘Tough Love’ for Mexico’s President Meddling in U.S. Politics — Claudia Sheinbaum has already pledged to offer legal help to illegal immigrants detained by ICE, criticized the U.S. for taxing remittances, and warned America not to touch cartel activity on Mexican soil.
Is the Israel-Hamas War Good for the United States? — Dr. Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, has a fascinating conversation about how the Israel-Hamas war has changed American foreign policy for the better.
Armed Vigilantes Take Over Russian Streets — Russia’s police forces are vanishing as officers leave to fight in Ukraine. Now, armed nationalist vigilantes are filling the power vacuum — and the Kremlin appears to be looking the other way.
SHORT CUTS
Projection
“Every day that our government continues to withhold funding from UNWRA, they are actively participating in these crimes against humanity [in Gaza].” —Rep. Rashida Tlaib (UNWRA was exposed for participating in the October 7 attack and holding Israeli hostages on behalf of Hamas.)
The Long and Short of It
“Hamas considers the agony of Gazans a useful weapon in the narrative war. From this perverted point of view, a famine would be welcome news, perhaps forcing Israel to stay its hand and leave Hamas to fight another day.” —Rich Lowry
“You could make the case that … you’re rewarding Hamas if you [enact Palestinian statehood]. And I don’t think they should be rewarded. So I’m not in that camp, to be honest.” —Donald Trump
Credit Where It’s Due
“I would have thought — and I got to own it — that these tariffs were going to … sink this economy by this time and they didn’t.” —Bill Maher
Make America Win Again
“In his spare time when he wasn’t getting the European Union to agree to a new trade deal, Trump made two phone calls and secured a ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand. … In fact, President Trump has successfully negotiated either one trade deal or peace deal every month he has been in office!” —Gary Bauer
For the Record
“A lot of these Republicans … say, ‘Oh, you can have a million people plow in. As long as it’s legal, that’s good.’ Is that really good? Doesn’t it depend on why they’re coming in? Like, for example, you have some of these tech companies, they’re laying off all these American workers and then they’re importing H-1B visa people to work for cheaper. I think that’s a total scam.” —Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
Political Futures
“The gerrymander in California is outrageous. Of their 52 congressional districts, 9 of them are Republican. That means 17 percent of their delegation is Republican when Republicans regularly win 40 percent of the vote in that state. How can this possibly be allowed?” —JD Vance
“The numbers suggest Democrats, who are happy targeting Trump from dawn till dusk, are not convincing voters they can do a better job than the president and his party. That’s where Epstein comes in.” —Byron York
The Bottom Line
“No matter what we would like to believe — this war isn’t ending in a glorious Ukrainian victory without American boots on the ground: a red line that we should never cross.” —Ian Haworth
Upright
“You had a grown man who sucker-punched a middle-aged woman. And where I come from … that person ought to go to jail for a very long time. And frankly, he’s lucky there weren’t some better people around, because they would’ve handled it themselves. … The only way to destroy that street violence is to take the thugs who engaged in that violence and throw their asses in prison.” —JD Vance
Insight
“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice.” —German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)
ON THIS DAY in 1790, the United States government issued its first patent — to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont for a process to make soap.
Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray for the protection of our uniformed Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Lift up your Patriot Post team and our mission to support and defend our legacy of American Liberty and our Republic’s Founding Principles, in order that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.
Canada becomes the latest country to say it will recognize a Palestinian state with certain conditions, but critics say such a move would reward Hamas for its terrorism, and the Palestinian Authority has the same goals as Hamas- destroying Israel; Chris Mitchell talks about the reaction from Israel’s Foreign Ministry and Hamas to the Palestinian state announcements, the possibility of Israel annexing parts of Gaza if Hamas won’t reach a deal, the Israeli public view of the 2005 Gaza pullout, how long the war could last, and more; Jonathan Tobin of the Jewish News Syndicate gives his views on why some countries are supporting a Palestinian state and the legal settlements by major US universities on cases involving antisemitism on campus; as China gets more aggressive in the Pacific region, the US and its allies are sending a message- “don’t test us,” as they carry out military exercises; and the move of God in the US reaches behind bars as prisoners come to Christ in a salvation service.
“The media analysis on the DNC hacking appears solid…. Julie (Clinton Campaign Advisor) says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump. Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later the FBI will put more oil into the fire.”
(Brooke Singman – Fox News) The credible foreign sources indicating the FBI and the Obama administration would play a role in spreading the salacious Trump-Russia narrative — before the bureau ever launched its probe — were allegedly tied to George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, according to an explosive document declassified Thursday morning.
The appendix to former Special Counsel John Durham’s report released by the Senate Judiciary Committee sheds stunning light on what Chairman Chuck Grassley describes as “one of the biggest political scandals and cover-ups in American history.”
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Attorney General Pam Bondi worked in coordination to declassify the information. View article →
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NEWS: An 8.8 magnitude earthquake off Russia’s coast sparks tsunami alerts from Japan to Chile as millions evacuate; VBS programs see record attendance and tens of thousands of salvations.
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FOCUS: Sean Feucht responds after Canadian officials fine a church and cancel worship events—what’s really going on?
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MAIN THING: 19 nations unite for massive Indo-Pacific military drills—but will they stand united if China makes a move on Taiwan?
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LAST THING: 2 Timothy 1:7 – “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is scheduled to hold a press briefing at 1 pm ET. Tune in for more from the White House! Join us LIVE at 12 pm ET on July 31, 2025
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