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
“Through your hands comes the relief for the believers and the killing of the infidels by your sword.”
While the NYPD is being attacked with balls of ice…..
He was at the Al-Khoei Islamic Center in Queens.
Mamdani: Last Ramadan, I was with many of you here at the procession on the martydom anniversary of Imam Ali. It is a privilege to be here with you once again. I stand before you as the first Muslim mayor in our city’s history and this year as the first Jum’ah [Friday prayer] that I have attended in that new position and to do so together. It is a reminder that in this month of Ramadan, as we find moments of reflection of recommitment moments of community, that we always do so together, and it’s together that I am thankful to be here today and I’m thankful to have the opportunity to lead our city (MEMRI).
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani attended Friday prayers at the Al-Khoei Islamic Center in Queens, NY, on the first Friday of Ramadan, February 20, 2026. Iman Dakmak-Rakka, principal of the Al-Iman School, affiliated with the Al-Khoei Center, and a representative of the Al-Khoei Foundation, thanked Mamdani for his work on behalf of “all of humanity and all the residents of New York.” During the following prayer service, the imam prayed that Allah make them among those who await the Mahdi and are martyred before him, adding that through the hands of the Mahdi “comes the relief for the believers and the killing of the infidels by your sword.”
The Al-Khoei Foundation has maintained financial ties with the Alavi Foundation, which U.S. federal courts and prosecutors have identified as a front for the Government of Iran and its state-owned Bank Melli. The Al-Khoei Foundation has publicly defended the Alavi Foundation against these accusations. In November 2023, Imam Fadhel Al-Sahlani, an official representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani in North America, said that Hamas has made a “big difference” not only in the Arab Muslim world, but for the whole world.
Zohran Mamdani: “Last Ramadan, I was with many of you here at the procession of the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Ali. It is a privilege to be here with you once again.
[…]
“I stand before you as the first Muslim mayor in our city’s history, and this year is the first Friday prayer that I have attended in that new position.”
“And to do so together – it is a reminder that in this month of Ramadan, as we find moments of reflection, of recommitment, moments of community, that we always do so together. And it is together that I am thankful to be here today, and I am thankful to have the opportunity to lead our city. Salaam Alaikum.”
[…]
Iman Dakmak-Rakka: “You work not just for Muslims, you work for all of humanity and all of the residents of New York City. So we thank you very much for this, and we pray daily for your success in this journey, inshallah. Thank you.”
among those who await you [the Mahdi], follow you, and support you against your enemies, and among those who are martyred before you, among the ranks of your loyal ones.
[…]
“Through your hands comes the relief for the believers and the killing of the infidels by your sword.”
The Al Khoei Islamic Center is linked to the Alavi Foundation who the DOJ has cited an Iranian Front. More from MEMRI: Imam Prays for the Mahdi to kill the infidels by his sword (MEMRI).
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Attends Friday Prayers at Al Khoei Islamic Center in Queens – Linked to Alavi Foundation Cited by the DOJ as an Iranian Front; Imam Prays for the Mahdi to Kill the Infidels by His Sword pic.twitter.com/xrRsIpalcH
President Donald J. Trump delivered a nearly two-hour State of the Union address Tuesday night, outlining a historic national revival just one year into his second term.
While the fake news spent the last year rooting for a recession, President Trump stood before a Joint Session of Congress and declared a reality they can’t ignore: “a new Golden Age of America.”
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Below is the full transcript of his remarks, as transcribed by The New York Times:
Well, thank you very much, everybody. It’s really an honor. Speaker Johnson. Vice President Vance. First lady of the United States. Second lady of the United States.
Members of Congress and my fellow Americans, our nation is back, bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before.
Less than five months from now, our country will celebrate an epic milestone of American history: the 250th anniversary of our glorious American independence. This July 4, we will mark two-and-a-half centuries of liberty and triumph, progress and freedom in the most incredible and exceptional nation ever to exist on the face of the Earth.
And you’ve seen nothing yet. We are going to do better and better and better. This is the golden age of America.
When I last spoke in this chamber 12 months ago, I had just inherited a nation in crisis with a stagnant economy, inflation at record levels, a wide open border, horrendous recruitment for military and police, rampant crime at home, and wars and chaos all over the world. But tonight, after just one year, I can say with dignity and pride that we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before and a turnaround for the ages. It is indeed a turnaround for the ages.
And we will never go back to where we were just a very short time ago. We are not going back. Today, our border is secure.
Thank you. Today, our border is secure, our spirit is restored, inflation is plummeting, incomes are rising fast. The roaring economy is roaring like never before, and our enemies are scared, our military and police are stacked, and America is respected again, perhaps, like never before.
After four years, in which millions and millions of illegal aliens poured across our borders totally unvetted and unchecked, we now have the strongest and most secure border in American history by far. In the past nine months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States.
But we will always allow people to come in legally. People that will love our country and will work hard to maintain our country.
The flow of deadly fentanyl across our border is down by a record 56 percent, in one year.
And last year, the murder rate saw its single largest decline in recorded history. This is the biggest decline, think of it, in recorded history. The lowest number in over 125 years — year 1900. In fact, substantially before my wonderful father — I had a wonderful father, Fred — before he was born, substantially before he was born. That’s a long time ago. He wouldn’t like me to say that, but that’s a long time ago.
The Biden administration and its allies in Congress gave us the worst inflation in the history of our country. But in 12 months, my administration has driven core inflation down to the lowest level in more than five years. And in the last three months of 2025, it was down to 1.7 percent.
Gasoline, which reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states under my predecessor — it was quite honestly a disaster — is now below $2.30 a gallon in most states. And in some places, $1.99 a gallon. And when I visited the great state of Iowa just a few weeks ago, I even saw $1.85 a gallon for gasoline.
Mortgage rates are the lowest in four years and falling fast, and the annual cost of a typical new mortgage is down almost $5,000 just since I took office. One year.
And low interest rates will solve the Biden-created housing problem while at the same time protecting the values of those people who already own a house that really feel rich for the first time in their lives. We want to protect those values; we want to keep those values up. We are going to do both. And we are going to keep it that way.
The stock market is at 53 — all-time record highs since the election. Think of that. One year. Boosting pensions, 401(k)s and retirement accounts with millions and millions of Americans. They’re all gaining. Everybody’s up, way up. In four long years, the last administration got less than $1 trillion in new investment in the United States. And when I say less, substantially less.
In 12 months, I secured commitments for more than $18 trillion, pouring in from all over the globe.
Think of it. Much less than $1 trillion for four years versus much more than $18 trillion for one year. What a difference a president makes.
A short time ago, we were a dead country. Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. The hottest.
As thousands of new businesses are forming, and factories, plants and laboratories are being built, we’ve added 70,000 new construction jobs in just a very short period of time.
It’s getting bigger and bigger and stronger. Nobody can believe what they’re watching. American oil production is up by more than 600,000 barrels a day, and we just received from our new friend and partner Venezuela more than 80 million barrels of oil.
American natural gas production is at an all-time high because I kept my promise to drill, baby, drill.
More Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country. Think about that: any time in the history of our country, more working today. And 100 percent of all jobs created under my administration have been in the private sector.
We ended D.E.I. in America.
We cut a record number of job-killing regulations. And in one year, we have lifted 2.4 million Americans, a record, off of food stamps.
And for all of these reasons I say tonight, members of Congress, the state of our union is strong.
Our country is winning again. In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it. People are asking me: “Please, please, please, Mr. President, we’re winning too much; we can’t take it anymore. We’re not used to winning in our county. Until you came along, we were just always losing, but now we are winning too much.”
And I say, “No, no, no, you’re going to win again. You are going to win big. You are going to win bigger than ever.” And to prove that point, to prove that point, here with us is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud.
The men’s gold medal Olympic hockey team, come on in. Go ahead. They deserve it. They deserve it.
That’s the first time I’ve ever seen them get up. And actually not all of them did get up. But they beat a fantastic Canadian team in overtime, as everybody saw. As did the American women, who will soon be coming to the White House.
They were in the Oval Office before.
And I just want to say a second, very big congratulations to Team
U.S.A. But I have to say that, and I told them this, we took a vote of the team. I said, “Anybody votes no, I’m not doing it.” They stood
there. They weren’t about to say no. Because I’ve never seen a goaltender play as well as goalie Connor Hellebuyck.
Think of it, 46 shots on goal. And I asked him, the one shot, the one where you put your stick in the back, and it hit the neck of your stick and bounced off. You practiced that, or was it a little lucky?
He refused to answer that question. But I just want to tell you that the members of this great hockey squad will be very happy to hear based on their vote and my vote — and in this case, my vote was more important — that I will soon be presenting Connor with our highest civilian honor, which we will be giving, and which has been given to many athletes over the years.
But when I say many, not too many, like 12. It’s called the highest civilian honor in our country, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Great athletes have gotten that, very great, the best. And I thought he deserved it. And I did take a vote, every single one of them. I said, “I’m not giving it if anybody goes no,” and every single one of them rapidly put up their hand. So I want to thank you all. What a special job you did. What special champions you are. Thank you very much.
I’m also pleased to say that the next time the Olympic torch is lit, it will be here in America for the 2028 Olympics, and it is the summer version right in Los Angeles. We’re going to do a good job in Los Angeles.
And Los Angeles is going to be safe, just like Washington, D.C., is now one of the safest cities in the country.
And this year — and I must say I got them both, I got them in the first term — I was disappointed because I didn’t think I’d be the president when this happened. But strange things took place, and now I got them, because I got the Olympics, and I got the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and I wanted to claim the 250th, but I didn’t get away with that one. I couldn’t claim that one for myself.
But we’re getting the World Cup, so we have the World Cup and the Olympics coming, and that is exciting news. So this will be a year to celebrate our country and the heroes who have kept it free.
Men like Buddy Taggart. At age 17, Buddy volunteered to defend America in World War II. Serving in the Pacific under the great Gen. Douglas MacArthur, he fought bravely in the famous Battle of Manila. Worked so hard. He was badly wounded and almost killed by enemy machine guns in Luzon. And 81 years ago this month, he liberated the largest internment camp in the Philippines. One of the largest anywhere in the world.
But he earned many honors, including a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, came home, started a family, and tonight he is in the gallery looking forward to July 4, 2026, his 100th birthday.
So, Buddy, you’re a brave man, and we salute you.
Even in times of challenge, setback and immense heartache, the spirit of 1776 has always shown through very brightly. It was July 4 of last year when floodwaters tore through a girls’ summer camp in central Texas. One of the worst things I’ve ever seen. I was there.
Rising 26 feet in the matter of minutes, tragically claiming many, many lives. You all remember that one. As the waters threatened to sweep her away, 11-year-old Milly Cate McClymond closed her eyes and prayed to God. She thought she was going to die.
Those prayers were answered when Coast Guard rescue swimmer Scott Ruskan descended from a helicopter above. Nobody knew where he came from. It was Scott’s first-ever rescue mission. Young guy. Very brave. Very, very top. Always top of his class. And he lifted not just Milly Cate, but 164 others to safety. People watched Scott from a distance, and they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
The winds were blowing. The rain was pouring. Everything was going, and that rapid water, nobody had ever seen anything like it. They said, “Wow, that’s something!” Tonight, Scott and Milly Cate are here together, reunited for the very first time. Thank you, Scott, Milly Cate.
And Petty Officer Ruskan, I am pleased to inform you that I’m now awarding you the Legion of Merit for extraordinary heroism, which is what it was. Extraordinary heroism. Thank you!
And I’d like to have the military aide to please come down and take care of this service. Military aide. Thank you. Take care of that very important service. Thank you very much.
From 1776 to today, every generation of Americans who step forward to defend life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and they’re really doing it for the next generation. But now it’s our turn. Together, we’re building a nation where every child has the chance to reach higher
and go further. Where government answers to the people, not the powerful, and where the interests of hard-working American citizens are always our first and ultimate concern.
That is the debt we owe to the heroes who came before us, and that is the promise we must keep to America for our 250th year.
Last year, I urged this Congress to begin the mission by passing the largest tax cuts in American history, and our Republican majorities delivered so beautifully. Thank you, Republicans!
All Democrats, every single one of them, voted against these really important and very necessary massive tax cuts. They wanted large-scale tax increases to hurt the people instead.
But we held strong, and with the great Big Beautiful Bill, we gave you no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security for our great seniors. And we also made interest on auto loans tax-deductible. The first time. But only if the car is made in America.
Recently in Pennsylvania, I met Megan Hemhauser, a devoted mom who’s — home-schools her children. Beautiful. Two children.
During the day, while waiting tables at night, as her husband works overtime operating very heavy equipment — Megan is here this evening, and she’s happy to tell you that she is so, so much richer, because with no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and her expanded child tax credit done again by Republicans, Megan and her husband will take home more than $5,000 extra just for the year, cutting her tax bill in more than half.
Megan, please stand up! We’re fighting for you, Megan! Thank you, Megan. Thank you, Megan. We’re fighting for you, Megan. Under our bill, parents like Megan can also activate their children’s brand-new Trump accounts.
And I didn’t name it. I didn’t name it. I did not name that. Nobody believes me, but I did not name it. It was named by a very tall man sitting right there in the third row. Nice man, a good man. Tax-free investment accounts for every American child. This is something that’s so special. It has taken off and gone through the roof. Millions will be prefunded courtesy of the U.S. Treasury, and private individuals like Michael and Susan Dell, who have donated
$6,250,000,000 to fund the Trump accounts for 25 million American children. They’re great people.
You know, I asked Michael, “How do you make all that money?” He said, “Well, I just sat in my dorm in school, and I made computers, and I’d sell them to people. And I just kept selling and selling and selling.” And, pretty amazing story. That’s called the American dream. He sold a lot of computers, a lot of those laptops.
So I congratulate him on that, but I really thank him and Susan, as well as others like Brad Gerstner, a very tremendous guy. He was behind it right from the beginning. Brad Gerstner. Thank you, Brad. So with modest, additional contributions, these young people’s accounts could grow to over $100,000 or more by the time they turn
Think of it. How much money is that for somebody that started with nothing? Over a hundred thousand, could be much more than that. To make this investment in our children’s future, go to trumpaccounts.gov, trumpaccounts.gov. And a lot of people are doing it. That’s setting every record in the book. It’s popular. They knew what was going to — what it was going to take. So proud of them. I’m so proud of the people that got it started. Now it’s just taken off.
One of the primary reasons for our country’s stunning economic turnaround — the biggest in history, where the Dow Jones broke 50,000, four years ahead of schedule, and the S & P hit 7,000, where it wasn’t supposed to do it for many years — were tariffs. I use these tariffs, took in hundreds of billions of dollars to make great deals for our country, both economically and on a national security basis.
Everything was working well. Countries that were ripping us off for decades are now paying us hundreds of billions of dollars. They were ripping us so badly. You all know that. Everybody knows it. Even Democrats know it. They just don’t want to say it. And yet these countries are now happy, and so are we. We made deals. The deals are all done. And they’re happy. They’re not making money like they used to, but we’re making a lot of money.
There was no inflation, tremendous growth. And the big story was how Donald Trump called the economy correctly, and 22 Nobel Prize winners in economics didn’t. They got it totally wrong. They got it really wrong. And then just four days ago an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court, it just came down, came down.
Very unfortunate ruling. But the good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made, right, Scott? Knowing that the legal power that I as president have to make a new deal could be far worse for them. And therefore they will continue to work along the same successful path that we had negotiated before the Supreme Court’s unfortunate involvement.
So despite the disappointing ruling, these powerful, country-saving — it’s saving our country, the kind of money we’re taking in — peace protecting — many of the wars I settled was because of the threat of tariffs. I wouldn’t have been able to settle them without — will remain in place under fully approved and tested alternative legal statutes, and they’ve been tested for a long time. They’re a little more complex, but they’re actually probably better. Leading to a solution that will be even stronger than before.
Congressional action will not be necessary. It’s already time-tested and approved. And as time goes by, I believe the tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.
Right? Moving forward, factories, jobs, investment and trillions and trillions of dollars will continue pouring into the United States of America. Because we finally have a president who puts America first. I put America first. I love America.
For decades, before I came along, we had the exact opposite. From trade to health care, from energy to immigration, everything was stolen and rigged in order to drain the wealth out of the productive
and hard-working people who make our country great, who make our country run.
Under Biden and his corrupt partners in Congress and beyond, it reached a breaking point with the “Green New Scam,” open borders for everyone. They poured in by the millions and millions from prisons, from mental institutions. There were murderers, 11,888 murders. They came into our country. You allowed that to happen.
And record-setting inflation that cost the typical family $34,000 in just a speck of time.
Now the same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters suddenly use the word “affordability.” A word, they just used it.
Somebody gave it to them, knowing full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure. You caused that problem. You caused that problem.
They knew their statements were a lie. They knew it. They knew their statements were a dirty, rotten lie. Their policies created the high prices. Our policies are rapidly ending them. We are doing really well. Those prices are plummeting downward.
The price of eggs is down 60 percent. Madam Secretary, thank you. The cost of chicken, butter, fruit, hotels, automobiles, rent is lower today than when I took office, by a lot.
And even beef, which was very high, is starting to come down significantly. Just hold on a little while. We’re getting it down. And soon you will see numbers that few people would think were possible to achieve just a short time ago. Nobody can believe when they see
the kind of numbers, especially energy. When they see energy going down to numbers like that. They cannot believe it. It’s like another big tax cut.
I’m also confronting one of the biggest rip-offs of our times: the crushing costs of health care, caused by you. Since the passage of the “Unaffordable Care Act,” sometimes referred to as Obamacare, big insurance companies have gotten rich. It was meant for the insurance companies, not for the people. With our government giving them hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars a year as their stock prices soared 1,000, 1,200, 1,400 and even 1,700 percent, like nothing else.
That’s why I introduced the “Great Health Care Plan.” I want to stop all payments to big insurance companies and instead, give that money directly to the people so they can buy their own health care, which will be better health care at a much lower cost.
In addition, my plan requires maximum price transparency. That’s a big deal. Sounds so simple, so big. And I did that in my first term, and the Democrats immediately terminated it with full knowledge that they were doing a very bad thing for the people. Costs were going to go way up, and that’s what happened, and now I’m bringing them way down on health care and everything else.
I’m also ending the wildly inflated costs of prescription drugs like has never happened before.
Other presidents tried to do it, but they never could. They tried. Most didn’t try, actually. But they tried. They said they tried. They couldn’t do it. They didn’t even come close. They were all talk and no action.
But I got it done. Under my just-enacted, most favored nation agreements, Americans who have for decades paid by far the highest prices of any nation anywhere in the world for prescription drugs will now pay the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs, anywhere. The lowest price.
So, in my first year of the second term — it should be my third term, but strange things happened. I took prescription drugs, a very big part of health care, from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest. That’s a big achievement. The result is price differences of 300, 400, 500, 600 percent and more — all available right now at a new website called trumprx.gov. And I didn’t name that one either, by the way.
And here tonight is the very first customer ever to get that big discount. And it is big. Catherine Rayner. For five years, she and her husband have struggled with infertility, and they turned to IVF. One drug has been costing Catherine $4,000 to purchase.
But a few weeks ago, she logged onto the TrumpRx website and got that same drug that cost $4,000, got it for under $500 — a reduction of much more, actually, than $3,500. Catherine, we are all praying for you, and you are going to be a great mom.
So now I’m calling on Congress to codify my most favored nation program into law.
Now the one thing, I’m not sure it matters, because it’s going to be very hard for somebody that comes along after me to say, “Let’s raise drug prices by 700 or 800 percent.” But John and Mike, if you don’t mind, codify it anyway. They may do it. Codify it anyway. Thank you.
Many Americans are also concerned that energy demand from AI data centers could unfairly drive up their electric utility bills. Tonight I’m pleased to announce that I have negotiated the new ratepayer protection pledge. You know what that is. We’re telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs.
They can build their own power plants as part of their factory, so that no one’s prices will go up, and in many cases prices of electricity will go down for the community, and very substantially down. This is a unique strategy never used in this country before.
We have an old grid. It could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that’s needed. So I’m telling them they can build their own plant. They’re going to produce their own electricity. It will ensure the company’s ability to get electricity while at the same time lowering prices of electricity for you, and could be very substantial, for all of your cities and towns. You are going to see good things happen over the next number of years.
Another pillar of the American dream that has been under attack is homeownership.
With us tonight is Raysall Wiggins, a mom of two from Houston. She placed bids on 20 homes and lost all of those bids to gigantic investment firms that bypassed inspection. Paid all cash and turned those houses into rentals, stealing away her American dream. She was devastated. Stories like this are why last month I signed executive order to ban large Wall Street investment firms from buying up, in the thousands, single family homes.
And now I’m asking Congress to make that ban permanent, because homes for people — really, that’s what we want. We want homes for people, not for corporations. Corporations are doing just fine. Raysall, thank you very much. Good luck with your home. You’ll get one soon.
We’re also making it easier for Americans to save for retirement, and under this administration, we will always protect Social Security and Medicare. They are not protecting it for our seniors. We will always protect Social Security, Medicare — Medicare.
Since I took office, the typical 401(k) balance is up by at least $30,000. That’s a lot of money. We have millions and millions of people, because the stock market has done so well, setting all those records — your 401(k)s are way up. Yet half of all of working Americans still do not have access to a retirement plan with matching contributions from an employer.
To remedy this gross disparity, I’m announcing that next year, my administration will give these often forgotten American workers — great people, the people that built our country — access to the same type of retirement plan offered to every federal worker. We will match your contribution with up to $1,000 each year, as we ensure that all Americans can profit from a rising stock market.
Let’s also ensure that members of Congress cannot corruptly profit from using insider information.
They stood up for that. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Did Nancy Pelosi stand up, if she’s here? Doubt it. Pass the Stop Insider Trading Act without delay. I wasn’t sure if anybody even on this side was even
going to applaud for that. I’m very impressed. Thank you. I’m very impressed.
But when it comes to the corruption that is plundering — it really, it’s plundering America — there’s been no more stunning example than Minnesota, where members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer. Oh, we have all the information.
And in actuality the number is much higher than that, and California, Massachusetts, Maine and many other states are even worse. This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation, and we are working on it like you wouldn’t believe. So tonight, although started four months ago, I am officially announcing the war on fraud to be led by our great vice president, JD Vance.
He’ll get it done. And we’re able to find enough of that fraud — we will actually have a balanced budget overnight. It’ll go very quickly.
That’s the kind of money you’re talking about. We’ll balance our budget. The Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota remind us that there are large parts of the world where bribery, corruption and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception.
Importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders brings those problems right here to the U.S.A. And it is the American people who pay the price in higher medical bills, car insurance rates, rent, taxes and, perhaps most importantly, crime.
We will take care of this problem. We’re going to take care of this problem. We are not playing games. Dalilah — Dalilah Coleman was only 5 years old in June 2024 when an 18-wheel tractor-trailer plowed
into her stopped car traveling at 60 miles an hour or more. The driver was an illegal alien let in by Joe Biden and given a commercial driver’s license by open borders, politicians and California. Doctors said Dalilah would never be able to walk or talk, have a good life.
She wouldn’t even be able to eat again. But against all odds, she is now in the first grade, learning to walk, and she is here this evening with her dad, Marcus, a fantastic man. Dalilah, please, you are a great inspiration. Please stand up. Thank you, Dalilah. Many, if not most, illegal aliens do not speak English and cannot read even the most basic road signs as to direction, speed, danger or location.
That’s why tonight I’m calling on Congress to pass what we will call the Dalilah law, barring any state from granting commercial licenses to illegal alien.
And yesterday, as you probably saw at the White House, I hosted a ceremony with Americans who lost their treasured loved ones to the scourge of illegal immigration. People came into our country, how we allowed this to happen with our open borders. These are the angel moms and families that for decades our government betrayed and our media totally ignored — totally ignored, it was terrible. Hard to believe, actually.
In 2023, a 16-year-old high school cheerleader named Lizbeth Medina was supposed to perform in her town’s Christmas parade. But she never arrived. Her mother, Jacqueline, went home to look for her and she found her lying dead in a bathtub bleeding profusely after being stabbed 25 time.
Lizbeth’s killer was a previously arrested illegal alien who had broken in and bruta — just brutally extinguished the brightest light in her family’s life. Violently and viciously. Her heartbroken mother is in the gallery to remind everyone in this chamber exactly why we are deporting illegal alien criminals from our country at record numbers and we’re getting them the hell out of here fast. We don’t want ‘em.
Thank you very much, Jacqueline. Thank you. We can never forget that many in this room not only allowed the border invasion to happen before I got involved but, indeed, they would do it all over again if they ever had the chance.
If they ever got elected, they would open up those borders to some of the worst criminals anywhere in the world. The only thing standing between Americans and a wide-open border right now is President Donald J. Trump and our great Republican patriots in Congress.
Thank you. Thank you.
As we speak, Democrats in this chamber have cut off all funding for the Department of Homeland Security. It’s all cut off — it’s all cut off. They have instituted another Democrat shutdown, the first one costing us two points on G.D.P. — two points we lost on G.D.P., which probably made them quite happy, actually.
Now they have closed the agency responsible for protecting Americans from terrorists and murderers.
Tonight I’m demanding the full and immediate restoration of all funding for the border security, homeland security of the United States and also for helping people clean up their snow.
We have no money because of the Democrats and it would be nice — we’d love to give you a hand at cleaning it up, but you gave no money. Nobody’s getting paid. It’s a shame. So you have to think about it. We have, in case you didn’t know, pretty large snowstorm out there.
One of the great things about the State of the Union is how it gives Americans the chance to see clearly what their representatives really believe. So tonight I’m inviting every legislator to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens. Not illegal aliens.
Isn’t that a shame? You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself.
That is why I’m also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact serious penalties for public officials who block the removal of criminal aliens, in many cases drug lords, murderers all over our country. They’re blocking the removal of these people out of our country and you should be ashamed of yourselves.
And perhaps most importantly, I’m asking you to approve the Save America Act. To stop illegal aliens and others, who are unpermitted persons, from voting in our sacred American elections. The cheating is rampant in our elections. It’s rampant. It’s very simple. All voters must show voter ID.
All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote. And no more crooked mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military or travel. None. And this should be an easy one and by the way it’s
polling at 89 percent including Democrats, 89 percent.
And even the new communist mayor of New York City — I think he’s a nice guy, actually. Speak to him a lot. Bad policy but nice guy — just said they want people to shovel snow. They got hit hard. Wants them to shovel snow. But if you apply for that job, you need to show two original forms of ID and a Social Security card. Yet they don’t want identification for the greatest privilege of them all: Voting in America.
No, it’s no good. No good. Both Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly agree on the policy that we just enunciated, and Congress should unite and enact this common-sense, country-saving legislation right now and it should be before anything else happens.
And the reason they don’t want to do it — why would anybody not want voter ID? One reason: because they want to cheat. There’s only one reason. They make up all excuses. They say it’s racist, they come up with things — you almost say, “What imagination they have.” They want to cheat. They have cheated.
And their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat and we’re going to stop it. We have to stop it, John. We have to stop it.
And here is one more opportunity to show common sense in government. In the gallery tonight are Sage Blair and her mother, Michelle. In 2021, Sage was 14 when school officials in Virginia sought to socially transition her to a new gender, treating her as a boy and hiding it from her parents. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Before long, a confused Sage ran away from home.
After she was found in a horrific situation in Maryland, a left-wing judge refused to return Sage to her parents because they did not immediately state that their daughter was their son. Sage was thrown into an all-boys state home and suffered terribly for a long time. But today all of that is behind them because Sage is a proud and wonderful young woman with a full-ride scholarship to Liberty University. Sage and Michelle, please stand up.
And thank you for your great bravery, and who can believe we’re even speaking about things like this? Fifteen years ago, if someone was up here and said that, they’d say: “What’s wrong with him?” But now we have to say it, because it’s going on all over, numerous states, without even telling the parents.
But surely we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will. Who would believe that we’re even talking about that? We must ban it, and we must ban it immediately.
Look, nobody stands up. These people are crazy, I’m telling you. They’re crazy.
Amazing. Terrible. Boy, oh boy. We’re lucky we have a country. With people like this — Democrats are destroying our country, but we’ve stopped it just in the nick of time, didn’t we, huh?
No one cares more about protecting America’s youth than our wonderful first lady. Now a movie star; she’s a movie star. Can you believe it? Who would’ve believed that? Over the past year, she has had an incredible impact championing A.I. legislation, advancing a
landmark executive order on foster care and helping secure 30 million dollars to launch the Melania Trump Foster Youth to Independence Initiative.
It’s a tremendous — really a tremendous thing that happened and had a lot of bipartisan support. She gets much better bipartisan support than I do. I get none. She gets a lot. Someday you’re going to have to tell me how you did that.
And students and educators in every state have joined the first lady’s efforts in the presidential A.I. challenge, keeping America’s next generation positioned to succeed and strongly succeed in the future. Tonight we welcome two young people whose lives reflect the first lady’s impact, Sierra Burns and Everest Nevraumont. Thank you both, and Melania, thank you, I know how hard you worked on it.
Thank you very much.
I’m very proud to say that during my time in office, both the first four years and in particular this last year, there has been a tremendous renewal in religion, faith, Christianity and belief in God. Tremendous renewal.
This is especially true among young people and a big part of that had to do with my great friend, Charlie Kirk. A great guy, great man.
So last year Charlie was violently murdered by an assassin and martyred — really, martyred — for his beliefs. His wonderful wife Erika is with us tonight. Erika, please stand.
Thank you, Erika. Been through a lot. In Charlie’s memory, we must all come together to reaffirm that America is one nation under God, and we must totally reject political violence of any kind.
We love religion, and we love bringing it back, and it’s coming back at levels nobody actually thought possible. It’s really a beautiful thing to see.
Above all, unleashing America’s promise requires keeping our community safe. We have made incredible strides, yet dangerous repeat offenders continue to be released by pro-crime Democrat politicians again and again. We are honored to be joined tonight by a woman who has been through hell: Anya Zarutska. In 2022, she and her beautiful daughter — so beautiful, what a beautiful young woman
— Iryna fled war-turned, war-torn Ukraine to live with relatives near Charlotte, N.C. — and by the way, what’s going on with Charlotte?
Last summer, 23-year-old Iryna was riding home on the train when a deranged monster who had been arrested over a dozen times and was released through no-cash bail stood up and viciously slashed a knife through her neck and body. No one will ever forget — there were people on that train — no one will ever forget the expression of terror on Iryna’s face as she looked up at her attacker in the last seconds of her life. She died instantly. She had escaped a brutal war only to be slain by a hardened criminal set free to kill in America. Came in through open borders.
Mrs. Zarutska, tonight I promise you we will ensure justice for your magnificent daughter Iryna.
How do you not stand? How do you not stand? I’m asking this Congress to pass tough legislation to make sure violent and dangerous repeat offenders are put behind bars, and importantly, that they stay there.
Starting last summer, I deployed our National Guard and federal law enforcement to restore law and order to our most dangerous cities, including Memphis, Tennessee — big success — New Orleans, Louisiana — big success — and our nation’s capital itself, Washington, D.C., where we have almost no crime anymore in Washington, D.C. How did that happen?
In fact, crime in Washington is now at the lowest level ever recorded and murders in D.C. this January were down close to 100 percent from a year ago.
They don’t like to hear that. One of the — sick people. One of the brave service members who helped achieve the stunning turnaround was 20-year-old West Virginia Army National Guard Specialist Sarah Beckstrom.
After a four-month deployment, she voluntarily extended her service and her rank was going to be lifted. She was doing so well. They were so proud of her. But the very next day she was on patrol near the White House when she was ambushed and shot in the head by a terrorist monster from Afghanistan. Shouldn’t have been in our country. And all because she wore the uniform of our nation, she was shot. He traveled here because he didn’t like people wearing our uniform. He was sick and deranged. Shouldn’t have been in our country. Sarah Beckstrom died in order to defend our capital and we
are honored to be joined by her wonderful parents, Gary and Evalea. Your daughter was a true American patriot and she will be greatly missed. She was a great person. I saw reports on her. They’d never seen anything like that.
So sorry. Thank you very much. A great young lady. I saw reports. They were like, “She was perfect, perfect.”
Serving alongside Sarah that day was Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe. The terrorist shot Andrew in the head, and no one thought he could possibly make it. Two of them, Sarah and Andrew, both shot violently in the head. Neither was expected to make it. They weren’t even given a chance, except his wonderful mother named Melody, who I spoke to the same night and she was so positive.
The doctors thought that Andrew was gone. But his mother said, “No, no, Mr. President! Andrew will be fine, he is going to make it.” I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, he was given almost no chance.
She said, “I have no doubt, sir! He’s going to be OK.” This is a conversation I had with her that night with her son laying helplessly in bed, blood all over.
“Everybody’s praying,” she said. “Sir, he will be OK.” The doctors didn’t understand what she was saying. And after looking at the results of the damage done, neither did I. She was so strong and conclusive that even Andrew’s great father felt she didn’t really understand the gravity of the situation. But she turned out to be right. Right, Melody? She turned out to be right!
Amazing, actually. I said, “Where does this woman come from?” She was the most positive person I’ve ever met. With God’s help, Andrew has battled back from the edge of death, and we’re talking about the edge of death. On his way to a miraculous recovery. He’s got a little work to do, but he’s doing great!
Nice to see. He’s a good-looking guy. Nice to see you. Thanks, Andrew. Thank you very much.
So Andrew, while you’re up, now I’m going to ask a highly respected general, James Seward, to present Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe and the great family of Sarah Beckstrom with the award created by our late great president, George Washington himself. It’s called the Purple Heart.
We love you all! Love you. We’re proudly restoring safety for Americans at home, and we are also restoring security for Americans abroad.
Our country has never been stronger. My first 10 months I ended eight wars, including Cambodia. Isn’t it funny? Sick people. Cambodia and Thailand. Pakistan and India. Would have been a nuclear war. 35 million people said the prime minister of Pakistan would have died if it were not for my involvement. Kosovo and Serbia. Israel and Iran.
Egypt and Ethiopia. Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Congo and Rwanda. And, of course, the war in Gaza, which proceeds at a very low level, it’s just about there. I want to thank Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for your help. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Jared.
And I also want to thank the man they report to, Secretary of State Marco Rubio! Thank you, Marco. People like you! You know, Marco got 100 percent of the votes when he was in confirm — I think our next one was about 54 percent. And some of the Democrats are now saying, “I can’t believe we approved that guy!”
And he said, “It’s an honor that they feel that way.” Right, Marco? You have done a great job. Great secretary of state. I think he’ll go down as the best ever.
Under the cease-fire I negotiated, every single hostage, both living and dead, has been returned home. Can you believe this? Nobody thought it was possible. Nobody thought that was possible. Both living and dead. And those parents who had a dead son. Their boy. They’d always tell me, their boy. They wanted him as much as though he were living. That was an amazing period of time.
They came back, and when we got all the living hostages back. And many, many before them. But I always said those last 20 are going to be very tough. But we got many, many more. Hundreds. But I said those last 20 are going to be tough. We got them back, but we only got back 14 or 15 of the dead, of the 28, and believe it or not, Hamas worked along with Israel, and they dug and they dug and they dug.
It’s a tough, it’s a tough thing to do, going through bodies all over. Passing up 100 bodies sometimes for each one they found, a tough job. They finally got it back to 27 and then, Steve and Jared, they got it back to 28, they found all 28, nobody thought that was possible but we
did it. I remember the family of the 28th, they were so grieved but they were so happy, as happy as it was possible to be. They had their boy back. The mother said, “Sir, we have our boy back.”
We got them all back, so thank you very much. And we’re working very hard to end the ninth war, the killing and slaughter between Russia and Ukraine, where 25,000 soldiers are dying each and every month. Think of that, 25,000 soldiers dying a month. A war which would never have happened if I were president, would never have happened.
As president, I will make peace wherever I can, but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever we must. That’s why in a breakthrough operation last June, the United States military obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program with an attack on Iranian soil known as Operation Midnight Hammer. For decades, it had been the policy of the United States never to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, many decades.
Since they seized control of that proud nation 47 years ago, the regime and its murderous proxies have spread nothing but terrorism and death and hate. They’ve killed and maimed thousands of American service members and even millions of people with what’s called roadside bombs, they were the kings of the roadside bomb. And we took out Suleimani, I did that during my first term, it had a huge impact. He was the father of the roadside bomb.
And just over the last couple of months with the protests, they’ve killed at least, it looks like 32,000 protesters, 32,000 protesters in their own country. They shot them and hung them. We stopped them from
hanging a lot of them with the threat of serious violence, but this is some terrible people.
They’ve already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America. After Midnight Hammer, they were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, in particular nuclear weapons, yet they continue. They’re starting it all over.
We wiped it out, and they want to start over again, and are at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions. We are in negotiations with them; they want to make a deal but we haven’t heard those secret words: “We will never have a nuclear weapon.”
My preference — my preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world’s No. 1 sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon, can’t let that happen.
And no nation should ever doubt America’s resolve. We have the most powerful military on Earth. I rebuilt the military in my first term. We are going to continue to do so. I also, we just approved a trillion-dollar budget, we have no choice, we have to be strong because hopefully we will seldom have to use this great power that we’ve built together. It’s really called peace through strength, and it’s been very, very effective.
Thanks to Republicans in Congress we are investing a record number of dollars — have no choice — in the United States armed forces, also creating a lot of jobs, but we are not even doing it for that reason
because as I said, we have more jobs, more people working today than ever before in the history of our country.
And NATO countries, our friends and allies, they are, they are friends and they are allies, they just agreed at my strong request to pay 5 percent of G.D.P. for military defense rather than the 2 percent, which they weren’t paying, we were paying for almost all of NATO. Now they are paying five as opposed to not paying three.
And getting that 5 percent was something which everyone said would never be done, could not happen, we got it really easily in one meeting, and a big difference between 2 percent that’s not paid, we were paying [inaudible] many of them, very few were paid up, now 5 percent then they’re paid, and everything we send over to Ukraine is sent through NATO, and they pay us in full. They pay us totally in full, every branch of our armed forces is setting records for recruitment.
This is so exciting, and every service member recently —
And every service member recently received a warrior dividend of
$1,776. You know they put it on my desk, we got the money from tariffs and other things, a lot of money.
We have, we have much more money than people understand, have to rebuild that program a little bit, but it won’t take long. But we got the money, $1,775 and I — they wanted my approval, and I said, “What’s the number?” $1,775.
Well, I said, “Wait a minute, for one more dollar we can have $1,776.” I said we were going to figure that out. I never asked anybody if we could afford it, one more dollar, I said, “1,776.” And I said, that’s good. I’ll tell you what, our military, that was four months ago, our military,
I’ve never see a person in the military that doesn’t thank me for it, so we’re honored to do it, they deserve it, and 1776, that was great and we love our military, we love our law enforcement, we love our firemen. You know the firemen don’t get mentioned enough, we love our firemen. We’re also —
We are also restoring American security and dominance in the Western Hemisphere, acting to secure our national interest and defend our country from violence, drugs, terrorism and foreign interference. For years, large swaths of territory in our region, including large parts of Mexico, really large parts of Mexico, have been controlled by murderous drug cartels. That’s why I designated these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and I declared illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.
With our new military campaign we have stopped record amounts of drugs coming into our country and virtually stopped it completely coming in by water or sea, you probably noticed that.
We very seriously damaged their fishing industry also — nobody wants to go fishing anymore. We’ve also taken down one of the most sinister cartel kingpins of all — you saw that yesterday. In January, in January, elite American warriors carried out one of the most complex spectacular feats of military competence and power in world history. No one’s seen anything like it. Foreign leaders — I won’t tell you — called me and they said, “Very impressive.” They couldn’t bel — they all watched, they saw what happened.
This is a different fighting force than we had years ago when we fought to tie. It’s a great fighting force. I’m so proud of it.
Look at Space Force. Space Force is my baby, we did that, my baby, it’s becoming so important.
And America’s armed forces overwhelmed all defenses and not only defeated an enemy — good fighters — to end the reign of outlaw dictator Nicolás Maduro and bring him to face American justice. And this was an absolutely colossal victory for the security of the United States, and it also opens up a bright new beginning for the people of Venezuela.
We’re working closely with the new president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, to unleash extraordinary economic gains for both of our countries and to bring new hope to those who have suffered so terribly. They really did suffer.
With us tonight is Alejandro Gonzalez, she grew up in a tight-knit Venezuelan family and was especially close to her beloved Uncle Enrique. But after Enrique ran for office and opposed Maduro, he was captured by Maduro’s security forces and thrown into the regime’s really infamous prison in Caracas.
Alejandro feared she would never see her uncle again. She feared for her own life also. But since the raid, we have worked with the new leadership and they have ordered the closure of that vile prison and released hundreds of political prisoners already, with more to come.
Alejandra, I’m pleased to inform you that not only has your uncle been released but he’s here tonight. We brought him over to celebrate his freedom with you in person. Enrique, please come down.
Thank you, Enrique. Have a good time. Nice to have you back, Enrique.
There were many heroes on that January raid to capture Maduro, really great heroes. It was very dangerous, they knew we were coming. They were all set. But the deeds of one warrior that night will live forever in the eternal chronicles of military valor.
Chief Warrant Officer Five, Eric Slover, planned the mission and was the flight lead in the cockpit of the first helicopter, a big, beautiful, powerful helicopter. It was a massive Chinook, carrying, as you can imagine, many, many American war fighters. Wearing the dog tags his wife Amy had blessed with holy water before he left — she knew it was going to be a rough one.
Eric steered the Chinook under the cover of night and descended swiftly upon Maduro’s heavily protected military fortress — this was a major military installation protected by thousands of soldiers and guarded by Russian and Chinese military technology.
How did that work out? Not too good. While preparing to land, enemy machine guns fired from every angle and Eric was hit very badly in the leg and hip, one bullet after another. He absorbed four agonizing shots, shredding his leg into numerous pieces.
And yet despite the fact that the use of his legs was vital to a successful helicopter flight, like I said, the most important part of flying a helicopter — to deliver the many commandos who would capture and detain Maduro was the only thing Eric was thinking about. Then even as he was gushing blood, which was flowing back
down the aisle, the helicopter lands at a steep angle, the machine guns stood right in front of him — they were right in front of him, two machine gunners who escaped the wrath of the previous planes.
Eric maneuvered his helicopter with all of those lives and souls to face the enemy and let his gunners eliminate the threat. Turned the helicopter around so the gunners could take care of business, saving the lives of his fellow warriors from what could’ve been a catastrophic crash deep in enemy territory.
Only after safely landing the helicopter with all the warriors aboard in the exact right spot, which was vital to the mission — probably would have had — maybe cancel the mission if that didn’t happen — Eric told his co-pilot, also wounded, but not as gravely, to take over. “I am about ready to pass out.”
The success of the entire mission and the lives of his fellow warriors hinge on Eric’s ability to take searing pain. It was unbelievable, what’s happened to his legs — of the bullets, and keep on flying and landing. And people knew what was happening. Everybody in the back of the helicopter knew, because they saw the blood pouring down the aisle.
Chief Warrant Officer Slover is still recovering from his serious wounds, but I’m thrilled to say that he is here tonight with his wife, Amy. Eric and Amy, come on in.
So we have a surprise, Eric and Amy. In recognition of Eric’s actions above and beyond the call of duty, I would now like to ask General Jonathan Braga to present Chief Warrant Officer Slover with our nation’s highest military award, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Well thank you very much, Eric and Amy. Great to get to know you. I met with them and with a lot of their fellow warriors at Fort Bragg recently. You notice the name Fort Bragg? We have it back, we brought it back. We won the first World War with it, the second World War with it, and then they decided to change the name. So we changed it back. Everybody wanted it changed back, too. And 10 of Eric’s fellow warriors from that incredible night of victory will also be receiving medals at a private ceremony that will soon be held at the White House.
Thank you, Eric. That’s a big one.
Tonight we’ve celebrated many truly extraordinary American patriots. But there is one last living legend to honor before we go. He is one more heroic American aviator, Navy fighter pilot. Royce Williams served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam — flying more than 220 missions. In the skies over Korea in 1952, Royce was in the dogfight of a lifetime — legendary dogfight.
Flying through blizzard conditions, his squadron was ambushed by seven Soviet fighter planes. It was his first aerial combat of the war, and despite being massively outnumbered and outgunned, Royce led the takedown of four enemy jets, and almost destroyed the others, vanquishing his adversaries while taking 263 bullets to his own plane, and being seriously hurt.
His story was secret for over 50 years. He didn’t even want to tell his wife. But the legend grew and grew. But tonight, at 100 years old, this brave Navy captain is finally getting the recognition he deserves. He
was a legend long before this evening. Royce, please stand up, and I will ask the first lady of the United States to present Capt. Royce Williams with his Congressional Medal of Honor. Thank you.
I’ve always wanted the Congressional Medal of Honor, but I was informed I’m not allowed to give it to myself, and I wouldn’t know why I would be taking it. But if they ever open up that law, I will be there with you someday. That is our highest honor, the Congressional Medal of Honor. That’s a big thing, and it’s an honor to be in the same room with you. Thank you both very much. Eric, thank you. Thank you.
Two hundred fifty years is a long time in the life of a nation, but in another sense it is a mere moment in the eye of history. Two of the gentlemen we met in the gallery this evening took their first breaths one century ago. One hundred years before that, on July 4, 1826, the author of the Declaration of Independence, brilliant Thomas Jefferson, drew his last breath.
Just a single long human life span separates the giants who declared and won our independence from the heroes who stand among us tonight. Everything our nation has done and everything we’ve achieved has been the work of those few great lifetimes. Those brief chapters Americans built this nation from, 13 humble colonies, into the pinnacle of human civilization and human freedom, the strongest, wealthiest, most powerful, most successful nation in all of history.
Americans ventured out across the daunting and dangerous continent. We carved through an unforgiving wilderness, settled a boundless frontier and tamed the beautiful but very, very dangerous
Wild West. From empty marshes and wide open plains, we raised up the world’s greatest cities. Together, we mastered the world’s mightiest industries and shattered histories, monstrous tyrannies, and we liberated millions from the chains of fascism, communism, oppression and terror.
Americans lifted humanity into the skies on the wings of aluminum and steel, and then we launched mankind into the stars on rockets powered by sheer American will and unyielding American pride. We wired the globe with our ingenuity, we captivated the planet with American culture, and now we are pioneering the next great American breakthroughs that will change the entire world.
All of this and so much more is the enduring legacy, unmatched glory, of the hard-working patriots who built and defended this country and who still carry the hopes and freedoms on all of humanity’s backs. For years, they were forgotten, betrayed and cast aside, but that great betrayal is over, and they will never be forgotten again. Because when the world needs courage, daring, vision and inspiration, it is still turning to America, and when God needs a nation to work his miracles, he knows exactly who to ask.
There is no challenge Americans cannot overcome, no frontier too vast for us to conquer, no dream too bold for us to chase, no horizon too distant for us to claim. For our destiny is written by the hand of providence, and these first 250 years were just the beginning. From the rugged border towns of Texas to the heartland villages of Michigan, from the sun-kissed shores of Florida to the endless fields
of the Dakotas, and from the historic streets of Philadelphia to right
here in our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., the golden age of America is upon us.
The revolution that began in 1776 has not ended. It still continues, because the flame of liberty and independence still burns in the heart of every American patriot. And our future will be bigger, better, brighter, bolder and more glorious than ever before.
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America. Thank you.
What does Hitler have to do with abortion? How can a pro-life vs. pro-choice discussion turn into a witnessing opportunity? These folks did a “180” on their stance on abortion– and more. Please take the time to watch this extremely important movie, and lets all band together to win souls to Christ and end the holocaust of abortion.
Watch the full interview with Alicia here. You can find helpful resources and materials for use by individuals or churches here.
It is often said that timing is everything, and that is certainly true when it comes to war with Iran. By October 27th, national elections will have been held in Israel to determine the 120 members of the twenty-sixth Knesset. The polls do not look good for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at all, and so he is probably going to be out of a job. Solving the “Iran problem” is the number one thing that Netanyahu wants to accomplish before he leaves, and so the clock is ticking. Even if there was some sort of a dramatic development that prevented the U.S. from attacking Iran, top Israeli officials have already warned that they would just go in anyway.
Of course it isn’t just the Israelis that are facing time pressure. Mid-term elections in the United States are scheduled for November 3rd, and history has shown us that they are often not kind to whichever party controls the White House. President Trump knows that if the Democrats end up taking control of the House and Senate his hands would really be tied at that point. He doesn’t want to leave the “Iran problem” to future administrations, and so he is highly motivated to act now.
If a war is going to be politically beneficial, it should be over by the time an election arrives.
Voters like victories.
Voters do not like wars that drag on indefinitely with no end in sight.
So ideally Netanyahu and Trump would like to see this crisis with Iran wrapped up by the middle of the year.
But if Netanyahu and Trump wait too long, the window of opportunity that they currently have may close completely.
This is likely one of the reasons why the Iranians have been working so hard to delay matters.
If negotiations can be stretched out long enough, Netanyahu will be voted out of office and President Trump will be saddled with a highly hostile Congress which would not be eager to fight Iran.
So the Iranians keep talking about how much they are eager to talk, but meanwhile they are refusing to agree to any of President Trump’s demands.
Unfortunately for the Iranians, it appears that time is running out on their little game.
Marco Rubio will deliver a rare briefing to top US lawmakers on Iran at the White House on Tuesday as Washington deploys its largest force of aircraft and warships to the Middle East since the 2003 buildup to the Iraq war.
The audience for the secretary of state’s briefing is reported to include the so-called “gang of eight”, which includes the senior lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate, as well as the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
The select group is briefed by the White House on classified intelligence matters, which can include preparations for significant military action. Rubio last publicly briefed the group on 5 January, the day after the US launched its successful operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.
Normally, this sort of a briefing doesn’t happen unless something really big has just occurred or something really big is about to occur.
Many are suggesting that this is a sign that military action against Iran is imminent.
Others believe that we won’t see anything happen until the weekend at the earliest.
On Monday, President Trump suggested that a war with Iran is something that could be “easily won”…
Since the Iranians are not inclined to give him what he wants, Trump is reportedly envisioning a series of limited strikes that will force Iran to make major concessions.
But if the limited strikes do not accomplish that goal, Trump would be ready to initiate a broader campaign…
President Donald Trump warned his aides that if diplomacy or targeted strikes do not convince Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program, he will consider larger actions, according to a report.
While negotiators from the U.S. and Iran will meet Thursday in Geneva to try and find a solution that would avoid military conflict, Trump has been considering other options should the talks fail, according to The New York Times.
Both sides have ramped up military preparations in the region in recent days as Trump has been leaning toward carrying out a strike to show Iran that it must give up its ability to make nuclear weapons, Trump advisors told the Times.
This is a huge gamble, because once the missiles start flying a conflict with Iran could spiral out of control very rapidly.
On Monday, the Iranians warned that they will respond “ferociously” even to a series of limited strikes…
Iran vowed on Monday to retaliate “ferociously” against any attack by the United States and reiterated warnings of a regional conflagration in response to President Donald Trump’s threat of limited strikes.
The bellicose rhetoric from Tehran and Washington came as both sides were set to hold indirect talks in Geneva on a potential deal regarding Iran’s contentious nuclear programme, with a US official confirming discussions would resume on Thursday without offering further details.
As Iran faces US pressure backed by a build-up of military force in the Middle East, university students have started the new semester with anti-government protests, reviving slogans from nationwide demonstrations that peaked in January and were met with a deadly crackdown.
And the head of Iran’s military is telling us that his forces will “inflict heavy casualties” on us if we attack…
Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces Abdolrahim Mousavi warned the United States against any military action against Iran, saying it would suffer heavy losses in the event of aggression.
“We have not initiated any war, and in the past our approach was to prevent the expansion of conflict and reduce casualties. However, the actions of the United States have caused us to change our approach, and this time, if they make a mistake, we will inflict heavy casualties on the enemy,” Mousavi said.
“Our nation and armed forces are determined to stand to the end against the hegemonic system.”
The Iranians keep hinting that they have some big surprises up their sleeves.
Do the Iranians possess weapons that we do not know about?
If the Iranians actually decided to use unconventional weapons against Israel, the Israelis would respond with overwhelming force.
And then the entire world would descend into a state of chaos.
Speaking of unconventional weapons, the Russians are alleging that the UK and France actually intended to equip Ukraine with nuclear weapons…
Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) alleged London and Paris were engaged in a clandestine operation to arm Kyiv with more muscle against Moscow by supplying it with a ‘wonder weapon’.
‘Britain and France realise that the developments in Ukraine leave no chance of achieving their much-desired victory over Russia at the hands of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,’ said a statement today from the spy agency.
‘However, the British and French elites are not prepared to accept defeat. It is believed that Ukraine needs to be equipped with “wunderwaffe”.
‘Kyiv would be able to claim more favourable terms for ending the hostilities if it possessed a nuclear bomb, or at least a so-called “dirty bomb”.’
Let us hope that this report is not accurate.
Let us hope that the Russians simply got a hold of some bad information.
Because giving nukes to Ukraine would be absolutely insane.
Unfortunately, we live at a time when the entire world seems to be going nuts.
The kinetic phase of World War III is nearly upon us, and we are going to witness so much death and destruction in the months ahead.
So enjoy the last remaining moments of relative peace and quiet while you still can, because everything is about to change.
An Attack On Iran Appears To Be Very Close, And This Is Why It Must Happen Soon By Oct 27, national elections will have been held in Israel. The polls don’t look good for Netanyahu, so he’ll probably be out of a job. Solving the “Iran problem” is the number one thing Netanyahu wants to accomplish before he leaves, so the clock is ticking. Even if something prevented the US from attacking Iran, top Israeli officials warned they’d go in anyway.
New York Legalizes Physician Assisted Suicide The nation has come a long way since the controversy and trials of Dr. Jack Kevorkian and the time in which we live. It’s ironic to recognize he was convicted of murder in the 1990s, and today, there are now 13 states (plus DC) that allow physician-assisted suicide, with New York being the most recent on February 9.
In 2026, It Has Become Trendy for Americans to Identify As “Chinese” Just when you think social media can’t get weirder, something proves you wrong. In the past few months, it’s become trendy for social media users to identify as “Chinese.” I understand appreciating the positive elements of another culture, but people are taking this too far. Sadly, we live at a time when many people think they’ll be happy if they can become someone else.
Mamdani Attends Iranian Front Al-Khoei Islamic Center Where Imam Prays for The Mahdi to Kill the Infidels by His Sword As the US makes final preparations to hammer Iranian mullahs out of existence, New York City’s Islamo-communist Mayor Mamdani made a point of saying Friday prayers at a mosque that the Dept of Justice considers to be a front for the Iranian gov’t. The cherry on top is that during those prayers, the imam prayed for the Mahdi to kill the infidels (non-believers) by the sword.
Sam Altman Just Said Training Human Children Uses More Energy Than AI “OpenAI’s Sam Altman sparked a firestorm of criticism at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 when he responded to concerns over artificial intelligence’s growing environmental footprint by comparing it to the lifetime energy and food a human consumes before reaching “useful” intelligence.
Mosques Are Now Texas Polling Station Texas is being conquered from within: taxpayer-funded mosques doubling as polling stations are engineering Democrat surges and flipping through imported voter blocs and civilizational jihad. Over 300 mosques, many now doubling as polling stations fueled by billions in taxpayer dollars engineered domination from within.
EXPOSED: Iranian Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami’s Chilling Fatwa – ‘We Will Kill You and Kill You Good’ for Daring to Leave Islam In a brazen display of Sharia’s iron-fisted tyranny, Iranian hardliner Ayatollah Khatami delivered a venomous sermon during Tehran’s Friday prayers, threatening execution for anyone who publicly renounces Islam. It’s straight from the heart of Iran’s theocratic regime, where apostasy isn’t just a sin; it’s a death sentence designed to crush dissent and enforce total obedience.
Cartel Problem Is ‘Spilling Over to The United States’: Texas Senator Says The cartel problem in Mexico has spilled over into the US, harming Americans and requiring Washington to take action, Sen. Cornyn (R-Texas) said. Mexico has long been controlled by the cartels. Many gov’t officials in Mexico have been compromised, with these officials getting rich. Texas will continue to utilize every tool and strategy to protect our state and our nation.
Iran stalls for interim deal as US-Iran play ‘game of chicken’ with war The Islamic regime has been pushing for an interim deal, seeking to drag out talks with the US to achieve a deal that would allow it to keep its ballistic missile program, legitimize its nuclear program, and get some degree of relief from US sanctions, according to former British Army intelligence officer Lynette Nusbacher.
But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2:13–14)
Paul’s fifth exhortation to eliminate fear of the future is to understand the great doctrine of salvation. With a few words, the apostle sweeps the reader across the vastness of God’s redemptive plan to affirm the believer’s security in that plan. Again, Paul’s intent is not pedagogical but pastoral. Those who reject the truth that believers are eternally secure cannot look forward with confident hope to Christ’s coming. To believe that Christians living in unconfessed sin when the Lord returns will go to hell can only engender dread and fear—especially since sinless perfection in this life is unattainable (1 Kings 8:46; Ps. 143:2; Prov. 20:9; Eccl. 7:20; 1 John 1:8, 10). But the Thessalonians did not need to fear they had lost or could lose their salvation, because God’s choice of them is irrevocable. Salvation began with God’s loving choice in eternity past and will continue until glorification in the future (Rom. 8:29–30). Jesus emphatically declared the utter impossibility that any of God’s elect should ever be lost:
All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.… This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.… No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:37, 39–40, 44)
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. (John 10:27–29)
That glorious truth caused Paul to always give thanks to God for the Thessalonians, knowing that they were brethren beloved by the Lord. In contrast to the unredeemed, who refuse to love and obey the truth, are those who willingly do both; in contrast to those whom God judges are those He redeems; in contrast to those who believe Satan’s lies are those who believe God’s truth; in contrast to those who follow Antichrist are those who follow Christ. God’s work of salvation began with His sovereign, uninfluenced, undeserved love. That love was the basis for His election of believers (Eph. 1:4–5). God’s electing love is not conditioned on any merit in its recipients, as Moses reminded Israel: “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples” (Deut. 7:7). Flowing out of God’s predetermined love is His sovereign choice of believers, whom He has chosen … from the beginning for salvation. God “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4); He “has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity” (2 Tim. 1:9). The redeemed are those whose names were “written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain” (Rev. 13:8; cf. 17:8). For that reason, the New Testament commonly refers to believers as the “elect” (Matt. 24:22, 24, 31; Mark 13:20, 22, 27; Luke 18:7; Rom. 8:33) or the “chosen” (Matt. 22:14; Rom. 11:7; Col. 3:12; 2 Tim. 2:10; Titus 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1). The doctrine of God’s sovereign, elective love has several practical benefits. It crushes human pride (Titus 3:5), since God gets all the credit for salvation. It exalts God (Ps. 115:1), as He receives praise for His love. It produces joy (1 Peter 1:1–2, 6, 8), as believers rejoice in their salvation. It grants unimaginable privileges (Eph. 1:3). It promotes holiness in the lives of the elect (Col. 3:12–13). Finally, and most relevant to Paul’s purpose in this passage, it provides security (Phil. 1:6). God’s sovereign election of believers becomes operative in their lives through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. Sanctification is the work of the Spirit that sets believers apart from sin to righteousness (cf. Rom. 15:16; 1 Cor. 6:11; 1 Peter 1:2). This miracle starts at salvation and includes a total transformation, so that the believer is born again (John 3:3–8) and becomes a new creature (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). The sanctification that begins at regeneration does not, of course, mean that believers do not sin (see the discussion above). But it does ensure that those set apart from sin to God will lead lives of progressive sanctification, of increasing holiness toward Christlikeness (John 17:17; Rom. 6:1–22; 2 Cor. 3:18; Gal. 5:16–25; Phil. 3:12; Col. 3:9–20; 1 Thess. 4:3–4; 5:23; 1 Peter 1:14–16; 1 John 3:4–10). The human factor in God’s sovereign, loving election and regeneration is faith in the truth. Salvation is “by grace … through faith” (Eph. 2:8). It is those who “believe in the Lord Jesus [who] will be saved” (Acts 16:31). To the Romans Paul wrote, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation” (Rom. 10:9–10). The truth that salvation is by faith in the true gospel permeates the New Testament (e.g., Mark 1:15; John 1:12; 3:15–16, 36; 5:24; 6:40, 47; Acts 10:43; Rom. 1:16; 1 Tim. 1:16; 2 Tim. 3:15; 1 Peter 1:9; 1 John 5:1). The Spirit regenerates those who hear and believe the truth by granting them repentance (Acts 11:18; 2 Tim. 2:25) and the gift of faith (Eph. 2:8–9). The next element in God’s redemptive plan reaches back chronologically before the third. The apostle’s declaration It was for this He called you through our gospel refers, as always in the New Testament epistles, to God’s effectual call of believers to salvation (e.g., Rom. 1:6, 7; 1 Cor. 1:2, 9, 24, 26; Gal. 1:6; Eph. 4:1, 4). The gracious call of the Holy Spirit is irresistible (Rom. 8:30); the gospel is not merely words and facts but “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). All of those gospel realities lead to the ultimate goal of God’s redemptive plan—that believers may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (cf. 1:10, 12). That firm statement of the security of salvation reveals that God loved, chose, called, and transformed believers for the purpose of eternally reflecting the glory of Christ to them and through them (cf. 1 John 3:1–2; Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:42–49; Phil. 3:21). Since no purpose of His can be thwarted (Job 42:2), nothing can separate believers from His saving love (Rom. 8:35–39). Based on this sovereign scheme, there was no need for the Thessalonians to be insecure about their salvation, anxious about the Lord’s return, or fearful that they were in the Day of Judgment of the ungodly. They, like all believers, were not destined for judgment but for glory, for “God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:9).
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2002). 1 & 2 Thessalonians (pp. 285–288). Moody Press.
2:13, 14. But we are obliged to give thanks to God always for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth; to which (salvation) he also called you through our gospel, with a view to obtaining the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Over against (note δέ) the damnation which awaits Satan’s followers stands the salvation which is in store for God’s children. This thought is developed in the present passage, which is full of rich concepts. However, as all of these have been discussed before, and some at considerable length, a reference to the place where this material can be found should suffice: For “we are obliged to give thanks to God always for you” see on 2 Thess. 1:3. For “brothers beloved by the Lord” cf. on 1 Thess. 1:4. For “because God chose you” see on 1 Thess. 1:4. For “salvation” see on 1 Thess. 5:8, 9. For “sanctification” see on 1 Thess. 4:3, 7. For “belief” see on 2 Thess. 1:3, 4, 11; 1 Thess. 1:3. For “truth” see on 2 Thess. 2:10, 12. For “calling” see on 1 Thess. 1:5; 2:12; 4:7; 5:24. For “with a view to obtaining” see on 1 Thess. 5:9. For “glory” see on 1 Thess. 2:12. For “our Lord Jesus Christ” see on 1 Thess. 1:1. On the basis of the explanation of these various concepts and of the context here in 2 Thess. 2:13, 14, we can now paraphrase the thought of the present passage as follows: “We—Paul, Silas, and Timothy—cannot do otherwise than ceaselessly thank God for you, brothers in the faith (who are the objects of God’s special love), because in his sovereign, immutable election God from the beginning chose you to salvation—which is negatively, rescue from the guilt, pollution, and punishment of sin; positively, the entrance into the inheritance reserved for God’s children—; a salvation which becomes your possession through the work of the Holy Spirit, that is, through sanctification—a process of causing you to become increasingly detached from the world and attached to Christ until his image is completely formed in you—and through your active, vital consent to the body of redemptive truth revealed in Christ; to which final and complete salvation God also called you, having effectively applied to your hearts the gospel which we preached to you and which we urged you to accept in order that you might one day share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We accept the reading, “God chose you from the beginning” (ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς) and not, “God chose you as first-fruits” (ἀπαρχήν). Both readings are well attested, and the conception of believers as “first-fruits” is entirely Biblical (Jas. 1:18; Rev. 14:4) and even Pauline (Rom. 8:23; 11:16; 16:5; 1 Cor. 15:20, 23; 16:15). However, Paul never uses it in connection with the idea of election or choosing. On the other hand, the idea that God chose his own (or decreed something) “before the ages” (1 Cor. 2:7), “from the ages” (Col. 1:26), “before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4) is definitely Pauline. To this would correspond the rendering “chose you from the beginning” (i.e., from eternity) here in 2 Thess. 2:14. Also, the thought here expressed, namely, that God called men to a salvation to which he had before chosen them is both logical and Pauline (Rom. 8:30).
Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of I-II Thessalonians (Vol. 3, pp. 187–188). Baker Book House.
I am especially struck today by the mandates to “take care, and keep your soul diligently” (Deut 4:9), “watch yourselves very carefully” (Deut 4:15), “Take care” (Deut 4:23), “be careful to do them [God’s commands]” (Deut 6:3), and “take care lest you forget the Lord” (Deut 6:12). Apparently, it’s easy for even the people of God to forget the magnificent power and blessings of God, even turning to false gods in spite of all of His warnings.
The lure of contemporary idols sometimes blocks our memories of God’s past protection. Indeed, we seldom default into obedience, so we must continually guard our hearts and seek the face of God. He who has redeemed us from bondage to sin and freed us to live for Him is worthy of such a commitment – He “is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other” (Deut 4:39).
Watching our heart and following God are not about only us, however. Like the nations in Israel’s day, the people around us might take note when they learn of our God who loves us, leads us, liberates us, and listens to us. Our children and our grandchildren also need to know the stories of our faith so they might learn to respect God and teach their own children about Him. It is thus loving and right for us to teach our children about Him when we lie down and when we rise up.
Many feel betrayed and shortchanged when God fails to come through as expected. Both Abraham and Habakkuk experienced the mystery of divine silence. In this interview based on his book Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayers?, Pastor Lutzer reveals how God answers our hearts. Rather than demanding explanations, let’s choose joy in God’s sovereignty.
It’s important to understand where we are, now, in our spiritual maturity, in order to grow into what we could be. In this message, Adrian Rogers explains how the Bible categorizes our growth as Christians, and how to use Scripture as a road map for maturity.
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” – John 3:36
Scripture reading: 2 Kings 9:1-37
Have you ever had people ask, “How can you know that the Bible is true?” One way to know the truth of the Bible is to look at how the prophecies given in the Bible are fulfilled. It doesn’t matter whether they are prophecies concerning judgment or prophecies regarding deliverance and salvation; we see time and again where the prophecies that have been made are fulfilled, right down to the minutest detail.
In this passage, we see judgment in the deaths of three people, and each death is a fulfillment of prophecy. It wasn’t by chance that Joram, who was a son of Ahab and Jezebel, met Jehu at the plot of ground that belonged to Naboth. Rather, it led to the fulfillment of the prophecy of God’s judgment on the lineage of Ahab (vs.21-26; 1 Kings 21:21).
Ahaziah’s death was also a fulfillment of prophecy, as recorded in 2 Chronicles 22:7. And the same was true for wicked Queen Jezebel. Elijah had prophesied, in 1 Kings 21:23, that at Jezreel, dogs would devour Jezebel’s flesh.
In these deadly judgments, we are reminded, not only of the truth of the Bible but also that God is not mocked; one reaps what is sown (Galatians 6:7-8). And, further, through this passage, we are assured that God’s Word is always fulfilled, both in warnings of judgment (2 Kings 10:10) and in promises of salvation (John 1:11-13).
May you and I take both the warnings and the promises to heart, knowing that both are administered righteously by Christ.
Suggestions for prayer
Thank God that He is a righteous judge who will hold the unrepentant accountable for their actions (2 Thessalonians 1:5-11). And thank Him that He is the faithful Savior of every sinner who repents and turns in saving faith to Him.
Rev. Ted Gray grew up in a Christian family but lived a meaningless life of futility apart from the Lord for many years. After professing faith at age 30, and later completing seminary, he has had the privilege of serving Orthodox Presbyterian churches in Oregon and Florida and a Christian Reformed Church in Vermont. For the past 15 years, he has served as pastor of First United Reformed Church in Oak Lawn, Illinois. Get this devotional delivered directly to your phone each day via our RP App. This devotional is made available by the Nearer To God Devotional team, who also make available in print, for purchase, at NTGDevotional.com.
As Christians, we understand that good works can never earn God’s forgiveness. But that doesn’t mean our good deeds are worthless. In fact, the way we spend our life on Earth will greatly determine our rewards in Heaven. Dr. Robert Jeffress explains why Heaven won’t be the same for everyone.
Have you ever paused to reflect on our universe and how it is divinely designed by God. Or have you ever reflected on how fearfully and wonderfully made we as humans beings are!
My friends the next time you look up into space I challenge you to reflect on just how vast our universe is. For it consists of millions of galaxies and untold trillions of stars. Not only that but God has chosen to single out one special star, that we call our sun, to have nine planets orbiting it, with one unique planet, where eight billion human beings inhabit, called Earth. And the exciting thing about each one of the eight billion inhabitants on our planet is that outside of God, we are the most complex and divinely designed creatures in our universe!
If you have been following my blog for awhile you probably are aware of the many devotions I have written on just how vastly complex and divinely designed you and I are.1
In our world today, sadly, there are millions of atheists who choose to view God’s masterful design plan for human beings as nothing more than a fortuitous collision of random molecules that over vast eons of time produced you and me, rather than an act of divine creation. I firmly believe that if our atheist friends would just pause to ponder the absurdity of their belief system, which postulates that mindless matter and blind random chance were the driving forces that over billions of years formed you and me, they would realize that this system of creation takes far more faith than to believe in a creator God.
In closing, I leave you with the following quote by Peter Kreeft to share with your atheist friends: “There are relatively few atheists among neurologists and brain surgeons and astrophysicists, but many among psychologists, sociologists, and historians. The reason seems obvious: the first study divine design, the second study human undesign.”2
1 The following links will take you to just a few of my devotions that show us just how fearfully and wonderfully designed we really are:
It was the only way I knew how to explain my love of Fixer Upper to my bewildered husband. Since the show aired, I would plunk myself down, yell in frustration (who picks a midcentury modern over a classic Victorian, I mean, come on!?), and bask in the beauty of the big reveal. Yes, I loved the shiplap, but like other Christian fans, what I enjoyed most was having a show featuring a Christian couple who truly loved each other.
What Christian fans weren’t expecting was to watch the designing duo green-light the normalization of homosexuality when they partnered with HBO for the newest reality, Back to the Frontier. The fallout gave fans everywhere a front row seat to a Christian accountability meeting, and they had a lot to say.
Yep, Matthew 7:1 became the theological “shiplap” of the comments section–That verse was everywhere! What none of those folks seemed to realize, however, was that they, too, were judging. Which got me thinking, if the anti-judgment crew didn’t realize this, would the new believer? Would our kids? That’s why we are going to evaluate whether Christians can judge, and if so, how we can judge well. Grab your spiritual tool belts, mama’s. It’s demo day (Colossians 2:8).
To Judge Or Not To Judge?
At first glance, Matthew 7:1 appears to be on the side of the comment critics. Jesus warns, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” If taken at face value, then everyone from Franklin Graham to Matt Walsh owes the Gaines an apology, but that would be a mistake. Why? Because this verse isn’t banning believers from making any judgments; it’s warning against making improperjudgments.
At that time, the Jews (particularly the Pharisees) struggled with two huge problems: legalism and double standards. Instead of leading people to God from a place of humility, they set themselves up as God and rejected anyone who didn’t follow their own subjective version of the law (Matthew 12:1-8).
Jesus was setting things straight by saying that man isn’t holy enough to condemn someone eternally, and that accountability can’t be hypocritically applied. His warning in Matthew 7:1 was meant to spark humility by showing that if people were held to their own “measure,” they would quickly be found wanting. Instead, Jesus told them to examine their own hearts, repent, and then “remove the speck” from the eye of their brother (Matthew 7:3-6).
This is the method of righteous judgment. It leaves eternal judgment to God, while allowing believers to correct one another from a position of humility. Righteous judgment is necessary for protecting believers from false teachings and enables the believer to stand firm against the pressure of secular culture (Colossians 2:8 & Ephesians 6:11-18).
So yes, to follow God, a Christian can make and use good judgment. We can help our kids learn how to judge rightly by following five important practices.
#1- Be Theologically Sound
“Teach Me Knowledge And Good Judgment, For I Trust Your Commands.” Psalms 119:66
To make the right judgments requires an objective standard of right and wrong from which we base morality. Where does that standard come from? Not man, not culture, but God. God’s word is very clear on sex, sin, and marriage, so then why is there so much debate?
There is a very real war being waged over the heart, mind, soul, and body of each one of us. One of Satan’s goals is to distort the word of God into a counterfeit faith to lure people away from Him. This is why, to judge rightly, we need to be immersed in scripture.
Next, check yourself before you wreck yourself. . . hermeneutically speaking. Does the conclusion you made align with the world of God, His nature, our identity, the reality of sin, and the redemptive work of Christ? If so, well done![1] This will help you avoid a common but preventable error: cherry-picking verses.
Cherry-picking is when a single verse or part of a verse is (often) taken extremely literally to advance a person’s own desires or conclusions without regard to the verse’s context or application. Like when the Pharisees gave themselves a free pass to perform circumcisions on the sabbath but condemned the disciples for “working” when they plucked a handful of grain for a snack (Matthew 12:1-2).
Sorry-not-sorry critics in the comments section! If you posted Matthew 7:1, you’re guilty of making a judgment based on a verse you had cherry-picked.[2]
When a bumper-sticker-worthy verse pops up during your quiet time, guide your children to read the passages (or chapters!) around it to properly discern its meaning. As you read together, point out how the passage reveals God’s goodness, his grace, and his redemption through Christ. From there, you can play “spot the counterfeit” whenever culture tries to offer its own broken version of love, empathy, and acceptance.
Every righteous judgement needs two important ingredients: love and humility. Love delights in the truth (1 Corinthians 13). Humility is the anchor that roots our judgement in love. Humility reminds the believer of their life before Christ and guides us when we need to hold each other accountable.
How we do this will look different depending on who we are addressing. If addressing a non-believer, our approach will be evangelistic in nature. The goal is to point them toward Christ by seeking to find out what led them to that conclusion, gently address its logical failings, and offer an account of how truth is rooted in Christianity.
If we’re addressing a believer, our approach is gracious accountability. We affirm our mutual call to submit to the truth of God, address the biblical error, encourage the believer to repent, and be restored in righteousness (James 5:20).
To help kids be restoration-minded, role-play how you would address a correction in love by using a character on a show or in their favorite storybook. What tone should you use? If this person were a believer, how would you speak to them? How would our approach change if they are an unbeliever? How would you correct a logical error while pointing to the truth of Christ?
Remember kids, Elijah may be the patron saint of sass [3], but in most cases our tone should be heaped with grace (Colossians 4:6).[3]
#3- Be Seasoned with Salt
Grace, however, isn’t possible without a little thing called truth. Truth is what enables us to make a right judgement.[4] If our conversions aren’t rooted in truth, then we will lead people into bondage through progressive affirmation. This is exactly what progressives want.
Progressive theology rejects the truth of God in exchange for whatever feels right to each person.[5] It’s part relativism, part spiritualism, mixed into a deadly cocktail of bad theology by a guy who looks like Jesus without any of his redeeming qualities. Pun intended.
The goal is to convince the theologically weak and the empathetic folks into believing that the truth of God is harmful to those who live contrary to his commands. To truly love their neighbor, Christians have to reject the idea of dying to self and accept everyone without question. This, dear reader, is a pack of lies.
Our kids need to know that we are not ‘casting stones’ when we make a right judgment.[6] The most loving thing we can do is speak the truth. As you practice your ROAR, remind your kids that empathy is a gift from God. To Chip’s point, we can rightly listen and understand a person’s past, but a person’s past doesn’t get to censor the truth of God. In short, a person’s past should alter how we preach God’s word, notif we preach God’s word.
#4- Be Consistent in Word and Deed
Now for a little heart check, mamas. Before we confront another, we need to ask two questions.
Am I Currently Living In Sin?
I’m not meaning the random times where we fall short…like yesterday in traffic. If that were the case, then no one could judge anything! I mean, is there a part of our lives where we are living in habitual sin? If so, we have no business removing the plank from the eye of someone else until the sawdust is removed from our own, Matthew 7:3-6.
Am I Applying A Double Standard?
This “good for thee but not for me” problem wasn’t unique to the Pharisees. We, too, can develop this spiritual blind spot when we justify our own sin as “less sinful” than that of another. Don’t be fooled, mamas. Our kids notice when we draw the line at shows normalizing LGBTQ lifestyles, only to erase it when we watch the saucy period drama. When we make a judgment, we need to be consistent with that judgment.
Kids need to see what it looks like to live an integrated faith through our example. Model how to sacrifice earthly pleasures for the glory of God. Show them how to love like Christ, ask forgiveness, and stand firm in the faith. Remind them that it’s not possible to fully unplug from everything ungodly, but to the best of our ability, we can direct ourselves and our money toward that which glorifies God.[7]
#5- Be Confident In Christ
One of my favorite quotes is from Jason Whitlock: “When we are fearful before God, we are fearless before culture.” This fearlessness is the heart of 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
When our identity is rooted in Christ, we are issued a set of spiritual armor and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who gives us wisdom and the boldness to speak truth. The problem is that too many Christians either callously lob truth grenades or cower the moment a cultural criticism comes blazing toward them, Ephesians 6:16.
Who Then Do We Fear?
Our kids need to know that to be set apart in Christ means that we are set against culture (John 15:18-19) while still seeking people (Matthew 28:19). People will hate us for speaking truth, but we aren’t called to seek man’s approval; we are called to seek righteousness.
To build up your child’s confidence, affirm their identity in Christ. Remind them that the world is going to push back, but we can equip ourselves for the challenge by knowing God’s word and rebuttals to common objections to the faith. Train them to recognize faulty logic, so when someone attacks their character (or their grammar), the baseless insult will bounce right off their shield of faith.
Final Thoughts
It’s not easy to watch a believer defend their own worldly compromise, but it shouldn’t wreck us. Here’s the truth: if we are still breathing, and they are still breathing, the Holy Spirit is still working. We can encourage them in truth and lift them up in prayer, whether it’s a TV couple or a family member.
Additonal Resources:
Fallacy Detective by Nathaniel and Hans Bluedorn The Theology Handbook by The Daily Grace Co. 10 Questions Every Teen Should Ask (and answer) about Christianity by Rebecca McLaughlin Mama Bear Apologetics Edited by Hillary Morgan Ferrer
References:
[1] If not, it could be due to a hermeneutical error. Check out our blog here. For some, however, it could be a worldview issue. See if you add anything to these two statements: I am a _______ Christian. I am a Christian, but/and I believe__________. Whatever is added into those blank spaces will usually reveal what someone truly worships. For example, someone who calls themselves a “progressive Christian” is a person who doesn’t believe in the gospel but a filtered view that Jesus affirms whoever we say that we are and cheers us on as we live our best life now. It has a guy who looks like Jesus, but it’s a false worldview that, if believed, will lead away from Christ. Secondly, if anything was added after the “I am a Christian” statement, it too is usually what the person actually worships, be it social justice, LGBTQ+, BLM, etc. Please know that each of those movements is a separate worldview that is in direct opposition to God. You cannot be a Christian and follow a pop-cultural religion. Only Christ saves; every other religion falls short.
[2] Fair warning: critics will use the “cherry-picking” accusation when a believer rightly quotes scripture. So long as judgment you have taken the verse within context you aren’t cherry picking, you are quoting. There’s a big difference.
[3] 1 Kings 18 records his snarky mocking of the prophets of Baal. This is a description, not a prescription, folks.
[4] It is also a vital aspect of the nature of God, John 14:6.
[6] You practice your discernment with this comment posted on an article from the NY Post. Matt Lustig said: “…A true religion preaches love and acceptance. Jesus would tell us to love, accept, and be kind to everyone. Reverend Graham and those like him are false Christian’s.”
[7] To put this in perspective, you have supported a company who affirms LGBTQ+ & DEI if you have: electronics by apple or android; ate at Chik-Fil-A; shopped at Home Goods, Target, Wal-Mart, Costco, or Amazon; ate a Kellog’s product; had Starbuks; flew United, Delta, or American; have an American Express card; used Pinterest; and more!
Recommended Resources:
Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp3 and Mp4
Amy Davison is a former Air Force veteran turned Mama Bear Apologist. She graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary with an MA in Christian Apologetics. She and her husband Michael (also former Air Force) have been married for over 17 years and have 4 kids. Amy is the Mama Bear resident expert on sex and sexuality, and she’s especially hoping to have that listed on her Mama Bear business card.
The following transcript came from a meeting that was held on February 3, 2026 at Bethel Church in Redding, California. At least four hundred people were in attendance at this meeting. The contents of the meeting pertained to the recent events surrounding the exposure of Shawn Bolz as a false prophet and allegations of sexual deviance in the presence of former staff members. This meeting was held prior to the allegations made public concerning Ben Armstrong. This transcript was provided by an attendee of this meeting.
Bethel Church – February 3, 2026
Key Questions and Full Answers (Context Preserved)
Question: Harm Caused by the Prophetic
Asked by Havilah Cunnington:
“I wonder, for those that do feel victim to the prophetic or to moving their family here, being a part, buying Shawn’s books, attending the conferences, and they are, they feel victim to that for good reason. What would you say to them? And I know you’ve said a lot, but I really think we want to hear from you.”
Answer — Bill Johnson
“I think if I can be totally frank. I think it’s worth it.
I think becoming a part of what God’s doing here, in spite of the failures, in spite of the blemishes, in spite of the wrong decisions. You know, that’s not who we are. It’s what we call incredible impact.
But Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation bring the whole nation together. He was a man with murderers… that God used him to bring the Word of the Lord. Don’t be real quick to throw out anything that you heard from somebody who has been wrong. Be careful before you throw it out, before you flush it.”
Follow‑Up: Retaining Words from Disqualified Leaders
Clarification by Havilah Cunnington:
“You’re saying that God, in His wisdom, cannot lose the beauty of what God has done in and through us… and yet we have been victimized is something serious.”
Answer — Bill Johnson
“I’ve got words I’m saving from people that I no longer trust… and so I’m not flushing those words.”
Question: TBN Appearance and Endorsement After Meeting a Victim
Asked by Havilah Cunnington:
“One of the most painful and confusing parts was after you met with a victim, why go on TBN? Why write an endorsement? Why?”
Answer — Bill Johnson
“I used a biblical concept that I lived by, but I misapplied it… Jesus called Peter a rock when he was a broken reed. I blew it on this one. I missed God on that so badly.”
Question: Why Leadership Waited Until a Podcast
Asked by Michelle (audience question texted/emailed):
“Why did our pastors wait until a podcast came out drawing attention to this to openly apologize?”
Answers
Dann Farrelly:
“We didn’t think it was our responsibility.”
Kris Vallotton:
“My thinking, which is flawed… I thought we did our bit. I no longer feel that way.”
Question: Permanent Removal from Leadership
Asked by Michelle (audience question texted/emailed):
“When leaders fall, is it correct that they are restored into leadership, and are there actions that biblically should remove someone permanently from leadership?”
Answer — Bill Johnson
“Really it’s case by case situation. Yeah, it’s not that one person gets more favor. It’s that each situation demands a different response. Sometimes people just need to be removed from ministry entirely, altogether. When I’ve been involved in situations like that, and say, “Listen, I have zero interest in you being restored to ministry. My only interest is you being restored as a human, as a man before God.” And so that’s my conversation with them.
They’re wanting to get back to ministry. I have zero desire for them getting back to ministry. I don’t want that to even be the rabbit that motivates them. I want them to get right, because they need to get right. And so that’s, that’s my interaction. And if, after time somebody has been removed, you see that God’s put a grace on their life. You know that’s, that’s where you get a council people together, they can pray through it, evaluate that situation. I don’t like hard and fast rules. Personally. I don’t like if somebody commits this sin, they have two years to recover, because they may not deal with it in two years. I think it’s probably case by case, where people are known and tested and tried and really see if we can entrust stuff to them.”
Answer — Dann Farrelly
“I think there’s lots of scriptures that need to be brought to bear on that. And so as far as is the did they respond in repentance and when they’re confronted. And if you have somebody respond in repentance, I think you can, you can have a new vision for who they are, and then who potentially they can be. You know, the classic one is Peter, right? He denies Jesus three times, and Jesus needs him the most, and then Jesus finds him, goes, you know, Feed my sheep, you’re going to be like leading my church. And so the idea that people can Christ put that guy the biggest failure, with Jesus leaving the most, put him in charge. So Jesus has a bit of an odd take about that that is a little uncomfortable. I’m sure when other people were martyred, they’re like, Peter lied, you know. And you know, just as you think about people who gave their lives for the in martyrdom, they had to look and go, Jesus actually trusted his church under this apostolic gift that was on Peter as well. So it gets confusing… But again, no one empowers scary people. You know, Peter again got rebuked by Paul… So there’s some nuance to this. It is easier to lift the straight on rules. I get that easier. Just don’t see this. That’s the gospel kind of function that way.”
Question: DiscernmentFailure
Asked by Michelle(audience question texted/emailed):
“Where was discernment in this and how are we growing in this area?”
Answers Bill Johnson:
“The problem wasn’t discernment… it was awareness of responsibility.”
Kris Vallotton:
“Love covers a multitude of sins. It’s easy to turn your discernment way down when you love somebody.”
Direct Quotes Concerning Bob Hartley
Havilah Cunnington:
“What are we going to do about the other men that have been brought up, like Bob Hartley? I’m naming him because we’ve named him publicly. But there’s others that are being brought up, what do we—what’s our plan for that? And are we expecting, as a church community, to watch us go through this, or are we actually like—what’s the process?”
Kris Vallotton:
“I think with Bob Hartley, I think we’re looking at timelines, because we obviously did excommunicate Bob Hartley and we sat him down in 2017. The question in 2017 is, what information do we have? The information I remember was that Bob… Jason had watched him Google someone when he sat behind him. So that was the first time. There was no information that came to us. We saw—we caught it and so I met with him. I met with him the first time, and I just said, “You can’t minister in here anymore.” He had went through a divorce, I think, around 2015, but don’t quote dates, because I’m really bad at dates.
We wanted him to stay in our environment to get well. He wasn’t a full-time person here. He was mostly IHOP. There was many conversations about like, ‘Hey, you’re still ministry.’ ‘Well, those are my friends.’ And no, no, we said, ‘No ministry.’ And then later on, it came out—it was a few years later, sometime later—that there was really serious sexual misconduct. And that just led to, you have to be—you’re a danger. And since then, we’ve had interaction with some victims. Very dangerous man. You look back and you’re like, okay, how come it took so long? Having grown up as a victim myself… yeah, that wouldn’t last more than one week.”
Dann Farrelly (brief interjection)
“Your point is that we are going to go through the timeline.”
Later Reference (Kris Vallotton, comparative discussion)
“Bill and I were in Pennsylvania and Bob Hartley called… And he came to lunch, and it was 10 leaders, and Bill and I. I’ll never forget this for as long I live. He had no idea who was in the meeting. None. He couldn’t have known who was in the meeting. There was no way for him to Google information. And I think it was before. And we sit down, and Hartley looks over. He goes, ‘Oh, you have a son named Joshua.’ Because yeah. He goes, ‘Oh yeah, the Lord healed his brain last year,’ and the guy starts sobbing. He said, ‘Joshua had a brain tumor and had a brain tumor operation.’ He goes, ‘And it’s never going to come back.’ He did that 10 times. I’d never seen anyone operate in a word of knowledge like that.
I watched Shawn do that in meetings where I bring him in and he would just minister to leaders that I just brought him randomly. Couldn’t have known who’s in the room. ‘Your daughter plays piano.’ ‘What’s her name is it?’ ‘Beth.’ ‘Bethany.’ Yeah. And so, you know, these gifts and callings of God are irrevocable. Someone falls off the Jesus wagon, they get to take the gift with them. And so, you know, that was very confusing too.
And then, and then, you know, but then Shawn, on the Shawn side, he started having words of knowledge, like on steroids, and I, and I questioned him many times. It’s like, ‘We need to—Lord came to me at night.’ I’m like, ‘Well, is that an angel of the Lord or is it an angel of Google?’ And I really did. I talked to Bill about a couple of times that seemed like I’m—I’m concerned. And then the way he brings the words, like, he hasn’t reached out, where he gets there, there was, there was like—no, I’m looking back. Mindsets like, obviously, but not so obvious.
When you watch someone perform—like, I say perform, I’m sorry, minister— like that, behind the scenes for years and years, and then what? And then, you know, the question you have to ask yourself, in all these men’s cases, the sexual stuff is really hard. I can’t imagine it, but why did you even do that? You had such a beautiful gift, you know, like, you didn’t have to fake it. Why did you fake it? And so I still ask that question, and it’s such a warning to our teams, such a warning that name and the need to be, you know, amazing, the ministry can kill you and kill a bunch of people. And so, you know, my take on—on—I like that Bill said, by the way, I agree with—but Shawn’s ministry became a mixture. It became a mixture, like it was ministering, often powerful prophetic words. And then there was like, ‘That crap. I don’t know what that is.’ And so it became very confusing. And it became more and more confusing towards the end, as he obviously started to rely more and more on that other things he was doing. And I think, honestly, the anointing lifted from him. And when it did, I think this is my—this is my observation— when anointing began to lift from him, because the gift and calling are always there, I think he started leaning more on that other thing he was doing, and I think it became, as the time went on, the mixture got worse and worse.”
CRN has compiled a list of false teachers and several other professing Christians we’ve warned you about over the years. The list also contains those we must keep an eye on plus movements, organizations and “frauds, phonies and money-grubbing religious quacks” to mark and avoid as per Romans 16:17-18
ONE YEAR AGO: On Feb. 25, 2025, MinistryWatch reported that Burk Parsons, senior pastor of St. Andrews Chapel in Sanford, Fla., and a teaching fellow with Ligonier Ministries, was indicted by the Central Florida Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and suspended from his duties as a teaching elder. Eventually, Parsons was convicted and the church congregation voted to leave the PCA. Read the full coverage here.
TWO YEARS AGO: On Feb. 29, 2024, MinistryWatch reported about the use of artificial intelligence by pastors in creating, developing, and repurposing sermons. Read more here.
THREE YEARS AGO: On March 6, 2023, MinistryWatch reported that Toronto-Dominion Bank said it would pay more than $1.2 billion to settle a lawsuit by investors in Allen Stanford’s Ponzi scheme. In 2012, Stanford was convicted of perpetrating a $7-billion Ponzi scheme using a network of Christian financial planners and others who unknowingly brought their clients into the scheme. Read more here.
FOUR YEARS AGO: On March 7, 2022, MinistryWatch reported that the United Methodist Church delayed its General Conference meeting for a third time due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. In response, some conservative United Methodists announced they would preemptively leave the denomination rather than wait for the long-anticipated meeting. Since then, hundreds of churches have left the denomination. Read more here.
SIX YEARS AGO: On March 2, 2020, MinistryWatch reported that Wheaton College would rescind the title of “Professor Emeritus” from Gilbert Bilezikian following allegations of “inappropriate and unprofessional conduct.” Bilezikian, known as “Dr. B,” was a guiding force in the formation of the influential Willow Creek Church. Read more here.
TWELVE YEARS AGO: On March 7, 2014, MinistryWatch reported that Bill Gothard would resign from the ministry he founded amid allegations of sexual abuse. Read more here.
Today we explore the collapse of major movements like Together for the Gospel (T4G) under the weight of wokeism, the profound loss of giants like R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur, and the question on everyone’s mind: Who will lead Grace Community Church next?
Can the Bible still be trusted in a skeptical, secular age? In this powerful conversation with homicide detective and Christian apologist J. Warner Wallace, we explore the evidence for the trustworthiness of Scripture, the reliability of the Gospel eyewitness accounts, the prophetic case for Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, and the extra-biblical and archaeological support for the life of Christ.
From manuscript evidence and fulfilled prophecy to reluctant non-Christian historical admissions and the unique claims of Jesus’ deity, this interview will help you think clearly and confidently about why the Word of God is both historically reliable and spiritually life-changing.
15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Matthew 7:15 (1599 Geneva Bible)
With the ever increasing move away from Orthodox Christianity into various forms of Experiential religion that we are witnesses of here and now, it seems that the bottom is falling out of Christianity. It’s bad enough that we have all of these “wolves in sheep’s clothing” drawing the unaware into false religions while pretending to be Christian, but there are seemingly endless numbers of our “Christian” leaders falling all over themselves embracing these heretics….
No one seems to mind either. It’s not that we have heretics among us, we always have them, but there are now many of our leaders either falling in bed with these people or revealing their fleshly side in some of the grossest sins imaginable. What is going on?
I do not believe that God has removed the restrainer…yet. However, it seems that there is a clarification going on. There are tests being presented to all professing believers in our time that reveals their genuineness. Those who fail these tests find themselves either in bondage to horrible sin or lining up theologically with complete heretics or completely falling away. Those who pass these tests find themselves cast off and away by the “mainstream” because they took a stand and refused to give in to the temptation as they fell on God’s mercy and grace in order to make those hard choices to not be popular or to fill up their heart’s desire from fleshly pursuits. Instead, they agreed with God and submitted to His will. It is always costly to do this, but Jesus’ disciples have counted the cost and know that possessing the treasure of eternal life in Christ is worth more than anything that can be had in this world. <Continue reading post>
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