John 6 and Israel’s Covenant History

 John 6:25-40 - And when they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You come here?”

Jesus answered them and said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”

Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”

Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

Therefore they said to Him, “What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”

Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.”

And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

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This conversation in John 6 occurred right after Jesus had miraculously fed the people with bread and fish. And this makes it even more confounding. At least one lesson to be had here is that unbelief and sin make a person undiscerning. The people who had just seen Jesus miraculously feeding them then asked for a miraculous sign, as if one had not just occurred before their eyes. They even went so far as to make the connection between God feeding Israel with Manna in the wilderness and Jesus feeding them with bread and fish. And they did this without Jesus leading them to it. Yet in spite of all this, they still could not perceive that He was God, or that He was the Savior of the world. Just as God had sought to lead Israel out of her bondage in Egypt, so Jesus had come to lead Israel out of her bondage to sin and the world.

But that generation of Israel in the Exodus not only prolonged their time in the wilderness, but in fact died there, not having reached the promised land. And the reason for this was twofold. First, she fell in her sin because the people did not exercise faith in God; they did not believe; they did not trust God. Just as faith in God and godly works are always found together, unbelief and sin always exist together; where one is, you always have the other. A person always acts in accordance with what he believes.

But beyond this, Scripture tells us that Israel failed because her role was a temporary one, intended to prepare the way for Jesus to come into the world. And until He came, the work of salvation had not yet been accomplished, and faith would not be possible. Israel’s laws, her lineage, her priesthood, her land - they were intended by God to illustrate salvation and its need, things which she could never provide.

This leads us back to John 6, in which we see Israel simply repeating the same unbelief that she had always had. She may have physically no longer been in Egypt, but spiritually she had never left. Jesus in giving them bread was merely repeating the pattern with her that she had been through with Yahweh over and over again throughout her history, always without her exercising faith. The point of this passage and of Jesus’ miracle was not merely symbolic. It was to establish a historical fact - Israel had been unfaithful in her covenant with God, and could not be saved apart from Christ and without the Gentiles. Jesus was again giving her a chance to repent and believe, but she would not. She would do to Jesus what she had always wanted to do to God, in giving Him over to the Gentiles to be crucified.

The Church of God, the New Israel, would soon after be established, with many of Israel as her foundation. As the Gentiles would begin to join with them, Old Israel, Israel according to the flesh, would continue in the unbelief she had always known. And yet God continues bringing the salvation that His Son accomplished through His Church today, a Church of Jews and Gentiles, even as He feeds us with bread and wine.

There Is No Transcending Culture

 You can have good culture or bad culture, Christian culture or anti-Christian culture. But you can never have non-culture, whether in the worship and ministry of the church, or anywhere else. Culture exists everywhere, and the worship and ministry of the church are always enculturated in practice. To exist in Creation always involves enculturation.

A Congress of Thieves and Liars

 Republicans in Congress are normally quite happy to blow billions of dollars on foreign “aid” and the corporations that fund their lifestyles. I find it hard to believe that their opposition to Trump’s recommendation of $2000 checks is over the effects on the economy.

The Illusion of American Capitalism

 Opening the economy back up won’t be enough to fix the current problems. What we’re dealing with isn’t simply the result of the shutdown, but rather years of actions by governing officials determined by back room deals with corporations who then funneled money back to the governing officials for favoring them over small businesses and the majority of American citizens. We don’t have capitalism or a free market, but rather Leftist globalist corporatism. The shutdown merely accelerated the already existing trend toward oblivion. And that‘s without even bringing up China, a whole other part of it.

Hebrews, Pt. 1

Once you have a complete understanding of what the Book of Hebrews is saying, Dispensationalism falls apart like the house of cards it is.

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The Book of Hebrews tells us that all of history after the Fall in Genesis 3 is divided up into two parts - 1. the Old Covenant, and 2. the New and Better Covenant. The writer begins with this distinction from the very first verse: 

“God, (1.) who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

(2.) Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds...”.

“Time past” was the Old Covenant, and “these last days” are the New. We see these two periods throughout the book. But we’re told that this is no mere distinction of periods of history. Rather they are stages in which God accomplished the salvation of man and the world.

This Evil Stimulus Package

Congressman Ted Budd, on Facebook, said the following a few hours ago:

“I wish I could have voted for a targeted COVID relief bill several months ago. We need to end economic lockdowns and support small businesses and their workers. But this package is a classic Washington shakedown game, and I’m not playing it.

Instead of going through the normal legislative process to pass a targeted COVID relief package, a handful of Congressional leaders emerged from their backroom with a trillion-dollar package that had to be attached to another multi-trillion-dollar spending bill in order to pass. There was no real debate, no amendments, and no time to comprehend a 5,593-page spending package that represents one of the largest spending bills in U.S. history. That’s no way to run our government.”

But even this, as true as it is, is way understated, given the suffering Americans are going through, and the wickedness of this package. Which goes back to why Trump was elected, with all his brashness. People are tired of wimpy talk and hollow procedure that do nothing. Instead we get this package that does more for the rest of the world than it does for the Americans who are starving and sinking further into debt. And, it is our children who are paying for it. As somebody has already said somewhere, our leaders hate us. It is impossible to measure their arrogance and spite towards us. If you haven’t been praying imprecatory Psalms against them and begging for God to deliver us from them, you should be.

Merry Christmas, Obama

 Ten years ago on social media, it was all about flash mobs surprising people with musical performances. Today it’s just mobs, destroying everything in Western culture they can. The Leftists, and especially Obama, really accomplished what they were aiming for.

On Christian Nationalism

 I’m not a nationalist in the strict sense of the term. It seems to me that nationalism has had a centralizing effect that has been detrimental to this country ever since the Constitution, one that takes away the rights and responsibilities that belong solely to individuals, families, and other bodies. In fact, that nationalism is very much to blame for many of the problems we suffer today. But Scripture makes it clear that every nation, country, city, county, state, and any other grouping of territory or people, owes its allegiance to Jesus the King alone. And it is the duty of every such body to declare its allegiance to King Jesus, along with the Father and the Spirit, the Holy Trinity, and no other “god”, with no lack of clarity on the matter. All things in Heaven and on Earth have been given to the Son by the Father in His ascension, and to refuse to bow and serve Him is idolatry and rebellion against Him, the one true Ruler of all things. Insofar as any body refuses to worship and serve Him, its judgment by God is just, deserved, and inevitable.

Yes, She Knew

 Nothing witnesses to the Church’s cultural irrelevancy like the fact that we think critiques of the twenty-four year old song “Mary Did You Know?” are daring and new.

The Supreme Farce and the NeverTrumper’s Guilty Conscience

 What we’ll be seeing now are posts, articles, etc. on how the Supreme Court made the right decision, from people who have hated, complained about, been envious of, and been found guilty by the speech of, President Trump for five years - people who in any other case would have been talking about how this election was rigged, had it been somebody they didn’t have a personal, emotional problem with. You can just write off anything they have to say about what has happened.

Those Frog People Eggs

 I think there’s a solid defense to be made, from a Christian perspective, as to why the storywriters’ having Baby Yoda eat those eggs in the Mandalorian was a bad thing. And it aligns from one angle with a criticism from outside the narrative of the Stormtroopers’ treatment of Baby Yoda in the last episode of season one - that is, it’s a criticism of the script writers, not of the Stormtroopers. I don’t plan on writing that criticism anytime soon myself. But take into consideration C.S. Lewis’ treatment of animals that have taken on human characteristics in his writings. And then reflect on the reality of pagan cynicism in modern art, and I think you’ve arrived at the truth of the matter.

The Great Globalist Enslavement

 The Great Reset is just a newer, more aggressive version of the same globalism we’ve been having forced on us for a long time now. The destruction of local and folk culture, traditions, history, and the finding of identity in familial connections (through aggressive forced immigration) has been a part of the same end goal. And that end goal is the replacing of these things with globalist corporatist interests, for the reducing of power and money into the hands of a select limited ultra-wealthy few. They want to kill your identity and everything valuable to you that keeps you from being malleable and a moneymaking tool for them. As a recent media release by the World Economic Forum stated, “you’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy.”

Our Statist Moment in History

 Another trip to the grocery store, and another experience of people staring quixotically at me, as I was the only one not wearing a mask. I don’t care in the least. But I realized in a fresh way with a science-fiction dystopian narrative we’re in. It’s absolutely bizarre. Nobody can see anybody else’s face. But it’s as if it doesn’t phase anyone. There’s no reflection, no sense of how wrong the whole thing is, no sense of how controlled they are. How many billions of dollars have been spent on science fiction movies, books , TV shows? It’s as if people haven’t been paying any attention at all.

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Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. -- C. S. Lewis

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If you aren’t already, you should begin praying imprecatory Psalms against not only our wicked politicians, but also against all those who would take away your freedom - corporations, especially the tech companies, and the relevant international organizations. Ask for God to tear down those wicked people and replace them instead with godly people, who would walk in fear of and obedience to Him.

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Without the fear of God, men do not even observe justice and charity among themselves. -- John Calvin

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Friendship is a fifth column against the State. The State doesn’t even want you to have friends. -- Rod Rosenbladt

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When the police knock down your door on Thanksgiving Day because you have too many people in your house, just tell them you have Anne Frank and her family hiding in a closet in your bedroom. You know, just to keep things interesting.

Collective Narcissistic Abuse

 The narrative du jour that Leftists are repeating on social media is apparently that Trump supporters owe them an apology for all the emotional trauma that those Trump supporters have allegedly caused them over the past four years. Now we can all say that we aren’t apologizing for something we didn’t do, that their own ignorance and foolishness caused their trauma, and so on. But note that if you were in a relationship with someone who was pulling this on you, it would be “I’m in a relationship with a psychopath/narcissistic abuser and I’m out of here” level stuff. Now consider that this thinking is widespread throughout the country, by people who have been carrying out their revenge for months. They have been abusers, and that for a long time. Now tell me: how can anybody believe we have a country left? What possible hope for unity remains? And then consider that even much of the Right supports things that God abhors, most notably sodomy and the murder of unborn children. God can do anything He wants, and we should pray for national repentance. But barring the mighty intervention of the Spirit of God, there is no chance of survival. This country will soon be no more. And as we continue to speed toward our demise, if they are able, the Left will crush you. And just like in the abusive relationship, they will make it as personal as possible.

Pessimillennialism and the Success of the Gospel

Pessimillennialism gets exactly what expects, in its unbelief. If you expect the Spirit of God working through the Gospel to accomplish little, it will affect your sharing of the Gospel, your prayer, and all your conduct in every aspect of your life. “And He did not many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.” But if the Spirit of God has the power to change individuals, He has the power to change countries, cultures, and the world. No individual Christian achieves perfect sanctification in this life. But the direction of his life is one way, the path of holiness that leads to perfection. And he is mostly characterized by his obedience to the commandments of God (Romans 8:1-17). This exactly what we should expect the Gospel to achieve for the whole world. Jesus tells us to pray “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”, as if we should expect that prayer to be answered. This side of the return of Christ, the world will not be sinless, as the people that make it up will not be sinless. But no reading of the Gospel as Scripture presents it can possibly see it as weak or unsuccessful. When all is said and done, the whole cosmos will be saved.

One point to be seen in all of this is that there is no divide between soteriology and eschatology. To believe that there is is to have an incomplete understanding of both. Eschatology is the working out of, and the complete success of, the Gospel in Creation and in history.

So what did Jesus mean when He said “My kingdom is not of this world”(Jn. 18:36)? He meant the world as it existed before His death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven, the world under the Old Covenant. That He was referring to that world only is evident by His statement “If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews.” The statement was time specific, referring to that moment. Christ’s death and resurrection were necessary and the point of His incarnation. The Old Covenant world, the one where Israel alone were God’s people, apart from the Gentiles, was temporary and to be done away with in Christ’s work. The fact that His reign as King began after His resurrection, bringing in a new world, is clear from His words in Matthew 28:18, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

Atomism, Politics, and Salvation In Time

 It’s only political idolatry when Conservatives do it, apparently. Or, actually, the Left pretends to not be acting politically while being political. Or, even better, let’s stop pretending that morality and ethics - rather, righteousness and the Law of God - can be detached in one sphere of life from how it exists in any other sphere of life/reality. This attempt at Atomism is a denial of the unity of the created order under the One Who created it.

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I have been thinking to myself, “well, if Biden wins, I suppose a lot of us will have to learn from our foolishness the hard way, again.” But that’s exactly the problem - we keep not learning, not gaining wisdom or discernment. We keep suffering the greatest judgment, that of being given over to our foolishness. This is Biblically the act of God forsaking a people, leaving them to sink deeper and deeper, to a place with no hope of salvation, a place where He will no longer save them. And to think that this is somehow a misapplication of Scripture as it relates to politics, or a confusing of politics and soteriology, reveals a failure to understand what salvation really is.

The Racist Affordable Care Act

 The Affordable Care Act was a large wealth transfer from the “haves” to the “have nots”. It was racist in nature by design, intended to disenfranchise the majority, being white Americans. And when coupled with unrestricted immigration, the plan was to replace them with non-white peoples as the majority in power. It was simply Cultural Marxism at work. And the same ideology continues. It’s the exact same thing as has been done in South Africa in recent years, as white individuals and families find themselves in poverty due to “affirmative action”. The turn to violence has occurred as white farmers have been murdered alongside of their wives and children on land their ancestors purchased legally. And now in the U.S. we’ve seen innocent store owners beaten in the streets by BLM and Antifa as they try to defend their businesses. It’s the same ideology and the same anti-white racism.

What No One Else Will Say

 Look, if we ever do elect a woman president, can it at least be a Southern woman with a nice lilting voice we can tolerate for four years, instead of one of these Yankee women with their nasally tone that sounds like a cat crying as it’s being dangled over a full bath tub?

The Inevitable Trump

Luxury makes men idiots. Case in point: the past four years of GOP who are scholars or who otherwise live comfortable lives who have groused endlessly about Trump’s character flaws.

Is President Trump the strong populist traditionalist leader who shows up late in a republic as it’s about to meet its demise? Of course he is. But I consider that as inevitable as the rising and the setting of the sun everyday. And to start fretting about the possibility of centralization and totalitarianism at this point is like waiting until the last lap of the race to complain about the fumes from the cars.

It’s 2020, and President Trump is the late 20th century man. In times of vast rapid change men will always seek out the safety, stability, and familiarity of the recent past. If it wasn’t going to be Trump, it would have been somebody else very much the same.

Fear As God’s Judgment

This sort of fear that controls people today, especially on the Left, is just bizarre to me. What are people doing, or not doing, that has led so many to such a place? Fear over the virus, fear over Trump. And how can people so misread the president over the past four years as to think he’s some kind of tyrant and white supremacist? This isn’t just about him, either. This is about a basic ability or inability to read people. No doubt sin and unbelief, a lack of knowing, trusting, and obeying God, lies at the heart of it. But if that’s the case, then that renders judgment on a lot of reputable men. And that is a frightening thing.

The President’s “Lack of Dignity”

The same people who have been critical of Trump’s “lack of dignity” over the past four years still think that’s the major problem today. And they’re still clueless as to where we are as a country, and what our real needs are. The dignity we’ve had for a long time has been that of whitewashed tombs housing dead men’s bones, among which are the bodies of millions of unborn babies. Our dignity has been a sham, a facade, behind which we’ve tried to hide our sin and shame. What we’re seeing now is merely the tearing down the facade to show who we really are. Don’t blame Trump. Any lack of decorum comes from our failures.

ACB

 I’ll believe ACB’s ascension to the Supreme Court will make a difference when I see it. Throw a case dealing with abortion or gender issues up there and let’s see what she does. For now I’m skeptical. Meanwhile the real need is to somehow eliminate the court’s power to legislate, and move power away from DC and back to the states. The sort of celebration we’ve seen the past couple of days on the Republican side seems to me to reveal what short memories we have, and how little we understand the matters surrounding this. Plus she still praised RBG, a fact that can’t be ignored.

In the Pantheon of the Gods

The late Justice Ginsburg’s body is lying in state in the Capitol building, beneath the dome and the painting of the Apotheosis of Washington, that is, of Washington ascending to the pantheon of gods, and becoming a god himself. Which is more blasphemous, and more a mark of an America in defiance of the one true God? Is it the painting? Or is it Ginsburg’s body, being worshiped as if she were a deity or a savior? Or is it the building itself, or the rest of DC’s high holy temples to men long dead, designed after the patterns of Greek and Roman temples? It’s hard to say. But the past few months Yahweh has sent His plagues and hordes of barbarians to awaken His people from their slumbers, with little more than a sleepy stirring. And the temples of the idols still stand, on every high hill and under every green tree.

9/11 Was the Just Judgment of God

Just like with the chaos this year, 9/11 was God’s judgment on a wicked nation guilty of, among other things, the daily ritual slaughter of the unborn. We didn’t learn then, and so far we don’t seem to be learning now. As long as mass repentance does not arise in this country, we will continue down the path toward complete dissolution.

A Third World Revolution

https://americanmind.org/essays/the-coming-coup/

An important and concerning article. Imagine Trump winning in November, but the ruling elite along with the military forcing Trump to leave the White House. It sounds like that may be what we should expect.

Assorted Fascistbook Thoughts

You know, given the past few months, the Obamas’ move out to safe Martha’s Vineyard was rather interesting. I’m sure it was just a coincidence.

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“America will never become a socialist country,” the president said. Not only have the Left pushed us into socialism, they’ve managed to make the president an active party in it.

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You know how that hair salon lured Pelosi into their trap? With wine and ice cream. True story.

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At what point is a government negligent to the point of illegitimacy? At what point have they ceased fulfilling their part of the contract such that the contract is no longer valid?

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As the k*y*l*e situation is proving once again, there is no difference between Fascistbook and the National Socialists when it comes to the communication of inconvenient truths.

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“Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips“ - Proverbs 27:2. Let the memers of their own tweets understand.

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Has President Trump had a mini stroke or transischemic attack somewhere along in his life? It’s possible. I think there are many, more than we would expect, that occur in people and are never detected, especially as we get older, and in times of high amounts of stress. Stress itself is a bigger contributor to aging, sickness, and death than it’s given credit for.

The Business of America is Idolatry

I’m currently listening to the president’s RNC address. He has accomplished alot, far more than most presidents. But this claim of ”saving American jobs” is, at least in part, disingenuous. When you are regularly bringing in new “Americans” to please corporations, who are forcing already existing American employees to train their more cheaply paid replacements before they find themselves unemployed, then you aren’t saving American jobs. You‘re simply creating more unemployed Americans and shifting more money back into billionaires’ pockets. You’re just bringing in the foreigners to do the job here rather than overseas. You are moreso increasing the American welfare system and destroying American lives.

The shallow response at this point is that this is “racist”. But in a country this mixed, that accusation of racism doesn’t fly anymore. Your black or Asian neighbor is as likely to lose his job to a foreign replacement as your white neighbor is.

The one thing Republicans can’t understand is that money and business alone make no country great, least of all America. Scripture makes it clear that business apart from obeying the commands of God is death. The requirement to love the people near you, your neighbors in the truest sense, is chief among those commands, with regard to our duties to each other. And what corporations that replace their workers with cheap labor are doing isn’t love. The Epistle of James echoes loudly here. It is the “interests” of big business who have been looting and burning cities the past few months, those trained by the education system ordered by global corporate entities. Big business has supported and encouraged the rioters in their destruction. And in the end the wealthy will weather this and continue to prosper, while the common man is the one who will suffer. They care nothing for your wellbeing, your local businesses, your heritage, or your culture. If anything, those get in their way. Their goal is to bring in cheap labor and appease investors, while throwing in some absurd Leftist ideologically-shaped regulations while they’re at it, the kind that kill off small businesses. What they want are slaves; in fact, they want a slave class, entirely subservient to them.

Without a godliness that does not bow to whatever big business demands, any words about our worshipping Almighty God alone are dishonest and a violation of the first two commandments. Taking this into account, along with the big business that abortion is, it’s impossible to say God’s wrath toward America is undeserved.

Saving Authority

Those who hold positions of power and authority are in the place of bestowing and restoring dignity and honor, particularly to those who have found themselves to have become undignified and dishonored. They can equally take them away or refuse to bestow them, these things that a person naturally longs for, and crush the needy soul in the process. This is true first of all of fathers, and follows out to all those who “father” society. Woe to those fathers who fail to appreciate the power to kill or make alive that they hold, or even worse, those who abuse that power. They condemn men to Hell, whether they know it or not.

Postmillennial Judgments

I’m a postmillennialist. And I believe fully in the sovereignty of God, the complete triumph of the work of Christ, and the victory of His kingdom over all. But any application of postmillennialism that tries to treat tragedies as if they aren’t tragic isn’t Biblical or Christian. Jesus really wept over Jerusalem, and He wasn’t faking His sorrow.

The Bible talks about real loss, and things that in themselves are irrecoverable. Otherwise the warnings of Scripture are sapped of any meaning.

Conservative Statism

Governor Cooper wants to keep government schools closed for now or at reduced capacity. Some conservatives are arguing that we should be opening them, because single parent families need them to babysit their kids. The quote from Dabney about American conservatism that I posted this morning screams out here. Why are Christians arguing for more Statism, and for more opportunities for reprobates to catechize their children? Do we need more occasion for unbelievers to draw them into immorality and godlessness? Haven’t they already led enough into Hell as it is? Are we so clueless about what brought about the chaos of the past two months? This is why the Church is so impotent in America today. We fail in knowing Scripture, and we fail in applying Scripture. Government schools exist to turn your children into worshippers of the idol of the State, and to raise up mindless workers for the corporations who pay off the politicians we so obediently vote into office. Do you want to raise men and women who are free in Christ? Do not turn them over to the State to be “educated”.

R.L. Dabney on American Conservatism

This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is to-day one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will to-morrow be forced upon its timidity, and will be succeeded by some third revolution, to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious, for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always—when about to enter a protest—very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent rôle of resistance. The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy from having nothing to whip. No doubt, after a few years, when women’s suffrage shall have become an accomplished fact, conservatism will tacitly admit it into its creed, and thenceforward plume itself upon its wise firmness in opposing with similar weapons the extreme of baby suffrage; and when that too shall have been won, it will be heard declaring that the integrity of the American Constitution requires at least the refusal of suffrage to asses. There it will assume, with great dignity, its final position.

Eternally the Other

No person is ever able to fully enter into the experience of another person, and you never fully know what’s going on in the life of someone else, even the people you’re closest to. The most seemingly banal person online, or even in person, is far more rich and interesting than we tend to give them credit for. And there’s always going to be suffering they experience that you know nothing about. It’s always worth remembering in our tendency to reduce people down to something less than what they are.

Conscious Distancing

When I hear the term “social distancing” I’m reminded of Gwyneth Paltrow’s “conscious uncoupling”, in her divorce from Chris Martin a few years back. We all mocked it then, but we seemingly have fallen for the bait this time. Both are equally examples of Orwellian Doublespeak, which governments (or individuals) use to maintain control. The terms intentionally speak in contradictory ways - socializing can’t be at a distance, for instance. They are simply propagandistic rhetoric, meant to obfuscate, and to confuse and manipulate a foolish or naive people. They are not about truth, but power, not about love, but enmity. They are an attempt at taking the personal realities of life and portraying them as impersonal. They are a hallmark of Modernism in its goal of absolute objectivism. They are Duchamp’s Nude Descending A Staircase. 

I can’t think of a much greater indicator of the worthlessness of government schools than the fact that we were all forced to read Orwell and yet somehow didn’t learn a thing from him, other than how to create the world he was warning against.

The Medicine That Shall Not Be Named

Ancient Chinese medicine often works because of centuries of practical experience that has honed it. And that’s in spite of the quasi-religious, mystical mumbo jumbo about energy blocks and what have you. Same thing with Indian medicine. Modern Western doctors will prescribe medicine you don’t need for things you didn’t go into the office for, for ridiculously exaggerated prices. They’ll cut things off of people that shouldn’t be cut off. And that’s because their god is money. Am I worried if one of these doctors recommending hydroxichloroquine holds to some bizarre views about how the world works? No, I’m not.

Tattoos

Tattoos are a fleshly and worldly effort of self-atonement. They are an implicit admission of one’s own guilt and shame, and are a way of trying to deal with them. Tattoos are an attempt at covering oneself, at hiding, at putting one’s nakedness away from the view of others, of providing oneself with a new righteousness in the light of one’s lost innocence. They are a reflection of one’s conscience above anything else.

“And Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the long robe that she wore. And she laid her hand on her head and went away, crying aloud as she went.” The shame is not always as a result of that person’s actions. The defilement might not come from that person’s choice. “She used to be so happy and good natured, but then everything changed. She became angry and depressed, and started arguing back all time. She started wearing all black clothes and black makeup. And then we found out she was secretly cutting herself.” Every parent that’s been through it recognizes it.

Tattoos, the multiplication of piercings, self-cutting - they’re all on the same continuum with each other. 

A nation covered in tattoos is a nation covered in shame, a nation that has refused the only real way of dealing with that shame.

God’s way of dealing with shame is through the washing of baptism and being clothed in the righteousness of Christ. The bathing of ourselves and the wearing of clothes reflect that physically, and point to our eternal purification and the white robes of Christ’s righteousness. Tattoos are poor substitutes. They are fig leaves.

How To Destroy A Country

Unrestrained immigration inevitably produces great poverty. It’s a shock to the existing system that’s too great for it to handle. The poverty is unavoidable, but when you take a Socialist approach to caring for those immigrants the results are worse. Not only do you hamstring your attempts at caring for those immigrants, you produce poverty that didn’t exist among the people already living in that system/country. Then allow a virus to come in, shut down the economy, and widespread suffering and death are the only possible results.

Goya Buycott

Buy Goya? I guess that’s fine. But it will be as effective in the long run as all that standing in line for an hour for a chicken sandwich that everybody did a few years back. Corporations tend to sway with the blowing of the monetary winds. When money is their god, all other standards tend to give way to it. Better to trust in God’s ordained means of prayer and ask Him to turn the hearts of the wicked to Him, thereby changing all things, including the corporations. We turn to feeble substitutes for God’s means when we don’t believe He will hear our prayers, substitutes like buying products from companies that seem to support righteous things. But if you believe God won’t answer your prayer, then neither prayer nor selective shopping is worth your time. Neither will bear any fruit.

Thanks, Obama

In 2008 honest to goodness white supremacy was almost non-existent in the U.S., its subscribers so few in number. Now it’s alive and well and rising in numbers, especially among younger people.

If ever the term “thanks Obama” was appropriate, it’s right here.

Your First Business in Society and Culture

Foolish is the man, and there are many such men, who would rid himself or his fellows of discomfort by setting the world right, by waging war on the evils around him, while he neglects that integral part of the world where lies his business, his first business—namely, his own character and conduct. Were it possible—an absurd supposition—that the world should thus be righted from the outside, it would yet be impossible for the man who had contributed to the work, remaining what he was, ever to enjoy the perfection of the result; himself not in tune with the organ he had tuned, he must imagine it still a distracted, jarring instrument. - George MacDonald

Peter’s Love For Jesus and the Fear Of Abandonment

“Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.’”

There’s a haunting loneliness in this passage, especially on Peter’s part. And I think it’s a mistake to not hear an ache in his heart here. His response was one of fear, the fear of being faced with losing a person you love and rely on, one around whom your whole life revolves.

God’s Judgment Upon The Wicked Is The Salvation Of His People

2 Peter 2:7-9 English Standard Version (ESV)

“(A)nd if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.” 

But without this passage most would assume Lot was unsaved. As in His destruction of Sodom, in every Day of the Lord, when He brings judgment on earth, God is also saving his righteous people from the wicked.

On the Preponderance of Nooses and the Souls of White Folks

I don’t know where these folks keep finding nooses. I’ve lived in the South about my whole life and the only place I’ve ever seen a noose is on tv.

There’s nooses, and then there’s garage door pulls. To tell the difference it helps to have done some real work in your life, something that neither the media, nor a whole bunch of folks on the Left, have ever done. I suspect that operating a garage door would prove a challenge for these people.

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I know that getting black folks’ opinions about current events is the cool thing to do, but if it’s okay I’m going to listen to some white folks too.

The idea that wisdom is limited by, or in any way determined by, race, is false, and is itself bigoted.

Church and Family Create Society and Culture

It’s great that Seattle says they’re going dismantle the autonomous zone. But the people there will continue to hold the same violent ideology, and they’ll keep coming. And this is how a failure of individual discipline, and a failure of church and family, lead to a heavy-handed government. If you don’t discipline your kids, eventually the government will do it for you. Or, in an even worse scenario, nobody will. 

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The right preaching and teaching of Scripture creates an orderly society. Chaos is a result of, as Spurgeon put it, entertaining the goats instead of feeding the sheep.

More Scattered Thoughts on The Current Madness

The president talks of immigration reforms, but it’s too little too late. As much good as he’s done, he failed on immigration. And so we are where we are today. To be fair, though, he tried. The Left battered him like they’ve never done to anybody before. It’s just proof that one man can’t do it alone. There was no way he could have undone everything done or set in motion before he came into office. If he does win re-election, the first thing he should do is send Jared off on a long vacation to Siberia.

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A people that have sold themselves entirely to popular culture and the immediate won’t care when their history is being torn down around them.

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The term “Black Lives Matter” is right now entrenched with Marxism. Once the term has been separated from Marxism for a long time, then affirming it in some formal sense will be appropriate. But for now, you can’t take the one without the other. As much as we’ve been hearing about alleged signal words with supposed white supremacists the past couple of years, this should be obvious.

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In revolutions, the mob never stops the hangings with statues. They always move on to actual people. But then again, they’ve already been killing actual people. So that part is already under way.

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If your version of "social justice" involves violating or encourages the violating of either the Eighth or the Tenth Commandments, even if you use the State to accomplish it, it is a misnomer, and it is the complete opposite of justice. No trespass against the Law of God is ever just.

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The belief that the culture can’t be won for Christ is as much to blame for the current demise of our culture as anything else.

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No amount of “police reform” is going to make a difference to a wicked people bent on unjust domination, who are determined to kill and destroy. If you want to feign reform in an attempt to calm people down, go for it. But it won’t satisfy the Marxists.

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Are we ready yet to reapply Machen’s categorizations and just call a large part of “Evangelicalism” Liberalism? I think we’re overdue. Fonzie has left the boat in the bay and the sharks are now jumping other sharks.

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Nothing screams “I’m privileged!” like attacking strangers, burning buildings, looting businesses, and spraying graffiti on churches.

No Reasoning With the Lust for Power

There’s a very easy way to illustrate the nonsense regarding the Left’s arguments.

I want all rap music banned because of its association with violence, profanity, and sexual abuse.

The argument would then come back “but not everything about rap music is bad.” And then the point is made.

But the Left doesn’t care about logic. It cares about power and achieving its goals.

With the amount of violence going on, not just toward statues or private property, but against people, the government is beyond neglect at this point. It is itself lawless. It is violating its covenant with its people. I think it’s reasonable to say we no longer have a government, at many levels and in many places.

Any government official that is not willing to sacrifice the possibility of re-election to restore order is not worthy of the office they hold. And at some point we have to say that they have forfeited their office. This is at the very least true in places like NYC, Minneapolis, and Atlanta.

A Foreign-Funded Trap

Why isn’t the president doing more to end the chaos? It’s because of the election. If he were now to do what needs to be done, he would lose in November, putting America on an even worse path long term. This concerted effort of destruction by the Left has been perfectly timed to accomplish a lot of their goals and to tie the president’s hands in the matter. So the White House is stuck in a holding pattern, until the election is over. But beyond this, the amount of destruction and violence is nearly overwhelming. This is really the responsibility of the states first of all, who have in many ways failed to do their duty. There’s no telling how bad things will be five months from now. But there’s little the president can do now.

Giving Us Over, For the Destruction Of The Flesh

There’s little that a minority of upright leaders can do when the majority of the people cry out to become more like the nations. You hit a point where the best you can do is leave the people to their foolishness, and hope for better things on the other side of it all (1 Sam. 7-8).

Sexual Immorality and Apostacy

I saw a few folks talking about this, so I thought I would try to put out my own attempt at stating the relation between apostasy and sexual immorality, which is very common in our day.

Our regard for God - and those created in His image, by extension - and obedience to His Law, stand in inseparable relation to one another. The Law is that which proceeds from a holy personal God, as an expression of His perfect and unchangeable character and attributes. And so when we violate His Law, we begin to treat Him and those made in His image as common, and not sacred. It’s the process of demystification, of desacralization, which leads to the collapse of families, churches, cultures and societies. We no longer see God as a holy person to be regarded as worthy of our worship, and we no longer see or treat each other as persons made in the image of the holy God. We consequently begin to see and treat each other as objects for our own ends.

That our God and our neighbor are both holy and personal beings are equally key in this.

This is how sexual immorality leads to unbelief in those we might formerly have seen as the strongest believers we’ve known.

This is also why antinomianism is impossible in those truly born again. Salvation and obedience are always found together.

The Government We Deserve

Laws increase when a people live in defiance of God. If you want to defund the police, the right way to do it is through a reformation of Church and Family. Government overreach is a problem in itself. But in our current situation, it’s something that to a large degree we’ve brought on ourselves. When we turn our backs on God, God then turns His back on us, and He leaves us to become slaves of whoever has the power on earth to make us such.

More on the Current Revolution

“Peaceful protests“ following the mass destruction and murder of the riots. Demoralize the people first, and then wear them down with your lecturing and preaching. I’m still searching for the supposed love in it all.

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It’s disturbing that what we’ve seen the past two weeks shows how far Leftists will go to gain power (& money) and win an election. Because in the end that’s what this is all about, no matter how much they may say otherwise.

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The attempt to pastor from a distance, such as via the internet, is one of the reasons the present chaos is happening. Social media posts are included. The internet is a great tool for information and communication, but it will never substitute for personal relationships. The current crisis is not merely a failure of fathering, but also of pastoring.

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And so Minneapolis votes to abolish their police force. It seems like a city-wide watching of “The Dark Knight Rises” should be required before they pull the lever here. Or maybe just a cursory look at revolutions throughout history. I don’t see how the U.S. can remain a union if portions of it are completely lawless.

Surrender, or the Fall of the West

I don’t know if anybody would remember seven years ago when I was talking about the Cultural Marxist takeover of comics, and saying that those people also worked in TV and movies, and that the ideology would work its way out into the broader society and culture. But here we are. Of course, it’s been working longer than that. But he who writes a people’s stories is he who rules the world. According to Francis Schaeffer’s accounting, religion is the last step in cultural domination. And Evangelicals have finally given themselves over to the Marxists’ lies. But that kind of surrender only comes by first surrendering to sin in your private life, where nobody sees who you really are.

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Police laying down their shields, kneeling before protesters. This is surrender. And it indicates that those who were in power know that due to their own compromises they no longer have the spiritual and moral authority to command others. But the side they’re surrendering to don’t have it either. They haven’t earned it; God hasn’t given it to them. They’re probably more corrupt than those in power. This is anarchy in the truest sense. The near future is only chaos, until God makes things right again.

The future of God’s Church is in the East, while the West will languish. The most likely thing to happen now is for the Communist regimes of China and North Korea to crumble.

Are the moral compromises the things they’re accused of? Some of those things do exist. But the moral compromises are actually more those things we all know Scripture to condemn men for. Any number of sins listed in Scripture apply. Romans 1 is probably the best place to start.

Our Tenth Plague

The terrors of the past few days have been our Tenth Plague of Egypt. For the blood of every innocent aborted child crying out of the ground to God, for the cries for justice rising from the people of God, for all our wickedness, God sent his avenging Angel to bring the Day of the Lord upon us, working through those who are evil. His wrath had reached full measure, until He could take no more, and it was finally let go. He required sacrifice, the putting down of those committing these daily atrocities, the looting, the destruction, the assaults and murder. A generation of wicked children should have met, at the hands of government authorities, the judgment required by Deut. 21:18-21. A sacrifice should have been - had to be - made to appease God, for all our evil, to drive away His wrath. But we refused.

But now it’s too late, and God has given us up, given us over to all we deserve. Ichabod - the Glory of the Lord has departed.

Anarcho-Tyranny

This cowardice we’re seeing from American leadership is indicative of a complete breakdown of authority. It is illustrated in the Gospel of Matthew, when it says of Jesus that “he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” The failure is a spiritual one, and it exists in every elected official or other government figure who refused to deal rightly with the evil people among us over the past few days. It exposes their own private moral failures, and signifies that America is truly fallen.

“As I began to contemplate the theater of the absurd that we Americans have been living through in recent days, I found the most useful place to begin was an essay by Sam Francis published in Chronicles 26 years ago, ‘Anarcho-Tyranny USA.’ In this long, thoughtful piece, Francis contrasts the eagerness to criminalize what had been innocent behavior with a reluctance to confront genuine criminality and undoubted threats to public order. Francis wrote:

This condition, which in some of my columns I have called ‘anarcho-tyranny,’ is essentially a kind of Hegelian synthesis of what appear to be dialectical opposites, the combination of oppressive government power against the innocent and the law-abiding and, simultaneously, a grotesque paralysis of the ability or the will to use that power to carry out basic public duties such as protection of public safety.

It is hard not to read those words without thinking of Americans being arrested for taking their children to the park, going to church, or strolling on the beach; followed a few weeks later by entire police forces becoming passive spectators as rioters burned, pillaged, looted, maimed, and killed. It’s a stark contrast between the media opprobrium directed at ordinary citizens for standing too close to each other or not wearing masks in public, and the excuses offered for those who ignored the conventions of social distancing to smash shop windows and passersby.”

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/blog/anarcho-tyranny-2020/?fbclid=IwAR2rZlugqQ8OQrO7gKXTiNuWWvXaaaI80WWoCBGlNW7VD7Bu2N_2eygQ5S0

American Christianity’s Foolish Leaders

As terrible as the death of George Floyd was, if you’re only concerned about that but callous and/or mocking about the horrors of the past few nights... if you’re more concerned about the president holding up a Bible than you are about all the evil that has been carried out by rioters...then your moral compass is broken. You need to return to God and His Word again.

A large portion of American “Christian” leadership is an embarrassment right now. Clueless, ungodly, unable to apply Scripture correctly. These people are as much a judgment on us as anything else.

“We Need To Have A Conversation”

You’ll notice there is never an end to the “conversation” or cries that “we need to have a conversation”. And that’s because it isn’t about having a conversation. The conversation goes on and never ends. And that’s because it isn’t meant to. The “conversation” is a method of control and power. It is intended to achieve power by keeping those currently in power constantly questioning, doubting, and feeling guilty, even when they have nothing to feel guilty about. It sets the goal as utopia, something that cannot and will not be achieved in this world.

In a fallen world all sorts of people become victims of police brutality and other forms of evil by the State. Those who try to arrogate that to only their own subgroup of society are no longer concerned about the issue they claim.

Doing The Unthinkable, Doing What Is Necessary

At some point the number of people, the nature and level of the threat they offer, and their intent, has to outweigh the question of whether or not they are “armed” as we typically think of it.

This is not only not protesting. It is approaching warfare, and in some places it’s there already. Weapons aren’t the issue.

If you think this will eventually stop, if you think this will subside, if you think good will come out of this, you aren’t rightly discerning what’s happening.

Since they claim it’s a systemic problem, they won’t be satisfied until the whole system is destroyed, i.e. the whole country. But in reality they have a lust for blood that will not abate. The depth of wickedness in them is so deep that they will not be satisfied no matter what. If the country is to survive, these people will have to be put down. The National Guard will have to take the final step and do it. We’re past worrying about “optics”. Dead kids on the news? At this rate there will be no news, and no country to report on.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 applies here. It’s the only solution.

Do it, and let the nation mourn, and let their parents remain silent. And if the parents try the same as their kids, take the final step with them as well.

All Are Under Sin

The claim that’s been coming out that it’s white Antifa people alone stoking the fire and driving otherwise presumably innocent black kids to violence is a myth. Antifa itself is a mixed race group. Plus, BLM hasn’t been merely peaceful in all places. Video we have shows all ages and races involved in the violence. And yet this claim has even been coming from black conservatives. It simply shows how deeply ingrained Cultural Marxism is. The answer is the doctrine of original sin. We are all guilty of our own sins. We are volitional creatures. We make our own decisions consciously, and are responsible for what we as individuals do. While black Americans have suffered, they have also cultivated, for a long time, a culture of anger and hatred. And Antifa or no, the events of the past few nights are an expression of that.

Black, white, whoever and whatever their backgrounds may be - our country is in moral and spiritual chaos.

Vox Ultima Crucis

TARYE no lenger; toward thyn heritage
Hast on thy weye, and be of ryght good chere.
Go eche day onward on thy pylgrymage;
Thynke howe short tyme thou hast abyden here.
Thy place is bygged above the sterres clere,
Noon erthly palys wrought in so statly wyse.
Come on, my frend, my brother most entere!
For the I offered my blood in sacryfice. -- John Lydgate

On Conspiracy Theories (Wicked Men Do Conspire)

“Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
‘Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.’”

Scripture clearly testifies to the fact that men in power often collude together for a single, wicked cause, no matter how disparate their own varied end goals and personal benefits may be.

The Gospels themselves give us behind-the-scenes details of the conspiracy against our Lord. The wicked men doing the conspiring had an inside man, and they paid him off with thirty pieces of silver.

Our Lord cried out “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Ignorance, or stupidity, and sin are not pitted against each other in Scripture the way we might be tempted to do. “(F)ormerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief,” the apostle Paul said.