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 nations around us and all the countries of the world.
You, LORD, rule over the nations: Psalm 22:28(ESV) Who will not fear you, O King of the nations? Jeremiah 10:7(ESV) You sit on the throne, giving righteous judgment; Psalm 9:4(ESV) judge the world therefore with righteousness, and judge the peoples with uprightness. Psalm 9:8(ESV)
Lord, hasten the time when you will make wars cease to the end of the earth; Psalm 46:9(ESV) when nation shall no more lift up sword against nation, nor kingdom against kingdom, but swords shall be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, and they shall not learn war anymore. Isaiah 2:4(ESV)
Make kings foster fathers, and their queens nursing mothers, to the Israel of God. Isaiah 49:23(ESV)
And in the days of these kings, let the God of heaven set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, Daniel 2:44(ESV) even the kingdom of the Redeemer. And whatever purposes there are in men’s minds, Lord, let your purposes stand, Proverbs 19:21(ESV) and fulfill the plans of your heart to all generations. Psalm 33:11(ESV)
For our own land and nation, which we ought in a special manner to seek the welfare of, that in its peace we may have peace.
We must be thankful to God for his mercies to our land.
I bless you that you have planted me on a very fertile hill, Isaiah 5:1(ESV) and have not given the arid plain for my home or the salt land for my dwelling place, Job 39:6(ESV) but the land I inhabit yields her increase. Psalm 85:12(ESV)
Lord, you have been favorable to my land. Psalm 85:1(ESV) I have heard with my ears, and my fathers in the faith have told me, what deeds you performed for your church in their days, and in the times of old; Psalm 44:1(ESV) and as I have heard, so have I seen, for I have thought on your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your temple. Psalm 48:8-9(ESV)
And because the Lord loved my people, therefore he has set a good government over us, to execute justice and righteousness; 1 Kings 10:9(ESV) to be a terror to bad conduct, and a protection and praise to those who do what is good. Romans 13:3(ESV)
We must be humbled before God for our national sins and provocations.
But my nation is a sinful people, a people laden with iniquity, an offspring of evildoers; Isaiah 1:4(ESV) and we have a great deal of reason to sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed among us. Ezekiel 9:4(ESV)
Iniquity abounds among us, and the love of many has grown cold. Matthew 24:12(ESV)
We have not been forsaken nor forgotten by God, though our land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel. Jeremiah 51:5(ESV)
Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
Hebrews 12:12-15
Here the writer summarizes the practical results of trials in our life: They make possible the demonstration of a new kind of living, which is what the world is looking for. The world is not at all impressed with Christians who stop doing something the world is doing. But they are tremendously impressed with Christians who have started living the kind of a life they cannot live. That stops them! That is the life he is setting before us here.
First it starts with correction. …strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, That is, if you keep on going the way you are going it will only get worse — that which is lame will be put out of joint. But stop it and strengthen these things. Stop being so weak, stop being so anxious, so worried. How will the world get the impression that Christ is victor if they look at you and you are always in defeat? Strengthen these things and learn how to live in peace with your neighbor, to live in peace with everyone. And above all, seek to be holy because, without holiness no one will see the Lord.
What does this word mean? Holiness is the exact Greek word that is also translated in this letter sanctification. To sanctify means to put to its proper use. When a man or a woman is believing that Christ indwells him and gives him everything he needs for every minute, he is being put to the proper use, the use for which God intended man. This is holiness, this sense of dependence and availability to God. This is what makes the world sit up and take notice as they see Christians living the kind of life that is always adequate for every circumstance.
The second phrase has to do with our concern for others: See to it that no one fall short of the grace of God. We are not to live our lives to ourselves. Others are looking to us and we have a responsibility to them. He points out the something that will stop the grace of God in any person’s life — bitterness. Bitterness is always wrong. No matter how justified the cause of bitterness may be, to have a bitter attitude as a Christian is always wrong, for resentment and bitterness are always of the flesh. The trouble is, they are highly contagious diseases. If one person is bitter and continues in an unforgiving, bitter spirit, others are infected by this and it spreads and defiles many. This is the problem in many a church today. So, if you see someone around you that has this problem, help him to see that this is a terrible thing that will wreck his life, making it impossible to grow as a Christian.
Here, then, is the ministry we are to have: To have a life in ourselves that is characterized by a display of that holiness, that sanctification, that proper use of our humanity that makes God visible in us, and to manifest it in a deep concern for the welfare of others, that no one else miss the grace of God.
Father, by your Spirit teach me this new kind of living, which will result in me being set apart for exactly those purposes you have created me for.
Life Application
Are we intentionally dependent and available to the power and Presence of the indwelling Lord Jesus Christ? Do we allow bitterness toward others to obstruct God’s grace in us, and through us to others?
3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
God Disciplines His Children
4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”
7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13 “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
Warning and Encouragement
14 Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. 16 See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. 17 Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done.
As with gladness, men of old Did the guiding star behold As with joy they hailed its light Leading onward, beaming bright So, most glorious Lord, may we Evermore be led to Thee.
As with joyful steps they sped To that lowly manger bed There to bend the knee before Him whom Heaven and earth adore; So may we with willing feet Ever seek Thy mercy seat.
As they offered gifts most rare At that manger rude and bare; So may we with holy joy, Pure and free from sin’s alloy, All our costliest treasures bring, Christ, to Thee, our heavenly king.
Holy Jesus, every day Keep us in the narrow way; And, when earthly things are past, Bring our ransomed souls at last Where they need no star to guide, Where no clouds Thy glory hide.
In the heavenly country bright, Need they no created light; Thou its light, its joy, its crown, Thou its sun which goes not down; There forever may we sing Alleluias to our king!
37. What do you understand by the word, “suffered?”
That all the time He lived on earth, but especially at the end of His life, He bore, in body and soul, the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race;1 in order that by His passion, as the only propitiatory sacrifice,2 He has redeemed our body and soul from everlasting damnation,3 and obtain for us the grace of God, righteousness, and eternal life.4
1 Isa 53; 1 Tim 2:6; 1 Pt 2:2-4, 3:18; 2 Rom 3:25; 1 Cor 5:7; Eph 5:2; Heb 10:14; 1 Jn 2:2, 4:10; 3 Rom 8:1-4; Gal 3:13; Col 1:13; Heb 9:12; 1 Pt 1:18-19; 4 Jn 3:16; Rom 3:24-26; 2 Cor 5:21; Heb 9:15
38. Why did He suffer “under Pontius Pilate,” as judge?
Though innocent, Christ was condemned by an earthly judge,1 to deliver us from the severe judgment of God that was to fall on us.2
1 Lk 23:13-24; Jn 19:4, 12-16; 2 Isa 53:4-5; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13
39. Does it have a special meaning that Christ was “crucified” and did not die in a different way?
Yes, for thereby I am assured, that He took upon Himself the curse which lay upon me; because the death of the cross was accursed of God.1
Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)
It might seem almost a work of supererogation to answer a question like this. We hear the word, “Gospel” used so many times. People talk of this and of that as being “as true as the Gospel,” and I often wonder what they really mean by it.
Our English word, “gospel” just means the “good spell,” and the word “spell,” is the old Anglo-Saxon word for, “tidings,” the good tidings, the good news. The original word translated. “Gospel,” which we have taken over into the English with little alteration is the word, “evangel,” and it has the same meaning, the good news. The Gospel is God’s good news for sinners. The Bible contains the Gospel, but there is a great deal in the Bible which is not Gospel.
First I should like to indicate what it is not.
THE GOSPEL IS…
Not The Commandments
The Gospel is not just any message from God telling man how he should behave. “What is the Gospel?” I asked a man this question some time ago, and he answered, “Why I should say it is the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, and I think if a man lives up to them he is all right.”
Well, I fancy he would be; but did you ever know anybody who lived up to them? The Sermon on the Mount demands a righteousness which no unregenerate man has been able to produce. The law is not the Gospel; it is the very antitheses of the Gospel. In fact, the law was given by God to show men their need for the Gospel.
“The law,” says the apostle Paul, speaking as a Jewish convert, “was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. But after that Christ is come we are no longer under the schoolmaster.”
Not Repentance
The Gospel is not a call to repentance, or to amendment of our ways, to make restitution for past sins, or to promise to do better in the future. These things are proper in their place, but they do not constitute the Gospel; for the Gospel is not good advice to be obeyed, it is good news to be believed. Do not make the mistake then of thinking that the Gospel is a call to duty or a call to reformation, a call to better your condition, to behave yourself in a more perfect way than you have been doing in the past.
Not Giving Up The World
Nor is the Gospel a demand that you give up the world, that you give up your sins, that you break off bad habits, and try to cultivate good ones. You may do all these things, and yet never believe the Gospel and consequently never be saved at all.
There are seven designations of the Gospel in the New Testament, but over and above all these, let me draw your attention to the fact that when this blessed message is mentioned, it is invariably accompanied by the definite article. Over and over and over again in the New Testament we read of the Gospel. It is the Gospel, not a Gospel. People tell us there are a great many different Gospels; but there is only ONE.
When certain teachers came to the Galatians and tried to turn them away from the simplicity that was in Christ Jesus by teaching “another Gospel, “the apostle said that it was a different gospel, but not another; for there is none other than the Gospel. It is downright exclusive; it is God’s revelation to sinful man.
Not Comparative Religion
The scholars of this world talk of the Science of Comparative Religions, and it is very popular now-a-days to say, “We cannot any longer go to heathen nations and preach to them as in the days gone by, because we are learning that their religions are just as good as ours, and the thing to do now is to share with them, to study the different religions, take the good out of them all, and in this way lead the world into a sense of brotherhood and unity.”
So in our great universities and colleges, men study this Science of Comparative Religions, and they compare all these different religious systems one with another. There is a Science of Comparative Religions, but the Gospel is not one of them. All the different religions in the world may well be studied comparatively, for at rock bottom they are all alike; they all set man at trying to earn his own salvation.
They may be called by different names, and the things that men are called to do may be different in each case, but they all set men trying to save their own souls and earn their way into the favor of God. In this they stand in vivid contrast with the Gospel, for the Gospel is that glorious message that tells us what God has done for us in order that guilty sinners maybe saved.
The seven designations of the Gospel are called—
1. The Gospel of the Kingdom
When I use that term, I am not thinking particularly of any dispensational application but of this blessed truth that it is only through believing the Gospel that men are born into the Kingdom of God; We sing: “A ruler once came to Jesus by night, To ask Him the way of salvation and light; The Master made answer in words true and plain, ‘ye must be born again.’ “But neither Nicodemus, nor you, nor I, could ever bring this about ourselves.”
We had nothing to with our first birth and can have nothing to do with our second birth. It must be the work of God, and it is wrought through the Gospel. That is why the Gospel is called the Gospel of the Kingdom, for, “Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God” (John 3:3, 7).
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. . . And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you. (1 Peter 1:23-25)
Everywhere that Paul and his companion apostles went, they preached the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, and they showed that the only way to get into that Kingdom was by a second birth, and that the only way whereby the second birth could be brought about was through believing the Gospel. It is the Gospel of the Kingdom.
2. The Gospel of God
It is also called the Gospel of God because God is the source of it, and it is altogether of Himself. No man ever thought of a Gospel like this. The very fact that all the religions of the world set man to try to work for his own salvation indicates the fact that no man would ever have dreamed of such a Gospel as that which is revealed in this Book. It came from the heart of God; it was God who “so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He first loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9,10)
And because it is the Gospel of God, God is very jealous of it. He wants it kept pure. He does not want it mixed with any of man’s theories or laws; He does not want it mixed up with religious ordinances or anything of that kind. The Gospel is God’s own pure message to sinful man. God grant that you and I may receive it as in very truth the Gospel of God. And then it is called
3. The Gospel of His Son
Not merely because the Son went everywhere preaching the Gospel, but because He is the theme of it. “When it pleased God,” says the apostle, “who called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him among the nations; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood” (Galatians 1:15,16). “We preach Christ crucified . . . the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23, 24). No man preaches the Gospel who is not exalting the Lord Jesus.
It is God’s wonderful message about His Son. How often I have gone to meetings where they told me I would hear the Gospel, and instead of that I have heard some bewildered preacher talk to a bewildered audience about everything and anything, but the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel has to do with nothing else but Christ. It is the Gospel of God’s Son. And so, linked with this it is called:
4. The Gospel of Christ
The apostle Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost of the risen Savior, says, “God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). And He speaks of Him as the anointed One, exalted at God’s right hand. The Gospel is the Gospel of the Risen Christ. There would be no Gospel for sinners if Christ had not been raised.
So the apostle says, “If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). A great New York preacher, great in his impertinence, at least, said some years ago, preaching a so-called Easter sermon, “The body of Jesus still sleeps in a Syrian tomb, but His soul goes marching on.” That is not the Gospel of Christ. We are not preaching the Gospel of a dead Christ, but of a living Christ who sits exalted at the Father’s right hand, and is living to save all who put their trust in Him.
That is why those of us who really know the Gospel never have any crucifixes around our churches or in our homes. The crucifix represents a dead Christ hanging languid on a cross of shame. But we are not pointing men to a dead Christ; we are preaching a living Christ. He lives exalted at God’s right hand, and He saves all who come to God by Him.
5. The Gospel of the Grace of God
The Gospel is also called the Gospel of the Grace of God because it leaves no room whatsoever for human merit. It just brushes away all man’s pretension to any goodness, to any desert excepting judgment. It is the Gospel of grace, and grace is God’s free unmerited favor to those who have merited the very opposite. It is as opposite to works as oil is to water.” If by grace,” says the Spirit of God, “then it is no more works . . . but if it be of works, then is it no more grace” (Romans 11:6). People say, “But you must have both.”
I have heard it put like this: there was a boatman and two theologians in a boat, and one was arguing that salvation was by faith and the other by works. The boatman listened, and then said, “Let me tell you how it looks to me. Suppose I call this oar Faith and this one Works. If I pull on this one, the boat goes around; if I pull on this other one, it goes around the other way, but if I pull on both oars, I get you across the river.”
I have heard many preachers use that illustration to prove that we are saved by faith and works. That might do if we were going to Heaven in a rowboat, but we are not. We are carried on the shoulders of the Shepherd, who came seeking lost sheep. When He finds them, He carries them home on His shoulders.
But there are some other names used. It is called:
6. The Gospel of the Glory of God
I love that name. It is the Gospel of the Glory of God because it comes from the place where our Lord Jesus has entered. The veil has been rent, and now the glory shines out; and whenever this Gospel is proclaimed, it tells of a way into the glory for sinful man, a way to come before the Mercy Seat purged from every stain. It is the Gospel of the Glory of God, because, until Christ had entered into the Glory, it could not be preached in its fullness, but, after the glory received Him, then the message went out to a lost world.
7. The Everlasting Gospel
It is also called the Everlasting Gospel because it will never be superseded by another. No other ever went before it, and no other shall ever come after it. One of the professors of the University of Chicago wrote a book in which he tried to point out that some of these days Jesus would be superseded by a greater teacher; then He and the Gospel that He taught would have to give way to a message which would be more suited to the intelligence of the cultivated men of the later centuries.
No, no, were it possible for this world to go on a million years, it would never need any other Gospel than this preached by the apostle Paul and confirmed with signs following; the Gospel, which throughout the centuries has been saving guilty sinners.
THE GOSPEL DECLARED
What then is the content of this Gospel? We are told right here:
I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:1-2)
There is such a thing as merely believing with the intelligence and crediting some doctrine with the mind when the heart has not been reached. But wherever men believe this Gospel in real faith, they are saved through the message.
What is it that brings this wonderful result? It is a simple story, and yet how rich, how full. “I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received” (1 Corinthians 15:3). I think Paul’s heart must have been stirred as he wrote those words, for he went back in memory to nearly thirty years before and thought of that day when hurrying down the Damascus turnpike, with his heart filled with hatred toward the Lord Jesus Christ and His people, he was thrown to the ground, and a light shone, and he heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” And he cried, “Who art thou Lord?” And the voice said, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” (Acts 9:4-5)
And that day Saul learned the Gospel; he learned that He who died on the Cross had been raised from the dead, and that He was living in the Glory. At that moment, his soul was saved, and Saul of Tarsus was changed to Paul, the apostle. And now he says, “I am going to tell you what I have received; it is a real thing with me, and I know it will work the same wonderful change in you. If you will believe it. “First of all, “That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” Then, “that He was buried.” Then, “that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.”
The Gospel was no new thing in God’s mind. It had been predicted throughout the Old Testament times. Every time the coming Savior was mentioned, there was proclamation of the Gospel. It began in Eden when the Lord said, “The seed of the woman shall bruise thy head.” It was typified in every sacrifice that was offered. It was portrayed in the wonderful Tabernacle and later in the Temple.
We have it in the proclamation of Isaiah:
He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him: and with His stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)
It was preached by Jeremiah when he said, “This is His Name whereby He shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6). It was declared by Zechariah when he exclaimed, “Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones” (Zechariah 13:7).
All through the Old Testament, the Gospel was predicted, and when Jesus came, the Gospel came with Him. When He died, when He was buried, and when He rose again, the Gospel could be fully told out to a poor lost world. Observe, it says, “that Christ died for our sins.” No man preaches the Gospel, no matter what nice things he may say about Jesus, if he leaves out His vicarious death on Calvary’s Cross.
CHRIST’S DEATH—NOT HIS LIFE
I was preaching in a church in Virginia, and a minister prayed, “Lord, grant Thy blessing as the Word is preached tonight. May it be the means of causing people to fall in love with the Christ-life, that they may begin to live the Christ-life.” I felt like saying, “Brother, sit down; don’t insult God like that;” but then I felt I had to be courteous, and I knew that my turn would come, when I could get up and give them the truth. The Gospel is not asking men to live the Christ-life.
If your salvation depends upon your doing that, you are just as good as checked for Hell, for you never can live it in yourself. It is utterly impossible. But the very first message of the Gospel is the story of the vicarious atonement of Christ. He did not come to tell men how to live in order that they might save themselves; He did not come to save men by living His beautiful life. That, apart from His death, would never have saved one poor sinner. He came to die; He “was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death” (Hebrews 2:9).
Christ Jesus gave Himself a ransom for all. When He instituted the Lord’s Supper He said, “Take, eat: this is My body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me. . . This cup is the new covenant in My Blood” (1 Corinthians 11:24, 25). There is no Gospel if the vicarious death of Jesus is left out, and there is no other way whereby you can be saved than through the death of the blessed spotless Lamb of God.
Someone says, “But I do not understand it.” That is a terrible confession to make, for “If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: (2 Corinthians 4:3). If you do not see that there is no other way of salvation for you, save through the death of the Lord Jesus, then that just tells the sad story that you are among the lost. You are not merely in danger of being lost in the Day of Judgment; but you are lost now. But, thank God, “the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), and seeking the lost He went to the Cross.
None of the ransomed ever know
How deep were the waters crossed;
Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through,
Ere He found the sheep that was lost.1
THE NECESSITY OF DEATH
He had to die, to go down into the dark waters of death, that you might be saved. Can you think of any ingratitude more base than that of a man or woman who passes by the life offered by the Savior who died on the Cross for them? Jesus died for you, and can it be that you have never even trusted Him, never even come to Him and told Him you were a poor, lost, ruined, guilty sinner; but since He died for you, you would take Him as your Savior? HIS DEATH WAS REAL.
He was buried three days in the tomb. He died, He was buried, and that was God’s witness that it was not a merely pretended death, but He, the Lord of Life, had to go down into death. He was held by the bars of death for those three days and nights until God’s appointed time had come.
Then, “Death could not keep its prey, He tore the bars away.”2 And so the third point of the Gospel is this: He was raised again the third day according to the Scriptures. That is the Gospel, and nothing can be added to that. Some people say, “Well, but must I repent?” Yes, you may well repent, but that is not the Gospel. “Must I not be baptized?” If you are a Christian, you ought to be baptized, but baptism is not the Gospel. Paul said, “Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel” (1 Corinthians 1:17).
He did baptize people, but he did not consider that was the Gospel, and the Gospel was the great message that he was sent to carry to the world. This is all there is to it.
Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures . . . he was buried, and . . . he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)
THE GOSPEL ACCEPTED
Look at the result of believing the Gospel. Go back to verse two of 1 Corinthians 15: “By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.” That is, if you believe the Gospel, you are saved; if you believe that Christ died for your sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again, God says you are saved. Do you believe it? No man ever believed that except by the Holy Ghost. It is the Spirit of God that overcomes the natural unbelief of the human heart and enables a man to put his trust in that message.
And this is not mere intellectual credence, but it is that one comes to the place where he is ready to stake his whole eternity on the fact that Christ died, and was buried, and rose again. When Jesus said, “IT IS FINISHED,” the work of salvation was completed. A dear saint was dying, and looking up, he said, “It is finished; on that I can cast my eternity.”
Upon a life I did not live,
Upon a death I did not die;
Another’s life, another’s death,
Is take my whole eternity.3
Can you say that, and say it in faith?
THE GOSPEL REJECTED
What about the man who does not believe the Gospel? The Lord Jesus said to His disciples:
Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. (Mark 16:15-16)
He that believeth not shall be devoted to judgment, condemned, lost. So you see, God has shut us up to the Gospel. Have you believed it? Have you put your trust in it; is it the confidence of your soul?
Or have you been trusting in something else? If you have been resting in anything short of the Christ who died, who was buried, who rose again, I plead with you, turn from every other fancied refuge, and flee to Christ today. “Repent ye, and believe the Gospel” (Mark 1:15).
O, do not let the word depart,
And close thine eyes against the light;
Poor sinner, harden not thy heart,
Be saved, O tonight.4
To order copies of What is the Gospel? in booklet format, click here.
Endnotes:
1. Elizabeth C. Clephane, 1830-1869; The Ninety and Nine
2. Robert Lowry, 1826-1899; Up From the Grave He Arose
3. Horatius Bonar, 1808-1889; Upon a Life I Did Not Life
4. Elizabeth Holmes Reed, 1794-1867; Oh Why Not Tonight?
Harry A. Ironside (1876-1951)
Dr. Ironside was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His writings are in the public domain. To order copies of What is the Gospel? in booklet format, click here.
“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” O glorious verse, no word even upon the inspired page can excel it! Sin is removed from us by a miracle of love! What a load to move, and yet is it removed so far that the distance is incalculable. Fly as far as the wing of imagination can bear you, and if you journey through space eastward, you are further from the west at every beat of your wing. If sin be removed so far, then we may be sure that the scent, the trace, the very memory of it must be entirely gone. If this be the distance of its removal, there is no shade of fear of its ever being brought back again; even Satan himself could not achieve such a task. Our sins are gone, Jesus has borne them away. Far as the place of sunrise is removed from yonder west, where the sun sinks when his day’s journey is done, so far were our sins carried by our scapegoat nineteen centuries ago, and now if they be sought for, they shall not be found, yea, they shall not be, saith the Lord. Come, my soul, awaken thyself thoroughly and glorify the Lord for this richest of blessings. Hallelujah. The Lord alone could remove sin at all, and he has done it in a godlike fashion, making a final sweep of all our transgressions.
Spurgeon, C. H. (n.d.). The treasury of David: Psalms 88-110 (Vol. 4, p. 280). Marshall Brothers.
Ver. 12. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.—Plenary absolution:— The doctrine of forgiving love is one of those necessaries of daily life, of which we may say that however frequently it be set before you, you would not tire of it. Therefore, in the simplest manner, we would speak of the great Gospel truth of the forgiveness of sins. Now, in our text which tells of it, notice— I. THE WORD OF PECULIARITY. It is not all men who can say, “As far as … from us.” They are a specific people who can say this: they have felt the chidings of God in their conscience,—hence they say, “He will not always chide.” And they have been humbled into contrition, repentance and confession; hence they say, “Neither will He keep His anger for ever.” But they have tasted of God’s surprising mercy which baffles all human thought, and excites the adoring wonder of all who receive it, and hence come the words of our text. Can we all say them? II. THE WORD OF POSITIVENESS. The psalmist does not indulge in vague hopes or fond wishes, but he declares that God “hath removed” our transgressions from us. He is quite sure about it. It is an actual fact. Now, there are many who think that we never can know in this world that we are forgiven. They are taught to go on asking for pardon as if they had never received it. But we are forgiven. Pardon is a fact, and there is nothing more sure to believers than this. It is far more presumptuous to pay respect to our own misgivings than to believe what God has so plainly said. How wretched it must be not to know: how can a man do anything whilst he is in doubt about whether he is forgiven? And we can be sure, for we have the plain word of God. Not the evidence of sense, for that may often deceive: and still more may feeling. But we have the evidence of God’s word. If I have trusted my soul with Jesus, then I am forgiven, and our text is true of me. And over and above the written word, God gives to believers the inward witness in the deep peace they feel in their souls. They may not be able to fix the date when they were forgiven, but whenever they look to the Cross and see the incarnate God bleeding thereon, they get a renewed assurance of complete absolution. Some love always to gaze upon their crucified Lord, as if they had never before looked upon Him. They stand and kiss those bleeding feet and look up to that dear face bedewed with drops of grief and that dear brow crowned with thorns, and say, “Thou art my Saviour! Dear lover of my soul, I rest in Thee.” Happy are they who can thus stand at the Cross. III. NOTE THE COMPREHENSIVENESS OF OUR TEXT. I do not find any list of sins here. Only these two words, “our transgressions.” I am not skilful in matters of common law, but I remember hearing a lawyer make this remark about a man’s will, that if he were about to leave all his property to some one person, it would be better not to make a recapitulation of all that he had, but merely to state that he bequeathed all to his legatee, without giving a list of the goods and chattels, because in so doing he would be sure to leave some of them out. In one instance, a farmer who desired his wife to have all, recounted, as he thought, all his property; but he actually omitted to mention his largest farm and the very house in which they lived. Thus his attempt to be very particular failed, and his wife lost a large part of the property. Let us be thankful, then, that in our text God speaks in this broad way which takes in the whole compass of enumeration. “Our transgressions”—that sweeps them away all at once. Like as the Israelites saw with joy all their enemies dead upon the sea-shore. Not one of them left. Well might Miriam dance and sing. IV. THE PERFECTION, THE ABSOLUTE PERFECTION OF THE PARDON. “As far as the east is from the west.” Who can tell how far that is? Not any distance measurable on this earth, or in our solar system. It is just infinite distance. That is how far God hath removed from us our sins. Some think that after men are pardoned they may yet go to hell. It does not seem to me worthy of a God or even a man. Poor is that pardon which may be followed by eternal torment. I have heard of the Duke of Alva pardoning a man, and then hanging him; but to think that God should do this! And God means by our text that He has forgotten our sins, so far has He put them away. “Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” Note— V. THE RAY OF DIVINITY, full of hope for us, in our text. It is God that thus forgives. God is the great remover of sin. No priest can do this, God alone. VI. ITS TOUCH OF PERSONALITY. Our sins are removed not only from Himself, but “from us.” I sometimes see believers troubling themselves as if all their sins were laid up in an iron safe in some part of the Lord’s house. It is not so. They are all gone. See Zechariah’s vision of Joshua the priest. We moan and fret ourselves about what does not exist. I saw two men yesterday handcuffed to be taken off to prison. But suppose I had walked behind them, with my wrists close together, and had never opened my hands, nor stirred them, and said, “Alas! I committed, years ago, some wrong, and had handcuffs put upon me.” You would naturally says, “Well, but are they not taken off?” And I reply, “Yes, I have heard they are, but somehow, through habit, I go about as if I had them on.” Would not every one say, “The man’s insane”? But this is what we too often do as to our sins. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The believer separated from his sins:— I. IN WHAT RESPECTS? He is separated from his sins as regards—
The sentence they procured—the sentence of death. What this sentence implies. How was it removed?
The power they wielded—that is, their reigning power. “Sin shall not have dominion over you.”
The alienation they caused. From God, hence from His favour, family, fellowship, kingdom.
The prospect they commanded. Of wrath to come, of exclusion from heaven, of endless destruction. II. TO WHAT DISTANCE? “As far as the east is from the west”—one side of infinite space from the other—infinity intervenes.
An infinity of merit intervenes—the atoning merit of Christ’s sacrifice intervenes. What? How?
An infinity of rectitude intervenes—the rectitude of the Divine nature.
An infinity of faithfulness intervenes—God’s faithfulness to His word, covenant, purpose.
An infinity of love intervenes—God’s love, which is infinite, eternal, unchangeable, sovereign. All these infinities must be exhausted and cease to exist before his sins can be reunited to the believer. Learn— (1) That separation from sin is necessary to admission into heaven. “There shall in nowise,” etc. (2) That the separation here described is the work of God—of His grace, righteousness, word, spirit. (3) That separation from sin requires active exertion on our part. “Work out,” etc. (4) That the separation we have been considering is the privilege of only true believers. (N. Macdonald.) No Eastern or Western poles:— The distance from north to south is measurable. In every sphere there are north and south poles—both fixed points; and on the earth the distance between them is about twelve thousand miles. So that had the psalmist said, “As far as the north is from the south,” our conceptions would have been thus limited. It is otherwise with the east and the west. There are no eastern and western poles. From every point alike in the circuit of the world, the east extends in one direction, the west in the other. Thus, the traveller westward, for example, might be said to be for ever chasing the west without coming nearer to it. The psalmist himself might not have known this astronomical fact; yet, regarding his words as dictated by the Spirit of God, we are surely permitted to read them in the light of modern science, and so to discern in them the most forcible illustration that can be imagined of the illimitable distance to which God has removed the iniquities of His people. (Cyclop. of Nature Teachings.) Forgiveness a delightful remembrance:— Like some black rock that heaves itself above the surface of a sun-lit sea, and the wave runs dashing over it; and the spray, as it falls down its sides, is all rainbowed and lightened; and there comes beauty into the mighty grimness of the black thing; so a man’s transgressions rear themselves up, and God’s great love, coming sweeping itself against them and over them, makes out of the sin an occasion for the flashing more brightly of the beauty of His mercy, and turns the life of the pardoned penitent into a life of which even the sin is not pain to remember. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
Exell, J. S. (1909). The Biblical Illustrator: The Psalms (Vol. 4, pp. 279–281). Fleming H. Revell Company; Francis Griffiths.
He that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. (Galatians 6:8)
Sowing looks like a losing business, for we put good corn into the ground never to see it anymore. Sowing to the Spirit seems a very fanciful, dreamy business; for we deny ourselves and apparently get nothing for it. Yet if we sow to the Spirit by studying to live unto God, seeking to obey the will of God, and laying ourselves out to promote His honor, we shall not sow in vain. Life shall be our reward, even everlasting life. This we enjoy here as we enter into the knowledge of God, communion with God, and enjoyment of God. This life flows on like an ever-deepening, ever-widening river till it bears us to the ocean of infinite felicity, where the life of God is ours forever and ever.
Let us not this day sow to our flesh, for the harvest will be corruption, since flesh always tends that way; but with holy self-conquest let us live for the highest, purest, and most spiritual ends, seeking to honor our most holy Lord by obeying His most gracious Spirit. What a harvest will that be when we reap life everlasting! What sheaves of endless bliss will be reaped! What a festival will that harvest be! Lord, make us such reapers, for thy Son’s sake.
Kay Cude poetry. Used with permission. Right-Click to enlarge in new tab, or read text below
Beautiful poetry, just beautiful.
Our Sustenance, Our Rest REST WELL
“I cried aloud to the Lord, and He answered me from his holy hill. I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.” Psalm 3:4-5.
“In peace I will both lie down and sleep, For You alone, O Lord, make me to dwell in safety.” Psalm 4:8.
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust!’ For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark. You will not be afraid of the terror by night, or of the arrow that flies by day; of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or of the destruction that lays waste at noon.” Psalm 91:1-6
“And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.” Revelation 22:5
EVEN NOW
Comes now the eve with silver robes and wraps day’s amber glow, with shadows low, subdues the beams to quit our daily woes. How grateful we to take our leave within those slumber hours; and slip away into respite — how rich the time of drowse!
O gentle night, your eyelids close upon our fretful thoughts; through purposed acts of God’s good grace our sleep His care has wrought. O God our Father, God our Lord, You sate our anxious hearts; prepare each morn, prepare us well — each day Your will impart.
Tomorrow’s dawn may break suspect, there’s evil neath the sun; though quick feet run towards its foul shrill, such steps will be shortrun. As eve to night, and night to dawn, so nears God’s Day of Wrath; His pow’r will judge all evil borne, and evil can’t surpass.
EVEN THEN
Rest well redeemed, though evil is and death from you takes life; op’n now your eyes, look to His plan — His purpose will suffice. As ends this eve let rest ensue, soon evil will surcease; tis’ Christ who keeps our lives by His, and by His grace increase.
By Him you’ll be removed from here, but at His timing’s choice; when He ordains we suffer here, tis cause that we rejoice! A greater purpose for our pain dwells there within His will; take comfort that His Sovereignty in us deep faith instills.
A New Podcast Featuring Charles Spurgeon’s Classic Devotional
For over 100 hundred years, Christians have started and ended each day with Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening as a companion. Featuring two brief daily readings throughout the year, this classic devotional emphasizes the importance of abiding in Christ and consistently meditating on God’s word.
A new edition has made this devotional work even more accessible by pastor Alistair Begg’s careful modernizing of Spurgeon’s English. Along with updated language, this edition uses the English Standard Version as the scriptural text, providing an accurate, understandable foundation for each reading.
The new Morning and Evening podcast features this devotional work in its entirety made available in twice-daily episodes.
Morning and Evening with Charles Spurgeon
In twice-daily episodes throughout the course of a year, Spurgeon emphasizes the importance of abiding in Christ and consistently meditating on God’s word.
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. (4:8a)
The third command is to draw near in intimate fellowship and communion with the living, eternal, almighty God. Salvation involves submitting to God as Lord and Savior, but also brings the desire for a true relationship with Him. Seeking salvation is seeking God (cf. Ps. 42:1; Matt. 7:7–11). One of the primary functions of Old Testament priests was to “come near to the Lord [and] consecrate themselves” (Ex. 19:22; cf. Lev. 10:3; Ezek. 43:9; 44:13). Our Great High Priest, Jesus Christ, who brings us to God, prayed to His Father, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3), and later affirmed and defined those who believe in Him, praying that they “may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me” (v. 21). Above all else, the apostle Paul sought to “know Him [Christ] and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Phil. 3:10). “Drawing near to God” was in the Old Testament a general expression for the one who sincerely approached God in penitence and humility. Through Isaiah, the Lord said of those who came near Him hypocritically and superficially, “This people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote” (Isa. 29:13). But the psalmist declared, “As for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works” (Ps. 73:28). David assures us that “the Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth” (Ps. 145:18). He counseled his own son Solomon, “Know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will let you find Him” (1 Chron. 28:9; cf. 2 Chron. 15:1–2; Zech. 1:3). Through Jeremiah, the Lord promised, “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13). Because they are prompted by God’s own Spirit and accepted by the Lord Jesus (John 6:44, 65), those who seek to know, worship, and commune with God will be satisfied. As noted above, that was the Father’s will long before it was theirs (Rom. 8:29: Eph. 1:4–5). When they come to him like the prodigal son—in humility, penitence, and brokenness over their sin—the heavenly Father says to them, in effect, what that earthly father said to his son: “Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found” (Luke 15:22–24). Jesus told the Samaritan woman from Sychar, “An hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23–24; cf. Phil. 3:3). The writer of Hebrews admonishes believers, “Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.… Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 4:16; 10:22). In his message to the pagan philosophers on Mars Hill, Paul said,
While I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.” Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist. (Acts 17:23–28)
The redeemed heart longs for communion with God (Pss. 27:8; 63:1–2; 84:2; 143:6; Matt. 22:37).
CLEANSING
Cleanse your hands, you sinners; (4:8b)
The fourth command in this invitation to salvation is Cleanse your hands, you sinners. The origin of this idea was in the Jewish ceremonial prescription for priests before they came before the Lord to offer sacrifices in the tabernacle or temple. God commanded Moses,
You shall also make a laver of bronze, with its base of bronze, for washing; and you shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it. Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet from it; when they enter the tent of meeting, they shall wash with water, that they may not die; or when they approach the altar to minister, by offering up in smoke a fire sacrifice to the Lord. So they shall wash their hands and their feet, that they may not die; and it shall be a perpetual statute for them, for Aaron and his descendants throughout their generations. (Ex. 30:18–21; cf. Lev. 16:4)
The same figure was used by Isaiah to represent unrepented sin in those who presumed to worship God. Through that prophet the Lord warned His people: “When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil” (Isa. 1:15–16; cf. 59:2). David rejoiced thankfully that “the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me” (Ps. 18:20). Paul also used the condition of the hands to represent the external behavior of the life, saying, “I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension” (1 Tim. 2:8). “Holy hands” represent a spiritually and morally pure life, apart from which God cannot be approached. It is sin that separates depraved man from the holy God. Therefore, “No one who abides in Him sins,” John declares; “[and] no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him” (1 John 3:6). But although we can resist sin, temptation, and the devil, it is not in any person’s power—even the power of a believer—to cleanse himself spiritually. That is why our gracious Lord promises that, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). The command to cleanse your hands is therefore a command to submit (see James 4:7a) to God’s divine catharsis. The fact that this command is specifically addressed to sinners is further evidence that James is speaking to unbelievers, calling them to repentance and a saving relationship with God. Throughout the New Testament, hamartōlos (sinners) is used only of unbelievers (see the texts listed below). Interpreters who insist that this overall passage (4:7–10) is addressed to believers must therefore hold that the use of the plural of hamartōlos in verse 8 is the only exception. But to make such a claim, especially for such a significant and commonly used word, is not justifiable without compelling evidence in the context. Such compelling evidence simply does not exist here. From their ancient Scriptures, the Jews to whom James was writing would have understood that sinners referred to unbelievers. The perverted, ungodly “men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly and sinners against the Lord” (Gen. 13:13). The book of Psalms begins with these words: “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers!” (1:1). Verse 5 of that psalm makes even clearer that “sinners” refers to the unsaved: “The wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.” David spoke of teaching transgressors the ways of God in order that “sinners will be converted to You” (Ps. 51:13). Isaiah declares that “transgressors and sinners will be crushed together, and those who forsake the Lord shall come to an end” (Isa. 1:28) and that “the day of the Lord is coming, cruel, with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation; and He will exterminate its sinners from it” (Isa. 13:9; cf. Amos 9:10). Also in New Testament times, as clearly reflected in the gospels, hamartōlos was used of those who were hardened in sin, unrepentant, and blatantly immoral. Jesus admonished His hearers: “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matt. 9:13). On another occasion He said, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32; cf. Matt. 9:13; Mark 2:17). Before she was saved, Luke calls Mary of Bethany “a sinner” (Luke 7:37; cf. John 12:3). As he stood contritely in the temple, “the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ ” (Luke 18:13). Paul reminds believers that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8) and that, “As through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous” (5:19). In his first letter to Timothy, the apostle ranks sinners with the “lawless and rebellious, … the ungodly and … the unholy and profane” (1 Tim. 1:9). A few verses later he even more explicitly identifies sinners with the unsaved, saying, “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (v. 15). It therefore seems beyond doubt that, like the Old Testament and the rest of the New, James intended sinners to mean unbelievers, the unsaved.
PURIFICATION
and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (4:8c)
In this Hebraic parallelism, purify your hearts corresponds to “cleanse your hands” and you double-minded corresponds to “you sinners,” the second phrases adding a more specific dimension. Like David, James associates the outward sins of the hands with the inner sins of the heart. “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?” David asks. “And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood and has not sworn deceitfully” (Ps. 24:3–4; cf. 51:10). The unbeliever not only is to turn from outward sin but, even more important, from the inner sin of the heart from which all outward sin springs. “Out of the heart,” Jesus said, “come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders” (Matt. 15:19). “Wash your heart from evil, O Jerusalem,” Jeremiah proclaimed, “that you may be saved. How long will your wicked thoughts lodge within you?” (Jer. 4:14). “Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed,” Ezekiel implores his fellow Israelites, “and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!” (Ezek. 18:31). When that happens, the Lord promises,
Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. (36:25–27)
The eighteenth-century evangelist George Whitefield said, “Every man by his own natural will hates God. But when he is turned to the Lord by evangelical repentance, then his will is changed; then his conscience, now hardened and benumbed, shall be quickened and weakened; then his hard heart shall be melted, and his unruly affections shall be crucified. Thus, by that repentance, the whole soul will be changed, he will have new inclinations, new desires, and new habits.” Dipsuchos (double-minded) literally means “double-souled,” and is used only by James in the New Testament (see also 1:8). This is the person who lacks integrity, who claims one thing and lives another. This is the hypocrite in the assembly of believers who is commonly confronted in James. Here is further proof that James is speaking of and to unbelievers. The Lord Himself made clear that “no one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other” (Matt. 6:24) and that “he who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters” (12:30). A double-minded person therefore could not possibly be a Christian. Isaiah was calling on the double-minded sinner to purify his heart when he implored: “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:6–7).
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1998). James (pp. 205–210). Moody Press.
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. Like highway signs that instruct the motorist to obey traffic rules for safe driving, these clauses tell the reader how to come to God. Note that the first summons (v. 7a) and the last (v. 10a) are parallels; between them lies the message to the reader: come near to God. Moreover, the word humble in verse 10 forms a verbal link with the last word of the Old Testament quotation in verse 6. The sequence of these commands is:
a. Submission
James speaks directly to those readers who are blinded by harmful pride and indirectly, of course, to the entire church. He is pointed in his counsel and tells them how to divest themselves of pride: “submit yourselves … to God.” He urges his readers to do it once for all, so that they may always be subject to God. When James says “submit,” he actually means “obey.” In the Greek Luke uses the same verb when he describes the twelve-year-old Jesus who “was obedient” to Mary and Joseph (Luke 2:51). The wording submit yourselves describes a voluntary act of placing oneself under the authority of someone else to show him respect and obedience. Thus, citizens are to obey governing authorities (Rom. 13:1–7; 1 Peter 2:13), Corinthian believers are urged to obey their leaders (1 Cor. 16:16), young men must be submissive to older people (1 Peter 5:5), and wives are exhorted to submit to their husbands (Eph. 5:22; Col. 3:18; Titus 2:5; 1 Peter 3:1) and servants to their masters (Titus 2:9; 1 Peter 2:18). When we pray “Your will be done,” we have dismissed pride, are submissive to God, and are obeying his commands. When we keep God’s law, Satan seeks to interfere by leading us into temptation. Therefore, James adds the injunction resist the devil. As we stand firm “against the devil’s schemes” (Eph. 6:11; 1 Peter 5:9), we also pray the petition “but deliver us from the evil one” (Matt. 6:13). The biblical assurance we receive is that “he will flee from” us (James 4:7). This is a fact, for the Gospels and Acts are filled with examples of Satan and his cohorts fleeing before divine authority. When we obediently do God’s will, Satan cannot lead us astray but must depart. Luther aptly remarked that if we sing psalms and hymns or read Scripture, Satan will flee from us lest he scorch his wings.
b. Preparation
Here is the heart of the message which James introduced with the exhortation to be submissive to God and to resist the devil: “come near to God.” In our struggle against sin and Satan we do not stand alone when we come in prayer to God. God surrounds us with his care and grace, so that we have no reason to fear the power of Satan. God wants us to come to him in true repentance, faith, obedience, and prayer (see the contexts of Lam. 3:57; Hos. 12:6; Zech. 1:3; Mal. 3:7). He will fill us with his grace and crown us with his blessings. When God calls us to come near to him, he already shows us his love and grace. The initiative, then, belongs to God, not to us. For this reason we can never claim that because we first approached God, he had to come to us. God always acts first in the work of salvation. How do we approach a holy God? James uses terminology from the Old Testament when he writes, “Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts.…” The first admonition recalls God’s instructions about ceremonial cleansing (see Exod. 30:20–21). The second brings to mind David’s words:
Who may ascend the hill of the LORD?
Who may stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart.… [Ps. 24:3–4]
By linking these concepts, James clearly implies that he is speaking not of being ceremonially clean but of being spiritually pure. James calls the readers “sinners” and “double-minded.” Every human being is a sinner, but James is using a term that fits the Jewish context of his people. In the Gospels, the name sinner was given to someone who disregarded the law of God and flouted standards of morality (see Matt. 9:10; Luke 7:37, 39). The expression double-minded (compare James 1:8) connotes instability, fickleness, and vacillation. The terms fit the person who loves God and the world. Such persons, James says, must repent.
c. Repentance
The next commands are at variance with the apostolic injunction to rejoice always (1 Thess. 5:16; and see James 1:2). James tells his readers to “grieve, mourn and wail.” He is like an Old Testament prophet who calls the people to repentance by having them grieve over their sins and, so to speak, sit in sackcloth and ashes. We experience grief when someone who is near and dear to us dies. That is one aspect of the concept grief. The other aspect of grief is spiritual. Scripture teaches us that repentance and grief go together. In his epistles, Paul states that those who belong to Jesus put to death their sinful nature when they repent of their sins (Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20; 5:24; 6:14). Repentance, then, means that a death has occurred in our own lives. We grieve because of sins we have committed against God and our fellow man. Here are two examples—one from the Old Testament and one from the New—of saints who grieve because of their sins. David portrays his grief for sin in many of his psalms. In one of them he pleads for God’s mercy and cries out,
I am worn out from groaning;
all night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears. [Ps. 6:6]
That is godly sorrow! Paul, describing his struggle with sin, exclaims, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” He himself gives the answer: “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:24–25). “Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.” The similarity to a word of Jesus is unmistakable: “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep” (Luke 6:25). James is not saying that a Christian should dress in black clothing, walk around with a somber face, and preach gloom and doom. A Christian ought to be happy in the Lord, thankful for the gift of salvation, and obedient in doing the will of God. When he has fallen into sin and responds to God’s call for repentance, a change must occur in his life. Laughter and joy are silenced. When he reflects on his sin, the penitent is filled with mourning and gloom. Peter said that he did not know Jesus, but after he had asserted this three times, Jesus looked straight at him. Peter repented, went outside, and wept bitterly (Luke 22:60–62). “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death” (2 Cor. 7:10).
d. Humility
James returns to the subject he introduced in the Old Testament quotation: “God … gives grace to the humble” (v. 6). He writes, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” This particular theme is prominent throughout Scripture:
in the psalms, “For the LORD … crowns the humble with salvation” (Ps. 149:4)
in Proverbs, “[The Lord] … gives grace to the humble” (Prov. 3:34)
in the prophetical books, “The lowly will be exalted and the exalted will be brought low” (Ezek. 21:26)
in the Gospels, “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matt. 23:12)
in the Epistles, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up” (1 Peter 5:6)
And last, Scripture teaches that humility has a vertical and a horizontal aspect. The believer who shows humility toward God shows it also toward others (Rom. 12:3; Phil. 2:3).
Practical Considerations in 4:7–10
Verse 8 The Gospel writers record that two people wanted to follow Jesus and were willing to relinquish everything except that which was dear to them. For the one this was his family; for the other it was money. Jesus refused to accept these would-be followers, for they could not give him their undivided devotion. In effect, they were double-minded. This is Calvin’s motto: “To you, O Lord, I offer my heart promptly and sincerely.” When we present our heart to the Lord, he wants it completely. If we give part of it to the world, God cannot be our Lord and master. He demands that we approach him with singleness of heart in true humility. God will lift us up when we humble ourselves before him.
Verse 10 If God exalts us, are we not inclined to become proud? No, because in our humility we give him the praise and the glory. “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord” (1 Cor. 1:31; Jer. 9:24; 2 Cor. 10:17).
Kistemaker, S. J., & Hendriksen, W. (1953–2001). Exposition of James and the Epistles of John (Vol. 14, pp. 139–142). Baker Book House.
Top Astronomical Events to Watch For in 2026 The coming year offers eclipses, occultations and much more. Ready for another amazing year of skywatching? 2025 was a wild year with a steady parade of comets knocking on naked eye visibility, and one extra special interstellar comet, 3I/ATLAS.
2025 Will Forever Be the Year Trump Took America’s Borders Back For four long, chaotic, demoralizing years, Americans endured an open-borders nightmare brought on by a government that neglected its most basic duty of protecting the nation. Cartels ran wild throughout the entire Southwest. Human traffickers operated with impunity. All the while, the liberal ruling class told us this was “compassion.”
Major winter storm sweeps across Nordic states A post-Christmas storm named Johannes swept across the Nordic nations on Saturday, leaving one person dead and thousands of homes without power. Forecasters say the storm, which downed trees, disrupted traffic and cut overhead power lines, is moving south and is likely to peak overnight into Sunday.
‘What the heck is this?’ James Webb telescope spots inexplicable planet with diamonds and soot in its atmosphere The Jupiter-size world, detected by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), doesn’t have the familiar helium-hydrogen combination we are used to in atmospheres from our solar system, nor other common molecules, like water, methane or carbon dioxide. Rather, the planet seems to have soot clouds near the top of the atmosphere that condense into diamonds deeper in the atmosphere. What’s even weirder is that its host star is not even a normal star.
Arrested in Italy on suspicion of financing Hamas Seven people have been arrested in Italy, suspected of raising millions of euros for the terrorist organization Hamas. Italian police have also issued international arrest warrants for two people believed to be outside the country’s borders. The nine are accused of sending the equivalent of just over 75 million kronor to organizations based in “Gaza, the Palestinian territories, or Israel that are owned, controlled or linked to Hamas,” a police statement said. In addition to the nine, three organizations are being investigated which police suspect are a cover for actions aimed at financing Hamas.
7.0-magnitude earthquake rattles Taiwan A 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck off Taiwan’s northeastern coast late on Saturday, the island’s Central Weather Administration said. The quake, some 32 km (20 miles) off the city of Yilan, hit at 11:05 pm local time (1505 GMT/UTC) and had a depth of 73 km (45 miles), it added. Within minutes, however, the Taipei city government said there were no immediate reports of major damage.
Amazon says blocked 1,800 North Koreans from applying for SEOUL: US tech giant Amazon said it has blocked over 1,800 North Koreans from joining the company, as Pyongyang sends large numbers of IT workers overseas to earn and launder funds. In a post on LinkedIn, Amazon’s chief security officer Stephen Schmidt said last week that North Korean workers “have been attempting to secure remote IT jobs with companies worldwide, particularly in the US”. He said the firm had seen nearly a one-third rise in applications by North Koreans in the past year. And he warned the problem “isn’t Amazon-specific” and “is likely happening at scale across the industry”.
Sun Erupts With Powerful X1-Class Flare, Triggers Radio Blackouts The Sun erupted with an X1-class solar flare.NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the fireworks in multiple wavelengths. The flare caused radio blackouts on sunlit portion of Earth at the time of eruption. The blackouts occurred in Australia and parts of southeast Asia.
Asteroid Apophis to Pass Just 32,000 km from Earth, ESA and JAXA’s Team Up to Stop It! In 2029, the world will witness a rare celestial event when the asteroid Apophis, a 375-meter-wide asteroid. flies by Earth at an astonishingly close distance. To study this phenomenon, the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan’s JAXA are teaming up for the Ramses mission, an international effort to observe how Earth’s gravity affects the asteroid. The mission aims to collect valuable data to advance planetary defense techniques, an area of growing importance in space exploration.
Omar’s wealth skyrockets from almost zero to $30 million amid fraud concerns Her husband’s financial firm claims tens of billions of dollars under management, despite listing its business address as a shared workspace. A venture capital firm launched by the husband of Rep. Ilhan Omar has quietly removed the names of its officers and advisers from its website as scrutiny intensifies over the family’s rapidly rising wealth amid a sweeping welfare fraud case centered in Minnesota, The New York Post reports. According to Omar’s financial disclosures, the firm reported minimal assets in 2023 before its stated value surged into the multi-million-dollar range within a year.
UN Security Council to hold emergency session on Israel’s recognition of Somaliland The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will convene in New York for an emergency session on Monday afternoon following Israel’s recognition of Somaliland. The session will be held at the request of Somalia. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Jerusalem officially recognized Somaliland on Friday, making Israel the first UN member state to recognize the nation as an independent and sovereign state.
IDF sets ‘complete siege’ on city of Palestinian terrorist: Katz Israeli security forces have imposed a “complete siege and cordon” on the Palestinian city of Qabatiya in northern Samaria, from where a terrorist set out on his killing spree in northern Israel the previous day, Defense Minister Israel Katz stated on Saturday evening. The Israel Defense Forces are “operating with full force against the terror hotspots in the village of Qabatiya from which the terrorist murder set forth,” he tweeted.
America’s History With Israel And What Lies Ahead Friend or no friend, America’s history with the Jewish people goes back farther than either the Trump or Biden administrations. In fact, the country’s very foundation is based on the Jewish Scriptures. For instance:…..
Strong M6.6 earthquake hits near Yilan, Taiwan A strong earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.6 hit near Yilan, Taiwan, on December 27. The agency reported a depth of 67.5 km (42 miles).
Italy Arrests 9 Suspects for Using Charities to Funnel $8.2 Million to Hamas Terrorists in Gaza Nine suspects have been arrested by Italian authorities on suspicion of funneling $8.2 million in funds from three separate charities to “associations based in Gaza, the Palestinian territories, or Israel, owned, controlled, or linked to Hamas,” according to a statement that was issued by anti-terrorism prosecutors.
The Global Persecution of Christians Has Greatly Intensified In 2025 While Christians in the Western world peacefully celebrate Christmas, most have absolutely no idea what’s happening to their brothers and sisters on the other side of the globe. Most of the world’s population lives in a country where Christians are being violently persecuted. Believers are rounded up for de-programming in China; churches are burned to the ground by Hindu extremists in India; Christians are literally being cut into pieces by Islamic radicals in some parts of Africa; practicing your faith can be a death sentence in certain areas of the Middle East; and North Korean concentration camps are teeming with people suspected of worshipping Christ. Perhaps if we faced similar levels of persecution, believers in the Western world would start becoming a lot more serious about their faith.
As Silver Surges Toward $100 Mark, Global Debt Levels Are Exploding & U.S. Dollar Is Dying This year, silver has been on the greatest bull run we’ve ever seen. It’s up an astounding 166% since January 1st, so those who purchased it long ago and stuck with it are loving life right now. When the price of silver reached the 50-dollar mark earlier this year, I thought it would be some time before it hit the 60-dollar mark. But it didn’t take long at all. Once the price of silver reached 60 dollars, I thought it might hit 70 dollars sometime in early 2026. If you check the latest numbers, you’ll see we’ve easily blown past that threshold, and the price of silver has already surpassed 80 dollars in Shanghai. I know I’ve been using the word “crazy” a lot lately, but without a doubt, what we’re witnessing at this moment is truly “crazy.”
Top 10 weather events of 2025 that smashed records From extreme winds and heat to unprecedented snow and an unusual hurricane season, 2025 will be remembered as a year that continually rewrote the weather record books. In chronological order, here’s a list of the top 10 record-breaking weather events of the year:
Soviet Europe? Trump BANS Euro Officials from U.S. in Free-speech War How the worm has turned. In 2009, talk-show giant Michael Savage, along with others, was banned from Britain for exercising speech. Now, 16 years later, certain European officials are being banned from the U.S. for banning people for exercising speech. It’s just the latest in an unprecedented development: a war over liberty between an increasingly authoritarian Europe and a U.S. that, under Trump’s administration, is championing Americanism.
Just Call It Islam Separating ‘Islam’ from ‘Islamism’ is a fool’s errand. Western societies (which have at our religious and civic core the teachings of the Jewish and Christian scriptures) are fooling ourselves if we think ethnic groups whose religious identity is devotedly Muslim will assimilate comfortably into our cultures. Instead, the last two decades have shown us a four-step process emanating from Islamic ideology vis-a-vis the West: First, they migrate. Second, they populate. Third, they agitate. Fourth, they dominate. By step four, we suffer all manner of trouble, up to and including horrific acts of violence. So let’s ask this question: Is it wise for the West to make excuses for semi-Muslims by trying to parse out “Islamism” from “Islam”? No, it is not. I prefer to heed Laura Loomer’s direct recommendation: “Just call it Islam.”
“Real victims should get justice.” Alan Dershowitz joined “Sunday Report” and gave insight into the Epstein files as the release of the files is ongoing.
JOHANNESBURG: Millions of Christians in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), spending Christmas under the reported threat of persecution, kidnapping, sexual violence and in some cases, death from Islamist militants, have seen Friday’s U.S. strikes on Islamic State militants in Nigeria as a real sign that President Trump is serious in his efforts to stop the killing of Africa’s Christians.
Over 16 million Christians are estimated to have been displaced and ripped from their homes across the region. The alleged release of 130 kidnapped schoolchildren in Nigeria this week has done little to reduce fears, as many on the continent try to worship at Christmas.
But this year, Fox News Digital has highlighted the catastrophe from Africa on multiple occasions. The situation led to senior members of Congress, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas., Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and ultimately, President Donald Trump’s threats and now actions have shone strong light on the violence.
In Africa this Christmas, so far there’s reportedly little sign of improvement. “The militant Islamist onslaught across SSA is a catastrophe of global proportions unfolding before us,” Henrietta Blyth, CEO of Open Doors UK & Ireland, told Fox News Digital this week.
Open Doors is a global Christian charity supporting Christians persecuted for their faith.
Blyth continued, “the last year has seen a non-stop stream of reports from sub-Saharan Africa. (including) reports of militant Islamist groups brutally attacking, among others, defenseless Christian communities.”
“At Open Doors, we have been sounding the alarm through our Arise Africa campaign. We’ve prayed repeatedly that the campaign of terror will reach public awareness.”
Referring to Nigeria and the thousands of Christians reported to have been killed there each year and the speeches, articles and posts against the violence, Open Doors’ Blyth states, “There is no sign that this has abated in 2025”.
“The lack of global outrage and action on this issue is a moral disgrace,” South Africa’s Chief Rabbi, Dr. Warren Goldstein, told Fox News Digital. He added, “It seems as if black lives do not matter if they are murdered by Islamists in Africa. The persecution of Christians in Africa needs to be seen in its global context. It is part of a multi-continental jihadi war on the ‘infidels’ — Jews and Christians — and on Western values.”
He continued “it is a world war, with Israel at the epicenter of the fire of the jihadi forces of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and others. The Islamist war on Christians in Africa is another front of this world war that stretches from Sudan in the north to Mozambique in the South.”
Fox News Digital has highlighted where persecution has hit hardest in Africa in 2025:
According to Open Doors, the continent’s most populous nation saw the worst persecution in Africa in 2025, with ‘non-stop stories of deadly attacks and kidnappings’ across Nigeria’s north and Middle Belt — a litany of villages torched, citizens raped, abducted, shot and beheaded.
Pope Leo XIV spoke out this year against killings attributed to Muslim Fulani tribesmen in Nigeria’s Benue State in June, saying “Some 200 people were murdered, with extraordinary cruelty.”
Bishop Wilfred Anagbe’s Makurdi Diocese in north-central Nigeria is almost exclusively Christian. But the constant and escalating attacks by Islamist Fulani militants led him to testify at a congressional hearing in Washington in March. Back in Nigeria, he was threatened, and some 20 of his parishioners killed.
The war-torn country is 95% Christian, yet the faithful are being targeted by jihadists. In February, terrorists linked to Islamic State from the so-called ADF group, who want the eastern part of the country to become a Muslim caliphate, rounded up 70 Christians and reportedly beheaded them — in a church. In September, at least 89 Christians were reportedly slaughtered by jihadists at a funeral and in surrounding fields.
Sudan’s estimated 2 million Christians make up an estimated 4% of the country’s population,
Like the rest of Sudan’s people, they face chronic food shortages and the horror of a yearslong war. But Christians are also allegedly singled out for discrimination and persecution by both sides in the conflict.
A senior Sudanese church leader told Fox News Digital that in the Darfur city of El Fasher, that “now Christians are eating animal feed and grass. No wheat, no rice, nothing can get in.”
A civil conflict and weak governance have allowed armed militants to step into the vacuum of law and order, Open Doors reported. In the far north, Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province regularly swoop into villages in overnight raids, killing, abducting and destroying. Thousands of people have fled their homes for displacement camps.
Ali, a villager, said, “It never ends. I want it to end, but it doesn’t. We must sleep in the mountains for safety.”
Situated in the southwest of the continent, Mozambique has a Christian population of 55%. Islamic State Mozambique is causing havoc in the far north, targeting Christian communities, burning their churches and destroying homes. The killings have multiplied this year, and thousands more are fleeing their homes, joining more than 1.3 million who have already been displaced.
In one mass attack on the village of Napala in October, Open Doors reported militants killed 20 Christians and displaced some 2,000. A local pastor described how four elderly sisters were tied up and burned to death inside a house.
On the airstrikes in Nigeria, Open Doors’ Henrietta Blyth told Fox News Digital, “a military operation like this is not going to provide any sort of quick fix for decades of violence. The Nigerian government must pursue lasting solutions that ensure peace, protection of civilians and religious freedom for everyone.”
Chief Rabbi Goldstein concluded, “The West can only win this war if it can find the moral clarity to call it by its name and see all the theaters of war as part of the same fight.”
Iran’s president declared they were in a “total war” with the US, Israel and Europe, just as Tehran looks to rebuild its nuclear capabilities and strengthen ties with Hamas.
Masoud Pezeshkian made the bold statement in an interview published in state media Saturday, Barron’s reported.
“In my opinion, we are at total war with the United States, Israel and Europe. They want to bring our country to its knees,” Pezeshkian said.
Just ahead of President Zelensky arriving in Florida where he hopes that talks with President Trump on the US-proposed Ukraine peace plan can achieve something favorable for Ukrainians, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov once again blasted European leadership as the main obstacle to peace. Trump has at the same time noted he held a Sunday call with President Putin.
“After the change of administration in the U.S., Europe and the European Union have become the main obstacle to peace,” Lavrov told TASS. “They are making no secret of their plans to prepare for war with Russia,” he continued, and underscored that the ambitions of European politicians are “literally blinding them.”
“Not only do they not care about Ukrainians, but they also don’t seem to care about their own population,” he added.
December 27, 2025 attacks on Kyiv, via Reuters.
However, he did also say that Moscow plans to continue its “engagement with American negotiators” and “address the root causes of the conflict.”
Just the day prior, starting Saturday morning, Russia carried out one of the biggest attacks on the Ukrainian capital in months, involving powerful Kinzhal missiles along with over 500 drones. Kiev was pounded, and several buildings were on fire.
Zelensky has in the meantime been seeking as much leverage from the European corner as possible, before getting face to face with Trump. Russia demands territorial concessions, but Zelensky seems only willing to talk about a temporary freeze to the war, and not necessarily the kind of full, permanent political recognition of Russia’s hold over most of the Donbass.
Ahead of the Mar-a-Lago meeting, Zelensky commented that his capital is on fire as winter temperatures freeze:
The meeting, to be hosted by Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence at 1:00 p.m. (18:00 GMT) according to the White House, will be their first in-person encounter since October, when the U.S. president refused to grant Zelensky’s request for long-range Tomahawk missiles.
Zelensky said during a stopover in Canada on Saturday he hoped the talks would be “very constructive,” adding that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had shown his hand with the latest assault on the Ukrainian capital.
“This attack is again Russia’s answer [to] our peace efforts. And this really showed that Putin doesn’t want peace,” he said.
Things aren’t looking ideal for a finalized peace plan, also given that Zelensky during a Christmas Day message essentially wished for Putin’s death.
Zelensky will push for NATO ‘Article 5-style’ security guarantees for Ukraine in his Sunday meeting with Trump:
Zelensky said the US has proposed 15-year security guarantees for Ukraine as part of the peace plan.
In his view, Ukraine needs guarantees for a longer period and added that he would consider it a major success if Trump agrees during their meeting at Mar-a-Lago this Sunday. pic.twitter.com/ZYI1oeYGY9
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged in his Christmas Eve message that many Ukrainians want to see Russian President Vladimir Putin dead.
“‘May he perish,’ each of us may think to ourselves,” Zelensky said in the broadcast. “But when we turn to God, of course, we ask for something greater.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded soon after the message by blasting it as “uncultured, embittered, and coming from a seemingly unhinged person” – while further questioning whether “he’s capable of making any rational decisions.”
This latter reference to his decision-making ability is another card Moscow might play if the US and Ukrainian sides come out of the Florida meetings with a less than optimal peace deal. President Putin has long said that because Zelensky canceled elections, he has no legal mandate, and is thus ‘illegitimate’ and lacks authority to sign a binding peace settlement.
Brussels is not ready for constructive negotiations and is seeking to inflict a “strategic defeat on Russia,” the foreign minister has said
The EU is not ready for constructive negotiations concerning the Ukraine conflict and is openly preparing for war with Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
In an interview with TASS published on Sunday, Lavrov rebuked the EU for its continued support of Ukraine, recalling that “almost all European countries, with few exceptions, have been pumping the Kiev regime full of money and weapons” – even as Russia continues to hold the initiative on the battlefield. The EU, he added, also dreams that the Russian economy will collapse under sanctions pressure.
“After a new administration came to power in the United States, Europe and the European Union emerged as the main obstacles to peace. They are making no secret of the fact that they are getting ready to fight it out with Russia on the battlefield”.
Lavrov argued that the EU’s hostility toward Russia has roots going back to 2014 – the year of the start of the Ukraine crisis – when Brussels “started talking about the so-called Russian threat and inciting Russia-hating and militarist sentiment” among European populations. He accused the “European war party” of investing “political capital in inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia” and being “ready to go the whole nine yards,” adding that “these ambitions have literally blinded them.”
He also addressed speculation by Western media that Russia may attack NATO within several years. “There is no need to be afraid of Russia attacking anyone. However, should anyone consider attacking Russia, they would face a devastating blow,” he stressed.
Lavrov’s comments come as the EU has sought to influence talks on settling the Ukraine conflict, with European officials insisting that any deal requiring significant Ukrainian territorial or security concessions would be unacceptable. Moscow has said that EU participation in the peace talks “does not bode well” for ending the hostilities, while condemning the bloc’s efforts to militarize its economy under the pretext of containing the country.
The liberation of Dimitrov in Donetsk, Gulyaipole and Stepnogorsk in Zaporozhye, and new areas in Kharkov region are significant in their own right, but even more so in terms of their impact on peace talks, says military analyst Alexander Mikhailov.
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