Monday, September 04, 2023

Rod of Iron Ministries & MAGA - Another compelling reason to be wary of Trump cultism


This is a sleepless night for me -- fortunately, I keep a computer bedside just in case.  If the night leg pains get too intense, I can sit up and research until sleepiness might set in.  That is what is happening with me now.  I have been paying attention recently to the continued spread of the Moonie cults and former President Donald Trump and company's relationship to it.  I have found something extremely disturbing -- Huang Jin Sean Moon founded "Sanctuary Church" a/k/a "Rod of Iron Ministries."  I ordered his book, ROD OF IRON KINGDOM and perused it tonight.  



Rod of Iron Ministries Church is founded by Huang Jin Sean Moon, one of Reverend Sun Myung Moon's 12 "  Look carefully at the crown on his head -- it is formed of bullets.  

This variation of Moon's "True Parents" calls for members to be armed with AR Automatic Assault rifles.  The Church believes that January 6, 2021 will be remembered as a sacred and holy day in American history.  It also believes it is preparing its people for war.  As I showed in an earlier post, Donald Trump went to Korea last year and thanked Unification Church and the Moon founders for vastly improving the planet.  The Pennsylvania based Rod of Iron Church has been visited and spoken to by Steve Bannon, Eric Trump, Doug Matriano and other members of the Trump establishment.

They believe they are preparing our country for civil war and they intend to be "God's instruments" fighting it.  They take out of context a verse from Revelation (Revelation 2:27) that Jesus will rule us with a "Rod of Iron" -- and of course, since the Moon family think they are the ones completing "Jesus' unfinished work" they are standing in for Him!

They have bought a large compound near Waco, Texas and another in Grainger County, Tennessee.  

For the record, Rev. Moon's "new gospel" was that Jesus failed in his mission which was to succeed and replace the race of Adam by marrying and having children.  His crucifixion represented "a failure".  Rev. Moon says he was called by God to fulfill that mission which he and his wife Jak Ha Moon (currently the head of the international church) did by having their 12 children.  Huang Jin Sean Moon tries to sound like a Christian in his book ROD OF IRON KINGDOM.  His theology is that his parents are the "True Parents" and their message the "true gospel."  If you don't believe me, take a peek at their websites for "Rod of Iron Ministries" and "World Peace and Unification Sanctuary Church". 

The Moonies are an important component of the New Age Movement of which I have warned for the past 42 years.  One of their important spokesman admitted to me that they were working with Benjamin Creme and Tara Center (January 1983 - Joe Tully).  Tully is the same person who assaulted Josette Sheeran's father when he tried to extricate his daughter in 1979 from the Moon cult.  

This cult hooked up with the MAGA Movement, with a goal of restoring Donald Trump to the Presidency, treating January 6, 2021's assault on the United States Capitol as sacred, is armed and dangerous.  Most certainly, there is no room there for any TRUE Christian.  Donald Trump and his close supporters have done nothing to discourage it -- but to encourage it.  I submit, that if you are in MAGA and/or Qanon, it is 'time to come out of her, my people."


Another example of NAR Trump idolatry -- this one in my email box from Elijah list this morning!

Stay tuned -- I will be writing more on this later.

CONSTANCE

1,808 comments:

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Anonymous said...

RINO Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan Fires Warning Shot at Senators Who Spared Paxton: "Not the End..." Those Who Allowed Him to Keep His Office Will Have Much to Answer For"

thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/rino-texas-house-speaker-dade-phelan-fires-warning/

Anonymous said...

The Religious Right’s Grip on the GOP Is Weakening. That’s Working to Trump’s Advantage.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/09/12/republicans-church-trump-00113565

Republicans who describe their religious attendance as “seldom” or “never” are a growing group whose impact has been largely unnoticed.

Former President Donald Trump has made a number of statements in recent months that might have driven a wedge between his campaign and religious voters. In April, Trump stated that he believed abortion should be regulated at the state level, with little interference from the federal government. At a town hall in June, Trump spoke of abortion in crass, deal-making terms: “What I’ll do is negotiate so people are happy.”

These statements have been met with strong backlash from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, the anti-abortion group that described Trump’s comments on a federal ban as a “morally indefensible position for a self-proclaimed pro-life presidential candidate.” The dustups suggest Trump’s strong support among white evangelicals might be at risk.

But it may not matter. He can afford some erosion of his support from evangelicals. That’s because Trump’s real base of support in the 2016 primary contest came from a rising group in the GOP whose impact has been largely unnoticed: Republicans who hardly ever darken the door of a church, synagogue or mosque.

I am a quantitative scholar of American religion and politics and have been making thousands of graphs about both subjects over the last several years. The data show that the former president’s support among this low-attender group is growing, which means that in the short term, even if Trump does alienate some religiously devout members of the religious right, he remains well positioned to secure the nomination.

The bottom line is that Trump is less dependent on the evangelical vote than is commonly assumed. And the consequences might be greater than that in the long run. The rising number of Republicans who rarely attend religious service will have long-term effects on the GOP that extend beyond the abortion debate, affecting everything from the types of candidates who run to the rhetoric they use to the kinds of issues they focus on.

Anonymous said...

Heads up: "Yellowstone" (Season 1) will be shown on CBS tonight (following "60 Minutes")

CBS has set the premiere dates for its strike-impacted fall 2023 lineup. Repeats of the Paramount Network hit “Yellowstone” will kick off its broadcast run on Sunday, Sept. 17 at 8:30 p.m. ET following the 56th season premiere of “60 Minutes” at 7:30 p.m.

https://wtop.com/entertainment/2023/09/yellowstone-makes-network-tv-premiere-on-cbs-starting-over-with-season-1-to-avert-the-strikes/

Anonymous said...

MUST READ...

Why they TRIED (but failed) to impeach Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/ken-paxton-impeachment-illegal/2023/05/27/id/1121422/?

Anonymous said...

And now this, news from another Democratic Hell Hole city:

Seattle law enforcement tells citizens to give criminals 'whatever they’re looking for'

From the article:

Seattle, like many American cities long controlled by Democrats, is experiencing significant police shortages and rising crime rates -- especially large increases in staged carjackings.

What does law enforcement suggest citizens do in these trying times?

Sheriff David Robinson recommends that “they give up their car keys” and give the criminals “whatever they’re looking for.”

That’s the spirit! Just surrender to evil! It’s the New American Way! We’ve come full circle from “Don’t Tread On Me” to “Take Anything You Want, I Won’t Resist.”

Nike says, “Just do it!” Nancy Reagan said “Just say no.” John Paul Jones said "I have not yet begun to fight."

And now Seattle's sheriff says, “just give up.”

Inspiring!

More here:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/09/seattle_law_enforcement_tells_citizens_to_give_criminals_whatever_theyre_looking_for.html

Anonymous said...

If Our Ethics are Steering the Wheel, We Shouldn’t be Surprised by the State of Theology
https://aimeebyrd.com/2020/06/15/if-our-ethics-are-steering-the-wheel-we-shouldnt-be-surprised-by-the-state-of-theology/

I received a preview of Ligonier Ministries’ State of Theology survey in my inbox last week, revealing what evangelical Americans think about God, Jesus Christ, sin, and eternity, and was afraid to click on it. I can already see the state of theology all around me. It’s easy to blame the secular culture around us or the denominations that don’t take theology seriously. But bad theology is perpetuated in our own circles.

Unfortunately, a trend I have noticed in the evangelical church, particularly in our parachurch groups and popular level so-called Christian books marketed to us, is that we care more about ethics than really knowing these primary doctrines. As long as everyone is on the same page with the sexuality, pro-life, and other social issues the church is up against, Christian authors and readers have been given a lot of leeway.

Brothers and sisters, we have our priorities out of place. We should care about social issues and sexuality because of what we know about God and salvation.

I have written so much about how our own Christian books are conditioning us to have a low view of God and his word, a high view of man, and a distorted gospel. I’ve mentioned how, for example, no one seemed to be alarmed about a popular women’s author’s troubling views on God’s Word or man’s ability to save himself, until she came out saying that homosexuality can be considered holy. The line was drawn at Christian ethics, not at the Christian message.

And so I asked, why are we surprised by this? If we accept bad theology on the basics, our ethics are going to follow suit. And our updated survey is showing just that:

This year, for the first time, more Americans agree that the Bible’s teaching on same-sex relationships is outdated than disagree.

Anonymous said...

Words alone does not define your beliefs.

Your true 'theology' is what you do when no one else is there to see you doing what you're doing.

Anonymous said...

And there are those that say there is no such thing as fraudulent elections, in spite of the overwhelming evidence for those that have "eyes to see, ears to hear."

Connecticut Democrat Primary Election Scandal: Police Launch Investigation into Fraud After Video Evidence Uncovered of Town Clerk Dumping Multiple Illegal Absentee Ballots Into a Drop Box (VIDEO)

Mayoral candidate John Gomes’ campaign released a damning video on Saturday showing evidence of election fraud in the recent Bridgeport Democratic primary. The video has prompted an investigation by the Bridgeport Police Department for “possible misconduct.”

(WATCH THE VIDEO (and there are literally dozens of others just like this ... all caught by surveillance cameras. But some claim that it is 'un-American' to even question the results of an election).

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/connecticut-democrat-primary-election-scandal-police-launch-investigation/

Anonymous said...

She's either embarrassingly stupid, or, she's a radical Communist, or both. Which is it?

Kamala Harris Thinks Government Must Enforce Equal Outcomes – Also Known as Communism (VIDEO)

From the article:

While speaking at an event this week, Vice President Kamala Harris suggested that it is the job of government to ensure equal outcomes.

That is the exact opposite of what America is, it’s the exact opposite of the founding principles of this country. In America, people have equality of opportunity, not equal outcomes.

Equality of outcomes is communism.

More here: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/kamala-harris-thinks-government-must-enforce-equal-outcomes/

Anonymous said...

The Amish strike again!

SoCal Smash-and-Grab Thieves Steal 23 Rolex Watches in 20 Seconds in Broad Daylight Robbery (VIDEO)

A group of smash-and-grab robbers stole 23 luxury watches worth about $250,000 from a Southern California jeweler in under half a minute.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/socal-smash-grab-thieves-steal-23-rolex-watches/

Anonymous said...

"White Supremacy is the greatest danger facing America." - Joe Biden

Anonymous said...

It's just a Grand Ole Party for Lauren Boebert. “Take your children to CHURCH, not drag bars,” she said.

Man groped by Lauren Boebert during frisky ‘Beetlejuice’ date owns gay-friendly bar that hosts drag shows

https://nypost.com/2023/09/16/lauren-boeberts-new-man-owns-gay-friendly-bar-which-hosts-drag-shows/

Star Trek actor George Takei, “Rep. Lauren Boebert, who urged parents to take their kids to CHURCH not DRAG SHOWS, was caught in a public performance of Beetlejuice, a children’s show, groping and getting groped by her date. I’ve had it with their hypocritical moralizing. They have no standing to judge or constrain ANYONE else’s private life."

Anonymous said...

Theologian David L. Gray. READINGS: Sirach 27:30 – 28:7, Romans 14:7-9, Matthew 18:21-35.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hfci_6t4jME&feature=youtu.be

https://www.saintdominicsmedia.com/24th-sunday-of-ordinary-time-year-a/

Anonymous said...

12:43 PM

Hard doing anything without anyone watching anymore

Anonymous said...

Just can't accept that our world has become this EVIL . . .

Since the August 8th FIRE in Lahaina, Maui... there are still more questions than answers!!!
____________________________________________________________________________________________

Maui land owners: Oprah & Tom Hanks pointing fingers at each other

Tom Hanks PANICS As Oprah Reveals His SHADY Role In Maui Fires
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2b8nPwpXmo

Tom Hanks Exposes Oprah's Evil Real Estate Plan In Maui Hawaii
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFXDktQgeP4
____________________________________________________________________________________________

CLAIM: Only BLUE items survived the Maui wildfires and lasers do not impact that color... suggesting the island was actually hit by a directed energy weapon (DEW)...
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-conspiracy-blue-items-maui-wildfires-118319149774

Whether this was a 'conspiracy theory' or not... it was observed by residents that everything BLUE survived the wildfires in Maui on August 8th. For example: Oprah's Maui home that had a BLUE roof; there were BLUE beach umbrellas and a BLUE car (on Front Street)... which ALL remained UNTOUCHED by the fires on August 8th.
https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/news-blue-block-dew-alleged-article-celebrities-painting-houses-blue-maui-goes-viral-deepens-online-conspiracy
____________________________________________________________________________________________

Will Maui DEWs come to Florida... as the Army & FEMA install free BLUE ROOFS?
https://beforeitsnews.com/paranormal/2023/09/new-michael-jaco-ole-dammegard-will-maui-dew-come-to-florida-as-the-army-and-fema-install-free-blue-roofs-2563508.html

Anonymous said...

Star Trek actor George Takei, “Rep. Lauren Boebert, who urged parents to take their kids to CHURCH not DRAG SHOWS, was caught in a public performance of Beetlejuice, a children’s show, groping and getting groped by her date. I’ve had it with their hypocritical moralizing. They have no standing to judge or constrain ANYONE else’s private life."

1:58 PM

A politician that's a hypocrite? What a shock!

Of course Takei would say that. He's a radical gay himself that is a cheerleader for the LGBTQ agenda.

Anonymous said...

"It could be state or it could be federal," Trump said. "I don’t, frankly, care."

Trump criticizes Republicans pushing abortion bans with no exceptions: 'You're not going to win'

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-bring-country-together-abortion-meet-the-press-rcna105311

"Trump declined to endorse a standard number of weeks after which abortion would be illegal, with some exceptions, and he similarly refused to say whether he feels the issue would be best settled at the state or federal level."

Anonymous said...

Mrs. Cumbey, I hope you'll find this book on topic. You can read and download it freely at the publisher's web site.

No Love in War: a story of Christian Nationalism

https://mayflybooks.org/no-love-in-war/

Valerie H. Hobbs

BOOK DESCRIPTION

This book is an auto-ethnographic account of the everyday realities of life without love, among those who pursue war. It documents the ways that Dominionist theologies (the recovery of a theocratic state, with Christians in key positions of influence in all institutions) manifest in interpersonal relationships, resulting in manipulative, often violent misogyny, racism and homophobia. It follows the disordered and erratic trajectory of a woman’s life – the author’s life – moving through three concentric circles of influence in the Dominionist movement, from extremist middle to outer, softer rim, focusing in particular on the New Apostolic Reformation, Christian Reconstructionism and Neo-Calvinism in the United States.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

“This deeply reflective book situates the author’s experiences as a woman in a world that belongs to Men. In all my years writing about these movements, the most frequent question I’ve been asked is “Why don’t they just leave?” Valerie Hobbs digs deep into lives of women in the dominionist world—and its relentless erasure of women’s autonomy and agency—to show what it really takes to leave. I’ll admit it was difficult. But just when I was feeling awful, Hobbs’s sense of humor interceded, and her play with words is delightful. I love this book and know nothing else like it.” – Julie Ingersoll, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville

Anonymous said...

A politician that's a hypocrite? What a shock!

Of course Takei would say that. He's a radical gay himself that is a cheerleader for the LGBTQ agenda.

3:25 PM

Exactly! BOTH SIDES indulging in the same sin. But we're ok with Boebert.

Anonymous said...

"Can't Colorado find some Republican not trashy and stupid to represent them in the 3rd congressional district?" Lauren Boebert, a "totally embarrassing bimbo" posted by Ann Coulter on X.

Anonymous said...

My take on the collapse of western civilization: You just can't get good duct tape. The adhesive doesn't stick like it used to so everything is falling apart ) - :

And as far as the blue thing goes; all it is is a Greek islands style, nothing more. The rest is nonsense, a distraction, to make people look foolish, in my opinion

Anonymous said...

Sealing Border, Voter ID, Ending Ukraine War Funding . . . RFK Jr Proposes Populist Solutions (video)

https://rumble.com/v3ik44o-sealing-border-voter-id-optional-passport-cards-.-.-.-rfk-jr-proposes-popul.html

Christine Erikson (aka Justina) said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jOTU8b53Nc
Why Christians get Daniel 9 and the antichrist prophecy wrong | Authentic with Shawn Boonstra SDA semi heresy connected channel but this episode is good

Anonymous said...

Journal Rejects Request To Retract Study Suggesting Negative COVID Effectiveness

Cureus said there is 'no basis for retraction'...

zerohedge.com/covid-19/journal-rejects-request-retract-study-suggesting-negative-covid-vaccine-effectiveness

Anonymous said...

Thanks Joe... Gas Prices Have Never Been This High This Time Of Year

"I remain laser-focused on cutting energy costs, including in clean energy to bolster our energy security..."

zerohedge.com/energy/thanks-joe-gas-prices-have-never-been-high-time-year

Anonymous said...

Murdoch Happens to Run Disgusting Hit Piece on Russell Brand as RFK Tells Brand: "Covid was a Military Project from the Beginning"

thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/murdoch-happens-run-disqusting-piece-russell-brand/





Anonymous said...

10:37 am

Are you seriously defending a paper written by a 17 year old high school student who admitted he made up data and himself admits to making many errors and himself wants the paper retracted? He also indicates the analysis was generated by AI.

Even the Epoch Times and the zero hedge article reports it as misinformation….but use a misleading headline seeming to promote such misinformation surely for clicks sake.

X

Anonymous said...

Is Russell Brand going to be another MeToo martyr, like Donald Trump was? Do we just accept anybody with a tale of persecution porn to tell?

Could it be that since they were sinful, rich, famous and narcissistic men with unregenerated hearts, maybe they really WERE sinful in their treatment of women? Remember when men treated women more sinfully in the book of Judges, the more that the children of Israel lapsed into idolatry and didn't repent when repeatedly warned?

Maybe God thinks it's bad to treat women sinfully as sexual objects and regards their wombs as being sacred spaces where He knows their fetuses' names and knew them always, places where some of the future members of the kingdom of heaven are being formed right where He designed them to be formed and called it good.

Maybe God doesn't need Russell Brand and Donald Trump to fight for His kingdom. Maybe they need God so they will be able to enter His kingdom.

Anonymous said...

EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Homeland Security agent who inspired Sound of Freedom reveals he is considering a run for Mitt Romney's Senate seat in Utah

Former DHS agent Tim Ballard inspired the renowned film Sound of Freedom
Utah Senator Mitt Romney, 76, announced he is retiring from the Senate

READ MORE: Tim Ballard SLAMS Biden administration for border policies allowing 'horrifying' child sex trafficking in the U.S.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12524553/Ex-Homeland-Security-agent-inspired-Sound-Freedom-reveals-considering-run-Mitt-Romneys-Senate-seat-Utah.html

Anonymous said...

TOP headline on this morning's Daily Mail...

Zelensky fires all six of his defense ministers with no explanation weeks after letting top military chief go amid corruption and graft allegations

All six deputy defense chiefs have been abruptly fired with no explanation

Ukraine says the decision was made on Monday during a cabinet meeting

It comes after Zelensky fired his top defence chief amid graft allegations

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12531083/Zelensky-fires-six-defence-ministers-no-explanation-weeks-letting-military-chief-amid-corruption-graft-allegations.html

Anonymous said...

11:11 AM

You seem to have a god-complex, and so of course you know everyone's heart.

By now it should be obvious to you, that nobody reaches high office without a 'dirt file'.

The Earthly government is NOT the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.

So the mudslinging here between the left + right is always just that!

The best we can do is to vote for, and pray for the lesser evil persona/politico

It does seem evident that Donald Trump, and Russell Brand, have largely cleaned up their lives from what they had been. They are putting themselves into the storm, so doesn't that make them better than the Deep State? Kinda does!

But the Cumbey Leftwing Death Cult here cannot see past their gnat straining nose.

So it just goes round and round until the Lord returns and separates the stubborn goats, from the sheep.

King David was a big time sinner, yet God used him mightily.

Get off your self righteous politically correct horse.

Anonymous said...

Should have typed: Get off your self righteous politically correct high horse 11:11

Anonymous said...

Siamak Namazi, US prisoner released by Iran, says he is 'dying' to buy new iPhone as he's freed after eight years in controversial $6billion prisoner swap

Biden agreed to release $6billion in frozen Iranian money as part of the deal

Iranians released in exchange for Americans include Mehrdad Ansari, who was convicted of supplying Iran with materials to be used in missiles Americans landed in Doha today to be put on another flight to Washington

They thanked Biden for 'putting the lives of Americans above politics'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12530663/Five-nationals-Iran-released-today-prisoner-exchange-board-plane-billion-frozen-funds.htm

Anonymous said...

Hunter Biden Sues IRS, Claims Whistleblowers Tried To 'Target' And 'Embarrass' Him

zerohedge.com/political/hunter-biden-sues-irs-after-wistleblowers-target-and-embarrass-him

Anonymous said...

11:40 AM / 11:44 AM

Bottom line: When outspoken Conservatives sin, it's breaking news.

When LIBERALS sin, it's so common... that everyone just goes back to sleep. LOL

Anonymous said...

"The best we can do is to vote for, and pray for the lesser evil persona/politico"

Another gospel.

Anonymous said...

"Bottom line: When outspoken Conservatives sin, it's breaking news.

When LIBERALS sin, it's so common... that everyone just goes back to sleep. LOL"

Sin is sin.

Anonymous said...

11:40 am

Maybe you should get off your qanon maga-righteos alt-right politically correct low horse.

Even assuming by some stretch of the imagination that either Trump and/or Brand have repented of their sins...the consequences of sin remain. It is my understanding Brand is facing accusations from multiple (7, maybe) women including an accuation (or two) of rape.

BTW -- Tim Ballard, former OAR founder who appears to have been forced out of his own charity, is also facing accusations of pervasive sexual misconduct. Even the crazy mormon church is distancing themselves from him.

LDS Church calls activity of Tim Ballard 'morally unacceptable'

https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/lds-church-calls-actions-of-operation-underground-railroad-founder-morally-unacceptable

LDS Church takes down articles promoting Tim Ballard, Operation Underground Railroad: Removed the same day of Church issuing a statement condemning Ballard for "morally unacceptable" behavior

https://www.fox13now.com/news/fox-13-investigates/lds-church-takes-down-articles-referencing-tim-ballard-and-his-nonprofit

Trump hasn't changed....91 indictments for his criminal behavior just the last 3 or 4 years, he's still pervasively lying about everything, thinks he alone can prevent World War 2 (he's confused since WWII already happened) and his adulterous 3rd wife isn't travelling with him or appearing with him anymore.

Yes...sometimes there are "dirt" files on politicians and famous people that ordinary, less famous, sinners can keep a secret, but that doesn't excuse it. Expect more of your representatives and/or cult leaders.

x

p.s.- I didn't post the 11:11 am post initially discussing Brand

Anonymous said...

Maybe God doesn't need Russell Brand and Donald Trump to fight for His kingdom. Maybe they need God so they will be able to enter His kingdom.

11:11 AM

Amen to that!

Anonymous said...

12:05

Who are you quoting?

Whataboutisms have always been rampant coming from both sides of the aisle but to me, currently, the unrepentent shameless overt sinning occurring daily on the GOP side, the supposed "religious right"/dominionist/theonomist side, without reprecussions or even censure are just so extreme and much more hypocritical than anything I've seen recently on the left.

It was only just 2017 that a wave of Democratic officials, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and more than half of all Democratic senators, called on Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to resign Wednesday over numerous allegations of sexual misconduct. Franken did and the democratic party ghosted him thereafter. He's back now, 6 years later, to doing comedy and the occasional guest hosting the daily show.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/06/full-list-senators-call-for-al-franken-to-resign-282175#:~:text=A%20wave%20of%20Democratic%20officials,numerous%20allegations%20of%20sexual%20misconduct.

Al Franken even publicly apologized (which shouldn't be political suicide).

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/16/full-text-al-franken-apologizes-for-allegedly-groping-woman-244978


When was the last time the GOP did anything like that?

Among supposed God-fearing Christians, why do credible accusations actually create more defensiveness and even support? Where is the discernment? Craig is clear that he believes all the spiritual gifts continue... perhaps he's wrong? Maybe the path is just narrow?

x

Anonymous said...

The Seven Gifts of Discernment: Isaiah 11:2-3

Wisdom: Also,the gift of wisdom, we see God at work in our lives and in the world. For the wise person, the wonders of nature, historical events, and the ups and downs of our lives take on deeper meaning. The matters of judgment about the truth, and being able to see the whole image of God. We see God as our Father and other people with dignity.

Understanding: In understanding, we comprehend how we need to live as a follower of Christ. A person with understanding is not confused by all the conflicting messages in our culture about the right way to live. The gift of understanding perfects a person's speculative reason in the apprehension of truth.

Counsel (Right Judgment): With the gift of counsel/right judgment, we know the difference between right and wrong, and we choose to do what is right. A person with right judgment avoids sin and lives out the values taught by Jesus. The gift of truth that allows the person to respond prudently, and happily to believe our Christ the Lord

Fortitude (Courage): With the gift of fortitude/courage, we overcome our fear and are willing to take risks as a follower of Jesus Christ. A person with courage is willing to stand up for what is right in the sight of God, even if it means accepting rejection, verbal abuse, or even physical harm and death. The gift of courage allows people the firmness of mind that is required both in doing good and in enduring evil, especially with regard to goods or evils that are difficult.

Knowledge: With the gift of knowledge, we understand the meaning of God. The gift of knowledge is more than an accumulation of facts.

Reverence: With the gift of reverence we have a deep sense of respect for God and the church. A person with reverence recognizes our total reliance on God and comes before God with humility, trust, and love.

Fear of the Lord: With the gift of fear of the Lord we are aware of the glory and majesty of God. A person with wonder and awe knows that God is the perfection of all we desire: perfect knowledge, perfect goodness, perfect power, and perfect love. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov 1:7) because it puts our mindset in its correct location with respect to God. we are the finite, dependent creatures, and He is the infinite, all-powerful Creator.

Anonymous said...

12:04 PM

No, not another gospel.

Can you walk and chew gum at the same time?

We all interface the secular realm unless we are dead, and either in heaven, or in hell.

Anonymous said...

11:40 AM "King David was a big time sinner, yet God used him mightily. Get off your self righteous politically correct horse."

GOD used King David mightily because David REPENTED of his sin when confronted by the prophet Nathan. Even so, God did indeed punish David, and He did so threefold. David would never again have peace in his house, he would be publicly shamed for his private sin, and, at the apex, his son would die. Nathan outlined the three judgments:

“‘Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’ This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel. . . . The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die’” (2 Samuel 12:10–14).

So, Donald Trump and Russell Brand are King Davids, ya think?

You'd best get down off from your high horse.




Anonymous said...

12:29 X

Yes, "perhaps Craig is wrong", but I believe he is correct.

Perhaps your quasi-cult Baptist church is wrong about the timing of the rapture? I'm quite sure they are.



Anonymous said...

Why does there seem to be a 'campaign' (media event, like a runaway train) to GO AFTER Russell Brand all of a sudden?

Well, it's all about 'diverting & distracting' the American people from the Globalists' own sins!!! ('Hey, look over here... and you won't NOTICE what's happening over there.')

In recent years, Russell Brand has been taking a blowtorch to establishment narratives... eloquently articulating the dire state of the planet and waking people up to the nefarious pharmaceutical industrial complex, the WEF’s Great Reset agenda and so much more.

And since the Globalists are preparing us for a NEW pandemic 2.0... they don't want the American people to be reminded of the last time that Russell Brand exposed Big Pharma’s PROFIT MOTIVE during the last Covid pandemic & vaccine rollout (among other Globalists' SINS that Russell has exposed).

https://www.infowars.com/posts/flashback-russell-brand-exposes-big-pharmas-profit-motive-amid-pandemic-vaccine-rollout/

Anonymous said...

12:44 PM

Now you're twisting things.

How very serpent like.

Anonymous said...

X says that Trump hasn't changed.

A bigger problem for this blog is that X hasn't changed.

He is still a creepy crawler TROLL (a leopard doesn't change its spots).

Anonymous said...

Somebody's gnats and camels are carnally discerned, not spiritually discerned.

Anonymous said...

Russell Brand was the first person to notice Big Pharma has a profit motive? Wow, he is very special for knowing that, and you're very special for getting in on what he knows.

Anonymous said...

Who are the gnats, anyway, women?

I'd say they're more like moths drawn to the bug zapper, and Russell Brand represents the mosquito attractant scent emitted by the bug zapper. The bug zapper represents Satan. I'd be careful not to get zapped...

Anonymous said...

1:50 PM

Oh, there is so much MORE...

Russell Brand understands that the left/right paradigm is a trap meant to placate and divide us. Both sides are propagandistic and manipulative. Both sides are captured like shown in Project Mockingbird. And both sides use the MSM to manufacture consent and create false perceptions of realities and the authorities within it.

The sooner we all realize we're being manipulated on every front, the quicker we can all stand above it and realize it's purely just the people vs the elite.

Anonymous said...

Must see video...

Scroll down and watch Russell Brand on Bill Maher's HBO show...

https://www.infowars.com/posts/flashback-russell-brand-exposes-big-pharmas-profit-motive-amid-pandemic-vaccine-rollout/

Anonymous said...

More news from Joe Biden's Death Cult America (the same Death Cult that Constance ignores):

These two women (grandmothers) were just convicted and face 11 years in prison for blocking abortion clinic in 2020

https://therightscoop.com/these-two-women-were-just-convicted-and-face-11-years-in-prison-for-blocking-abortion-clinic-in-2020/

NEVER FORGET: American citizens, many of which merely WALKED inside the Capitol building (through OPEN DOORS HELD OPEN BY POLICE) are either still in jail waiting trial, or, have been given lengthy prison sentences!

Anonymous said...

2:37 pm

He also abused narcotics for years and supposedly suffers from mental illness (BiPolar Disorder).

Symptoms of Bipolar include:

Poor decision-making — for example, going on buying sprees, taking sexual risks or making foolish investments

Abnormally upbeat, jumpy or wired

Increased activity, energy or agitation

Exaggerated sense of well-being and self-confidence (euphoria)
Decreased need for sleep

Unusual talkativeness

Racing thoughts

Distractibility


In other words, though bi-polars can be intelligent, they should be largely dismissed because it's hard to know where any truth starts and ends with a manipulative, drug-injured (former addict supposedly) who suffers from a debilitating mental illness which is harmful to himself and, very often, others (as seems to be the case with all the women coming forward).

Mental illness is tragic and does not excuse bad or even illegal behavior. Nor does it absolve him/them from culpability for their actions.






Anonymous said...

2:39 PM Yep! Reported by St Alex Jones. Gotta be God's truth!

Anonymous said...

Russell Brand understands that the Left / Right paradigm is a trap meant to placate & divide us.

There are several videos at the link below: Scroll down & listen to Russell Brand provide all of the reasons WHY the Deep State Globalists want to 'cancel' him.

https://www.infowars.com/posts/flashback-russell-brand-exposes-big-pharmas-profit-motive-amid-pandemic-vaccine-rollout/

Anonymous said...

4:25 PM

Waiting for you to pull your head out of your rectum and listen to ALL of the videos at that link. (For example, Bill Maher is not exactly known for being right wing, is he?)

Oh, look who I am asking to be 'fair' (LOL)

Anonymous said...

4:40 pm

Delusion of grandeur.

The deep state didn't make Russel Brand "allegedly" sexual assault up to 7 women from 2006 to 2013.

There are couple of journalists from several new organizations just trying to make a name for themselves who put together the in depth story after interviewing persons from Russell Brands' past and following rumors and innuendo.

Going after famous people is nothing new for sensational click-driven media (on all political sides) and I'm sure it has nothing to do with "the deep state" as Russell Brand alludes.

He can defend himself with facts all he wants. He can demand his accussors provide facts as well...but pretending there is some unnamed & evil "them" out to get him is simply his mental illness speaking.

x

Craig said...

X,

You wrote, concluding one of your comments:

Among supposed God-fearing Christians, why do credible accusations actually create more defensiveness and even support? Where is the discernment? Craig is clear that he believes all the spiritual gifts continue... perhaps he's wrong? Maybe the path is just narrow?

Maybe I just don’t get it, but I fail to see the point you were trying to make in the context of your comment.

Whatever the case, your conclusion erects a false dichotomy. Cannot the path be narrow whether or not the spiritual gifts continue?

Yes, my stance with regard to the “sign gifts” is continuationism (ALL spiritual gifts continue) over against cessationism. My contention is that the former is biblical, while the latter is not. The way I see it, in our present era, both the NAR (aka hyper-charismatic) version of “spiritual gifts” and the cessationist of today both use experience as a basis for argumentation instead of Scripture. For the hyper-charismatic, evidence of their manifestations is ‘proof’ for continuationism; for the cessationist of today, their ‘proof’ is supposed lack of evidence over the centuries of any ‘true’ gifts in operation. But the cessationist goes one further; s/he eisegetes this lack of evidence into Scripture in order to ‘prove’ the charismata have ceased.

Did you read the blog article I posted? Perhaps, X, you could go to your elders or pastor and ask them how they substantiate the position that the “sign gifts” have ceased. And I’d be curious if they call them the unbiblical “Apostolic sign gifts”, which, to my mind, posits the very thing needing proof—referring to the qualifier “Apostolic”.


Anonymous said...

Says X at 5:18 PM

With HIS 'mental illness speaking' (every day on this blog).

X, who has nothing but excuses to make for Hunter Biden (and every other LIBERAL).

Meanwhile, take your double standards and shove them where the sun doesn't shine.

Anonymous said...

Elon Musk Warns “Anyone From Earth” Entering US as 2,200 Illegals Storm Texas Border Town Overnight

Videos showing thousands of illegal aliens storming a Texas border town caught the attention of Elon Musk who warned that “anyone from Earth” is flooding the U.S. during the Biden mass migration crisis.

On Monday, Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin posted stunning footage shot from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border as more than 2,000 illegal aliens swarmed Eagle Pass, Texas, in a matter of HOURS.

https://www.infowars.com/posts/elon-musk-warns-anyone-from-earth-entering-us-as-2200-illegals-storm-texas-border-town-overnight/

Anonymous said...

Craig,

Do you also believe the office of Apostle continues?

Abortion and homosexuality aren't specifically addressed in the bible either but we are both certain they are sins.

The continuationist position does not preclude the possibility that the need for the more miraculous gifts might ebb and flow according to the need or wane with the completion of the canon; rather, it simply does not clearly state that these gifts will stop when the canon is complete. There are good historical and theological arguments for the cessationist position, but they are not necessarily supported by 1 Corinthians 13:8 unless one believes "the perfect" is the canon. Likewise, the verse cannot be used as an endorsement of any and all claims of continuationists today. It's important, in context, that Paul spends three chapters on the misuse of the sign gifts, and many of the same abuses are committed today by those who claim to exercise tongues and other gifts.

I have personally gone back and forth on this myself (between soft to hard cessationism). I'd already listened to that John Piper video (or one like it) as well as having read some from Storms, Carson and Gruden over the years.

What I see as the "fruits" of continuationism has brought me more in agreement with MacArthur on the issue (hard cessationist - Strange Fire). Between the heretical continuationism within the Roman Catholic church, the Orthodox churches, the NAR including their infecting many mainline denominations and just about every non-denominational church all I see is liars/frauds and those shipwrecked by liars as they run around to the next seminar to figure out how to proceed with intercessory prayer and/or "talk" to God or kids being suck in by Bethel, Global and many other fake "schools of supernatural mystery". Not to mention the dominionists/kingdom now/7 mountain mandate seeming to justify rebellion theology via Rushdooney, Wagner and others as a part of a new (age) revelation.

You can point to bad apples on the cessationist side as well (ex. Jehova Witnesses & hyper-calvinists, etc) but it's not anywhere near as pervasive, abusive or individually destructive as continuationists who largely seem very distracted from the Gospel (the dusty old book) while being enticed by cults and other false leaders claiming & seeking gifts and new (age) revelation (then when it doesn't happen for them -- they either leave the church dismayed or feel pressured to fake it).

I agree this is a difficult issue. Is it "tier-one" difficult?, I don't know. But, which position is truly Biblical? I do not see how the continuationist stance, in practice anywhere, can withstand Biblical scrutiny. But perhaps I’m wrong?

x

Anonymous said...

Jethro at 7:50pm

When did I make excuses for Hunter Biden?

Make an example out of him for evading taxes on unreported foreign income.

The gun charges are kind of ridiculous considering how many drug addict and mentally ill maga qanon types lied on the same form about their use of drugs and alcohol but whatever.

Hunter peddling the perception that he could deliver influence via his father isn't the first time a relative of the President has cashed in on his/her notoriety. I don't believe that is even illegal.

I've also never criticized the prosecution of any illegal activity of any antifa-like groups, protestors and individuals.

x

p.s. - A proposed test for diagnosing when your politics is threatening to become your religion:

If you learn someone shares your faith but not your politics, and you immediately distrust their faith, then your politics might be displacing your religion.

Anonymous said...

From Twitter post: @ Jacqui Deevoy 1

I watched the Channel 4 documentary on Russell Brand. All highly suspect. I know if I pitched an idea for an inflammatory documentary to a TV company and said all the main contributors were going to be anonymous with their faces in shadow or played by actors, I’d have the idea flung back in my face. The stories told may or may not be true but trial by TV is never fair. Whether he’s guilty or not, this film is clearly a hit piece. A neatly orchestrated attack. Brand is getting too popular, is way too ‘over target’ and has to be removed. And this is how they do it.

___________________________________________________________________________________________


And this is how the Deep State Globalists 'operate' when a famous celebrity goes spreading the TRUTH.



Craig said...

X,

Straw men abound in your long-winded response—replete with whataboutisms and other extraneous items, as well.

Focus, X, focus.

The issue is simple, though I’ll frame it somewhat differently:

--(a) Is continuationism unbiblical? [see next paragraph.]

--(b) Is cessationism—cast as ‘the “Apostolic sign gifts” (and “Apostolic sign gifts” only) having ceased with the Apostolic age—biblical? [and see 2nd paragraph down]

Item (a) necessarily EXCLUDES NAR-type manifestations, for they, being false, do not fall under continuationism at all. (a) ONLY implies that continuationism is biblical, because Scripture nowhere states or hints that ALL charismata will cease.

Item (b) is the one REQUIRING biblical moorings. Is there Scripture that renders only the “Apostolic sign gifts” as having ceased? Or, even simpler, is there Scripture that declares the “sign gifts” have ceased at some point in time and are no longer operating at all? And how does one BIBLICALLY claim “sign gifts” have ceased, while allowing for all other spiritual gifts? In other words, how can one differentiate between these two classifications BIBLICALLY?

Your being swayed by the plethora of false charismata as a reason to reject continuationism is no better than those who are persuaded by the plethora of NAR-type manifestations that continuationism is true.

Show me the Scriptures to support your cessationist stance.

Anonymous said...

9:03 pm

So says a woman who writes new age horoscope books.


One of the alleged victims Russell Brand claims was a consensual relationship was 16 years old at the time they "dated" while Brand was somewhere in his mid-thirties at the time.

You'd think Qanon would be going nuts over that considering their obsession with all the supposed blood thirsty hollywood elitist pedophiles.

If this story broke in 2019, how would it be framed by right wing media?

x



Anonymous said...

Moonies be trippin'

The Culmination of All Civilizations

First, the essences of all civilizations which developed on the land should bear fruit in Korea. The ancient continental civilizations which arose in Egypt and Mesopotamia bequeathed their fruits to the peninsular civilizations of Greece, Rome and Iberia, and thence to the island civilization of Great Britain. This island civilization passed on its culture to the United States, a continental civilization. Then the direction was reversed, with the United States passing on its culture to the island civilization of Japan. Now these fruits are to be harvested in the peninsular civilization of Korea, where Christ is to be born.

Next, the essences of civilizations born on the shores of rivers and seas should bear fruit in the Pacific civilization to which Korea belongs. The river civilizations which arose on the shores of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates Rivers passed on their cultures to the civilizations in the vicinity of the Mediterranean Sea: Greece, Rome, Spain and Portugal. These bequeathed their fruits to the civilizations on the Atlantic Ocean: notably, Great Britain and the United States. All these fruits will be harvested in the civilization of the Pacific Ocean, which links together the United States, Japan and Korea.

Last, civilizations born out of different climate zones should bear fruit in Korea. In the round of the seasons, living things begin their life and multiplication in spring, flourish in summer, bear fruit in autumn, and store their reserves in winter. The cycle of spring, summer, autumn and winter is repeated not only year by year, but also day by day: morning corresponds to spring, afternoon to summer, evening to autumn, and night to winter. The four phases of human life - childhood, youth, middle age, and old age - also fit this pattern. Human history, too, unfolds according to the seasons, because an aspect of God's Principle underlying His creation is the harmonious, seasonal circle of life.

https://readingreligion.org/9780824875381/the-foresight-of-dark-knowing/

Kind of makes sense, I guess, if you're a Korean.

Anonymous said...

Right link for 9:45 PM

http://www.unification.net/dp96/dp96-2-6.html#Sec3_3

The rod of iron thinking goes along with the 38th parallel, and, yes, Trump plays right into the whole shebang to them

Craig said...

The trouble with creating new doctrines in reaction to false doctrines or practices is that it can be countered with another reactionary doctrine or practice.

The cessationist’s stance that claims ‘the “Apostolic sign gifts” have ceased’ were met with C. Peter Wagner on his International Coalition of Apostles webpage:

The Second Apostolic Age began roughly in 2001, heralding the most radical change in the way of doing church at least since the Protestant Reformation...

Wagner: “I’ll see your straw man and raise you one more.”



Anonymous said...

And proof Korea is the new top dog: number 1 stolen car - Kia

Anonymous said...

"Come out from among them" if you really are a believer in Christ, X.

You're joined at the hip with the world.
Your faith isn't showing but your cowardice is.

Thus far all anyone can see is your politics is your religion.

Anonymous said...

Climate Change Hoax = Centralized Power Over Mankind

Marxist Pope Francis to Bill Clinton: We Must Halt the ‘Ecological Catastrophe’ of Climate Change

Jesuit/Marxist Pope calls for the end of fossil fuels. The result? Massive starvation, economic catastrophe, and the creation of the New World Order!

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/09/19/pope-francis-to-bill-clinton-we-must-halt-the-ecological-catastrophe-of-climate-change/

Anonymous said...

"A proposed test for diagnosing when your politics is threatening to become your religion:

If you learn someone shares your faith but not your politics, and you immediately distrust their faith, then your politics might be displacing your religion.
"

The significance of the Reconstructionist movement is not its numbers,
but the power of its ideas and their surprisingly rapid acceptance.
Many on the Christian Right are unaware that they hold
Reconstructionist ideas.


– Fred Clarkson, ‘Christian Reconstructionism,’ The Public Eye, 1994,
Vol. VIII, No. 1

Anonymous said...

"Abortion and homosexuality aren't specifically addressed in the bible either but we are both certain they are sins."

Homosexuality is specifically addressed, but not abortion.

We make inferences based upon verses like Psalm 139:13-16 (I knit you in your mother's womb) and the story of Mary visiting Elizabeth in Luke 1. (I affirm these inferences.)

Homosexuals usually call the Bible verses about homosexuality "the clobber verses," and we don't need to be ashamed of the gospel, but we can't expect them to become washed clean by leading with the clobber verses written by people inspired by a God they haven't yet accepted. ("Such were some of you, but ye are washed" - that part comes later, and not by our power, shaming, arguments, clobber verses. It comes by power of the Holy Spirit.)

Interestingly some Christians now seem to be accepting that some people will not turn from homosexual to heterosexual even after accepting Jesus as their savior. Instead they may live a celibate life with platonic relationships with both sexes. (The world will not rush to sign up for this. But some individuals do still find hope in it.)

Anonymous said...

Craig @ 10:11 pm

That's like blaming Biden for Jan 6th because he won the election in November.

NAR crazy charismania is largely an offshoot of the assemblies of god and other Pentecostal cults.


The unique role of miracles through uniquely gifted men only occurred in 3 periods...

1. 1445-1380 BC from Moses to Joshua 65 years

2. 860 - 795 BC from Elijah to Elisha 65 years

3. 0-70 AD from Joseph/Mary to John and the closing of the Canon and the completion of the foundation of the church (Apostles AND Prophets) approximately 70 years

Continuationism provides no convincing theological explanation for the disappearance of certain gifts during most of church history.

As Hebrews claims {paraphrase} "that was then and them, this is now"

I could be wrong. I am not pretending to be a teacher; but, Wagner trying to exploit actual church history (the end of the Apostolic age and the founding of the church) to claim there is a new such age isn't cessationists fault. Cult leaders do what cult leaders do.

x




Anonymous said...

11:07

YUP...

It's like they have no idea who Rushdooney was or what he and his kin (Gary North) really stood for.


Rational Wiki, briefly, nails some of it:

Rushdoony hated anyone who wasn't a white Christian. Racism, in addition to the Lost Cause of the South and other Neo-Confederate mythology, can be found throughout his writings. He was a Holocaust denier who accused the Jews of "bearing false witness." He also supported the death penalty for various "abominations" like being gay. This from a man whose parents fled genocide caused by bigotry.

But he was cool with divorce. His first wife, Arda Gent-Rushdoony, filed for divorce on account of his "extreme cruelty" and "inflicting mental suffering" on her. He won the lawsuit against the mother of his five children, taking the house, car, children and leaving her with $1/month of alimony. As he wrote in his Institutes of Biblical Law: "Divorce by death made remarriage possible, and freed the innocent partner from bondage to a guilty and unclean person."

Since the Bible is rather unequivocal that the only acceptable basis for divorce is infidelity on the wife's part, which was never alleged during divorce proceedings, Rushdoony's remarriage constituted bigamy, adultery or both in the eyes of God, according to his own purported beliefs. His actual respect for the Biblical law he claimed to want to live under is revealed by the fact that he never complied with its dictates on adultery by having himself stoned to death.


https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/R.J._Rushdoony

Anonymous said...

Samson divorced his Philistine bride after just a few days of marriage. The reason he gave for the divorce, he called adultery, although she had not been sexually unfaithful. She had tried to get him killed, though. This example demonstrates that adultery could be used not for a sexual breach of the marriage covenant but for other ways of breaching the marriage covenant, too.

In other words I don't think Arda Rushdoony was sinful for divorcing Rousas Rushdoony for "extreme cruelty." I do agree, though, that Rousas was inconsistent with his own precepts about Biblical law. In this he was a hypocrite, as he was in many other ways.

In his example it's easy to see why the Bible repeatedly warns against self-righteousness, hypocrisy and legalism.

Reconstructionists seek to establish Kingdom Now without the King. Instead they are wanna-be kings who, in reality, live as laws unto themselves, their family members and their cult members.

It goes to show that theology without love is dead. Actually you can't even call Reconstructionism theology. It's just a few twisted verses forming a fragmented foundation for a top-heavy, man-made system of thinking.

They seek not to build their house upon the Rock, but instead they seek to shatter the rock into tiny fragments and sprinkle these fragments into their own narcissism to sacralize their narcissism as gods unto themselves and unto their families and followers.

Poor Arda, but God sees. He saw Hagar, who called Him "the God Who Sees." Although Hagar was not involved in God's Kingdom building of Israel, God still saw and heard Hagar. He still dealt with Hagar with kindness and mercy.

Yet the would-be Kingdom Now builders imagine they don't need to bother with seeing and hearing Arda Rushdoony. They are too busy with more important matters.

In this way they show they don't know the God they claim they claim to worship.

Anonymous said...

x, Your politics is an offshoot of some deep unbelief in the Bible.
You limit God.
You do it through the scriptures and contexts you cherry pick in the Word of God. Then have the self-aggrandizing gall to virtue signal through your own limitations in understanding on to others.

And--you do it through the Marxist ideologies inherent in who you hand picked to vote for knowing the evil they would and did commit. Standing on the wrong side of the Bible and the grace it teaches is found in your ad hominems here.
Biden is a continuation of socialism's and globalism's many ways to deconstruct this nation and the lives of it's people, who were heretofore free people in the world. But you want us(even the world) under your ideological lock and key and lock stepping to cotton to your unbeliefs in God's actual grace that runs counter to your idea of how to human. Then arrogantly expect people to believe you are a Christian. Really, that is so whacked..

You are quite confused as to what should continue, and what should not from God's viewpoint, since you are cut from the cloth of continuationism of the Old Pagan beliefs repackaged as New Age New World Order. If you read your Bible with a humble heart you would become cessationist of those wrong headed wrong hearted beliefs of your worldly religionism, your humanism beliefs, that are soundly condemned by the Bible, and instead have a new heart to stand with the Lord's Word, that HE does what man cannot, you cannot--be God.

Your many isms have gone to your head and shrunken your heart so much you don't see God's active hand moving today in the lives of people any and everywhere. And among people you despise.
Abuses of God's Word and His gifts occur all the time, throughout time, but from another standpoint, you are just as guilty in abusing them too.

See to it to look at your own faults and limitations and repent of your unbelief. Then you should be able to give God real credit and His due for being the limitless God He really is, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Anonymous said...

1:54 pm

Exactly. Where have you been all my life with posts like that?

No matter how well-intentioned any and all real Christians are that would pursue and/or undertake any dominionist type civil war, the vacuum of power will always be filled by bullies, evil men and narcissists, like Rushdooney, ready to seize and take control (get things done, by force, if necessary - it's ALWAYS necessary) such that the end authoritarian result is much worse than the perceived difficulties beforehand. It will never actually result in anything close to Kingdom Now anything.

History repeats itself. For all of Lenin's good intentions and the idealism of the Bolshevik revolution, it was pushed aside and crushed by Stalin. [Misguided] Idealists, like Marxists and Dominionists, aren't historians, politicians nor military experts. The perfect fair economy and Kingdom Theonomy will always be just out of reach -- until the authoritarian strong-man comes around to finish the job, promising only he can take them to the promise land finish line thereby resulting in shedding the blood of millions who refuse to bend their knees to the strongman.

I know I am rambling again...doing 5 things at once.

America has been the best and strongest balancing act Democratic EXPERIMENT so far to maintain such intellectual neutrality between politics and religion whereby we are all free to practice our religion as we choose without Government interference. Hopefully, our Democratic Institutions remain strong enough to resist this push by the "Recontructionists" White Christian Nationalists (GOP & all it's the ecumenical partners) funded by Rome & Corporations to subvert and demolish it.

But I could be wrong.

x

Anonymous said...

"Where Moon got his cash remained one of Washington’s deepest mysteries – and one that few U.S. conservatives wanted to solve". . .

Moon/Bush 'Ongoing Crime Enterprise'
By Robert Parry
February 17, 2007

https://consortiumblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/moonbush-ongoing-crime-enterprise.html?m=1

. . .most likely drug and arms trafficking

PS: Sean Moon with that crown reminds me of a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. I think he may be high, he certainly has that appearance: sallow complexion, can't stand still, inappropriate laughter, over-inflated view of self-importance.

Anonymous said...

"And proof Korea is the new top dog: number 1 stolen car - Kia"

My mistake, it not Kia but Hyundai

Anonymous said...

X 4:16 PM,

I found this in the catechism of the Catholic church, and now I need to think about it. It reminds me strongly of what you posted. I know it's Catholic, but "test all things and hold fast to that which is good."

The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.

Anonymous said...


"When you speak the truth and/or even discuss the Bible respectfully to people that don't "love the truth," you're always going to be an object of their hate and scorn"

Exactly.

That is your M.O.

And has been all along.
You give no credit whatsoever for the work of the Holy Spirit in other believers here, or anywhere where, in particular with people differ from you, and it has made for a shameful display of your so-called testimony here. That shoe fits you. Scorn is your calling card. Mocking is your game. We know you by your rotten fruit.
But I guess you need some place to pour out your animus, packing more bitterness into your posts than the average Joe or Jethro.


You are the crass religionist with humanistic bents that always talk up man's ways, and in that you put down God's.
No grace comes from you, and nobody expects it. Perhaps it is really because you haven't received grace yourself to be able to give it. So caught with your pants down again.

Our differences are probably not about theology really. And there's room to differ, apart from the Gospel itself. But the thrust of your arguments come from a real deficit of humanity in you to trust man's over God's. In that you display your unbelief. Examine yourself to make sure you are in the faith is what I think you need to do.



Craig said...

X,

You wrote: Continuationism provides no convincing theological explanation for the disappearance of certain gifts during most of church history.

On its face, your statement is a non sequitur. Even if one assumes your premise (certain gifts disappeared during most of church history), why would such a doctrine (continuationism)—which is implied right in the Scriptures—need to? Could it not be that—again assuming your position of ‘disappearance’—the charismata will be evident toward the very end of all things?

And, as I wrote in my article, I disagree with the entire premise of and within the term “Apostolic sign gifts”. The burden is on those proclaiming such a cessationist doctrine—including you—to PROVE that absolutely no evidence of the ‘sign gifts’ was found between ~AD 70 and today. As I stated, evidence of absence is not absence of evidence… Absent omniscience (and omnipresence), no one can possibly know what has not transpired down the centuries any and everywhere.

There are accounts of spiritual gifts being active in the mission field of remote areas and/or places vehemently opposed to the Gospel.

And given the way you’ve laid this out, and the ‘rationale’ behind it, we might wonder why (or if) the Jews erected cessationism as a doctrine at some point between the ~500 year gap between Joshua and Elijah—until God demonstrated how He worked through Elijah. Then there’s that larger 800 year gap between Elisha and the first century AD…



Craig said...

Above: ...we might wonder why the Jews hadn't erected (or if they actually did adopt) cessationism as a doctrine at some point between...

Sorry, not written well at all.


Anonymous said...

A friend of mine attends a church that holds a weekly evening prayer meeting. He told me at this prayer meeting first they gossip about, then they pray for all the poor sinners they've been gossiping about. He's been trying to save me for years, bless his heart ( - ;

Anonymous said...

7:19 used to it. You never do.

Anonymous said...

Frank Walker (canon212) has a way with words

Unloading High-Octane FrancisBlather, Globalist MonsterPope joins Bill Clinton, other aging leftist Dirtbags for worldwide initiative to ‘ensure peace’ and fix climate change ‘for the children,’ see? - before it's too late!

https://www.ncronline.org/earthbeat/politics/pope-global-leaders-save-children-planet-its-too-late

Anonymous said...

Craig @ 7:19

It's not absolute proof of absentia, but it IS circumstantial evidence; and, I don't know why I'm obligated to carry the burden of something I don't believe in or attempt to practice in my life? Especially something I can't "prove" because my omnipresence is somewhat limited (I joke).

And near the end we will surely see signs and wonders...

"For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders that would deceive even the elect, if that were possible." Matthew 24:24 BSB

And we've known since Moses and Aaron spoke to Pharoah that evil "sorcerers" could also perform (lesser) signs and wonders...

"Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts. 12For each one threw down his staff and they turned into serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Yet Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had said." Exodus 7:11-13 NASB 1995

Anyway. I may not share your opinion but respect you just as I respect Mike Winger, who is also a "charistmatic --- with a seatbelt". Love, after all, prevails over all.

I'll leave you with this to ponder...

In his book, Counterfeit Miracles, B.B. Warfield writes:

Miracles do not appear on the pages of Scripture vagrantly here and there and elsewhere and differently, without any assignable reason. They belong to revelation periods and appear only when God is speaking to His people through accredited messengers declaring His gracious purposes. Their abundant display in the apostolic church is the mark of the richness of the Apostolic age in Revelation. And when this Revelation period closed, the period of miracle-working had passed by also as a mere matter of course. It might, indeed, be a priori conceivable that God should deal with men atomistically, and reveal Himself and His will to each individual, throughout the whole course of history, in the penetralium of his own consciousness. This is the mystic's dream. It has not, however, been God's way. He has chosen rather to deal with the race in its entirety, and to give to this race His complete revelation of Himself in an organic whole. And when this historic process of organic revelation had reached its completeness, and when the whole knowledge of God designed for the saving health of the world had been incorporated into the living body of the world's thought—there remained, of course, no further revelation to be made, and there has been accordingly no further revelation made. God the Holy Spirit has made it His subsequent work, not to introduce new and unneeded revelations into the world, but to diffuse this one complete revelation through the world and to bring mankind into the saving knowledge of it." (Page 25)

x

Anonymous said...

"Love, after all, prevails over all."

Says discordant woke affirming, evil abetting, gossip hound, X.

Read your Bible, believe it, and live it.
Let's see that miracle...




Craig said...

X,

You wrote: I don't know why I'm obligated to carry the burden of something I don't believe in or attempt to practice in my life?

Please don’t twist this. You’ve made a definitive claim of cessationism—that the “sign gifts” ceased ~70AD. I challenged your claim; so, it’s up to you to pony up. But, of course, it’s an impossible burden. Therefore, perhaps you should retract or soften such a hard stance, in all intellectual honesty?

Your position also lacks biblical support. My continuationist position is implied in Scripture for the very reason your position fails.

Evidence of the false does not negate the (potentially) true. We can both agree to call out the false, even using the Scriptures to do so. But, cessationism is a bridge too far, an ‘over-correction’. And that is my point.

The Warfield quote is narrow. One mustn’t limit, or reduce, the gifts to ‘new revelation’. E.g., can God not use a yielded vessel to provide healing to another, in furtherance of the Gospel? Does Warfield know unequivocally that such a thing hasn’t happened post-Apostolic era?

If the Wikipedia entry can be understood as a true historical account, the Reformers were strictly reactionary in establishing cessationism—over against RCC claims of the miraculous. Again, assuming we can use the Wiki entry, so much for sola Scriptura.




Craig said...

X,

One more point. You keep alluding to 1 Corinthians 13 (e.g. Love, after all, prevails over all.). You must keep this in proper context (NASB):

12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known.

When is "then"? It cannot be the closing of the Canon or the Apostolic era, for here we (and many others) are disagreeing on doctrine. In other words, if we 'knew fully', we'd be in agreement. As in the article I wrote, quoting the NIV Study Bible regarding 13:10 (but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with.): Verse 12, however, seems to indicate that Paul is here speaking of Christ’s second coming.

We will "know fully" when we see Christ face to face. Amen!

Amen?


Anonymous said...

X cleaves to the Baptist Churches vain tradition.

Good luck with that X

Anonymous said...


Moon/Bush "Ongoing Crime Enterprise"

http://www.banderasnews.com/0702/wr-moonbush.htm

Anonymous said...


Here is Donald Trump praising both Rev. Moon and his wife for their “incredible story.” Their story is they started a dangerous authoritarian mind control cult 50 years ago that is still operating....

https://www.reddit.com/r/cults/comments/pmsy2f/here_is_donald_trump_praising_both_rev_moon_and/

Anonymous said...

I understand X's skepticism about continuationism because of its fruits that have been observable in history and are observable today. I also understand Craig's point that we Biblically rule out a future time period of miracles like those of the time of Moses or the time of the Apostles. X can't support complete closed-minded dogmatism regarding his cessationist position on the basis of scripture alone. Still I share X's skepticism, because the probability is overwhelmingly high that it's a safer position than gullibility.

The question then becomes, what should the standard of proof be, if we are to accept miracles in the future, equal to the miracles that happened during the time of Moses or during the time of Jesus?

One more question is: if the unfaithful world is to be surprised by the second advent of Jesus (eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, just as they always have and just as they did before the flood during the time of Nooah, too)...wouldn't they be alerted by miracles?

A third question deals with the topic of the restrainer being taken out of the way so that Satan is fully loosed on the world for the purpose of judgement of the unfaithful, (with that judgement starting in the unfaithful houses of God, I hope everybody realizes). I think that Jesus Christ Himself is the only one strong enough to restrain Satan, and that He gained the authority to restrain Satan and His bride gained the grace to be freed from Satan, at the cross, 2,000 years ago. Where two or three believers are gathered, there is He in their midst. He can only NOT be in the midst of believers when the apostasy becomes great enough. This is when the temple he built, stone by stone, with He the cornerstone, and every chosen faithful Christian another stone in the temple, will (only on earth but not in heaven) become empty, like an abandoned church in which vandals scrawled Satanic graffiti. This would be the only way it would be able to happen.

But if He is not in the midst of the unfaithful, the Holy Spirit is then not in the midst, and the Holy Spirit would be the one enabling miracles. So then how would the miracles be performed?

Anonymous said...


Talking about love from a loveless pontificate.
You can't make this stuff up.
The word crass came up and it fits. I have some other choice ones that fit too..

X, you deserve your gasbag reputation around here.



Quit your whining.

You know you love the attention.

Anonymous said...


https://apnews.com/article/ray-epps-capitol-riot-jan-6-fox-38748c79cd7b6916584a5db7ca87af7a

Ray Epps, ex-Marine targeted by a Jan. 6 conspiracy theory, is charged with a misdemeanor in riot

Anonymous said...

Attention Constance Cumbey, et al.

BREAKING BIG: Via House Judiciary Committee Republicans – FBI LOST COUNT of How Many Paid Informants They Had in the Trump Crowd on January 6!

The House Judiciary Republicans sent out an explosive letter on Tuesday night that CHANGES EVERYTHING!

The House Judiciary Republicans sent out a letter Tuesday that includes transcribed testimony from former Assistant Director-in-Charge of the Washington Field Office (WFO) Steven D’Antuono.

D’Antuono testified that the FBI had numerous confidential human sources (CHS) in the Trump crowd on January 6.

In fact, they had so many FBI operatives in the crowd they they had no idea how many were actually there that day!

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/breaking-big-house-judiciary-committee-republicans-fbi-lost/

Anonymous said...

AND ...

PELOSI LIED! Former Capitol Police Chief Sund Testifies He Had 3 Calls with Pelosi on Jan. 6 – Pelosi Said They Never Spoke – But Sund Says He Has the Receipts! (VIDEO)

On Tuesday, the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight held a hearing titled, “Oversight of United States Capitol Security: Assessing Security Failures on January 6, 2021.”

Rep. Barry Loudermilk heads the subcommittee. Former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund testified before the committee.

Chief Steven Sund has been outspoken of Nancy Pelosi and her failures to secure the US Capitol that day.

It has been widely reported that President Trump asked for the National Guard three days in advance of January 6. But Pelosi turned him down. She refused to call in the National Guard despite numerous warnings of possible violence.

Pelosi then refused to turn over information about her culpability in the security breakdown during the Jan. 6 riot for over a year to congressional investigators.

More here: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/pelosi-lied-former-capitol-police-chief-sund-testifies/

Anonymous said...

12:14

“Paid Informants” aren’t FBI employees. They call them “assets” because they are generally or often criminals they have squeezed to work for them in order to get lighter sentences or off Scott free for crimes they’ve comminted.

I not surprised one but the FBI wouldn’t know how many “informants” were there that day considering “informants” aren’t tracked on a daily basis and considering the sheer number of criminals that were there on Jan 6th.

The FBI is supposed to infiltrate and investigate criminal elements and subversive groups in our soceity. The lack of FBI informants among such crowd of degenerates would be the truly shocking revelation. Thankfully they were apparently doing their job.

It’s also laughable that informant types (essentially “rats”) would be speculated to be paid instigators by conspiracy types.

Finally, informants live regular lives with jobs and families. They are just as likely as anyone, probably even more likely than most, to get caught up in Maga qanon conspiracies and individually, themselves, and thereby outside their activities as informants get caught up in the Jan 6th insurrection. An FBI agent in Moscow, Idaho working an informant wouldn’t have any idea his informant hopped on a bus to DC to participate in what many though would just be a protest (before Trump, oath keepers and proud boys decidedly took it another insurrectional direction)

Anonymous said...

12:16 pm

Even Trump’s “handlers” didn’t want national guard troops under Trumps specific and direct command anywhere near the Capitol Building that day.

We all heard how badly Trump wanted to go to the Capitol that day to “lead” his insurrection… imagine him having thousand of very young inexperienced trigger happy nat’l guardsmen at his disposal. They are fine soldiers but they are not policemen that have years of experience with deescalating protests.

We also all saw hold Trump and Barr handled federal troops in the summer of 2020 around the white house. No coordination with DC police, violent, they even attacked protestors about an hour before curfew. It was a legal peaceful protest.

It’s not a wonder Capitol and DC police ignored anything Trump might have made a gesture about days before he himself invited the crowd to attack the building. Maybe he coulda warned them about his intended speech in advance??

X



Anonymous said...

We live in the age of miracles according to 1949 science

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL6045796M/The_miracle_of_television.

Excerpt -Television might still BE only a scientist's dream if it had not rained in Paris one memorable night in 1896. Returning home from the theater late in the evening, Professor and Madame Curie stopped at their laboratory to pick up an umbrella. AS Madame Curie knew just where it had been left, She entered the laboratory, without turning on the lights. Suddenly she stopped in astonishment. From one of the many glass jars on the shelves came a strange white light, illuminating everything around it. She gazed upon this weird phenomenon with awe, feeling as Moses must have felt when he beheld the bush burning with fire, and the bush was not con sumed."

I suggest you turn off your TV and . . .

And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil [Joel 2:13]




Anonymous said...

No, X @ 12:38 PM (you are WRONG, as usual).

The #1 person who wanted others to storm the Capitol on January 6th was NANCY PELOSI.

There were a few FBI double agents (posing as Trump supporters) ready to cooperate.

It was a very successful SET UP (that many gullible Americans 'bought' hook, line & sinker).

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/pelosi-lied-former-capitol-police-chief-sund-testifies/

Anonymous said...

Colony Ridge, TX is now the fastest growing development in America (illegal housing compound in Texas ~ near Plum Grove, TX in Liberty County, TX)

A chunk of land in Texas that is roughly the size of Washington, D.C., the nation's capital, has become a massive resettlement zone being used by alien "migrants" who enter the United States illegally, say critics.
Located near the small town of Plum Grove in Liberty County (Northeast of Houston), the resettlement zone, known as Colony Ridge, is reportedly becoming an illegal alien colony – hence the name – that experts and elected officials worry will become a strategic asset for cartels.

Spanning in size of more than 60 square miles, Colony Ridge currently has a population of somewhere between 50,000 and 75,000. And it is still rapidly growing thanks to a strategic marketing plan aimed at Texas' Hispanic population.

September 19, 2023
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-09-19-fastest-growing-development-in-america-illegal-alien-housing-compound-in-texas.html

__________________________________________________________________________________________


Colony Ridge 'illegal immigrant' town springs up in Texas as local developer sells border crossers property 'without asking them for documentation - with FOUR cartels now operating there'

September 19, 2023
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12537169/colony-ridge-Texas-illegal-migrant-town.html

__________________________________________________________________________________________


An Alien Haven in Texas (Northeast of Houston)

January, 2021
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/an-alien-haven-in-southeast-texas/

Anonymous said...

https://mmccormick.substack.com/p/joe-wanted-hunter-in-west-wing-two

JOE WANTED HUNTER IN WEST WING TWO DAYS PRIOR TO JOINING BURISMA BOARD


Franny Person is smack dab in the middle of Joe Biden’s Burisma conspiracy.

Anonymous said...

Examining the NAR
Stop Denying the Facts. The New Apostolic Reformation is NOT a conspiracy theory.


Dr. Michael Brown has been an important defender of hyper-charismatic leaders for decades. When confronted with information about the claims of the NAR movement, he says it’s nothing more than an overhyped conspiracy theory and that you are guilty of slander if you bring attention to it.

What is the New Apostolic Reformation? It’s a global movement of Charismatics who claim that God Himself is restoring the lost offices of Apostle and Prophet to govern the Church. Not all Charismatics affirm the NAR, but the new apostles and prophets have been wildly successful in spreading their teachings.

They believe God is bringing back all the phenomena of the book of Acts but on a grander scale. Once the full restoration is complete, they believe a new breed of Christian will arise with unprecedented miraculous powers to unleash a signs and wonders revival that will take the world by storm.

https://examiningnar.substack.com/p/stop-denying-reality?fbclid=IwAR0zZuwnlyfC-FrG3unOitF3duKpZPsJ7KkHoj_L5x5_z2YPkWIfshhwWWA

LSWA said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t7qGKMaT7s


VAERS data made transparent

Dr. John Campbell

Anonymous said...

2:02 pm

If the gaywaypundit says so it must be true.

I’m sure impressed how well all those informer rats kept that secret.

Who knew?

Unbelievable… no agency at all, Pelosi & unnamed unknown FBI informants made them do it .

What has Pelosi made you do?

X

Anonymous said...

X, "imagine him having thousand of very young inexperienced trigger happy nat’l guardsmen at his disposal."

Your most OFFENSIVE COMMENT eve! Your insult of the Trained men and women in the National Guard over a disgusting sicko like Trump is SICK. I hope my kids never have to protect or defend the likes of you, X.

Anonymous said...


'I Want To Read You Something...': Ben Carson Details Decades-Old Plot To Advance 'Communist Goals'


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnUXIw5WPMI

Anonymous said...


"12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known."

Then why does x arrogantly cram his know-it-all attitude and supposed facts about every damn thing he posts about here like he thinks he fully knows already?

Because he is an ~ A+ #1 ~ JERK that's why.
x and rightly divided Scripture don't mix.
He gets things right even less often than a broken clock and nasty about it too.

Anonymous said...

x, young and inexperienced will be better any day of the week than you, the armchair quarterback, the key board nobody, the old commie blog hog.

Anonymous said...

https://news.yahoo.com/biden-administration-launch-first-kind-121146779.html

X has already signed up.

Anonymous said...

You take Trump out of x's posts and they are still bone deep stupid, no matter the topic.

But he needs to name drop Trump's name for troll points and keep his hate fires stoked.
So fake gonna fake.
He gonna preach love to you 'ignernt' people so listen up. LOL


Anonymous said...

2:26 PM

More on Colony Ridge, TX...

Owned and operated by developer William "Trey" Harris, Colony Ridge, which is now larger in land area than the cities of Fayetteville, Ark., and Asheville, N.C., IS BEING BUILT ON THE BACK OF A SPECIAL FINANCING ARRANGEMENT THAT ALLOWS ILLEGAL ALIENS TO BUY LAND IN TEXAS.

While American citizens are required to show healthy credit ratings and proof of income in order to even be considered for receiving a home loan, illegal aliens in Colony Ridge are able to circumvent these requirements and buy property due to the special treatment arrangement that has been established for illegals to plant roots in the Lone Star State – and they do not even have to show a social security number (SSN) in order to qualify.

"Because with a traditional bank loan you need to be able to show that you have a credit rating and proof of income," says Todd Bensman, a National Security Fellow at the Center for Immigration studies, in a quote to the Wire.

https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-09-19-fastest-growing-development-in-america-illegal-alien-housing-compound-in-texas.html

Anonymous said...

How do Communists take over a country?

tierneyrealnewsnetwork.substack.com/p/how-do-communists-take-over-a-country?

Anonymous said...

Ted Cruz issues shocking 2024 prediction: 'Barack Obama is running the administration'

youtube.com/watch?v=LxA5V9KpbAA

Anonymous said...

5:50 pm

Are you saying the government should stop a private land developer from providing private financing and selling private controlled real estate to foreigners (without social security numbers).

Foreigners own property all over the US, how would you pick and choose between good foreigners and bad?

Sounds like the Maga GOP wants to become the anti-libertarian party controlling what I can and can’t do with my property.

X

Anonymous said...

9:53 pm

If you think living in Colony Ridge is an "advantage", I got news for you. It's a dump. The developer will gladly take your money too and/or finance your deal at 10% if you want to go there too. Nobody is "penalizing" anyone. It's the wild west in unregulated Texas.

Last I heard it was about 70,000-75,000 persons spread out over a large area in manufacured homes and trailers (or whatever dilapidated structure the purchasers can assemble) so it's size is not all that alarming. It's not like they displaced anyone -- this is a new community.

https://reduceflooding.com/2023/09/17/colony-ridge-now-50-percent-bigger-than-manhattan/

Anonymous said...

How about putting the blame for this HUMANITARIAN CRISIS where it belongs? At the feet of Joe Biden who, on HIS watch alone, has allowed a RECORD BREAKING 7 MILLION illegals into the United States of America ~ just since he has occupied the Oval Office during the past 2 years & 8 months (January 20, 2021 ~ September 20, 2023)!!!

Nearly 7 million illegal aliens 'encountered' on Biden’s watch, the highest number ever!!!
https://nypost.com/2023/09/01/bidens-big-lie-about-the-border-exposed/

And how about all of those Liberal 'snowflakes' in those so-called 'SANCTUARY'(?) cities... who have been sitting back in judgement of Texans? When Governor Greg Abbott sent a few thousand on buses to the 'BLUE' cities (to SHARE in the responsibility of taking care of of some of these illegals)... they responded by FREAKING OUT. It's time for all of those crybabies (and hypocrites) to 'put on their big boy pants' and STEP UP to share in that responsibility!!!

Yeah ~ "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free"... BUT, JUST NOT IN 'MY BACKYARD' (LOL).
_________________________________________________________________________________________

FYI: My great grandparents came to this country from Ireland... but they went through the proper LEGAL channels via Ellis Island in New York City... and NEVER expected to be handed anything for free on a silver platter,

Anonymous said...

Your great grandparents didn't have the option. You can't know whether you are making a virtue out of necessity or not. I don't blame people for taking the opportunities they find available to them to better their lives. Political leadership at the top should get the blame and the accountability, and that's not only on the Democratic side of the aisle.

It is very clear, of course, that immigration is being poorly managed, and to a horrific extent. I will tell you this. I've never worked with a lazy immigrant, though. Not once.

Anonymous said...

Craig, X and others, what do you think the bolded part means? Craig, this question is specifically for you. What is the significance of following with "but?" Does it mean the authority includes the knowledge they didn't have before Pentecost, because it's not mentioned. Only their evangelism is mentioned. Do you think after Pentecost that the Apostles then knew more about the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority? Does it matter as the sufficiency of scripture, about what the Apostles wrote down, for us to be able to understand the timing and the meaning of "new heavens and new earth?" and the timing of "the fullness of the gentiles." Eve received a prophecy when she was cursed. She didn't fully understand it in its vagueness. It only became more specific through progressive revelation. She thought her first son would be able to in some way accomplish redemption. She didn't understand that the prophecy she was given was pointing to Jesus Christ, who would be incarnated and born much later. Do we sometimes seek to speculate or dream our way into knowledge that even the Apostles weren't given? I've read this particular bolded part before, but for some reason, today it's standing out in my mind and making me feel like I've never fully thought about its implications before, especially since the book of Revelation had seven sealed thunders. The book of Daniel was sealed (how?) during the time of Daniel then unsealed (how?) when it became closer to the time for Jesus to be revealed. (That's a whole other subject.)

Acts 1:1-11
New International Version
Jesus Taken Up Into Heaven

1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with[a] water, but in a few days you will be baptized with[b] the Holy Spirit.”

6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”


Anonymous said...

To add to my 9:16 comment after thinking further about it, I see my question wasn't fully clear, because I have in mind the controversy over some Bible verses (like Matthew 24:3) that are about the end of the world or age. I've seen theologians slice and dice these verses, to prove one way or another futurism, preterism or partial preterism. I've seen full preterists mock partial preterists for struggling to rightly divide these verses.

But could the Apostles who wrote these verses rightly divide the "times and seasons" or did they only have a vague idea? If they were only vague in their understanding, then how can we be so certain, either, on the basis of reading the Bible verses?

Anonymous said...

A New Dollar Code Date; 69 and September 23, 2023

endtimesforcaster.blogspot.com/2023/09/a-new-dollar-code-date-69-and-september.html

Anonymous said...

The beginning of the end. . .

The Miracle of Television
By Jane Clark

In the early 1950s television was increasing in popularity, and anyone in the small town of Curby, Indiana, who had a television set was proud to show off this new form of entertainment.

My family lived just a mile from Curby and was thankful to be invited to a neighbor’s home for a special showing of the well-known Grimm’s fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel” in 1951. I was excited as we entered their darkened living room, lighted only with the glow from the television and a special T.V. lamp on top of the set. That was the recommendation for how to view television in those early days. . .

https://salemleader.com/writers-bloc/miracle-television

Being Baptist we didn't have a TV but I saw one once on a family vacation in a motel. Dad turned it on and there, in Living Color, was the witch Elizabeth Montgomery. To my mind it was like a portal to another world and I did not like it. Thankfully Dad turned it off.

Later though dad bought a used set for 5 dollars from a lady down the street to watch the moon landing on, and that was the beginning of the end for me ) - :

Anonymous said...

8:46 am

Amen.

In my opinion, the failures of Immigration reform largely, but not completely, falls on the GOP.

Both sides have controlled Congress and the office of the President in the last 23 years so it's not like either one couldn't have gotten it done on their own.

Democrats, GENERALLY (there are always stray representatives and senators in both parties) want safer and stronger borders, a pathway to citizenship especially for those long already here and some kind of better asylum laws with quicker outcomes for those cases.

Republicans, GENERALLY (there are always stray representatives and senators in both parties) want to maintain the do-nothing status quo with the illusion they stand for stronger borders, but, for their Opus Dei/Knights of Malta benefactors, just continue allowing for more roman catholics to enter the country unimpeded and, for their corporate benefactors, the maintaining of illegal status allowing for a cheap labor class to handle the menial tasks in our economy that Americans don't want to do (from doing hand picking fruits and other migratory seasonal farm work to slaughter house and other meat processing and packing work to the cleaning hotel rooms).

I'm sure the corporations have their paid supporters on the Democrat's side too. For example, Manchin and Simena.

x



Anonymous said...

I know someone who always says there's going to go get some Mexicans whenever they need help on their property. Sets my teeth on edge.

Anonymous said...

Craig,

I do not believe it was specifically 70 A.D. as Apostles lived beyond that date with the miraculous powers of the Spirit intact among them.

Perhaps it ended with death of the Apostle John in 98 or 99 A.D. as the "Foundation of the Church" was completed. Perhaps those Apostolic gifts continued for a short time thereafter, in those the Apostles may have given the gift of the Spirit to during their lives that may or may not have continued in them for the rest of their lives, but, somewhat limited as like Philip without the ability to pass it along to anyone else as they were not Apostles themselves.

See Acts 8:14-17

See Footnote 52: BB Warfield "Counterfeit Miracles":

52. Bernard, as cited, p. 130, gives his acceptance to Kaye's view, speaking of "that power which in the days of the Apostles was confined to them and those on whom they had laid their hands." B. F. Manire, in an article on the "Work of the Holy Spirit," in The New Christian Quarterly, IV, 2, p. 38 (April, 1895), gives exceptionally clear expression to the facts: "The matter of imparting the Holy Ghost through the laying on of their hands, belonged exclusively, as it appears to me, to the Apostles, and therefore passed away with them. . . . Others besides the Apostles could preach the Gospel 'with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven,' and could work miracles in confirmation of their testimony; but only the Apostles by the imposition of their own hands could impart the Holy Spirit to others in its wonderworking power. To me it appears that the bestowal of this power on the Apostles was the highest testimonial of their official character and authority." Paton J. Gloag comments on Acts 8:15-16 thus: "By the Holy Ghost here is not to be understood the ordinary or sanctifying influences of the Spirit. The Samaritans, in the act of believing the gospel, received the Holy Ghost in this sense. . . . The miraculous influences of the Spirit, which are manifested by speaking with tongues and prophesyings, are here meant. As Calvin remarks, 'He speaks not in this place of the common grace of the Spirit, whereby God regenerates us that we may be His children, but of those singulargifts whereby God would have certain endowed, at the beginning of the Gospel, to beautify the Kingdom of Christ.' But the question arises. Why could not Philip bestow the Holy Ghost? . . . The common opinion appears to be the correct one—namely, that Philip could not bestow the Holy Ghost because he was not an Apostle. This, though not expressly stated, yet seems implied in the narrative. So Chrysostom and Epiphanius among the fathers, and Grotius, Lightfoot, DeWette, Baumgarten, Meyer, Olshausen, and Wordsworth among the moderns." John Lightfoot holds that the charismata were not conferred indiscriminately on all but only on a select few, to endow them (a plurality in each church) for the office of "minister." But that these gifts were conferred only by laying on the Apostles' hands he is clear. Cf. Works, ed. Pittman, vol. III, p. 30: "To give the Holy Ghost was a peculiar prerogative of the Apostles"; vol. III, p. 194, commenting on Acts 8: "Philip baptized Samaritans and did great wonders among them, but could not bestow the Holy Ghost upon them: that power belonged only to the Apostles; therefore Peter and John are sent thither for that purpose."

x

Anonymous said...

This case of the Samaritans was of great importance in the primitive church, to enable men to distinguish between the gifts of grace and the gifts of power. Without it there would have been danger that only those would be accredited as Christians who possessed extraordinary gifts. It is of equal importance to us, to teach us the source of the gifts of power, in the Apostles, apart from whom they were not conferred: as also their function, to authenticate the Apostles as the authoritative founders of the church. It is in accordance with this reading of the significance of this incident, that Paul, who had all the signs of an Apostle, had also the power of conferring the charismata, and that in the entire New Testament we meet with no instance of the gifts showing themselves—after the initial instances of Pentecost and Cornelius—where an Apostle had not conveyed them. Hermann Cremer is accordingly quite right when he says49 that "the Apostolic charismata bear the same relation to those of the ministry that the Apostolic office does to the pastoral office"; the extraordinary gifts belonged to the extraordinary office and showed themselves only in connection with its activities.50

The connection of the supernatural gifts with the Apostles is so obvious that one wonders that so many students have missed it, and have sought an account of them in some other quarter. The true account has always been recognized, however, by some of the more careful students of the subject. It has been clearly set forth, for example, by Bishop Kaye. "I may be allowed to state the conclusion," he writes,51 "to which I have myself been led by a comparison of the statements in the Book of Acts with the writings of the Fathers of the second century. My conclusion then is, that the power of working miracles was not extended beyond the disciples upon whom the Apostles conferred it by the imposition of their hands. As the number of these disciples gradually diminished, the instances of the exercise of miraculous powers became continually less frequent, and ceased entirely at the death of the last individual on whom the hands of the Apostles had been laid. That event would, in the natural course of things, take place before the middle of the second century—at a time when Christianity, having obtained a footing in all the provinces of the Roman Empire, the miraculous gifts conferred upon the first teachers had performed their appropriate office—that of proving to the world that a new revelation had been given from heaven. What, then, would be the effect produced upon the minds of the great body of Christians by their gradual cessation? Many would not observe, none would be willing to observe, it. . . . They who remarked the cessation of miracles would probably succeed in persuading themselves that it was only temporary and designed by an all-wise Providence to be the prelude to a more abundant effusion of the supernatural powers upon the church. Or if doubts and misgivings crossed their minds, they would still be unwilling to state a fact which might shake the steadfastness of their friends, and would certainly be urged by the enemies of the gospel as an argument against its divine origin. They would pursue the plan which has been pursued by Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Irenćus, etc.; they would have recourse to general assertions of the existence of supernatural powers, without attempting to produce a specific instance of their exercise. . . ." The bishop then proceeds to recapitulate the main points and grounds of this theory.52


BB Warfield, "Counterfeit Miracles", pages 22-24

Anonymous said...

Texas Governor Greg Abbott deploys National Guard to re-install razor wire in Eagle Pass to deter migrants - as mayor declares emergency as 14,000 flood in from Mexico (but Biden gives temporary legal status to 470,000 Venezuelans)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12543161/eagle-pass-texas-border-greg-abbott-razor-wire-migrant-crossings.html

Anonymous said...

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson quietly signs $26 MILLION contract with security firm to build migrant camps

The city's deal with the Garda World firm includes at least six locations, holding between 200 and 1,400 asylum seekers

The migrant surge is expected to cost Chicago $302M by the end of the year

READ MORE: Staten Island protesters are arrested while trying to stop buses carrying asylum seekers to shelter - as they yelled 'take them back'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12544881/Chicago-migrant-camps.html

Anonymous said...

X IS ONLY HERE TO FEED HIS MASSIVE EGO.


Trump isn't the only one. ;)
Most of both sides of the aisle have those huge egos too.
To a degree so does Constance and why she is spinning in circles.
The whole world, it's whole trend of a "new world", with so called new politics and new religion (but still only what has been tried repeatedly before in different packaging, that failed miserably), is trending this way and only a real walk, a surrendered walk in humility and grace and wisdom, discernment that comes from above, is the walk with Jesus, and the counter to it.

People, all across the board so pretty much in general, are mishandling the truth right and left, up and down, all sorts of sideways in these days of deception. Because they are not in the Bible, or in it, but not really taking it at it's word.

No one, I repeat no one, this is me too, has arrived.

Attention seekers and glory hounds are coming out of the woodwork.

X is warp and woof globalist with some "jesus" sprinkled on it.

Anonymous said...

Trojan Horse Invasion of America via the Darien Gap?

There is an 'illegal immigration pipeline' via the Darien Gap (which is a 66 mile jungle passage between Colombia & Panama... run by the Drug Cartels).

The video at this link (below) shows a steady stream of foot traffic of illegals now entering into the United States (82,000 illegals last month alone). There are also 60 buses a day, coming from the Costa Rica border, into the United States.

Michael Yon (with his 'boots on the ground' reporting) is warning America... by explaining exactly what is happening.

https://www.infowars.com/posts/breaking-reporters-reveal-shocking-invasion-of-america-via-darien-gap/

Anonymous said...

12:03 PM

MASSIVE & STUBBORN EGO
also known as stiffneckness

Anonymous said...

Wake up, America... BEFORE it is too late (not after)!!!


https://www.infowars.com/posts/breaking-reporters-reveal-shocking-invasion-of-america-via-darien-gap/

Anonymous said...

Ray Epps is seen in numerous videos directing protestors to "go into the Capitol" on Jan. 6th. He was no doubt, provoking people to "go to the Capitol."

Yet, unlike dozens that have been charged with FELONIES for simply "being there," Epps has been charged with a MISDEMEANOR! In case you are unaware, Misdemeanors are a slap on the wrist. It's what you are charged with when you receive a speeding ticket!

Constance is an Attorney. She has to know that there are two systems of justice that are in operation today. Yet, she is silent on this issue. WHY is that ?

Anonymous said...

1:50 PM Epps made a plea deal, just like the rest of the rioters that PLED GUILTY.

Anonymous said...

It was a show trial.
Epps has to help make the FBI look legit.
He'll be rewarded for his cooperation.

Anonymous said...

The Cult of Trump deception is in full MAGA mode on this blog.

“So Many Great, Educated, Functional People Were Brainwashed”: Can Trump’s Cult of Followers Be Deprogrammed?

As the president’s conspiracy theories start to unspool with his departure from office, cult expert Steven Hassan, a former Moonie and the author of The Cult of Trump, believes there’s hope—if the way Americans consume information undergoes a radical change.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01/can-trumps-cult-of-followers-be-deprogrammed

Anonymous said...

I wonder if anybody who loves Donald Trump cares that he will likely die unsaved. Steve Bannon once said of Donald Trump in an interview that "he is a blunt instrument for us." I wonder how many of his Christian voters likewise are perfectly willing to use him as a blunt instrument who will do the dirty work for them so they can still be sin free while Trump pays the price for sinning on their behalf. If so, that is kind of an inversion of the idea of Jesus Christ when you think about it.

Anonymous said...

As if the sexual assault and sexual harassment allegations against Tim Ballard (Operation Rescue founder and Sound of Freedom creator) weren't enough, now one of the producers of the film is under the spotlight for groping a 16-year-old on camera. Very Disturbing.

'Sound of Freedom' Producer Groped Allegedly Underage Trafficking Victim

Excerpt: Another man involved with the movie Sound of Freedom has been accused of sexual misconduct, this time for groping the breasts of an allegedly underage sex trafficking victim.

Paul Hutchinson served as executive producer of the film, which follows Tim Ballard, founder of Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), and his efforts to combat child trafficking.

Hutchinson, who was an investor in the film and worked as an operative for OUR, touched the breasts in 2016 while on an operation in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

The incident was captured on video by OUR. While Hutchinson has not denied it happened, he has said the trafficking victim was over 18 at the time, according to a report in Vice News.

Newsweek has reached out to Hutchinson via email through the Child Liberation Foundation, with which he is currently affiliated after leaving OUR.

"There is a lot to the story, a very dangerous situation and I am happy to let the world know the details when the time is right," he told Vice.

"Every operator who was present stands behind me in how I reacted to the situation. I have zero reservations as to how I handled myself undercover. "You don't find trafficked children in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton. We had to go to the most dangerous places on the planet to find the children.

"All my undercover work was done with integrity and honor."

The footage was obtained by the Davis County Attorney's Office, in Utah, during an FBI criminal investigation into Ballard and OUR. The office wrote a detailed description of what occurred in the footage, which had been filmed for a documentary film and TV series called The Abolitionists.

"Video footage depicts operations conducted by Operation Underground Railroad... During this portion of video reviewed there was an incident between, Paul Hutchinson, (dob 11/04/1970) and an underage female approximately 16 years old," the description read.

The report detailed how the footage featured an "ear cam" where Hutchinson could be heard speaking to an alleged trafficker who offered for him to touch the girl's breasts. After the incident, one of the OUR operatives says in the video: "Let's get the hell out of here," to which Hutchinson replies: "Yeah, let's get out of here, I'm down a grand."

"For a thousand bucks you got your hands on some breasts," said a male voice as others around him laugh. "What was I going to do?" asked a second male voice "OK, she's 16, here, feel them, they're nice. I'm like, shit, those are 16."

"You think they're underage, huh?" asked the first male voice.

"Oh yeah, I would put money on that," said a third male voice.

"I don't know how wise it was to grab that girl's boobs, though," said the second male voice. "You didn't get that on video or anything, did you?" asked the first male voice.

A handwritten note on the report said "OUR thought they had scrubbed this," referring to the footage of the incident between Hutchinson and the girl.

The investigator wrote that other footage revealed Hutchinson questioning whether he could be prosecuted by Mexican authorities over the incident. Hutchinson was talking to then-OUR operative Matt Osborne by phone, who reassured him there was nothing to worry about and they didn't need to show the video to the U.S. government.....


Anonymous said...

6:06 PM

You just don't get it, do you?

It's not about 'loving' Trump.

It's about the SAD FACT our country has been in the hands of an INCOMPETENT globalist 'puppet on a string' since January 20, 2021.

And 'Cruella' Harris would be even worse (if that's possible).

And the Dems' third choice Gavin 'Nonsense' would just do for our country what he has done for the state of California.

All 3 are totally UNACCEPTABLE.

P.S. Whether Trump is 'saved' or not is between him and God. As President (from 2016-2020), Trump was a far better leader to the American people... than so-called 'Catholic' (in name only) Joe Biden.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous at 3:20 PM said...

1:50 PM Epps made a plea deal, just like the rest of the rioters that PLED GUILTY.

No kidding? The agent provocateur PLED GUILTY to a MISDEMEANOR. Name one single other Jan. 6th. defendant that did anything of a serious nature that was allowed to cop a plea to a MISDEMEANOR. NAME ONE.

Epps is on video numerous times provoking people to go to the Capitol, AND, to go inside. Why is he being charged with a MISDEMEANOR when a LOT of people that did far less are being charged with FELONIES?

Anonymous said...

Only God the Father can effectively draw Donald Trump, or anyone else for that matter, to Jesus Christ.

"No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." - John 6:44

Anonymous said...

I don't quite understand all this hatred of Trump, and if you're worried he'll be reelected, I wouldn't, they won't let him (which is where all this hatred springs from, I'd wager) - :

Anonymous said...

9:09 PM

I was taught our leaders need prayer it was only later I realized the need was for their souls

Craig said...

X @ 10:35/45,

I only used “~70AD” (adding “~”) because that’s what you used. I refer to the Apostolic era as ‘~the first century AD’.

I think we would agree that the laying on of hands for the charismata is no longer applicable. But this is also where Warfield et al err in their position. This word charismata is found in 1 Cor 12:4, preceding the list that follows. As I’d noted in my article and above, this list includes faith and distinguishing between spirits; so, it’s not only the “sign gifts” included in charismata. Moreover, the claim is that these “sign gifts” are for ministerial purposes. Yet, the word for ‘ministries’ is diakonia, which is found in the next verse (1 Cor 12:5), as “different kinds of service” or “varieties of ministries”, etc. Again, this means that faith and distinguishing between spirits are included.

Here I refer to what you quoted in Warfield:

John Lightfoot holds that the charismata were not conferred indiscriminately on all but only on a select few, to endow them (a plurality in each church) for the office of "minister." But that these gifts were conferred only by laying on the Apostles' hands he is clear.

The bottom line is that the corpus of Scripture does not support their selective cessationism.

There are many different ways to refute hyper-charismaticism Biblically. We don’t need a new doctrine as an over-correction when the Scriptures do just fine.

Craig said...

Anon 9:16/26 AM,

I don’t think verse 8 is meant to support 7; instead it’s to redirect their question to what the “Kingdom of God” really means. It’s not political, it’s spiritual. Recall that Messianic expectations were such that the Messiah would come as a political ruler. Clearly, that was not Jesus’ mission.

I’ll quote I. Howard Marshall’s Tyndale Commentary:

“Luke portrays a fresh scene in which the disciples take up the reference to the kingdom of God in verse 3. Their question is whether Jesus intends to restore the kingdom to (or ‘for’) Israel. This may reflect the Jewish hope that God would establish his rule in such a way that the people of Israel would be freed from their enemies (especially the Romans) and established as a nation to which other peoples would be subservient. If so, the disciples would appear here as representatives of those of Luke’s readers who had not yet realized that Jesus had transformed the Jewish hope of the kingdom of God by purging it of its nationalistic political elements. Another possibility is that Luke’s readers might think that the ‘times of the Gentiles’, during which Jerusalem was to be desolate, ought now to be coming to an end and giving place to the coming of the kingdom (Luke 21:24, 31); in this case there would be a secondary interpretation of the disciples’ question in terms of the expectations of Luke’s readers…

“But no direct answer is given – at least in terms of time. In language reminiscent of Mark 13:32 Jesus roundly states that the matter of the time of God’s action is his own affair, and it is not open to men to share his knowledge. Since this is God’s secret, there is no place for human speculation – a point that might well be borne in mind by those who still anxiously try to calculate the probable course of events in the last days. Instead of indulging in wishful thinking or apocalyptic speculation, the disciples must accomplish their task of being witnesses to Jesus. The scope of their task is worldwide. It begins with Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and it stretches to the end of the earth. While some have thought that this expression designates Rome, it is much more probable that it has a wider sense; the end of Acts does not mark the completion of the task proposed here, but simply the completion of the first phase. Nevertheless, in a broad sense the programme outlined here corresponds to the structure of Acts as a whole. For this task the disciples are promised the power of the Spirit (Luke 24:49), a promise primarily fulfilled at Pentecost and secondarily fulfilled on many other occasions…”


Also, as Matthew 24:32-33 makes clear, we can know when the ‘season’ of His return is near by being watchful.


Anonymous said...

Very thoughtful and informative comments this morning, Craig. Thank you.

Good points about gifts of the spirit including faith and discernment. I also like your point about ministries including various kinds of service and not being restricted to just the offices of pastors. (Of course the pastors should still ideally be discipling and shepherding the individuals and groups within their church who have various ministries.)

It wouldn't serve the body of Jesus Christ well to throw out the baby with the bathwater in regards to Biblical teachings about gifts of the spirit.

We do tend to over correct, don't we? It's what we do, especially in America! :)

In a more broadly outlined historical way, my impression sometimes when I've thought about it, is that the historical Protestant churches could have over corrected by making church services more verbal and conceptual and less liturgical and participative. Moreover, they could have overdone cessationism, especially when it comes to hyper Calvinism, which can sometimes elicit discouraging perspectives about bothering with evangelism. This could have led to the over correction of the churches that are more sensation seeking and experience seeking and frequently and repeatedly excited about being in the middle of the next great revival.

Anonymous said...

I've been reflecting that a church doesn't get a crown when Jesus returns if that church tolerates heresy. Read the first part of Revelation again. It's pretty basic and pretty clear. Don't get distracted by over complicating it.

We need to face it, the churches are in apostasy, and the apostasy is not all on the Left side of the continuum. The Right side of the continuum took longer to lapse into apostasy, but it's sure arriving now.

It started long, long before Donald Trump was born. Coming from Princeton in 1898, a teaching about common grace became enormously influential across the Reformed churches. The Evangelical churches resisted it longer but eventually became influenced to adopt the belief in common grace. It influenced neo-Calvinism and Reconstructionism.

You're not a Reconstructionist, you say? Of course you're not. But are you influenced by neo-Calvinism? Are you sure you're not?

Are you sure you don't believe in a conservative, political kind of common grace. Maybe without even realizing you do? Do you believe that believers should make common cause with unbelievers to improve the world, to make it a better place. Is your heart set on this more than your heart is set on the kingdom of God in heaven right now where the disembodied souls of the saints ask "how long"? Is your heart set more on this than it is set on the New Heavens and New Earth that lie still in the future? Looking at history, do you think common grace teachings worked and made the world a better place? Or maybe the world just made the churches worse places?

2 Timothy 2:1-7
English Standard Version
A Good Soldier of Christ Jesus

2 You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men,[a] who will be able to teach others also. 3 Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. 5 An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. 6 It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. 7 Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

Anonymous said...

The Reformed Worldview:
The Failure of Common Grace

https://www.mountainretreatorg.net/eschatology/worldview.html

Where does the Bible instruct the elect believer that, in addition to the regenerating grace of Christ that raised him from death to life, he also possesses common grace and that this common grace is to be the power of his cultural life? By regenerating grace, he believes, worships, prays, and loves his fellow-saints. By common grace, he builds a family, does his job, submits to civil government, gets an education, and plays the piano. In the "spiritual" realm, he lives out of Christ. In everyday, "earthly" life, he lives, not out of Christ but out of common grace that he shares with Socrates, members of the Teamsters Union, Thomas Paine, John Dewey, and Liberace. This is not only false doctrine, with dangerous consequences; it is nonsense.

Fifth, the PRC reject the Kuyperian worldview in 1998 because, after 100 years of the implementation of the Kuyperian worldview by Reformed churches, groups, and individuals in the Netherlands, North America, and other places, the worldview of common grace has proved to be a colossal failure.

Common grace has failed! It has failed obviously! It has failed miserably! It has failed disastrously!

Where is the transformation of culture in the Netherlands by the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, by the Free University, and by all the societies that adopted and carried out Kuyper's common grace worldview? The culture of the Netherlands has the distinction of being one of the most corrupt, lawless, God-dishonoring cultures in the world.

Where is the transformation of culture in North America by the Christian Reformed Church, by Calvin College, by the Institute for Christian Studies, by all the other Christian Reformed schools, by Princeton Theological Seminary, and by other organizations devoted to the worldview of common grace? North American culture is not far behind the depraved way of life in the Netherlands.

Anonymous said...

One problem with attempting to react against the "common grace" of the Right is that it can send one back to the "common grace" of the Left. I think some commenters have suspected Constance of doing this, even while she suspects these commenters of the opposite. (Over correction! Nod to Craig.)

It's not even that you can't vote your values in the world or vote for the lesser evil. It's not just a head thing. It's a heart thing. Where is your heart set? Who do you love most? What do you love most?

And...do you hate who you see as God's enemies more than you love Jesus and His (in this life still imperfect) members of His body?

Anonymous said...

Abraham Kuyper's ideas were popularized by Francis Schaeffer in America. Francis Schaeffer had an enormous influence on the religious right in America. But Abraham Kuyper's influence in Europe was different. Kuyper's influence in Europe played a role in the rise of of the Christian Democratic movement that set up European welfare states. Things are not always as they seem.

Anonymous said...

Kuyper was very similar to other Social Gospel crusaders of his day.

Anonymous said...

This is the only Jan. 6th. protestor that Constance's hero Adam Kinzinger will defend!

"WE NEED TO GO INTO THE CAPITOL ... WE NEED TO GO INTO THE CAPITOL." - Ray Epps

Watch it for yourself:

ttps://twitter.com/DarrenJBeattie?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1678447787006992413%7Ctwgr%5E25b050fbd476e551ece0bcf93cd209a7aeafd485%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Frevolver.news%2F2023%2F09%2Fmerrick-garland-sloppy-ray-epps-plea-deal-its-worse-than-you-think%2F

Anonymous said...

Adam Kinzinger works for the Deep State, like all the RINOS

Anonymous said...

The Texas miracle...

tierneyrealnewsnetwork.substack.com/p/the-texas-miracle

Craig said...

Off topic, but related to the general condition of Western society—particularly American. It is a STRONG pet peeve of mine when arrogant American tourists or, worse, members of the military, disrespect the locals. And the subject of the vlog below did this over and over, while streaming—just for the LOLZ and $$$$$. The adjectives that come to my mind for the individual and his accomplices are not publishable. This particular vlogger below showed an earlier incident in which an American tourist clocked this piece of trash Kick streamer in a previous vlog.

I’m hopeful the Japanese government throw not just the book but every single volume at these @*(%!*& _____________, _________________, and ________________s.

Japan finally did it

Decoy Voice

The Kick streamer that constantly found himself in controversy has finally been arrested in Japan. But the Japanese police actually detained him for trespassing, back in August. And now they are rounding up people that stream with him as well, as accomplices. He may be in some serious trouble, as this holds a potential for 3 years in prison and Japan has a 99.8% conviction rate.


----


I think he and his partners in crime are going to find that their assumed ‘privilege’ does not apply in Japan.

Craig said...

Anon 11:50 AM (a few days ago):

You wrote (and etc.): I understand X's skepticism about continuationism because of its fruits that have been observable in history and are observable today. I also understand Craig's point that we [cannot] Biblically rule out a future time period of miracles like those of the time of Moses or the time of the Apostles. X can't support complete closed-minded dogmatism regarding his cessationist position on the basis of scripture alone. Still I share X's skepticism, because the probability is overwhelmingly high that it's a safer position than gullibility.

Skepticism is prudent. We should test all things but Scripture. Recall that Paul warned about “a different gospel” coming from “a different spirit”. That’s part of the testing we should do. And John wrote about ‘the antichrist’ and ‘the antichrist spirit’. I suggest that if one looks deep enough into the theology and Christology of the teachers in hyper-charismaticism (NAR), one will find they exemplify these three serious problems/doctrinal errors.

The NAR doctrine of ‘the gospel’ is “the Gospel of the Kingdom”, which is, essentially, building the ‘Kingdom of God on earth’. It’s not about saving souls in the manner of Christian orthodoxy. Also, Bill Johnson (and others) teach a ‘separationist’ Christology. By that I mean Jesus did not come as Christ, but he received it when being baptized by John in the Jordan when the Spirit came upon Him. This is the Gnositic and/or Docetic view of Christology—depending on how Jesus’ humanity is described.

How can miracles be performed without the Holy Spirit? From the OT, consider Pharoah’s magicians emulating (to some extent) Moses. In the NT think of Simon Magus, aka Simon the Sorceror. Also, recall Job 1, in which God allows Satan to afflict Job. Satan can only do what God allows—and God specifically allowed Satan to do certain things.


Craig said...



13-Year-Old Shoots Home Intruder After Taking Gun From Hesitant Mother In Phoenix AZ

Colion Noir

In a recent incident in Phoenix, a 13-year-old boy displayed remarkable courage and responsibility by defending his family's home from an intruder when his mother was very hesitant. The suspect, 35, had no ties to the residence but attempted to forcibly enter it on a Friday night.

The victim, a mother of five, had already issued multiple warnings to Saavedra to leave the property before resorting to self-defense. She retreated inside her home, instructed her children to secure the door, and called the police. Realizing the gravity of the situation, she also retrieved a firearm to protect her family.

The intruder, undeterred by the warnings, persisted and shattered a windowpane in an attempt to gain entry. However recognizing his mother was hesitant, it was her 13-year-old son who, recognizing the imminent threat, took action. He courageously used the firearm and fired it at the intruder neutralizing the intruder.


Craig said...

@ my 3:04 PM:

We should test all things BY Scripture.

Anonymous said...

Regarding laying on of hands: had a strange dream a couple nights ago where I was hugging my brother-in-law who is going through cancer treatment and as I was hugging him I thought to myself that this was a stealthy way to lay on hands. Never had that happen before.

Anonymous said...


Jan. 6 Capitol rioter Rodney Milstreed, who attacked AP photographer, police officers, sentenced to 5 years in prison

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jan-6-capitol-rioter-rodney-milstreed-attacked-ap-photographer-police-officers-sentenced/

Video of assault on AP photographer at US Capitol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ln78onKW_M

Rodney Milstreed, 56, of Finksburg, Maryland, “prepared himself for battle” on Jan. 6 by injecting steroids and arming himself with a four-foot wooden club disguised as a flagpole, prosecutors said.

“He began taking steroids in the weeks leading up to January 6, so that he would be ‘jacked’ and ready because, he said, someone needed to ‘hang for treason’ and the battle might come down to hand-to-hand combat,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.Milstreed was “front and center” as rioters and police fought for control of the Capitol's West Plaza, prosecutors said. He tossed his wooden club at a police line and struck the helmet of an officer who later was treated for a concussion.

A video captured Milstreed retrieving a smoke grenade from the crowd of rioters and throwing it back at police across a barricade.

Milstreed then joined other rioters in attacking an AP photographer on the Upper West Plaza. He grabbed the photographer's backpack and yanked him down some steps.

“After the photographer stumbled to the bottom of the stairs, Milstreed shoved him and advanced toward him in a threatening fashion,” prosecutors wrote.

Milstreed used Facebook to update his friends on the riot in real time. “Man I’ve never seen anything like this. I feel so alive." he wrote to one friend, sharing photos of blood on a floor outside the Capitol. He told another Facebook friend that it “felt good” to punch the photographer, whose assault was captured on video by another AP photographer.



Anonymous said...

Craig 3:41 PM,

Absolutely, and the only word God is obligated to bless is His own.

Anonymous said...

Must see video: Kari Lake on Roseanne's podcast (09/21/2023)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9M6sA1AwtU

Two strong, resilient women sit down together in this powerful episode: Roseanne and the rightful Governor of Arizona, Kari Lake (one of the most free-spoken fiercest defenders of America)... where they discuss motherhood, election fraud... and how Americans can beat the globalist agenda that is killing us all.

Anonymous said...

Must see Ken Paxton's first interview after being acquitted on ALL impeachment charges

Texas AG Ken Paxton joins Tucker Carlson for his first interview after being acquitted of impeachment... and he had a LOT to say.

At one point, Paxton told Tucker a pair of lawyers working for the Biden DOJ 'were sent' in to try and get him impeached.

Globalists like George Soros and Karl Rove (who was a supporter of George P. Bush) also became actively involved behind the scenes to try to destroy Ken Paxton.

Funny moment: Scroll over to the 18-19 minute mark to see a DRUNK Texas Secretary of State Dade Phelan speak incoherently on the floor of the House.

September 20, 2023
https://www.infowars.com/posts/texas-ag-paxton-joins-tucker-after-being-acquitted-on-all-impeachment-charges/

Anonymous said...

So a Democratic Senator is indicted on serious charges of corruption (Menendez - NJ), and no Democrats attacking the Justice Department, no Democrats attacking the prosecutors, no Democrats calling for an investigation of the prosecution, and no Democrats calling to defund the Justice Department.

Weird, huh?

Next up...Clarence Thomas

Anonymous said...

12:45 AM Anonymous

Democratic Senator Menendez refuses to resign amidst corruption charges. Democrats are calling for him to step down. Republicans are silent. Yes, Weird and double weird. They're getting ready for the Big Show.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/new-jersey-gov-phil-murphy-calls-sen-bob-menendez-resign-rcna116951

Anonymous said...

Cancers Appearing In Ways Never Before Seen After COVID Vaccinations: Dr Harvey Risch

"There is no reason for people to be vaccinated now, to any degree..."

zerohedge.com/covid-19/cancers-appearing-ways-never-seen-after-covid-vaccinations-dr-harvey-risch

Anonymous said...

American Pandemic 'Samizdat': Bhattacharya

zerohedge.com/political/american-pandemic-samizdat-bhattacharya

Anonymous said...

NY Man Arrested With $1.6 Million In Fentanyl Fails To Show For Court After Being Granted Non-Cash Bail

zerohedge.com/markets/ny-man-7-prior-arrests-fails-show-court-after-being-arrested-16-million-fentanyl-then

Anonymous said...

10:43 PM

That should be: "a DRUNK Texas Speaker of the House Dade Phelan speak incoherently on the floor of the House."

Anonymous said...

Zelensky asks Satanist Maria Abramovic to be Ukrainian Ambassador

thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/zelensky-asks-satanist-maria-abramovic-be-ukrainian-ambassador/



Anonymous said...

12:32 PM

Zelensky, the Great Democratic Leader of Ukraine, also suspended elections.

The reason?

He's immensely unpopular in Ukraine, and will most certainly be voted out if elections are held.

Anonymous said...

Craig said: Skepticism is prudent. We should test all things but Scripture. Recall that Paul warned about “a different gospel” coming from “a different spirit”.

Craig,

In light of what you are saying, would you say that Roman Catholicism is a "different gospel" coming from "a different spirit" ?

Please explain your position. Thank you.

Craig said...

RayB @ 1:23 PM,

Grind your own axe.

Anonymous said...

Globalist Pope Francis Absurdly Claims EU Is NOT Facing a Mass Immigration Emergency

... Pope Francis ‘challenged French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders to open their ports to people fleeing hardship and poverty.’

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/globalist-pope-francis-absurdly-claims-eu-is-not/

Anonymous said...

McDonalds goes woke.

New McDonalds' ad: Black Trans women have a very simple message: stop killing us.

Next time you go to McDonalds, aside from killing yourself with their junk food, know that you are supporting this kind of cultural garbage.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/can-you-spot-difference

Anonymous said...

The National Guard is now guarding Eagle Pass, TX as Biden's border crisis spirals out of control

BUT, illegals are still coming into Texas... just at a different spot along the Rio Grande.

(It's become a game of 'look over here' ~ so 'you won't notice what's happening over there')

https://www.infowars.com/posts/watch-national-guard-rolls-into-eagle-pass-texas-as-bidens-border-crisis-spirals-out-of-control/

Anonymous said...

https://thepostmillennial.com/leaked-cassidy-hutchinson-text-messages-contradict-her-testimony-that-her-former-lawyer-instructed-her-to-lie-to-j6-committee?cfp

Constance believed this liar.

Looks at the contradictions.

Anonymous said...

Can the Religious Right be Saved?
Russell D. Moore delivers the 2016 Erasmus Lecture
by Russell D. Moore
January 2017

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/01/can-the-religious-right-be-saved

During the scandals of the Clinton administration, Richard John Neuhaus warned us about the consequences of a national acceptance of a public loss of character. Neuhaus, a priest but no choirboy, knew that morally tainted politicians and leaders will always be with us, as they have been in the past. “The difference is that our intellectual leadership, the media and the then-mainline churches did not tell the morally slovenly sector of the electorate that they were right in their indifference to character.” Neuhaus knew that what was new was not the presence of sin but the loss of a sense of shame. “The most hopeful thought is that enough Americans have learned from this experience never again to entrust the presidency to a person of such reckless habits and suspect character,” he said after the Monica Lewinsky affair of 1998. “But that hope comes with no guarantee.”

Neuhaus was not alone. Jerry Falwell Sr. called for both President Clinton and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to step down from political office because their marital infidelities disqualified them from office and “lowered the moral bar for political officeholders in America.” We were told that we should not put practical considerations—as important as they may be—above objective moral, transcendent standards. “I don’t vote my pocketbook,” we were taught to say, “I vote my values.” Yet many public spokesmen for the religious right now tell Evangelicals—including Evangelical women who have spent their lives teaching Evangelical girls and young women to resist the sexualization of their identity and worth in a hook-up culture, and Evangelical men who learned at Promise Keepers rallies that racial reconciliation is a moral imperative—to “grow up,” to stop being “panty-waists.” They even label those who will not go along with the normalization of vice as “closet liberals.” The people who warned us to avoid moral relativism now tell us that we should compare our choices not to an objective standard but to the alternative, as if an election transcends moral principle.

The strategy is working. Public polling now shows that white Evangelical Christians now regard personal character as less relevant for public leadership. In the 1990s, Gloria Steinem said that feminists should put up with a little bit of womanizing from Bill Clinton because he would keep abortion legal. Religious conservatives rightly said that this showed the moral hypocrisy of a feminist movement that inveighed against sexual harassment and office power dynamics—until it became politically inconvenient. Now, a conservative commentator says that she doesn’t mind if the Republican nominee performs abortions in the Oval Office as long as he maintains a hard line against immigrants.

To keep the moral fiber of America intact, some suggested, we must learn to manage, like an Arkansas state trooper in the 1980s, the consequences of our leaders’ appetites, while encouraging everyone to “get real” and “move on.” Reinhold Niebuhr, the great proponent of “Christian realism,” was right when he wrote, “It is a terrible heresy to suggest that, because the world is sinful, we have a right to construct a Machiavellian politics or a Darwinian sociology as normative for Christians.”

Anonymous said...

More great quotes from Russell Moore.

Again, the crisis of the religious right does not stem from the differences between the reluctant “lesser of two evils” voters and the “do not do evil that good may result” conscientious objectors. That debate is largely over the degree to which casting a ballot in a two-party system implicates one in the evils represented by ethically compromised candidates. Instead, the crisis comes from the fact that the old-guard religious right political establishment normalized an awful candidate—some offering outright support in theological terms, others hedging their bets and whispering advice behind closed doors. The situation is more dire still because, following the release of the Access Hollywood tapes, it was religious conservatives who were about the only group in America willing to defend serious moral problems, in high-flying moral terms no less.

and

The damage is not merely political. What’s most at stake here is the integrity of our gospel witness and our moral credibility. But there’s also the question of whether religious conservatives even want a future. Sen. Lindsey Graham said of the Republican party, “We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business of the long term.” That’s even more true within the religious right. There are no twenty-two-year-old John Hagees. This is not because of liberalization. The next generation of Evangelicals who pack orthodox confessional universities and seminaries is planting orthodox confessional churches at astounding velocity. Yet they are also the least likely to be concerned with politics. Again, this is not because they are liberal but because they give priority to the Gospel and mission. The Evangelical leaders they read and listen to are also often fairly indifferent to politics. Some of this is a theological overreaction. Millennials tend to have strong, conservative moral stands on at least one sexual revolution issue: divorce. They don’t buy into the 1970s idea that divorce can be a vehicle of self-actualization, and “the kids will be alright.” They lived through it and know better. But their avoidance of divorce can show up not just in a commitment to marital fidelity in their own lives, but also in a refusal to marry at all. The same temptation is there politically. Failing to see the good of politics and how it may fit within the priorities of Gospel-oriented mission, they seek to avoid becoming political hacks by disengaging altogether.

Anonymous said...

Hyung Jin Sean Moon and Kook Jin Justin Moon explain the Six Marys Part 7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkHqpBq1Z4s

Cocaine nasal drip at around 8 minutes. Starts jonesing for another line at around 20 minutes (and lets out a inappropriate laugh). Starts playing with his itchy nose at around 30 minutes Then more incoherent rambling about women for the rest of the video (except towards the end where his praises his father but can't understand why hard work is important.)

Probably a ok guy, but to talk about your mother like that. Shame on you Sean

Anonymous said...

Here's the place he bought for a refuge 40 miles from Waco . . .

https://farmandranch.com/property/running-branch-rv-park-and-marinafor

Anonymous said...

A little bit on chastity, virginity & celibacy

The Acts of Paul & Thecla: Audiobook (54 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/live/Doq2KuNpBS0?si=NfCHDax1XH5VGNMX

Anonymous said...

In new book, Russell Moore urges evangelicals to stop lying and come back to Jesus

https://religionnews.com/2023/07/25/in-new-book-russell-moore-urges-evangelicals-to-stop-lying-and-come-back-to-jesus/

Once a rising star among Southern Baptists, Moore lost his job after criticizing Donald Trump and standing by abuse survivors.

(RNS) — Russell Moore has a bit of advice for his fellow American Christians in his new book, “Losing Our Religion.”

Don’t lie.

A simple principle, based on the Ninth Commandment’s ban on bearing false witness, and one many Christian leaders are tempted to break by repeating claims that are popular but untrue, argues Moore.

“I’m not really talking to the people who are intending to deceive and destroy — yes, I would hope they stop lying too,” said Moore in a recent interview about the new book. “I’m talking more about the disconnect between what people really believe and what the expectations of the tribe demand. And that is what I see to be so dangerous and exhausting to people.”

Following Moore’s advice could come with consequences. The former Southern Baptist ethicist was a rising star in 2013, when he was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission after the group’s former leader left amid scandal. Moore was known for his love of 1970s outlaw country stars Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, his advocacy for immigration reform and his skepticism about the close ties between the Republican party and evangelicals.

Things went well until the rise of Donald Trump, which turned evangelical leaders into would-be contestants on a real-life version of “The Apprentice” — Trump’s reality television series— “all clamoring to make the cut on the next episode and fearful of hearing the words you’re fired,” he writes in “Losing Our Religion,” out Tuesday (July 25) from Sentinel, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Moore’s criticism of Trump as a candidate and as president, along with his advocacy for survivors of abuse in the SBC, made him enemies and eventually cost him his job. In 2021, he resigned from the ERLC to take a new role at Christianity Today, where he is now the editor-in-chief.

His new book was inspired by conversations Moore has had in recent years with disillusioned evangelicals, some of whom he said are feeling a sense of despair at the state of the church and of American culture. The book is part altar call for his fellow evangelicals and part retelling of the surprising lessons he’s learned in recent years.

The book recounts Moore’s struggles to reconcile what he believed with how he saw Christian leaders acting during the Trump era. He recalls a Baptist leader who told him he was playing the game of leadership wrong. That leader suggested Moore give people “90% of the red meat they expect” — referring to conservative politics and the culture wars — and then he could spend 10% of his time on things he cared about, like immigration.

He also recalled being told to “get real” — meaning he should give up on naive ideals like telling the truth or acting with personal integrity because the cultural and political stakes were too high for such niceties.

“People who have higher expectations for themselves and for others are often made to feel naive and stupid,” he said.

That willingness to do anything to succeed in politics, he writes, was rooted in the way churches treated celebrity pastors and leaders. As long as they got the job done, those celebrities could be terrible people and Christians would shrug it off.

Anonymous said...

That habit of overlooking the character flaws of Christian celebrities — such as disgraced former megachurch pastors Bill Hybels and Mark Driscoll or abusers like the late evangelist Ravi Zacharias — made it easier for evangelicals to overlook Trump’s flaws, Moore said in an interview.

The way that being a star pastor means you can get away with anything meant it was easier for Christians to accept unethical politicians.

“There’s always this sense of the mission is too important to be worried about character,” he said.

Moore said he often knew that something was wrong in Southern Baptist and evangelical circles but talked himself out of saying anything — because everyone else seemed to be acting as if everything was OK. He recalled teaching about a famed meeting between SBC legends Paige Patterson and Judge Paul Pressler at the Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans that helped launch a conservative takeover of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination — as if it were the SBC equivalent of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg door.

That mythology didn’t match the “Machiavellian lack of character” he saw among SBC leaders. Still, he said, it was as if there were things he was not allowed to notice or to say anything about. He realizes now that he should have trusted his instincts.

“When I look back over my life and ministry, there were countless times where my mind was wrong,” he said. “And there were a lot of times when my heart was wrong — but very few times where my gut was wrong.”

Anonymous said...

Russell Moore explains that spiritual warfare shows up in everyday life in two main ways. One way is through deception. The other way is through accusation and condemnation, as depicted in the book of Job. He explains why Christians can be susceptible to the first spiritual warfare tactic but don't need to fear the second, because if they are in Christ, He has paid their sin debt for them.

By deception is not meant tricking Christians into bad political strategy or poor medical choices. What is meant is tempting Christians into sin through false beliefs, one step at a time, like a cow being led to the slaughter as the Bible puts it. When a cow is led to the slaughter, it is fed and led and has no idea what is ultimately in store for it.

Sometimes I wonder if Christians are buying into a more carnal, physical concept of Satan as a horror movie monster who will physically overwhelm them and will psychologically overpower them with fear. Or maybe they buy into a trickster idea of Satan as being somewhat like Gollum in the cave with riddles for Bilbo to successfully solve in order to get out of Gollum's cave, as if it is an feat of their own intellectual prowess that will lead to their salvation.

Satan mainly wants to trick people into sinning, and it is said that he comes as an angel of light, so it's no surprise if his ministers can come as wolves in sheep clothing. A wolf in sheep clothing in the Bible is a minister who spreads heresy in the church, not a political figure who acts as a sort of spy in order to trick people into betraying their own political tribe.

End times conspiracy theories frequently show that they are seeing through carnal eyes, not spiritual eyes.

On the Issues: Demons and Spiritual Warfare

https://www.russellmoore.com/2019/10/01/on-the-issues-demons-and-spiritual-warfare/



Anonymous said...

Historic Migration Levels Continue Through Mexico By Train

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/mexico-migrants-trains-us-irapuato-ferromex/2023/09/24/id/1135674/?

Anonymous said...

Let's cut through the b--- s---.

The 'sins' of Donald Trump aren't what's destroying the United State of America.

The SINS of the Globalist puppet masters and their compromised (blackmailed) puppets (e.g. Joe Biden, etc.) are what is destroying the United States of America.

From stolen elections... to PLAN-demics... to 'vaccines' (that HARM, rather than protect)... to the Biden administration supporting a war in Ukraine (mostly to protect a gazillion dollar money laundering center for child sex trafficking).

But, I guess a FEW of you feel better if you convince yourselves + tell other Christians: "Look over here... and you won't NOTICE all of the evil that's happening over THERE!!!

Anonymous said...

https://www.russellmoore.com/books/onward/

Onward

Keep Christianity Strange.


As the culture changes all around us, it is no longer possible to pretend that we are a Moral Majority. That may be bad news for America, but it can be good news for the church. What’s needed now, in shifting times, is neither a doubling-down on the status quo nor a pullback into isolation. Instead, we need a church that speaks to social and political issues with a bigger vision in mind: that of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As Christianity seems increasingly strange, and even subversive, to our culture, we have the opportunity to reclaim the freakishness of the gospel, which is what gives it it’s power in the first place.

We seek the kingdom of God, before everything else. We connect that kingdom agenda to the culture around us, both by speaking it to the world and by showing it in our churches. As we do so, we remember our mission to oppose demons, not to demonize opponents. As we advocate for human dignity, for religious liberty, for family stability, let’s do so as those with a prophetic word that turns everything upside down.

The signs of the times tell us we are in for days our parents and grandparents never knew. But that’s no call for panic or surrender or outrage. Jesus is alive. Let’s act like it. Let’s follow him, onward to the future.

Anonymous said...

I don't see Donald Trump as the destroyer of America 10:17 AM. I see him as the revealer of what was already wrong with America by bringing out the worst in both the people who attack him and in the people who defend him. He may not be the Antichrist, but he is literally a type of apocalypse (disclosure), in the original meaning of that word, in a flat and literal sense. I mean moral disclosure, not conspiracy disclosure.

Anonymous said...

"Our System Is Collapsing In Real Time": Tucker Carlson Gives Bombshell Interview

zerohedge.com/geopolitical/our-system-collapsing-real-time-tucker-carson-gives-bombshell-interview

Anonymous said...

Trump Leads Biden 52 to 42 in New ABC/WaPO Poll

thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/trump-leads-biden-52-42-new-abc-wapo/

Anonymous said...

Trump Leads Biden 52 to 42 in New ABC/WaPo Poll

thegarewaypundit.com/2023/09/trump-leads-biden-52-42-new-abc-wapo/

Anonymous said...

10:17 AM,

Of course President Biden is sinful, not least because of abortion. The difference is that Catholics don't widely defend Biden's abortion stance. Nor do progressive Christian denominations. Catholics and progressive Christians didn't become closely identified with Biden's presidency. They kept their distance. (I'm neither Catholic nor progressive Christian - progressive Christian meaning mainline Protestant denomination, mostly, I guess).

I agree with the commenters who have pointed out that the Catholic church should rebuke Biden for his stance on abortion and should maybe even go so far as to excommunicate him. I don't know; I'm not Catholic, but the silence seems wrong.

Still I haven't seen the Catholic church blatantly and aggressively displaying a complete lack of a sense of shame regarding Biden's abortion stance. I've never seen the shamelessness of religious leadership taken so far as it's been taken by the American Evangelical church leadership in the Trump era.

As Russell Moore points out, it didn't all start with Trump. Before Trump's lack of character was excused for the sake of the mission, the sins of celebrity Evangelical pastors were excused for the sake of the mission.

It's an example of Trump being a type of apocalypse (disclosure) who revealed the extent of the rot that was already there.

Anonymous said...

12:20 PM said:

"I agree with the commenters who have pointed out that the Catholic church should rebuke Biden for his stance on abortion and should maybe even go so far as to excommunicate him."

For almost 50 years now, American Catholic politicians, along with countless other Catholic leaders all around the world in other countries, have openly supported a "woman's right to choose," i.e., supported abortion. Not one single Catholic politician has ever been excommunicated for supporting the murder of innocent life.

That fact alone should speak volumes about the Vatican and its Pope. However, if it doesn't, then that is proof that you don't have "ears to hear, and eyes to see."

Anonymous said...

Pope Reminds Bishops Not to Condemn Politicians Who Support Abortion, Use Compassion

"What should a shepherd do? Be a shepherd and not going around condemning or not condemning," the pope said. "They must be a shepherd with God's style. And God's style is closeness, compassion and tenderness."

https://www.newsweek.com/pope-reminds-bishops-not-condemn-politicians-who-support-abortion-use-compassion-1629474

Apply this same evil logic to the days of Nazi Germany and you'll readily understand why so many "christians" did absolutely nothing as innocent people were being loaded into cattle cars.

Anonymous said...

Ideological rifts among U.S. bishops are in the spotlight ahead of momentous Vatican meeting

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/ideological-rifts-among-u-s-bishops-are-in-the-spotlight-ahead-of-momentous-vatican-meeting/ar-AA1hbdUt

NEW YORK (AP) — Early next month, the Vatican will open an unprecedented gathering of Catholic clergy and laypeople from around the world. The synod is intended to be a collegial, collaborative event, though the agenda includes divisive issues such as the role of women in the church and the inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics.

If there’s Exhibit A for how elusive consensus might be, it’s the United States’ participation. In effect, there are two high-level U.S. delegations widely viewed as ideological rivals — six clerics appointed by Pope Francis who support his aspirations for a more inclusive, welcoming church; five clerics chosen by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops who reflect a more conservative outlook and more skepticism of Francis’ priorities.

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