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 many glorious instances of God’s favor to the Old Testament church.
I adore that wisdom, peace, and goodness with which you brought the vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it; you cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land. Psalm 80:8-9(ESV)
And they did not win the land by their own sword, nor did their own arm save them, but your right hand and your arm, and the light of your face, for you delighted in them. Psalm 44:3(ESV)
I bless you that the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God; Romans 3:2(ESV) that they had the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises: Romans 9:4(ESV) And that not one word has failed of all your good promise, which you spoke by Moses your servant. 1 Kings 8:56(ESV)
I bless you for all that which you did, at many times and in many ways, speak to the fathers by the prophets, Hebrews 1:1(ESV) those men who spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, 2 Peter 1:21(ESV) and prophesied about the grace that should come to the people of God, predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories; and that, not to themselves only, but to all believers, they ministered those great things, things into which angels desire to look. 1 Peter 1:10-12(ESV)
And especially, I bless you that you have provided something better for believers alive today, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Hebrews 11:40(ESV)
Why care about cultural apologetics? Because we love Jesus and our neighbors. This tool deserves to be pulled from the toolkit and used. Of course, as we engage in this method, we should mention a few caveats, since every tool has its positive and negative sides.
One caution in prioritizing cultural apologetics is that the culture part can dwarf the apologetic part. By so emphasizing study of the culture or the society you’re called to reach, you may become underdeveloped in studying the Scriptures. You can lose sight of the reason you’re engaging in the task in the first place: to foster a missionary encounter with others. And not just an encounter or dialogue but a gospel-shaped missionary moment where, yes, you find areas of common ground on which to build, but then you tackle the areas of conflict, where the gospel’s offense must remain.
Another risk in prioritizing cultural apologetics is that you so focus on understanding the people you’re trying to reach that you tailor the presentation of Christianity only to the needs and questions they already have. You try to fit Christianity into another framework of thought, showing how it answers and fulfills people’s longings. As a starting point, this is fine. I’ve heard it said we’re to listen carefully for the questions being asked in each generation and then show how the gospel answers those questions. That’s good, but it doesn’t go far enough. Faithfulness to the gospel means we don’t merely answer the questions people in society are asking—we also raise questions people should be asking but aren’t. The gospel upends all earthly and cultural scripts and frameworks, at least at some level. The gospel presses different questions. The risk with cultural apologetics could be that the cultural trends and questions drive everything and the challenge that Christianity poses to the world gets muted.
One last caveat, perhaps the most important: We mustn’t be so faithless as to think the gospel needs cultural Christianity or cultural apologetics to remain the power of God unto salvation. The church before Christendom wasn’t propped up by cultural Christianity, and Christians in many parts of the world today walk with God just fine with no need for cultural crutches. Yes, Christendom may be an asset to Christianity in terms of plausibility structures, making it a live wire in a sociological sense. But theologically, we must never assume cultural Christianity supplies the electricity. It’s the Spirit who makes the gospel spread like wildfire, blowing when and where he pleases.
Conversion is always impossible without supernatural intervention. Cultural Christianity may be one of the tools God uses to smooth the path so some will understand the basics of biblical truth before being confronted with Christ’s specific claims. But God doesn’t depend on Christendom, and we shouldn’t either. Whether we labor in fields where Christianity seems as far-fetched a possibility as becoming Zoroastrian, or whether we labor in areas that still bear the fragrance of commonly held Christian values, our call to evangelism and missions remains the same—even if certain methods must change based on cultural context.
No matter what approaches we suggest or methods we use, we mustn’t forget that in the end, the primary reason anyone believes the implausible testimony that Jesus of Nazareth walked out of his grave isn’t because of live or dead wires, traditional or cultural apologetics, or our expertise in sharing the gospel. The reason is the Spirit’s awakening.
FREE Download – Do Dogs Go to Heaven?: https://bit.ly/4i9oTWJ Message Description: Dr. David Jeremiah dispels the myth that heaven will be dull or uneventful, showing instead that it will be vibrant, joyful, and full of purpose. Heaven won’t be boring; it will be the most exciting existence we’ve ever known.
“In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve” – Jeremiah 50:20
A glorious word indeed! What a perfect pardon is here promised to the sinful nations of Israel and Judah! Sin is to be so removed that it shall not be found, so blotted out that there shall be none. Glory be unto the God of pardons! Satan seeks out sins wherewith to accuse us, our enemies seek them that they may lay them to our charge, and our own conscience seeks them even with a morbid eagerness. But when the LORD applies the precious blood of Jesus, we fear no form of search, for “there shall be none”; “they shall not be found.” The LORD hath caused the sins of His people to cease to be: He hath finished transgression and made an end of sin. The sacrifice of Jesus has cast our sins into the depths of the sea. This makes us dance for joy. The reason for the obliteration of sin lies in the fact that Jehovah Himself pardons His chosen ones. His word of grace is not only royal but divine. He speaks absolution, and we are absolved. He applies the atonement, and from that hour His people are beyond all fear of condemnation. Blessed be the name of the sin-annihilating God!
Sometimes people ask, “How were believers in the days of the Old Testament saved if Christ hadn’t yet come?” A brief answer might be: “Old Testament believers were saved in the same way as believers in the New Testament and beyond: by faith in Christ.” You can read about this in Romans 3:25 and Hebrews 9:15. Here’s how Charles Hodge nicely explained it:
There is not a doctrine concerning Christ, taught in the New Testament, which the Apostles do not affirm to have been revealed under former dispensations (eras). They therefore distinctly assert that it was through him and the efficacy of his death that men were saved before, as well as after his advent. The Apostle Paul says (Rom. 3:25), that Christ was set forth as a propitiation for the remission of sins, not only ἐν τῷ νῦν καιρῷ [in this time] but also of the sins committed before the present time, during the forbearance of God. And in Heb. 9:15, it is still more explicitly asserted that He died for the forgiveness of sin under the first covenant. He was, therefore, as said in Rev. 13:8, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. This is at least the common and most natural interpretation of that passage.
Further, Hodge explained:
Such a revelation of the Messiah was undoubtedly made in the Old Testament as to turn the eyes of the whole Jewish nation in hope and faith. What the two disciples on the way to Emmaus said, “We trusted it had been He who should have redeemed Israel,” reveals what was the general expectation and desire of the people. Paul repeatedly speaks of the Messiah as the hope of Israel. The promise of redemption through Christ, he declared to be the great object of the people’s hope. When arraigned before the tribunals of the Jews, and before Agrippa, he uniformly declared that in preaching Christ and the resurrection, he had not departed from the religion of the fathers, but adhered to it, while his enemies had deserted it. “Now I stand, and am judged,” he says, “for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers.” (Acts 26:6.)
Again, he said to the Jews in Rome, Acts 28:20, “For the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.” See also, 23:6; 24:15. In Eph. 1:12, he designates the Jews as οἱ προηλπικότες ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ – those who hoped in the Messiah before his advent. In Acts 13:7, he says the rulers of the Jews rejected Christ because they knew not “the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day,” which they “fulfilled in condemning Him.” In Him was “the promise which was made unto the fathers,” he tells us (verses 32, 33), of which he says, “God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that He has raised up (or brought into view) Jesus,” the long-expected Saviour. It is needless to dwell upon this point, because the doctrine of a personal Messiah who was to redeem the people of God, not only pervades the Old Testament, but is everywhere in the New Testament declared to be the great promise which is fulfilled in the advent and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (19:8–10)
Luke does not describe the Lord’s presentation of the gospel to Zaccheus, or his response. But the salvation of the man is evident from the transformation of his life, which revealed itself in that part of his life where his sin was most openly manifested. Zaccheus stopped (the Greek word is better translated “took a stand”), acknowledged Jesus as Lord (cf. Rom. 10:9–10), and expressed his self-denial (cf. Luke 9:23–24) by saying to Him, “Half of my possessions I will give to the poor” (cf. 2 Cor. 8:3; James 2:15–16; 1 John 3:17). Further, his statement, “If I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much,” declared his intent to make restitution for the wrongs he had committed, in keeping with the maximum amount required by the Old Testament law (Ex. 22:1; cf. vv. 4–14; Num. 5:6–7). The genuineness of Zaccheus’s salvation was made evident by the complete transformation of his behavior. Jesus confirmed the reality of Zaccheus’s salvation when He said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham.” Zaccheus had, of course, been a son of Abraham ethnically all of his life. But as the apostle Paul wrote,
He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God. (Rom. 2:28–29; cf. 9:6)
Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.… And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise. (Gal. 3:6–9, 29; cf. John 8:33–44)
Paul had been a zealous Pharisee, proud of his Abrahamic heritage (Phil. 3:4–6). But after his salvation he viewed all of that as “rubbish” (v. 8), and himself as the foremost of all sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). So complete was Zaccheus’s transformation that he instantaneously went from being a thief to being a benefactor; from being selfish to being unselfish, from being a taker to being a giver. He became a true Jew, part of the Israel of God (Gal. 6:16), a Jew who was one inwardly. He was no longer just a son of Abraham by race, but a son of Abraham by faith. That very day he was justified by faith. The one who had been lost was saved and delivered from sin, death, and hell. The Lord gave him life and light to believe and repent and his conduct was transformed. Son of Man, a messianic title taken from Daniel 7:13, was Jesus’ most common way of referring to Himself. It describes both His humanity and His deity. The verbs translated seek and save are infinitives, and express the purpose for which Jesus came into world. To save is to rescue from harm and deliver from danger. Lost translates a form of the verb apollumi, which means “to be ruined,” or “destroyed.” Sin has devastated all of humanity, leaving lost sinners marred, corrupted, evil, ruined, and headed for eternal damnation (Rom. 3:10–18; Eph. 4:17). But God, in His mercy, grace, and love, sent Christ to seek and to save those who face His own wrath and judgment. In the words of Philip P. Bliss’s hymn “Hallelujah, What a Savior!”:
“Man of Sorrows!” what a name
For the Son of God who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim!
Hallelujah, what a Savior!
When a sinner does seek after God (Jer. 29:13; Amos 5:4; Matt. 6:33; 11:28) he does so only because God has first sought him (John 6:44; cf. 1 John 4:19), called him “out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9), and shattered his state of death by making him alive (cf. Eph. 2:1–3).
MacArthur, J. (2014). Luke 18–24 (pp. 74–75). Moody Publishers.
† 19:10 — “ … the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Jesus came to earth, not merely to provide us with an example of godly living, but to make it possible for us to enjoy an intimate relationship with God. He did for us what we could never do on our own.
Stanley, C. F. (2005). The Charles F. Stanley life principles Bible: New King James Version (Lk 19:10). Nelson Bibles.
19:10. The narrative now reveals why Jesus had to stay at Zacchaeus’ home (cf. v 5). Jesus’ stay conformed to and expressed His compassionate mission. Jesus’ mission clashed with the exclusivistic way and self-righteous disposition of the religious leaders who did not care for the lost (cf. Luke 15). The encounters with the blind man and Zacchaeus—both outcasts—reveal Jesus’ compassion as well as how Israel should have responded to their Messiah.
Valdés, A. S. (2010). The Gospel according to Luke. In R. N. Wilkin (Ed.), The Grace New Testament Commentary (p. 323). Grace Evangelical Society.
19:10 In answer to those who criticized Him for lodging with a sinner, Jesus said, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” In other words, the conversion of Zacchaeus was a fulfillment of the very purpose of Christ’s coming into the world.
MacDonald, W. (1995). Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments (A. Farstad, Ed.; p. 1441). Thomas Nelson.
19:10. The scene with Zacchaeus provides Luke’s Gospel with its ultimate statement about Jesus. Jesus knew his purpose on earth. His purpose was not to reform the Jewish religion. His purpose was not to prove the Pharisees wrong. His purpose was not to bring in a military, political kingdom. His purpose was to bring salvation to lost people. Jesus dedicated the three years of his earthly ministry to finding people who knew they were lost and showing them God’s way of salvation—the way of repentance and faith.
Butler, T. C. (2000). Luke (Vol. 3, p. 315). Broadman & Holman Publishers.
Grace is what we need just now, and it is to be had freely. What can be freer than a gift? Today we shall receive sustaining, strengthening, sanctifying, satisfying grace. He has given daily grace until now, and as for the future, that grace is still sufficient. If we have but little grace the fault must lie in ourselves; for the Lord is not straitened, neither is He slow to bestow it in abundance. We may ask for as much as we will and never fear a refusal. He giveth liberally and upbraideth not.
The Lord may not give gold, but He will give grace: He may not give gain, but He will give grace. He will certainly send us trial, but He will give grace in proportion thereto. We may be called to labor and to suffer, but with the call there will come all the grace required;
What an “end” is that in the text—”and glory!” We do not need glory yet, and we are not yet fit for it; but we shall have it in due order. After we have eaten the bread of grace, we shall drink the wine of glory. We must go through the holy, which is grace, to the holiest of all, which is glory. These words and glory are enough to make a man dance for joy. A little while—a little while, and then glory forever!
What does it really mean to be Protestant? Is it simply “not Catholic,” or does it stand for a positive, historic, and biblically-rooted vision of Christianity?
There is more to life than the here and now. In this message, R.C. Sproul outlines how Ecclesiastes presents us with an eternal perspective by pointing us to God—the only One who can satisfy our deepest questions and desires.
Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me. But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. (10:25–31)
But Jesus already had told them plainly who He was (cf. 5:17ff.; 8:12, 24, 58); in fact, He had spent the last three years doing so. Not only that, the works that He did in the Father’s name also demonstrated that He was the Messiah; the Son of God; God in human flesh (cf. vv. 32, 38; 3:2; 5:36; 7:31; 11:47; 14:11; Acts 2:22). The Lord’s twice-repeated declaration, you do not believe, indicates that the problem was not due to any ambiguity in the revelation of the truth, but rather to their spiritual blindness. They lacked understanding, not because they lacked information, but because they lacked repentance and faith. Their unbelief was not due to insufficient exposure to the truth, but to their hatred of the truth and love of sin and lies (John 3:19–21). Anyone who willingly seeks the truth will find it (7:17), but Jesus refused to commit Himself to those who willfully rejected the truth. Had He again given them the plain answer they were demanding, they would not have believed Him anyway (cf. 8:43; Matt. 26:63–65; Luke 22:66–67). From the perspective of human responsibility, the hostile Jews did not believe because they had deliberately rejected the truth. But from the standpoint of divine sovereignty, they did not believe because they were not of the Lord’s sheep, which were given Him by the Father (v. 29; 6:37; 17:2, 6, 9). A full understanding of exactly how those two realities, human responsibility and divine sovereignty, work together lies beyond human comprehension; but there is no difficulty with them in the infinite mind of God. Significantly, the Bible does not attempt to harmonize them, nor does it apologize for the logical tension between them. For example, speaking of Judas Iscariot’s treachery, Jesus said in Luke 22:22, “The Son of Man is going [to be betrayed] as it has been determined.” In other words, Judas’s betrayal of Christ was in accord with God’s eternal purpose. But then Jesus added, “Woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!” That Judas’s betrayal was part of God’s plan did not relieve him of the responsibility for his crime. In Acts 2:23 Peter said that Jesus was “delivered over [to the cross] by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.” Yet he also charged Israel with responsibility for having “nailed [Jesus] to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.” God’s sovereignty never excuses human sin. (For a more complete discussion of the interplay of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, see the exposition of 6:35–40 in chapter 20 of this volume.) Repeating what He said in His discourse on the Good Shepherd (see the exposition of vv. 3–5 in the previous chapter of this volume), Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” The elect will heed Christ’s call to salvation and continue in faith and obedience to eternal glory (cf. Rom. 8:29–30). The Lord continued by articulating the wonderful truth that those who are His sheep need never fear being lost. “I give eternal life to them,” Jesus declared, “and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” Nowhere in Scripture is there a stronger affirmation of the absolute eternal security of all true Christians. Jesus plainly taught that the security of the believer in salvation does not depend on human effort, but is grounded in the gracious, sovereign election, promise, and power of God. Christ’s words reveal seven realities that bind every true Christian forever to God. First, believers are His sheep, and it is the duty of the Good Shepherd to protect His flock. “This is the will of Him who sent Me,” Jesus said, “that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day” (6:39). To insist that a true Christian can somehow be lost is to deny the truth of that statement. It is also to defame the character of the Lord Jesus Christ—making Him out to be an incompetent shepherd, unable to hold on to those entrusted to Him by the Father. Second, Christ’s sheep hear only His voice and follow only Him. Since they will not listen to or follow a stranger (10:5), they could not possibly wander away from Him and be eternally lost. Third, Christ’s sheep have eternal life. To speak of eternal life ending is a contradiction in terms. Fourth, Christ gives eternal life to His sheep. Since they did nothing to earn it, they can do nothing to lose it. Fifth, Christ promised that His sheep will never perish. Were even one to do so, it would make Him a liar. Sixth, no one—not false shepherds (the thieves and robbers of v. 1), or false prophets (symbolized by the wolf of v. 12), nor even the Devil himself—is powerful enough to snatch Christ’s sheep out of His hand. Finally, Christ’s sheep are held not only in His hand, but also in the hand of the Father, who is greater than all; and thus no one is able to snatch them out of His hand either. Infinitely secure, the believer’s “life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). The Father and the Son jointly guarantee the eternal security of believers because, as Jesus declared, “I and the Father are one” (the Greek word one is neuter, not masculine; it speaks of “one substance,” not “one person”). Thus their unity of purpose and action in safeguarding believers is undergirded by their unity of nature and essence. The whole matter of security is summarized in our Lord’s own words in John 6:39–40:
This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.
Incensed by what they accurately and unmistakably perceived as another blasphemous claim to deity by Jesus, the Jews, self-righteously exploding in a fit of passion, picked up stones again to stone Him—the fourth time in John’s gospel that they had attempted to kill Him (5:16–18; 7:1; 8:59). Though the Romans had withheld the right of capital punishment from the Jews (18:31), this angry lynch mob was ready to take matters into its own hands.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2006). John 1–11 (pp. 441–443). Moody Press.
Christ, the Calvinist
John 10:27–29
“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”
One time, after I had preached a sermon from John touching on some of the main points of the Reformed faith, I found a copy of that week’s bulletin on which someone had scribbled his opinion of the message: “I’m sick of Calvinism in every sermon.” The message did not particularly bother me. Notes like that seldom do. But I found it surprising that the person who wrote the note somehow regarded Calvinism as a system of thought that could well be dispensed with while, nevertheless, as he assumed, still preserving Christianity. In other words, this person, like many others, somehow regarded the doctrines that go by the name of Calvinism as at best an addition to the pure gospel and at the worst a system that is opposed to it. Is this true? Are the doctrines of grace wrong? One proof that they are not is seen in the verses to which we come in this chapter.
Historic Calvinism
The verses I have in mind are those in which the Lord Jesus Christ spoke plainly to his enemies, saying that those who do not believe on him do not believe because they are not his sheep, that those who are his sheep believe and follow, that this is true because they are given to him by the Father, that these who are given to him by the Father inevitably come to him and, finally, that these who come will never be lost. This is a message of man’s complete ruin in sin and God’s perfect remedy in Christ, and it can be expressed in the distinctive points of Calvinistic theology. Before we look at these points in detail, however, we should see that far from being an aberration or addition to the gospel, these truths have always belonged to the core of the Christian proclamation and have been characteristic of the church at its greatest periods. To begin with, the doctrines of grace that have become known as Calvinism were most certainly not invented by Calvin, nor were they characteristic of his thought alone during the Reformation period. As we shall see, these are the truths taught by Jesus and confirmed for us in Scripture by the apostle Paul. Augustine argued for the same truths over against the denials of Pelagius and those who followed him. Luther was a Calvinist. So was Zwingli. That is, they believed what Calvin believed and what he later systematized in his influential Institutes of the Christian Religion. The Puritans were also Calvinists; it was through them and their teaching that both England and Scotland experienced the greatest and most pervasive national revivals the world has ever seen. In that number were the heirs of John Knox: Thomas Cartwright, Richard Sibbes, Richard Baxter, Matthew Henry, John Owen, and others. In America, thousands were influenced by Jonathan Edwards, Cotton Mather, and George Whitefield, all of whom were Calvinists. In more recent times the modern missionary movement received nearly all its direction and initial impetus from those in the Calvinistic and Puritan tradition. The list includes such men as William Carey, John Ryland, Henry Martyn, Robert Moffat, David Livingstone, John G. Paton, John R. Mott, and many others. For all these the doctrines of grace were not an appendage to Christian thought but were rather that which was central and which most fired and gave form to their preaching and missionary efforts. This, of course, is precisely why I am reviewing this history—to show that the doctrines known as Calvinism are not something that emerged late in church history but rather are that which takes its origins in the teachings of Jesus, which has been found throughout the church in many periods, and which has always been characteristic of the church at its greatest periods of faith and expansion. It follows from this that the church of Jesus Christ will again see great days when these truths are widely proclaimed, and proclaimed fearlessly. Jesus is our example. We sometimes think of these doctrines as household doctrines; that is, as truths to be proclaimed only to those who already believe. But this was not Jesus’ procedure. He taught them also to his enemies. In this case, they had come to him with the implication that he was responsible for their failure to believe; they had said, “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” He answered this, not so much with a statement concerning his identity as the Messiah (although he did say that his words and works authenticated him), but much more importantly by a full statement of man’s utter inability to choose God and of the necessity for divine grace in each step of salvation. Did they want it told plainly? Well, this is the truth told plainly: “You do not believe because you are not my sheep.… My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand” (vv. 26–29).
State of the Lost
First of all, Christ’s words reflect the desperate state of the lost; that is, the state of all men as they are apart from Christ. The teachings on this point are not so much direct as indirect. Still they underlie the positive points made in this passage. In reference to man’s desperate state apart from Christ, these verses show that he has lost spiritual life; otherwise it would not be necessary for Christ to speak of it as a gift. Originally, man had life. When the first man and woman were created by God they were created with that life that shows itself in communion with him. Consequently, we learn that they communed with God in the Garden in the cool of the day. When they sinned, this life was lost, a fact evidenced by their hiding from God. This has been the state of people ever since. Consequently, when the gospel is preached, those who hear it turn away unless God intervenes to do a supernatural work of regeneration in their hearts. Moreover, the desperate state of people apart from Christ is suggested by the fact that no one can recover this life except as a free gift from God. Jesus calls it a gift, for it is undeserved and unearned. If it were earned, it would be wages; if it were merited, it would be a reward. But eternal life is neither of these. It is a gift, which means that it originates solely in God’s good will toward men. As a last thought on this subject, it is also true, is it not, that men and women will perish except for this gift. Jesus says of those to whom he gives life that “they shall never perish.” But since he makes this promise, it must be because we will perish if he does not intervene. We are sinners. Sin makes us heirs of God’s wrath. If God does not intervene, we stand under divine judgment, without hope, facing the punishment due us for our own sins. According to these verses, we cannot even come to Christ, for we are not of his sheep and so lack the ability to hear his voice and turn to him.
Grace
This brings us to the next thought. For while it is true that in ourselves we cannot come to Christ and so lie under God’s just condemnation, the main point of these verses is that God has nevertheless acted in grace toward some. Earlier this was expressed by saying that Christ died for the sheep; in other words, by the doctrine of a particular redemption (v. 11). In this section we are told that Jesus has given eternal life to the same people (v. 28), and that these are those whom God has given him (v. 29). You cannot trace the origins of our salvation farther back than that. In this, as in all things, the origins are to be found in God. Some say, “But surely God called them because he foresaw that some would believe.” But it does not say that. Others say, “He chose them because he knew in advance that they would merit salvation.” It does not say that either. What it does say is that the initiative in salvation lies with God and that this is found, on the one hand, in God’s electing grace whereby he chooses some for salvation entirely apart from any merit on their own part (which, of course, they do not have) and, on the other hand, in Christ’s very particular atonement by which he bore the penalty for the sins of these people. I need to say also, however, that there are aspects of the death of Christ that apply to the world at large. I am not denying that. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ is a revelation of the nature of God. It is a revelation of his hatred of sin in that Christ died for it. It is most certainly a revelation of God’s love, for love lay behind it. It is an example to the race. These things are true. But in addition to these there is also a sense in which the Lord Jesus Christ died particularly and exclusively for his own, so that he literally bore the penalty for their particular sins, that they might be forgiven. These truths do not make us proud, as some charge. Rather they increase our love for God who out of pure grace saves some when none deserve it.
An Effective Call
The third of the reformed doctrines presented by Jesus is the effective call: that is, that God’s call of his people is accompanied by such power that those whom he calls necessarily come to him, believing on Christ and embracing Christ for salvation. Jesus expresses this by saying: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (v. 27). It is a mark of the sheep that they both hear and follow their shepherd. In the Puritan era it was the habit of many preachers to play on these two characteristics, calling them the marks of Christ’s sheep. In days when there were many flocks of sheep it was necessary to mark the sheep to distinguish them. In our day, at least on cattle, this is done by branding. On sheep it was often done by cutting a small mark into the ear. “Well,” said the Puritans, “each of Christ’s sheep has a double mark—on his ear and on his foot. The mark on his ear is that he hears Christ. The mark on his foot is that he follows him.” This is true, of course. It leads us to ask, “Do we hear? Do we follow?” How many of those who come to church on a typical Sunday morning really hear the voice of Christ or have ever heard it? They hear the voice of the preacher; they hear the voices of the members of the choir. But do they hear Christ? If they do, why are they so critical of what they hear? Why are their comments afterward so much more about the Lord’s servant than the Lord? Those who are Christ’s hear Christ. And they follow him. But how many who come to church are really following? Most seem to make good leaders—in their own cause—but they are poor followers. They make good critics—of the Bible and of Christ’s people—but they are poor disciples. They make respectable wolves, for they ravage the flock, but they do not have the traits of the sheep and would even be contemptuous of them if they had an understanding of what those traits are. Do not presume on your relationship to Christ. You are not his unless you hear his voice and follow him. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). He said, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 2:7).
Never Lost
Finally, notice that these verses also speak at length of God’s perseverance with his saints. That is, they teach us that none whom God has called to faith in Christ will be lost. Indeed, how can they be, if God is responsible for their salvation? Jesus says, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand” (v. 28). “But,” says someone, “suppose they jump out of their own accord?” “They shall never perish,” says the Lord. “Never?” “No, never,” says Jesus. “They shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” This does not mean that there will not be dangers, of course. In fact, it implies them; for if Jesus promises that no one will succeed in plucking us from his hands, it must be because he knows that there are some who will try. The Christian will always face dangers—dangers without, from enemies, and dangers within. Still the promise is that those who have believed in Jesus will never be lost. We may add that the Christian may well be deprived of things. He may lose his job, his friends, his good reputation. Still he will not be lost. The promise is not that the ship will not go to the bottom, but that the passengers will all reach shore. It is not that the house will not burn down, but that the people will escape safely. Do you believe this promise, that you are safe in Jesus’ hands, that you will never be lost? Are you able to trust God for this as you have for other truths? I suppose there is a way of explaining away almost everything, but I must say that I do not see how the opponents of eternal security can explain away this text. Am I Christ’s? Then it is he who has promised that neither I nor any who belong to him shall perish. If I do perish, then Jesus has not kept his word, he is not sinless, the atonement was not adequate, and no one in any place can enter into salvation. I wish that all God’s children might come to know and love these truths. I wish that many might be saved by them. We live in a day that is so weak in its proclamation of Christian doctrine that even many Christians cannot see why such truths should be preached or how they can be used of the Lord to save sinners. This was not always so. It was not always the case that these truths were unused by God in saving sinners. Did you know that it was these doctrines, particularly the doctrine of God’s perseverance with his people, that God used to save Charles Haddon Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers who ever lived? Spurgeon was saved when he was only fifteen years old, but before that time he had already noticed how friends of his, who had begun life well, made shipwreck of their lives by falling into gross vice. Spurgeon was appalled by such things. He feared that he himself might fall into them. He reasoned like this: “Whatever good resolutions I might make, the probabilities are that they will be good for nothing when temptation [assails] me. I [will] be like those of whom it has been said, ‘They see the devil’s hook and yet cannot help nibbling at his bait.’ I [will] disgrace myself.” It was then that he heard of the truth that Christ will keep his saints from falling. It had a particular charm for him and he found himself saying, “If I go to Jesus and get from him a new heart and a right spirit, I shall be secured against these temptations into which others have fallen. I shall be preserved by Him.” It was this truth along with others that brought Spurgeon to the Savior. I wish it might be the same with you! I do not preach a gospel that has a shaky foundation. I do not proclaim a religion of percentages and probabilities. I proclaim the message of Christ, Paul, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and all others who have found God to be their pure hope and salvation. It is the message of man’s complete ruin in sin and of God’s perfect remedy in Christ, expressed in his election of a people to himself and his final preservation of them. God grant that you might believe it wholeheartedly.
Boice, J. M. (2005). The Gospel of John: an expositional commentary (pp. 777–782). Baker Books.
Trump says Democrats’ video message to military is ‘seditious behavior’ punishable by death President Donald Trump on Thursday accused half a dozen Democratic lawmakers of sedition “punishable by DEATH” after the lawmakers — all veterans of the armed services and intelligence community — called on U.S. military members to uphold the Constitution and defy “illegal orders.” “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!!” Trump went on. “LOCK THEM UP???” He called for the lawmakers’ arrest and trial, adding in a separate post that it was “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH.”
US and Israel speed up production for Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Iron Beam Israel advanced a major expansion of its air-defense infrastructure on Thursday, moving to speed up production of interceptors and new systems after two years of intense rocket and drone fire strained existing stockpiles. The Defense Ministry said the latest procurement effort will help ensure that Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and the developing Iron Beam laser system remain ready for the next wave of regional threats.
Several dead in Bangladesh earthquake At least eight people have been killed and more than 300 injured in a 5.5-magnitude earthquake in central Bangladesh, authorities and local media reported. The earthquake, centered in the Ghorashal area of Narsingdi district, occurred on Friday morning at a depth of about one mile.
UN: Islamists have killed 89 civilians in a week 89 civilians have been killed in a series of attacks carried out by Islamist armed groups in Congo-Kinshasa over the past week, including women in a maternity ward, the UN says. The IS-backed militia group ADF has carried out “particularly deadly” attacks between November 13 and 19, in several locations around the Lubero area in North Kivu, the UN mission Monusco wrote in a statement. “among them women being treated in the maternity ward,”
Ukraine risks ‘losing a key partner’ with Trump’s peace proposal, Zelensky says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that he would not betray Ukraine’s interests in a US-led peace process, warning that Kyiv faces a choice between safeguarding its dignity and risking a rupture with Washington. The 28-point plan the United States presented to Kyiv was laden with Russian demands, including Ukrainian territorial concessions. Zelensky pledged to hold constructive discussions with Washington at what he called “truly one of the most difficult moments in our history”.
Giant AI-Generated Christmas Decoration Being Torn Down After Residents Noticed Grotesque Horrors Hidden in It The murals showed horrifyingly disfigured people, animals and even a demented snowman, harkening back to a not-so-distant past when AI image generators struggled to generate pictures of hands with five fingers. Some joked the murals were put up to “celebrate the return of our dark lord Cthulhu,” while others questioned how such “carnage” was approved in the first place.
IDF & Shin Bet don’t oppose death penalty for terrorists; Smotrich demands call to include Jews who spy for Iran After passing a first out of three necessary readings in the Knesset last week, the “death penalty for terrorists” bill was discussed during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. The discussion touched on several controversial aspects of the law. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich explicitly called for the measure to be extended to Jews who spy for the Iranian regime.
Netanyahu nixes Palestinian State even at expense of Saudi normalization The answer is: “A Palestinian state will not be established. It is an existential threat to Israel.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he will not accept the creation of a Palestinian state under any circumstances — even if the decision blocks a long-sought normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia.
Hamas terrorists trapped in Rafah tunnels ‘out of contact’ – Israel believes many have been killed Israel has hit Rafah targets several times in recent weeks in response to Hamas ceasefire violations. Israeli defense sources now estimate that a significant portion of the Hamas fighters sealed inside tunnels in the Rafah area have been eliminated in recent days during ongoing IDF offensive operations.
Knesset backs bill to cut off water, electricity to UNRWA The legislation would also make it easier for Israel to seize UNRWA-owned buildings in Jerusalem over the UN agency’s ties to terror. The Israeli legislature voted 28-8 in the bill’s first reading, sending it to the Knesset’s House Committee for deliberations prior to the second and third readings.
Hurricane Melissa’s 252-mph wind gust sets new record The National Center for Atmospheric Research has confirmed that a 252-mph wind gust was measured in Hurricane Melissa, setting a new record for the highest wind speed reported by a dropsonde — a weather instrument released by Hurricane Hunter aircraft.
Dallas-Fort Worth sets two rain records in a single day Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport recorded 3.95 inches (100.3 mm) of rain on November 20, 2025, setting new records for both daily rainfall and the wettest November day on record.
Report Warns Muslim Brotherhood is Infiltrating US Colleges to ‘Transform Western Society from Within’ The Muslim Brotherhood is 50 years into a 100-year plan to “transform Western society from within” by infiltrating US colleges as well as other institutions, according to a new scathing report from the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), titled “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Strategic Entryism into Western Society: A Systematic Analysis.”
Nonprofit Accused of Harvesting Living Donor’s Organs The House Ways and Means Committee is demanding the New Jersey Organ and Tissue Sharing Network explain itself after nearly a dozen whistleblowers accused the nonprofit of serious medical ethics violations, including attempting to harvest organs from a person who was showing signs of life.
A 1957 book by Ayn Rand describes the plan to declare war on “fossil fuels” In 1978, John Todd spoke about plans laid out in a 1957 book by Ayn Rand, a mistress of Phillip Rothschild, about the Illuminati raising oil prices and then later destroying the oil fields and completely shutting down the coal industry. This is one of the aims of the climate change cult. Is it merely a coincidence?
Stop The Presses – And Start Telling The Truth About Bias So it might seem, now that Bari Weiss has been appointed editor-in-chief of CBS News. Another sign is Jeff Bezos’s decision to reorient the Washington Post’s opinion page. The hope is that both outlets will move away from their blatant far-left coverage, not only bringing in some right-leaning voices, but restoring some measure of objective journalism. Other outlets are wondering if they should follow suit.
18 Christian leaders arrested in China amid crackdown on churches Leaders of a Chinese house church have been arrested for purportedly “illegally using information networks” in what looks to be part of a broader crackdown by the CCP on non-state-sanctioned Christian denominations.
Crooks Is Another Black Eye for the Bureau Douglas Andrews The FBI’s failure to come clean about Thomas Crooks and the near-assassination of Donald Trump isn’t just an embarrassment — it’s an outrage.
Jockeying for the Epstein Advantage Nate Jackson Congress nearly unanimously passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, forcing the Justice Department to release all material on the late pedophile and his connections.
Redistricting Battle Heats Up Thomas Gallatin In yet another judicial roadblock for Donald Trump and Republicans, a federal court blocks Texas’s new congressional map, citing racial discrimination.
Working With the Saudis Is Crucial Sophie Starkova By hosting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, President Trump secured greater investment in the U.S. and cooperation on key Middle East initiatives.
Ramping Up Against Venezuela Nate Jackson The Trump administration is becoming more aggressive in its approach to the socialist regime of Nicolás Maduro and his drug cartel terrorists.
Getting the GOP Back on Track Brian Mark Weber What voters see right now is Republicans acting more like the minority party and sleeping on the job. Let’s hope the new year brings a renewed sense of urgency.
The Scummy Six Insurrectionists Douglas Andrews An inciteful video produced by Democrat Senator Elissa Slotkin and five fellow lawmakers shows the depths to which their party will sink in order to oppose Donald Trump.
Zeldin Cleans Up the WOTUS Thomas Gallatin The EPA has proposed an update to the Waters of the United States rule, which the Obama administration ludicrously expanded and the Supreme Court subsequently ordered revised.
Therapist Says Growing Number of Patients Suffer From TDS Samantha Koch TDS may not be a recognized disorder, but its presence in therapy sessions, commentary, and proposed policy suggests that the emotional toll on society is significant.
Please help your Patriot Team hold the line! One of the most cost-effective ways you can extend the blessings of Liberty to the next generation is to support our 2025 Year-End Campaign! The Patriot Post is entirely funded by American Patriots like you. Please make your gift today and ensure that our defense of Liberty remains strong — and the ranks of American Patriots continue to grow! Thank you for your investment in our mission! —The Patriot Post Editorial Team
‘Tis the Season for TDS Family Fractures Mark Alexander At the end of the year, when families gather to celebrate and give thanks, unfortunately, some gatherings reveal broken relationships for reasons that were inconceivable a decade ago.
A Dystopian AI Grandmother Isn’t Progress Emmy Griffin Modern-day spiritualism looks a lot like a creepy AI-generated avatar of your dead grandmother talking to your kids.
Snapping Shut the Food Stamps Purse Douglas Andrews Finally, after the Schumer Shutdown fiasco, a presidential administration has seen fit to reform our nation’s wildly popular food-stamp program.
Artificial Intelligence Threatens White-Collar Jobs Thomas Gallatin Economists and developers are warning of a rapidly approaching jobs crisis, as AI is poised to eliminate thousands of entry-level white-collar jobs.
Cash Where Credit Is Due? Michael Swartz As credit card giants rake in processing fees, there’s a movement and even legal settlements urging consumers to stop swiping the plastic for every purchase.
Texas and the Islamification Problem Emmy Griffin Islamists are trying to mess with Texas. So the Lone Star State, led by Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, is fighting back.
The Catholic Bishops Weigh In Jack DeVine In a nutshell, the USCCB’s special message is that the Catholic bishops abhor every aspect of current U.S. policy on immigration. All of it.
The 50-Year-Mortgage Boondoggle Emmy Griffin One can comprehend why the Trump administration is suggesting it. But adding yet another regressive debt burden is not sustainable.
A New Ice Age? Thomas Gallatin As if we’ve entered a time warp to the 1970s, the latest instance of climate alarmism claims a new ice age could soon be upon us.
Cultural Superiority Michael Smith The law of large numbers may buffer the dominant culture from collapse, but deviation from tested norms punishes everyone, regardless of color.
Profiles of Valor: PFC Carlos Lozada Mark Alexander “PFC Lozada remained in an exposed position and continued to pour deadly fire upon the enemy despite the urgent pleas of his comrades to withdraw.”
QUOTES Lack of Self-Awareness Award “That attitude that you can make a president or a party unsuccessful, no matter what damage it might do to the country, because it’s good politics — we have to get past that ruinous idea. … We have to figure out a way to stop viewing each other as our enemy.” —Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who led the Russia collusion hoax Leftist Hysteria “If you don’t put constraints on Donald Trump’s illegality, this democracy isn’t going to be here next November. It isn’t going to be here in 2028.” —Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) Non Compos Mentis “I’m not saying that Donald Trump is Hitler, because Hitler had an ideology. Okay? And he had a grand plan. Donald Trump is purely corrupt. Donald Trump is a narcissistic sociopath.” —Hunter Biden Pot Calling the Kettle Black “There’s no ethics in … someone as horrendously ugly as Miranda Devine — physically and in terms of her ethics.” —Hunter “Crackpipe” Biden Huh? Q: “Why wouldn’t [the Epstein files] have been released the last four years when President Biden was in office?” —a reporter A: “That’s the question every American is asking. … Why doesn’t he want them released?” —Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) Who Broke It, Hakeem? “We have a broken healthcare system, and unfortunately, Republicans have decided to break it even further.” —House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) Intraparty Squabbles “He doesn’t inspire confidence. He’s not bold. He’s out of touch with the grassroots. He’s someone who cheer-led us into the war in Iraq. He doesn’t have the moral clarity on Gaza. He couldn’t say [Zohran] Mamdani’s name. And this was the final straw, where he was not strong on fighting for healthcare.” —Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) on Chuck Schumer “I was absolutely furious — I still am — that they folded when I feel like we just had gotten the momentum, the wind behind our sails.” —Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) on the Schumer Shutdown Enemies Within “This is a city of international law, and being a city of international law means looking to uphold international law. And that means upholding the warrants from the International Criminal Court, whether they’re for Benjamin Netanyahu or Vladimir Putin.” —New York City Socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani What Could Possible Go Wrong? “We cannot allow giant grocery chains to stomp all over our communities, close stores at will, and leave behind food deserts.” —Seattle Socialist Mayor-elect Katie Wilson three months ago What? “I feel painful about families of 9/11 in America, but you know we have to focus on reality.” —Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman If the Shoe Fits “I say this is a party that’s got room for Marjorie Taylor Greene if she wants to come over.” —Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) Spin Doctors “We have never before seen in this country a blatant use of criminal justice to achieve political ends.” —defense attorney Michael Dreeben referring not to the spurious court cases brought against Donald Trump but the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey for lying under oath “Biden and his officials were pointing to actual data that did indeed seem to paint a relatively positive picture of the economy. Trump and company, by contrast, are simply lying.” —economist Paul Krugman Braying Jenny “Let me explain something to white people. Our hair comes out of our head naturally in a curly pattern, so when we’re straightening it to follow your beauty standards, we are trapped by the straightness. … Braids are for y’all so we can work harder and focus on the work. … Don’t tell me how to wear my hair. Don’t wonder about it. Don’t touch it.” —Michelle Obama “As we saw in this past election, sadly, we ain’t ready [for a woman president]. That’s why I’m like, don’t even look at me about running because you all are lying. You’re not ready for a woman. You are not. You know, we’ve got a lot of growing up to do, and there’s still, sadly, a lot of men who do not feel like they can be led by a woman, and we saw it.” —Michelle Obama Race Bait “Because of my lived experience as an Afro-Latina, I’m able to look at this world with a different prism, and I’m able to tell this country and tell this audience and tell my fellow co-hosts some uncomfortable truths. This is a country based on racism and slavery and founded in it. There is systemic racism and misogyny.” —”The View” co-host Sunny Hostin “I think it’s ridiculous that people don’t see what this country was founded on and what this country still is sickened with.” —Sunny Hostin Leftist Projection “When I see the Riley Gaines of the world … I think you are a walking, talking advertisement on why not to be a Christian. I mean, there’s no empathy. There’s no room that maybe not everybody’s the same.” —podcaster Jennifer Welch Re: The Gender Cult “If I saw a penis in the ladies’ locker room, I would freak out too.” —Joy Reid admitting that perhaps “trans women” aren’t women after all Letting the Mask Slip “I actually disavow the use of the term ‘the melting pot.’ I actually don’t like it.” —Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, who earlier this year told a Christian minister that he was not welcome in the city over his objection to naming a street for a jihadi Shot/Chaser “The Left certainly stayed scientific.” —actor Patton Oswalt “Parents should ask babies for ‘consent’ before changing their diapers: experts.” —New York Post headline
War Secretary Kristi Noem announced that federal grant funding to nongovernmental organizations accused of assisting illegal immigration has been halted, telling Fox News host Will Cain that the move follows a review of how taxpayer dollars were being used by agencies distributing grants.
Noem said the action was taken to stop federal money from supporting operations she described as contributing to illegal border crossings.
“Today, we are announcing that we have stopped all grant funding that’s being abused by NGOs to facilitate illegal immigration into this country,” Noem said.
While global focus has shifted to other crises, Iran has rapidly and aggressively been accelerating its ballistic missile production at the speed of light.
If the West is serious about stopping Iran’s missile expansion, dismantling these missile networks must be part of the strategy. Every intercepted shipment delays Tehran’s ambitions and weakens its ability to radiate threats.
The US should have let Israel keep on going when it wanted to, after the Trump administration took out three of Iran’s nuclear plants: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows what he is doing.
Iran must not be allowed to grow stronger, more dangerous, and more emboldened. The stakes are global, affecting every nation that depends on a secure free world.
U.S. warships approach the Venezuelan coast. The Marines on board are poised to invade if Trump gives the order. Nicolas Maduro’s regime may be nearing its end. Latino Wall Street CEO and analyst Tony Delgado contends Maduro is an illegitimate president who kidnaps and jails his opponents, and “Most Latinos would agree. We would be happy to see his era come to an end.” CBN News. Because Truth Matters
During the 43-day democrat-led government shutdown that solved nothing, the most pressing news stemmed from the reports that 42,200,000 (millions) of Americans could not access their EBT cards, food stamps, WIC, ADC, SNAP and other food assistants.
“Programs for food assistance in the U.S. include the Supplemental Nutritional. Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides electronic benefits for groceries and Special Supplemental Nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which offers food, nutrition education, and referrals to low-income pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding individuals and children up to age 5. Other programs include the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), for food banks, and the Child and Adult care Food program (CACFP), for care centers, and the. Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) for low income seniors.”
Cost to the American taxpayer?
In fiscal year 2024, the cost to American taxpayers for food stamps was approximately $103.3 billion. This spending covered monthly benefits (the majority of costs) and administrative expenses for states, nutrition education, and employment programs. Federal spending has decreased from pandemic highs of around $128 billion in 2021.
Dear reader, that’s a lot of money you pay for endless millions of people to eat off your work, off your taxes, off your life.
Let’s see, you pay for 400,000 anchor babies and their illegal alien mothers, annually, added to our tax burden. When you start adding up that each mother and her child live off your tax dollars for 18 years, it starts to hurt when you’re working eight hours a day and 50 weeks a year. Worse, those anchor babies into the millions of them, enjoy “free” breakfasts and lunches on your dollar. For them, it’s a gravy train; for you, it’s a heavy load.
Even more distressing, 1.1 million legal immigrants arrive annually into America without education, work skills, and/or any kind of personal accountability to care for themselves. When you look at the 300,000 Muslims in Detroit, Michigan and the 125,000 Muslim Somalians in Minneapolis, they enjoy SSI benefits that they soak-up for decades as they sit on their butts doing nothing. Throw in another 1,000,000 legal immigrant Muslims in New York City living off your tax dollars, and the price begins to climb higher and higher.
What about those 42 million people sucking off the government teat each day of the year? If we look at the educational nightmare spreading across America like an illiteracy plague, we’ve got millions of kids who cannot read, write or perform simple math. We’ve got 7 out of 10 African-American children growing up with single mothers utilizing EBT food stamps by the millions. The trouble is…those kids of those mothers grow up to repeat the same cycle of illiteracy and government assistance whether it’s food, clothing or housing.
It reminds me of the time when I worked for United Van Lines with the Corrigan Moving Systems of Detroit, Michigan as my summer job from teaching. After finishing loading 15,000 pound headed for Miami during a 12 hour day, I walked into Kroger’s to stock my 64 quart cooler with food for the 40 hour trip to South Florida. I happened to look at the Detroit Free Press where one minority woman just birthed her 24th child on ADC. Yours and my tax dollars paid for their births, food, housing, schooling and medical care for the next 18 years.
I stood there muttering, “I’m working 18 hours of hard labor a day to pay for this lady to have 24 kids…what’s wrong with this picture?”
So, I ask you, “What is wrong with this picture of 42 million people living off our tax dollars?”
THEN THERE IS THE MASSIVE FRAUD GOING ON
As reported by Will Cain, FoxNews, 11/20/24, Minneapolis, MN Somalian immigrants both legal and illegal have transferred $1.7 billion to Somalia from funds meant for Minnesota’s Autism victims. Two years ago, another $200,000.00 (million) was swept up in fraudulent EBT card scams and sent to Somalia. This year, $9 million in Medicaid fraud. While most of them are illiterate, they’ve found ways to outfox our own brilliant minds in government. Why didn’t Governor Walz prosecute the scammers? Answer: he didn’t want to be called a ‘racist’.
When it comes to 42 million people on food stamps, we’re talking about millions of fraudsters.
Why haven’t our brilliant Congressional critters in DC created mandatory “Workfare for Welfare” bills to get those lazy, do nothing, financial blood-suckers into jobs? Why haven’t they put limits on any women having 24 kids? Maybe offer her $50,000.00 for a voluntary tubal ligation. That would save her and save all of us the cyclical nightmare of fatherless children, criminal enterprises and a host of other consequences we’re all paying for with our taxes.
Work provides persons with meaning in their lives. Eight hours of work gives a person a place to go. It gives community. It gives that person an opportunity to contribute to the American Dream, to live the American Dream. It provides a house or apartment, and food to eat. It means movies, trips, weekends to travel and a host of possibilities in our nation.
While our government spends trillions of dollars on going to the moon or traveling to Mars, we’ve got a lot of “Social Rot” in our major cities.
Take Chicago, Illinois: it’s a hell hole of 20 to 60 shootings every weekend of the year. Thousands of innocent-violent youth have been killed in the past decade. It’s a killing zone. Its schools are not graduating kids with any tools to deal with living in America. Maybe we should be spending more money to enhance the kids in our cities who are lost, drugged-up, fatherless, addicted to 7 hours and 22 minutes a day on their cell phones, and another dozen consequences experienced in Chicago and other large cities.
Why don’t we create solutions by annual conferences attended by the best educational minds, the best health minds, the best psychologists, the best athletic trainers, and the best sports heroes in our country? We need to inspire, encourage and motivate our youth.
EDUCATION OF OUR YOUTH IS THE KEY TO OUR FUTURE
Because if we don’t, what happens when the food stamps hit 50 million or 75 million or even 100 million people who are lost in the dregs of America? What happens when our 773,000 homeless Americans become 1 or 2 or 3 million homeless? What happens when Chicago’s or New Orleans’ murder rates reach into the hundreds every weekend?
At what point DO we DO SOMETHING? At what point do we, as Americans, demand solutions from our leaders?
Because right now, we’re kicking the can down the road. And, the road is going to get bumpier and bumper. It will lead the same disaster as the Baltimore Bridge that collapsed when a cargo ship smashed into it two years ago. Simple solutions to safeguard the bridge would have been cheaper than the $5 billion to reconstruct it.
Again: EDUCATION OF OUR YOUTH IS THE KEY TO OUR FUTURE
It deductively postulates that a large percentage of the population is oppressed by racism and sexism, mostly by white males.
DEI makes no allowance for the class or wealth of the alleged victims or their supposed victimizers.
So once that rigid party line is set, it cannot account for tens of millions of affluent and privileged non-white Americans or like numbers of poor and non-privileged whites.
Mrs. Obama cannot finish an interview without whining about the racism she allegedly encountered as the once most influential and powerful woman in the United States.
According to Michelle, she was not given the exemptions that other white first ladies received.
She did not get enough free stuff for the First Family.
She had to hire three stylists daily to straighten her hair to meet “white” expectations—as if also Asians and Hispanics do not have straight hair, or many whites do not have hard-to-comb curly hair.
Indeed, she now claims blacks cannot even swim because of white-induced pressures to maintain dry and straight hair.
Because her DEI creed ignores class and wealth, Michelle has no idea how absurd she sounds.
She and husband, former President Barack Obama, own three estates in addition to their former Chicago home, together valued somewhere around $40 million.
Their net worth is estimated at between $70 million and $100 million. They fly private, surrounded by a throng of Secret Service guardians.
The more Michelle clings to the fossilized dogma of unchanging racial victimization, the more she becomes ridiculous or offensive.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is another rigid ideology that deductively mandates that Donald Trump is evil and thus must be exposed as such by any means necessary.
Sometimes, such Pavlovian hatred so blinds the Left to evidence that it becomes oblivious to its own suicidal choices.
Take the “Epstein files.”
For four years, the Joe Biden administration had no desire to release any names that appeared in the thousands of the infamous Jeffrey Epstein’s emails and text messages under its control.
To the extent that Trump’s name leaked out of the files, most had agreed on the mostly innocuous circumstances of the references.
There was not just a lack of evidence that Trump was ever entrapped by the spider-like Epstein’s blackmail webs.
In fact, eventually, Trump ostracized Epstein well before he was convicted and jailed.
Had he been compromised, the Democrats—who raided the Trump home, tried to de-ballot him, and used lawfare to drag him into five different local, state, and federal courtrooms—would have released the files in a nanosecond.
So when Trump continued the prior Biden policy of keeping the files private, the Left mindlessly shouted that the hated Trump must be hiding his own culpability.
They shrilly demanded that he release all the files—without a second thought about the reasons why their fellow Democrats had previously kept them private.
So a compliant but cagey Trump has begun releasing the trove of documents.
The evidence does not reveal any new Trump bombshells. Instead, there are lots of new references to the Democrats, like the former Harvard President Larry Summers.
A Democrat member of Congress, Delegate Stacey Plaskett of the U.S. Virgin Islands, is exposed in the files as a partisan, compliant tool of the predator Epstein.
In her hatred of Trump, the files show Plaskett texting for live prompts from the odious Epstein as he tutors her on how best to coax a congressional witness to demonize none other than Trump.
Was there not a single cool Democrat head who could have seen where the party’s obsessions with Trump were headed?
Similarly, Democrats embrace climate-change orthodoxy—regardless of the obvious contradictions and paradoxes that follow.
Climate change religion exposes Democrat grandees like the shore-residing Obamas, the jet-setting Al Gore and John Kerry, and the multi-estate-owning Nancy Pelosi.
All fly on private jets. They heat and cool with fossil fuels their various energy-guzzling huge homes—while demanding hoi polloi turn down their air conditioners or give up their diesel pickups.
But even green guru billionaire Bill Gates has become conflicted and a climate apostate. Why?
Wind and solar “renewables” will never supply left-wing techies like Gates the additional 100 gigawatts of electrical generation per year that they need to fulfill their lucrative artificial intelligence dreams.
Nor does climate orthodoxy make allowances for vastly more U.S. oil and gas production to supply a left-wing, but energy-short Europe, or to flood the world with cheap energy to bankrupt Vladimir Putin’s oil and gas exporting Russia.
The problem with a party line is that it is deductive, not inductive.
Ideology makes facts fit dogmas, rather than evidence leading empirically to conclusions.
So inflexible cults like climate-change orthodoxy, DEI, and Trump Derangement Syndrome make their adherents look utterly ridiculous.
(C)2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfeld bring Fox News viewers their fresh takes on the top news of the day. #fox #media #breakingnews #us #usa #new #news #breaking #foxnews #theingrahamangle #jessewattersprimetime #hannity #gutfeld #lauraingraham #jessewatters #seanhannity #greggutfeld #politics #political #politicalnews #government #commentary #talkshow #tv #anchors #opinion
OPINION: Why let radical activist narcissists ‘teach’ your kids day in and day out … especially in a red state?
Studies indicate American parents are voting with their feet when it comes to their children’s schooling.
Since 2019, traditional public schools have lost over a million kids, while those being homeschooled increased by almost two million, and enrollment in private/charter schools saw increases of up to four percent and 15 percent respectively.
How can this be? The American Federation of Teachers’ Randi Weingarten and the National Education Association’s Becky Pringle constantly tell us how great our public school teachers are.
Of course, Weingarten (pictured) and Pringle are hard-leftists. Nevertheless, I’d wager most Americans wouldn’t care much that their kids’ teachers are progressive — provided they keep their yap shut about their politics and don’t try to indoctrinate their charges.
The actual title should be ‘Why Normal People Fear Radical Narcissists’; C3/X
But, unfortunately, this seems to be happening more and more. A situation in Oklahoma provides some insight.
In response to a state law (House Bill 1775 which The Oklahoman claims “prohibits schools from covering certain concepts on race and gender”), English teacher Summer Boismier erected a protest of sortsin her classroom by covering up bookshelves with butcher paper complete with marquees of “Books the state doesn’t want you to read.”
Make good note of that message.
Boismier also included a QR code for students which directs to the Brooklyn Public Library’s collection of “banned” books.
Now, what does Oklahoma’s HB 1775 actually say? Here’s the relevant part for the public school teachers:
No teacher, administrator or other employee of a school district, charter school or virtual charter school shall require or make part of a course the following concepts:
— one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex,
— an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously,
— an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex,
— members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex,
— an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex,
— an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex,
— any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex, or
— meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist or were created by members of a particular race to oppress members of another race.
Regular readers of The College Fix will recognize much of this contradicts critical theory, especially critical race theory, and hence this is why leftists are up in arms. Boismier even told her students the law was a “bigoted effort to legislate values.”
The marquees on Boismier’s bookshelf coverings (again, “Books the state doesn’t want you to read”) seem to me a tacit admission she was breaking the law (HB 1775). In essence, Boismier pulled a Larry Bird in the ’87 NBA Finals — when he literally told the Lakers right before his game-winning shot how he would do it.
The still-novice educator Boismier — garbed in an “Educating is Activism” shirt — told The Oklahoman “I can’t think of a single example in history where the folks who have been banning the books turn out to be the quote-unquote good guys. I am wholesale opposed to restricting access to information.”
And then the exclamation point: “As far as ideology goes, I do believe the classroom is an inherently political space. I do not mean partisan. Speaking is political, but silence is also political. If I had no choice but to be political, I’m going to err on the side of compassion and inclusivity.”
Although critics have said HB 1775 is “alarmingly vague,” the prohibition against critical theory-style brainwashing seems clear enough to me. Former Oklahoma Education Secretary Ryan Walters said “Teachers can know as long as they teach academics without indoctrination they’re fine.”
Boismier ended up opting to resign her teaching position after a meeting with district officials regarding her “protest.” She then had her teaching license revoked in mid-2024. After some time away, Boismier returned to the Sooner State and said she’d “like to return to teaching” now that Walters has moved on from his position.
But she’s suing Walters and members of the State Board of Education in federal court claiming they “should have known they were breaking the law” when they revoked her license. Boismier earlier had sued Walters for defamation, but that case was dismissed.
Boismier added she’ll “continue her legal fight ‘however long it takes,’” literally playing the role of a social justice warrior.
Who knows how her situation ultimately will play out. One thing’s for certain, however: If Boismier’s successful — gets her teaching license back and gets back into a classroom — controversy surely will continue to follow her. Oklahoma, after all, is a heavily red state that Donald Trump won 66 percent to 32 percent last year.
Alas, social justice warriors thrive on such. They know better than you, and constantly want to prove it. And this is what university education departments are unleashing upon the public more and more.
Thank goodness, at least for now, Americans can still choose to avoid them.
We’re told over and over again by the media that climate change is the biggest, most imminent threat to the future health, stability, and happiness of mankind and everything else that lives on earth. But is it really climate change or is it climate science that’s the real threat to our future?
Well, the science of climate change is very much a science involving a lot of interpretation. Many of the conclusions presented as facts to the public are nothing more than the results of computer models—and models are only as good as the data they receive and how that data is interpreted! And it’s humans—fallible humans who don’t know everything and are biased—who decide which data points to include and how to weight those data points. The result is models that are very worldview dependent. And that’s why the predictions—the so-called facts—are wrong over and over again.
And bear in mind that scientists who disagree with the perceived threat that climate change represents or who give alternative interpretations will likely not receive funding, be published in mainstream journals, or have their scientific careers advanced. There’s a lot of gatekeeping that goes into ensuring the climate hysteria narrative is the only narrative that anyone hears (just as one example, an editor of one journal was fired for publishing an article skeptical of man-made climate change—in a special issue all about various views on the climate!).
What the public, the government, activists, and watchdog groups hear as “scientific fact” or “consensus” matters because those views shape policy—and that policy impacts people.
Climate science isn’t just some theoretical idea with little impact on our day-to-day lives either. What the public, the government, activists, and watchdog groups hear as “scientific fact” or “consensus” matters because those views shape policy—and that policy impacts people.
Consider how the myth of overpopulation and the belief that humans are destroying this planet’s climate and future have resulted in the spread of abortifacient birth control and abortions in developing countries to try to halt population growth.
Or that lack of access to efficient and cheap energy negatively impacts the poorest among us.
Or that fear-mongering causes anxiety and depression in the younger generations, making them believe they have no future—so much so that many are choosing not to have children because the future is so “bleak”!
Yes, climate “science” has real implications that impact real people, and that’s why we care about this issue. You can learn more in this episode of Answers News, our weekly show posted to our YouTube channel every Friday, featuring special guest and wildlife ecologist Jessica DeFord:
Truth2Freedom's Blog 