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
While a large contingent of Jewish people returned to their homeland, many remained in exile where the kings of Babylon and Persia had taken them. Some exiles rose to positions of authority and power and made lives for themselves in foreign lands. Most importantly, they remained committed to the God of Israel. They refused to give in to the practices and customs of the people among whom they lived, even when it meant persecution.Esther was one individual who faced persecution. Married against her will to the king of Persia, she found herself in a position of dubious influence. Her people were under threat of annihilation, and she was the only one who could do something about it by speaking to the king about the matter in an official capacity.Esther knew that approaching the king brought great risk; she could be killed for breach of protocol (v. 11). But she had great faith, believing that the God of Israel was not bound by borders, procedure, or protocol! Gathering the Jewish community in Susa she invited them to fast, which often was accompanied by prayer. She would entrust herself to God as she took a risk for His people. Her declaration, “If I perish, I perish” (v. 16), should not be interpreted as a nihilistic expression of defeat. Rather, it was an expression of faith that, having done all she could, she was now entrusting herself to her God who controls all things.Esther’s commitment was rewarded. The king looked upon her with favor and granted her requests. God delivered the Jewish community from certain death and destroyed their enemies in dramatic fashion. “For the Jews it was a time of happiness and joy, gladness and honor…and many people of other nationalities became Jews because fear of the Jews had seized them” (8:16–17).
Go Deeper What can we learn from Esther? How can you apply her courage and act of faith to a difficult situation you are facing? Extended Reading: Esther 4-5
Pray with Us Holy God, May Esther’s courage and faith inspire us to be brave and faithful through all the twists and turns of our destiny. Teach us to walk worthy of Your kingdom!
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.
Mark 8:35
Who is not interested in saving their lives, in making them worthwhile, full and rich, worth the living? Deep down within us, every one of us has a hunger for life and a desire to find it, to the full extent of what it was designed to be. This is what Jesus is talking about. If this is what you want, He says, I’ll tell you how to acquire it. There are two attitudes toward life that are possible, and you can have only one or the other.
One attitude is to save your life now: hoard it, clutch it, cling to it, grasp it, try to get hold of it for yourself, take care of yourself, trust yourself, see that in every situation your first and major concern is, What’s in it for me? That is one way to live, and millions are living that way today.
The other attitude is lose it: fling it away, disregard what advantage there may be for you in a situation, and move out in dependence upon God, careless of what may happen to you. Abraham obeyed God, went out into a land he knew not where, on a march without a map, apparently careless of what would happen to him. His neighbors reproached and rebuked him for not caring about himself. This is to be a way of life, Jesus says. Trust God, obey Him, and put the responsibility for what happens on Him.
There are only two results that can follow. If you save your life, if you cling to it, hoard it, get all you can for yourself, then, Jesus says, you will lose it. This is not a mere platitude; He is stating a fundamental law of life. You will find that you have everything you want, but you will not want anything you have. You will find that all of the life you tried to grasp has slipped through your fingers, and you have ended up with a handful of cobwebs and ashes, dissatisfied, hollow and empty, mocked by what you hoped to get.
But lose your life for My sake and the gospel’s, says Jesus, lose your life by means of giving yourself away in the cause of Christ, giving up your right to yourself, taking up your cross and following Me, and you will save it. You will not waste it, but you will save it. You will find contentment and satisfaction, an inner peace, and a sense of worth about your living. You will discover, not just in heaven someday but right now, that even though you may not have all the things others have, your life will be rich and rewarding and satisfying.
This is God’s part in the work of discipleship. Jesus did not come to call us to ultimate barrenness, weakness, darkness, and death. He called us to life, to richness, to enjoyment, to fulfillment. But He has told us that the way there means death. Discipleship ends in life, not in death. It ends in fulfillment and satisfaction. But the only way that we can find it is by means of a cross.
Father, help me to make the choice for life, and not for death, that by Your power You will help me find the grace to say yes to You, Lord Jesus, and to enter into life by means of the cross.
It is very proper to sum up our prayers in that form of prayer which Christ taught his disciples.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. Matthew 6:9-13(ESV)
1 Corinthians 13 In this week’s lessons we learn how Jesus perfectly carries out the biblical understanding of love, and how we, as His disciples, are called to show that same kind of love to others.
Theme
The Standard of Love
Whom do you think of when you read these verses? “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” Do you know anyone like that? Do you say, “My husband is like that?” Do you say, “My wife is like that?” Do you say, “My friend is like that?” Or do you pick out an influential person from history. Do you conclude that Gandhi or Mother Teresa was like that? No, that is not what we think. When you read a description like that you do not think of anybody except Jesus Christ. What is love? Ask Jesus. In Him you find one who not only knows what love is like, but who is Himself love.
Read these verses using the name of Jesus. “Jesus Christ is patient.” That rings true. How patient Jesus is with us! He teaches us something. We disregard it. We sin. But then He teaches us the same lesson again. Jesus is patient. “Jesus Christ is kind.” Does that not ring true, the kindness of our Lord? How kind He was to people. They treated Him badly. Yet He was kind, even though they mistreated Him. Even when He was being taken off to crucifixion He turned to the women who were weeping and had a kind word for them. When they were nailing Him to the cross, He said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). And when He hung upon the cross He was not thinking about Himself. He was thinking about the two thieves, His mother, and John.
“Jesus Christ did not envy; He did not boast.” He made the most extraordinary claims any person could possibly make. He said, “I and the Father are one.” But you know when you read that, that is not boasting. It is simple fact. “Jesus Christ is not rude.” “Jesus Christ is not self-seeking.” “Jesus Christ is not easily angered.” This is interesting. It says “easily angered.” No other term here has a qualification. There were things that did anger Jesus. Hypocrisy angered Him. People’s mistreatment of other people angered Him. Jesus was angry, but He was not easily angered. And when He was angered, it was always righteous and proper.
“Jesus Christ kept no record of wrongs.” “Jesus Christ did not delight in evil but rejoiced in the truth.” “Jesus Christ always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” That is what true love is, and it is that character which God desires to place within His people.
Is it not sad that so few of us even begin to measure up to that standard? When John the evangelist was writing to the churches of his day, he made love one of the tests of how you can know you are a believer. In his day some Christians were doubting their salvation. They had come under attack, and John tells them that there are three tests by which they can know they are Christians. There is the test of truth or doctrine. There is the test of obedience to the commands of Christ. And then, above all, there is the test of love. It is the third that he emphasizes, saying not only that they can know they are Christians by their love but also that they must love simply because they are. “Love one another,” he says. He says this three times over, and every time he does he gives a different reason.
Study Questions
Read over 1 Corinthians 13. How does Jesus match the definition of love according to this chapter? Provide specific examples from the Gospels?
What are the three tests of Christian assurance John gives in his first epistle? Which one is emphasized, and why?
Application
Key Point: God is love. Therefore, if we are God’s children, something of the spiritual genes of our Father will appear in us. We will begin to love. We must love one another because love is God’s nature.
For Further Study: In order to love others, we need to first learn what it means to love God by loving His house and desiring to abide in His presence. Download for free and listen to James Boice’s message on Psalm 84, “The Psalm of the Janitors.” (Discount will be applied at checkout.)
What Are the Seven Trumpets in Revelation? Clarence L. Haynes Jr.One of the things mentioned in the book of Revelation is the seven trumpets. What we want to look at today is what are the seven trumpets in Revelation? It is probably not possible to give you a full, in-depth, detailed analysis of all the seven trumpets in one article. However, it is possible to give you enough information to encourage you to want to study further. Let’s begin. Continue Reading →
Fasting Prayers for Powerful Revelation and Breakthrough Compiled & Edited by BibleStudyTools StaffThe immediate benefit of fasting is that it serves as an instant reminder of the reason you’re fasting. Every time you feel sharp hunger or a pull to check your social media, it serves as a call to pray and focus on the vision or goal. Here are some fasting prayers you can use throughout your journey to a deeper understanding of who God is and His plan for you. May these prayers bring you a sharper Godly vision and greater breakthrough! Continue Reading →
7 Uplifting Prayers for Welcoming a New Family Member Sophia BrickerFamilies are such an integral part of God’s plan for humanity, but when families grow it can bring a combination of excitement and nervousness! These seven prayers will help you prepare your heart for the change, whether you are welcoming a new child, a new pet, or celebrating a marriage. Continue Reading →
One Big Mistake Many People Make When Studying the Bible Clarence L. Haynes Jr.I want to encourage you to take the time to study the context of what you are reading. When you do, you will begin to understand Scripture a lot better, and most importantly you won’t add meaning to verses that were never truly intended in the first place. Continue Reading →
Are You Willing to Embrace the Rest God Offers? Amanda IdlemanHow many of us are weary? Our lives are so full, so stressful, and so hurried we only feel troubled. There is no peace for the weary. We live in an exhausted world where the pace of our days has left many of us empty. But there is another way.Continue Reading →
Is God Egotistical for Wanting Our Praise? Mike LeakeGod commands praise because it, He, is the pinnacle of our delight. His command to praise is a call to turn from mud-pies and enjoy the holiday. In the same way that we might earnestly command our child to put down the stick and come open his Christmas present, God calls us to put down our lesser loves and enjoy Him. Continue Reading →
What Difference Does It Make to Pray for Peace in Our World? Rachel BrittonDidn’t Jesus tell us in John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble”? Didn’t Jesus say that “wars and rumors of wars” were a sign of end times and his return (Matthew 24:6-8)? And yet, the Bible doesn’t leave us with this sense of unrest. It does the opposite. The biblical view is to seek peace. Continue Reading →
What Is the “Good Work” That Christ Began in Us? Ashley HookerToday we can glean from this verse that God has begun a good work in all of us. He wants us to live out a life that shows us progressively becoming more like Him. Paul reminded the church at Philippi that God would do the work, but they needed to be an active part in that work. Today, we must remember the same. Continue Reading →
Vers. 5. But He was wounded for our transgressions.—The sufferings of Christ:— Three things suggest themselves as requiring explanation to one who seriously contemplates the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ.
An innocent man suffers.
The death of Jesus is the apparent defeat and destruction of one who possessed extraordinary and supernatural powers.
This apparent defeat and ruin, instead of hindering the progress of His work, became at once, and in all the history of the progress of His doctrine has been emphatically, the instrument whereby a world is conquered. The death of Jesus has not been mourned by His followers, has never been concealed, but rather exulted in and prominently set forth as that to which all men must chiefly look if they would regard Christ and His mission right. The shame and the failure issue in glory and completest success. What is the philosophy of this? Has any ever been given which approaches the Divinely revealed meaning supplied by our text? “He was wounded for our transgressions, etc. We learn here— I. THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS CHRIST RESULTED FROM OUR SINS. II. THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS WERE RELATED TO THE DIVINE LAW. III. THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS BECAME REMEDIAL OF HUMAN SINFULNESS. (L. D. Bevan, D.D.) A short catechism:—
What is man’s condition by nature? (1) Under transgression. (2) Under iniquities. (3) At feud with God. (4) Under wounds and most loathsome diseases of a sinful nature.
How are folks freed from this sinful and miserable condition? (1) In general, before the quarrel can be taken away, and their peace can be made, there must be a satisfaction. (2) More particularly there must be a satisfaction, because there is the justice of God that hath a claim by a standing law; the holiness of God, that must be vindicated; the faith of God, that must cause to come to pass what it hath pledged itself to, as well in reference to threatening as to promise.
Who maketh this satisfaction? The text says, “He” and “Him.” The Messiah.
How does He satisfy justice? (1) He enters Himself in our room. (2) Christ’s performance and payment of the debt according to His undertaking, implies a covenant and transaction on which the application is founded. (3) Our Lord Jesus, in fulfilling the bargain, and satisfying justice, paid a dear price: He was wounded, bruised, suffered stripes and punishment.
What are the benefits that come by these sufferings? (1) The benefits are such that if He had not suffered for us, we should have suffered all that He suffered ourselves. (2) More particularly we have peace and pardon. Healing.
To whom hath Christ procured all these good things? (1) The elect; (2) who are guilty of heinous sins.
How are these benefits derived from Christ to the sinner? (1) Justly and in a legal way; (2) freely. (J. Durham.) Sin:— Verses 5 and 6 are remarkable for the numerous and diversified references to sin which they make. Within the short compass of two verses that sad fact is referred to no less than six times, and on each occasion a different figure is used to describe it. It is transgression—the crossing of a boundary and trespassing upon forbidden land. It is iniquity—the want of equity: the absence of just dealing. It is the opposite of peace—the root of discord and enmity between us and God. It is a disease of the spirit—difficult to heal. It is a foolish and wilful wandering, like that of a stray sheep. And it is a heavy burden, which crushes him on whom it lies. So many and serious are the aspects of sin. (B. J. Gibbon.) The sufferings of Christ:— I. ATTEND TO THE SUFFERINGS OF THE SON OF GOD, as described in the text. The sufferings of the Saviour are described in the Scriptures with simplicity and grandeur combined. Nothing can add to the solemnity and force of the exhibition.
The prophet tells us that the Son of God was “wounded.” The Hebrew word here translated “wounded,” signifies to run through with a sword or some sharp weapon, and, as here used, seems to refer to those painful wounds which our Lord received at the time of His crucifixion.
The prophet tells us that the Son of God was “bruised.” This expression seems to have a reference to the labours, afflictions, and sorrows which our blessed Lord sustained, especially in the last scenes of His life.
The prophet tells us that the Son of God bore chastisements and stripes. II. CONSIDER THE PROCURING CAUSE OF THE SUFFERINGS OF THE SON OF GOD. “Our transgressions.” “Our iniquities.” III. ATTEND TO THE GRACIOUS DESIGN AND HAPPY EFFECTS OF THE SUFFERINGS OF THE SON OF GOD. “The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.”
One gracious design and blessed effect of the sufferings of the Son of God was to procure for us reconciliation with God.
The renovating of our nature. (D. Dickson, D.D.) Substitution:— There is no more remarkable language than this in the whole of the Word of God. It is so clear a statement of the doctrine of the substitution of the innocent for the guilty, that we do not hesitate to say, no words could teach it if it be not taught here. We are distinctly told— I. THAT THERE BELONGS TO US A SAD AND GRIEVOUS WEIGHT OF SIN. There are three terms expressive of what belong to us: “our transgressions,” “our iniquities,” “gone astray.” These three phrases have indeed a common feature; they all indicate what is wrong—even sin, though they represent the wrong in different aspects.
“Transgressions.” The word thus translated indicates sin in one or other of three forms—either that of missing the mark through aimlessness, or carelessness, or a wrong aim; or of coming short, when, though the work may be right in its direction, it does not come up to the standard; or of crossing a boundary and going over to the wrong side of a line altogether. In all these forms our sins have violated the holy law of God.
“Iniquities.” This word also has reference to moral law as the standard of duty. The Hebrew word is from a root which signifies “to bend,” “to twist,” and refers to the tortuous, crooked, winding ways of men when they conform to no standard at all save that suggested by their own fancies or conceits, and so walk “according to the course of this world.”
The third phrase has reference rather to the God of Law, than to the law of God, and to Him in His relation to us of Lord, Leader, Shepherd, and Guide. There is not only the infringement of the great law of right, but also universal neglect and abandonment of Divine leadership and love; and as the result of this, grievous mischief is sure to follow. “Like the sheep,” they find their way out easily enough; they go wandering over “the dark mountains,” each one to “his own way,” but of themselves they can never find the way home again. And so far does this wandering propensity increase in force, that men come to think there is no home for them; the loving concern of God for the wanderers is disbelieved, and the Supreme Being is regarded in the light of a terrible Judge eager to inflict retribution. And all this is a pressure on God. He misses the wanderers. And through the prophet, the Spirit of God would let men know that the wanderings of earth are the care of Heaven. Nor let us fail to note that in these verses there is an entirely different aspect of human nature and action from that presented in the verse preceding. There, the expressions were “our griefs,” “our sorrows.” Here, they are “our transgressions,” etc. Griefs and sorrows are not in themselves violations of moral law, though they may be the results of them, and though every violation of moral law may lead to sorrow. Still they must not be confounded, though inseparably connected. Grief may solicit pity: wrong incurs penalty. And the sin is ours. The evil is wide as the race. Each one’s sin is a personal one: “Every one to his own way.” Sin is thus at once collective and individual. No one can charge the guilt of his own sin on any one else. On whom or on what will he cast the blame? On influences? But it was for him to resist and not to yield. On temptation? But temptation cannot force. In the judgment of God each one’s sin is his own. II. THIS SERVANT OF GOD BEING LADEN WITH OUR SINS, SHARES OUR HERITAGE OF WOE. How remarkable is the antithesis here—Transgressions; iniquities; wanderings, are ours. Wounds; bruises; chastisements; stripes, are His. There is also a word indicating the connection between the two sides of the antithesis, “wounded for our transgressions”—on account of them; but if this were all the explanation given, it might mean no more than that the Messiah would feel so grieved at them that they would bruise or wound Him. But there is a far fuller and clearer expression: “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” This expression fixes the sense in which the Messiah was wounded and bruised on our account. In pondering over this, let us work our way step by step.
The inflexibility of the moral law and the absolute righteousness and equity of the Lawgiver in dealing with sin are thoughts underlying the whole of this chapter. The most high God is indeed higher than law; and though He never violates law, He may, out of the exuberance of His own love, do more than law requires, and may even cease to make law the rule of His action. But even when that is the case, and He acts χωρὶς νόμου (“apart from law,” Rom. 3:21), while He manifests the infinite freedom of a God to do whatsoever He pleaseth, He will also show to the world that His law must be honoured in the penalties inflicted for its violation. This is indicated in the words, “The Lord hath laid on Him,” etc. Nor ought any one for a moment to think of this as “exaction.” Exactness is not exactingness; it would not be called so, nor would the expression be tolerated if applied to a judge who forbade the dishonouring of a national law, or to a father who would not suffer the rules of his house to be broken with impunity.
It is revealed to us that in the mission of this servant of Jehovah, the Most High would act on the principle of substitution. When a devout Hebrew read the words we are now expounding, the image of the scapegoat would at once present itself to him.
The Messiah was altogether spotless; He fulfilled the ideal typified by the precept that the sacrificial lamb was to be without blemish. Being the absolutely sinless One, He was fitted to stand in a relation to sin and sinners which no being who was tainted with sin could possibly have occupied.
The twofold nature of the Messiah—He being at once the Son of God and Son of man, qualified Him to stand in a double relation;—as the Son of God, to be Heaven’s representative on earth—as the Son of man, to be earth’s representative to Heaven. Thus, His offering of Himself was God’s own sacrifice (John 3:16; 1 John 4:10; Rom. 5:8; 2 Cor. 5:19), and yet, in another sense, it was man’s own sacrifice (2 Cor. 5:14, 21; Gal. 3:13).
By His incarnation, Christ came and stood in such alliance with our race, that what belonged to the race belonged to Him, as inserted into it, and representative of it. We need not use any such expression as this—“Christ was punished for our sin.” That would be wrong. But sin was condemned in and through Christ, through His taking on Himself the liabilities of a world, as their one representative Man who would stand in their stead; and by the self-abandonment of an unparalleled love, would let the anguish of sin’s burden fall on His devoted head. Paul, in his Epistle to Philemon pleads for Onesimus thus, “If he hath wronged thee or oweth thee ought, put that to my account.” So the Son of God has accepted our liabilities. Only thus can we explain either the strong language of the prophecy, or the mysterious sorrow of Christ depicted in the Gospel history. On whatever grounds sin’s punishment was necessary had there been no atonement, on precisely those grounds was an atonement necessary to free the sinner from deserved punishment. This gracious work was in accord with the appointment of the Father and with the will of the Son.
Though the law is honoured in this substitution of another for us, yet the substitution itself does not belong to law, but to love! Grace reigns; law is not trifled with; it is not infringed on: nay, it is “established.” III. CHRIST HAVING ACCEPTED OUR HERITAGE OF WOE, WE RECEIVE THROUGH HIM A HERITAGE OF PEACE. (C. Clemance, D.D.) Vicarious suffering:— In a large family of evil-doers, where the father and mother are drunkards, the sons jail-birds and the daughters steeped in shame, there may be one, a daughter, pure, sensible, sensitive, living in the home of sin like a lily among thorns. And she makes all the sin of the family her own. The others do not mind it; the shame of their sin is nothing to them; it is the talk of the town, but they do not care. Only in her heart their crimes and disgrace meet like a sheaf of spears, piercing and mangling. The one innocent member of the family bears the guilt of all the rest. Even their cruelty to herself she hides, as if all the shame of it were her own. Such a position did Christ hold in the human family. He entered it voluntarily, becoming bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh; He identified Himself with it; He was the sensitive centre of the whole. He gathered into His heart the shame and guilt of all the sin He saw. The perpetrators did not feel it, but He felt it. It crushed Him; it broke His heart. (J. Stalker, D.D.) With His stripes we are healed.—The disease of sin:— I. IT IS A WASTING DISEASE; it bringeth the soul into a languishing condition, and wasteth the strength of it (Rom. 5:6). Sin hath weakened the soul in all the faculties of it, which all may discern and observe in themselves. II. IT IS A PAINFUL DISEASE, it woundeth the spirit (Prov. 18:14). Greatness of mind may support us under a wounded body, but when there is a breach made upon the conscience, what can relieve us then? But you will say, They that are most infected with sin feel little of this; how is it then so painful a disease?
If they feel it not, the greater is their danger; for stupid diseases are the worst, and usually most mortal.
The soul of a sinner never sits so easy but that he has his qualms and pangs of conscience, and that sometimes in the midst of jollity; as was the case of Belshazzar, while carousing in the cups of the temple.
Though they feel not the diseases now, they shall hereafter. III. IT IS A LOATHSOME DISEASE. IV. IT IS AN INFECTIOUS DISEASE. Sin cometh into the world by propagation rather than imitation: yet imitation and example hath a great force upon the soul. V. IT IS A MORTAL DISEASE, if we continue in it without repentance. (T. Manton, D.D.) Recovery by Christ’s stripes:—
None but Christ can cure us, for He is the Physician of souls.
Christ cureth us not by doctrine and example only, but by merit and suffering. We are healed by “His stripes.”
Christ’s merit and sufferings do effect our cure, as they purchased the Spirit for us, who reneweth and healeth our sick souls (Titus 3:5, 6). (Ibid.) Healed by Christ’s stripes:— “With His stripes we are healed.” We are healed—of our inattention and unconcern about Divine things. Of our ignorance and unbelief respecting these things. Of the disease of self-righteousness and self-confidence. Of our love to sin, and commission of it. Of our love to the riches, honours and pleasures of this world. Of our self-indulgence and self-seeking. Of our lukewarmness and sloth. Of our cowardice and fear of suffering (1 Pet. 4:1). Of our diffidence and distrust, with respect to the mercy of God, and His pardoning and accepting the penitent. Of an accusing conscience, and slavish fear of God, and of death and hell. Of our general depravity and corruption of nature. Of our weakness and inability; His sufferings having purchased for us “the Spirit of might.” Of our distresses and misery, both present and future. (J. Benson, D.D.) His stripes:— This chapter is not mainly an indictment. It is a Gospel. It declares in glad while solemn language that, terrible as sin is, it has been dealt with. The prophet dwells purposely upon the varied manifestations of the evil in order to emphasize the varied forms and absolute completeness of its conquest. He prolongs the agony that he may prolong the rapture. I. OUR NEED OF HEALING. There is no figure which more aptly represents the serious nature and terrible consequences of sin than this one of bodily sickness. We know how it prostrates us, takes the brightness out of life, and, unless attended to, cuts life short. Sickness in its acutest form is a type in the body of sin in the soul. Sin is a mortal disease of the spirit. A common Scriptural emblem for it, found in both Old and New Testaments, is leprosy—the most frightful disease imaginable, loathsome to the observer and intolerably painful to the sufferer, attacking successively and rotting every limb of the body, and issuing slowly but certainly in death.
It is complicated. It affects every part of the moral being. It is blindness to holiness, and deafness to the appeals of God. There is a malady known as ossification of the heart, by which the living and beating heart is slowly turned to a substance like bone. It is a type of the complaint of the sinner. His heart is hard and impenitent. He suffers, too, from the fever of unhallowed desire. The lethargy of spiritual indifference is one of his symptoms; a depraved appetite, by which he tries to feed his immortal soul on husks, is another; while his whole condition is one of extreme debility—absence of strength to do right. In another part of the book our prophet diagnoses more thoroughly the disease of which he here speaks (chap. 1:5, 6). No hospital contains a spectacle so sickening and saddening as the unregenerate human heart.
The disease is universal. “There is none righteous; no, not one.” What the Bible declares, experience confirms. The ancient world, speaking through a noble literature that has come down to us, confesses many times the condition expressed by Ovid, “I see and approve the better things, while I follow those which are worse.” Christendom finds its mouthpiece in the apostle Paul, who, speaking of himself apart from the help of Christ, mournfully says, “When I would do good, evil is present with me.” And modern culture reveals its deepest consciousness in the words of Lowell, the ambassador-poet, “In my own heart I find the worst man’s mate.” It is a feature of the malady that the patient is often insensible to it. But from every lip there is at least occasional confession of some of its symptoms. There is discomfort in the conscience; there is dissatisfaction at the heart; and there is dread in the face of death and the unknown beyond. The Scriptures are the Röntgen rays of God, and their searching light reveals behind an uneasy conscience, behind a dissatisfied heart, behind the fear of death, behind all the sorrows and evils of life, that which is their primary cause—the malady of sin.
This disease is incurable—that is, apart from the healing described in the text. “The end of these things is death”—spiritual death; insensibility to God, and absence of the life of fellowship with Him which is life indeed—physical death, in so far as that natural process is more than mere bodily dissolution, and is a fearful and hopeless leap into the dark; for “the sting of death is sin”—and eternal death. Men are great at quack remedies, and the world is equally flooded with nostrums for the disease of sin. And what is the result of these loudly-hawked specifics? They are as useless as the charms which our grandmothers used to scare away diseases. The Physician is He who gave His back to the smiters; the balm is the blood which flowed from “His stripes.” II. OUR MEANS OF HEALING. “With His stripes.” “Stripes” does not mean the lashes that fell on His back, but the weals which they left. We remember how He “suffered under Pontius Pilate” before He “was crucified, dead and buried.” His back was bared, His hands were tied to a low post, and a coarse, muscular giant flourished a whip above Him. It was a diabolical instrument, that Roman whip—made of leather with many thongs, and in the end of each of them a piece of iron, or bone, or stone. Every stroke fetched blood and ripped open the quivering flesh. The Jewish law forbade more than forty stripes being given, but Christ was scourged by Romans, who recognized no such merciful limit. But as we know that Pilate intended the scourging to be a substitute for crucifixion, and hoped that its severity would so melt the Jews to pity that they would not press for the worse punishment—which end, however, was not reached—we may infer that He was scourged until He could bear no more, until He could not stand, until He fell mangled and fainting at His torturer’s feet. Nearly two thousand years have passed since that awful affliction, but its significance is eternal. But how can the sufferings of one alleviate the sufferings of another?
Because the sight of them moves us to sorrow. There are certain maladies of the mind and heart for which there is hope if the emotions can be stirred and the patient made to laugh or cry. There is hope for the sinner when the thought of his sin melts his heart to sorrow and his eyes to tears. Sorrow for sin—repentance of wrong-doing—is the first stage in recovery. And there is nothing that will cause penitence like a sight of the Saviour’s wounds.
The sight of them relieves our consciences. For as we look at those livid weals we know He did not deserve them. We know that we did merit punishment direr far. And we know that He endured them, and more mysterious agonies of which they were the outward sign, in our stead. Then, gradually, we draw the inference. If He suffered for us, we are free. If our load was laid on Him, it is no longer upon us. Conscience accepts that logic.
The sight of them prevents further outbreaks. This cure is radical. It not only heals, it also strengthens. It gradually raises the system above its tendency to sin. For the more we gaze upon those livid stripes, the more intolerable and hateful sin, which caused them, appears, and the more difficult it becomes for us to indulge in it. Our medicine is also a strong tonic, which invigorates the spiritual nature and fortifies its weaknesses. Stanley, in one of his books on African travel, tells of the crime of Uledi, his native coxswain, and what came of it. Uledi was deservedly popular for his ability and courage, but having robbed his master, a jury of his fellows condemned him to receive “a terrible flogging.” Then uprose his brother, Shumari, who said, “Uledi has done very wrong; but no one can accuse me of wrong-doing. Now, mates, let me take half the whipping. I will cheerfully endure it for the sake of my brother.” Scarcely had he finished when another arose, and said, “Uledi has been the father of the boat boys. He has many times risked his life to save others; and he is my cousin; and yet he ought to be punished. Shumari says he will take half the punishment; and now let me take the other half, and let Uledi go free.” Surely the heart of the guilty man must have been touched, and the willing submission by others to the punishment he had merited must have restrained him from further outbreaks as the strict infliction of the original penalty never could. By those stripes he would be healed. Even so, the stripes of our Lord deliver us from the very tendency to sin. For the disease to be healed the medicine must be taken. Our very words “recipe” and “receipt” remind us of this. They are related, and signify “to take.” The selfsame word describes the means of cure, and commands that it be used. Look upon His wounds! And let those of us who have looked for our cure, still look for our strengthening. We should not have so many touches of the old complaint if we thought oftener of the stripes by which we are healed. Look all through life, and you will grow stronger and holier. (B. J. Gibbon.) The universal remedy:— Not merely His bleeding wounds, but even those blue bruises of His flesh help to heal us. There are none quite free from spiritual diseases. One may be saying, “Mine is a weak faith;” another may confess, “Mine is distracted thoughts;” another may exclaim, “Mine is coldness of love;” and a fourth may have to lament his powerlessness in prayer. One remedy in natural things will not suffice for all diseases; but there is a catholicon, a universal remedy, provided in the Word of God for all spiritual sicknesses, and that is contained in the few words—“With His stripes we are healed.” I. THE MEDICINE ITSELF WHICH IS HERE PRESCRIBED—the stripes of our Saviour. By the term “stripes,” no doubt the prophet understood here, first, literally, those stripes which fell upon our Lord’s shoulders when He was beaten of the Jews, and afterwards scourged of the Roman soldiery. But the words intend far more than this. No doubt with his prophetic eye Isaiah saw the stripes from that unseen scourge held in the Father’s hand which fell upon His nobler inner nature when His soul was scourged for sin. It is by these that our souls are healed. “But why?” First, then, because our Lord, as a sufferer, was not a private person, but suffered as a public individual, and an appointed representative. Our Lord was not merely man, or else His sufferings could not have availed for the multitude who now are healed thereby. He was God as well as man. Our Saviour’s sufferings heal us of the curse by being presented before God as a substitute for what we owe to His Divine law. But healing is a work that is carried on within, and the text rather leads me to speak of the effect of the stripes of Christ upon our characters and natures than upon the result produced in our position before God. II. THE MATCHLESS CURES WROUGHT BY THIS REMARKABLE MEDICINE. Look at two pictures. Look at man without the stricken Saviour; and then behold man with the Saviour, healed by His stripes. III. THE MALADIES WHICH THIS WONDROUS MEDICINE REMOVES.
The mania of despair.
The stony heart.
The paralysis of doubt.
A stiffness of the knee-joint of prayer.
Numbness of soul.
The fever of pride.
The leprosy of selfishness.
Anger.
The fretting consumption of worldliness.
The cancer of covetousness. IV. THE CURATIVE PROPERTIES OF THE MEDICINE.
It arrests spiritual disorder.
It quickens all the powers of the spiritual man to resist the disease.
It restores to the man that which he lost in strength by sin.
It soothes the agony of conviction.
It has an eradicating power as to sin. V. THE MODES OF THE WORKING OF THIS MEDICINE. The sinner hearing of the death of the incarnate God is led by the force of truth and the power of the Holy Spirit to believe in the incarnate God. The cure is already begun. After faith come gratitude, love, obedience. VI. ITS REMARKABLY EASY APPLICATION. VII. Since the medicine is so efficacious, since it is already prepared and freely presented, I do beseech you TAKE IT. Take it, you who have known its power in years gone by. Let not backslidings continue, but come to His stripes afresh. Take it, ye doubters, lest ye sink into despair; come to His stripes anew. Take it, ye who are beginning to be self-confident and proud. And, O ye who have never believed in Him, come and trust in Him, and you shall live. (C. H. Spurgeon.) A simple remedy:— I. THESE ARE SAD WORDS. They are part of a mournful piece of music, which might be called “the requiem of the Messiah.”
These are sad words because they imply disease.
There is a second sorrow in the verse, and that is sorrow for the suffering by which we are healed. There was a cruel process in the English navy, in which men were made to run the gauntlet all along the ship, with sailors on each side, each man being bound to give a stroke to the poor victim as he ran along. Our Saviour’s life was a running of the gauntlet between His enemies and His friends, who all struck Him, one here and another there. Satan, too, struck at him. II. THESE ARE GLAD WORDS.
Because they speak of healing.
There is another joy in the text—joy in the honour which it brings to Christ. III. THESE ARE SUGGESTIVE WORDS. Whenever a man is healed through the stripes of Jesus, the instincts of his nature should make him say, “I will spend the strength I have, as a healed man, for Him who healed me.” (Ibid.) Christopathy:— I. GOD HERE TREATS SIN AS A DISEASE. Sin is a disease—
Because it is not an essential part of man as he was created. It is something abnormal.
Because it puts all the faculties out of gear.
Because it weakens the moral energy, just as many diseases weaken the sick person’s body.
Because it either causes great pain, or deadens all sensibility, as the case may be.
Because it frequently produces a manifest pollution.
Because it tends to increase in the man, and will one day prove fatal to him. II. GOD HERE DECLARES THE REMEDY WHICH HE HAS PROVIDED.
Behold the heavenly medicine.
Remember that the sufferings of Christ were vicarious.
Accept this atonement and you are saved by it.
Let nothing of your own interfere with the Divine remedy. Prayer does not heal, but it asks for the remedy. It is not trust that heals; that is man’s application of the remedy. Repentance is not what cures, it is a part of the cure, one of the first tokens that the blessed medicine has begun to work in the soul. The healing of a sinner does not lie in himself, nor in what he is, nor in what he feels, nor in what he does, nor in what he vows, nor in what he promises. It is in His stripes that the healing lies. III. THE REMEDY IS IMMEDIATELY EFFECTIVE. How are we healed?
Our conscience is healed of every smart.
Our heart is healed of its love of sin.
Our life is healed of its rebellion.
Our consciousness assures us that we are healed. If you are healed by His stripes you should go and live like healthy men. (Ibid.) Healed by Christ’s stripes:— Mr. Mackay, of Hull, told of a person who was under very deep concern of soul. Taking the Bible into his hand, he said to himself, “Eternal life is to be found somewhere in this Word of God; and, if it be here, I will find it, for I will read the Book right through, praying to God over every page of it, if perchance it may contain some saving message for me.” The earnest seeker read on through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and so on; and though Christ is there very evidently, he could not find Him in the types and symbols. Neither did the holy histories yield him comfort, nor the Book of Job. He passed through the Psalms, but did not find his Saviour there; and the same was the case with the other books till he reached Isaiah. In this prophet he read on till near the end, and then in the fifty-third chapter, these words arrested his delighted attention, “With His stripes we are healed.” “Now I have found it,” says he. “Here is the healing that I need for my sin-sick soul, and I see how it comes to me through the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be His name, I am healed!” (Ibid.) Self-sufficiency prevents healing:— I saw a pedlar one day, as I was walking out; he was selling walkingsticks. He followed me, and offered me one of the sticks. I showed him mine—a far better one than any he had to sell—and he withdrew at once. He could see that I was not likely to be a purchaser. I have often thought of that when I have been preaching: I show men the righteousness of the Lord Jesus, but they show me their own, and all hope of dealing with them is gone. Unless I can prove that their righteousness is worthless, they will not seek the righteousness which is of God by faith. Oh, that the Lord would show you your disease, and then you would desire the remedy! (Ibid.) Sin deadens sensibility:— It frequently happens that, the more sinful a man is, the less he is conscious of it. It was remarked of a certain notorious criminal that many thought him innocent because, when he was charged with murder, he did not betray the least emotion. In that wretched self-possession there was to my mind presumptive proof of his great familiarity with crime; if an innocent person is charged with a great offence, the mere charge horrifies him. (Ibid.)
Exell, J. S. (n.d.). Isaiah (Vol. 3, pp. 112–118). Fleming H. Revell Company.
53:5. Pierced … crushed … punishment … wounds are words that describe what the remnant will note about the Servant’s condition on their behalf and because of their transgressions (peša‘, “rebellion”; cf. v. 8; 1:2) and iniquities. As a result those who believe in Him have inner peace rather than inner anguish or grief (see comments on “infirmities” in 53:4) and are healed spiritually. Ironically His wounds, inflicted by the soldiers’ scourging and which were followed by His death, are the means of healing believers’ spiritual wounds in salvation. Jesus’ physical agony in the Crucifixion was great and intense. But His obedience to the Father was what counted (cf. Phil. 2:8). His death satisfied the wrath of God against sin and allows Him to “overlook” the sins of the nation (and of others who believe) because they have been paid for by the Servant’s substitutionary death.
Martin, J. A. (1985). Isaiah. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 1, p. 1108). Victor Books.
53:5 The repetition of the pronouns He, Him, and His for our and we underscores the fact that the Servant suffered in our place. The chastisement … His stripes: For a similar reference, see 1 Pet. 2:24. Peace sums up the Servant’s ministry of reconciliation, justification, adoption, and glorification (2 Cor. 5:17–21). By saying that they were healed (v. 4), the remnant expressed its faith in what God had announced in 52:13.
Radmacher, E. D., Allen, R. B., & House, H. W. (1999). Nelson’s new illustrated Bible commentary (p. 863). T. Nelson Publishers.
† 53:5 — But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. On the cross, Jesus willingly became our substitute. God made Jesus “who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21).
Stanley, C. F. (2005). The Charles F. Stanley life principles Bible: New King James Version (Is 53:5). Nelson Bibles.
And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. (Mark 1:17)
Only by coming after Jesus can we obtain our heart’s desire and be really useful to our fellow men. Oh, how we long to be successful fishers for Jesus! We would sacrifice our lives to win souls. But we are tempted to try methods which Jesus would never have tried. Shall we yield to this suggestion of the enemy? If so, we may splash the water, but we shall never take the fish. We must follow after Jesus if we would succeed. Sensational methods, entertainment, and so forth—are these coming after Jesus? Can we imagine the Lord Jesus drawing a congregation by such means as are now commonly used? What is the result of such expedients? The result is nothing which Jesus will count up at the last great day.
We must keep to our preaching as our Master did, for by this means souls are saved. We must preach our Lord’s doctrine and proclaim a full and free gospel, for this is the net in which souls are taken, We must preach with His gentleness, boldness, and love, for this is the secret of success with human hearts. We must work under divine anointing, depending upon the sacred Spirit. Thus, coming after Jesus, and not running before Him, not aside from Him, we shall be fishers of men.
(This post originally appeared on the Sego Lily Foundation HERE and is republished with permission.)
Born-again Christians often feel pressure to master LDS theology before engaging a friend in gospel conversation. The truth is that effective evangelism to Latter-day Saints requires far less knowledge about Mormonism than one might think. Deep-dives into LDS theology are not only time-consuming and frustrating, but also delay gospel conversations that probably should have happened already.
But that begs the question, “Why study LDS theology at all?” First, solid preparation will give you confidence as you teach. Second, an overall structure will help you learn nuances when you encounter them. Third, and most important, you’ll be able to correctly interpret your friend’s questions and concerns.
For these reasons, we’re providing the following primer. As you read, try to absorb the material while noting Mormonism’s overarching time-line, especially in God’s Plan of Salvation.
History
The history and the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are weighted heavily on Joseph Smith, Jr (1805-1844). According to Smith, he journeyed into the woods in Palmyra, NY, at fourteen years old to pray about which church to join. Angelic beings appeared and told him not to follow any existing Christian denomination, as all had perverted Christ’s true church (called The Great Apostasy).
According to Smith, after seven years of failure, the angel Moroni (pictured by the bronze, trumpet-blasting angel who sits atop all LDS temples) finally led him to Cumorah Hill where, in September of 1827, he collected golden plates, Urim and Thummim (a set of stone-like spectacles), a breastplate, and the Sword of Laban. These plates contained histories of previously unknown Jewish descendants who had migrated to the Americas. Eventually, Smith translated the plates’ Reformed Egyptian by dictating English words as they appeared in the bottom of his hat. And thus, the Book of Mormon was born.
Armed with “Another Testament of Jesus Christ,” Smith set about to re-establish Christ’s true church on the earth. His dynamic personality and sensational preaching drew many followers as they sojourned from Kirtland, OH, to Independence, MO, and then to Nauvoo, IL. In 1844, after 5 years in Nauvoo, Smith found himself imprisoned due to a controversy related to the destruction of a local printing press that had recently criticized Smith’s polygamy. On the evening of June 27, 1844, a mob stormed the prison and murdered both Joseph and his brother Hyrum.
Following Smith’s death, the Latter-day Saints splintered into as many as twenty different sects, but the majority followed Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; he led them to the Utah territory where they settled in 1847. Through aggressive missionary activity and widespread polygamy, the Latter-day Saint population quickly grew (Prophet Wilford Woodruff officially ended “plural marriage” in 1890). Today, the mainstream LDS Church boasts of 12 million members worldwide with an estimated annual income of $6B (the LDS Church does not release any official financial figures).
The cornerstone of LDS theology is the “the doctrine of eternal progression.” In its most basic form, married couples can “progress” to godhood whereupon their heavenly offspring also have opportunity to become gods. Latter-day Saints sometimes claim that “eternal progression” is not a topic of much discussion in Ward meetings, which is true. But as the outlines of LDS theology emerge, one will see that progression lies at the root of it all.
Pre-Existence
Latter-day Saints believe that in the past eons of time, Heavenly Father (or, Elohim) and Heavenly Mother bore billions of spirit children where they live near the star Kolob. Of these celestial spirit-children, Jesus Christ was the firstborn and chief. Knowing that his spirit children could not themselves progress to godhood unless they took a human body, Heavenly Father decided to send them to earth to form families and “gain knowledge” unto their own potential godhood. But before finalizing this Plan of Salvation, Heavenly Father called all his spirit children to a council where he posed the following question: When my children get to earth and sin, how will they return to me?
Lucifer proposed a plan that robbed these spirit children of free-will – obedience to Heavenly Father would be required. Jesus’s plan, however, retained human choice and saves only those who follow Heavenly Father’s ways. Surmising that free-will maximized Heavenly Father’s glory, the council unanimously accepted Jesus’s proposal, which embittered Lucifer and touched off a heavenly war. Today people remember nothing of the pre-mortal life, of course, because Heavenly Father drops the Veil of Forgetfulness over human memory.
Fall
When Heavenly Father commissioned Adam and Eve, he gave two commands: (1) do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and (2) be fruitful and multiply. When Lucifer successfully tricked Eve into violating the first command, Adam was placed on the horns of a dilemma. If he obeyed the first command and refused to eat the forbidden fruit, his chance to multiply would end when his wife was banished. Or, Adam could join her disobedience, share in her exile, and pave the way for others to attain godhood. Adam, of course, heroically chose the sacrificial path of self-expulsion so that he might procreate with Eve.
Jesus and Salvation
Adam’s deliberate disobedience created a problem: Who would atone for Adam’s sin? Jesus sinlessly atoned for Adam’s sin in both the Garden of Gethsemane (when he sweat drops of blood) and on the cross. Jesus’s atonement has two universal, unconditional benefits for salvation: (1) it atones for Adam’s sin and (2) it provides a general resurrection for all mankind. Those who accept the LDS message, follow its tenets, receive Temple ordinances, and much more, can qualify themselves for individual “salvation” in the highest heaven. It is there, in the Celestial Kingdom, that they may progress to godhood.
Latter-day Saint theology teaches the existence of three heavens: the telestial, terrestrial, and celestial. The telestial, the lowest heaven, is reserved for those who have rejected the LDS message. The terrestrial is for Latter-day Saints who maintained connection with the Church throughout their lives but were lukewarm in their pursuit. The Celestial, which also has three layers, is for those who believed and behaved worthily. These individuals can progress to godhood, create their own spirit race, and fellowship fully with Heavenly Father. Some Plans also picture Outer Darkness, which is a place reserved for apostate Latter-day Saints who “remain filthy still.”
Finally, LDS theology retains a second chance for Heavenly Father’s spirit children. After the first resurrection, mankind will be presented another opportunity to repent. If a family member has undergone Temple ordinances on their behalf (commonly known as Baptism for the Dead), they can receive a higher degree of glory at Jesus’s Final Judgement.
Conclusion
It was almost as if the apostle Paul could see into Utah’s future when he wrote, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8-9). What is the gospel that Paul preached? He goes on, “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Jesus Christ, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified” (Galatians 2:16).
As one Christian writer put it, the difference between born-again Christianity and Mormonism is this – Latter-day Saints believe their salvation is doing; Christians believe it is done. “When the fulness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5).
The Bible uses three main words to refer to a miracle: sign, wonder, and power. From a human perspective, a miracle of God is an extraordinary or unnatural event (a wonder) that reveals or confirms a specific message (a sign) through a mighty work (power). From the God of miracle’s vantage point, a miracle is nothing extraordinary or unnatural. It is simply a divine display of His might (power) that attracts the attention of humans (a wonder) to His Word or His purposes (a sign).
Miracle-mongers are the people who clamor to see or experience a miracle but do not know the first thing about the other attributes of God. Like the ‘crowds’ in the Bible. These are the people who come to church only in hopes to see a sign. The pray for glory dust to fall down so they can say Jesus showed up. They pray for healed legs so they can run toward sin. People like that existed in Jesus’ day and in our day too. (John 6:2, John 12:18).
Be warned, miracle-mongers, “most of the miraculous events in the Old Testament killed people,” explained John MacArthur. They simply, flatly, killed people, as a demonstration of God’s justice and holiness.
His justice is demonstrated at the cross. It is God who said the soul that sends it must die. It is God who says the wages of sin is death, and death there will be. Death there must be. And justice prevails at the cross. God is so just, so just, that He will even take the life of His own beloved Son. If the sins of the world are to be laid on His Son, then His Son must take the death that they deserve. You will never see a greater illustration of the justice of God. You can look in the past. You can look in the Old Testament. You can see most of the miracles in the Old Testament killed people. If you’re looking for miracles in the Old Testament, most of the miraculous events in the Old Testament killed people, drowned entire armies, drowned the entire world, burned up people, holes opened in the ground and swallowed them up. People were literally killed by angelic beings. Most of the Old Testament miracles were miracles of divine judgment.
“So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” (John 4:48).
You know, we have a tendency to read the Bible as if miracles were occurring behind every bush and every other day by everybody in history. But actually, if you look at the appearance of miracles in the Bible, they’re clustered. There’s all these miracles that attend Moses in his mediatorial office, and then very little miraculous activity takes place for centuries until when? Elijah. That’s the next redemptive historical period that has a cluster of miracles. Isn’t that interesting? That God verifies the law, and then the prophets, through the giving of miraculous powers. And then you don’t hear about miracles from Jonah or Habakkuk that they performed, or Ezekiel, or the other prophets of the Old Testament until again, the world becomes a blaze of miracles with the appearance of Jesus. Notice that there is a special focal point for the clustering of miracles in biblical history—all surrounding the issue of the word of God.
Do you love Jesus for who He is? Or for what He can do for you? A warning to those who seek and cling to and desire miracle after miracle, be careful what you wish for–
For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders that would deceive even the elect, if that were possible. (Matthew 24:24).
Pastor Mike focuses on the importance and benefit of using catechisms, creeds, and confessions as supplements to studying the Bible. He argues that these resources, such as systematic theology or a confession, help believers “get their arms around” the vast content of the 66 books of the Bible by providing concise summaries and instruction.While affirming that God’s Word is the final, supreme authority (sola scriptura), he highlights how catechisms protect the church from “celebrity pastors” by establishing a shared, time-tested theological foundation, and provide a means for unity among different reformed groups (like the “three forms of unity”: Dort, Heidelberg, and Belgic Confession). Produced/Edited By: Marrio Escobar (Owner of D2L Productions) Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vjv_fnYjzIM
30 These words could be the husband’s but may better form the poet’s summation of the matter. In any case, what is valued in the wife are her domestic efficiency and her piety rather than charm and beauty. Physical appearance is not necessarily dismissed—it simply does not endure as do those qualities produced by the fear of the Lord (see Note). Beauty is deceitful, and one who pursues beauty may well be disappointed by the character of the “beautiful” person.
Ross, A. P. (2008). Proverbs. In T. Longman III, Garland David E. (Eds.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Proverbs–Isaiah (Revised Edition) (Vol. 6, p. 251). Zondervan.
31:30. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised. Having skillfully instilled a gnawing hunger to know what makes this woman tick, the poet now reveals the source of her excellence. The first line instructs us concerning what makes an insufficient grounds for life and relationships: personal ‘Charm’ and physical ‘beauty.’ The former is ‘deceitful.’ The word normally refers to words or actions that are untrue and without foundation in fact or reality. By her charms, a woman is able to set forth an impression of herself which will not hold up over time and under the pressures of real life (Prov. 5:3; 11:22). The latter is said to be ‘vain.’ The word, literally, means ‘breath’ or ‘vapor.’ It is here today and gone tomorrow. We should not read these as a denouncement of physical beauty, for Proverbs has counseled a man to find delight in his wife’s body (Prov. 5:15–19). Rather, the point is that there must be much more than physical attraction and general enchantment if the marriage is to last and reflect God’s ways. Above all else, that which makes her an ‘excellent wife’ is her fear of the Lord. It is her spiritual life which gives strength and beauty to the rest of her being. This reference to the fear of the Lord serves as an inclusio with Proverbs 1:7, the key verse of the book. We do well to remember that the book began here and that the first major section of the book ended here as well (Prov. 9:10). So, now, the book as a whole also ends upon this theme. ‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning [and ending] of wisdom’ (Prov. 1:7, parenthesis added). The first word in wisdom is also the last: rightly reverencing the Lord. The wise man was introduced to the Woman Wisdom in chapters 1–9, and, now, he has wedded her (Prov. 31:10–31). He has rejected the adulteress and harlot (e.g. Prov. 2:16–19; 5:1–6; 7:1–23), and has found delight in a woman of true integrity and substance (1 Tim. 2:9–10; 1 Pet. 3:1–6). For this decision, he is blessed forevermore.
Kitchen, J. A. (2006). Proverbs: A Mentor Commentary (pp. 722–723). Mentor.
31:30. This wife is praiseworthy from the inside, not just because of external charm and beauty. An attractive outward appearance can be deceitful because it reveals nothing about a person’s true quality and may in fact mask character deficiencies. Moreover, it is vain in any case because it is fleeting. Of course, beauty is not a negative quality, and a husband should find his wife attractive (cf. 5:19–20). But attractiveness is relatively insignificant when compared to the decisive factor making the excellent wife so praiseworthy. What matters most is that she fears the LORD (cf. 1:7; 9:10). Her relationship with the Lord makes her such an exemplar of wisdom and righteousness.
Finkbeiner, D. (2014). Proverbs. In M. A. Rydelnik & M. Vanlaningham (Eds.), The moody bible commentary (p. 969). Moody Publishers.
Ver. 30. A woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.—A woman worthy of praise:— This text recognises the fact that a woman seeks admiration. She loves to be praised. What is so natural and universal cannot be wrong. Generally speaking, a woman who has lost the desire of praise is a lost woman. Her self-respect has gone, and she has parted with her strongest motive to strive after personal excellence. A woman wins her way and strengthens her influence by the admiration she commands and the affection she inspires. Praise is more necessary to the right growth and happy development of human character than is commonly supposed. We do each other a moral wrong by withholding it when deserved. The desire to be commended may be thought an unworthy and selfish motive. It is unworthy when the heart is satisfied with the praise of foolish people. Very important it is whose praise we seek. All dishonest gains are bad. To claim commendation when we are conscious of not deserving it, or even to accept it without protest, is mean and destructive of personal integrity. To seek the honour that cometh from God, to deserve well of the good, can only spring from sympathy with goodness. The text glances at means of winning admiration which you must not rely on. “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain.” The praise these will bring you is not worth coveting. Beauty of form and feature is almost always a snare when it is not an index to beauty of soul. A woman should not place her worth in these outward advantages. She is to aim at a higher beauty, to seek to be beautiful in the eyes of Him “who seeth not as man seeth.” Three things should guide you in dress—truth, order, and harmony. You violate the rule of truth if you ever dress so as to be mistaken for what you are not. You should never purchase what will have an ill look when it is shabby. If you do you violate the law of order. You offend against the law of harmony if what you have on excites remark. A woman is dressed harmoniously when her dress seems part of herself. As the world is, marriage is the goal of a woman’s existence. Marriage makes or mars a woman. Girls whose chief talk is about young men merit severe reprobation. On this matter good advice may be summed up under three heads: Think little. Talk less. Do nothing. It will be time enough for you to think what your chances are and whom you will marry when the question comes before you in a practical form. This advice is based upon sound reasons and justified by manifold experiences. Piety is the bond of feminine virtues, the crown of womanly graces. A cold theology of intellectual ideas will never satisfy you. The religion that will command your devotion and obedience must offer a living person to your faith and loyal affection. The gospel offers you the Lord Jesus. Translate the description of fidelity, kindness, industry, and prudence given in this chapter into the language of to-day. Picture to yourselves this model of womanly excellence set in the duties and circumstances of your own lives, and then aim to be like her, for such will be the woman that feareth the Lord, and whom He will deem worthy of praise. (E. W. Shalders, B.A.) Woman’s praises and virtues:— I. HER VIRTUES (vers. 11–27). Her conjugal fidelity; her kindness and constancy of affection; her housewifery and diligence; her thrift and management; her industry and assiduity; her charity and liberality; her providence and forecast; her magnificence in furniture and apparel; her reputation in public; her traffic and trade abroad; her discretion and obligingness in discourse; her care of home and good government of her family. II. HER PRAISE. At home; in public; through the whole country where she lives. Prove virtue to be the only praiseworthy thing. Favour and beauty are frail, and subject to decay in their nature and in the opinions of men. They are things that may be counterfeited and put on. They prove too frequently occasions of evil and incentives to sensuality. The good woman prizes favour and beauty under three conditions. Not so as ambitiously to seek them or fondly to vaunt them. Not so as to rely on them as solid goods. Not so as to misemploy them, but to guide them with virtue and discretion. Praise is sure to come to the woman that “feareth the Lord.” The woman has equal rights with man. A virtuous woman may mean a stout, valiant woman; or a busy, industrious woman; or a woman of wealth and riches; or a discreet woman. In its principle, this “fear” is a reverential fear. In its operations, like the warp, it runs through the whole web of all her duties. Such a woman shall be praised. (Adam Littleton, D.D.) Beauty and goodness:— I. THE APPROBATION TO BE DESIRED. The love of approbation is at once a virtuous and a powerful motive. It includes the approbation of God and of good men. Some, however, cherish the love of approbation too much, and will sacrifice principle in order to obtain it. It is a dangerous thing to have the approval of every one; it is apt to make us careless, proud, or indifferent. II. THE FALSE MEANS WHICH ARE SOMETIMES RELIED ON TO SECURE THIS END. “Favour” means a graceful manner, demeanour, and deportment. “Beauty” refers to the countenance. We may thank God for beauty of person and elegance of manner as for any other of the blessings of this life. Used rightly, beauty may be a virtue, but perverted it becomes a source of great and awful evil. III. THE CERTAIN AND ONLY ROAD TO APPROBATION. The woman who wishes to be praised must cultivate religious principle. Women are apt to attach undue importance to the external and to neglect the spiritual. Beauty without goodness passes away like a vapour, and leaves no trace behind; or if it succeeds in being remembered, it is only that it may be despised and abhorred. (Clement Dukes, M.A.) Woman’s virtues:— As virtues of the true matron there are named, above all, the fear of God as the sum of all duties to God; then chastity, fidelity, love to her husband without any murmuring; diligence and energy in all domestic avocations; frugality, moderation and gentleness in the treatment of servants; care in the training of children; and beneficence to the poor. (Melancthon.) Woman’s influence:— I. FAVOUR IS DECEITFUL. Men’s favour, the world’s favour, how fickle it ever is, how soon it changes, and what a short time it exists! How many souls have been ruined by the world’s favours! Flattery has produced pride, and has blinded the eyes and led the steps along the downward way. II. BEAUTY IS VAIN. We need not disparage beauty in itself. Beauty of form and feature is of God. But how short-lived mere beauty of face is! Sicknesses lessen it, increasing age denies it, afflictions spoil it. III. WHAT SHALL GIVE US POWER AND INFLUENCE FOR GOOD? Fearing the Lord. This makes the highest and grandest type of woman. (Uriah Davies, M.A.) Lasting love:— That love which is cemented by youth and beauty, when these moulder and decay, as soon they do, fades too. But if husbands and wives are each reconciled unto God in Christ, and so heirs of life and one with God, then are they truly one in God each with the other, and that is the surest and sweetest union that can be. (Archbp. Leighton.) Woman retaining honour:— “A gracious woman retaineth honour.” That is, a woman distinguished for her modesty, meekness, and prudence, and other virtues, will engage affection and respect when other accomplishments fade and decline. (B. E. Nicholls, M.A.) Woman: her dues and her debts:— There is among men no general agreement as to what exactly woman is, or means, and what precisely she is for, and rather less agreement among her own sex. Woman has been a great while in finding her place, and slow in even suspecting that any place of power and dignity is her due. Woman has been cautiously conceded to have powers of thought, or to be susceptible to a degree of discipline, but those susceptibilities have been regarded suspiciously and handled evasively. In higher social classes woman is considered rather in the light of a delicacy; as no true constituent of the bone and sinew of society; more an ornament than a utility, like the pictures we hang on our walls, or the statuary we range in our alcoves—a kind of live art. A womanly woman is feminine by nature, more feminine by grace, and will be consummately feminine by translation. What it lies in the nature of a thing to become is a providential indication of what God wants it to become by improvement and development. An uneducated woman is as much a mistake as an uneducated man is a mistake. By education is meant, first of all, womanliness, built out of alternate layers of intelligence sharpened by discipline and integrity, chastened by the manifold graces of God. A young woman, as much as a young man, belongs to her times. The beauty of a home and the strength of a home is that it is the product of affectionate co-operation and conspiracy between the prime partners to the contract. Society has not yet made any improvement on the marriage idea as it is laid down in the second chapter of God’s book—that the wife is to be her husband’s helpmeet. The hope of civilisation is the home, and the hope of the home is the mother. Characterless mothers and enervated homes are to be dreaded more than outward assaults of immorality or insinuations of a gross philosophy; for it is the enervation of the home that gives to gross philosophy and bad morality the opportunity to take hold and do its corroding and poisonous work. Civilisation would be kept as grand as the home is kept, and the keystone of home is the mother. (C. H. Parkhurst, D.D.) The virtuous woman:— Note—
Her industry and activity.
Her benevolence and kindness.
Her prudence or discretion.
Her devotion to God. The importance of true religion as the crowning grace of womanhood cannot be over-estimated. (Frederick Greeves, D.D.) Our mothers:— Writing in her diary soon after the birth of her babe, Margaret Fuller put these words, “I am the mother of an immortal being. God be merciful to me a sinner!” A true woman cannot feel other than seriously the import of such an experience. Somebody has said, “She who rocks the cradle rules the world!” The world is what those constituting it make it. “Like mother, like child.” How great and sacred are a mother’s responsibilities! Her teaching and example are the most forceful agents in the formation of her child’s life. Virtue is transmitted as well as evil. The good we do lives after us as potentially as the bad. The strong things in a mother’s life pass on to the child as well as the weak. Let no mother say that her sphere is obscure or secondary. A noble ambition can fill no wider scope. Certain things are essential if you are wisely to fulfil your responsibilities of motherhood.
Endeavour to be what you would have your child become; in character, in morals, in religion.
Look well to yourself. Live what you teach.
Win the respect of your child.
Never let your child get beyond you in intellectual sympathy. Hearts may keep pace where heads cannot. Learn to sympathise with religious perplexities, and learn how best they may be eased and remedied.
Let your child be always certain of your love. Be faithful to your woman’s instinct. Deal patiently and lovingly with your child. Keep the home life bright for him. Learn to respect his rights. Allow him room for the free play of the varied powers God has given him. Are you not assured of grace sufficient for all your mother-needs? (George Bainton.)
Exell, J. S. (n.d.). Proverbs (pp. 694–696). Fleming H. Revell Company.
“The eyes of the world being thus on our Country, it is put the more on its good behavior, and under the greater obligation also, to do justice to the Tree of Liberty by an exhibition of the fine fruits we gather from it.” —James Madison (1824)
Americans are spending money: Economic news in Donald Trump’s administration has been better than under Joe Biden’s, but it’s not yet the explosive growth many have been hoping for. It’s probably too soon to say “the economy is booming,” but consumer confidence seems high. Retail sales were up 0.6% in November, higher than expected, and holiday sales were up over 1.9% in specialty shops. Another highly positive sign is the economy’s 5.3% annual growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2025. Still, inflation for the past year was down significantly from the Biden era but still hurting Americans’ spending power. 2025 showed signs of an improving economy, and this year began with evidence of consumer confidence and expectations of larger tax refunds in the upcoming season. 2026 may be the year when Americans can finally say, “The economy is booming.”
House passes spending and foreign aid bills: Omnibus congressional spending bills with price tags in the trillions have unfortunately become normalized in recent years. That’s why the House of Representatives’ vote on Wednesday to pass two spending bills totaling only $77 billion deserves some kudos. In a 341-79 vote, lawmakers passed two spending bills for fiscal year 2026 for foreign aid and financial services agencies. “When done the right way, funding the government is not a single vote,” said Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole. One bill funds the State Department and foreign aid programs to the tune of $50 billion, while the other funds the Treasury Department and some agencies for $27 billion. With this vote, the House has passed eight of 12 annual spending bills that Congress gave itself until January 30 to pass. The Senate is working more slowly but remains on track for the deadline.
Greenland meeting ends with no deal: A contingent of Danish officials and members of the Trump administration, led by Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, met at the White House on Wednesday to discuss President Trump’s desire for the U.S. to acquire Greenland. Following the meeting, a Danish official observed a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland, which is currently a semi-autonomous Danish territory. Trump responded to the lack of agreement, stating, “We need Greenland for national security. We’ll see how it all works out. I think something will work out.” Both Danish and Greenlandic officials have expressed resistance to Trump’s aims, with Denmark, a NATO member, planning to increase its military presence around the territory. The two sides have agreed to create a “high-level working group” to continue discussing the issue.
Moratorium on sanctuary city/state funding: “Starting February 1, we’re not making any payments to sanctuary cities or states,” said President Trump to the Detroit Economic Club, “because they do everything possible to protect criminals.” Trump’s announcement comes as a massive fraud scheme in Minnesota is still being uncovered and taxpayers are being ripped off. Blue cities and states will face immediate budget issues if Trump is successful, but this action will certainly face roadblocks from the Left. A Biden-appointed judge just blocked the administration temporarily from stopping subsidies to Minnesota programs involved in fraud. Still, Trump is right — radical action is needed to impose law and order on lawless sanctuary jurisdictions.
Trump meets Machado, Vance tanks War Powers assault: Nobel Peace Prize recipient María Corina Machado will meet with President Trump at the White House today. Machado has led the opposition to Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, only to have the Maduro regime reject election results and retain power. Now, following the U.S. operation to capture, arrest, and remove Maduro from power, Machado is making the case that she should become Venezuela’s new leader. Trump has thus far worked with Maduro’s vice president and current leader, Delcy Rodriguez. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, JD Vance cast the tiebreaking Senate vote against a resolution that sought to limit Trump’s war powers regarding Venezuela. Two of the five Republican senators — Josh Hawley and Todd Young — who had sided with Democrats and initially voted to advance the resolution flipped and voted against it, resulting in a 50-50 tie.
Visa processing suspended for 75 countries: The State Department announced that it will implement a temporary pause on immigrant visa processing from 75 countries, including Somalia, Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, Nigeria, and Yemen. The visa pause is set to begin on January 21. No end date has been established, as the State Department will be engaged in reevaluating and reassessing its visa processing. State Department spokesman Tommy Piggott explained, “The State Department will use its long-standing authority to deem ineligible potential immigrants who would become a public charge on the United States and exploit the generosity of the American people.” The massive welfare fraud scandal in Minnesota, which has primarily been promulgated by Somali immigrants, appears to be a major factor driving this decision.
ICE agent’s wounds: Though the propaganda media would have you believe that the ICE agent who was forced to shoot Renee Good wasn’t even hurt, let alone hit by her car, agent Jonathan Ross did suffer injuries. The veteran ICE agent was able to walk away, but he was hospitalized due to internal bleeding in his torso as a result of the incident. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters, “He went to the hospital, a doctor did treat him, he has been released, but he’s gonna spend some time with his family.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey had mocked and lied about the agent’s condition: “The ICE agent walked away with a hip injury that he might as well have gotten from closing a refrigerator door with his hips.” The “refrigerator door” in question weighed 4,000 pounds and was accelerating, ramming into the agent’s body.
HHS sends money back to PP: The Trump administration has quietly restored government funding to Planned Parenthood, despite the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that cut funding to the nation’s leading abortion provider. The news obviously angered pro-life conservatives, but there is more to the story. The ACLU recently dropped a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services, which it had raised over the agency’s withholding of over $65 million in Title X grants to abortion clinics. The issue is that HHS began withholding funding to PP before the law was changed. According to CatholicVote’s Tom McClusky, HHS was “virtually certain to lose the lawsuit, forcing them to repay the full amount plus interest and cover attorneys’ fees.” A former HHS official observed, “HHS was caught in a tough spot because the judge was almost certainly going to rule against them.”
Men don’t get pregnant: Congress called witnesses to a hearing on the use of chemical murder abortion drugs yesterday. One of those witnesses, Dr. Nisha Verma, was called by Democrats as an expert witness. Conservatives used their time to ask Dr. Verma a simple question: “Can men get pregnant?” After Sen. Josh Hawley gave her five chances to answer, the best Nisha could come up with was, “I think yes-no questions like this are a political tool.” Well, she’s right — they have become political tools, but only because leftists have bafflingly decided that the question about men and pregnancy is too difficult for them to answer. Any honest person, even without the aid of a biology degree or a doctorate in medicine, can answer that question: No, men cannot get pregnant. Apparently, a Democrat qualification to be an expert witness is to throw common sense out the window.
Headlines
Kristi Noem faces impeachment effort in House (Fox News)
Who’s funding the aggressive anti-ICE tactics? (Daily Signal)
Undercover video prompts suspension of Secret Service agent (NewsNation)
FBI wrongly questioned agents’ support for Trump, religious beliefs, COVID vaccine status (Washington Times)
Humor: Five-year-old brought in to explain difference between boys and girls to Supreme Court (Babylon Bee)
The Executive News Summary is compiled daily by Jordan Candler, Thomas Gallatin, Sterling Henry, and Sophie Starkova. For the archive, click here.
The FBI searched a home yesterday morning as part of an investigation surrounding illegally kept classified documents. It’s a story we’ve heard all too often in recent years, but since the subject of the raid is not named Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, or Donald Trump, it won’t get the same level of attention.
The subject in this case is Hannah Natanson, a reporter for The Washington Post. She “was at her home in Virginia at the time of the search,” reported the Post. “Federal agents searched her home and her devices, seizing her phone, two laptops and a Garmin watch. One of the laptops was her personal computer, the other a Post-issued laptop.”
Furthermore, “Investigators told Natanson that she is not the focus of the probe. The warrant said that law enforcement was investigating Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a system administrator in Maryland who has a top-secret security clearance and has been accused of accessing and taking home classified intelligence reports from secure government facilities that were later found in his lunch box and his basement, according to an FBI affidavit.”
Traditionally, most people — especially journalists — view journalists as having special protection against such searches because of the “chilling” effect we’re always told such things have on the First Amendment right to freedom of the press. I don’t say it that way to sound dismissive of fundamental rights but to highlight the high regard with which journalists hold themselves. They behave like activists and then expect to be utterly immune from consequences.
They seem to think a former president can be prosecuted for felonies relating to classified information, but that they are immunized from even the inconvenience of a search warrant.
Perez-Lugones was arrested last week for leaks about Venezuela because, as Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “The Trump Administration will not tolerate illegal leaks of classified information that, when reported, pose a grave risk to our Nation’s national security and the brave men and women who are serving our country.”
Just today, our Thomas Gallatin warns that Trump’s Justice Department is crossing some lines to engage in lawfare that looks an awful lot like the efforts of the previous administration. As if to illustrate that point, this raid hearkens back to actions taken by the last two Democrat presidents.
Living in what seems like an alternate reality, an accompanying Washington Post story bears this headline: “Journalists confront new reality in reporting after FBI raid.” The article begins by playing up the fear and butt-covering response of other reporters, who “said they moved swiftly to secure their phones and laptops, reassure confidential sources and consult newsroom leaders as they worried about the federal government’s seizure of devices containing sensitive information.”
Again, I’m not saying that journalists or their sources don’t deserve rights and protections, including, in some cases, anonymity. In fact, quite the opposite. I’m also saying that Democrat administrations did the same thing Trump’s DOJ is doing now.
Ask James Rosen, Catherine Herridge, and Sharyl Attkisson about the experience of having personal tech items seized or otherwise being subject to government pressure. The Post could have asked them, but instead doesn’t name any of them. Its story obliquely mentions Rosen only as “a Fox News reporter,” and the Post’s implication is actually to praise then-Attorney General Eric Holder for his response to that episode.
The Post also brings up other investigations by the first Trump administration, again heroically casting Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, as a stalwart defender of a free press for his subsequent actions that “banned using search warrants and subpoenas to obtain journalists’ materials or compel testimony about their sources.”
Bondi reversed that order, though the Post says she “reinstated much of Holder’s framework.”
Journalists do have enumerated protection in the First Amendment. They do have a duty to hold the government accountable for how it comports with the U.S. Constitution. They do have the right to confidential sources so that appropriate whistleblowing can take place. Any government action against reporters better have rock-solid justification.
The rub with this story is that so many Leftmedia reporters simply have an ax to grind only against Republican administrations and politicians. They’re blind to or utterly shameless in their own hypocrisy because they are effectively agents working on behalf of the Democrat Party. That’s almost doubly true of The Washington Post, which, for example, won a Pulitzer for its bogus reporting on the Russia-collusion hoax. And that’s why I can’t help but roll my eyes at the Post’s outrage here.
Thomas Gallatin: Trump’s Lawfare Push Is Damaging the DOJ — Reputable prosecutors are leaving the Department of Justice over concerns the agency is focusing too much on Trump’s enemies.
Emmy Griffin: Independents Are the Dominant Voter Bloc — Both parties are losing the new generation of voters. The Left’s vision is to keep pushing Democrats further to the left, whereas the Right is too quick to claim victory.
Samantha Koch: Grok’s AI Tomfoolery — The artificial intelligence brand has an image feature called Imagine that enables “spicy” edits, which users have exploited to create fake nude images of unsuspecting people.
Patrick Hampton: The Hypocrisy of American Feminism — As Iranian women bravely fight for their rights, risking everything in the face of oppression, American feminists are caught up in identity politics.
Jerry Rogers: Chaos by Design — How political rhetoric turns routine ICE encounters into flashpoints.
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Editor’s Note: Each week we receive hundreds of comments and correspondences — and we read every one of them. Click here for a few thought-provoking comments about specific articles. The views expressed therein don’t necessarily reflect those of The Patriot Post.
Latest PodcastPopCon #129: Hey ChatGPT, What is a Person?TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year isn’t a person anymore. In this episode of “The Pop Culture Contrarian,” Thomas, Sterling, and Andrew tackle a deceptively simple question that’s about to become unavoidable: What is a person?
“The very fact that we’re talking about the difference between biological males and cisgender males [has] been foisted upon us by a campaign of fear being driven by the Right against some women who want to participate in women’s sports.” —MS NOW senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin
North Is South
“You don’t overeat and become obese. Obesity causes you to overeat.” —Oprah Winfrey
Leftist Hysteria
“We should and we can do it all. Use everything we can to say that we want our democracy back, and we’re not going to let these fascist authoritarians take over this country.” —Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL)
The BIG Lie
“Let’s stick to the fact. The man [ICE Agent Jonathan Ross] shot the woman [Renee Good]. He had no reason to shoot her.” —”The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg
Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste
“ICE is beyond reform. ICE is totally out of control. And this week, I intend to introduce a bill to abolish ICE. We need to make ICE go away.” —Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI)
For the Record
“I don’t blame ICE. I don’t blame Rebecca. I don’t blame Renee. … If we’re walking in the Spirit of God, I don’t think she would have been there.” —Timmy Macklin, Renee Good’s former father-in-law
Re: The Left
“Death threats are up over 8,000%, actual assaults up 1,300%. I know because threats against me and my family have tripled in the last couple of weeks.” —Border Czar Tom Homan
“The ‘warmth of collectivism’ fails again and again. It’s failing now in Cuba, North Korea, Nicaragua and Venezuela. It was tried and abandoned in the Soviet Union, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Benin, the Congo, Somalia, Grenada and Cambodia.” —John Stossel
“Republicans must brand the Democratic Party as what it has become — the vehicle leading our nation to fiscal and social bankruptcy.” —Star Parker
The Bottom Line
“If you tell banks they can only charge 10%, they will stop lending to anyone who presents meaningful risk. … The result would be fewer cards issued, lower credit limits, stricter underwriting and the quiet disappearance of credit for precisely the people Trump claims to be protecting.” —Ian Haworth
Coup de Grâce
“If the regime actually falls and is replaced by an allied or non-hostile government in Iran, it would move a large piece off the strategic chessboard for our enemies, and change the geopolitical balance of the Middle East. As much as the 1979 revolution was a debacle to the West, a favorable 2026 revolution would be a boon — to the Iranians and to us and our allies.” —Rich Lowry
Belly Laugh of the Day
“Our country is under attack by a bunch of bored white lesbians. First we had anarchists, now we have AUNTarchists.” —satirist Jimmy Failla
ON THIS DAY in 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. was born. Nationally, Ronald Reagan signed legislation designating the third Monday in January as the official observance of his birthday. As we note every year now, Democrats have turned King’s dream into a nightmare.
The uprising in Iran is reaching a pivotal point, as the government has killed and attacked protesters; one activist tells CBN News “it really is now or never,” and that the regime is waging war on its people to survive, bringing in proxy groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and one Iranian who escaped says “I saw hell in Iran these past days” and that people are ”drowning in blood;” both sides now waiting to see what President Trump will do as preparations are underway throughout the region for a potential confrontation between the US and Iran; exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi says if the regime does fall, Iran will be a friend to the free world and its nuclear military program will end; Chris Mitchell talks about if Iranians see these protests as the last chance to bring down the regime, how many have been killed, what President Trump might do, Israel’s involvement in a strike on Iran, and what Pahlavi plans for Iran if he does become their leader; historian Jared Knott tells CBN’s The Global Lane that if the governments of Iran and Cuba collapse, it could be the biggest shakeup in the world since the fall of the Soviet Union; and the controversy in a Senate hearing over the safety of the abortion pill, as a Senator asks a doctor, “Can men get pregnant?”
(ANALYSIS) Asked to judge a woman “caught in the act of adultery,” the Gospel of John says Jesus stooped, wrote something in the dust, then told her accusers: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Then he wrote again. The silent religious leaders drifted away. What happened next sums up Christian teachings on sin, grace and forgiveness, according to Philip Yancey, long one of America’s most popular evangelical writers.
Jesus asked the woman: “Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
She said, “No, Lord,” to which he replied, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
Fundamentalist preachers often portray God as a “cosmic policeman, someone who’s just waiting to smash somebody who does something wrong,” said Yancey, during an episode of The Russell Moore Show podcast with the Rev. Russell Moore, editor-at-large of Christianity Today.
That’s wrong, said Yancey.
Instead, church leaders should, “Start with Jesus and end with Jesus. … Jesus wasn’t a pushover, by any means, but he was always full of compassion. … He never turned someone away who had an attitude of repentance.”
Yancey has repeatedly delivered this message during a half century of addressing Christian denominations, colleges and myriad other gatherings. His books, such as “The Scandal of Forgiveness,” have sold 20 million copies in 49 languages.
But the Moore podcast, on “The Problem of Pain and Suffering,” was posted only four months before Yancey, 76, announced his retirement — due to an eight-year sexual relationship with a married woman.
“My conduct defied everything that I believe about marriage. It was also totally inconsistent with my faith and my writings and caused deep pain for her husband and both of our families,” wrote Yancey to Christianity Today, where he was a columnist for decades.
“I have confessed my sin before God and my wife, and have committed myself to a professional counseling and accountability program. I have failed morally and spiritually, and I grieve over the devastation I have caused.”
Yancey added: “I have nothing to stand on except God’s mercy and grace.”
A statement from his wife, Janet, stressed: “I made a sacred and binding marriage vow 55 1/2 years ago, and I will not break that promise. I accept and understand that God through Jesus has paid for and forgiven the sins of the world, including Philip’s. God grant me the grace to forgive also, despite my unfathomable trauma.”
Yancey’s confession rocked the tense, divided evangelical world. The New York Times noted he was “not a moral crusader or a political brawler,” adding that President Jimmy Carter, a progressive evangelical, called Yancey his favorite modern author.
“In a sadly ironic twist from the author of the wonderful book ‘The Jesus I Never Knew,’ we were all encountering a Yancey we really did not know,” noted Talbot School of Theology at Biola University Dean Ed Stetzer.
Writing for ChurchLeaders.com, he added: “Philip Yancey was living a lie. But I’m sure it started with a small compromise, finally ending in this devastating moment for his wife and adultery’s blast radius. … We must remember, ‘Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.’”
Yancey told Moore that he has always “seen the goodness of this earth, and the goodness of people wherever I go. But it’s spoiled. Almost everything we try, whether it’s the government, or whether it’s sexuality, or addictions — good things get spoiled.”
Once again, he stressed: “I wish the people around us would see God as the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort — many do not.”
Moore asked what Yancey would say to believers, such as victims of church sexual abuse, “who have seen grace … weaponized” to provide easy forgiveness for offenders.
Yancey replied: “What is to keep a person from abusing grace? The only answer is, ‘Well, God forbid!’ I can tell you the answers, but why would you even think of such a thing? If you think you’re getting a free pass for doing things that you want to do, that displease God, you haven’t received God’s grace. … It would never occur to you to go around trying to find a way to abuse it, to hurt another person.”
COPYRIGHT 2026 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.
The changing religious landscape in the United States includes a decline in the total number of Protestant churches.
In 2024, Lifeway Research estimates 3,800 new Protestant churches were started in the U.S., while 4,000 churches were closed. This is based on analysis of congregational information provided by 35 denominations or faith groups, representing 58% of all Protestant churches.
“Some individual denominations release annual numbers related to church plants and church closures, but we are grateful many more were willing to contribute unpublished numbers to help us understand the bigger picture of Protestant churches today,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research.
Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is finally breaking his silence about what “shocked” him down to his “core” during his tenure at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As WorldNetDaily reported in July, Bongino posted a cryptic message on X stating:
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NEWS: The ex-father-in-law of Renee Good breaks his silence in a stunning interview, offering grace, faith, and perspective after the deadly ICE encounter.
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FOCUS: Franklin Graham calls America to prayer — what sparked his message, what he says is the solution, and what it means for this moment in history.
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MAIN THING: A shocking new report claims more than 12,000 people have been killed in Iran as the regime fights to survive. CBN’s Raj Nair speaks with Iranian-American journalist Lisa Daftari about what’s happening behind the scenes and what comes next.
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*SCRIPTURE: “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; for He is faithful that promised.” — Hebrews 10:23
Hey, you know those Somali immigrants who just stole a few billion dollars from taxpayers up in Minnesota? They’re not going anywhere. Well, OK, maybe prison — but likely for […] The post appeared first on The Western Journal .
Guest post by Bob Cushman – Investigative Reporter
Newly discovered evidence indicates a relationship between the Governor of Minnesota, the source of Massive Money Laundering and the possible destination of this massive amount of “stolen” money.
In a January 9, 2026 announcement by the US Department of Treasury:
“WASHINGTON— In Minnesota, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent announced several initiatives to combat rampant government benefits fraud in Minnesota, which has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. These initiatives are designed to strengthen and safeguard the financial system and protect Minnesota taxpayers.
“President Trump has instructed the administration to bring accountability for the hardworking people of Minnesota,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “Under Democratic Governor Tim Walz, welfare fraud has spiraled out of control. Billions of dollars intended for feeding hungry children, housing disabled seniors, and providing services for children in need were diverted to benefit Somali fraud rings.”
According to Fox News on January 10, 2026
“The scandal has already claimed Walz’s political career, forcing him to abandon his bid for re-election. But if he reckoned that quitting would somehow shield him from legal culpability, he is mistaken. There is mounting evidence that Walz was willfully complicit, deliberately refusing to expose or pursue the monumental thefts and, instead, launching aggressive measures to scuttle any legal scrutiny and criminal consequence.
The governor’s own state workers at the Department of Human Services issued a blistering statement blaming him as 100% responsible. Witnesses say he retaliated against whistleblowers and schemed to discredit the well-documented fraud reports.”
AI analysis yields the following overview:
The relationship between Tim Walz, the Governor of Minnesota, and the state’s Somali community has become a major point of political contention due to a series of
large-scale federal fraud investigations in Minnesota’s social services programs.
Key Details of the Situation
Federal Fraud Cases: The U.S. Department of Justice has charged 98 defendants in Minnesota fraud-related cases, 85 of whom are of Somali descent. The most prominent scandal involves the non-profit “Feeding Our Future,” which prosecutors say falsely claimed to provide meals to needy children during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to over a billion dollars in taxpayer losses. Other investigations involve housing and behavioral health programs.
Criticism of Walz Administration: Republicans, including President Trump and U.S. House members, have intensely criticized Governor Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, alleging their administration ignored warnings about the fraud for years and failed to intervene. Critics claim state officials were hesitant to investigate due to fears of being labeled racist or alienating the Somali community, which has a significant Democratic voting bloc.
Where did the money go?
Newly accomplished research by investigative reporter, Bob Cushman, has shown 10 money laundering smurfs that have fed the coffers of Governor Tim Walz as well as prominent members of the Democratic Party such as Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, seditious six members Mark Kelly, Elissa Slotkin and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and many others!
A summary of the 10 Walz Smurfs is shown here:
Screenshot
Please note that these 10 senior citizens have “allegedly” donated over $650,000 in over 38,000 separate donations. When you observe the “mere” $653,000, remember that we believe there are tens of thousands of smurfs that are feeding the campaign coffers of the Democrats! We are only “show-casing” 10!
The real dollar values that can be assigned to Democratic money laundering reaches into hundreds of millions of dollars or more!
We use the term “allegedly” because it has been shown that most or all of “smurfed” seniors have not been aware that the FEC credits them with these massive dollar amounts and numbers of donations.
Investigative reporters such as James O’Keefe, Charlie LeDuff, Bob Cushman and others have conducted many interviews in the past that revealed that these targeted seniors have merely had their identity “used” by campaign committees to launder money to candidates and other campaign committees.
It is believed that the FEC itself is complicit in the long term, massive money laundering effort. More details concerning these 10 smurfs can be see below:
Screenshot
Who received this laundered money?
The names of some of the recipients are as follows:
Tim Walz, Gretchen Whitmer, DNC, DCCC, DSCC, Progressive Takeover, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Mark Kelly, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, Elissa Slotkin, Raphael Warnock, Jon Ossoff, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Gary Peters, John Fetterman, Hakeem Jeffries, Maggie For NH
Screenshot
The state of Minnesota reported the following donations to Governor Tim Walz campaign coffers:
Our spreadsheet total shows $13,446,650.64 in 49,432 separate donations.
The Minnesota Campaign Finance Board can be accessed HERE.
How does Governor Tim Walz money laundering compare to the Democratic Party money laundering?
The Freedom Press thought it would be illuminating to compare Tim Walz’s money laundering to other known smurfs and other known recipients of money laundering smurfs.
The 10 smurfs of Tim Walz were added to a master spreadsheet that contained 20 Cory Booker Smurfs, 22 Mark Kelly Smurfs and 10 Fani Willis Smurfs. The resultant 62 Smurf Master list is shown below.
The 62 smurfs are shown to have “allegedly” donated $9,851,000 in 434,409 donations. Interestingly, the average donation is only $22.68! This small average donation dollar number was thought to have avoided scrutiny by pesky citizens or investigative reporters.
They were wrong!
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When the chart titled the “Money Laundering throughout the Democratic Party-62 Smurfs” is viewed, the co-ordination of money laundering within the Democratic Party becomes visually obvious. This evil, illegal plot was devilishly planned and executed. ActBlue, the FEC and the Democratic Party are believed to have hatched and executed this diabolical long-term strategy.
Money Laundering throughout the Democratic Party – 62 Smurfs
Screenshot
A higher resolution of “Money Laundering throughout the Democratic Party with 62 Smurfs” (one page) may be downloaded here.
A higher resolution of “Money Laundering throughout the Democratic Party with 62 Smurfs” (two page) may be downloaded here.
A higher resolution of the “Characteristics of 62 Democratic Smurfs” may be downloaded here.
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